Does Consciousness Extend Beyond Brains? - The 2023 Holberg Debate

Reply to Corvus

Quoting Corvus

Do you agree with these speakers' points? Why or why not.

We have an empirical reductionist (Seth) arguing with two transcendentalists. I prefer the reductionist, but I think there are better ways of addressing the hard problem naturalistically than Seth’s representationalist-computational approach. It still leaves us with an inner vs outer gap of map vs territory, the model vs what is modeled. It is not interactional enough, too focused on correspondence and not enough on enaction, movement and embodiment.

Quoting Joshs

It still leaves us with an inner vs outer gap of map vs territory, the model vs what is modeled. It is not interactional enough, too focused on correspondence and not enough on enaction, movement and embodiment.

What would be your explanations or arguments on the gaps and the model and modeled?

Quoting Corvus

What would be your explanations or arguments on the gaps and the model and modeled?

Sensory-motor embodied enactivist approaches to perception and consciousness are based on Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology of perception. Evan Thompson explains:

“ Whereas physical structures, such as a soap bubble, obtain equilibrium in relation to actual physical condi-
tions of force and pressure, living systems seek equilibrium, in Merleau-Ponty’s words, “with respect to conditions which are only virtual and which the system itself brings into existence; when the [system] . . . executes a work beyond its proper limits and constitutes a proper milieu for itself.”

“ Thus, Merleau-Ponty says, whereas physical structures can be expressed by a law, living structures have to be comprehended in relation to norms: “each organism, in the presence of a given milieu, has its optimal conditions of activity and its proper manner of realizing equilibrium,”and every living being “modifiesits milieu according to the internal norms of its activity.”

“...autopoiesis (in a broad sense that includes adapativity) is the “self-production of an inside that also specifies an outside to which it is normatively related,” and thus that autopoiesis is best seen as the “dynamic co-emergence of interiority and exteriority.” “the (self) generation of an inside is ontologically prior to the dichotomy in- out. It is the inside that generates the asymmetry and it is in relation to this inside that an outside can be established.”

Reply to Corvus

Clearly consciousness extends beyond the brain due to the simple fact that brains aren’t conscious. Consciousness is a direct one-to-one ratio with conscious beings, meaning that it both extends to the limits of, and must be reduced to, the being itself. As a description of conscious beings, consciousness and the being are in fact one-and-the-same.

I believe that consciousness can express itself through different mediums. The consciousness of a plant for example, would not be the consciousness of a human. Same as the consciousness of a fly or a dog. Consciousness can only be identified by behaviors, as the internal experience of being consciousness is impossible for any other being to experience. As such, we can see several behaviors apart from human brains that convey consciousness.

I fully believe that AI will have consciousness as well. Will it be the same as a human brain? Likely not. As for consciousness existing outside of some physical medium, that is currently impossible. There has never been any evidence demonstrating consciousness existing apart from physical reality, only conjectures and imagination.

Quoting Joshs

Sensory-motor embodied enactivist approaches to perception and consciousness are based on Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology of perception. Evan Thompson explains:

Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology of perception also seem to addressing the physical body as the foundation of consciousness, which Seth seems to be agreeing. But M-Ponty seems to be adding the sensory-motor mechanism in the perceptual system as the central elements and principles for the operation, which gives more detailed explanation on the origins and workings of consciousness. I am not much familiar with Merleau-Ponty's Philosophy of Perception at this point of time, but will be reading his works soon, and trying to find more about them.

I liked Anil Seth's presentation. Although, as you pointed out, he didn't give clear explanations on the gap and the model and modeled issues, but he has been making many compelling points in his presentation and talks, which were interesting. Here is another short video for his talk on "Your brain hallucinates your conscious reality."

Quoting NOS4A2

Clearly consciousness extends beyond the brain due to the simple fact that brains aren’t conscious.

If brains aren't conscious, then what is consciousness?

Quoting NOS4A2

As a description of conscious beings, consciousness and the being are in fact one-and-the-same.

What do you mean by the being? Is AI a being? Is the world a being? Is God a being?

Quoting Philosophim

I fully believe that AI will have consciousness as well. Will it be the same as a human brain? Likely not.

How would AI consciousness be different from that of human consciousness?

fyi – I'm pressed for time and the video "debate" is too long so I didn't bother with it: it's a very old topic, however, so I'm confident no new arguments were raised or now data was presented.

Quoting Corvus

Is the mind more than the physical brain?

It is like any self-organizing (i.e. emergent) whole system is more than its constituent parts (i.e. nested patterns of functional nodes, relationships & structural-environmental constraints). Based on overwhelmingly extant physical evidence, every mind(ing) is embodied in an ecologically situated, or conditioned, brain; other than subjective anecdotes (corroborated only in folk psychological / spiritual terms & customs), there is not any publicly demonstrable contrary evidence of (e.g.) 'disembodied cognition' or 'nonphysical minds'. Also, assuming that 'mind-body duality' is incoherent for some reasons discussed in this old post ...

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/636391

Is this the end of physicalism?

No.

Quoting Corvus

I fully believe that AI will have consciousness as well. Will it be the same as a human brain? Likely not.
— Philosophim
How would AI consciousness be different from that of human consciousness?

By the fact it is not the same material as a brain. You can play the same melody on different instruments, but it will have its own sound and feel.

Quoting Philosophim

By the fact it is not the same material as a brain. You can play the same melody on different instruments, but it will have its own sound and feel.

Indeed. Different material. Different capabilities. Different senses. Different history. An existence as different from ours as can be. If a consciousness can come from there, it's impossible to estimate how different from ours it would be.

Quoting Philosophim

By the fact it is not the same material as a brain. You can play the same melody on different instruments, but it will have its own sound and feel.

Could a rock be conscious? A shifting sand dune? A car engine?

Quoting RogueAI

By the fact it is not the same material as a brain. You can play the same melody on different instruments, but it will have its own sound and feel.
— Philosophim

Could a rock be conscious? A shifting sand dune? A car engine?

To our current knowledge, no. We really can only evaluate consciousness by behavior, not by subjective experience. To objective evaluations, rocks, sand dunes, nor car engines exhibit any behavior we would call conscious. Consciousness is generally viewed as the ability for something to be proactive, such as plan ahead or actively plot a future outcome.

Consciousness can of course have different degrees. A crow for example can think to put rocks into a beaker of water to make what's in the water move up higher until it can grab it. Dogs can be trained and understand commands. Humans are not some separate and magical species that exists apart from all of nature. We are part of nature, just possibly the most refined and successful consciousness on this planet.

Quoting Philosophim

The consciousness of a plant for example, would not be the consciousness of a human.

What behavior is the plant doing that would lead you to think it might be conscious?

Reply to RogueAI A quote from a text on classical metaphysics about the distinction between living and non-living particulars:

Eric D Perl Thinking Being - Introduction to Metaphysics in the Classical Tradition:All things, even inanimate ones, must have some form, or they would not be anything at all. But living things have a distinctive and superior kind of form, called ‘soul.’* For a living thing is far more integrated, more one whole, than a non-living thing. The unity, and hence the identity and the being, of a non-living thing is little more than the contiguity of its parts. If a rock, for example, is divided, we simply have two smaller rocks. In a living thing, on the other hand, the members of its body constitute an organic whole, such that each part both conditions and is conditioned by the other parts and the whole.** A living thing is thus one being to a far greater extent than a non-living thing. It evinces a higher degree of unity, of integration, of formal identity, and its soul is this very integration of its parts into one whole. As such the soul is the reality of the living thing, that in virtue of which it is what it is and so is a being: “For the reality is the cause of being to all things, and to live, for living things, is to be, and the soul is the cause and principle of these” (De An. ?.4, 415b13–14). Life in living things, then, is not a character superadded to their mere being. Rather, life is their being, the higher, more intense mode of being proper to living things as distinct from others.

The distinction between living and non-living things is therefore not a mere ‘horizontal’ distinction, as if all things are equally beings, of which some are living and others are not. It is rather a ‘vertical’ or hierarchical distinction: a living thing is more a being than a non-living thing, in that it is more integrated, more a whole, more one thing. (p110)

For Aristotle, the hierarchical ordering of the different kinds of beings is based on the extent to which form predominates over matter in each. Non-living things have the lowest degree of form, of unifying selfhood, of activity that proceeds from themselves. Although they have some form, some nature, some behaviors of their own, without which they would be nothing at all, they come closer than all other things to being purely material, purely passive. A living thing, characterized by organic unity and the ability to nourish, maintain, and reproduce itself, is far more one, more active, exhibits a far higher degree of formal identity. A sentient living thing, an animal, exercises not only these life-functions but also consciousness, which, as the capacity to receive forms without matter, is a still higher degree of formality, of immateriality. A human being, in turn, has not only life and sense but the capacity for the wholly immaterial activity of intellection, which has as its content, and thus is one with, purely immaterial ideas. (p117)

*Note that the term translated as 'soul' is the Greek 'psyche', which is, of course, the root of the modern words 'psyche' and 'psychology'. Indeed the passage in which the term occurs could equally use the term 'mind', with the caveat that it obviously would not mean 'conscious' or 'rational' mind. Perhaps ‘capable of intentional action’ might be a way of parsing it.

