Nothing can cause consciousness

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Suppose “X” is tangible. Is “X” something your senses detect (qualia) or is “X” an abstraction?
Do abstractions exist? Ironically, eliminative materialists believe that! I said previously that because eliminative materialists think that only particular examples exist, their position is self contradictory. Only matter (particualr examples of something that is tangible), then since eliminative materialism is an abstraction, it is nonsense. [see the paradox, self contradictory nature of logical positism.]
Google," the phenomenology of cognition. What is it like to think P?"
 
Bahman said:
  1. Free will is the ability to make a decision on a given situation
  2. Free will depends on consciousness at the latest stage as without consciousness our decision would not be free
  3. From (2) we can deduce that nothing can formally cause consciousness since otherwise our decision would not be free and it is influenced by the cause
Your thought.
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A related question is whether there is anything which causes us to make a free will choice.
  1. Yes. Then if the free will choice is caused or determined by something else, it means that it is really not free.
  2. No. Then it means that there are events which do not have causes.
 
Tomdstone said:
. . . . Then it means that there are events which do not have causes.
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  • If we say that consciousness occurs in the unity of body and spirit that is man - senses, feelings, reason which can perceive truth, beauty etc.
  • and its fundamental feature is that it is, (the content, its various components having to do with the structure of matter/mind),
  • then consciousness rests on being.
  • We do not create our own existence.
  • It is given to us as is our free will.
  • the Cause of all that we are, is God.
One can leave it at the idea that there is no cause of oneself, but that is a belief for which there can be no proof. All one can say is that I have not discovered why I am.
 
Aloysium said:
All one can say is that I have not discovered why I am.
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The catechism gives the answer. Why did God make me? God made me to know Him, to love Him and to serve Him in this world and to be happy with Him in the next.
 
Tomdstone said:
The catechism gives the answer. Why did God make me? God made me to know Him, to love Him and to serve Him in this world and to be happy with Him in the next.
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God (subject ) requires a predicate (us) to exist!
 
wittgenstein said:
God (subject ) requires a predicate (us) to exist!
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The subject can do many things.
The predicate needs the subject, especially if we are talking about existence.
We (the predicate) need God (subject) to exist.
 
wittgenstein said:
So you are saying that pain does not feel like anything (it is only C-fibers firing), you cannot visualize a triangle and there is nothing red looks like (Mary’s room). I can only speak for myself, but I am certain that I can visualize a triangle. *
Are you saying that Mary does not learn what red looks like, but only learns that her brain is acting differently? I am more aware of my sensations than what my brain is doing. I can infer that my sensation,(qualia) is because the pattern of my neurons firing is different. But that is only speculation, even tho likely .To dismiss the empirical evidence (qualia, my sensations) is to dismiss the foundation of my theories.
  • An eliminative materialist ( someone that believes that qualia / subjective experience , does not exist) would say that because I cannot offer objective evidence of my subjective experience (you cannot take a photo of my visualized triangle,) it does not exist. In other words I cannot visualize a triangle.
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I think you should stick with the subject rather than trying to stereotype me.

Of course we feel those things, but that’s no reason to bracket them together as if they must have a common explanation, or in the case of Jackson, common non-explanation, as if whatever baffles him must perforce be inexplicable.

As I said, neuroscience is in its infancy and we have much to learn about the most complicated thing in the known universe, the human brain. Armchair philosophers like Jackson and Dennett can argue all they want, but they’re working with so little knowledge and so much conjecture that all they can do is make wild speculations and pretend they’re proofs.
wittgenstein said:
Inocente,
It is very interesting that a self proclaimed Baptist, would be an eliminative materialist. No soul, consciousness, or free will. Is Baptist different in Spain ( in contrast to USA)?
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Do you imagine Christ approves you inventing a facile label to judge the faith of someone you only just met on the internet?

When we know each other a bit better then you might get away with it, but for now please try being charitable and stick to the subject. :coffeeread:
 
inocente said:
. . . neuroscience is in its infancy and we have much to learn about the most complicated thing in the known universe, the human brain. . .
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The most complicated physical object, I believe to the order of stars in the galaxy, communicating with one anther, is an inseparable piece of the material universe. Physically, at this point in our understanding, it may be thought of as a hub through which physical events are processed resulting in activity within that environment. Physically we are one with the world; if this were all there is to existence, panthesism would be truth.

