Leibniz's mill and the "Hard problem of consciousness"

Is the mind the same as the body? What is consciousness? Can machines have it?

Moderators: AMod, iMod

User avatar
Greta
Posts: 4389
Joined: Sat Aug 08, 2015 8:10 am

Re: Leibniz's mill and the "Hard problem of consciousness"

Post by Greta »

Hobbes' Choice wrote:
Greta wrote:
Hobbes' Choice wrote: I told you you were confused. I don't believe in anything.
You believe that all consciousness is extinguished at the point of death. You have stated this many times, despite the very early stages of serious modern consciousness studies.
I go with evidence. I don't need belief. It's called knowledge.
That's my point? As noted earlier, there is suggestive evidence but not conclusive evidence. You are engaging in premature prognostication. You are not alone. Most of humanity has done it from the earliest days.
User avatar
Hobbes' Choice
Posts: 8364
Joined: Fri Oct 25, 2013 11:45 am

Re: Leibniz's mill and the "Hard problem of consciousness"

Post by Hobbes' Choice »

Greta wrote:
Hobbes' Choice wrote:
Greta wrote: You believe that all consciousness is extinguished at the point of death. You have stated this many times, despite the very early stages of serious modern consciousness studies.
I go with evidence. I don't need belief. It's called knowledge.
That's my point? As noted earlier, there is suggestive evidence but not conclusive evidence. You are engaging in premature prognostication. You are not alone. Most of humanity has done it from the earliest days.
It is conclusive. You can't feel, think, taste, suffer, or answer me without nerves, brain and a pumping heart.
And I can prove it with a bullet.
Care to take the challenge?
User avatar
Greta
Posts: 4389
Joined: Sat Aug 08, 2015 8:10 am

Re: Leibniz's mill and the "Hard problem of consciousness"

Post by Greta »

Hobbes' Choice wrote:
Greta wrote:
Hobbes' Choice wrote:
I go with evidence. I don't need belief. It's called knowledge.
That's my point. As noted earlier, there is suggestive evidence but not conclusive evidence. You are engaging in premature prognostication. You are not alone. Most of humanity has done it from the earliest days.
It is conclusive. You can't feel, think, taste, suffer, or answer me without nerves, brain and a pumping heart.
And I can prove it with a bullet.
Care to take the challenge?
Sidestepping the issue. I don't bother arguing about God with theists for the same reason; it's like talking with a brick wall.

You think you know what it feels like to die and what will happen. You don't. You think you know the extent to which consciousness is generated or received. You don't. However, you speak as though you do. That's the nub of this disagreement.
User avatar
Hobbes' Choice
Posts: 8364
Joined: Fri Oct 25, 2013 11:45 am

Re: Leibniz's mill and the "Hard problem of consciousness"

Post by Hobbes' Choice »

Greta wrote:
Hobbes' Choice wrote:
Greta wrote: That's my point. As noted earlier, there is suggestive evidence but not conclusive evidence. You are engaging in premature prognostication. You are not alone. Most of humanity has done it from the earliest days.
It is conclusive. You can't feel, think, taste, suffer, or answer me without nerves, brain and a pumping heart.
And I can prove it with a bullet.
Care to take the challenge?
Sidestepping the issue. I don't bother arguing about God with theists for the same reason; it's like talking with a brick wall.

You think you know what it feels like to die and what will happen. You don't. You think you know the extent to which consciousness is generated or received. You don't. However, you speak as though you do. That's the nub of this disagreement.
ffs
Death is the end of sensation.
You are becoming a bore.
You are just ignoring a mountain of evidence and making yourself look like an idiot.
User avatar
Greta
Posts: 4389
Joined: Sat Aug 08, 2015 8:10 am

Re: Leibniz's mill and the "Hard problem of consciousness"

Post by Greta »

Hobbes' Choice wrote:You are becoming a bore.
You are just ignoring a mountain of evidence and making yourself look like an idiot.
Enough of your silly BS. You are blinkered and immune to reason. Bye.
User avatar
Hobbes' Choice
Posts: 8364
Joined: Fri Oct 25, 2013 11:45 am

