Not definitively. First, define properties of consciousness. Define properties that wouldn’t be expected if consciousness didn’t exist. And so on…
With all due respect, you have been asked at least 4 times (posts 8, 14, 15, and 21) to define what you mean by consciousness, in order that your responders may know about what it is that you are seeking proof.
Rather than having your responders offer their definitions of consciousness and then demonstrating that the thing matching that definition exists (according to their definitions of proof and exist), only for you to say “That doesn’t constitute proof” (as you did in post #7), you could offer us your definition. Thanks.
Why don’t other people define consciousness for us?
Erek
You started the thread, asking “Can someone prove to me that consciousness exists?”. So what’s your definition of consciousness?
If no one else wants to volunteer a definition, anyone mind if I toss one out? From the Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy by Simon Blackburn, p. 76-77:
consciousness Possibly the most challenging and pervasive source of problems in the whole of philosophy. Our own consciousness seems to be the most basic fact confronting us, yet it is almost impossible to say what consciousness is. Is mine like yours? Is ours like that of animals? Might machines come to have consciousness? Is it possible for there to be disembodied consciousness? Whatever complex biological and neurological processes go on backstage, it is my consciousness that provides the theatre where my experiences and thoughts have their existence, where my desires are felt and where my intentions are formed. But then how am I to conceive the “I,” or self that is the spectator of this theatre? One of the difficulties in thinking about consciousness is that the problems seem not to be scientific ones; Leibniz remarked that if we could construct a machine that could think and feel, and blow it up to the size of a mill and thus be able to examine its working parts as thoroughly as we pleased, we would still not find consciousness (Monadology, para. 17), and drew the conclusion that consciousness resides in simple subjects, not complex ones. Even if we are convinced that consciousness somehow emerges from the complexity of brain functioning, we may still feel baffled about the way the emergence takes place, or why it takes places in just the way it does.
(Well, that isn’t much of a definition, is it?)
consciousness (kon’-sh@s-nis) n. 1. The state or condition of being conscious. 2. A sense of one’s personal or collective identity, including the attitudes, beliefs, and sensitivities held by or considered characteristic of an individual or group: Love of freedom runs deep in the national consciousness.
—American Heritage Dictionary, 4th ed., p. 391.
Thanks for that, Johanna. It seems like, if we go this definition (“a sense of one’s personal identity”), then consciousness external to each individual is unknowable by that individual - we can each sense our personal identity, but I wouldn’t know how to describe the sensation of the “collective identity.”
So, I ascribe consciousness to those around me - since, based on this definition I can’t detect it directly. In other words, other people exhibit the traits that I detect in myself that I identify as consciousness.
To the extent that this model of my external surroundings works, and generates predictions that match my perceptions, then consciousness is a good model for what goes on inside other people’s heads, and it’s useful to think that they experience consciousness something as I do.
It’s not such a good model for what goes on inside a rock, since it doesn’t generate behavior that I’m likely to observe from a rock.
Unless we are to define “consciousness” in another way, as you are welcome to do mswas. I’m not sure I totally grok your definition, though (you’ve not offered a definition in this thread). No disrespect intended - but maybe you could use this opportunity to articulate your definition a little more clearly? Thanks.
It’s like being asleep. Have you ever been knocked out cold? (Incidentally, if on jury duty and the witness stated that the defendant “knocked him unconscious”, would you raise your hand and ask the judge to strike the comment from the court records or something?)
Ah, but you used the word anaesthetic, which is the opposite of aesthetic. You are saying that you are not aesthetic when you have enough desflurane and sevoflurane molecules in your brain (ie. you cannot judge the beauty of a picture or be moved by a piece of music). Those molecules are at least diminishing your level of consciousness (or, at the very very least, changing it). I would suggest that by simply using the word anaesthetic, you are effectively agreeing that there is a brain state (or, at least, something) called consciousness.
So, we know that simple physical molecules can affect your consciousness. The question is: how? How the heck can a physical thing affect a mental thing?
Of course, you know my answer: mental things are ultimately physical things. I’d be interested in your answer. Some Cartesian (ie. 300-year outdated) interface in the pineal gland, perhaps?
Well it seems to me that if you ask for proof of something you believe to be true you either have a larger point to make or you are just having a bit of fun with everyone. Do you have a larger point?
Well being “unconscious” as in knocked out or asleep is a kind of a colloquialism. When I dream, I am experiencing things, just not the same things, I would be experiencing while awake.
I don’t disagree with your assessment on physicalism. Mental states are certainly physical reactions, or at least have physical manifestations. So I am experiencing the effect of the sevuflorane, which puts me into an anaesthetic state, where I do not make aesthetic judgments, but is this the same as lack of consciousness?
