An argument against materialism

[SteveKlinko]

That is the use of lay "quantum == magic" understanding of Quantum Physics. It doesn't hold any water scientifically.

It's just plain weird to reject that QM has something to do with Consciousness. One of the most accepted points of view of QM says that Consciousness is involved in the results of certain Experiments. Consciousness has been implicated since the very beginning of QM. It makes perfect Scientific sense to do Experiments specifically to explore the QM connection with Consciousness. My Machine Consciousness experiments are completely Scientific.

That's like saying quantum mechanics is what makes water molecules wet. Sure, it's involved, but the difference in scale is such that it's literally completely different things.

Now that's a bizarre analogy which exposes your complete misunderstanding of what I am trying to do. I suspect you have not read any of the links I have posted. If you are at all interested you should start at the beginning: http://TheInterMind.com. If not then that's ok too.

[Advocate]

[quote=SteveKlinko post_id=482488 time=1606758050 user_id=14793]
[quote=Advocate post_id=482451 time=1606751968 user_id=15238]
[quote=SteveKlinko post_id=482429 time=1606740390 user_id=14793]


Seriously, how do you propose to even start stuffing something like the Color Red, or the Standard A Tone, or the Taste of Salt back into the Neurons? Rhetorical, because I know not you nor anyone else on the planet can even begin to Explain this. But let's look at the Visual System to get a feel for the problem. From the Inter Mind, Arguments For the Inter Mind #1:

It does not appear that the Visual Areas are processing the Light information with the goal of creating the integrated Conscious Light (CL) Scene that we experience. Rather the Brain seems to deconstruct the image with the goal of detecting elementary properties of the image like lines, edges, motion, and color. There do not seem to be any downstream Visual Areas that are involved with reconstructing the CL Scene that we experience from all the deconstructed properties that the Brain detects. The only place where there is a good undistorted image is on the Retina of the Eye. The other various stages of processing are highly warped and distorted maps of the retina. The highest stages don't really even map at all. The highest stages seem to be involved in image recognition and the lower stages seem to be for mechanical control of focus and eye convergence. But we find that there are artifacts from the downstream processing stages that become visible in our CL Scene. For example there are some edge enhancement and shading effects that are generated in V1 that can be experienced in the CL Scene. Also if there is a damaged area in V1 then an equivalent blacked out area will appear in the CL Scene. Similarly if there is damage to the Color areas then the Color experience will be impaired or completely missing. So it seems that whatever is creating the CL Scene must use and be in contact with all the processing stages at the same time. The actual CL Scene is a kind of overlay of all the areas. It seems that the data available at these processing stages are hints as to what the CL Scene should look like. This data must be the input to the Conscious Mind (CM). It seems that there is a lot of processing that has to take place to reintegrate all the Visual Area processing results into the seemingly perfect CL Scene that we experience. There is a Processing Gap. We could just say that the CM monitors the Physical Mind (PM) Visual Areas and creates this Scene itself. I think it is more instructive to propose that there must be a whole new aspect of the Mind that consists of further processing stages that monitor the PM and generate the CL Scene that the CM perceives. This of course is the Inter Mind (IM). It should also be mentioned that this process of combining the processing results of the various areas of the Visual system to create the single CL Scene is called Binding. The fact that no one knows how this is accomplished is called the Binding Problem. I think that the Binding processing might eventually be found to be located in the Inter Mind.
[/quote]

"We don't know, therefore x." is called the argument from ignorance, and it's a logical fallacy.
[/quote]
I never say we don't know therefore x. I do say we don't know so maybe x. You have misapplied the Argument from Ignorance. Your usage would imply that anytime we don't know the answer to a problem that it would be a fallacy to try to look at the problem in different ways.
[/quote]

The answer to any intractable problem, like philosophy, economics, physics, is a simplified framework or set of maxims that leads to actionable certainty (the purpose of all knowledge, wisdom, and understanding). Some answers raise more questions than they answer, and those questions can't Be answered so they're just a question-begging mess, like anything that posits woo (untestable forces claimed to have actual effects) or the transcendent, like a soul, or a consciousness realm or an alternate universe, which admits of no possible test and is therefore indistinguishable from fiction.

