The Hard Problem of Consciousness - Part 1

[lefty6584]

well you have the nature part down, but forgot the nuture. every person has different experiences.

[drskywalkerluke]

Excellent. Actually it's sometime that I am thinking about this issue, especially in relation with teletransport.

[alamin104]

to support my opinion let me elaborate..God created us, therefore our good and bad intention also are His creations. Therefore, its not justified to punish people for wrong-doing. But if we think, our free wills originated from God Himself as form of induced consciousness, then it make sense. We are not part of God rather have induced consciousness whosesource is God. That's what the soul means. "..They ask about soul, say, you are given little knowledge.."(Quran)

[alamin104]

"..the word was with God, the word is God"...

"..I and Father are one.."

To my opinion, there is nothing conscious except God Himself. God induced his consciousness to living beings. Think of analogy of a magnet. A magnet can induce magnetic property to some metal. Similarly God induced His consciousness to us including other conscious beings. Therefore, none is able to identify the soul.

[Koyukonn]

It is definitely possible. We at the core are all the same. Strip away everything and leave only consciousness, all the same. Man only multiplied over time. Copying 1 person would be no different, only have exact traits for awhile. Question is can it be done...

[otakurocklee]

Great video! This is why physicalism is utterly ridiculous. Some type of substance dualism is unavoidable.

I think most people sadly just don't understand the hard problem of consciousness.

[WhiteDragon103]

Thanks but I did not yet make any conclusions on which idea is right ^^

[otakurocklee]

I know. I was just giving my viewpoint. In my opinion the matters you point out in the video demonstrate that physicalism is false. I did not mean to imply that that is your viewpoint.

[WhiteDragon103]

Qualiasoup says that Substance Dualism is "inherently incoherent" or something to that extent, yet only demonstrates a basic at best understanding of the idea. Don't you hate when people do that?

[otakurocklee]

I know what you mean. He misses the basic problem. How does a physical substance cause subjective experience? Also he argues from analogy that since information can be encoded physically, that demonstrates that thoughts can be physical... Thoughts are not simply information... they are contents of "experience"...

All the criticisms miss the basic ideas. How does physical substance give rise to subjective experience? And what is having the experience? How is there personal identity over time?

[MrAquinoflavio]

@otakurocklee : Given physicalism, phenomenology is generally assumed to arise from the brain interpretating functional information encoded in itself. To further criticise,

'' but how this process make phenomenology arise?'' Its just an argument from unconcevebility: I cannot imagine, therefore its not true. The so called hard problem, its not an actual problem, but a useless mystery.

[otakurocklee]

@MrAquinoflavio Ah come on... if you claimed, the arrangement of flowers in the garden gives rise to subjective experience, and I responded how exactly? Then you respond with, "You're just making an argument from inconceivability. You can't imagine it so you're saying it can't happen." That's a ridiculous response.

The physicalist is making the claim... so he needs to give the explanation. How does matter give rise to experience?

[MrAquinoflavio]

@otakurocklee :Reductio ad absurdum is not really a good argument too. You know very well that there is no reason to suspect a mind emerging trhought arragement of flowers, as in opposition to high order information processement in neuronal networks. The point is, there is abundant evidence the mind emerges from the brain. Thought is not matter, it is a emergent property, analagous to a lightning emerging from free electrons, from information encoding and decoding.

[otakurocklee]

@MrAquinoflavio So is it your view that matter contains properties currently unknown to us, that allow consciousness to happen?

[MrAquinoflavio]

@otakurocklee : I woudn't say this as matter properties. I would say properties of high order information processing systems, wich i will not strictly reduce to computationalism. But that is beyond the point.

[otakurocklee]

@MrAquinoflavio It's not an argument from conceivability... its an argument from definition. We have a certain experience... Say the color red. Now, I can say with certainty, the color red is not the same as the integer 3. I have experience of red. I know what it is. And I know what the number 3 is. They have different properties. A configuration of atoms is not an experience. . Unless the low level properties of the atoms are defined as having some sort of experiential aspects.

[MrAquinoflavio]

@otakurocklee : A configuration of atoms is in a certain way an experience of red. From an objective perspective, we describe what it is(neuronal activity in the occpital lobe, estimulated by the optic nerve) and from a subjectve perspective we describe what it FEELS LIKE to have this neuronal actvities. Its just different descriptions of the same event. An experience is a high level property, as opposed to a fundamental matter/energy property, and this is why hp is unsound.

[MrAquinoflavio]

@otakurocklee : Whoever is making a claim are the dualists, who, in their inability to conceve minds emerging from brains, claim based on this very inability, that they cannot. There is abundant evidence for it, wether you like or not, and just because we cannot conceve it, that doesnt mean that it is impossible.

If that does not suffice, how can you frame the HP in a way that does not reduce itself to an argument from concevebility?

[MrAquinoflavio]

@otakurocklee : With all the respect, a ridiculous argument. If you made a isomorphic clone of me, you would obviously have two separeted, but identical consciousness. Regarding the post vaporization stuff, you would in a certain sense, be a different person. It is all a matter of definitions, not of facts.

[otakurocklee]

@MrAquinoflavio What are you disagreeing with? It's the physicalists saying it would be the same person. Not me.

One person's consciousness is copied. Person dies. The consciousness is copied into a new body. My view: different person. Physicalists' view: same person.

[notepool2]

Maybe natural processes reconstruct concious entities (including humans) in different forms and dimensions anyway & we just don't know about it while living in any one particular form?

[JonathanClement140]

That's what I think might be the case.

[CanadianBeaver]

Peace and Love!

[WhiteDragon103]

Yes! But what does this have to do with my video? xD

[nriab23]

This subject matter is being looked at in the series Tv series heroes at the moment which got me thinking. If one of my familiy dead family members could be brought back to life by assembling all the necessary molecules in the right configuration to create my dead grandmother anew for example. I would be happy with that. It would not disturb me at all.

[WhiteDragon103]

Perhaps in the future science will be able to reconstruct everyone who has ever lived from scratch inside a computer simulation: A computer could randomly generate and simulate human brains within a particular range of variation of memories, beliefs, etc. that would be expected from people of particular time eras and cultures. Future computers would be able to do this uncomprehendingly fast - perhaps billions per second 100 years from now. Eventually it would be expected that everyone would be..

[WhiteDragon103]

regenerated inside this computer and, essentially, digitally resurrected, plus perhaps giving those who were not born a chance to live too. But this all depends on what causes one particular functional system to be person X instead of person Y.

[RedDaVincy]

It occured to me... that it is impossible to tell, if one is obliterated in one place and reconstructed elsewhere, if their reconstruction was "truly" their old self. Science can only measure against physical characteristics; if you define the situation so that the physical characteristics in both the reconstruction and original are perfectly alike, the only difference between them must be non-physical, something ethereal and supernatural. Science is not built (by definition) to handle that.

[jotunobsidianeyes]

Ethereal (or non physical) but not necessarily supernatural.

[WhiteDragon103]

I dislike english. It was a stupid idea to give words more than one definition. Supernatural, ethereal, nonphysical, etc. are unfortunately used interchangeable and I am not entirely sure what you meant. By supernatural do you mean "impossible to understand/control"?

[notepool2]

I couldn't agree more, but then language evolves within communities as a form of expression and tracks peoples' understanding - and equally, the lack of it! However, science has a community too & develops words that are much more specific, fortunately! Maybe quantum physics will eventually enter those undefined areas that have too many interchangeable and non-specific words, who knows!