Starting today August 7th, 2024, in order to post in the Married Couples, Courting Couples, or Singles forums, you will not be allowed to post if you have your Marital status designated as private. Announcements will be made in the respective forums as well but please note that if yours is currently listed as Private, you will need to submit a ticket in the Support Area to have yours changed.
Each molecule of each bee is following the natural laws. Consciousness is not like this; there is no natural law called "mind" or "conscious awareness". The subjective experience of consciousness has nothing in common with a swarm of bees.There are numerous examples of complex behaviour arising from simple rule sets. Bee swarming being a great example.
What does being a Christian have to do with it?
I'd be interested if you can find a definition that doesn't specify it as a property of liquids.I guess it depends on what 'wetness' means.
Consciousness is comparable - each molecule of every neuron in the brain follows natural laws.Each molecule of each bee is following the natural laws. Consciousness is not like this; there is no natural law called "mind" or "conscious awareness".
The have in common that they're both the (emergent) results of the combined activities of a large number of similar elementsThe subjective experience of consciousness has nothing in common with a swarm of bees.
I'd be interested if you can find a definition that doesn't specify it as a property of liquids.
The have in common that they're both the (emergent) results of the combined activities of a large number of similar elements
The neurological evidence suggests that consciousness is part of what the brain does; i.e. it's a particular kind of brain activity. This is supported by the fact that every identifiable aspect of consciousness can be modified by interfering with specific parts of brain activity. If some aspect of consciousness was independent of brain activity, this would not be expected. It would be like finding that fiddling with the insides of your TV could change the plot of a play it was receiving, or the gender of the news announcer, or the programme schedule on some channel...I was alluding to the fact that i think our consciousness comes from our souls which are spiritual components provided or created by God and that interact with our physical bodies.
I had a career as a programmer also, and I don't think something like consciousness can be programmed via explicit algorithms; however, I do think it's possible, in principle, to create a system that is conscious using learning networks - the way the brain does it. Of course, you can code a learning network using standard algorithmic code, but that would not be programming it to be conscious, it would be giving it the structural capability to become conscious, given appropriate interaction.We have no clear way of defining what consciousness is that we have been able to program into a computer and say its is conscious.
I write computer code for a living and often write programs that check their internal state (by way of flags and variable values) so as to 'know' what to do next, but that does not in any way make them conscious and I'm not sure if simply increasing the complexity of these internal state checking steps a few orders of magnitude would result in a conscious machine.
Now i know that in research labs some scientists may well be writing much more sophisticated algorithms specifically to try and replicate consciousness but none have so far come out and said 'we've done it'.
There is inevitably a fundamental disconnect between subjective experience and the objective correlates of that experience. Attempting to reconcile them is futile and causes a lot of unnecessary confusion, e.g. Chalmer's 'hard problem' of consciousness.We can't even explain what simple insects experience let alone higher animals or us.
The neurological evidence suggests that consciousness is part of what the brain does; i.e. it's a particular kind of brain activity. This is supported by the fact that every identifiable aspect of consciousness can be modified by interfering with specific parts of brain activity. If some aspect of consciousness was independent of brain activity, this would not be expected. It would be like finding that fiddling with the insides of your TV could change the plot of a play it was receiving, or the gender of the news announcer, or the programme schedule on some channel...
Can you suggest some observable or reportable aspect of consciousness that you'd expect not to be affected by modifying brain activity? If not, just what is it that the soul is supposed to actually do?
Sure - I assumed that would be fairly obvious.Regarding consciousness, your definition above MUST be qualified, if you are intellectually honest, that you are making as assumption that it arises from the brains physical properties. As you are an aetheist I can understand why this is your only option but until we do understand how consciousness arises the possibility exists that it is not fully explainable or arising from just the brain.
Sure - but you need to demonstrate that such an addition is both plausible and necessary (or that it actually occurs). Just claiming that you think it is 'possible' is empty speculation.I agree that the consciousness can be affected by interfering with the brain. Consciousness does indeed need the brain to work it would seem. However it is also possible that brain + something else (spirit etc) = consciousness.
A bit like saying that speed = motorbike + man controlling it where man is not 'part' of the motor bike.
OR
speed = motorbike + fuel where 'fuel' is not needed to have a motorbike, but is needed for speed to emerge, it is a different type of substance that needs to combine with the parts of the bike also for speed. Not the best analogy but i think it gets the picture across.
physics tells us that there are no significant fields or forces (besides electromagnetism and gravity) that can significantly influence neural activity in the brain,
Sure - but you need to demonstrate that such an addition is both plausible and necessary (or that it actually occurs). Just claiming that you think it is 'possible' is empty speculation.
It is not necessary to reject the supernatural in order to conclude that conciousness is an emergent property of the physical brain.Yes i know, i never said it was fact. Thats why I said 'as a Christian I don't think we will replicate consciousness', because I am making the assumption that there is something else involved. If thats not the case then science should be able to fully explain consciousness eventually, which is what your position is based on your view that there is no supernatural/spiritual realm, dimension, plane whatever.
This is a pretty deep concept we're discussion. To do it properly we need to be working more with the encyclopedia explanation than the dictionary definition.Not so, the definition of emergent properties: the definition of emergent property does not state that the phenomena can not be explained, just that it arise from one or more lesser or substrate parts.
As it is, all emergent properties must have an explanation, many we understand but not all yet. However they can not arise by magic, they must arise in an explainable way or it breaks the rules of physics and the physical world we live in.
So an emergent property arising out of another emergent property, while not out of the question, still needs to be and should be explainable.
Spiritual consciousness may require something that does not arise from anything in the physical world but is instead provided by God.
Until the 1st layer in your theory, consciousness, is explained, it is speculating as to where spiritual consciousness comes from though the bible would suggest its from God.
Speed is an emergent quality of a motorbike but its best displayed when a human is also added to the bike in the form of a rider, or means of control.
Not at all - there could be any amount of stuff existing outside our physical reality (in fact the multiverse theories effectively say just that). The point is that we know very precisely what interacts with the physical bits and pieces that make up our brains and bodies (because we have done literally billions of experiments on those bits & pieces), so we know that whatever other stuff is out there, it doesn't interact significantly with the physical bits & pieces of our everyday experience.again, you are assuming nothing at all exists outside of the physical reality we can perceive with our senses or instruments. The whole point about a religious faith is that you accept that there are things beyond the physical universe that we can never directly sense or build instruments for but that may nevertheless, be able to influence this world.
No, you misunderstand; I have no idea whether there are any supernatural/spiritual realms, dimensions, or planes. But I know of no good reason to think there are, no evidence to suggest they exist, and there is good reason to think that if other 'realms' do exist, they do not interact significantly with our reality (or we would have noticed any such interaction).... your position is based on your view that there is no supernatural/spiritual realm, dimension, plane whatever.
It is not necessary to reject the supernatural in order to conclude that conciousness is an emergent property of the physical brain.
Contrast 'speed' with something like sexual reproduction. Now thats a new property with no precedent in the material world prior to the emergence of biological systems.
Yes, this is exactly what can be seen in Conway's Game of Life - the interacting patterns that move across the grid are an emergent property of the grid and its rules, but the patterns themselves can be organised to produce another level of emergent behaviour - emulating Game of Life itself, for example:I see no problem in principle with an emergent property (or maybe "emergent system" is the better term) arising from a previous one.
We use cookies and similar technologies for the following purposes:
Do you accept cookies and these technologies?
We use cookies and similar technologies for the following purposes:
Do you accept cookies and these technologies?