Since we have no free will, what purpose does/did consciousness serve?

[Endercreeper01]

5 hours ago, Eise said:

So mathematics is also not able to produce life, don't you think? Aren't we, and all other organisms alive?

Mathematics cannot be conscious in and of itself, so it cannot be the sole reason for consciousness.

On 11/19/2017 at 7:29 AM, Eise said:

So mathematics is also not able to produce life, don't you think? Aren't we, and all other organisms alive?

"Life" is a concept which can be distinguished from consciousness. Not anything which can be considered "alive" can be considered "conscious".

[Eise]

9 hours ago, Endercreeper01 said:

Mathematics cannot be conscious in and of itself, so it cannot be the sole reason for consciousness.

It seems to me you do not realise that the mathematics, in other sciences than mathematics itself, are abstract descriptions of something empirical. Physics is not plain mathematics: it is mathematical models of matter, fields, energy etc. I agree with you that mathematics taken for itself cannot be conscious. But that doesn't mean that what is described by mathematics cannot be conscious.

9 hours ago, Endercreeper01 said:

"Life" is a concept which can be distinguished from consciousness. Not anything which can be considered "alive" can be considered "conscious".

Yes, of course. But that was not what I meant. I drew a parallel between consciousness and life. I can use the same argumentation for life, as you do with consciousness:

Mathematics is not alive, and because everything can be described by mathematical laws of nature, it cannot be the sole reason for life.

Or an even worse example:

Mathematics cannot fall. Laws of falling bodies are mathematical. So it cannot be the sole reason for falling bodies.

That is just BS. It is blind dogmatism.

[Prometheus]

On 11/19/2017 at 1:29 PM, Eise said:

My objection was against the the 'machine' part. I do not experience myself as a machine: I have no direct access to my machine-layer of the brain. Because of science I know I have a brain, and know basic principles of its functioning. But I do not have access to this functioning of my own brain. I cannot decide to let neuron 1,435,460,822 fire at will. I think my own experience in this is that 'I' am somewhere behind my eyes, and between the ears¹. And I know I can move as I want, but I have really no idea how I do this. 

This was an allusion to Ryle's Ghost in the Machine which i thought was the idea of experiencing yourself as a homunculus behind the eyes, 'driving' the body. But maybe i misunderstood it.

 

On 11/19/2017 at 1:29 PM, Eise said:

Does that help in understanding my previous reaction to you?

Not really, but that may be fault rather than yours: i just don't have the time to ponder your position with the time it requires or deserves. 

Another part of my resistance is that you are trying to answer what i consider to be an empirical question with reason. This might not actually be the case, but like i said, this issue requires more than the cursory glance i can currently afford it.

[iNow]

http://neurosciencenews.com/neuroscience-consciousness-8009/amp/

Quote

If the experience of consciousness does not confer any particular advantage, it’s not clear what it’s purpose is. But as a passive accompaniment to non-conscious processes, we don’t think that the phenomena of personal awareness has a purpose, in much the same way that rainbows do not. Rainbows simply result from the reflection, refraction and dispersion of sunlight through water droplets – none of which serves any particular purpose.

Our conclusions also raise questions about the notions of free will and personal responsibility. If our personal awareness does not control the contents of the personal narrative which reflects our thoughts, feelings, emotions, actions and decisions, then perhaps we should not be held responsible for them.

In response to this, we argue that free will and personal responsibility are notions that have been constructed by society. As such, they are built into the way we see and understand ourselves as individuals, and as a species. Because of this, they are represented within the non-conscious processes that create our personal narratives, and in the way we communicate those narratives to others.

 

Full paper here: 

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.01924/full

[Eise]

On 11/21/2017 at 5:40 PM, Prometheus said:

This was an allusion to Ryle's Ghost in the Machine which i thought was the idea of experiencing yourself as a homunculus behind the eyes, 'driving' the body. But maybe i misunderstood it.

Well, yes, nearly. It was Gilbert Ryle's expression for an absurd idea: that the soul somehow inhabits the brain, that it is the place where all sense data arrive, and where all our conscious actions are initiated. Consciousness is the 'spirit in the material world' (another phrase of Ryle). It is a view of what we are, Cartesian dualism. The only point I am making that I do not have the machine experience. But it is true, I also feel I am somewhere behind my eyes, between the ears.

On 11/21/2017 at 5:40 PM, Prometheus said:

Another part of my resistance is that you are trying to answer what i consider to be an empirical question with reason.