[SteveKlinko]

The answer to any intractable problem, like philosophy, economics, physics, is a simplified framework or set of maxims that leads to actionable certainty (the purpose of all knowledge, wisdom, and understanding). Some answers raise more questions than they answer, and those questions can't Be answered so they're just a question-begging mess, like anything that posits woo (untestable forces claimed to have actual effects) or the transcendent, like a soul, or a consciousness realm or an alternate universe, which admits of no possible test and is therefore indistinguishable from fiction.

I have posted links to show examples of how Conscious Space can be tested. You must not have read those links. Again:

http://theintermind.com/#Conceivability

http://www.theintermind.com/MachConExpe ... riment.asp

You might disagree with the methods but you cannot claim that there is no way to test Conscious Space concepts.

[Advocate]

[quote=SteveKlinko post_id=482503 time=1606762808 user_id=14793]
[quote=Advocate post_id=482496 time=1606759077 user_id=15238]
The answer to any intractable problem, like philosophy, economics, physics, is a simplified framework or set of maxims that leads to actionable certainty (the purpose of all knowledge, wisdom, and understanding). Some answers raise more questions than they answer, and those questions can't Be answered so they're just a question-begging mess, like anything that posits woo (untestable forces claimed to have actual effects) or the transcendent, like a soul, or a consciousness realm or an alternate universe, which admits of no possible test and is therefore indistinguishable from fiction.
[/quote]

I have posted links to show examples of how Conscious Space can be tested. You must not have read those links. Again:

http://theintermind.com/#Conceivability

http://www.theintermind.com/MachConExpe ... riment.asp

You might disagree with the methods but you cannot claim that there is no way to test Conscious Space concepts.
[/quote]

Just like god concepts, it cannot be defined in such a way as to be testable. Even consciousness can't be defined in that way, so to posit an exterior explanation is a step more removed from possibility. AFTER you have a testable definition of consciousness, THEN we can talk about testing how it works in various ways.

[SteveKlinko]

Just like god concepts, it cannot be defined in such a way as to be testable. Even consciousness can't be defined in that way, so to posit an exterior explanation is a step more removed from possibility. AFTER you have a testable definition of consciousness, THEN we can talk about testing how it works in various ways.

The Live Screen Stream of the Machine Consciousness Experiment is always running. See. http://www.theintermind.com/MachConExpe ... riment.asp. The Experiment is a test for exploring the Volitional aspect of Consciousness. The Experiment is designed to show if Consciousness can use QM to affect the Physical world. The experiment will show that Consciousness can affect the apparatus or that it cannot. This is a completely Scientific expectation.

[Dimebag]

Seriously, how do you propose to even start stuffing something like the Color Red, or the Standard A Tone, or the Taste of Salt back into the Neurons? Rhetorical, because I know not you nor anyone else on the planet can even begin to Explain this. But let's look at the Visual System to get a feel for the problem. From the Inter Mind, Arguments For the Inter Mind #1:

It does not appear that the Visual Areas are processing the Light information with the goal of creating the integrated Conscious Light (CL) Scene that we experience. Rather the Brain seems to deconstruct the image with the goal of detecting elementary properties of the image like lines, edges, motion, and color. There do not seem to be any downstream Visual Areas that are involved with reconstructing the CL Scene that we experience from all the deconstructed properties that the Brain detects. The only place where there is a good undistorted image is on the Retina of the Eye. The other various stages of processing are highly warped and distorted maps of the retina. The highest stages don't really even map at all. The highest stages seem to be involved in image recognition and the lower stages seem to be for mechanical control of focus and eye convergence. But we find that there are artifacts from the downstream processing stages that become visible in our CL Scene. For example there are some edge enhancement and shading effects that are generated in V1 that can be experienced in the CL Scene. Also if there is a damaged area in V1 then an equivalent blacked out area will appear in the CL Scene. Similarly if there is damage to the Color areas then the Color experience will be impaired or completely missing. So it seems that whatever is creating the CL Scene must use and be in contact with all the processing stages at the same time. The actual CL Scene is a kind of overlay of all the areas. It seems that the data available at these processing stages are hints as to what the CL Scene should look like. This data must be the input to the Conscious Mind (CM). It seems that there is a lot of processing that has to take place to reintegrate all the Visual Area processing results into the seemingly perfect CL Scene that we experience. There is a Processing Gap. We could just say that the CM monitors the Physical Mind (PM) Visual Areas and creates this Scene itself. I think it is more instructive to propose that there must be a whole new aspect of the Mind that consists of further processing stages that monitor the PM and generate the CL Scene that the CM perceives. This of course is the Inter Mind (IM). It should also be mentioned that this process of combining the processing results of the various areas of the Visual system to create the single CL Scene is called Binding. The fact that no one knows how this is accomplished is called the Binding Problem. I think that the Binding processing might eventually be found to be located in the Inter Mind.

