The hard problem of consciousness...

[RMQualtrough]

That is, the explanation for qualia (the redness of red etc).

Clearly this is a harder problem for materialism, but it is also the case with nonduality/idealism.

Why does red look red and not blue for example? Why is green not yellow and yellow not green? How and why is our brain tapping into this world of colour? Are there infinite more colours available? I assume there must be. Why don't we see those? Does any living thing?

[Mafortu]

Mantis Shrimps can see a lot more colors and spectrums than we do.

[RMQualtrough]

42 minutes ago, Mafortu said:

Mantis Shrimps can see a lot more colors and spectrums than we do.

Yes I remember reading this ages ago. It's specifically what we see as shades of beige isn't it?

How and why do we see these colors the way we do? Isn't is strange... Why is red red, why doesn't it looks yellow? How is it being pulled up? A blind person who has a damaged visual cortex will not ever experience color. Through what process is the brain latching onto these little pockets of color?

[RMQualtrough]

25 minutes ago, Kalo said:

Funney these rational explanations for stuff. Reality is so trans-rational, it makes rationality like an little ant.

Like the brain. Who says it is tapping into the world of colors? 

Anyhow, in the trans-rational spiritual psyche (not part of the brain btw, and immaterial), the brain is made so unimportant, that it’s forgotten it even exists.

So let’s go through some simple baby rules....

1) You are not the brain. You have a brain. 

2) The brain doesn’t produce Consciousness or Awareness.

3) Reality is not within the brain

It truly and actually amuses me how grown men can believe these delusions to be true.

The only brains I know of, is the ones I magnificantly headshoots in black ops.

I think it goes like this...

Awareness -> Big Bang/Spacetime (including matter) -> Pockets of experience within this manufactured spacetime develop and become increasingly complex -> Multiple pockets of experience link and work together for a "lifeform", it is processed as one unit like a computer.

I don't think I am awareness, I think it's me. I don't think the two statements are the same... I'm an imaginary puppet. When life is over the plaything that is me is discarded and vanishes into nothingness like the characters in a dream when I wake up.

From their perspective if they had one they just vanish.

From our perspective we are the body and brain I think. The body and brain are imaginary but so are we. We are the toys God plays with. Our brains shape our existence entirely.

Edited June 4, 2021 by RMQualtrough

[snowyowl]

On 04/06/2021 at 7:38 PM, RMQualtrough said:

 

Why does red look red and not blue for example? 

If mind & matter are one (neutral monism being my preferred term for this), then the difference between redness & blueness in our awareness is identical with the different electro-chemical reactions occurring within the brain. Red & blue correspond to different frequencies of light, which are translated into different signals by the eyes. 

I can't see a hard problem here, but maybe there's a hole in my logic somewhere  

[RMQualtrough]

21 minutes ago, snowyowl said:

If mind & matter are one (neutral monism being my preferred term for this), then the difference between redness & blueness in our awareness is identical with the different electro-chemical reactions occurring within the brain. Red & blue correspond to different frequencies of light, which are translated into different signals by the eyes. 

I can't see a hard problem here, but maybe there's a hole in my logic somewhere  

Indeed, the question is WHY do they correspond to these things? To a dog you can show them red and they'll be like "wtf? That's grey!" or something because redness doesn't exist to them.

So it's not like that wavelength is objectively red. Red exists only subjectively.

The redness of red etc. is called qualia. Those things are immaterial like love or fear.

[Blackhawk]

On 2021-06-04 at 8:38 PM, RMQualtrough said:

That is, the explanation for qualia (the redness of red etc).

Clearly this is a harder problem for materialism, but it is also the case with nonduality/idealism.

Why does red look red and not blue for example? Why is green not yellow and yellow not green? How and why is our brain tapping into this world of colour? Are there infinite more colours available? I assume there must be. Why don't we see those? Does any living thing?

Not really.

The hard problem of consciousness is how insentient dead matter can create consciousness.

Materialists dismiss the problem by choosing to believe in magic. Like this: 

[snowyowl]

@RMQualtrough This is my (probably simplistic) understanding. Our retinas in our eyes have two different types of cells, rods and cones. Rods are sensitive to black & white, cones can distinguish colours. Different animals see in different ways, many are colourblind, eg bulls so it's a myth about waving a red rag to a bull. Some insects can see ultraviolet. This is all explainable from the materialist lens. 

The problem is, we don't really believe matter is itself conscious, so there seems to be a "gap" between the physical processes and the conscious awareness of them. But I don't see a gap, perhaps I'm talking myself into panpsychism here

[RMQualtrough]

@Blackhawk Oh yes, the "zap a rock with electric, nothing happens; zap some fleshy material with electric and MUH SCIENCE magical consciousness appears".

That is one element of it.

[RMQualtrough]

@snowyowl I was unable to convey this to a friend too. LOL it's funny because it's so hard to explain.

It makes me laugh because it's like RIGHT THERE and I can't point people to what I mean.

Uhmmm... Maybe consider for example, that another color exists that no living thing can see. We see it as blue, but there is some wavelength that is in fact some new color.

We can't see the color. We can see the wavelength of light via the rods cones etc. But we see BLUE. The new color is something we cannot find anywhere inside either the objective or subjective world.

That other new color, what IS IT. The color itself, what it looks like, is the qualia.

So you can say we see blue because that wavelength of light IS blue. But it's not. It's interpreted subjectively ae blue. Why couldn't it be interpreted subjectively as grey or something as a dog might? If humans didn't exist maybe blue wouldn't exist... The wavelength of blue would, but what blue looks like is found nowhere at all.

So that is a problem. It is a problem that zapping some matter conjures this immaterial thing that exists nowhere in space, only in mind.