The point of this passage is to make an ontological distinction between living and non-living particulars, which is a distinction based on different ways or modes of being.

Quoting Philosophim

Humans are not some separate and magical species that exists apart from all of nature.

Try teaching the concept 'prime' to your dog. With the advent of language, reason and symbolic thinking, h. sapiens crosses a threshhold which marks it off from the rest of the animal kingdom. I say this is another ontological distinction.

Quoting Wayfarer

Humans are not some separate and magical species that exists apart from all of nature.
— Philosophim

Try teaching the concept 'prime' to your dog.

You may want to read the rest of what I wrote. I noted we are possibly the most conscious beings on the planet. What you are describing is advanced intelligence. That doesn't mean simple intelligence doesn't exist, just like simple consciousness doesn't exist. There are humans with enough cognitive impairment that they cannot learn what 'prime' is either. Same with young children until they reach a certain age. Does this mean they aren't conscious Wayfarer?

Quoting RogueAI

What behavior is the plant doing that would lead you to think it might be conscious?

Its a really good question. Right now, its a debate. And I think a better way to summarize it is not to give you a 'plants are conscious' argument, but an argument that they aren't.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8052213/

At the least scroll down and check out table 1 for some arguments over the years. I have no skin in the game one way or another at this point. A part of me leans a little more towards that side that plants have some type of consciousness, but not enough for me to say, "Definitely".

Quoting Philosophim

There are humans with enough cognitive impairment that they cannot learn what 'prime' is either. Same with young children until they reach a certain age. Does this mean they aren't conscious Wayfarer?

Everyone, indeed every being, deserves to be treated humanely, but that says nothing about the capability that distinguishes h. Sapiens from other species. I think one of the unfortunate consequences of popular Darwinism is the myth of h. Sapiens being ‘just another species’. There’s a leap - an ontological gulf - between h. Sapiens and other species. We’re of a different kind.

Quoting Philosophim

A part of me leans a little more towards that side that plants have some type of consciousness, but not enough for me to say, "Definitely".

I understand. Don't you think plant behaviors could be replicated by fairly simple machines (or a system of pretty simple machines)?

Quoting Wayfarer

I think one of the unfortunate consequences of popular Darwinism is the myth of h. Sapiens being ‘just another species’. There’s a leap - an ontological gulf - between h. Sapiens and other species. We’re of a different kind.

Look at the gulf between a bat and a fly. The gulf between an octopus and a platypus. A dolphin and a fish. We're all of different kinds.

Quoting RogueAI

A part of me leans a little more towards that side that plants have some type of consciousness, but not enough for me to say, "Definitely".
— Philosophim

I understand. Don't you think plant behaviors could be replicated by fairly simple machines (or a system of pretty simple machines)?

I don't know enough to make that judgment call. First, we're still learning so much about neurology and systems. I'm sure we can make a simulation, just like we can simulate human behavior. But to capture the actual full behavior of what a specific creature would do in every instance may still be beyond the limitations of hardware and software at this time.

Quoting Philosophim

Look at the gulf between a bat and a fly.

One that neither a bat nor a fly will ever know.

Quoting RogueAI

Don't you think plant behaviors could be replicated by fairly simple machines (or a system of pretty simple machines)?

You've heard of John Conway's 'Game of Life?' It was a 1970 program that replicates many of the salient features of evolutionary development by use of a fairly simple algorithm. So such behaviours can be emulated quite easily using software, but actually creating an organic molecule that replicates like living organisms is a very different thing. You can symbollically represent the processes, but actually making them work is another thing.

Quoting Wayfarer

the myth of h. Sapiens being ‘just another species’.

:monkey:

So that oldtime mythmaker Charlie D. got it wrong: "h. sapiens" is something other than an "evolved" animal species (i.e. we are more than discursively-delusional, semi-eusocial, bald primates), is that it? Well, most bacteria and viruses, Wayfarer, as well as large land predators, seem to have not yet gotten the memo "Don't Eat Them". :mask:

We’re of a different kind.

Agreed – a "different kind" of species that fetishizes its imaginary differences which do not make an existential difference – "h. sapiens" is, no matter the ontological stories we flatter our fleeting smallness with, fundamentally inseparable from nature like all other natural species.

Quoting Wayfarer

Try teaching the concept 'prime' to your dog.

C'mon, Wayf, that's our limitation, not the dog's. :smirk:

How about you (we) try to learn from a hound how to follow a rabbit's or lost child's days-old scent through a teeming woodland; or learn from a bat how to echolocate; or learn from a cuttlefish how to continuously camouflage themselves unseen against any background while moving from place to place; or try learning from bees how to build a beehive; or learning from a cat how to play with utter abandon with a dangling string ...

Reply to Corvus

Quoting Corvus

Here is another short video for his talk on "Your brain hallucinates your conscious reality."

Here is an argument for why your brain does not ‘hallucinate’ your conscious reality.

…to perceive the world isn’t to hallucinate and get things right. To perceive is to explore the world with your sensing and moving body. Perception creates meaning through sensorimotor exploration. You don’t get a being with a sense of self by taking a hallucinating brain and tacking on some sensory inputs and motor outputs. You get a being with a sense of self by taking a brain with a capacity for imagination—for imaging its past and future—and embedding it within a sensing and moving body. Perception, therefore, isn’t online hallucination; it’s sensorimotor engagement with the world. Dreaming isn’t offline hallucination; it’s spontaneous imagination during sleep. We aren’t dreaming machines but imaginative beings. We don’t hallucinate at the world; we imaginatively perceive it.

Merleau-Ponty maintains that the relation between self and world is not primarily that of subject to object, but rather what he calls, following Heidegger, being-in-the-world. For a bodily subject it is not possible to specify what the subject is in abstraction from the world, nor is it possible to specify what the world is in abstraction from the subject: “The world is inseparable from the subject, but from a subject which is nothing but a project of the world, and the subject is inseparable from the world, but from a world which the subject itself projects”. To belong to the world in this way means that our primary way of relating to things is neither purely sensory and reflexive, nor cognitive or intellectual, but rather bodily and skillful. Merleau-Ponty calls this kind of bodily intentionality “motor intentionality”. His example is grasping or intentionally taking hold of an object. In grasping something we direct ourselves toward it, and thus our action is intentional. But the action does not refer to the thing by representing its objective and determinate features; it refers to it pragmatically in the light of a contextual motor goal effected by one's body.

I highly recommend Thompson’s paper for a more detailed
introduction to this thinking.

Quoting 180 Proof

Try teaching the concept 'prime' to your dog.
— Wayfarer
C'mon, Wayf, that's our limitation, not the dog's. :smirk:

If the dog had the capacity to understand mathematics, and it was our inability to teach it that was the problem, it would not need teaching any more than we did. It would have developed mathematics as we did.

Quoting 180 Proof

How about you (we) try to learn from a hound how to follow a rabbit's or lost child's days-old scent through a teeming woodland; or learn from a bat how to echolocate; or learn from a cuttlefish how to continuously camouflage themselves unseen against any background while moving from place to place

We know we cannot do these things. The dog doesn't know it doesn't understand primes. Although we know very well what these animals are doing, we cannot do those things because of differences in our physiology, our senses. The dog cannot learn primes because it doesn't have the intellectual capacity to even know it doesn't understand primes, much less understand them.

We understand echolocation enough that, using our intelligence and technology, we have developed sonar and GPR.

I hadn't considered a device to let us follow scents. Google brings up many articles about robot bloodhounds. I was expecting something like a metal detector.

Quoting 180 Proof

or learn from a cuttlefish how to continuously camouflage themselves unseen against any background while moving from place to place

An amazing sight! Do you suppose it knows it is doing that? Do you suppose it could learn the least mathematical concept, and the problem is our limited ability to teach?


Quoting 180 Proof

or learning from a cat how to play with utter abandon with a dangling string

We think it's adorable playfulness. They are actually learning how to fight and kill when they do this. People put as much time into that as any other creature. But I suspect animals actually play. I've had dogs that fetched without me making any attempt to teach them. I suppose there could be a reason along the lines of cats learning to fight and kill when "playing" with string, but I'm willing to assume there is playing. The reason they can fetch, seemingly, endlessly, every day of their lives is because they lack the intelligence to become bored. They don't know they're doing the same thing over and over, or think of the repetitiveness. They naturally so what zen students strive to do. They are totally in the moment, every moment, with no desire to be doing anything else. (Until you stop. :lol: )

Reply to Patterner

Quoting Patterner

If the dog had the capacity to understand mathematics, and it was our inability to teach it that was the problem, it would not need teaching any more than we did. It would have developed mathematics as we did

I agree animals dont learn formal mathematics, but that’s. it say they don’t have mathematical capabilities.

