[aatd86]

Why arrogant?

The statement seems sensical to me until proven otherwise.

What are the proofs that someone unable to perceive anything from the physical realm can be conscious?

[edit] Where I would disagree perhaps is the claim that a single neuron is not conscious.

It depends on the definition of consciousness. It's probably more like a spectrum. Consciousness stems from physical interaction philosophically for me. So a rock, an atom etc, would also be conscious. It just doesn't process physical domain interactions like a human would do.

Just another form of consciousness.

[eternalban]

The idea is that Consciousness is in fact a manifestation of 'God' and we're little sparkly transducers of the divine, & that no amount of 'structure' can give rise to our godlike -- we are 'sentient creators with free will' -- consciousness. Various spiritual schools differ on precise formulation. The one I am familiar with, Qu'ran, explicitly asserts that whatever can be considered 'Light' in 'the Universe' is God. "God is the Light of the heavens and the earth".

So the proposed arrogance is the 'metaphysical arrogance' that attributes such a profound capability with a few kilograms of organic matter. Interestingly in Qur'an, this sin of 'arrogance', and, associating 'sentient worth' to its material composition (the famous statement of satan that it is "made of fiery matter while Adam is made of clay") is a declaration of satan. This then circles back to other comments in this thread questioning the Organic Matter Mind (clay centric) chauvinism.

> What are the proofs that someone unable to perceive anything from the physical realm can be conscious?

John Lilly famously did his isolation tank thing to get to the bottom of that, in this diminished (but not totally occultated) sensory environment. He wrote books about the experience. I personally find the idea that mere structure gives rise to mind to be 'wishful' (if not arrogant) thinking.

[aatd86]

Isolation tank would not work because living organisms have memories (store data).

You would have to be born with no data and no way to acquire any (no perception).

Would you then be conscious?

Matter is just data of a particular kind as in anything.

The only thing that one is really sure of is existence. Note that non-existence doesn't even exist by definition.

If we want to get into theology, I would even claim that existence is the true unique thing that encompasses everything and all possibilities (some will never manifest physically). Call that God, the One (Allah) etc...

That could make sense. Most of everything else is folklore imho.

[Arjuna144]

Please don't put the burden of prove on others. You must go so deep to realize whatever you _TRULY_ know, is what you have experienced yourself. All the rest is belief with different degrees of certainty (That is why we have the whole of the scientific apparatus with degrees, titles, peerreviewing and journals, to increase the certainty into a believe without having to reproduce all the experiments all the time. So we do not have to "make the experiment to have the experience that lead to that insight and "knowledge")

So if you want to know and you are unwilling to settle for here-say and logical deductions, you will have to dive deep!!

Mind you I am not advocating "my" tradition, or telling you to buy my book or whatever nonesense. I beg you on my knees to sit and close your eyes and go inside!! It is horrible in the beginning because of ALL THE TRASH that we accumulate in our minds. You have no peace, no tranquility, no joy and no bliss. But for this much of a leap of faith I beg you pardon: IT IS THERE! There is absolute tranquility that leads to bliss to be attained as a _sideeffect_ of your quest for truth! Truth is not what I tell or anyone else! Truth is what you experience. The only question is how deep that experience is.

All the mystic traditions have thaught the same. NO REASON to believe, but hopefully enough reason to risk to try it!!

(And besides that, you will get all the benefits with that come with meditation and cleaning up the mess of the mind, which have already been proven by science)

[aatd86]

Lol... So if you claim that 2 + 2 = 5, I can't ask for a proof? That's new...

[Arjuna144]

Lol.... I am talking on whole other level of philosophy. The prove has been given.

Please give me a chance to explain. I am completely with you, that you are allowed to ask for the prove! BUT: you will have to go through that prove (perform the experiment) to "prove" the correctness of the claim _for yourself_!! Only repeating the experiment will lead to experience. (In mathematics that experience is what i call "the experience of a logical conclusion")

As long as you never did the experiment, you will only believ (althogh you confidence may be high, because so many "prof" and PhD and papers are claiming it is correct and you haven't heard otherwise to diminsh you confidence)

Please allow that point of view to sink in, it is not that easily grasped.