[Willie]

1 hour ago, RMQualtrough said:

@Blackhawk Oh yes, the "zap a rock with electric, nothing happens; zap some fleshy material with electric and MUH SCIENCE magical consciousness appears".

That is one element of it.

That’s how Victor Frankenstein did it.

But really, there is no problem of consciousness. It’s the requirement for rigorous empirical evidence-based proof of the arising of consciousness from a lack of consciousness which is a problem for some. It’s very unscientific to say something like “God did it” or “It’s eternal and uncaused”. 
Consciousness is not a problem. Proving its beginning is. 

[snowyowl]

4 hours ago, RMQualtrough said:

That other new color, what IS IT.

Two different inputs could lead to the same output couldn't they? Like when you load a file into a computer program with new fonts not recognised by the program, it simply displays them with the existing, 'normal' font. As far as I know, our eyes are only sensitive to the visible part of the EM spectrum, any wavelengths outside it are invisible, like you can't see radio waves or X rays. However, other materials can, like metal aerials or photographic film. The whacky part for me is that those are also awareness, although of a different order to 'my' brain. 

More conventional people I know talk about consciousness as an 'emergent property' of the particular structure of brains, however I've yet to read a good scientific explanation of emergent properties, it sounds like more magic to me

Edited June 6, 2021 by snowyowl
spelling

[RMQualtrough]

4 minutes ago, snowyowl said:

Two different inputs could lead to the same output couldn't they? Like when you load a file into a computer program with new fonts not recognised by the program, it simply displays them with the existing, 'normal' font. As far as I know, our eyes are only sensitive to the visible part of the EM spectrum, any wavelengths outside it are invisible, like you can't see radio waves or X rays. However, other materials can, like metal aerials or photographic film. The whacky part for me is that those are also awareness, although of a different order to 'my' brain. 

More conventional people I know talk a consciousness as an 'emergent property' of the particular structure of brains, however I've yet to read a good scientific explanation of emergent properties, it sounds like more magic to me

It can, but what is blue. There is the light wavelength that enters the eye. This wavelength isn't blue out there external to you, it's just a wavelength. Then there's the actual color blue which exists only in the subjective mind.

How is "blue" made. The color itself. Where does that come from? Isolate the actual color. Why do these cones produce the actual experiential nature of blue.

[snowyowl]

  @RMQualtrough  I think we're at cross purposes here. You seem to be saying (please correct me if I'm wrong) that subjective awareness of blueness is different from the objective wavelength of blue light in the physical world, so you keep asking me, what is it? . I'm saying blueness is x nanometres of EM light (sorry I forget the exact number), processed by the eyes and brain neurons into a chemical reaction. That chemical reaction is sensitive to itself, aware of itself, and another chemical reaction called 'thinking', calls it 'blue'. Any good? 

Edited June 6, 2021 by snowyowl

[LastThursday]

On 04/06/2021 at 7:38 PM, RMQualtrough said:

Why does red look red and not blue for example? Why is green not yellow and yellow not green? How and why is our brain tapping into this world of colour? Are there infinite more colours available? I assume there must be. Why don't we see those? Does any living thing?

Colour perception is all about context:

https://www.ted.com/talks/beau_lotto_optical_illusions_show_how_we_see#t-228783

There is no absolute red or blue. In a way, you're asking the wrong question. You should be asking: why is colour different from sounds or touch or taste. But even here things can get murky:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synesthesia

 

Edited June 6, 2021 by LastThursday

[RMQualtrough]

15 minutes ago, snowyowl said:

  @RMQualtrough  I think we're at cross purposes here. You seem to be saying (please correct me if I'm wrong) that subjective awareness of blueness is different from the objective wavelength of blue light in the physical world, so you keep asking me, what is it? . I'm saying blueness is x nanometres of EM light (sorry I forget the exact number), processed by the eyes and brain neurons into a chemical reaction. That chemical reaction is sensitive to itself, aware of itself, and another chemical reaction called 'thinking', calls it 'blue'. Any good? 

Right, yeah that's what I mean, but the chemical reaction like the wavelength is also not blue. You could open the brain and see the electric or chemicals flow, but they're chemicals, they're not blue.

Blue only exists subjectively. What we say is objective blue, we really don't mean blue at all but X wavelength.

So how is this subjective thing being conjured? Chemicals are just chemicals like light is just light. And somehow the interaction magically creates something that doesn't exist in the material world.

[snowyowl]

ok I take your point, but looking at a bunch of grey matter in someone else's brain - not your own please - isn't the same as looking at a blue wavelength of light. Therefore there's a different chemical reaction happening in your grey cells. That difference is the subjective difference between blue paint and grey brain matter. 

[RMQualtrough]

@snowyowl To me, the idea of inanimate matter then *magic* consciousness appears, is the same sort of problem as chemicals then *magic* blue appears.

I think you see what I mean. To me both of these things are very bizarre.

[snowyowl]

@RMQualtrough I think I do see what you mean, inanimate matter and subjective awareness are converted into each other - "then" in your last post. 

I don't make that distinction, I don't have the "then", but at the same time, I'm only aware of my own awareness, no-one else's.

In our biology lab at school we had a real human brain preserved in formaldehyde, it just looked like a lump of grey tissue as you'd expect, not a magical crystal ball of awareness. But to the person whose brain  it was, it was their world of awareness. So who am I to say that light or chemicals aren't also aware in some form? 

Edited June 7, 2021 by snowyowl

[RMQualtrough]

@snowyowl See if you enjoy this article which also goes into this topic:

https://www.vox.com/2015/2/26/8118761/dress-qualia

I just found it.

Moreso this:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_Is_It_Like_to_Be_a_Bat%3F

Edited June 7, 2021 by RMQualtrough