Reply to Patterner

Quoting Patterner

If the dog had the capacity to understand mathematics, and it was our inability to teach it that was the problem, it would not need teaching any more than we did. It would have developed mathematics as we did

I agree animals dont learn formal mathematics, but that’s not to say they don’t have mathematical capabilities.

We often think of mathematical ability as being uniquely human, but in fact, scientists have found that many animal species—including lions, chimpanzees, birds, bees, ants, and fish—seem to possess at least a rudimentary counting ability or number sense. Crows can understand the concept of zero. And a study published in April found that both stingrays and cichlids can take this rudimentary "numerosity" to the next level, performing simple addition and subtraction for a small number of objects (in the range of 1 to 5).

Reply to Joshs
Watership Down? :grin:
I've never thought about it, or looked up what has been said about it. Maybe there is a difference between their ability to tell the difference between numbers of objects up to 5 and counting. If they knew they were counting up to 5, why would they stop there? Although I can't think of what it could be, maybe the recognition that they have is not any kind of math? i'm not even sure how to phrase my sentence.

Funny about the crows. Europeans never came up with 0 on their own. :rofl:

Quoting Wayfarer

Look at the gulf between a bat and a fly.
— Philosophim

Neither a bat nor a fly will ever know that.

But you understood the point that the intellectual gap between a bat and a fly is as wide as the intellectual gap of a human and a bat right? The point is that us being a 'different kind' from other animals is simply the same pattern repeated in nature again and again. Having an intellectual or consciousness gap between other animals does not mean we are separate from them. Some thing will be at the top in the animal kingdom, and it appears that its us.

I mean, have you ever seen the comparison between a human brain and other mammals? https://news.wisc.edu/study-shows-differences-between-brains-of-primates-humans-apes-and-monkeys-are-small-but-significant/ We're not an alien species to the planet by any means.

Reply to Patterner Quoting Patterner

Funny about the crows. Europeans never came up with 0 on their own. :rofl:

I’m not planning on swapping my calculator for a chiclid. I dont even know what a chicklid is.

Quoting Philosophim

us being a 'different kind' from other animals is simply the same pattern repeated in nature again and again. Having an intellectual or consciousness gap between other animals does not mean we are separate from them.

I agree.

In fact we do share Real Consciousness with all other organisms once you remove the uniquely human experience of Mind from the equation.

Real Consciousness is an organism presently and actively aware-ing ("its"--- there is no "it") be-ing ("in" ---there is no separation of organism and world) the environment, having evolved for survival. A human aware-ing others for avoiding, consuming, mating and bonding. A plant aware-ing wetness and sunlight for growing towards. And so on.

If that is the extent of Real Consciousness why then the inquiry into Mind, Being, Reality? That is our "fall." The pursuit of knowledge over living (Genesis reference may not be coincidence but I am not claiming divine revelation either).

Because out of humans aware-ing Consciousness emerged the astronomical surplus use of Images for survival, therefore, over eons Language and an autonomous system of constructed Consciousness emerged. With that, meaning displaced survival as the drive. Constructing meaning in Time, or becoming, displaced being present. And much more I won't get into now.

But this Fictional Consciousness emerged, Mind; one which we construct and cling to at the expense of the Organic Reality our fellow creatures enjoy. And from that, our human made suffering, and the corresponding need to construct meaning to apply to our environment, incuding, inter alia, the Subject I, difference, Reason, and the linear Narrative form.

Hence what is Mind? It must be, we conclude, by necessity of the structure itself (Mind), something which extends beyond the brain. It must be a privelged Reality, which animals don't have. When really we have their Consciousness, and what we call Mind is a Fiction. And so on.

Reply to Corvus

Quoting Joshs

Sensory-motor embodied enactivist approaches to perception and consciousness are based on Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology of perception

If Descarte's Real Self is an “I am,” a being within Being, unwittingly Fabricated and Fictional; and if—standing upon the shoulders of those, like Hegel, Husserl, and Heidegger, recognizing the Fiction of a being within yhe being, and resolving it with not a being within, but a disclosing of being, a becoming—Merleau-Ponty took the Real Being all the way to recognizing the Reality of the Body, but never getting over the obstacle of becoming, stopping short at I can.

I think we are heading in the direction of liberating Body from its misplacement; emancipating the Real-so-called-Self, once and for all, from the Fictions of both being within and becoming, and understang that it is not I am, not I can, not “I” anything wherein Being is accessed. Being is just the “is”; and one step more, to be precise, since “is” is an artificial “capturing” of Reality by Language, like a photograph, re-presenting, a construction of the Being within or of the Becoming, Mind; the Real self is just “Is-ing.”

Sensation—seeing, hearing, external feeling/touch, smelling, tasting, internal feeling/mood, image-ing—are is-ing.

Perception, takes sensation and in imperceptible time displaces it with meaning. Not discovers Real meaning. Where does the meaning come from? We construct it out of available Signifiers stored in memory operating in accordance with an evolved set of Laws and Dynamics, following sometimes lightning speed dialectic, and settling at belief, also a mechanism of the Fictional structure seen by us as Truth.

Quoting Philosophim

But you understood the point that the intellectual gap between a bat and a fly is as wide as the intellectual gap of a human and a bat right? The point is that us being a 'different kind' from other animals is simply the same pattern repeated in nature again and again.

That's not the point at issue, though. Obviously there is massive divergences between species, that is not at issue. I am protesting the tendency to overlook or deny what I see as an obvious fact about h. sapiens - language, reason, tool-making, and the implications of all of that. No, we're not 'an alien species', the biological descent of h. sapiens is abundantly obvious, but with the advent of those capacities, we crossed a threshold beyond what can be understood solely through the lens of biological science.

Reply to Joshs Right?? Lol

Quoting Philosophim

But you understood the point that the intellectual gap between a bat and a fly is as wide as the intellectual gap of a human and a bat right? The point is that us being a 'different kind' from other animals is simply the same pattern repeated in nature again and again.

The intellectual gap between any two species of animal may be a gap of degree along a spectrum. I don't know what differences of type they're might be. I suppose there could be differences of type between, for example, an animal that does not have neurons, and an animal that does. Although I guess it's possible that it's the same type of thinking, just done more efficiently. I just don't know enough about the subject.

I don't need to know much about the subject to know that the intellectual gap between humans and any other species may be of degree in some ways, but there is also a difference of type. No other species has the slightest clue about what stars are, ever wonders about it, or coyotes be educated aboutit. No other species wonders what fossils are, or would no matter how hard we tried to teach them. Much less radiometric dating.

How many dolphins get fishing line caught on their dorsal fin, which works it's way through, horrifyingly, severing the fin. As smart as dolphins are, they don't help each other in these situations, putting a sharp rock or shell in their mouth and cutting the line, helping it maneuver so that the line gets caught on something so it snaps, or whatever.

There is no end to the examples of things we do easily that no other species any condition of. no, we are not from a different planet. But we are different. We are unique.

Quoting Wayfarer

That's not the point at issue, though. Obviously there is massive divergences between species, that is not at issue. I am protesting the tendency to overlook or deny what I see as an obvious fact about h. sapiens - language, reason, tool-making, and the implications of all of that.

I don't believe I'm denying how unique we are, or that we are at the pinnacle of intelligence for living beings.

Quoting Wayfarer

No, we're not 'an alien species', the biological descent of h. sapiens is abundantly obvious, but with the advent of those capacities, we crossed a threshold beyond what can be understood solely through the lens of biological science.

What threshold is this that is unique to human beings? There are limits to our current understanding of many other beings through the lens of biological science as well. We can analyze the brain of a fly, but we can't duplicate it or have a full understanding of how it works. Then there's behavioral science for creatures as well that goes beyond biology.

Quoting Patterner

I don't need to know much about the subject to know that the intellectual gap between humans and any other species may be of degree in some ways, but there is also a difference of type.

Both the degree and type of intelligence shift between a dolphin and a plain fish is monumental.

Quoting Patterner

No other species has the slightest clue about what stars are, ever wonders about it, or coyotes be educated aboutit. No other species wonders what fossils are, or would no matter how hard we tried to teach them.

And nothing I've stated denies this.

Quoting Patterner

There is no end to the examples of things we do easily that no other species any condition of. no, we are not from a different planet. But we are different. We are unique.

Many species are different and unique. My point is that our differences and uniqueness do not set us apart from nature. We are just another species. We are not exempt from needing to eat, drink, reproduce, and die. We are made out of carbon and DNA. We are not the only beings with consciousness. We are mammals, and have mammalian brains. Being the pinnacle of something does not mean you are not built upon the things that let you rise to the top.

Quoting Philosophim

What threshold is this that is unique to human beings?

