Philosophy meme
Philosophy meme
Not sure why this got removed from 196lemmy..blahaj.zone but it would be real nice if moderation on Lemmy gave you some sort of notification of what you did wrong. Like an automatic DM or something
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You don't need to be able to observe it externally to distinguish it. For example i can say I have a conscious experience and that would be objectively true even though we have a pretty minimal understanding on what that really is or how to measure it.
Consciousness can be observed an measured. There are machines that can tell if someone is conscious, and even reach conclusions about what that person is thinking about based on brain activity.
You can measure brain activity but not consciousness. Consciousness is most likely an emerging property of brain activity but we can't really say more with out current understanding of it.
You can't solve a mystery you can't properly identify to begin with.
People feel like something more than physical is going on. Rather than see it as a natural consequence of abstract thinking and self-reflection, they jump to the conclusion that this sense is supernatural.
Science isn't in the business of examining vague hunches. The first step to getting an answer is deciding what there is to explain. Our current theories on the brain are compatable with people thinking about their own thoughts, and even having emotional reactions to that process.
Nothing out of the ordinary, nothing contradicting the scientific worldview has happened. So what is there to explain?
What? I never said consciousness in supernatural, just that we have a poor understanding of it and no way to measure it. I was just using it as an example of an objective statement for something we can't externally confirm.
We can't measure it, because what you are talking about doesn't exist.
Once you point to a part that does exist, it immediately becomes something that we can understand and measure.
The part that can't be measured is the part people erroneously assume exists because they have a gut feeling it does. Not because of any real evidence.
We might as well philosophize about the ramblings of the delusional, because they sense something is real, but cannot provide it to the rest of us.
Generally in the latter case, people understand the error in that. In the former, realizing "consciousness" is just a useful hallucination that helps humans reflect on their own thought process doesn't come so easy.
In other words "consciousness" is as emergent as the imaginary friend of someone who's lost touch with reality.
Again, this is completely irrelevant to my original point...
What we consider consciousness to be is pretty broad, though self-awareness is a common one and that can't be measured with any current instrument.
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As I literally previously said: self-awereness
This is like asking "Who delivers the postman's mail?", it may seem like a profound question, but it's very simple.
People can be aware of millions of things, when it comes to understanding themselves they can model it in the brain with neurons the same way they would think about or model the concept of another creature they saw. Just because they are thinking about themselves doesn't make it suddenly unique and mysterious.
You may as well be asking how someone could be aware of any random thing in their life. The postman delivers his own mail, nothing complex or enigmatic about it.
If you mean how does a person have conscious awareness of their own thoughts, that's like treating computers as a mystery: How can my PC's software display hardware sensory data and react to it? How can my PC display and reason about the code underlying it?
Of course, people don't get the same feeling of mystery about software that can have this "self-awareness" because the real motivation for these ideas about humans lies in a desire for humans to be special and unique.
My original point still stands: You can make objective statements about things we can't measure. Also you can't measure self-awareness.
You can make objective statements about things we can't measure.
Sure, but you should have a reason ito believe it exists to begin with. Otherwise your making statements about nothing.
Also you can't measure self-awareness.
There have been tests of self-awareness. Ranging from seeing if a species will try to get something off of itself viewable only through a mirror (proving some sense of self), to measuring brain changes when someone thinks about something.
I have a feeling you mean something else besides "awareness of ones self" when you say self-awareness, though. Awareness is within our understanding, and pointing that inwards doesn't raise any new mysteries.
Living being, just like machines, can have information related from internals, and either one can process that information.
You can ever solve a mystery you can't properly identify to begin with.
People feel like something more than physical is going on. Rather than see it as a natural consequence of abstract thinking and self-reflection, they jump to the conclusion that this sense is supernatural.
Science isn't in the business of examining vague hunches. The first step to getting an answer is deciding what there is to explain. Our current theories on the brain are compatable with people thinking about their own thoughts, and even having emotional reactions to that process.
Nothing out of the ordinary, nothing contradicting the scientific worldview has happened. So what is there to explain?