I think consciousness implies some kind of directive force of intention. We have to be able to make decisions, which is derived from some metaphysical process. Unless of course our sense of choice is merely a cost-benefit analysis sort of thing where all we are doing is piling things up on a scale and making decisions mechanistically, which isn’t a satisfactory explanation to me.
When we are knocked unconscious our affect over our environment doesn’t stop. If we have affected the people around us with our existence, then they make decisions based upon the ripples that we have made in their lives, then the consciousness continues. Are we defined by the bodies we inhabit solely? I tend to identify myself as my affect on the universe, and my body merely as the instigating agent of that effect.
contrapuntal Well, I am following the same line of inquiry that my atheism, and rationality debates have taken me into, but I am switching venues, and discussing consciousness. I want to see what people’s biases on consciousness are. I tried to avoid defining consciousness because I didn’t want to manipulate the outcome of the debate too much until I’d heard from some other people. So I kept it in reserve.
I would define consciousness as the ability to have experiences and manipulate the forms of those experiences.
I am attempting to figure out what it is that makes my belief of the universe irrational to some people as opposed to their belief. I originally thought that rationality had to do with some sort of skeptical consistency, which I felt to be lacking in the armchair atheist arguments. Now I am taking a step back, and trying to figure out how people define consciousness, and whether or not they accept the existence of ‘consciousness’ as implicit, or whether or not they have some way to ‘prove’ that this ‘consciousness’ exists.
Then I want to know if it is rational to accept the existance of ‘consciousness’, if there is no mechanistic explanation of consciousness. So, if it is rational to accept the existance of consciousness in this manner, despite lack of mechanistic evidence, then why is the term “God” under contention when the term ‘consiousness’ is not?
In my search to root out people’s biases on consciousness, I wish to know why one thing is considered ‘conscious’ whereas another thing is not. SentientMeat seems to contend that the firing of synapses is the mechanistic evidence of ‘consiousness’, when as I see it the firing of synapses is only evidence of the firing of synapses, all this mechanistic evidence shows is that a certain mechanical reaction will happen when exposed to mechanical stimuli. If mental functions are physical then are they actually evidence of ‘consciousness’ rather than merely routed electrons?
So is there a rational ‘proof’ of consciousness, or is the acceptance of ‘consciousness’ taken merely as a matter of faith? The only proof of consciousness that I can find is the fact that I am experiencing it.
AHunter3 I actually agree with you that the fact that I am asking the question is evidence of the ‘consiousness’. However, with whether or not other things are consciousness, I reserve my judgement because absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. In otherwords just because other things are not asking ME this question, or if they are they are not doing it in a manner that I comprehend, that doesn’t reliably show that they lack consciousness.
I feel that people define consciousness by their own phenomenological fields, and I am not prepared to necessarily accept such a definition, as what I can perceive as being conscious, is not the end all and be all of what actually IS conscious.
Erek
mswas, this long thread covered the same domain.
Taking all terms at face value, the answer is yes.
But when you are anaesthetised or knocked out, you do not undergo REM activity, or indeed much activity at all save for that necessary to keep your vital functions ticking over.
Well, suggest a difference and we can explore it.
But silicon computers make decisions all the time. What is a chess game if not a series of decisions of future intentions based on past memories? Are silicon computers metaphysical? (And incidentally, if you believe in the metaphysical at all then you cannot agree with physicalism by definition).
Why not? Is that merely in the same way that you find your least favourite food ‘unsatisfactory’ or something?
And then their lives continue when ours does not. Rene Descartes is no longer alive nor conscious, but I am. What you discuss there is not consciousness but time.
Unless you are proposing some outdated Cartesian interface between “us” and “our bodies” (which includes the brain and the memories encoded within its neural structure), yes.
Well, OK, go right ahead and contend that you’re still conscious when you are a cooling corpse which heats the morgue slightly in that case. Your vacant stare would not convince me that you were awake or experiencing anything.
The firing of switches in your PC is evidence of computation, agreed? Respiration and the metabolisation of food is evidence of life, agreed?
Is computation “merely” electrons? Is life “merely” cells? Is the weather “merely” water? You are oversimplifying cognitive science to a degree which suggests you’ve never read any.
How do you explain the effect of physical molecules on it?
On preview, friend Gyan has directed you to a very relevant thread. As a pantheist, perhaps you could ask yourself the 12 questions in my OP also.
Thank you. This seems to agree with the definition that Johanna offered earlier, and to answer the question that you posed in the OP.
It sounds like, as Contrapuntal put it, you have a larger point to make. It seems to me that this point is about the nature of consciousness - whether it is physical, metaphysical, or supernatural.
Personally, I can’t imagine how one would describe an experiment that would conclusively show whether consciousness resided all in the physical domain, or whether it required a supernatural component. Therefore, from my point of view, an entirely physical model of consciousness matches my perceptions.
