Does the brain really "cause" consciousness?

I don't know if cellular-life of a living-body and cellular-life of a dead-body are same. I thought they are different.

 

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You are denying life but here you are trying to define life as: "underlying arrangement and interaction of the molecules/atoms/quarks/matter".

You mean to say force does not exist? Newton described force as an external agent which causes acceleration to a mass because mass can not accelerate on its own. So you are trying to deny Newton.

 

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Are you so daft that you cannot realize that you just used the same tautology you criticized him with to support your own argument? If you utilize the exact same, flawed tautology then it can only be a hypocritical projection to wonder why I argue. You have not distinguished your point as qualitatively difference, other than your equivocations. "An actual existent thing"? As opposed to what, a "non-material existence"? I thought you said those do not exist.

Life is an emergent property. This means that it cannot be inferred from the sum of its parts, displays new characteristics, and allows for downward causation. It is necessarily something in addition to the constituent parts.

If you make an assertion, it is your responsibility to define any usage of terms that may be nonstandard. This is part and parcel with being intellectually honest. Failing to do so only means that you have utterly failed to communicate a coherent point, as you have done your level best to unsure that your meaning is not clear, by way of copious equivocation.

I do not agree with your view (contrary to your straw man), and you have just admitted to your equivocations by way of arguing "what one person means by a term is not necessarily what everyone else does". These are by far more damning of trolling, so it seems you are simply trying to shame me into backing off. This is a form of appeal to ridicule.

No one is falling for it.

 

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Oh, for the love of God!!
Do you not understand the concept of parody??? Using someone's own argument, with just the slightest of change to highlight the absurdity of what they said???
Are you that naive? Do you lack even that level of awareness??

You should surely have noted that I used his own argument and changed just a few of the words... thus highlighting - EVEN TO YOU - the flaws in his argument. Flaws that EVEN YOU recognised.
Do you not comprehend that???
You honestly thought that I was quoting him, changing a few words, and that I was using it at face value to support my own position rather than just to highlight the flaw in his argument???
Seriously???
:wallbang:

Emergence does not mean "in addition to". Emergence is just that - it "comes out of" the underlying activity albeit unexpectedly. It is only something "in addition" in that we need to come up with a new word to describe it - and the word "life" is a descriptor for things that display those characteristics that have "emerged" and that can not necessarily be inferred! There is nothing actually new other than those characteristics. There is no "addition" in the sense of something being added to the underlying activity.
But you've now made me doubt you actually understand and you will almost certainly accuse me of yet more equivocation.

Which is exactly why I said that it would depend on one's understanding of the term and took it no further!!!

Sure, so you categorically do NOT consider the word "life" to be a descriptor for certain characteristics that something may have, and you do NOT see any issue with hansda's argument (that I parodied).
Fair enough. As long as you commit to those views and do not try to claim differently later on.

So you also categorically think that, in philosophy, there is one and only one understanding for each term? That one's meaning for certain key words such as "exist" is not dependent on a whole host of other positions that one might have? Again - are you that naive?
Or do you not think it rather important that the meaning of such terms is agreed upon before getting too deep into discussions. Yes, I have my own understanding of terms that others do share, but certainly not everyone - but there is no attempt to deceive, especially when I fully explain the meaning I attach. That it is not the same meaning as you is NOT equivocation - merely a difference in understanding behind the word.
And when someone asks a question that hinges on one's understanding of a specific word, do you not think it important to understand that there are differences in understanding?

You are doing a good enough job of ridiculing yourself without me needing to appeal to it.

 

This is clearly a POV that "life" is a thing or something that can be added or taken from an organism*; however that is false.

Life is a process taking place within a well defined system or “body,” which may be singular or multiple cellular, that for some period of time (while living) takes energy from the environment and uses part of it to maintain a lower entropy state than this system will later achieve when it no longer is living – i.e. When the life PROCESS has stopped or system is "dead."

Note also that normally the life process is not binary - i.e. not all or none, but as death approaches (perhaps over a period of years) the process is decreasing less able to efficiently use external energy to resist the increase of entropy within the system. Organs fail, etc. over a period of time. For complex systems, like humans, typically when death occurs is more a mater of how death is defined than a point in time. For example, parts of the body such as hair and finger nails continue to grow many days after the heart and lungs have stopped.
------------
*This is the essence of the religious or faith-based POV that some "soul" exists but there is no non-circular evidence that any soul exists.

