What is the Missing Logical Step Before Conscious Experience?

[SteveKlinko]

It all began 20 years ago when I decided it might be fun to understand how Consciousness occurs in the Brain. I decided that Conscious sensory perception, specifically Light and Sound, were the things I would study. I can see Light and I can hear Sound. I eventually narrowed my studies to the Visual Experience. The thinking was that if I could understand more and more how the physical Brain, Eye and Ear actually worked then the Conscious perception of Light and Sound would become obvious. That was naïve. The Brain Physiologists have become pretty good at finding the Neural Correlates of Consciousness but they have hit a brick wall beyond that. Unfortunately, that was my conclusion after 20 years of studying the problem. 

I started posting on the various Consciousness Forums that I could find to try to understand what other people were thinking on this. Much to my surprise the people on these Forums were very dismissive of the thought that there is something more to Visual Perception than what Science already has discovered. They seemed to think that showing Neural Activity in a particular area of the Cortex, for example for the Visual Input of something Red, was all that was needed to Explain the Conscious Experience of Redness in the Mind. In their way of thinking: The Neurons fire and that Explains it. But in my way of thinking I don't see how just because Neurons Fire, I then have a Conscious Experience of Redness. They always give me all kinds of links to basic Eye Physiology and Brain Physiology and say this Explains it. Then when I say that this is all just the Neural Correlates of Conscious Experience they say I'm not reading their links. Well I studied what is in their links and a lot more for 20 years. I maintain that they are ignoring the final and most important step in the Visual Process. That is the actual Conscious Experience of Redness,  or the Standard A Tone, or even the Salty Taste. 

For some reason they are satisfied with saying that the Conscious Experience of Redness is in the Neurons. This seems like pure Belief to me. There is no Chain of Logic that can get you from Neurons Firing to the Experience of Redness. They always get angry and rude and basically say that there is something wrong with me because I don't have their Belief. Some, but not many, admit there is no Scientific Explanation at this point in time. I'm interested once and for all to understand what is happening in that final step that might Explain the Conscious Experience of Redness. I like this prototype structure to pose a question, Given:

1) Neural Activity for Red happens in the Brain.
2) "Something" happens with the Neural Activity or as a result of the Neural Activity.
3) A Conscious Experience of Redness happens in the Mind.

What "Something" can be put in 2 that would be a Logical Chain of Reasoning to bridge the Gap between 1 with 3?
What is that final Step before Conscious Experience?

If Redness does not work for you pick another Color, or an Audio Tone, or may be a Taste for this.

[iNow]

3 minutes ago, SteveKlinko said:

in my way of thinking I don't see how just because Neurons Fire, I then have a Conscious Experience of Redness

Your personal incredulity is not a valid argument against this evidence-backed explanation you continue dismissing

4 minutes ago, SteveKlinko said:

3) A Conscious Experience of Redness happens in the Mind.

You need to be more explicit about what you mean by "conscious experience" and "the mind" here in step #3. I suspect that's why the answers you're being provided feel unsatisfactory to you. You're looking for something "more" and something "beyond," even though these concepts aren't currently needed to explain the processes about which you're asking (the experience of redness visually or the experience the A tone auditorily, for example). 

I'm reminded of people who look around at the vast beauty of nature and take it to mean that there simply MUST be a deity in the sky making it all happen. Sometimes, we can appreciate the beauty for what it is and adding fictions on top of it only substracts from that beauty. 

[ALine]

"You" are nothing more than a brain which is nothing more than neurons and extra stuff. If you accept this as true and you correlate "you" with a conscious experience then the logic for a conscious thing being made up of neurons seems like a pretty sound conclusion. 

Edited December 17, 2020 by ALine
than to then

[ahmet]

hi,

I only very crudely overviewed the thread ,reading the explanations by jumping over some, I think the things we knew have high potentiality to be very less than the things we still do not know.

all in all, it deoends on how you work and some external but important and sensitive points to find the answer. 

but currently I can consider something  like interface systems. 

action & gradual potentials , impuls , summation etc. these are just a very small piece of the issue.

42 minutes ago, SteveKlinko said:

What is that final Step before Conscious Experience?

 

Edited December 17, 2020 by ahmet

[Bufofrog]

What do you mean by conscious experience?  Do dogs have conscious experiences?  Do amoebas have conscious experiences?  Do trees have conscious experiences?