What question? If we normally have free will? Well, it might be an empirical question, but not in the way that many suppose here. If somebody acts free or not is by looking if he was forced to his actions, or if he has a heavy psychological dependence on somebody else, or misses some of the preconditions needed for free will (to be able to evaluate reasons for actions and have a realistic picture of the environment). But definitely not by looking into the brain and discover that there is no soul in it.

But yes, then I am using my definition of free will, and not the absurd notion that we can decide what to do uncaused by lower level level brain processes.

[Eise]

On 11/23/2017 at 3:26 AM, iNow said:

Full paper here: 

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.01924/full

OK, I read the article. And I am not impressed. In fact I find it a pretty naive article. Only one sentence in the introduction made it already clear where the authors stand:

Quote

The experience of consciousness is a passive accompaniment to the non-conscious processes of internal broadcasting and the creation of the personal narrative.

In philosophy, this position is known as epiphenomenalism. But alas, this position has debunked already a few times: it is self-refuting. Epiphenomenalism is the theory that something is effected by some (causal) conditions, but that itself plays no causal role. But this means that the authors could have written this article without any consciousness at all! But then how do they know about consciousness then? So consciousness has impact (so much that there are libraries written about it, including this article), or it has not. If it hasn't we are left clueless why the authors wrote this article. Later in the article they (consciously!) declare themselves as epiphenomenalists:

Quote

In our account, while never denying the phenomenal existence of consciousness (personal awareness), we adopt an epiphenomenalist view, whilst recognizing its acknowledged lack of intuitive appeal. We argue that subjective mental experiences are non-efficacious or “collateral” products of neurophysiological activity without an obvious proximal purpose in the same way that rainbows and eclipses are in relation to underlying physical processes.

Another point is that epiphenomenalism is a dualistic stance: There obviously is something caused by material phenomena, but has no causal impact on anything else. But in the material world this is never true: the law of causality says that every event has a cause, and that every event causes something (otherwise it would be impossible to detect). This also means that any attack on free will based on the ideas that (a) consciousness exists; and (b) that it has no causal impact whatsoever, is based on dualism. In a monistic view consciousness is part of the material world and therefore can play a causal role. 

The authors obvious struggle with this problem, even if you have to read more or less between the lines. Here is a subtle example:

Quote

In sum, we propose that consciousness (personal awareness) is a product of antecedent brain processes and has no functional role in itself for influencing subsequent brain states. As such, lacking an executive function, we consider the experience of consciousness as epiphenomenal. We accept that when we refer to, and talk about, personal awareness this reference is not caused by personal awareness itself but is part of the narrative generated directly by ongoing neural processes. For our part we defer the hard problem on the assumption that ultimately cognitive neuroscience, information theory and related disciplines will identify the processes that are accompanied by subjective experience and provide some insight into the underlying mechanisms creating the rainbow that is conscious experience.

'Antecedent' fits in a normal causal framework. So what they say is that consciousness is caused by brain processes. This fits perfectly to their epiphenomenalist position. However when they say that processes are accompanied by subjective experience, they take a more careful stance. I deny the first formulation, because it implies dualism, but agree with the latter. However we must define accompanied more precisely: and here I would say that certain types of brain processes are consciousness.

The authors take the rainbow as a perfect parallel to their view on consciousness. The rainbow is an optical phenomenon that is caused by the refraction (not scattering! ) of sunlight in raindrops. But the optical phenomenon has no causal impact back on the light or the raindrops. But it is not true that a rainbow has no impact at all! When there is a rainbow I walk to the window (or outside when it is not raining anymore where I am) to see it better: it is a beautiful phenomenon!

Imagine we build a rainbow detector: it is based on the analysis of forms (must be a part of a circle, has a certain broadness) and colour distribution. When the device detects one it signifies me. So it is not based on measurements of raindrop sizes and locations and calculations about the position of the sun etc, but on image analysis. Now my sons play a trick on me: they hold a picture of a rainbow in front of the detector, and yes, I run outside, for nothing. The point is that we can create devices that react on the optical phenomenon, not on the physics on which the phenomenon is based. And this, is my position: that the brain is such a system that 'creates rainbows', and also reacts on its own rainbows. Of course there is plain physics under all the neuron firing in my brain, just as there is for the signaling of my rainbow detector: but the brain works successfully, because neural configurations mean something for the brain itself. This is the basis of consciousness: we, our brains, are heavily loaded with meanings. And this is also why the authors are wrong that consciousness is no top-down process. If certain neurological configurations would not represent 'mental rainbows', they would not have the effect if they weren't.