As I said - language, reason, technology, and so on. H. sapiens is able to interrogate the nature of meaning and being in a way that other species cannot.

Quoting Philosophim

We are just another species

You're familiar with the term 'biological reductionism'? Definition here.

Quoting 180 Proof

Based on overwhelmingly extant physical evidence, every mind(ing) is embodied in an ecologically situated, or conditioned, brain; other than subjective anecdotes (corroborated only in folk psychological / spiritual terms & customs), there is not any publicly demonstrable, contrary evidence of (e.g.) 'disembodied cognition' or 'nonphysical minds'.

Your point sounds like mind is subjective in nature as well as objective in its capabilities, which I agree. But do you agree that mind can see things beyond what is visible?

Quoting 180 Proof

Also, assuming 'mind-body duality' is incoherent for some reasons discussed in this old post ...

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/636391

This thread is not exactly about mind-body duality or dualism.

Quoting 180 Proof

Is this the end of physicalism?
No.

Why?

Quoting Philosophim

By the fact it is not the same material as a brain.

So, what different material is mind of AI? In what sense is mind of AI different from human mind?

Quoting Philosophim

You can play the same melody on different instruments, but it will have its own sound and feel.

I am not sure if this is a proper comparison. Mind has its own will, volition, intentions and desires as well as emotions, feelings, perceptions and reasonings. It is a totality of one's whole mental events and operations.

How do you play minds on different instrument? Is mind something that is clearly defined as a piece of music which has melodies and tunes? Does mind have the start and end like a piece of music?

We are more interested in finding out what is mind made of, if it is physical in its origin or something else in its origin? What is mind's scope and limitation? What is mind's capabilities? What can AI mind do where human minds cannot? and vice versa? Can mind see things beyond what is visible, hence extendable?

Quoting Joshs

Here is an argument for why your brain does not ‘hallucinate’ your conscious reality.

…to perceive the world isn’t to hallucinate and get things right. To perceive is to explore the world with your sensing and moving body.

The main problem with sensorimotor theory would be the fact that with the same input to the sense organs or sensibilities of different individuals, the behavioural and mental eventual output of the each individuals can be vastly different. And also the same behavioural output can be achieved by different sensorimotor inputs.

Another difficulty of the sensorimotor theory of mind would be, that there are many different factors which affects the state of mind. And it cannot explain most subconscious or unconscious mental events.

Quoting ENOAH

Perception, takes sensation and in imperceptible time displaces it with meaning. Not discovers Real meaning. Where does the meaning come from? We construct it out of available Signifiers stored in memory operating in accordance with an evolved set of Laws and Dynamics, following sometimes lightning speed dialectic, and settling at belief, also a mechanism of the Fictional structure seen by us as Truth.

If meanings are something that we construct ourselves from the signifiers stored in memory. and truths are a product of a belief and mechanism of the fictional structures, then how do we come to the common agreement on these values and properties. You say the memory operates in accordance with an evolved set of Laws and Dynamics, but that doesn't seem to be a warrant for the solid consistent foundation for any sort of rational and consistent universal principles, which tends to suggest the strong hint of possibility of the meanings and truths committed into unreliable relativity.

Quoting ENOAH

If Descarte's Real Self is an “I am,” a being within Being, unwittingly Fabricated and Fictional; and if—standing upon the shoulders of those, like Hegel, Husserl, and Heidegger, recognizing the Fiction of a being within yhe being, and resolving it with not a being within,

Why is it Fabricated and Fictional? What is the evidence for "I am" is a fiction? Are you not you are?

Reply to Corvus

Quoting Corvus

The main problem with sensorimotor theory would be the fact that with the same input to the sense organs or sensibilities of different individuals, the behavioural and mental eventual output of the each individuals can be vastly different. And also the same behavioural output can be achieved by different sensorimotor inputs.

It can’t be vastly different, because individuals are not solipsisms. Embodied and phenomenological interpretations consider the embeddedness of the embodied subject in a world of linguistic cultural practices to be of fundamental importance to the understanding of behavior.

“…intersubjective (social and cultural) factors already have an effect on our perception and understanding of the world, even in the immediacy of our embodied and instrumental copings with the environment.”(Shaun Gallagher)

Sense always co-implies body, and subjectivity belongs to intersubjectivity. Being in the world for Merleau-Ponty is occupying a position within a shared gestalt (the same world for everyone). I am primordially situated in an intersubjective world.

” My friend Paul and I point out to each other certain details of the landscape; and Paul's finger, which is pointing out the church tower, is not a finger-for-me that I think of as orientated towards a church-tower-for-me, it is Paul's finger which itself shows me the tower that Paul sees, just as, conversely, when I make a movement towards some point in the landscape that I can see, I do not imagine that I am producing in Paul, in virtue of some pre-established harmony, inner visions merely analogous to mine: I believe, on the contrary, that my gestures invade Paul's world and guide his gaze. When I think of Paul, I do not think of a flow of private sensations indirectly related to mine through the medium of interposed signs, but of someone who has a living experience of the same world as mine, as well as the same history, and with whom I am in communication through that world and that history.

“ In the experience of dialogue, there is constituted between the other person and myself a common ground; my thought and his are inter-woven into a single fabric, my words and those of my interlocutor are called forth by the state of the discussion, and they are inserted into a shared operation of which neither of us is the creator. We have here a dual being, where the other is for me no longer a mere bit of behavior in my transcendental field, nor I in his; we are collaborators for each other in consummate reciprocity. Our perspectives merge into each other, and we co-exist through a common world. In the present dialogue, I am freed from myself, for the other person's thoughts are certainly his; they are not of my making, though I do grasp them the moment they come into being, or even anticipate them. And indeed, the objection which my interlocutor raises to what I say draws from me thoughts which I had no idea I possessed, so that at the same time that I lend him thoughts, he reciprocates by making me think too. It is only retrospectively, when I have withdrawn from the dialogue and am recalling it that I am able to reintegrate it into my life and make of it an episode in my private history”.
(Phenomenology of Perception, p.471).

Quoting Corvus

Another difficulty of the sensorimotor theory of mind would be, that there are many different factors which affects the state of mind. And it cannot explain most subconscious or unconscious mental events.

It explains them differently than a psychoanalytic model of the unconscious.

“From the point of view of a phenomenology of the lived body, the unconscious is not an intrapsychic reality residing in the depths "below consciousness". Rather, it surrounds and permeates conscious life, just as in picture puzzles the figure hidden in the background surrounds the foreground, and just as the lived body conceals itself while functioning. Unconscious fixations are like certain restrictions in a person's space of potentialities produced by an implicit but ever-present past which declines to take part in the continuing progress of life. (Thomas Fuchs)

Quoting Philosophim

Both the degree and type of intelligence shift between a dolphin and a plain fish is monumental.

As I said, I don't know anything about this. Would you know what type of intelligence a dolphin has that a fish doesn't? They certainly seem to have more personality.


Quoting Philosophim

And nothing I've stated denies this.

Being the pinnacle of something does not mean you are not built upon the things that let you rise to the top.

You said we're just part of the pattern. But we are unique in these ways. What pattern is uniqueness a part of? I don't know how you will answer about the dolphins and fish. However, since dolphins are not descended from fish, I guess it's possible that there is nothing unique about dolphins. Maybe there is a step-by-step explanation for the difference between the two animals.

However, our abilities seem to be unique. There's no gradual process from the closest thing to us to us. It's a leap of incredible significance.

Obviously, we are from there same planet. We're a result of a lot of the same materials and forces as every other animal and living thing. Our neo-cortex is not unique. All mammals have it. We share 98.8% of our DNA with chimpanzees. So I'm not sure what my point is. :lol:

Quoting Patterner

Obviously, we are from there same planet. We're a result of a lot of the same materials and forces as every other animal and living thing. Our neo-cortex is not unique. All mammals have it. We share 98.8% of our DNA with chimpanzees. So I'm not sure what my point is. :lol:

Ha ha! That's fair. I'm not sure where the disagreement was either. :D

Quoting Wayfarer

What threshold is this that is unique to human beings?
— Philosophim

As I said - language, reason, technology, and so on. H. sapiens is able to interrogate the nature of meaning and being in a way that other species cannot.

My point was there there are other thresholds in other living beings that biological science cannot fully explain at this time.

Quoting Wayfarer

You're familiar with the term 'biological reductionism'? Definition here.

No, and I'm not sure how it fits into the discussion.

Quoting Corvus

By the fact it is not the same material as a brain.
— Philosophim
So, what different material is mind of AI? In what sense is mind of AI different from human mind?

For one its binary programming. It has different limitations and freedoms from neurological thinking. You can scale an AI to use far more energy than one human brain, as well as transfer information from one hardware station to another.