I´ll add, by way of advice, there is usually little point in discussion with one who hold the faith-based POV as their faith over rules logic and reason and facts are ignored or denied.

 

You said, "... "life" is a characteristic that describes certain activities, just as motion is the characteristic of those objects that are moving." You used it to argue your point as well. Apparently you now think your copious use of punctuation and thinly veiled ad hominems will obscure that fact.

Anything irreducible to its constituent parts is necessarily additional to the sum of those parts.

Exactly, you never bother to define the term you are using in a nonstandard way.

Contrary to your black and white thinking, I can actually refrain from making a false dilemma of them. Sure, life is a property expressed in certain material objects. And? That does not necessarily make it reducible to those objects, nor does it prove that life is a property independent of those objects.

Any intellectually honest person has some regard for defining terms used in a nonstandard way, other than just leave everyone guessing by saying "dependent upon what you understand "exist" to mean". You are essentially saying that you may not agree on terms, but you have no interest or desire to offer your definition in the hope of clearing up any confusion.

Show me where you have defined your particular usage of "exist". Or are we to assume you have been doing that all along by asserting things illusory? I could swear you already asserted that not everything was illusory.

It is equivocation when you either fail to define your nonstandard usage of a term or do so in a vague manner, both of which you do regularly.

 

Yes - but this is not HIS argument!
I parodied HIS argument then clarified MY position with what you quote here.
And you call me out on using my own argument??? Stop trolling!

If a system only has constituent parts then the addition is not to the system but to our understanding thereof. Do you understand that?
Hansda's view was that you needed to add to the system. Do you think you need to add to the system for the emergent property to arise, or is the addition merely in the understanding and the need for extra descriptors that are only relevant / applicable at the level of the emergent property?

Stop lying!
I fully explain what I mean as soon as there is any apparent confusion - as I did with the term "illusion" for which you continually try to claim is equivocation. So again, stop with the trolling!

I never said it did, so quit the strawman, and learn to comprehend what people write.

It is not leaving anyone guessing at that point. It is saying that if they want to go down that path then we need to clarify what we mean before we go any further.
But no, that's undoubtedly intellectually dishonest, right? Again you are trolling for an argument where none exist.

I haven't and that's why I didn't go down that line of argument at that time but gave him the opportunity to respond and say that he would like to. If he still wants to then we will need to clarify what we both mean by the word.

Given that you continually make unwarranted assumptions of other people's positions through failure of comprehension, I don't doubt you could swear it.

Drivel - it is equivocation when you do so with the intent to mislead. I make a point of clarifying the terms I use when there is any apparent misunderstanding. Sure, you may not like the way it is being used, but that does not make it equivocation. To continue such pathetic accusations is nothing but trolling.
Deal with it!

 

That "parody" of his argument is no less a parody of your own, for the exact same reasons. A trivial tautology is no less one for being applied to something else. And pointing out this glaringly obvious fact is anything but trolling. I am calling you out for ridiculously using the same argument to both criticize his and defend your own. That is just silly, but certainly no more silly than your obtuse inability to recognize the simple fact. And when your backpedaling fails you resort to accusations. Whatever makes you feel better.

That is just the thing. Emergent properties do not avail themselves of explanation from the constituent parts, so it is trivial that the emergent property cannot be described by the underlying influences. Emergence is, by definition, unaccounted for in the underlying system, so it is disingenuous to declare that there is nothing in addition (at the very least, the environment of interaction must be additional), as we do not have a full accounting. IOW, you are making proclamations that cannot be supported.

Then support your accusation or expose yourself the troll. Quote, with a link, where I have claimed you equivocated over "illusion". I will give you the benefit of the doubt that perhaps I have, rather than just reciprocate "stop lying". I have certainly called you on equivocating "reality" where you have consistently failed to distinguish it from illusion. This seems only an evasion of your other copious equivocations, including the most recent "exists". Why can you not manage to just define the last term you failed to? ...Nothing?

Then why did you offer me that false dilemma?

I can both consider "life" a description of certain characteristics without necessarily denying the underlying premise of his argument. To say that the two are mutually exclusive is the definition of false dilemma. Look it up.