The thing about consciousness is that it is whole and finite; reality to the person, and in the imagination of the other. So we don’t exist within a cosmic soup of feelings and thoughts. Understanding brain function can explain how we function in the world, the contents of consciousness, but not consciousness itself. Ultimately, consciousness is personal and relational in nature.

It is wise to be aware of what neuroscience can tell us. For example, when we will map out, if it has not been already done, what happens in the occipital, frontal and temporal corteces when we imagine a triangle, it will not tell us nothing about triangles. Clearly, everything is not an illusion, nor is it simply a collection of biochemical reactions. If a piece of music is considered good, it is not because it creates more dopamine or seritonin in the brain, but because of its intrinsic beauty. That these chemicals are involved in human emotion reflects our being a unity of body and soul.
 
Aloysium said:
The most complicated physical object, I believe to the order of stars in the galaxy, communicating with one anther, is an inseparable piece of the material universe. Physically, at this point in our understanding, it may be thought of as a hub through which physical events are processed resulting in activity within that environment. Physically we are one with the world; if this were all there is to existence, panthesism would be truth.

The thing about consciousness is that it is whole and finite; reality to the person, and in the imagination of the other. So we don’t exist within a cosmic soup of feelings and thoughts. Understanding brain function can explain how we function in the world, the contents of consciousness, but not consciousness itself. Ultimately, consciousness is personal and relational in nature.

It is wise to be aware of what neuroscience can tell us. For example, when we will map out, if it has not been already done, what happens in the occipital, frontal and temporal corteces when we imagine a triangle, it will not tell us nothing about triangles. Clearly, everything is not an illusion, nor is it simply a collection of biochemical reactions. If a piece of music is considered good, it is not because it creates more dopamine or seritonin in the brain, but because of its intrinsic beauty. That these chemicals are involved in human emotion reflects our being a unity of body and soul.
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I’m not sure about your last paragraph. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Taste varies by culture (for instance, someone from the fifteenth century might find twelve-tone music discordant and ugly) as well as by individual (you and I probably don’t have the same tastes). So I’m not sure we could find agreement even amongst humans as to what is intrinsically beautiful, let alone dolphins and aliens who might have very different senses to us.

I think it’s more likely that we do get a buzz from what we find beautiful. Or to put it another way, we find it beautiful because we get a buzz.

“Consciousness”, in the sense of trying to explain it, is a somewhat vague term. There used to be an article on the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy site, which I can no longer find, on the history of the philosophy of consciousness from Descartes to now. The main drift of the long article was that philosophers still can’t agree what they mean by the word.

Currently, we don’t have any explanatory model between neurons and the whole of consciousness. It’s a bit like trying to explain an elephant in terms of atoms alone, with no knowledge of cells or mammals or any of the other levels in-between.
 
inocente said:
I think you should stick with the subject rather than trying to stereotype me.

Do you imagine Christ approves you inventing a facile label to judge the faith of someone you only just met on the internet?

When we know each other a bit better then you might get away with it, but for now please try being charitable and stick to the subject. :coffeeread:
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Jackson’s argument did one thing and was meant to do one thing, prove that qualia exist. Qualia = subjective feelings. If one believes that qualia do not exist one is an eliminative materialist.
OK. You are now saying that you believe that qualia exist but that Jackson’s and my arguments do not prove that subjective feelings exist. I agree that something so obvious should not require a logical proof. But that is what Dennett asks for.
My argument proves that subjective feelings exist. Your subjective experience of a triangle is not objective, one cannot photograph it etc.
 
As for sticking to the topic, it is important to define consciousness ( consciousness does not equal brain states. If they were equivalent pain would be C-fibers firing and nothing else. There would be nothing pain feels like) before tackling the question is it true that " Nothing can cause consciousness ".
 
Addition to post 71
Remember that a photograph of neurons firing is not a photograph of a triangle.
 
Addition to post 71
Jackson answered Dennett’s challenge. Remember that Jackson is pro qualia (subjective feelings) and Dennett is anti qualia. Unfortunately, many strict materialists (and there are many. Dennett is just one) cannot accept the existence of qualia (even tho to deny the existence of subjective feelings borders on sociopathy) because it refutes the idea that everything is matter.
 
I admit that my sentence was sloppy. I meant to say that subjects require predicates. How can something exist without properties? God has (he possesses them,but is not them) predicates (but not necessarily only us). However, he is still pure Being.
We (humans) are predicates. However, our being is God. Luke 17:21. Our “I AM” is God. Our personality, ego etc are mere predicates. God breathes being into our essence.
 
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