All the very best to you!

[aatd86]

The point is that I can't convince someone who doesn't see violet that there are 7 colors in a rainbow just by telling him there are.

I've experienced some pretty eerie stuff myself but the onus is on me to prove it happened. Fortunately for me there are physical manifestations of the phenomenon but the medical corps either doesn't have the tooling or the research direction to properly study it.

They are just happy giving people some medications. Fortunately for me, I don't need any and can function normally.

That's why appeal to authority is bad (PhDs and MDs are far from knowing much, one should realize, but that goes for your guru, religious figure as well). However I understand what you mean. No one is discarding experience. One might discard the exactitude of the conclusions derived from the experience however. That's the part that needs more proof.

[crabkin]

Not the person you are replying to, but the assertion in question may not be arrogant if we construe it was made with the intent of saying "I think that consciousness is an emergent property having to do with the whole body," instead of just flat out making the assertion as if it was a general consensus.

If an assertion sounds like it makes sense, that doesn't mean it's not arrogant to make. Another point is that you supposing that since it "makes sense", that's enough justification to pass the burden proving-it-isn't-plausible onto someone who disagrees. In effect it comes off like someone taking one person for their word while asking for documentation and proof from another. Consciousness is an elusive thing to define much less to start making super strong claims about at this point lest you reveal some internal prejudices.

[aatd86]

Well people have to read between the lines and be charitable.

If both positions are not proven absolute truths, it's just as arrogant to claim another sensible opinion's arrogant.

By the way, if one corrects a statement, I expect to know why? Don't tell someone is just wrong because they think 2 + 2 = 5 and you think 2 + 2 = 4.

That's why we have proof in mathematics so that we deal in truths and not opinions and avoid conflicts.

[crabkin]

The opinion isn't arrogant because opinions can't really be arrogant, it's the context they're presented in which gives off the impression. I probably took what you wrote more seriously than my reply merited, but I do have an impression reading comments on this site that some people overwhelmingly lean in certain directions regarding such topics, they are essentially prejudiced. What you say next I think shows you have a nice sense of humility :)

I definitely agree personally that "Don't tell someone is just wrong because they think 2 + 2 = 5 and you think 2 + 2 = 4." I think that's the fair way to go about things. But I'd also like to add on to your point about math, that those those sorts of truths seem to be separate from the world of experience in some way while the "truth" about consciousness, if you subscribe to values of strict physicalism, must be derived and exclusively reside with the world of experience. By that I mean if there even exists some point at which people arrive at a near-perfect scientific description of consciousness, before we converge to that point we dwell heavily in a discourse rooted by the inherit distortions of experience: faulty methods, faulty equipment, cultural trends, fads and biases in the field, etc...

Appeals then to anything but clear explications verified by probably the one of the if not the most important mountain of results people for some reason are expecting, mostly resemble opinion I think, but that's alright, opinion is good I wouldn't discount it.

[aatd86]

Where you have a point is that, if we were to reason metaphorically and consider that everyone was colorblind and couldn't see indigo except for me... I would probably claim that a rainbow has 7 colors and not 6.

The onus would be on me to prove it though. Just like Galileo had to prove himself.

In our case here though, I don't think that anyone is claiming that there aren't possibly conscious beings that are immaterial, or non-physical even for our definition of physical (What dreams are made of for example)

The issue is that human consciousness as we know it depends on perceptions for awareness. Self can't exist without Other(not self) hence if one is unable to gain awareness of the existence of that which is not self, one cannot gain awareness of self.

It seems to be a capability derived from the human physical structure. And we have yet to encounter a human who never had a body. Nor do we remember what was before birth. Some people claim they remember past lives. But that still means they'd remember being a physical entity.