Well nice of you to finally admit to not defining your term. You could have just done that rather than all this spiteful justification/accusation.

So still unwilling to clarify your position? It is you who argued for an inconsistency of illusion with something(?) when I criticized your view as necessitating everything wholly illusory. Have you changed your mind on that? What else is there if not wholly illusion? In lieu of any actual clarification from you, assumptions are all we can go on, warranted or not.

No, equivocation does not necessitate intent. You supposedly "make a point of clarifying the terms" even though you have chosen to do all this justification instead of simply doing so here. How can I dislike your usage when you have not defined it?

I must be striking some raw nerves, but you could simply define what terms and positions I ask you to avoid all this. No? Nothing? All your "troll" accusation do nothing to obscure your evasions.

 

Yet you claim that "My understanding is that, every living cell(be it ant or amoeba); which has life, has soul." (Post #236)

Are you now saying that cells of a larger organism are different? You really haven't thought this through have you.

 

...

 

So let me get this straight: you think that my parodying of his argument, to rephrase the same arguments he does precisely to highlight the perceived flaw in that argument, and in doing so explain what I consider to be a more rational position, is ridiculous?
If that is what you consider ridiculous it is no wonder that you do nothing else but try to score points while miscomprehending what other people say.

Emergent properties certainly are unaccounted for, at least in our understanding of the properties of the underlying components and the known interactions. But nothing is added to those parts - as was hansda's suggestion. And the interaction of those underlying parts is already assumed to be a part of the "system". It is not something that is additional to the system.

There is no benefit of any doubt to give.
http://www.sciforums.com/showthread.php?133265-Do-we-have-free-will/page3

Just so we're clear: you have not once... I repeat: NOT ONCE asked me to provide my position on reality, to define it.
If you think you have, post the link. Just one will do.
Otherwise apologise for this utter crap that you are spouting.
You have certainly accused me of equivocating about it, but in fact made a point of saying: (Post 107) And as I told you elsewhere, I am not interested in how you may equivocate "reality".

All of this has stemmed from your apparent inability to comprehend the usage of the term "illusion" as meaning: "not as perceived". You want it to mean "unreal" or "false" and you claim equivocation when you don't get your way.
But I guess you think I'm the only person who uses the term as such?

Again, I'll await your link to where you've actually asked me what I mean by "exist". I'm sure you have done - so it should be a simple matter of you posting the link to it.
I have certainly avoided going down a path of discussion while there may have been confusion about the term, giving the opportunity for the other to request that we venture that way. But they didn't (or at least I didn't read any such post).

I didn't offer you a false dilemma.

I didn't say you didn't deny the underlying premise - I said that if you disagree with me then you do not consider the word "life" to be a descriptor for certain characteristics that something may have, and you do NOT see any issue with hansda's argument. If you have do not have an issue with hansda's argument then you can not consider "life" to be a description of certain characteristics but an actual thing, akin to fuel for a car. That is his position. They are mutually exclusive.

Again - you post where you have asked me to define the term. Have you defined your term?

I have clarified my position numerous times, as you well know given that you have taken issue with the position.
Or do you mean you're waiting for clarification on another position? Post the links and I'll see why I didn't respond the first time?

With regard inconsistency of illusion, I thought I had clarified this to a fairly simple level for you with the example of the people watching a film: we know it is an illusion, yet if someone skips a reel, or changes film halfway through, we become aware of the inconsistency. This holds whether our perception of the universe as a whole is illusory or not.
And if the universe itself (or our perception of it) is illusory that does not alter that it is internally consistent such that we can spot inconsistencies.
So no, I haven't changed my mind, and your criticism was nothing of the sort as I know reasonably well what my position is.
As to what else is there? We can't tell. There may be nothing, there may be something, but it is rational to assume that the illusion we perceive is generated by an objective reality that, due to the consistency we perceive of the illusion, is likewise consistent.
Think of the universe as a room which is covered in a removable layer of wallpaper. We perceive the wallpaper. It is consistently smooth. What is beneath the wallpaper? We can't tell but it is rational to assume that it is consistently smooth as well.