[SteveKlinko]

1 hour ago, iNow said:

Your personal incredulity is not a valid argument against this evidence-backed explanation you continue dismissing

You need to be more explicit about what you mean by "conscious experience" and "the mind" here in step #3. I suspect that's why the answers you're being provided feel unsatisfactory to you. You're looking for something "more" and something "beyond," even though these concepts aren't currently needed to explain the processes about which you're asking (the experience of redness visually or the experience the A tone auditorily, for example). 

I'm reminded of people who look around at the vast beauty of nature and take it to mean that there simply MUST be a deity in the sky making it all happen. Sometimes, we can appreciate the beauty for what it is and adding fictions on top of it only substracts from that beauty. 

Maybe you are more used to the terminology of Qualia. The Conscious Experience of Redness that I am talking about would be the Redness Quale.

50 minutes ago, ahmet said:

hi,

I only very crudely overviewed the thread ,reading the explanations by jumping over some, I think the things we knew have high potentiality to be very less than the things we still do not know.

all in all, it deoends on how you work and some external but important and sensitive points to find the answer. 

but currently I can consider something  like interface systems. 

action & gradual potentials , impuls , summation etc. these are just a very small piece of the issue.

 

Yes but Action Potentials etc. are just part of the Neural Processing. But how does the Redness that you See happen.

54 minutes ago, ALine said:

"You" are nothing more than a brain which is nothing more than neurons and extra stuff. If you accept this as true and you correlate "you" with a conscious experience then the logic for a conscious thing being made up of neurons seems like a pretty sound conclusion. 

You are saying that I have to accept something on pure Belief.

35 minutes ago, Bufofrog said:

What do you mean by conscious experience?  Do dogs have conscious experiences?  Do amoebas have conscious experiences?  Do trees have conscious experiences?

You might also be more used to the terminology of Qualia. So the Redness Experience would be the Redness Quale. I can only assume that Dogs have Conscious Experiences but I cannot say that I know they do. Don't know anything about the Consciousness of Amoebas and Trees,  but I would assume they don't.

[zapatos]

8 minutes ago, SteveKlinko said:

You are saying that I have to accept something on pure Belief.

You already do; a screen embedded in your face.

[ahmet]

15 minutes ago, SteveKlinko said:

Yes but Action Potentials etc. are just part of the Neural Processing. But how does the Redness that you See happen.

if you are asking here "how is a colour (specifically "red")  being detected?"

then ..this is about vision system , you will need to check G-proteins , the pathway and neural transmission and transduction. 

as I crudely know, there are main three colours (maybe computer scientists use that as a model also ("RGB")

Red , Green and Blue. (others are the combinations of these)

but here , of course there are some differences between descriptions and (to me as I said) there are many unexplained details.

Edited December 17, 2020 by ahmet

[SteveKlinko]

1 minute ago, zapatos said:

You already do; a screen embedded in your face.

I explained how anyone can realize the Screen. The Screen is there. You don't have to Believe it is there. If you follow the steps that I presented you will observe that the Screen is there. It is an object of the Mind. Do you reject objects of the Mind as having any reality? Sorry but the Screen is there and Redness is there to torment the Physicalists on this forum. These Conscious Mind things cannot be argued away, but rather they should be studied and Explained.

[iNow]

1 hour ago, ahmet said:

I only very crudely overviewed the thread ,reading the explanations by jumping over some

??? Yours is only the 3rd reply ???

7 minutes ago, SteveKlinko said:

These Conscious Mind things cannot be argued away

Apparently, given your repeated failure / refusal to do so, they cannot be adequately defined, either. 

[SteveKlinko]

6 minutes ago, ahmet said:

if you are asking here "how is a colour (specifically "red")  being detected?"

then ..this is about vision system , you will need to check G-proteins , the pathway and neural transmission and transduction. 

as I crudely know, there are main three colours (maybe computer scientists use that as a model also ("RGB")

Red , Green and Blue. (others are the combinations of these)

but here , of course there are some differences between descriptions and (to me as I said) there are many unexplained details.

I fully and completely know how the Visual System works from Retina to Cortex. It's not about simple detection it is about the Conscious Experience or Perception of Redness. Think about the Redness itself. Extract the Perception of Redness from anything you know about Retinas, and Neural Activity. Start with the Redness. Experience the Redness. When you think about the Redness itself it is impossible (at least for me) to push that Redness into the Neurons in any Scientific or Logical way.  Neurons fire and the Redness just seems to happen. From all my studies I have concluded that Science has no Explanation for the Redness itself. If it does, what is that Explanation?

[iNow]

2 minutes ago, SteveKlinko said:

I fully and completely know how the Visual System works from Retina to Cortex.