You are welcome to adopt a model of consciousness that does contain elements that are separate from physical observation or explanation. It may be that your perceptions of your experience and of your consciousness are only explained by a model of consciousness that is qualitatively different than my model.
In this case, I would think that our differences in models of consciousness would preclude me from dictating to you how you should understand your existence and your journey through this life.
And I am certain that these differences should preclude you from dictating to me how I should understand my perceptions of my own existence, and of my journey through this life.
To follow up, don’t expect that an explanation of consciousness which relies on a component which is beyond physical experience, observation, or explanation to make what I would consider a compelling argument. That description of consciousness may be persuasive, articulate, and powerful - but by invoking the supernatural or unobservable, it would not be “justifiable on the basis of reason” (from the wikipedia use of the word rational).
Ok, what about color? There is no such thing as color in a physical sense. Certainly there are different wavelengths of visible light, but that doesn’t constitute color. Our view of “red” has no meaning in a physical sense. Is there a physical force that determines whether red is “passionate”, and blue is “cold”?
Physically how can you tell if a movie was “a triumph”? What about winning and losing? How can you physically know if you have won or lost a contest? Is checkmating someone’s king in chess a fundamental physical act?
Certainly one can measure biochemical reactions to these stimuli, but what does that tell us about the emotional satisfaction of the game? What about Sadomasochistic sex, where the masochist is dominated completely and derives emotional satisfaction from being bound and tortured, relinquishing control completely? What physical process accounts for this?
Erek
Not all people think so.
Interesting article. However, I wasn’t denying that there are reflections that are unique and have their own signature that we define as “color”. Simply the effect that “color” has.
What about words? Are meanings of words physical? Sure a character is physical. You can see the character of the letters I type on the page here. However, is the meaning behind those strings of characters a physical thing?
Metaphysics and the Physical interact with each other. I don’t think metaphysical things are not ‘real’, but they are not physical in the sense that they don’t have properties that are defined by temporal and spacial limits.
Erek
Then how come wavelengths of between 620 and 750 nm are called “red”/“rouge”/“rotte” by everyone, worldwide? Why don’t people disagree, saying that eg. a wavelength of 450 nm is “red”? It is because photosensitive cells in the retina send similar biochemical signals to the visual cortex when that wavelength is incident upon them.
Again, a force is a rate of change of momentum, which is irrelevant here. Since red is associated in nature with higher temperatures and blue with lower, this might explain why such associations are common to many cultures worldwide.
When I say that “everything is physical”, that does not mean that one can predict or experimentally demonstrate everything in physical terms. I cannot predict the weather here on Christmas Day, but that does not make the weather unphysical. I cannot tell you whether a cloud is physically “fluffy” or “flat” by examining its water molecules, but that is not to say that the cognitive process by which the human brain labels sensory information is not physical.
Cognitively, you form an IF-THEN bifurcation contingent on certain sensory input. If you witness sensory input which correlates with this projection, you output one or other label (ie. IF numerals_on_scoreboard > X THEN “win” ELSE “lose”).
Yes. A game of chess is an arrangement in space and time of pieces (be they atoms of wood or charge densities in a chip).
Your galvanic skin response and brain state will give some clue as to your emotional state. These kinds of scanners are developing all the time (although “strong encryption” processes in the brain effectively rule out piterally being able to read your mind in detail).
Psychology is the science which attempts to explin things like this in terms of the cognitive science of our everyday biological urges and how experiences and memories might affect them. Like the weather, the system is so complex that we cannot by any means say that we know everything about it - that is the challenge of the millennium. But psychology is a science, just as meteorology is a science, in that it deals with falsifiable hypotheses about physical phenomena.
Yes, in that a sequence of phonemes or Roman characters have been continually associated with memories in your brain since childhood. The reason I don’t understand Chinese is because I don’t know what memory the sound is supposed to be associated with. When we learn to talk, our parents point at an object and make the sound, so that one eventually triggers the other. Silicon computers can learn words too, of course.
How??? They are by definition mutually exclusive.
Here is a thread you might find useful. Please, read it through before you simply press on with “But what about Christmas, or nostalgia, or trigonometry? Please tell me how everything ever thought of ever is physical” without answering any of my questions.
And the only proof of God you can find (and the only proof you need, right?) is that you are experiencing God. Call me on this if I am misrepresenting your position.
Don’t you see that the two situations are not parallel? It’s not the same to assert that “I just experienced seeing a leprechaun” and “There was a leprechaun in my room just now.”
Because they’re taught to label the wavelengths 620-750 nm as ‘red’. The parent points at a color, and says ‘red’, which the infant imbibes. There’s no indication that the qualia is similar.