Last point is that interactions require a common language. Something that is purely non-physical would probably be completely orthogonal and imperceptible to us. It wouldn't even perceive us. If I define consciousness as a spectrum of interactions between physical data, it means that consciousness require a physical support. Remains to be determined though.

(not negating anyone's experience and I fully agree, not everyone is able to experience existence the same; usually, there would be measurable things if it is physical. I agree that often times, the scientific instruments might be lagging, indadequate as too crude, so I guess I understand and agree with your point as well)

[crabkin]

Your chain of reasoning is difficult to refute if we're speaking strictly in terms of "common sense" and what I think may be some commonly accepted guide posts we have currently have culturally. For instance, "It seems to be a capability derived from the human physical structure," referring to the idea that we come to know what consciousness is by observing that the notion of self requires the notion of the other and vice-versa, which constitutes part of, if not our whole perception of awareness. Correct me if I'm wrong but this is what I am getting.

Alrighty next to support the assertion that recognition of this dichotomy indicates a strictly physical basis for consciousness, we assert that we've never encountered a person without a body, I think implying that a body is necessary for drawing this boundary between "in" and "out" which characterizes consciousness.

What I would find a bit tenuous about this approach is that it is difficult to define what the physical, the material, really even is. Next, we are working off the presumption that consciousness comes from a division you point out, but this definition comes from a subjective personal observation, which in your last sentence you concede may be the case since people's experiences are different. For instance, in Advaita Vedanta we have one historical example of your assertion with its head turned over, essentially that there is no division, that it is illusory. This idea I would argue has about as much a basis as the one put forth, and this is due to our limitations with such subject matter. If we go down the non dualist route, well I would think we'd be down a pretty different road.

It also doesn't seem immediately apparent how, for lack of a better term, beginning with a dualist assumption, that we can then jump into the idea that this seems to be derived from human physical structure. Sure it seems like it has definitely something to do with it, but the place we begin is so fundamental it feels circular to look through the same tool in order to measure the tool so to speak.

[aatd86]

Interesting. In my understanding, I'm not sure that division and oneness are actually in opposition.

The rationale being that the one overall encompassing thing is existence. Existence exists by definition and therefore non-existence cannot exist by definition.

It's within that one thing called Existence that I believe divisions are necessary for everything else to emerge. If everything is differentiated parts of existence, the physical world as we know may be just one of many kinds of worlds. (each world would probably called physical, composed of non orthogonal bits of existence so that interactions remain possible)

But division or differentiation is necessary for interaction. Total sameness, homogeneity cannot create space or time or anything else. Even in the physical world, gradients create displacements.

I am just not sure about the drivers of such differentiation.

I agree that, the concept of my own being exist outside of the physical world for an external observer of our world.

But my hunch is that this concept is quite plausibly the concept of a given physical structure of physical bits of existence just like any anything we perceive.

The one constant is existence.

Where you are absolutely right is that I could also be discarding the fact that we may be interacting unbeknownst to ourselves as part non-physical being. Basically, our physical existence would just be a projection in the physical world of higher dimensional selves. (thinking in the algebraic, tensorial sense).

Our physical world could also have been entirely created by a single entity but that entity would still be one of many parts of existence if not merely existence itself so I am really interested in the highest levels.

As far as I can personally tell, we don't know whichever takes is true. One seems to be quite plausible wrt our collective experience. Especially since we don't seem to be what is in our imagination. Even the idea of the self that we can envision via our imagination might be something else entirely residing in an orthogonal world. :)

[IncRnd]

It's not a sensical statement but is akin to saying that the fundamental properties of the Universe are Fire, Water, Earth, and Air. It's clearly a wrong statement to say that "Consciousness is an emergent property of your whole body". A person who has their legs and arms removed suffers no difference in their actual consciousness. They suffer a lack of motility.

A person who has had their heart replaced with a pig's heart does not suddenly lack consciousness or have the consciousness of a pig. Extremely short people, such as Afshin Ghaderzadeh 2'1", don't have less consciousness than extremely tall people, such as Robert Pershing Wadlow 8'11".