Re: Leibniz's mill and the "Hard problem of consciousness"

Post by Hobbes' Choice »

Greta wrote:
Hobbes' Choice wrote:You are becoming a bore.
You are just ignoring a mountain of evidence and making yourself look like an idiot.
Enough of your silly BS. You are blinkered and immune to reason. Bye.
Don't forget to keep staring in that mirror when you insult someone.
User avatar
Greta
Posts: 4389
Joined: Sat Aug 08, 2015 8:10 am

Re: Leibniz's mill and the "Hard problem of consciousness"

Post by Greta »

Hobbes' Choice wrote:
Greta wrote:
Hobbes' Choice wrote:You are becoming a bore.
You are just ignoring a mountain of evidence and making yourself look like an idiot.
Enough of your silly BS. You are blinkered and immune to reason. Bye.
Don't forget to keep staring in that mirror when you insult someone.
:lol: :lol: :lol: Too funny! You are notorious as one of the most rude members of the board. Such obvious projection. When was the last time you disagreed with someone without turning nasty?

You believe that today's science tells us all we need to know about consciousness, that's there's only details to be still found. I say this is illogical.

As mentioned before - and brushed aside by you - if humans progress for another million years they would probably not use any of our models. Every single of our models would betray perspective effect problems on our part. The modern age has barely started and modern investigations are in their infancy. So, to make the kinds of certain announcements in this area that you do is to deny logic and history. All you needed to avoid this dispute was to add qualifiers.
Dubious
Posts: 4000
Joined: Tue May 19, 2015 7:40 am

Re: Leibniz's mill and the "Hard problem of consciousness"

Post by Dubious »

Consciousness is filled with all the details of both identity and memory...which begs the question can consciousness ever be or become generic devoid of all such details for even if such a consciousness existed wouldn't the negation of all its content be equivalent to the death of that individual whether or not that person still lives though devoid of identity or has ceased to exist but with a tabula rasa consciousness following not knowing of its prior existence.

Just thinking different scenarios.
User avatar
Hobbes' Choice
Posts: 8364
Joined: Fri Oct 25, 2013 11:45 am

Re: Leibniz's mill and the "Hard problem of consciousness"

Post by Hobbes' Choice »

Dubious wrote:Consciousness is filled with all the details of both identity and memory...which begs the question can consciousness ever be or become generic devoid of all such details for even if such a consciousness existed wouldn't the negation of all its content be equivalent to the death of that individual whether or not that person still lives though devoid of identity or has ceased to exist but with a tabula rasa consciousness following not knowing of its prior existence.

Just thinking different scenarios.
Without brain cells you can have no memories. Without memories you cannot build on experience. With no experience or memories, you cannot have a personality.
Without eyes you can't see; without ears you cannot hear. Without a brain you have no sense or awareness; no personality no means of choosing no basis at all for consciousness. No memory, no sense of self.
All this is child's play.
Dubious
Posts: 4000
Joined: Tue May 19, 2015 7:40 am

Re: Leibniz's mill and the "Hard problem of consciousness"

Post by Dubious »

Hobbes' Choice wrote:
Dubious wrote:Consciousness is filled with all the details of both identity and memory...which begs the question can consciousness ever be or become generic devoid of all such details for even if such a consciousness existed wouldn't the negation of all its content be equivalent to the death of that individual whether or not that person still lives though devoid of identity or has ceased to exist but with a tabula rasa consciousness following not knowing of its prior existence.

Just thinking different scenarios.
Without brain cells you can have no memories. Without memories you cannot build on experience. With no experience or memories, you cannot have a personality.
Without eyes you can't see; without ears you cannot hear. Without a brain you have no sense or awareness; no personality no means of choosing no basis at all for consciousness. No memory, no sense of self.
All this is child's play.
I'm not in disagreement with this position and have stated so many times though I wouldn't call it "child's play". Degrees of consciousness are created in almost everything that lives culminating, as far as we know on this planet, in its human inheritance which is chemically based.