The thing is Steve, neuroscience continues to discover new sublayers of complexity within the brain. Neurons themselves are now no longer being viewed as a single little memory and processing unit, there seem to be individual information storing channels contained within each neuron, within the Gap junctions, which respond to different neurotransmitters. Think of them like different channels that can be tuned into different frequencies. Rather than trying to stuff the experience into the neurons, what will likely happen is discovery of more fractal complexity in which the needed mechanisms can reside at lower levels than collections of neurons. There is much more going on in a neuron than neuroscience has previously been led to believe. This means it’s not as simple as each neuron being a bit like a 1 or a 0, like little switches, this is how AI has viewed neurons, but they have missed much of the detail and therefore of mechanism. We know humans don’t need millions of images to learn to distinguish different things, so that brute force style learning is not how our brains actually do it.

There is still much fertile ground in neuroscience. That doesn’t mean we are even capable of understanding it, but, I believe the mystery is in the details.

[SteveKlinko]

Seriously, how do you propose to even start stuffing something like the Color Red, or the Standard A Tone, or the Taste of Salt back into the Neurons? Rhetorical, because I know not you nor anyone else on the planet can even begin to Explain this. But let's look at the Visual System to get a feel for the problem. From the Inter Mind, Arguments For the Inter Mind #1:

It does not appear that the Visual Areas are processing the Light information with the goal of creating the integrated Conscious Light (CL) Scene that we experience. Rather the Brain seems to deconstruct the image with the goal of detecting elementary properties of the image like lines, edges, motion, and color. There do not seem to be any downstream Visual Areas that are involved with reconstructing the CL Scene that we experience from all the deconstructed properties that the Brain detects. The only place where there is a good undistorted image is on the Retina of the Eye. The other various stages of processing are highly warped and distorted maps of the retina. The highest stages don't really even map at all. The highest stages seem to be involved in image recognition and the lower stages seem to be for mechanical control of focus and eye convergence. But we find that there are artifacts from the downstream processing stages that become visible in our CL Scene. For example there are some edge enhancement and shading effects that are generated in V1 that can be experienced in the CL Scene. Also if there is a damaged area in V1 then an equivalent blacked out area will appear in the CL Scene. Similarly if there is damage to the Color areas then the Color experience will be impaired or completely missing. So it seems that whatever is creating the CL Scene must use and be in contact with all the processing stages at the same time. The actual CL Scene is a kind of overlay of all the areas. It seems that the data available at these processing stages are hints as to what the CL Scene should look like. This data must be the input to the Conscious Mind (CM). It seems that there is a lot of processing that has to take place to reintegrate all the Visual Area processing results into the seemingly perfect CL Scene that we experience. There is a Processing Gap. We could just say that the CM monitors the Physical Mind (PM) Visual Areas and creates this Scene itself. I think it is more instructive to propose that there must be a whole new aspect of the Mind that consists of further processing stages that monitor the PM and generate the CL Scene that the CM perceives. This of course is the Inter Mind (IM). It should also be mentioned that this process of combining the processing results of the various areas of the Visual system to create the single CL Scene is called Binding. The fact that no one knows how this is accomplished is called the Binding Problem. I think that the Binding processing might eventually be found to be located in the Inter Mind.

The thing is Steve, neuroscience continues to discover new sublayers of complexity within the brain. Neurons themselves are now no longer being viewed as a single little memory and processing unit, there seem to be individual information storing channels contained within each neuron, within the Gap junctions, which respond to different neurotransmitters. Think of them like different channels that can be tuned into different frequencies. Rather than trying to stuff the experience into the neurons, what will likely happen is discovery of more fractal complexity in which the needed mechanisms can reside at lower levels than collections of neurons. There is much more going on in a neuron than neuroscience has previously been led to believe. This means it’s not as simple as each neuron being a bit like a 1 or a 0, like little switches, this is how AI has viewed neurons, but they have missed much of the detail and therefore of mechanism. We know humans don’t need millions of images to learn to distinguish different things, so that brute force style learning is not how our brains actually do it.