Quoting Corvus

You can play the same melody on different instruments, but it will have its own sound and feel.
— Philosophim
I am not sure if this is a proper comparison. Mind has its own will, volition, intentions and desires as well as emotions, feelings, perceptions and reasonings. It is a totality of one's whole mental events and operations.

Right, that's its own sound and feel. Is your brain the same as your friend's brain? No. You're each different people playing your own version of music or 'mind'.

Quoting Corvus

We are more interested in finding out what is mind made of, if it is physical in its origin or something else in its origin? What is mind's scope and limitation? What is mind's capabilities? What can AI mind do where human minds cannot? and vice versa? Can mind see things beyond what is visible, hence extendable?

We've had the solution for a while now. The animalistic mind is formed from neurons. I tell people this all the time: philosophy of the mind without neuroscience is worthless. Neuroscience has answered most of those questions for some time now. 'You' are and expression of your brain. Your feelings to the matter are irrelevant. If we damage your brain, we will damage your 'consciousness'. We can use drugs to inhibit and improve your mind. And if we kill your brain, your mind dies. Its incontrovertible at this point.

You may be confusing 'sight' by the way. Sight is always a construction of the brain. Did you know that when light enters your eyes the image is upside down? The brain corrects all of that. Again, do not study philosophy to learn about the mind. Study modern day neuroscience. Anyone who doesn't is going to be ignorant.

Perception, therefore, isn’t online hallucination; it’s sensorimotor engagement with the world.

This seems to entirely miss the point. Perception may well be sensorimotor engagement. Experience is absolutely not, and suggestions that it is seem to fly in the face of every position except naive Realism.
The experience of an orange (sight, touch, taste etc...) does not consist in the sensorimotor engagement. It consists in some secondary, brain-generated imagining. So, I don't think the quoted passage quite addresses the issue at hand (re: the previous poster) while outlining an important way in whcih we need to understand our data input.

We aren’t dreaming machines but imaginative beings. We don’t hallucinate at the world; we imaginatively perceive it.

This seems to pretend that "imaginatively perceive' is not the same as 'hallucinate'. Perhaps not a 1:1, but it is extremely close. I guess the difference is that in a True Hallucination there is no "real world" input, but in general perception there is. I'm unsure that Picasso and Caravaggio can be considered to be doing the same 'imagining'.

Quoting Vaskane

New muscle stimulates CNS growth in the brain as well.

So do magic mushrooms ;)

Quoting Philosophim

Ha ha! That's fair. I'm not sure where the disagreement was either. :D

I guess it's this:


Quoting Philosophim

But you understood the point that the intellectual gap between a bat and a fly is as wide as the intellectual gap of a human and a bat right?

Whatever the gap between fly and bat is, I don't think it approaches the gap between bat and human. I don't think the gap between ameba and chimpanzee approaches the gap between chimpanzee and human. I think the intelligence of everything other than us helps them operate in their ecological niche, so they can survive and reproduce. The intellectual approach some species take are more complex than others. Still, survival and reproduction are what their intelligence is about.

Humans intelligence goes indescribably far beyond that of any other species. We think about things no other species thinks about. Things no other species [I]can[/I] think about. Thinking about thinking. About the self. About existence and nonexistence. About - and sometimes purposely about - things that have no bearing on survival or reproduction, or any practical application. No other creature can even conceive of the idea of a telescope, much less build one and rocket it into orbit so it will get a clearer picture outside of the Earth's atmosphere. No other creature is capable of causing an extinction level event. We could make a list of mile long. And I don't mean things we do better than any other species, but things no other species does at all.

Aside from humans, what species has types of intelligence that no other species has? Even if there are different types of intelligence out there in the animal kingdom, there is no other unique type of intelligence aside from the types we have. I think that's far more significant than the difference between a fly and a bat.

Reply to Patterner :clap: :ok:

Quoting Philosophim

You're familiar with the term 'biological reductionism'? Definition here.
— Wayfarer

No, and I'm not sure how it fits into the discussion.

Because it is what you're appealing to by declaring that humans are 'just another species' and that the differences between humans and other species is no more significant than the differences between species, generally. The definition I linked to was as follows:

Biological reductionism: A theoretical approach that aims to explain all social or cultural phenomena in biological terms, denying them any causal autonomy. Twentieth-century incarnations of biological reductionism have relied to varying degrees on Darwin's theory of evolution and principles of natural selection. Within the human sciences, there have been attempts to explain observed differences in group behaviour—such as performance on intelligence tests, rates of mental illness, intergenerational poverty, male dominance or patriarchy, and propensity for crime—as being biologically determined, by claiming that groups have different biological capacities or evolutionary trajectories. The theories of Social Darwinism, eugenics, and sociobiology often involve biological reductionism. A recognition of the importance of biological conditions and human nature need not involve biological reductionism.

Quoting Patterner

Whatever the gap between fly and bat is, I don't think it approaches the gap between bat and human.

Its not about a specific measurement of the gap, its about the fact that the gap is a wide gulf between the two. A mammal can run intellectual circles around a bug. A human can run intellectual circles around a bat.

Quoting Patterner

Humans intelligence goes indescribably far beyond that of any other species. We think about things no other species thinks about. Things no other species can think about.

Right, that's the natural consequence of being the best. Just like an insect can't hope to think like a bat does, a bat can't hope to think like a human does. Are we indescribably different though? We see other forms of intelligence like apes and orangutangs. Its not like we come out of left field like its some form of magic. We're made out of DNA, we have brains that are similar to other mammals, etc.

I don't see a conflict between being the best in intellect, but also not being apart from nature and the rest of existence. A peregrine falcon can see small movement miles up the sky, and swoop up to 200 miles per hour, which seems impossible to me. Just because its the fastest animal in the world, that doesn't mean its a magical bird that's somehow separate from everything else. Nature is very weird, varied, and easily catalogued by DNA, bone structure, and clear patterns of life.

So I'll ask you, why do you think being the most intelligent being keeps us separate from nature? Why do you think it makes us anymore special then just "Being special in being the most intelligent being?"

Quoting Wayfarer

Because it is what you're appealing to by declaring that humans are 'just another species' and that the differences between humans and other species is no more significant than the differences between species, generally.

I'm feeling like you're really not committing to a discussion here, as you are disregarding all of my other points that lead to why I'm saying this. Give me some example that makes humans magic then. Are we composed of something other than DNA? Do we have some type of anatomy that seems completely alien to the planet? It has to be something more than just, "We're the most intelligent species". There is always going to be a most intelligent species, and because it is the most intelligent, it is going to be able to do things other species can't.

Quoting Wayfarer

The definition I linked to was as follows

Yes, I read the definition the first time you linked it and I still don't see how this applies. What specifically am I saying that ties in with that definition?

Quoting Corvus

then how do we come to the common agreement on these values and properties

If you're hinting that a hypothesis of Mind constructing all meaning is negated by the fact that there are universals we all agree to, that question would most potently address the issue if you're premise is that our common agreement, even respecting these so called universals, is sufficient evidence of their Truth. The fact that we already know our common agreement is not necessarily True, supports rather than negates the chance that we can and do come to common agreement on meanings which we simply constructed.

Further, your comments make sense, and I cannot fault you or your questions, there are complexities that I did not address. For instance, not only does our common agreement not negate the fact that we are agreeing upon Fiction, even in universals, but, that, I submit is one of the very ways our constructions are adopted as belief: I.e. by convention. The meanings are constructed following an autonomous process regulated by evolved Laws and dynamics, and oversimplified, what gets settled upon as believed follows criteria like functionality, Reason, convention, sometimes fantasy, like religion, hope etc. And I'll stop here, apologizing for my necessary brevity.

Quoting Corvus

but that doesn't seem to be a warrant for the solid consistent foundation for any sort of rational and consistent universal principles, which tends to suggest the strong hint of possibility of the meanings and truths committed into unreliable relativity.

Firstly, unless I've misunderstood: yes, relativity. So? But as for unreliable, no. Mind (both individual and History) tests every belief through a dialectical process. Belief is that settlement or "synthesis" which is most fitting. Even so called universals are still meanings once constructed, continuing to evolve. . The so called universal principles, are not universal. They suit only the hosts of Human Mind.


Quoting Corvus

What is the evidence for "I am" is a fiction? Are you not you are?

What is the evidence of an "I" period? Let alone an I that is, and is a Being within the being. I only is in Language. My Body provides obvious evidence of its own Reality, without the need of a Fictional construction, a nevessary mechanism in Grammar and thus Mind. That,
i.e. the human animal, ought to have been the given; the pre-reflective, a priori, noumenal, etc. Truth. Not our ideas about it. If "I" isn't the so called being requiring evidence then why is it that "I" was the Subject of Descartes inquiry. And where did he locate the "I" ? In thinking. And what structures that thinking? Language including its laws and dynamics such as grammar/logic, meaning, difference, Dialectic, convention and belief.

Apology once again for the clearly simplistic reply to your complex points on a complex matter which should take up more mental preparation/organization and space than can justify in this communal context.

