The Conscious Brain - Professor Damasio (II)

[dewinthemorning]

Neuro-science is a great threat to idealistic philosophy and theology! They rely on the presumption that consciousness is an entity in itself, independant of human beings, which it is not.

I didn't know that the brain stem is so important.

Fav'ed again!

[1simonmatthews]

@dewinthemorning Consciousness IS independent of human beings. For a start, animals experience consciousness too. If you're repeatedly cruel to a dog, the dog will remember you and flinch at your presence. And I think you'll find that consciousness is infinitely divisible - you can halve it, then halve it again, right back to the first life forms. It's the very thing that drove evolution. IT made the brain, not the brain made it. Have a very long and good think about that. I have.

[dewinthemorning]

@1simonmatthews "Consciousness IS independent of human beings" It seems that way, doesn't it? That is why idealistic philosophies appeared (Hegel is a case in point. For him consciousness was the Being, everything else - the material world, human beings - were just a manifestation of the ideal consciousness). Later, his philosophy was demolished by the Young Hegelians, especially by Marx. Maybe you should read some of that philosophy. Even if you don't, modern neuroscience can open your eyes...

[1simonmatthews]

@dewinthemorning Never mind them, you haven't even given any time to think about what I said. Your reply is an automatic one. I'm confident in my own ability to think deeply and logically about these things. Try following the logic in what I said. It's all there. Consciousness is infinitely divisible. Really think about that. Do you really believe that animals are not conscious? If you do, then you're wrong.

[1simonmatthews]

@dewinthemorning If you don't think consciousness is infinitely divisible, then when and how did the transition occur? We all know that animals can "see". They react if you wave your hand in front of them, just as you would react if someone waved a hand in front of your face. They're conscious that something is in front of their eyes. Not as conscious as us maybe, but that's what I mean by infinitely divisible. There's no cut off point. Consciousness has grown through evolution.

[dewinthemorning]

@1simonmatthews I don't know what you mean by "consciousness is divisible" and how that helps your argument that " IT made the brain, not the brain made it." Your example with animals shows you should learn a bit more about biology, evolution and neuroscience. The first life forms had simething like senses (to sense light, maybe, and touch) which then evolved with the evolution of the nervous system, the central nervous system that mammals have, and finally the very complicated human brain.

[1simonmatthews]

@dewinthemorning "I don't know what you mean by "consciousness is divisible" and how that helps your argument that IT made the brain, not the brain made it." Maybe you need to think about it more? "The first life forms had something like senses (to sense light, maybe, and touch)." And they were conscious of light and touch. The complicated human brain merely adds depth to the existing consciousness, eg. gives us memory. The first life forms just lived in the now.

[dewinthemorning]

@1simonmatthews The fact is that the first life forms had light sensitive cells ( a phisical property). They did not have complex brain with trillions of neurons, which fire and make trillions of bonds, and in which the emergent property of consciousness appeared, and which can be 'consious' of light, 'aware' of light. All this evolved later.

[1simonmatthews]

@dewinthemorning I respectfully disagree. Science says consciousness came about just because there are trillions of neurons firing in the brain etc. I'll believe this when they make a machine that is truly conscious. One computer isn't conscious, and neither is two. What makes you think a trillion would be any different? All a trillion computers would have is a larger capacity to process digital information. They would be aware of nothing. I'll wait for the proof thanks.

[1simonmatthews]

@dewinthemorning Also, how many neurons and bonds does it take to produce consciousness? Is it exactly a trillion? What would happen if you removed one? Would you lose consciousness? Or would your consciousness just lessen? Ie. Become divided. When did the ability to think start? Has the ability to think increased over time? Ie. Multiplied. When was the ability to think equal to zero? And how did this zero become one?

[dewinthemorning]

@1simonmatthews I don't know if a precise number of neurons and bonds needs to be reached, so that this emergent quality of the human appears.

When you 'devide' consciousness, does it become half a consciousness? What is 'half a consciousness'? You either have consciousness, or not.