Take the following computer program:

counter = 1

loop

counter = counter + 1

if counter > 1000000 then shutdown computer

end loop;

How would you explain that the computer soon turns itself off? By analysing its physical structure? Or by the program it runs?

I am convinced that there is a completely naturalistic explanation for consciousness. However, we will need soft concepts as representations and meanings (rainbows, so to speak) to understand it. Douglas Hofstadter has written a beautiful and playful book about it: Gödel, Escher Bach. (It is never too late to read it):

Quote

In response to confusion over the book's theme, Hofstadter has emphasized that Gödel, Escher, Bach is not about the relationships of mathematics, art, and music, but rather about how cognition emerges from hidden neurological mechanisms. At one point in the book, he presents an analogy about how the individual neurons of the brain coordinate to create a unified sense of a coherent mind by comparing it to the social organization displayed in a colony of ants.

One final note: the authors see no problem with free will, even that they defend that consciousness has no influence on the brain. But I think they are just flying over the problem. Or does it convince you?

Quote

 

As our account removes any self-serving controlling influence from the contents of the personal narrative and personal awareness, it could be seen to undermine the principle of personal accountability. We, however, consider personal responsibility, a mainstay of the cultural broadcasting architecture and a social contruct critical to most democratic and legal systems, as lying within non-consciously-generated actions and intentions transmitted into the personal narrative and in particular where these same contents have been publicly announced via external broadcasting. Both of these events are accompanied, albeit passively, by personal awareness (“experience of consciousness”)—thereby meeting the traditional moral and legal benchmark.

In our account, everyday constructs such as free-will, choice, and personal accountability are therefore not dispensed with—they remain embedded in non-conscious brain systems where their existence as near universal constructs serving powerful social purposes could well be seen in large part to be a consequence of cultural broadcasting impacting on personal narratives.

 

This all they have to say about it in the main article.

Edited November 26, 2017 by Eise

[dimreepr]

I can't find the study that supports the following: bacteria wait until there are enough numbers to have a significant impact, which if true means they are as conscious as a neuron and therefore free-will is just a matter of numbers rather than consciousness.(I'll ask my sister or perhaps an expert will intercede).

[iNow]

On 11/26/2017 at 10:03 AM, Eise said:

I am not impressed

Thanks for letting us know. 

Now for a bit of levity:

[Eise]

18 hours ago, iNow said:

Thanks for letting us know. 

Now for a bit of levity:

Yes, funny. And now, iNow?

You linked an article, and I assume you brought it in to support your position, or at least that it makes an interesting read. And I read it, and commented on it. And then your only reaction is sarcasm? I am disappointed. I thought you want to be rational. But if you want to discuss rationally, but are not prepared to enter a rational discussion i.e. try to find out what the better arguments are, then better let it be. It seems to me that you are quite content with your gut feeling that we have no free will, and therefore do not want to investigate if you are really correct. 

[iNow]

You're making a lot of pretty broad assumptions there about me, my being, my rationality, and my willingness to have a quality discussion all based on one post. You should stop doing that, and I will acknowledge that I was a bit snarky when quoting you so some of this is on me.

That said, you raised some valid critiques. I didn't author the article though, so didn't feel the need to defend each point. Seriously... I hadn't really considered even bothering as I've been busy with other things (work, holidays, kids, birthday parties, repair of broken furniture, clearing of brush, closing of end of quarter / end of year deals, ad infinitum).

If you'd like, I'll see about coming back to your points in the future to offer a more thoughtful reply. I cannot guarantee it will matter or I'll be able to satisfactorily address your points, but I respect you enough to try.

However, suggesting I'm a disappointment, irrational, or in any way incapable of participating in a mature discussion as you've done above is not conducive to achieving that outcome. Instead, it reinforces my frustrations with philosophy discussions in general. Maybe Menckins' idea that philosophy consists very largely of one philosopher arguing that all others are jackasses wasn't too far off the mark.

[Eise]

On 30/11/2017 at 8:54 PM, iNow said:

You're making a lot of pretty broad assumptions there about me, my being, my rationality, and my willingness to have a quality discussion all based on one post. You should stop doing that, and I will acknowledge that I was a bit snarky when quoting you so some of this is on me.