Quoting Wayfarer

The definition I linked to was as follows:

Biological reductionism: A theoretical approach that aims to explain all social or cultural phenomena in biological terms, denying them any causal autonomy. Twentieth-century incarnations of biological reductionism have relied to varying degrees on Darwin's theory of evolution and principles of natural selection. Within the human sciences, there have been attempts to explain observed differences in group behaviour—such as performance on intelligence tests, rates of mental illness, intergenerational poverty, male dominance or patriarchy, and propensity for crime—as being biologically determined, by claiming that groups have different biological capacities or evolutionary trajectories. The theories of Social Darwinism, eugenics, and sociobiology often involve biological reductionism. A recognition of the importance of biological conditions and human nature need not involve biological reductionism.

There's a bit of argumentum ad odium to that definition.

One might also say, that some understanding of the way things reduce to biology is a matter or being educated.

Quoting Philosophim

So I'll ask you, why do you think being the most intelligent being keeps us separate from nature?

I don't. I think it happened through natural processes. And I think we are subject to nature.


Quoting Philosophim

Why do you think it makes us anymore special then just "Being special in being the most intelligent being?"

I don't. I just think the gap between us and any other species is greater than the gap between any other two species. By a huge amount. Because we don't just think better in the ways any other species thinks, but because we think in ways no other species thinks. And no other species thinks in ways no other species thinks.

Quoting wonderer1

some understanding of the way things reduce to biology is a matter or being educated.

Quoting Wayfarer

A recognition of the importance of biological conditions and human nature need not involve biological reductionism.

Reply to Patterner
Ah I see Patterner. I don't think we have any substantial disagreement then. :)

Quoting Philosophim

Give me some example that makes humans magic

Show me where said that human beings are magic. I actually used a philosophical term to differentiate human beings from animals - can you recall what that might be, or its significance?

Reply to Wayfarer Quoting Wayfarer

Give me some example that makes humans magic then
— Philosophim

Show me where said that human beings are magic.

I never did. This is pointless to engage anymore Wayfarer. Lets let the thread get back to its original topic.

Reply to Philosophim Sorry, mis-typed - I meant to say, show me where I said that 'humans were magic'. But I then noticed that you had said:

Quoting Philosophim

Humans are not some separate and magical species that exists apart from all of nature.

To which I replied

Quoting Wayfarer

With the advent of language, reason and symbolic thinking, h. sapiens crosses a threshhold which marks it off from the rest of the animal kingdom.

I said that this threshold corresponds to an ontological distinction - a distinction in kind - between humans and other animals.

I don't expect any agreement, but at least some clarity about the point. I believe @Patterner is arguing something similar.

Anyway, as to the question, 'does consciousness extend beyond brains?', as I've entered the fray, I will review at least some of this 2.5 hour ( :yikes: ) presentation.

Anil Seth says he's 'entirely comfortable' with 'the mind extending beyond the brain', holding up his iPhone to make the point, one I agree with. Overall, I liked Seth's presentation, although I would question his claim that 'the mystery of life' has been 'solved' due to our better understanding of organic biochemistry. It might be that we come to quite clearly understand the biochemistry of the origin of life but that doesn't necessarily mean we understand everything there is to know about the question (for instance, is there any sense, and any reason, that life evolves towards greater levels of intelligence?)
Nevertheless, I think from Seth's perspective as a cognitive scientist, most of what he says makes perfect sense, although that also points to the many meanings that 'consciousness' may have, depending on context and interpretation - he differentiates 'consciousness' and 'mind' in ways that philosophy of mind may not. (I think he very much sees consciousness in terms of 'conscious awareness'.) I also question what it would mean to 'explain' consciousness - explain it in terms of what, exactly? What are the constituents of it, such that understanding those constituents would account for the first-person nature of experience? He says that science is 'chipping away' at that issue, but it seems a category mistake in some ways.

Tanya Lurhmann is very interesting, I hadn't encountered her before. The similarities with Julian Jaynes 'bicameral mind' thesis jumped out at me. Thoughts 'cross the mind-world boundary'. She talked of the 'porosity' of the mind, that the individual mind, or some of them, have a sense of openness to other minds, or to Spirit as mind, and also that thought could 'pass into' the world. Being an anthropologist, though, she's done a lot of empirical work - questionnaires and surveys, she's reporting first-person accounts of others. Never heard of 'tulpamancy' before! Gives new meaning to the criticism that some religious people have 'invisible friends'.

Re Sheldrake, I have 'The Science Delusion' and 'Presence of the Past'. I'm probably more open to Sheldrake than many but I'm afraid most of what he has to say won't change any minds, I suspect. I will review a bit more of the Q&A later.

Quoting Joshs

It can’t be vastly different, because individuals are not solipsisms. Embodied and phenomenological interpretations consider the embeddedness of the embodied subject in a world of linguistic cultural practices to be of fundamental importance to the understanding of behavior.

Some folks are solipsistic, and some are die-hard realists. Everyone is different. Some are left and some are right. Some are neutral. Some like poetry, some like mathematics, and some science, and some like them all.

Having the same language and culture doesn't warrant the individuals have the same mind frame.
But more importantly, it doesn't explain what mind is, and how it sometimes operates in certain ways under the circumstances.

When asked, "ice-cream?" Some say "vanilla please", some say "chocolate", and some say "I hate ice cream, give me a beer."

When asked "hobbies?" Some say, football, some say running, some say reading, some say cooking ... They are all different from person to person. You may find some folks share the same ideas, feelings and preferences on certain things and situations, but you will never find 100% identical individuals in the whole world. So what does it prove about the under the same cultural and linguistic world and embodiment of bodies to minds?

It describes how some people behave in some situations, but it seems to be saying not much on what mind is, and why it operates the way it does.

Quoting Joshs

Sense always co-implies body, and subjectivity belongs to intersubjectivity. Being in the world for Merleau-Ponty is occupying a position within a shared gestalt (the same world for everyone). I am primordially situated in an intersubjective world.

Of course everyone is in their own body, and they think they are, or get told they are in an intersubjective world. But again everyone is different in the way they think, feel and behave in some sense.

It is not like the machines, which operate in the same way and manner, in the sense that if you have a computer with the same spec. of the processors, the same size of RAM and Hard Disks and the same application software running. If you had millions of identical computers running all over the world, then no matter what countries, what cities and in what location they were running, they would run exactly the same speed, same screens, and the same performance.

If a theory is only true in some cases, but not others, then is it an objective theory?

The concept of being the intersubjective world could be a myth as well. Because you will find a vast amount of folks living in the modern world complaining about being cut off from society, alienated and not able to communicate with anyone.

You read about the teenagers in Japan, who get bullied in schools and workplaces, and they often lock themselves up in their room just spending the whole life playing computer games. Here again, we see the variety of different lifestyles depending on the social and individual situations. Not everyone in the world seems to feel or believe that they are primordially in an intersubjective world interacting with the other people and the environment they are in.

Quoting Joshs

It explains them differently than a psychoanalytic model of the unconscious.

“From the point of view of a phenomenology of the lived body, the unconscious is not an intrapsychic reality residing in the depths "below consciousness". Rather, it surrounds and permeates conscious life, just as in picture puzzles the figure hidden in the background surrounds the foreground, and just as the lived body conceals itself while functioning. Unconscious fixations are like certain restrictions in a person's space of potentialities produced by an implicit but ever-present past which declines to take part in the continuing progress of life. (Thomas Fuchs)

This is an interesting account on unconscious, which can be a topic of its own. Although it sounds like a contradictory at prima facie encounter. It sounds a categorical mistake to presume that unconscious can surround and permeates conscious life as if unconscious is some sort of physical blanket or cape which drapes around the conscious life. But it could have further elaboration and arguments with the real life cases which demonstrates that unconscious is not the hidden psychic reality deep in the mind.

Quoting Philosophim

For one its binary programming. It has different limitations and freedoms from neurological thinking. You can scale an AI to use far more energy than one human brain, as well as transfer information from one hardware station to another.

So how do you know AI which has binary codes in its core thinks? Is it not the case of AI operates according to the instruction of the binary code what to execute next after checking the conditions?
What is the ground for the claim that AI also thinks as human mind does?

Quoting Philosophim

Right, that's its own sound and feel. Is your brain the same as your friend's brain? No. You're each different people playing your own version of music or 'mind'.

I am not sure if brain states of different individuals can be checked and verified as either exactly the same, or slightly different or totally different. In what sense would a brain different from the other brain?
Some mental events and operations of different people can be similar, but again could it be exactly the same? How can you claim that? Under what sense and point are they same or different?

And I am not sure if it is a coherent analogy to say that mind is something that can be played on musical instruments. Mind observes the external worlds, reflects and thinks, imagines, decides, desires, knows that, and knows how ... etc etc.

