I’ll start by saying thank you, for your words and for what you freely admit in the hopes of common understanding. I too freely admit I’ve taken a somewhat defensive posture in this thread to what I’ve perceived as much unjustified hostility (though I understand where you’re coming from if you were to say something like “as the person presenting an idea which is quite far outside of the mainstream, it’s incumbent upon you to explain things and facilitate a smooth discussion” - you’re totally right, and I admittedly failed at / neglected to adequately explain the status of the “Hard Problem” of consciousness - I just think that on top of that there was unjustified hostility, terseness, dismissiveness, etc)
So with all that being said, thanks again for the genuine attempts at discussion. Even if we don’t always start on common ground, you’re obviously not being trying to be dismissive which I appreciate.
So, to the crux:
it all rests on the assumption that consciousness must be a special irreducible parameter that matter does or doesn't have
Right - and so, the question becomes “what does the data/observations say about consciousness?”
It should go without saying that by suggesting a non-physical aspect of consciousness (non-“materialist”), one is by no means denying the material aspects of consciousness right. Of course, you know, brain trauma leading to brain-damage, brain-death, or death itself are obvious realities. Same with brain scans and our attempts to “map the brain”/“map our consciousness in the brain”, and a million other clear indications of the materialist nature/aspects of consciousness. That all goes without saying, and everything in this discussion is (ideally) taking that as a foundation to build on.
However - I think that same acknowledgement should, simultaneously, recognize that while we’ve kind of… “mapped the shores of the lake called consciousness” through the last hundred years of research and advancements, we still fundamentally understand very little. Y’know? We aren’t even sure if it’s water in this lake (I.e. what is the “material” of consciousness), we aren’t sure the source of the lake (underground spring? Mountain runoff? Rain? Etc - to continue the analogy is the source just…”random chance”? A panpsychic universe? God? Etc).
Also, I think consciousness must be recognized as a “special” state of matter. Special in the sense that we have no clear theories on the “switch” so-to-speak which delineates “conscious matter” and “unconscious matter” (even just saying “electrical impulses” misses important nuances of the cutting edge research in the field). Many recent mainstream theories suggest the existence of quantum processes underlying consciousness (you’ve likely heard something about this, “microtubules” as these quantum-processors are called). Also, as sheldrake points out in the above linked video iirc, to call consciousness an “illusion” or “delusion” doesn’t cut it - those notions, comically, presuppose a consciousness to be deluded and thus can be rejected as “explanations” or “solutions” to the Hard Problem.
We can talk about “speech centers” of the brain, “motor centers” and so. But we can also survive a hemispherectomy (i.e. leaving the patient with just a single functioning hemisphere of the brain - and according to reports he was still “him” after the procedure). Yes of course the “seat” of consciousness is by all indications “the brain”, but I don’t think there is justification to claim that consciousness is an exclusively material thing local to, limited to, constrained to - the brain. For a bunch of reasons which people far smarter than me have theorized about and scientifically demonstrated, some of which I hoped to expose people to through these two lectures/videos.
I feel like we all conceptually understand that our consciousness is non-physical (the famous line about “how much does a thought weigh?”) - it seems obvious (to me atleast) though that our thoughts / consciousness / feelings are not strictly “physical”, “material” things, thus the need for an explanation for the non-material aspects of the phenomena we call “consciousness”
TLDR - Just to boil that all down (sorry for the ramble it’s just how I communicate lol):
Operating under the best mainstream theories of the day, consciousness appears to have non-materialist aspects. Even if we imagine consciousness is nothing more than the “interference pattern” (trying to analogize) of billions or trillions of neuronal logic gates, we still observe non-local, seemingly non-material/non-physical aspects of consciousness which can’t (currently, according to some perspectives) be explained with a materialist model. Lastly and most importantly, consciousness is a “special” state of matter which can’t be dismissed as “illusion” because, as Sheldrake deftly points out, illusion presupposes a consciousness to experience the illusion
Again, sorry for the fkn novel lol. Heavy rain got in the way of anything more productive lmao.
Sorry if this isn't nearly as comprehensive as your reply,, I only have so much time to spread around, but I do appreciate the olive branch, so thanks for that too.
However - I think that same acknowledgement should, simultaneously, recognize that while we’ve kind of… “mapped the shores of the lake called consciousness” through the last hundred years of research and advancements, we still fundamentally understand very little. Y’know?
Briefly I think that is our major disconnect. Because my perspective on the state of the cognitive research and investigating the physical mechanistic basis of our awareness is that we have barely even begun to scratch the surface, even after decades of chipping away at it, but the little we have seen under the surface looks promising. So to me it isn't an obvious necessity to start looking elsewhere yet to explain the consciousness we experience.
To maybe make the metaphor even more convoluted, from a materialist perspective of understanding the brain, we've opened a handful of doors and found a few fragments of what might be the answer to consciousness, but I can still see far more doors still unopened, lining a corridor I that can't even see the end of. And I'm more about getting down that hallway and opening the rest of the doors first, before we start digging up the foundations looking for the rest of the answer.