This does not seem to be accurate. You appear to have ended your study at the occipital cortex. The point you're touching upon is what happens after that when these activation patterns travel over toward our language, narration, and emotional centers and from there over to the prefrontal for executive processing. That's where the meat of this discussion should take place, but your Randomly Capitalized Words simply ignore that part. 

[SteveKlinko]

3 minutes ago, iNow said:

??? Yours is only the 3rd reply ???

Apparently, given your repeated failure / refusal to do so, they cannot be adequately defined, either. 

I do depend on you recognizing your own inner Conscious Experiences like Redness or the Conscious Visual Screen to be something worth talking about, and Exploring, and Explaining. Are you saying you still don't know what Redness is? I can work with you some more on that if you like. I frankly cannot figure out what it is that you don't understand about Redness. Do you not See Red? Are you Color Blind? 

[zapatos]

9 minutes ago, SteveKlinko said:

These Conscious Mind things cannot be argued away, but rather they should be studied and Explained.

You argue against decades of empirical data with an at-home exercise of describing how something appears to you and then you elevate it the same level.

Observe Mars. See how it periodically goes backwards? Obviously proof of epicycles!!!

[SteveKlinko]

1 minute ago, iNow said:

This does not seem to be accurate. You appear to have ended your study at the occipital cortex. The point you're touching upon is what happens after that when these activation patterns travel over toward our language, narration, and emotional centers and from there over to the prefrontal for executive processing. That's where the meat of this discussion should take place, but your Randomly Capitalized Words simply ignore that part. 

Ok, what happens in the Prefrontal for Executive Processing that produces Redness?

2 minutes ago, zapatos said:

You argue against decades of empirical data with an at-home exercise of describing how something appears to you and then you elevate it the same level.

Observe Mars. See how it periodically goes backwards? Obviously proof of epicycles!!!

What is the decades of Empirical Data disproves the Conscious Visual Screen? The Screen is unfortunately there for all to See. If you are talking about Redness then what Data disproves the Existence of Redness as a separate Phenomenon from anything we know about Neural Activity? Redness could be all about Neural Activity but until someone Explains how it is inside the Neurons it is more honest to just say that Science does not know what Redness is or how it is produced.

[zapatos]

If you don't get people to accept your musings in this thread perhaps you should open a third thread on this topic. I'm sure by then we'll all be willing to accept your word on this.

You may also want to try out your face screen in another science forum. It's probably just us at this site who aren't giving your idea the credit it deserves.

8 minutes ago, SteveKlinko said:

Ok, what happens in the Prefrontal for Executive Processing that produces Redness?

You always fall back on this. Given that the face screen is your assertion, the idea here is for YOU to convince US that YOUR explanation is correct. If we are unable to convince you of the current science, that in no way proves your assertion is correct.

[ahmet]

1 hour ago, iNow said:

??? Yours is only the 3rd reply ???

hahahaah 

    

I have expressed something about this in the official jokes section today.

  

and consider this, we do not act like robots, thus, we may change our ways sometimes. (I mean, we do not have to follow all the pathway in any map. continuing where I was)

 

59 minutes ago, SteveKlinko said:

I fully and completely know how the Visual System works from Retina to Cortex. It's not about simple detection it is about the Conscious Experience or Perception of Redness. Think about the Redness itself. Extract the Perception of Redness from anything you know about Retinas, and Neural Activity. Start with the Redness. Experience the Redness. When you think about the Redness itself it is impossible (at least for me) to push that Redness into the Neurons in any Scientific or Logical way.  Neurons fire and the Redness just seems to happen. From all my studies I have concluded that Science has no Explanation for the Redness itself. If it does, what is that Explanation?

redness , redness, redness ,maybe is exaggration of the use of this smart word ?  

anyway,

are you mentioning something like this: 

 

"how can anyone ensure a blind one learn how the red colour was?"

Edited December 17, 2020 by ahmet

[SteveKlinko]

38 minutes ago, zapatos said:

If you don't get people to accept your musings in this thread perhaps you should open a third thread on this topic. I'm sure by then we'll all be willing to accept your word on this.

You may also want to try out your face screen in another science forum. It's probably just us at this site who aren't giving your idea the credit it deserves.

You always fall back on this. Given that the face screen is your assertion, the idea here is for YOU to convince US that YOUR explanation is correct. If we are unable to convince you of the current science, that in no way proves your assertion is correct.

You are not representing what I have said correctly. I never said I have a theory for the Screen. My only goal was to to make people think more outside the box by noticing something they probably never noticed before. I always ask what is the Explanation for the Screen. It's probably just some kind of Illusion that our Visual System produces. But it is there. What is your complaint? Are you saying the Screen is not there for you?