Sorry, but I had to express my disappointment about just a sarcastic reaction from you after, I put some energy in formulating my posting. 

On 30/11/2017 at 8:54 PM, iNow said:

That said, you raised some valid critiques. I didn't author the article though, so didn't feel the need to defend each point. Seriously... I hadn't really considered even bothering as I've been busy with other things (work, holidays, kids, birthday parties, repair of broken furniture, clearing of brush, closing of end of quarter / end of year deals, ad infinitum).

You don't have to defend everything. For a dialogue between us it is enough to give your well-supported own stance about the points that I brought in. Having not so much time is of course a problem. But you could have just said so. It is a pity, but it is OK.

On 30/11/2017 at 8:54 PM, iNow said:

However, suggesting I'm a disappointment, irrational, or in any way incapable of participating in a mature discussion as you've done above is not conducive to achieving that outcome. Instead, it reinforces my frustrations with philosophy discussions in general. Maybe Menckins' idea that philosophy consists very largely of one philosopher arguing that all others are jackasses wasn't too far off the mark.

Now that is a too fast conclusion of you (from one post?). I am all in for a friendly argumentative discussion, in the hope of sharping my views (which can imply changing them, of course). In this sense, I hope that you eventually react on my posting above.

Edited December 6, 2017 by Eise

[iNow]

On 11/26/2017 at 10:03 AM, Eise said:

But this means that the authors could have written this article without any consciousness at all! But then how do they know about consciousness then? So consciousness has impact (so much that there are libraries written about it, including this article), or it has not.

My suspicion is that you have a flawed premise here. You assign "consciousness" some sort of agency, but consciousness is a collection of other "transactions," and the agency is rooted instead in those transactions. I think it's a mistake to suggest that "consciousness has impact" and that you're assigning some sort of ownership to it that doesn't belong.

I'm admittedly struggling to find the words to describe what I mean. An analogy may be suggesting the symphony is what caused my hearing damage, when instead it was the pressure wave of sound landing on and damaging the cilia in my ear. In my point above, consciousness is the symphony. It's a collection of sounds from instruments, but it's the individual instruments that matter if you're choosing to speak of impact. We use "consciousness" as a rhetorical shorthand, but it's a mistake to suggest that shorthand is where agency and ownership resides.

Apologies for this initial draft being somewhat muddy. I will work to clarify moving forward, and appreciate your patience as we explore this.

On 11/26/2017 at 10:03 AM, Eise said:

The authors take the rainbow as a perfect parallel to their view on consciousness. The rainbow is an optical phenomenon that is caused by the refraction (not scattering! ) of sunlight in raindrops. But the optical phenomenon has no causal impact back on the light or the raindrops. But it is not true that a rainbow has no impact at all! When there is a rainbow I walk to the window (or outside when it is not raining anymore where I am) to see it better: it is a beautiful phenomenon!

My same challenge above applies here. The "rainbow" did none of these things you suggest. The authors are correct that the place to focus our gaze is to the individual interactions and transactions between light and raindrops / ice crystals.

On 11/26/2017 at 10:03 AM, Eise said:

I am convinced that there is a completely naturalistic explanation for consciousness. However, we will need soft concepts as representations and meanings (rainbows, so to speak) to understand it.

We're pretty closely aligned here. Any disagreements we appear to have seem to be at the margins.

On 11/26/2017 at 10:03 AM, Eise said:

I think they are just flying over the problem. Or does it convince you?

I'm approaching this with some preconceptions and knowledge earned through reading and studying the last few decades, so can't comment about this one article having "convinced" me. Obviously need to be cautious about the confirmation bias, but it more seems to reinforce a lot of my existing knowledge and understandings than fundamentally shifting my thinking in any way.

Edited December 6, 2017 by iNow

[Eise]

On 12/6/2017 at 3:59 PM, iNow said:

My suspicion is that you have a flawed premise here. You assign "consciousness" some sort of agency, but consciousness is a collection of other "transactions," and the agency is rooted instead in those transactions. I think it's a mistake to suggest that "consciousness has impact" and that you're assigning some sort of ownership to it that doesn't belong.

Italics by me.

No. It is the conclusion one must draw from the mere existence of the article. 