I have always clarified when asked. And assumptions are all you can go on if you don't have the decency to ask for clarification. But to then pick holes in those assumptions without stating that that was what they were, and to try to score points from those unwarranted assumptions... :shrug:

It is strongly implied if you continue to accuse someone of it despite them having provided clarification when asked, and when they continue to use their same understanding/definition throughout their arguments.
It does become tricky, admittedly, when two people are trying to use the same word to convey different ideas - which happens a lot in philosophy - which is why careful explanation of one's position/usage/definition is required, and which I do when asked, or when I become aware of misunderstanding.

Other than the term "illusion", I am not aware that you have asked me to define anything, or that there is any difference in terms that has not already been covered, or that you have categorically stated that you are not interested in.

No - there is just so much inanity I can take, and your pettiness, unwarranted assumptions, and lack of comprehension I am finding inane.

You do need to ask, though, or should I remind you again: "And as I told you elsewhere, I am not interested in how you may equivocate "reality". :shrug:

I have evaded one line of discussion on the matter of whether dreams exist in reality the same way as life and death, for no other reason than to ensure that if hansda wanted to go down that discussion we clarified our understanding of the terms we use. And I try to evade strawmen. What else are you referring to? Perhaps you think I'm avoiding your lack of request for clarification?


But I have a question: What is your purpose for replying (other than to respond to this question)?

 

Why this process(life) happens only in a living-cell?

Why this process(life) does not happen in a dead-cell?

Is there any physical difference between a living-cell and a dead-cell?

The above statement is not correct. See this link http://www.newscientist.com/blog/lastword/2007/06/life-after-death.html

 

Their physical structures may be different but cellular-life is same from animation point of view.

Do you think cellular-life of a living-body and cellular-life of a dead-body are same(from the point of view of animation or entropy)?

 

Because death is the decay or increase of entropy that only a living cell can resist. Life is the maintaince of a lower entropy state by part of the energy (and material too) taken from the environment. I.e. life is this process and death is when it totally stops, but as I noted the transition between full life and death can, and often does take years.

In my father´s case his health deteriorated (due to having smoked up to two packs per day for several decades) over about 4 years if we mark the start as when his weight began to decline (never to recover again). In first of those four years, how far he could walk before needing to rest decreased every month. In 2nd year his heart and became more erratic* and kidneys were beginning to fail - not clearing creatine, etc. well. In his last year, he was tied to a small brown (it may have been the standard green, but I remember it as brown) oxygen bottle, except when sleeping. Etc. Once the cardio-vascular-respiratory system is failing all organs and activity decline.

The transition between life and death can take years as in my father´s case or can be quick - 10 minute or less if your heart goes into Arial Fibrillation and more than 5 minutes pass without an electrical shock applied to stop that fibrillation

You have some silly disguised soul idea/belief that implies you are alive one minute and dead the next when the soul leaves. There is zero evidence for the existence of a soul, although some give circular arguments that basically start by assuming it does.

* At APL/jhu where I worked we had just licensed the rechargable pacer to Medtronics and I knew what a quality unit it was - made with even higher quality control than the satellites we were building. I tired to get dad to accept one, but he would not. He was quite religious. If God was calling him home, he would not resist with new advanced technology. I have somewhat the same resistance to strong technical efforts to prolong life a few weeks - If I am terminally ill, my toe will have the DNR tag.

 

Again, you said: "... "life" is a characteristic that describes certain activities, just as motion is the characteristic of those objects that are moving." Supposedly a "more rational position" using the exact same trivial tautology. Changing "caused" to "describes" makes it no less a trivial tautology. Motion is movement, it does not "describe" movement. If you still cannot understand this very simple logic then you are beyond help.

You cannot both agree that "[e]mergent properties certainly are unaccounted for" and say "nothing is added to those parts". The latter implies that you can account for the emergent properties, as you supposedly know that "nothing is added". Logic is not your strong suit.

Failing to distinguish illusion from reality is equivocation, whether I bothered to explicitly point it out or not (you do it far to often for that). Nor does "calling you on" it require explicitly asking you to define it, although asking you to distinguish the two would definitely entail defining them. So your evasions are useless. I was not interesting in your equivocation of "reality" until you made it central to your supposed "inconsistency". And it is a straw man that I have ever disagreed with the usage "not as perceived".

Seems pretty clear I wanted you to define it. Oh wait, now it has to be the person you were responding to that asks, right? Just endless evasions and justifications.

