Patterner

Any idea what "increased awareness" means?

I couldn't say the specifics. But my point is that, if there is no activity, like if the brain is frozen, or dead for some other reason (or if it was ...

What I mean is, if we were able to freeze time around someone, or even if we literally froze them, we would be able to point to their hands, feet, eye...

Not sure about this. I believe consciousness is a process. Some processes that are connected to life cannot stop without ending the life. Respiration,...

Right. And that's why Nagel choose the bat. Our experiences are different enough that we can't imagine what they experience. But, since we're both mam...

Thanks. I was wondering what Janus meant when saying we don't experience subjectivity. I'm wondering if our experience of perception of the spectrum i...

Does the electric eye that distinguishes frequencies of the spectrum that we perceive with our eyes have the same subjective experience of colors that...

Me too. And I ask it to word its responses as a human would, so that I feel like I'm talking to someone. Unfortunately, it doesn't really feel that wa...

:D No worries! I understand what you're saying, but I don't agree. It's fine when we're talking about a physical process like flight. Physical propert...

I'm sorry, I don't understand. If we observe reactions to the surroundings, which also prove perception of the surroundings, how do we know there is c...

Is consciousness more than the perception and response of an archaea, or the automatic door at the supermarket? Some will say not; that it is much mor...

It certainly is! I wonder what it would have done different if you had said you were the master.

What birds experience as flight cannot be observed in a rock. But the properties of subatomic particles that give rise to flight in birds are present ...

I googled. No, I am not a mysterian. You never know. Wikipedia says Thomas Nagel is a mysterian, but says citation needed. I'd like to see that citati...

I am definitely open to panpsychism. Although, if I understand the terms, I would say panprotopsychism. I don’t think every particle is conscious. But...

If you mean a human, my guess (based on no education in these matters :D) is that such a person could become conscious. There is a lot of wiring that ...

Thank you. I believe that I cannot claim I am not thinking about crayons if I think, "I am not thinking about crayons." I did say I wasn't sure if I u...

She was born with all her senses. She lost them when she was 19 months old, and perception begins in the womb. Also, she did not lose all of her sense...

You can't observe that you're not thinking a particular thought. Not sure I understand the op either. It doesn't seem like you're discussing two kinds...

I may new misunderstanding both of you. You cannot be aware of the absence of all thought. If you are aware, you are thinking. If you are thinking, yo...

As I said elsewhere, I'm not aware of any macro-characteristics that cannot be reduced to micro properties. We aren't dumbfounded by the existence of ...

I can’t imagine consciousness, would develop without perception. An infant born with no senses of any kind would not develop consciousness.

I do not "assume" an inner life. I experience it. It is, in truth, the only thing I know is a fact. I don’t know that you have an inner life. I am wil...

Because macro characteristics/properties emerge from micro characteristics/properties. Whether we're looking at a characteristic (like liquidity) or p...

There is no empirical way of telling that we are subjects of experience. No empirical explanation for why we are. No empirical explanation for why the...

Indeed. Which is why it's called "the hard problem of consciousness."

Another option is to ask for the proof that machine consciousness is an absurdity. Matter is conscious. We don't know how it is accomplished, so can't...

The point isn't that you cannot know what it is like to be a bat. The point is that there is something it is like to be a bat. And, while we are not a...

We certainly should stop short of that, since we are matter, and we think.

You can, in theory, learn everything there is to know about a football. You can learn about its aerodynamics; the way it absorbs heat from the sun; th...

That is not how any water was made. Simple physical contact does not combine the atoms. A Google search will bring up any number of sites about it. En...

The point is that there is nothing it is like to be a football to a football. There is not something it is like to be a football, because a football d...

It is. But it didn't come into that arrangement when a quintillion (whatever) particles all happened to bump into each other in the exact right arrang...

I am. You can't put the hundred trillion atoms that would be needed to make a single living cell right next to each other, and get a living cell. Just...

The issue isn't life-support for the brain. It's the assembly. It's not a simple matter of assembling the pieces. The particles that make up a brain c...

A brain isn’t a bunch of pieces that can be put together like a puzzle. Even if all the necessary particles happened to bump into each other at the ex...

I quite agree. But, if my understanding is correct, this is the position many have that Chalmers is arguing against. As is William James.

I'm certain I switch realities almost daily. I get red lights like you can't imagine. Even as a passenger I can affect the lights to the point that a ...

Well, yes. It would, off course, depend on people/beings outside of time. Superobservers.

The paradox is that, if you do that, and are therefore never born, you cannot go back and kill your grandfather before he procreates. So he does procr...

Chalmers isn't wondering about the purpose, or the benefit, of consciousness when he asks that. He's wondering about the mechanism. The physical proce...

It's true that we will never really know. We can't prove we are conscious to each other. Many will never believe a machine is conscious. If a machine ...

I believe I entirely understand the concept. I get flashes of it now and then. A sudden feeling of oblivion, futility, hopelessness. But I don't suffe...

Any macro property is reducible to the properties of particles and the four forces. Individual particles aren't liquid, solid, or gas. But we know how...

Ah. I'm sure it will happen. I don’t know if it has already. But there’s no explanation for our consciousness that would rule out machine consciousnes...

I meant human consciousness. That's the kind we're talking about at the moment. Obviously, the human brain's functions wouldn't be necessary for non-h...

Well, sure. There's no doubt that the brain's functions are needed for consciousness.

Yes. The elements don't join together simply by bumping into each other. You need a little burst of energy. How many of these little bursts will we ne...

I would not say mathematics is physical. Even if it began as counting physical things, it has certainly become something else. Yet we do not understan...

Any ideas? We understand the physical in physical ways. If an aspect of the physical is not accessible to our physical ways, what do we do?