Let's slow down: epiphenomenalism states that the brain causes consciousness, but that consciousness in itself causes nothing. If that is true, it means that if humans are not conscious at all, we would not notice. We would have what is called a philosophical zombie. A philosophical zombie is a human that behaves exactly as we do, but has no consciousness. But of course this cannot be: the authors try to explain consciousness, so they know they are. A philosophical zombie would never write an article about consciousness because he doesn't have it. (At most what he could do, if he is a scientifically inclined zombie, is trying to explain how humans use the concept of 'consciousness' in their discourses.)

So what I state is that the mere existence of the article can only be explained by the fact that consciousness has causal impact in the world: otherwise nobody would write such articles. The article defends a self-refuting standpoint. So the only possible conclusion is that consciousness exists, and has causal powers. 

But that does not mean we must look for a soul in the brain, for some unexplained source of causality which has no causal foreplay on its turn. we must only state that certain classes of processes in the brain are consciousness; the processes do not cause it. A comparison would be a movie on TV. If I ask you, after the movie, if you liked the story of it, you would not answer with 'which movie, I only saw coloured pixels changing their intensity very fast'. Now that is not an argument that there is not a physical basis of the movie in the changing pixels. Of courae there is. Without the physical TV-device we would not be able to see the movie. But the movie is not added magic to the TV-pixels: it is seeing the pixels on another level. And except if you are a TV-engineer, it is the only level we are interested in.

Same with the brain: of course its all just firing neurons, but in its complexity they are representations. E.g I have a kind of representation of what I am going to cook tonight for me and my family. This representation is somehow implemented in my brain processes. Of course, physically seen, the brain is not an exception to the rest of the physical world. But seen at another level it is consciousness, and it is only by being consciousness that it can work the way it does: that I am able to really make my meal according my ideas. So consciousness is not causally effective while it somehow 'hovers' over the brain, but because consciousness is the functioning brain. But it is impossible that an organism like us can exist without consciousness. It just comes with the complexity brain.

On 12/6/2017 at 3:59 PM, iNow said:

My same challenge above applies here. The "rainbow" did none of these things you suggest. The authors are correct that the place to focus our gaze is to the individual interactions and transactions between light and raindrops / ice crystals.

My running outside because my sons held a picture in front of my rainbow detector cannot be explained by raindrops and sunlight. My detector reacts at 'looks like a rainbow', not on the physical cause of the rainbow. Therefore it can be tricked, but usually it works well. 

[iNow]

It feels in many ways we can both be right here, that it’s largely about where we place our gaze and which perspective we take... so long as we describe our approach up front.

Something akin to the below (to be clear, I’m not suggesting either of us is uninformed or that we don’t understand, just reinforcing the essence of my point):

[Tub]

23 hours ago, Eise said:

 

 

.......what I state is that the mere existence of the article (https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2017  ) can only be explained by the fact that consciousness has causal impact in the world: otherwise nobody would write such articles. The article defends a self-refuting standpoint. So the only possible conclusion is that consciousness exists, and has causal powers. 

 

I think there is no doubt that consciousness has a causal effect in the world: consciousness is the seat of our individual and collective identity and, since time began, most, if not all of human conflict, whether tribal, national, racial, religious, political or even inter- and intra-personal, has been caused by a clash of identities.The sad problem is that we don't seem to realize that, for all their impact, these psychological identities are artificial and superficial. ( Colossi with feet of clay ). For instance i was born in England to Christian parents, but i wasn't " born " English or Christian - upbringing, education and society nurtured and built-up this identity for me so it was a manufactured identity, imposed on me, which i later set aside; a manufactured identity that i inherited and which initially conditioned my brain to act/react in certain pre-defined ways which could be said to negate free-will in that respect, making me the programmed machine of ( someone else's ) fixed ideas. I think this happens to most people.

Similarly, for example, a child born tomorrow in Iran, say, will  inherit the Iranian and Islamic identity of its parents who previously inherited that same identity from their parents and so on, going back hundreds of years, just as Christians , Hindus etc., having inherited the burden of thousands of years of the past from their forebears, will pass-on the onerous burden of that past to their children and so on in aeternae. In this way, the past, with all its endless conflict, becomes the present and will in due course become the future, unless, through insight and understanding, the falseness of separative identity is seen. It could be said that these inherited identities are the real " sins of the fathers " that cause the continuation of all our past turmoil as human beings. We need look no further than the benighted Middle East today: all those separate collective identities at each other's throats, and the pity of it is that all those conscious identities have been inherited by, and imposed on, " new " people who really should have no psychological connection to the past adversity that poisons the present. It would be naive to think that human relations will ever be perfect, but some of this present and inherited animosity could surely be alleviated by some small understanding of the workings of that inherited identity that is harmful.