It is the definition of a false dilemma to present two options as being mutually exclusive when they are not. I have no problem with both considering life as certain characteristics and for these to be additional to the sum of constituents.

Already addressed above. And what term do you need defined?

I have already tired of this little "post the links" game of yours.

Wow, that is a lot of words to say absolutely nothing. Drop the analogies already and answer these questions plainly.

1. How do you specifically distinguish illusion as such?
2. What is the specific inconsistency you keep claiming reveals it an illusion?


And do not think that I have not noticed how you have retreated to the one thread where you were able to muster support, having neglected to respond to my posts elsewhere. Now if you finally realized that the vagueness of your arguments were only suitable for the philosophy forum then kudos. Good thinking.

 

Again, hopefully for the last time, to use the opponents own styling in a counter argument is a technique widely used. That I used tautology is because I thought he had used it, which was part of the weakness I was showing in his argument.
Furthermore I never said motion described movement. I said motion was the descriptor for the characteristic of moving. Something is said to be moving if it has motion, just as hansda was arguing that something is living if it has life, and he was using that to argue that therefore life was something additional, akin to fuel in a car, rather than just a descriptor for the characteristic of living.
All you are doing is being pedantic, inaccurate and argumentative for the sake of it rather than with any interest to forward discussion.

Just because we can not account for it does not imply that something is added. We determine them to be emergent precisely because nothing is added and yet there still seems to be these properties unaccounted for. If you add something to the underlying activity to account for the property then the property becomes accountable by its underlying activity and you no longer have an emergent property.
All we need to add to is our understanding of what is going on.

I have countless times explained my position on what I consider an illusion to be. And you pointedly said you were not interested in any equivocation on matters of reality - as I highlighted earlier. What am I to make of your confused position when you can not seem to make up your own mind?
All you do is confirm that you are not interested in discussion but merely point-scoring, and in doing so derail threads.

And need i remind you again: "And as I told you elsewhere, I am not interested in how you may equivocate "reality". " :shrug:

That is indeed the definition, and yes those issues are mutually exclusive, as explained. It remains a false dilemma even though one may illogically decide to hold an alternative where no logical one exists.

So you accuse me of evasion and then evade, merely fuelling the conception that you are not here for discussion but just to troll. No one would mind too much if the tone of your responses was not so combatative and aggressive, but you turn discussions into wars, and bog entire threads in your mire.

And that's a rather impolite way to say that you don't understand.

Through logic, based on what i consider to be rational assumptions.

The inconsistency between what we know of interactions within the underlying activity, and the concept of a genuine free will. For free will to be genuine then consciousness must be the original cause of an action, not merely the mechanistic tipping point of all the underlying causes (down to the quantum level etc) or some other such concept, but it must be the first cause of an action. And the only uncaused events we know of are random, which does not allow freedom either, as there is no choice.
If consciousness is not the first cause of an action, but was itself caused, and the causes are random, then there is no ability to choose.
But we retain the perception of that choice.
And since the perception does not match the underlying activity then I rationally conclude that our perception is being tricked, and that it is illusory. But since we operate at the level of perception, and can not do otherwise, we operate with this illusory free will and consider it genuine for all practical purposes.

And still you consider it a battle instead of any semblance of discussion, which speaks volumes of you and your approach.
That thread you reference had already had at least one poster criticising that the same discussion was on two separate threads, or that there was a better home for it. So forgive me if I chose to ignore at least one of them.

 

Can you tell me, what is the physical difference 'between a living-cell and a dead-cell'; presence of which causes lower entropy in the living-cell and absence of which causes increase of entropy in the dead-cell?

 

Let us say, life is a process/activity. There must be some existence which is causing this process/activity(life). You were also trying to define the existence of this cause as: "The view I find to be most rational is it is caused by the underlying arrangement and interaction of the molecules/atoms/quarks/matter."

"Absence of the specific pattern and activity of those underlying molecules/atoms/quarks/matter." [Ref your post #435]

So, essentially you are also holding the same view that something is causing life(activity) like a fuel in a car. How is your views different than mine? You only used different words/terms.