There is still much fertile ground in neuroscience. That doesn’t mean we are even capable of understanding it, but, I believe the mystery is in the details.

I understand that it is not necessarily about single Neurons. Neurons can act together in synchronous operation. There is feedback and feed forward operation for firing Neurons. I can't describe all the possible Neural operations and interactions every time I post about Neurons. After all this time I am assuming everyone knows that I am referring to all possible and known Neural Activity. Any new Neural operation or Neurochemical process will not explain Consciousness anymore than any other previous Neural operation or Neurochemical process, unless there is an actual feasible Explanation for why the new operations or processes are fundamentally different than all the previous ones. You can say, Information Storing Channels, or Gap Junctions, or talk about Tuned Frequencies, but you have not provided a single Clue about Consciousness with these buzz words.

[Advocate]

[quote=SteveKlinko post_id=482514 time=1606766178 user_id=14793]
[quote=Advocate post_id=482508 time=1606764053 user_id=15238]
Just like god concepts, it cannot be defined in such a way as to be testable. Even consciousness can't be defined in that way, so to posit an exterior explanation is a step more removed from possibility. AFTER you have a testable definition of consciousness, THEN we can talk about testing how it works in various ways.
[/quote]

The Live Screen Stream of the Machine Consciousness Experiment is always running. See. http://www.theintermind.com/MachConExpe ... riment.asp. The Experiment is a test for exploring the Volitional aspect of Consciousness. The Experiment is designed to show if Consciousness can use QM to affect the Physical world. The experiment will show that Consciousness can affect the apparatus or that it cannot. This is a completely Scientific expectation.
[/quote]

You cannot measure imaginary forces scientifically. Consciousnesses is merely another word for patterns in the brain. Anything more is unsupportable.

[Dimebag]

Seriously, how do you propose to even start stuffing something like the Color Red, or the Standard A Tone, or the Taste of Salt back into the Neurons? Rhetorical, because I know not you nor anyone else on the planet can even begin to Explain this. But let's look at the Visual System to get a feel for the problem. From the Inter Mind, Arguments For the Inter Mind #1:

It does not appear that the Visual Areas are processing the Light information with the goal of creating the integrated Conscious Light (CL) Scene that we experience. Rather the Brain seems to deconstruct the image with the goal of detecting elementary properties of the image like lines, edges, motion, and color. There do not seem to be any downstream Visual Areas that are involved with reconstructing the CL Scene that we experience from all the deconstructed properties that the Brain detects. The only place where there is a good undistorted image is on the Retina of the Eye. The other various stages of processing are highly warped and distorted maps of the retina. The highest stages don't really even map at all. The highest stages seem to be involved in image recognition and the lower stages seem to be for mechanical control of focus and eye convergence. But we find that there are artifacts from the downstream processing stages that become visible in our CL Scene. For example there are some edge enhancement and shading effects that are generated in V1 that can be experienced in the CL Scene. Also if there is a damaged area in V1 then an equivalent blacked out area will appear in the CL Scene. Similarly if there is damage to the Color areas then the Color experience will be impaired or completely missing. So it seems that whatever is creating the CL Scene must use and be in contact with all the processing stages at the same time. The actual CL Scene is a kind of overlay of all the areas. It seems that the data available at these processing stages are hints as to what the CL Scene should look like. This data must be the input to the Conscious Mind (CM). It seems that there is a lot of processing that has to take place to reintegrate all the Visual Area processing results into the seemingly perfect CL Scene that we experience. There is a Processing Gap. We could just say that the CM monitors the Physical Mind (PM) Visual Areas and creates this Scene itself. I think it is more instructive to propose that there must be a whole new aspect of the Mind that consists of further processing stages that monitor the PM and generate the CL Scene that the CM perceives. This of course is the Inter Mind (IM). It should also be mentioned that this process of combining the processing results of the various areas of the Visual system to create the single CL Scene is called Binding. The fact that no one knows how this is accomplished is called the Binding Problem. I think that the Binding processing might eventually be found to be located in the Inter Mind.