Observing one's own consciousness, ( being a " light unto oneself " ), which is all we can do, we can see this identity in action - not as a separate entity watching from outside, ( that infamous "ghost in the machine " ),  but as consciousness observing itself: the actor watching from the wings is also part of the play. Obviously, some sort of identity is necessary for normal social interaction and we can't be completely free of identity but we can be free from identity, though only as an individual, ( which, we know, means "undivided " ), and mostly alone, ( which, we know too, means "all one " ). Then we can look at others with fresh eyes, completely free from the past that so colours our perception.

So i really feel that the understanding of identity, which shapes consciousness, is vital to ending the thousands of years of human division and conflict, and the understanding of that consciousness as the seat of identity is intrinsic to ending that baleful influence of our collective past. This understanding and awareness deprives the false, artificial identity of some of its vitality so that insight, intelligence and sensitivity, which are not part of that consciousness, can begin to act for the benefit of all, even though it is only as individuals that we can reclaim the authentic identity of a human being. I haven't, sadly, but a few exceptional people have and we can all learn from them.

[Eise]

On 10/12/2017 at 3:11 AM, iNow said:

It feels in many ways we can both be right here, that it’s largely about where we place our gaze and which perspective we take... so long as we describe our approach up front.

No, we can't be both right. I say that consciousness can have causal impact, and you say that it cannot. 

[iNow]

Fine, then. I'm the one who's right and you're the one who's wrong. Disagree? Then answer this:

If you move away from the chemistry perspective I've been treating as both central and foundational to this issue, then by what specific alternative mechanism can consciousness itself have the type of causal impact on the actual world around us you're mentioning above?

[Eise]

8 hours ago, iNow said:

If you move away from the chemistry perspective I've been treating as both central and foundational to this issue, then by what specific alternative mechanism can consciousness itself have the type of causal impact on the actual world around us you're mentioning above?

By  being implemented in the hardware of the brain. If this does not satisfy you, let's rephrase your question to the terrain of computers:

If you move away from the silicon physics perspective I've been treating as both central and foundational to this issue, then by what specific alternative mechanism can software itself have the type of causal impact on the actual world around us you're mentioning above?

Nobody denies that computers are based on sound physical principles. Nobody denies that the pattern of pixels on the screen are caused by the program running on the computer. 

The problem you still have is that behind your question lies a presupposition: that consciousness is somehow separate from the brain. It isn't, just as the running software is not separate from the processes in the computer. There is just one system, seen from different stances.

 

[iNow]

11 hours ago, Eise said:

he problem you still have is that behind your question lies a presupposition: that consciousness is somehow separate from the brain.

Except, this is the precise opposite of the actual stance I've been putting forth. The hardware of the brain is axons and dendrites and myelin sheathing and all of the intermediate parts like sodium potassium channels and gates, etc. I tried to suggest we're closer to agreeing on this than you're making it out to be. This point seems reinforced by your comments above about hardware and software, but instead you said that, "No, one of us has to be wrong." Apologies, but you're not making sense.

[Eise]

13 hours ago, iNow said:

Except, this is the precise opposite of the actual stance I've been putting forth.

Yes, of course. Explicitly you of course do not believe in a soul or something. You are a naturalist, just as I am. We do not allow for 'magical interventions'. The problem is that epiphenomenalism, the view that consciousness is caused by brain processes but has itself no causal impact in the world (your viewpoint), and your question to me ('by what specific alternative mechanism can consciousness itself have the type of causal impact on the actual world around us?') presuppose consciousness as separate entity.

If you see the brain and consciousness as just different stances to the same processes, the problem is gone. But then we are justified to say that consciousness has causal impact, not on the brain (that would be saying that rain affects water falling from the clouds; that makes no sense of course, rain is water falling from the clouds), but on what we do. And then it becomes relevant for the topic of free will, (which in the end this thread is about).

 

[iNow]

9 hours ago, Eise said:

the view that consciousness is caused by brain processes but has itself no causal impact in the world (your viewpoint),

More specifically, the rhetorical shorthand we use when introducing the term "consciousness" only muddies the waters. It's too ill-defined, too ambiguous, and differs in understanding from person to person. Ask 10 different people what conscious is and you get 10 different answers.