 

I held that view that free will was inconsistent with what is known of neural processes (all are deterministic followers of the laws of nature - diffusion of neurotransmitters across synaptic clefs, the self propagating pulse of Na+ ions raising the internal potential of the axon from -70mV to a few mV positive we call a neural discharge, etc.). I.e. for many decades I believed that "free will" had to be a universal illusion and gave up trying to find a way it could fit within the frame work of known facts.

I was granted a year with pay to study in JHU´s cognitive science department and focused on visual perception. Slowly I came to realize that the accepted POV, which is: Visual experience "emerges" after many stages of neural transformations of retinal data, is wrong. That is just "hand waving" - no explanation at all, and worse - is totally inconsistent with many well established facts. To name just two: We have visual experiences in dreams with zero input of retinal data & all the early stages of visual processing are "deconstruction" - i.e. the information is separated into different "characteristics" for further processing in widely separated parts of the brain. For example color characteristics are process in V4 and movement characteristics in V5, whose cells can be fatigued (like many others) by prolonged staring at one speed and direction of motion. Then when looking at a stationary object, it seems to have motion in the opposite direction while remaining in the same place. The "water fall" effect, was known to the ancient Greeks as was the color after effect illusion (falsely see green spot on white wall of same shape as the red spot you stared at for several minutes).

These separated characteristic of objects never come back together in the same neural tissue, yet our perception is of a unified world. The inescapable conclusion is that the standard POV is wrong - our visual perception (and many others it turns out) is an INTERNAL CREATION, guided by the retinal data. Evolution has made this close agreement occur as without it surviving in the real world would be nearly impossible. (In the dream state, the internally created visual experiences do not need to conform to physical reality as when sleeping you take no actions that could kill you - OK to run thru fire or jump off cliff and fly down to the valley floor when dreaming, etc.

As I began to build my own POV about perception, as an internal simulation of the real world, I realized not all of it had to conform to the physical laws. I discovered many neurological facts which are consistent with my emerging POV but a great mystery to the conventional POV. For example, more axons come to the primary visual cortex, V1, from parietal brain than from the eyes! And several other strange "wiring mysteries" with zero justification in the conventional view, but essential in my Real Time Simulation, RTS, and POV.

The RTS, very naturally explains dozens of facts from many fields that are not explained or even inconsistent with the conventional "perception emerges" hand waving. For example, to name two: how and why our weaker, smaller brained, ancestors killed off all other humanoid forms, including the Neanderthals and why the phantom limb is just as real psychologically as the still existing limb despite conscious knowledge that it is not there. An accidental fallout of my RTS is that humans can within the world they create internally and the only world they directly experience, have free will.

If you want to know more about this and the RTS, please read (and then comment on) the "GFW essay" (Last part of a paper on the neurological mechanism of perception I published in 1994) here: http://www.sciforums.com/showthread....l=1#post882356

I´ll offer a few words on what is, IMHO, basically a terminology conflict between Sarkus and Syne:
There are two different meanings to both “Reality” and “illusion.”

Reality1 is what is directly perceived and the only reality we are sure actually exists*. Reality2 is what most mean by the term (an external physical world) but it is only inferred to exist from Reality1. Reality2 could be only an illusion as Bishop Berkeley suggested more than 300 years ago, but most understand the term “illusion” to be when their reality1 differs from their (assumed) understanding of what exists in Reality2.

In my POV, reality1 is created mainly by parietal brain´s RTS, and “you,” your psychological self, are a part of that creation. “You” don´t even exist when in deep dreamless sleep as the RTS is not “running” then, but of course your body does. Reality1, being a simulation, allows “you” to not conform to the physical laws. I.e. “you” can have free will, but I am inclined to think you do not, mainly because (1) many experiments now show decisions and problem solving is done unconsciously and later, consciousness is informed of the results and then consciousness assumes we decided or made a choice. (2) The split brain experiments especially show we fabricate the “reasons” why we do many things as we are ignorant of the real reasons. Psychiatrists since at least Freud have held this “we fabricate reasons for our actions” POV too but that is less powerful evidence than the split brain experiments, where the experimenter can know with certainty the subject´s fabricated reason is false.

 

Maybe "caused" was a bad choice of words from me. It emerges from the underlying activity, but that activity has no specific cause, nothing added to it. When a pattern emerges that displays certain characteristics we perceive it as such and refer to it as "life".
That is a rather different view than "Add fuel and you have a working car".