Life is ubiquitous and all its attributes as mortal as the body itself - consciousness being its most mysterious component in whatever creation it inhabits. Its container viz. the brain as specialized as it is, is still a material member of the body capable of being deformed or enhanced by any number of substances.

For me the real mystery of consciousness is what it can accomplish, to what extent it can leverage itself beyond any current impediments rather than how long it may survive its host after death. Also, I don't doubt that the normal limitations in living our lives can be "momentarily" stressed beyond its usual confines especially so during NDE's, the greatest chemical event the brain will ever encounter prior to dissolving itself forever. I suspect that what is seen or heard upon that event is far less important than the intensity of what is felt and that a simulacrum of an extraterrestrial truth is forced upon the psyche of those who survive.

Life among humans has become super-cheap with a few hundred-thousand coming online each day with their allotment of consciousness which signifies the species. The question, for me, is what prerogatives in nature or the Universe would deign to continue what it can endlessly create in spite of consciousness being, so it seems to us, one of the great 'internal' mysteries of the Universe?

Consciousness according to our experience is centered, contained and derived from 'a place' just as light though billions of years old also emanates from a source that may long have died out. They both require infrastructure and when that depletes so does it's output. Personally, I don't believe there will ever be a study that grants unconditional autonomy to consciousness which it must have if that which contained it no-longer exists.
User avatar
Hobbes' Choice
Posts: 8364
Joined: Fri Oct 25, 2013 11:45 am

Re: Leibniz's mill and the "Hard problem of consciousness"

Post by Hobbes' Choice »

Dubious wrote:
Hobbes' Choice wrote:
Dubious wrote:Consciousness is filled with all the details of both identity and memory...which begs the question can consciousness ever be or become generic devoid of all such details for even if such a consciousness existed wouldn't the negation of all its content be equivalent to the death of that individual whether or not that person still lives though devoid of identity or has ceased to exist but with a tabula rasa consciousness following not knowing of its prior existence.

Just thinking different scenarios.
Without brain cells you can have no memories. Without memories you cannot build on experience. With no experience or memories, you cannot have a personality.
Without eyes you can't see; without ears you cannot hear. Without a brain you have no sense or awareness; no personality no means of choosing no basis at all for consciousness. No memory, no sense of self.
All this is child's play.
I'm not in disagreement with this position and have stated so many times though I wouldn't call it "child's play". Degrees of consciousness are created in almost everything that lives culminating, as far as we know on this planet, in its human inheritance which is chemically based..
My remarks, although a response to you were more about the stunt Greta is trying to pull.
Dubious
Posts: 4000
Joined: Tue May 19, 2015 7:40 am

Re: Leibniz's mill and the "Hard problem of consciousness"

Post by Dubious »

Hobbes' Choice wrote:
Dubious wrote:
Hobbes' Choice wrote:
Without brain cells you can have no memories. Without memories you cannot build on experience. With no experience or memories, you cannot have a personality.
Without eyes you can't see; without ears you cannot hear. Without a brain you have no sense or awareness; no personality no means of choosing no basis at all for consciousness. No memory, no sense of self.
All this is child's play.
I'm not in disagreement with this position and have stated so many times though I wouldn't call it "child's play". Degrees of consciousness are created in almost everything that lives culminating, as far as we know on this planet, in its human inheritance which is chemically based..
My remarks, although a response to you were more about the stunt Greta is trying to pull.
Kinda figured that since your response to what I wrote didn't have much reference. This long post (for me) is as much my response to Greta as it was to you even if she never asked for one. Regardless these are just my arguments of how non-sequitur it is to stress consciousness beyond the living being. To do so successfully requires a whole new definition of Purpose.
User avatar
Hobbes' Choice
Posts: 8364
Joined: Fri Oct 25, 2013 11:45 am

Re: Leibniz's mill and the "Hard problem of consciousness"

Post by Hobbes' Choice »