Mind is far more complicated entity which cannot be simply played in an instrument. The musician's mind knows how to play musical instruments, but mind cannot be played by an instrument either logically or literally or in reality.

Quoting Philosophim

You may be confusing 'sight' by the way. Sight is always a construction of the brain. Did you know that when light enters your eyes the image is upside down? The brain corrects all of that. Again, do not study philosophy to learn about the mind. Study modern day neuroscience. Anyone who doesn't is going to be ignorant.

Neuroscience is definitely a good tool to describe mind in certain perspectives i.e. biological and neurological point of view, and telling how some visual perception works in biological and physical way. But it is not the whole story. There are parts of mind, to which neurology is not able to give coherent explanation. For example, what is concept? How does brain generate concepts? What are the nature of ideas people have in their minds in neurological terms? Why some people prefer ice cream to tomatoes?

Seth in the youtube video presentation in the OP is a neurologist, and that is what he was saying. There are many things in mental events and operations that biology and neurology cannot explain. Mind could be a property of living life, which has been matured since birth of one's life on this earth biologically, neurologically and mentally, which also has the root of hundreds thousands years of human evolution.

Quoting ENOAH

What is the evidence of an "I" period? Let alone an I that is, and is a Being within the being. I only is in Language. My Body provides obvious evidence of its own Reality, without the need of a Fictional construction, a nevessary mechanism in Grammar and thus Mind. That,
i.e. the human animal, ought to have been the given; the pre-reflective, a priori, noumenal, etc. Truth. Not our ideas about it. If "I" isn't the so called being requiring evidence then why is it that "I" was the Subject of Descartes inquiry. And where did he locate the "I" ? In thinking. And what structures that thinking? Language including its laws and dynamics such as grammar/logic, meaning, difference, Dialectic, convention and belief.

Sure your body predates your thoughts and language, grammar, meanings and all the rest of it. But as your body grew up and matured, your thoughts, language, grammar, meanings, perceptions and emotions all grew and matured together with our body.  Your body didn't just put together with the various electrical modules and parts like the AI.  Or your body was not thrown into the world from the sky one Sunday afternoon from nowhere, I presume.

When Descartes found his "I", he wasn't particularly looking for his "I" in the pile of worldly objects around him.  It was his "I" which he could find as the only assuring object which warranted certainty of existence.   

But you are correct in saying that "I" is not the body.  It is a linguistic concept, which was deducted from the thought.  But perhaps Descartes was looking for logical certainty on which he could embark on further reasoning into the world, mind and God.  It is good that at least Descartes found his "I" even if in the language via deduction and doubts.

Hume had no chance.  He couldn't see his own "I" no matter where he looked, there was no matching impressions or ideas of "Self".  Hume was looking for his "I" in perceptual observation, which forced him to conclude that there is no such a thing as "I".

Therefore it makes sense the concept of "I" is a contingent term in a perceptual and logical sense even if no one doubts he or she is his and her "I".  The "I" is not exactly a verified concept as such.

But what I think on the point is that, your language, thoughts, sensations, emotions, meanings are part of your mind.  They are the evidence of the existence and operations of your mind and consciousness.  Without those actions and expressions, we cannot verify the existence of mind at all.  But where does one's mind reside apart from one's living body?  Shouldn't we then conclude that your language and thoughts and meanings are a true reflection of your body? When you say "I am", you know exactly who the "I" is, and you cannot make mistake telling the "I" for anyone else, but you. Wouldn't you agree?

Quoting ENOAH

Apology once again for the clearly simplistic reply to your complex points on a complex matter which should take up more mental preparation/organization and space than can justify in this communal context.

Well the above discussion was an interesting point, and I am grateful for your interesting points and post. We all have limited time even in our daily routines and life, hence we tend to be in a position where we cannot spend more time to think and elaborate more detail for the topics which deserve the time and detail of the arguments and explanations. But how fortunate for us even to be able to have the brief moments to be able to read and think on these compelling points in philosophy, and exchange our opinions and keep on learning. :)

Quoting Wayfarer

Anil Seth says he's 'entirely comfortable' with 'the mind extending beyond the brain', holding up his iPhone to make the point, one I agree with. Overall, I liked Seth's presentation, although I would question his claim that 'the mystery of life' has been 'solved' due to our better understanding of organic biochemistry.

Agreed. Good point. The mystery of life still remains, so does mind as a property of life.

Quoting Wayfarer

Re Sheldrake, I have 'The Science Delusion' and 'Presence of the Past'. I'm probably more open to Sheldrake than many but I'm afraid most of what he has to say won't change any minds, I suspect. I will review a bit more of the Q&A later.

Fair enough. I found Sheldrake's points interesting too, although they lack evidence in the arguments.

Reply to Corvus Sheldrake insists that there is ample empirical evidence for 'the sense of being stared at' and also people's sixth sense about who is going to call them. Of course many people will rubbish Sheldrake purely on the basis that it can't be so, because it proposes something like 'spooky action at a distance' between minds. I myself am open to such ideas, as I don't hold to materialist beliefs, and I think it's eminently possible that there are biological fields, analogous to but separate from electro-magnetic fields. That is touched on in the discussion at various points. The problem is, there is no way of empirically proving it, other than something like what Sheldrake has tried to do with his experiments on morphic fields, because as they're not electro-magnetic in nature, then what kind of instruments can be used to detect them? Maybe (big maybe!) living organisms detect them, but it is not something one can be consciously aware of. (You can find more about Sheldrake on his site https://www.sheldrake.org/. I was made aware of him in my 20's when one of my father's professional associates, a reader in medicine, sent him a photocopied article on Sheldrake's first book, back in the 1980's. This associate was rather an adventurous and non-orthodox thinker, hence his interest. There's a link on his website to an article about attitudes towards him, amusingly called 'The Sense of Being Glared At'.)

Also I mentioned in my above comment that Tanya Luhrman reminded me of Julian Jaynes' 'Bicameral Mind' theory. She does explicitly mention that here and there's some discussion of it.

Sheldrake has a major soliloquy starting here ('basically, I think brains are over-rated').

Reply to Wayfarer
Yes, the Youtube videos were interesting in that the presenters were all heretic types contrasting from the traditional science perspective in their presentations. It is also interesting to hear that you had come across the book by Sheldrake in the 80s via the acquaintance of your father in the 80s.

All 3 of them seem to believe in the claims that the human mind can do more than what is expected in the daily life of the ordinary folks, and also what the brain can perform as the biological and neurological science descriptions and specification of the physical organ which is to operate in the realm of the physical cause and effect principles, and neurobiological knowledge.

Seth's story on the case that when some part of the brain had been removed by surgical operations due to the patient's illness, impairing visual perception of the patient in a drastic way, but the patient recovers the lost sight to some degree later in his life proves that mind is more than just the physical brain. This point had been further supported by another speaker in his presentation demonstrating the scientific experiments he conducted through the long periods of time in his career as a scientist.

Luhrman's stories about how people perceive their Gods as real by praying and speaking seem to suggest the human brain sees more than what is visible, and could it be one of the signs of hallucinating character of the mind in perception of the world?

Sheldrake's story on human minds noticing the glares of the other folks even when not seeing them directly is definitely a common experience by many ordinary people, and I am sure it is definitely one of the signs of the human consciousness that extends beyond the brain. But as you indicated it is difficult to prove with the scientific experiments and evidence. But it still is an interesting and compelling point for the big picture of the mind extending over the physical brain.

All these stories seem to prove that human mind is different from that of the machine intelligence and AI mind in that, the human minds extends beyond what is expected and specified in the sciences i.e. recovering the mental operations even when the part of the brain is removed by the surgical operation, seeing and perceiving abstract religious existence when they are invisible to the other most ordinary people, and noticing perceptual glares of others directed at them when not directly faced to the glares. These aspects of human mind operations would be something that are impossible for any machine or AI intelligence to perform or to be expected ever under all the similar circumstances.

AI can only perform and execute what had been programmed by humans. They are incapable of doing anything beyond that.

Quoting Wayfarer

Sheldrake insists that there is ample empirical evidence for 'the sense of being stared at' and also people's sixth sense about who is going to call them.

Where can I find this ample evidence? I say nonsense. These can be tested easily and as frequently as anyone could want. For every time someone thought X would call, and X did, there are many thousands of times someone called without a premonition, and the feeling X would call but didn't. And just start staring at people's backs. Restaurants, movies theaters, whatever. See how many feel it and turn to find you.

Quoting Corvus

AI can only perform and execute what had been programmed by humans. They are incapable of doing anything beyond that.

For the moment, yes. The question is whether or not it is possible for them to do more. Our physical brains operate under physical laws. If we can do anything beyond what those laws demand and limit us too, what reason is there that to think AI cannot do anything beyond what their laws demand and limit them to?