"And how did this zero become one?" For that, there is a theory - chaos theory, I think - which deals with emergent properties, a property of the whole (because of its complexity?), which its parts don't have.

[1simonmatthews]

@dewinthemorning I'm afraid you have a misunderstanding of the meaning of the word consciousness. A dog remembers its name and is conscious when someone calls it, and it remembers faces, just like we do. But a dog is less conscious than us because it has less complex hardware. You're conscious of the screen you're looking at now and the surrounding things, but you're more conscious of the screen than the surrounding things. It's all part of consciousness. All living things possess it.

[dewinthemorning]

@1simonmatthews "All living things possess it" Possess what? If you say consciousness, this is not the concept I have in mind. I think consciousness is the human ability to make a symbolic representation of the world. to make generalizations and abstractions and from them to make concepts in order to communicate quickly and easily with other people and to think, make plans for the future, have memories, etc.

What you have in mind, is a lot simpler, but necessary, senses of other animals.

[1simonmatthews]

@dewinthemorning No, consciousness is the state of being awake and aware of one's surroundings. The qualities that you describe are just hightened aspects of the same thing, perhaps more accurately described as self-awareness. We are self-aware because of the complexity of our hardware. If a dog's hardware were to become more complex, then it too would become self-aware. At present, dogs possess consciousness, as do all living things, in differing degrees, right down to the first life forms.

[1simonmatthews]

@dewinthemorning Something for you to think about: If a clone is an exact copy, would you be able to see through a second pair of eyes if they cloned you? If consciousness is a product of the brain, and the brains were identical, then you should be able to see through the two pairs of eyes simultaneously. You would be in two places at once. Is this what happened when they cloned Dolly The Sheep? Or did a new, separate consciousness emerge? We don't have to be scientists to think of these things.

[dewinthemorning]

@1simonmatthews If I was cloned, that would mean that a new baby would be born who has exactly my DNA. It's not that a new, adult Dew would appear suddenly. So, yes, this baby will have my DNA, but she would grow up in different circumstances, would have different memories - you draw your own conclusions about her consciousness. You have this example in real life - Identical twins. Do you think they have the same consciousness?

[1simonmatthews]

@dewinthemorning That's just it, identical twins don't have the same consciousness, and neither would a clone. This shows that there is more to you, the experiencer of your life, than just your physical self. If we, the experiencer of our lives, are nothing more than the emergent properties of our brains, then surely an exact copy would mean that we would be able to experience from the perspective of the copy also, like being reborn. If not, then our consciousness doesn't emerge from the brain.

[dewinthemorning]

@1simonmatthews In my latest video but one I talk exactly about those things - is there a self, an experiencer, and so on. Have a look: watch?v=DDoM6C0xHKo

[1simonmatthews]

@dewinthemorning I'll take a look at it later. Well, if the experiencer is an emergent property of the brain, then cloning yourself would lead to you being born again. If it doesn't lead to you being born again, then there's more to it than just the physical brain. I think that's your answer isn't it. By golly I think I've just solved the age-old question! Dan Dennett is wrong!

[1simonmatthews]

@dewinthemorning Yes, the clone would grow up in different circumstances and have different memories, but it's not that that makes them separate from us. If we had our memories wiped, we'd still be the same experiencer of life, we just wouldn't remember the past. We could start again with a new life and make new memories. It would be a bit like being born for the first time, only as an adult. The clone would be a totally separate, new experiencer of life. So, where's the experiencer come from?

[1simonmatthews]

@dewinthemorning You have to admit, I have a good point here. I'm glad I thought of it. I don't know what the truth is myself, I'm only trying to find things out for myself. I thought that maybe people like Dan Dennett were right, and that we are nothing but a bag of tricks in the brain, but if that was right then an exact copy of me would mean that I would live again, which I don't think would be the case. I hope you can be honest here and admit that I do have a good point.

[GCthegreat1ify]

@1simonmatthews

why would you ever consider Dan Dennet being right in the first place?