The thing is Steve, neuroscience continues to discover new sublayers of complexity within the brain. Neurons themselves are now no longer being viewed as a single little memory and processing unit, there seem to be individual information storing channels contained within each neuron, within the Gap junctions, which respond to different neurotransmitters. Think of them like different channels that can be tuned into different frequencies. Rather than trying to stuff the experience into the neurons, what will likely happen is discovery of more fractal complexity in which the needed mechanisms can reside at lower levels than collections of neurons. There is much more going on in a neuron than neuroscience has previously been led to believe. This means it’s not as simple as each neuron being a bit like a 1 or a 0, like little switches, this is how AI has viewed neurons, but they have missed much of the detail and therefore of mechanism. We know humans don’t need millions of images to learn to distinguish different things, so that brute force style learning is not how our brains actually do it.

There is still much fertile ground in neuroscience. That doesn’t mean we are even capable of understanding it, but, I believe the mystery is in the details.

I understand that it is not necessarily about single Neurons. Neurons can act together in synchronous operation. There is feedback and feed forward operation for firing Neurons. I can't describe all the possible Neural operations and interactions every time I post about Neurons. After all this time I am assuming everyone knows that I am referring to all possible and known Neural Activity. Any new Neural operation or Neurochemical process will not explain Consciousness anymore than any other previous Neural operation or Neurochemical process, unless there is an actual feasible Explanation for why the new operations or processes are fundamentally different than all the previous ones. You can say, Information Storing Channels, or Gap Junctions, or talk about Tuned Frequencies, but you have not provided a single Clue about Consciousness with these buzz words.

In the end, it is concepts which are going to have to explain consciousness in terms of brain mechanisms. The problem is, concepts require a lower level to explain things in terms of something else. But if the case is that consciousness is identical to certain brain mechanisms, you have nothing other than brain mechanisms to explain an experience, which leaves it as being purely correlational if you are trying to treat conscious experience as something different from what the brain is doing. Identical is not correlation. Ultimately, there may be no satisfying why answer, only an if then statement.

[Advocate]

[quote=Dimebag post_id=482573 time=1606786634 user_id=5396]
In the end, it is concepts which are going to have to explain consciousness in terms of brain mechanisms. The problem is, concepts require a lower level to explain things in terms of something else. But if the case is that consciousness is identical to certain brain mechanisms, you have nothing other than brain mechanisms to explain an experience, which leaves it as being purely correlational if you are trying to treat conscious experience as something different from what the brain is doing. Identical is not correlation. Ultimately, there may be no satisfying why answer, only an if then statement.
[/quote]

An answer is a framework for understanding and we have one that's perfectly reasonable and obvious, despite not yet being exhaustive. Mind Only means patterns in the brain, and consciousness is Only a subset of mind, kapiche? Materialism is both necessary and sufficient.

[Dimebag]

In the end, it is concepts which are going to have to explain consciousness in terms of brain mechanisms. The problem is, concepts require a lower level to explain things in terms of something else. But if the case is that consciousness is identical to certain brain mechanisms, you have nothing other than brain mechanisms to explain an experience, which leaves it as being purely correlational if you are trying to treat conscious experience as something different from what the brain is doing. Identical is not correlation. Ultimately, there may be no satisfying why answer, only an if then statement.

An answer is a framework for understanding and we have one that's perfectly reasonable and obvious, despite not yet being exhaustive. Mind Only means patterns in the brain, and consciousness is Only a subset of mind, kapiche? Materialism is both necessary and sufficient.

So the question then is, what is the nature of that subset of conscious patterns that distinguishes it from non conscious patterns? What properties do conscious patterns have that non conscious patterns don’t.

And what differences are the ones which make the difference, and then, why do those differences make such a difference?

[SteveKlinko]

Just like god concepts, it cannot be defined in such a way as to be testable. Even consciousness can't be defined in that way, so to posit an exterior explanation is a step more removed from possibility. AFTER you have a testable definition of consciousness, THEN we can talk about testing how it works in various ways.

The Live Screen Stream of the Machine Consciousness Experiment is always running. See. http://www.theintermind.com/MachConExpe ... riment.asp. The Experiment is a test for exploring the Volitional aspect of Consciousness. The Experiment is designed to show if Consciousness can use QM to affect the Physical world. The experiment will show that Consciousness can affect the apparatus or that it cannot. This is a completely Scientific expectation.