Reply to Patterner Sheldrake has published a lot of papers and books. I’m not going to come to his defence, as hostility towards PSI research is notorious and it’s a very nasty debate, and I don’t have a dog in the fight. But one point he does make, and which I’ve read elsewhere, is that one of the arguments that is routinely invoked against PSI is that ‘extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence’. PSI phenomena are categorised as ‘extraordinary’ as a matter of definition, and so whatever statistical evidence is adduced in favour of, say, ‘remote viewing’ is said to require far higher standards of statistical significance than, say, epidemiological studies do. And defenders of PSI say that this allows for a fair amount of goal-post shifting when it comes to reviewing the results of PSI experiments. Whereas, the PSI proponents might argue that extra-sensory perception is actually not extraordinary at all, but something that occurs frequently in both animals and humans. It’s the philosophical implications of that which should be of interest on this forum, because if it is true - not saying it is! - then it indicates a significant gap in our understanding of the nature of life and mind.

I’m not especially interested in PSI research - I’ve tried to read up on it, but a lot of it amounts to arguments about statistical significance. But I have a hard time accepting that all of the accounts of psychic phenomena that have occurred throughout history are simple falsehoods. I am more inclined to the view that there’s something about them which makes them almost impossible to validate against what we regard as scientific standards. But I’m content to leave it as an open question and not to try and prove the case one way or the other.

I did notice in the video - and I did review the whole presentation - Anil Seth’s closing statement. I was very impressed by Seth overall, his demeanour and attitude were exemplary, so I’m not trying to ‘pick holes’ or anything. But in reviewing Luhrmann and Sheldrake’s statements about the reality of ‘transcendent experience’ (for want of a better term), he said they should be taken seriously but not literally, because to take them literally would be to ‘overturn 400 years of scientific consensus’. Mind you, he also added, much to his credit, that if this was necessary in the end, then so be it, demonstrating a real open-mindedness. But from the perspective of history of ideas, the 400 year figure is significant, I take it to be a reference to ‘since the “Scientific Revolution”. Meaning that, we have a consensus view of the nature of reality, and that view is, at the end of the day, that the physical sciences are definitive, and that psychic phenomena and belief in higher planes of being can only be understood in subjective terms.

Quoting Wayfarer

Meaning that, we have a consensus view of the nature of reality, and that view is, at the end of the day, that the physical sciences are definitive, and that psychic phenomena and belief in higher planes of being can only be understood in subjective terms.

Psi. (Pun intended.)

Reply to Wayfarer
It seems to me that, if PSI is real, it says something about the nature of mind and consciousness. It would change how we approach, well, everything. It sure would be nice to know.

I have no experience with PSI. I don't know anyone else who does, either.

Quoting Patterner

For the moment, yes. The question is whether or not it is possible for them to do more. Our physical brains operate under physical laws. If we can do anything beyond what those laws demand and limit us too, what reason is there that to think AI cannot do anything beyond what their laws demand and limit them to?

Human consciousness has been formed via life long lived experience. It has the biological foundation of course, but also educational, societal and evolutional backgrounds.

AI intelligence is made up on the spot with the electric parts, and loaded with human designed software system and pre-stored custom database. The two cannot be possibly regarded equal. AI wouldn't have a clue or idea on some of the mental states formed from the experiences humans have gone through while having been living in the societies interacting with the other humans and nature. And each and every human beings' mental states would be unique and special to the individuals due to difference in the genetic makeup in the brains as well as unique personal experiences they have gone through.

This fact won't change no matter how far future you are talking about unless you can give births to the biological AI machines yourself, and bring them up from the newborns feeding with milk and sending them to the kindergartens and primary schools, middle and high schools and college and universities. But IF you could have done this, and brought up some AI machines biologically and humanly, then are they AI machines at all? Were you talking about a human whose name happen to be AI, or was it 100% machine AIs? In fact I used to know a Japanese woman called Ai. Ai was a 100% human female.

Reply to Corvus
You make it clear why AI will never be human.

Quoting Patterner

You make it clear why AI will never be human.

:nerd:

Reply to Corvus
That does not address the possibility of a medium other than our biological brain being able to do anything beyond the physical capabilities of the medium. if we are able to with our medium, what reason is there to believe it cannot be done within another medium?

Quoting Patterner

Our physical brains operate under physical laws

Physical laws goven physical things, but language and reason operate by different principles, let alone many other of the subtle abilities of the mind, and not only the human mind.

In respect of Sheldrake's morphic fields and morphic resonance, here is his introductory page. His basic idea is that nature forms habits, that once something has begun to form in a certain way, there is a greater tendency for it to form that way thereafter. I understand that this is generally rejected by most scientists on the grounds that it cannot be understood in physical or electromagnetic terms. 'When Rupert Sheldrake's book A New Science of Life was published in 1981, Sir John Maddox, then editor of Nature, thundered that it was an "infuriating tract" and "the best candidate for burning there has been for many years". When asked later why so, he responded '"Sheldrake is putting forward magic instead of science, and that can be condemned in exactly the language that the Pope used to condemn Galileo, and for the same reason. It is heresy."'

Sheldrake has been very active of late on internet panel discussions such as those hosted by IAI (Institute of Art and Ideas), alongside the likes of Roger Penrose and Sabine Hossenfelder. He's often regarded with a kind of bemused tolerance, like an endearing older relative who has odd beliefs. But at least he does have a place in the discussion, which I find encouraging, as I've always rather liked him. I can't say that I've been through his research papers in any depth, but I'm open to his ideas.

(Incidentally, last night a minor tremor affected a wide area of Western Sydney and the adjacent Blue Mountains where we live. It was a single shock, the windows rattled, it felt like a distant explosion or sonic boom. We didn't know what had happened until news reports several hours later. But as is often the case, many callers to the news reported that their dogs started barking minutes before it happened. Due, it is believed, to animals being able to detect changes in electromagnetic fields, although nobody actually knows - see this.)

Quoting Patterner

That does not address the possibility of a medium other than our biological brain being able to do anything beyond the physical capabilities of the medium. if we are able to with our medium, what reason is there to believe it cannot be done within another medium?

My previous post here should cover answering your question. If you could read it again, and find any problems, please let me know. Thanks.

Reply to Corvus
That post, as I said, makes it clear why AI will never be human. It does not touch on the topic of mediums other than our biological brain being able to do anything beyond the physical capabilities of the medium. If our brains can do it, how do we know another medium can't. And if our brains can't, why even bring up that another medium, especially one that we are trying to use, can't?

Quoting Patterner

That post, as I said, makes it clear why AI will never be human. It does not touch on the topic of mediums other than our biological brain being able to do anything beyond the physical capabilities of the medium. If our brains can do it, how do we know another medium can't. And if our brains can't, why even bring up that another medium, especially one that we are trying to use, can't?

The medium was secondary consideration. The main consideration was human consciousness being property or character of lived life backed up by experience interacting with the other minds in the society and world, having gone through the educational system and also grounded on the millions of years of evolution.

Compare the human mind described above with AI just assembled somewhere in China with the electrical computer chips and parts, loaded with the knowledge expert software full of operational bugs which have to go through umpteen updates before getting close to half useful. Would you honestly believe AI will be same as human consciousness even after so many hundred years?

You seem to be mistaking consciousness with intelligence too. The two are not the same. A device can be more intelligent than the other device or agents in terms of only in some preset tasks, but it could be useless or dumb in other tasks. Being intelligent doesn't mean it is conscious, because consciousness can only arise from the living agents.

I don't really get why AI has become a topic in this thread, when it wasn't even discussed in the presentation that the thread refers to, and when it is the perennial topic of discussion in numerous other threads. Here is a 1980's era documentary on Sheldrake from the BBC about his life, theories and the (generally hostile) reception to his work. (Sheldrake notes towards the end that he was an early victim of 'cancel culture', when invitations from student bodies for him to lecture would be rejected by the University boards on the grounds that students ought not to be exposed to such nonsense.)

Quoting Wayfarer

Due, it is believed, to animals being able to detect changes in electromagnetic fields, although nobody actually knows - see this.)

I can't read that, because I don't subscribe. But didn't John Travolta answer this in Phenomenon?


Quoting Wayfarer

Physical laws goven physical things, but language and reason operate by different principles, let alone many other of the subtle abilities of the mind, and not only the human mind.

Indeed. Hence, the Hard Problem. But I don't know why this can only happen when the medium is a biological brain.

Thanks for the link. I hadn't heard of Sheldrake until this thread.

Reply to Patterner You’re welcome. Sorry didn’t realize that link was paywalled.

Quoting Wayfarer

I don't really get why AI has become a topic in this thread, when it wasn't even discussed in the presentation that the thread refers to, and when it is the perennial topic of discussion in numerous other threads.

I recall Seth saying briefly in his presentation that human consciousness cannot be replicated in any form of AI or machine intelligence due to the fact that consciousness is a product of lived life with real experience in the world.

But as you said rightly, it is neither the main point of the OP, nor the Youtube presentations.