If we are to assert that consciousness has a causal impact in the world, then it's more precise IMO to do so by reverting back to a description or model rooted in the hardware and software you yourself previously referenced.

Similarly, we could argue that love changes the world, but what we really mean when saying this is that feelings of affection between humans change how we interact with one another socially, and those individual social interactions can change society itself in aggregate, and generally for the better. You seem content to focus on the ambiguous, ephemeral, subjective concept of love wherein my preference is to instead focus on the core individual transactions between people and how those interactions set expectations, social mores, and "tribal" rules.

I maintain that we can, in fact, both be right here and that it's all a matter of perspective. I'm convinced we agree far more than you realize.

[Eise]

20 hours ago, iNow said:

More specifically, the rhetorical shorthand we use when introducing the term "consciousness" only muddies the waters. It's too ill-defined, too ambiguous, and differs in understanding from person to person. Ask 10 different people what conscious is and you get 10 different answers.

I do not agree. In the first place it is not 'rhetorical shorthand', at least not for neuronal activity. Scientists and philosophers use the word 'consciousness' already an eternity, without having any idea about how the brain works. If it is shorthand, then only for what all experiences (seeing, hearing, thinking) have in common.  In the second place even if we have no definition everybody agrees upon, we still all know more or less what we are talking about. E.g. if you say that consciousness has no causal impact on the brain, you seem really to be saying something meaningful.

20 hours ago, iNow said:

If we are to assert that consciousness has a causal impact in the world, then it's more precise IMO to do so by reverting back to a description or model rooted in the hardware and software you yourself previously referenced.

Maybe you did not understand what I was expressing with the hardware/software comparison. E.g. I work as a database administrator, and so I work with 'databases', 'tables', 'indices' and 'user accounts'. I could not do my work if I had to understand it in terms of the movements of electrons and electron-holes through semiconductor circuits. The higher, more abstract level is the essence of my work. An Intel-Engineer would not understand a single thing of what I am doing, if he had to understand it on the level he daily works with. But no question that without his semiconductor chips, my databases could not exist.

So, yes, consciousness is rooted in in the hardware of the brain, but we will never be able to understand it, if we stick to the lowest neuronal level. We must be prepared to move to higher and higher levels, where small networks of neurons have functions, further networks of functions give rise to networks of networks that at the highest level even have meanings, intentions, and in the end consciousness.

20 hours ago, iNow said:

Similarly, we could argue that love changes the world, ...

Except that 'love' is no conscious person. In your comparison there is no need to explain a phenomenon ('love changes the world') that needs explaining. But we want to understand consciousness.

20 hours ago, iNow said:

I maintain that we can, in fact, both be right here and that it's all a matter of perspective. I'm convinced we agree far more than you realize.

Maybe, maybe not.

I am saying:

- consciousness has causal impact (because it is implemented in the physical brain)

- we have control over our environment

- we have free will (because we often can act according to the wishes and beliefs I am myself conscious of)

(None of the three is meant to read as absolutes: it does not mean that we are conscious of everything, that we have absolute control over everything, or that all we do is based on free actions. (Just in case dimreepr shows up here...))

But I do not think you see this just as a question of perspective. 

On the other hand, we share our naturalistic viewpoint. We don't need a soul or any kind of magic for understanding consciousness.

[Itoero]

On ‎14‎-‎12‎-‎2017 at 2:33 PM, Eise said:

we have free will (because we often can act according to the wishes and beliefs I am myself conscious of)

True but those wishes and beliefs are formed by experiences/acquired knowledge...they don't just appear all of a sudden. You constantly make choices/decisions  and some of them you can relate to free will. When there seems to be a random aspect in the choice making, people call it 'free will'.

We have free will because we are conscious.

 

[EdEarl]

Our mind forms illusions, delusions and approximations of reality, considering the quantum reality is completely different than our perceived reality. With such boggy ground to stand on. Free will or not is an opinion that some believe strongly. To me the answer cannot be known.

[dimreepr]

7 minutes ago, EdEarl said:

Our mind forms illusions, delusions and approximations of reality, considering the quantum reality is completely different than our perceived reality. With such boggy ground to stand on. Free will or not is an opinion that some believe strongly. To me the answer cannot be known.

I think Eise is correct, there are no absolutes in this question, we may never know at what point on the spectrum we fall, but we do exist on that spectrum. "I think therefore I am" must equal free will at some level. The illusion of control also exists just higher on the spectrum.