I’ll start by saying thank you, for your words and for what you freely admit in the hopes of common understanding. I too freely admit I’ve taken a somewhat defensive posture in this thread to what I’ve perceived as much unjustified hostility (though I understand where you’re coming from if you were to say something like “as the person presenting an idea which is quite far outside of the mainstream, it’s incumbent upon you to explain things and facilitate a smooth discussion” - you’re totally right, and I admittedly failed at / neglected to adequately explain the status of the “Hard Problem” of consciousness - I just think that on top of that there was unjustified hostility, terseness, dismissiveness, etc)
So with all that being said, thanks again for the genuine attempts at discussion. Even if we don’t always start on common ground, you’re obviously not being trying to be dismissive which I appreciate.
So, to the crux:
Right - and so, the question becomes “what does the data/observations say about consciousness?”
It should go without saying that by suggesting a non-physical aspect of consciousness (non-“materialist”), one is by no means denying the material aspects of consciousness right. Of course, you know, brain trauma leading to brain-damage, brain-death, or death itself are obvious realities. Same with brain scans and our attempts to “map the brain”/“map our consciousness in the brain”, and a million other clear indications of the materialist nature/aspects of consciousness. That all goes without saying, and everything in this discussion is (ideally) taking that as a foundation to build on.
However - I think that same acknowledgement should, simultaneously, recognize that while we’ve kind of… “mapped the shores of the lake called consciousness” through the last hundred years of research and advancements, we still fundamentally understand very little. Y’know? We aren’t even sure if it’s water in this lake (I.e. what is the “material” of consciousness), we aren’t sure the source of the lake (underground spring? Mountain runoff? Rain? Etc - to continue the analogy is the source just…”random chance”? A panpsychic universe? God? Etc).
Also, I think consciousness must be recognized as a “special” state of matter. Special in the sense that we have no clear theories on the “switch” so-to-speak which delineates “conscious matter” and “unconscious matter” (even just saying “electrical impulses” misses important nuances of the cutting edge research in the field). Many recent mainstream theories suggest the existence of quantum processes underlying consciousness (you’ve likely heard something about this, “microtubules” as these quantum-processors are called). Also, as sheldrake points out in the above linked video iirc, to call consciousness an “illusion” or “delusion” doesn’t cut it - those notions, comically, presuppose a consciousness to be deluded and thus can be rejected as “explanations” or “solutions” to the Hard Problem.
We can talk about “speech centers” of the brain, “motor centers” and so. But we can also survive a hemispherectomy (i.e. leaving the patient with just a single functioning hemisphere of the brain - and according to reports he was still “him” after the procedure). Yes of course the “seat” of consciousness is by all indications “the brain”, but I don’t think there is justification to claim that consciousness is an exclusively material thing local to, limited to, constrained to - the brain. For a bunch of reasons which people far smarter than me have theorized about and scientifically demonstrated, some of which I hoped to expose people to through these two lectures/videos.
I feel like we all conceptually understand that our consciousness is non-physical (the famous line about “how much does a thought weigh?”) - it seems obvious (to me atleast) though that our thoughts / consciousness / feelings are not strictly “physical”, “material” things, thus the need for an explanation for the non-material aspects of the phenomena we call “consciousness”
TLDR - Just to boil that all down (sorry for the ramble it’s just how I communicate lol):
Operating under the best mainstream theories of the day, consciousness appears to have non-materialist aspects. Even if we imagine consciousness is nothing more than the “interference pattern” (trying to analogize) of billions or trillions of neuronal logic gates, we still observe non-local, seemingly non-material/non-physical aspects of consciousness which can’t (currently, according to some perspectives) be explained with a materialist model. Lastly and most importantly, consciousness is a “special” state of matter which can’t be dismissed as “illusion” because, as Sheldrake deftly points out, illusion presupposes a consciousness to experience the illusion
Again, sorry for the fkn novel lol. Heavy rain got in the way of anything more productive lmao.
Sorry if this isn't nearly as comprehensive as your reply,, I only have so much time to spread around, but I do appreciate the olive branch, so thanks for that too.
Briefly I think that is our major disconnect. Because my perspective on the state of the cognitive research and investigating the physical mechanistic basis of our awareness is that we have barely even begun to scratch the surface, even after decades of chipping away at it, but the little we have seen under the surface looks promising. So to me it isn't an obvious necessity to start looking elsewhere yet to explain the consciousness we experience.
To maybe make the metaphor even more convoluted, from a materialist perspective of understanding the brain, we've opened a handful of doors and found a few fragments of what might be the answer to consciousness, but I can still see far more doors still unopened, lining a corridor I that can't even see the end of. And I'm more about getting down that hallway and opening the rest of the doors first, before we start digging up the foundations looking for the rest of the answer.