You cannot measure imaginary forces scientifically. Consciousnesses is merely another word for patterns in the brain. Anything more is unsupportable.

You are using the word Forces as if Consciousness has to be some sort of Physical Force. Consciousness is probably not going to be some new Force. One thing for sure Consciousness is not Imaginary. Nobody has any idea what Consciousness is. You think you know something about Consciousness when you say "Consciousnesses is merely another word for patterns in the brain". Again, you have no idea what Consciousness is. That's ok because nobody has any idea what Consciousness is.

[SteveKlinko]

In the end, it is concepts which are going to have to explain consciousness in terms of brain mechanisms. The problem is, concepts require a lower level to explain things in terms of something else. But if the case is that consciousness is identical to certain brain mechanisms, you have nothing other than brain mechanisms to explain an experience, which leaves it as being purely correlational if you are trying to treat conscious experience as something different from what the brain is doing. Identical is not correlation. Ultimately, there may be no satisfying why answer, only an if then statement.

If it is the case that Consciousness is identical to Brain Mechanisms then it seems strange that there is not even the first Clue as to how this could be true. I think ultimately it will be a Correlation to Brain Activity. It is Correlated because Consciousness is Connected to the Brain and reflects what the Brain is doing. Consciousness is constantly measuring what the Brain is doing and Consciousness is constantly providing Volitional inputs back to the Brain to satisfy its Desires. A Desire is a purely Conscious Experience. So Desires that are Experienced in the Conscious Mind can be reflected back to the Physical Brain to create Activity to satisfy the Desire. I think there will be an answer someday and if Science can think more outside the Physicalist box we might be able to find it.

[Scott Mayers]

All particles in the universe are interacting with each other. This means that we have one process. Materialism claims that consciousness is the result of process in matter. Therefore there should be one consciousness. There are more than one consciousness. Therefore materialism is false.

You missed that consciousness can be RELATIVE. That is, it may be both one and many but dependent upon perspective.

For example, a pair of twins each have independent consciousness from each of their perspectives. But they also have a "collective consciousness" when they share the same evironmental reactions in sync with one another. I, as a twin, know this. We do not have a completed shared consciousness unless we are responding in the presence of each other and the degree of this is only minimal. It relates to both having the same modular logic as 'cells construction and architecture' AND to the degree they are active with the same 'frequency' and complementary phases. The same goes between ANY two or more beings AND includes all the physical factors down to their subatomic particles. For instance, all electrons have the same 'properties' because they share the same construction and architecture. As such, they behave in the same way BUT in different phases and proximaty.

While this is more complex to express in a mere post response, you are wrong in ignoring the 'relativity' factor. You CAN have both a one AND many consciousness. The independent parts of Earth 'percieve' reality locally even though on the whole, the Earth acts as one whole collective consciousness. Thus, materialism is not necessarily false by your argument.

[SteveKlinko]

All particles in the universe are interacting with each other. This means that we have one process. Materialism claims that consciousness is the result of process in matter. Therefore there should be one consciousness. There are more than one consciousness. Therefore materialism is false.

You missed that consciousness can be RELATIVE. That is, it may be both one and many but dependent upon perspective.

For example, a pair of twins each have independent consciousness from each of their perspectives. But they also have a "collective consciousness" when they share the same evironmental reactions in sync with one another. I, as a twin, know this. We do not have a completed shared consciousness unless we are responding in the presence of each other and the degree of this is only minimal. It relates to both having the same modular logic as 'cells construction and architecture' AND to the degree they are active with the same 'frequency' and complementary phases. The same goes between ANY two or more beings AND includes all the physical factors down to their subatomic particles. For instance, all electrons have the same 'properties' because they share the same construction and architecture. As such, they behave in the same way BUT in different phases and proximaty.

While this is more complex to express in a mere post response, you are wrong in ignoring the 'relativity' factor. You CAN have both a one AND many consciousness. The independent parts of Earth 'percieve' reality locally even though on the whole, the Earth acts as one whole collective consciousness. Thus, materialism is not necessarily false by your argument.

Before we can argue about One versus Many Consciousnesses it is more important to understand what Consciousness is in the first place. Since we have no Clue what Consciousness is, debates about One or Many are irrelevant.