Dubious wrote:
Hobbes' Choice wrote:
Dubious wrote: I'm not in disagreement with this position and have stated so many times though I wouldn't call it "child's play". Degrees of consciousness are created in almost everything that lives culminating, as far as we know on this planet, in its human inheritance which is chemically based..
My remarks, although a response to you were more about the stunt Greta is trying to pull.
Kinda figured that since your response to what I wrote didn't have much reference. This long post (for me) is as much my response to Greta as it was to you even if she never asked for one. Regardless these are just my arguments of how non-sequitur it is to stress consciousness beyond the living being. To do so successfully requires a whole new definition of Purpose.
I don't know why it impinges on purpose, not even purpose with a capital "p", its simply about evidence which point is ALL instances of consciousness terminating when life terminates, and that all examples of damage, modification and alterations to the brain result in changes to consciousness.
User avatar
Greta
Posts: 4389
Joined: Sat Aug 08, 2015 8:10 am

Re: Leibniz's mill and the "Hard problem of consciousness"

Post by Greta »

Dubious wrote:
Hobbes' Choice wrote:
Dubious wrote:I'm not in disagreement with this position and have stated so many times though I wouldn't call it "child's play". Degrees of consciousness are created in almost everything that lives culminating, as far as we know on this planet, in its human inheritance which is chemically based..
My remarks, although a response to you were more about the stunt Greta is trying to pull.
Kinda figured that since your response to what I wrote didn't have much reference. This long post (for me) is as much my response to Greta as it was to you even if she never asked for one. Regardless these are just my arguments of how non-sequitur it is to stress consciousness beyond the living being. To do so successfully requires a whole new definition of Purpose.
Hobbes just repeats the obvious materialist mantra, as though delivered to him by the FSM at Mt Ararat. As a nature lover, I largely embrace rational materialism myself. I'd go further than you and suggest that many living things appear not to be conscious too - but that is only a guess, and this has been my point all along.

It is valid to speak in likelihoods and probabilities in this area, but any absolute claim of truth as as being made by Hobbes is simply a show of faith. That is, all his claims only demonstrate is how strong his faith is in today's models. Some may be convinced by an aggressive show of certainty but no one on a philosophy forum should take that kind of display behaviour seriously.

What difference would it make for Hobbes to back off and qualify his statements? Eg. "Based on what we know, it appears most likely that death is the end" as opposed to "of course there's nothing"? One is a qualified appraisal, which is appropriate given how studies into consciousness are relatively new and there's much we still don't know.
Hobbes' Choice wrote:My remarks, although a response to you were more about the stunt Greta is trying to pull.
Ignoring other's points and calling them a stunt is not debate. It's wriggling.

The "stunt" is my pointing out how Hobbes assumes that today's knowledge is final, to never be revolutionised, with just a few details to clean up. This premature confidence (hubris) has been present in all generations before us, and later generations have always proved them wrong.
Dubious
Posts: 4000
Joined: Tue May 19, 2015 7:40 am

Re: Leibniz's mill and the "Hard problem of consciousness"

Post by Dubious »

Hobbes' Choice wrote:
Dubious wrote:
Hobbes' Choice wrote:
My remarks, although a response to you were more about the stunt Greta is trying to pull.
Kinda figured that since your response to what I wrote didn't have much reference. This long post (for me) is as much my response to Greta as it was to you even if she never asked for one. Regardless these are just my arguments of how non-sequitur it is to stress consciousness beyond the living being. To do so successfully requires a whole new definition of Purpose.
I don't know why it impinges on purpose, not even purpose with a capital "p", its simply about evidence which point is ALL instances of consciousness terminating when life terminates, and that all examples of damage, modification and alterations to the brain result in changes to consciousness.
I'm not disputing your point but use your imagination for a minute and grant consciousness outlasting its host a few 'what if' hypotheticals. In short, try to stretch any conclusions, thoughts or ideas beyond its limits to see what the implications are.

The purpose of consciousness for as long as its host is alive is obvious; beyond that how would Purpose (with cap P) be defined if consciousness exceeded the limits of its living host? There would have to be a 'reason' for that to happen as defined by Purpose though none as yet has been or is likely to be discovered...almost certainly because its only definition lies centered in the living organism where it begins, develops and ends.
Post Reply