Stating that consciousness is not an emergent property of the whole body should be a starting point, after which further research and discussion can occur.

[aatd86]

You don't get what he claimed. Your body allows your perceptions which are basically stored data that initiate the construction of your consciousness.

No data = no consciousness.

Do you think someone who was blind, deaf, and no sense of touch from birth can be conscious (have an internal representation) of colors? Dream in colors even?

The science tells that they wouldn't even dream in images.

As was said in the parent comment, the issue is that people have overloaded understandings of what is meant by consciousness.

First it would be wiser to expound on what is meant by consciousness by each...

[IncRnd]

You are misunderstanding what was written. Due to that you are claiming something that is different that the earlier claim. The earlier claim was that consciousness arises from the whole body. You are claiming that consciousness arises from the senses.

Instead of guessing, your assertion can be tested by closing your own senses. Cover your eyes, ears, etc. - which has been done in sensory deprivation tanks. Closing the senses does not remove consciousness, therefore consciousness is not dependent upon the senses.

> First it would be wiser to expound on what is meant by consciousness by each...

Then, please don't make claims as to how consciousness arises unless you first define what you mean by the word consciousness.

[aatd86]

The claim is that a body is necessary for consciousness to emerge. Why? Because of perceptions. I'm sorry but your counter-example of shutting down your senses doesn't work because you have already perceived. Don't forget that living organisms have memory (data storage. Besides, it's probably not shutting down all perceptions anyway...

The better question is would you think you would be conscious if you had never perceived the physical world?

[matt-attack]

I actually think it’s questionable if a new born infant is conscious. I think it takes years of sensory input and possibly even language development to establish real consciousness. Of course it’s entirely impossible to determine if any organism other than yourself of conscious. I might be acting like I am, but truly you have no idea if I’m actually having a subjective experience.

Other interesting thought experiment: if you developed as a baby with the complete absence of senses. No sight, touch, smell, etc. would you ever develop consciousness? I suspect not. I believe our inner subjectivity is inexorably tied to our senses.

[nh23423fefe]

This is just a no true scotsman mixed with p-zombies. Not really compelling. Babies are obviously conscious.

[xboxnolifes]

This is just deflection followed by a statement without evidence.

[nh23423fefe]

checkmate

[matt-attack]

How is that obvious? There is literally no known objective method to ascertain if another organism is conscious.

[nh23423fefe]

Sure, you can claim without evidence that babies are not aware of their surroundings. And I can point at all the babies in the world which interact with their environment meaningfully. This is what is meant by obvious. You will say this is not "objective". A demand I don't find meaningful or persuasive.

You posit again without evidence that sensory input and language development create "real consciousness" which you haven't bothered to differentiate from pre-"real consciousness". This self-refuting argument demands an unaware newborn become aware by the mechanism you like, interacting with the world. Whereas I believe they are conscious by construction.

I would refute this by saying the baby was always conscious and simply learned some new behavior. This devolves into a ship of Theseus argument about whether a fetus is conscious or whether an embrybo or zygote is conscious. You have created a fake boundary you can't identify and put newborns on one side of the boundary.

I've already said what I think about p-zombies. They are an incoherent impossibility. I could use your same argument and say that even adults aren't really conscious. They are simply lying zombies reporting subjective states that don't exist. What is gained by claiming babies are zombies until the day they aren't.

[Jensson]

You would need to explain why consciousness is a discrete thing though, you don't feel what a rock feels just because you are close to it. You just experience the data from a small subset of neurons in your brain, why not the other neurons? So not even computational connectivity explains it, otherwise your consciousness wouldn't be tricked by optical illusions, since it would be able to feel the data flowing through the optical nerves before the computations that creates those illusions happens.

[aatd86]

I'm not sure I understand.

I can be conscious of the existence of the rock. Doesn't mean that I am the rock.

Each interaction has different participants that are conscious of each other in their own ways.