But the real topic of this thread is not about the Screen. That was a different thread. This is about the Conscious Perception of Redness and the mechanism in the Brain that produces it. Where does the Redness come from? How do Neurons make this Redness happen. It's a simple and direct question. There is no ambiguity to the question. So what is the answer to that?

[Bufofrog]

1 hour ago, SteveKlinko said:

You might also be more used to the terminology of Qualia. So the Redness Experience would be the Redness Quale. I can only assume that Dogs have Conscious Experiences but I cannot say that I know they do. Don't know anything about the Consciousness of Amoebas and Trees,  but I would assume they don't.

I do not recall ever encountering the word qualia, so that doesn't help.

1 hour ago, SteveKlinko said:

So the Redness Experience would be the Redness Quale. I can only assume that Dogs have Conscious Experiences but I cannot say that I know they do. Don't know anything about the Consciousness of Amoebas and Trees,  but I would assume they don't.

Well, I do not know what you mean by a conscious experience.  That seems to be a central aspect of your idea so I think you need to clearly define it.

[SteveKlinko]

33 minutes ago, ahmet said:

hahahaah 

    

I have expressed something about this in the official jokes section today.

  

redness , redness, redness ,maybe is exaggration of the use of this smart word ?  

anyway,

are you mentioning something like this: 

 

"how can anyone ensure a blind one learn how the red colour was?"

We don't know what the Conscious experience is for Blind people. Blindness is a degenerate case of Vison or non Vision. All we can do for now is explore and figure out what Redness is for normally developed Sighted people that can see Redness. I See Redness but I don't know what it is. It is some sort of Conscious Phenomenon.

10 minutes ago, Bufofrog said:

I do not recall ever encountering the word qualia, so that doesn't help.

Well, I do not know what you mean by a conscious experience.  That seems to be a central aspect of your idea so I think you need to clearly define it.

I say the Conscious Experience of Redness, to emphasize that we are talking about a Phenomenon of the Mind. So how about if I just say Redness. Can you see the Color Red? That's what I'm talking about. I like to say Redness instead of Red. I have found that if I talk about Red that people start talking about Wavelengths of Electromagnetic Light. If I say Redness it makes them stop and think a little Deeper about the Perception of the Red or the Redness of the Red.

Edited December 17, 2020 by SteveKlinko

[Bufofrog]

10 minutes ago, SteveKlinko said:

I say the Conscious Experience of Redness, to emphasize that we are talking about a Phenomenon of the Mind. So how about if I just say Redness. Can you see the Color Red? That's what I'm talking about. I like to say Redness instead of Red. I have found that if I talk about Red that people start talking about Wavelengths of Electromagnetic Light. If I say Redness it makes them stop and think a little Deeper about the Perception of the Red or the Redness of the Red.

So any living thing that can see has what you call a conscious experiences?

[ahmet]

15 minutes ago, SteveKlinko said:

We don't know what the Conscious experience is for Blind people. Blindness is a degenerate case of Vison or non Vision. All we can do for now is explore and figure out what Redness is for normally developed Sighted people that can see Redness

so, you mean that any blind one cannot realize (i.e. perceive)  redness,right?

I do not think that the description itself should be so much difficult, but I might miss some details ,too, not sure.

3 minutes ago, Bufofrog said:

So any living thing that can see has what you call a conscious experiences?

really interesting question

Edited December 17, 2020 by ahmet

[SteveKlinko]

4 minutes ago, Bufofrog said:

So any living thing that can see has what you call a conscious experiences?

I don't know that but it make sense. I would limit it to any living thing that has a Visual Cortex.

[ahmet]

23 minutes ago, SteveKlinko said:

If I say Redness it makes them stop and think a little Deeper about the Perception of the Red or the Redness of the Red.

this was good!

but I am not sure on whether it would completely help, because there is also a good amount of difference between theory and applications in the current status.

or there are many theorems that were not useful/applicable.

Edited December 17, 2020 by ahmet

[SteveKlinko]

11 minutes ago, ahmet said:

so, you mean that any blind one cannot realize (i.e. perceive)  redness,right?

I do not think that the description itself should be so much difficult, but I might miss some details ,too, not sure.

You cannot know for example if a Blind person is incorporating Visual Experiences in with their Hearing experiences. If they were, then they probably could not possibly know that they are experiencing Conscious Light phenomena  with their Auditory Experience. Just a thought, because we cannot know what their Experience is and they cannot properly tell us. Conscious Experiences are not explainable in language. They must be Experienced.

Edited December 17, 2020 by SteveKlinko