Article #245
Subject: Claire Zhang's three problems about consciousness
Author: Andrew W. Harrell
Posted: 2/16/2015 01:40:25 PM

Three Philosophical Problems about Consciousness and their Possible
Resolution


Claire Zhang

Editor of Scientific Research Publishing

Top Contributor


Hi! Everyone, any comment on this research or topic is welcomed!
Three big philosophical problems about consciousness are: Why does it exist?
How do we explain and understand it? How can we explain brain-consciousness
correlations? If functionalism were true, all three problems would be solved.
But it is false, and that means all three problems remain unsolved (in that
there is no other obvious candidate for a solution). Here, it is argued that
the first problem cannot have a solution; this is inherent in the nature of
explanation. The second problem is solved by recognizing that (a) there is an
explanation as to why science cannot explain consciousness, and (b)
consciousness can be explained by a different kind of explanation, empathic
or “personalistic” explanation, compatible with, but not reducible to,
scientific explanation. The third problem is solved by exploiting David
Chalmers“principle of structural coherence”, and involves postulating that
sensations experienced by us–visual, auditory, tactile, and so on–amount to
minute scattered regions in a vast, multi dimensional “space” of all possible
sensations, which vary smoothly, and in a linear way, throughout the space.
There is also the space of all possible sentient brain processes. There is
just one, unique one-one mapping between these two spaces that preserves
continuity and linearity. It is this which provides the explanation as to why
brain processes and sensations are correlated as they are. I consider
objections to this unique-matching theory, and consider how the theory might
be empirically confirmed.

Full paper link: http://www.scirp.org/Journal/PaperInformation.aspx?
PaperID=6906&utm_campaign=linkedin&utm_medium=zc


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21 days ago




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 peter lovasz, Amirhossein Shoghi and 1 other like this

 8 comments Jump to most recent comment

peter lovasz
peter



peter lovasz

profesor at General school Budesti

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This problem is tangent with my recent publication ,,What is the first reason
of life,, and in my vision is an personal question ! And the true exist for
everyone!
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21 days ago


Brij Mohan
Brij



Brij Mohan

Chief Editor at Scholar's Publisher Inc.

?
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19 days ago


peter lovasz
peter



peter lovasz

profesor at General school Budesti

Top Contributor

Esteem Claire Zhang,
Please if is possible relate me with David Chalmers principle of structural
coherence !
regards peter
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19 days ago


Andrew Harrell



Andrew Harrell

Independent Research Professional

Hi, may I jump in these difficult advanced mental waters, just from reading
Claire's interesting introductory paragraph that sets the discussion topic?
From a mathematical point of view a lot of progress has been made since the
English empiricist philosopher David Hume thought about and posed some of
these same problems a couple of centuries ago. His question was how can our
sense impressions flow together continuously through time and outside of it
maybe, through our consciousness. Since then computers have been invented
that explain a lot of how facts and assertions of them can be combined
together logically into true statements about our temporal world and also our
faith in an eternal one. Kantian and Newtonian absolute space and time have
been added to by something called a mathematical manifold in which events in
space and time can be connected not only one way, the flat Euclidean one, but
also in a curved manner that can double back on itself. Hermann Weyl, and
other mathematicans figured out the definition of such a concept (manifold).
It must have continuous or differentiable mapping from one local area of
itself into another in order for us to be able to do a higher version of
mathematical analysis (multidimensional calculus) on it and integrate and
differentiate the functions of physics in it. Scientists are left with the
difficult problem of testing various possibilities to determine which one (or
one of several ones) that we live and understand things in.
How does this relate to Claire's three questions?

To know the why of things, and also our consciousness of them, we have to
reason backwardly from a final cause or goal. It is caused goal-oriented
thinking in artificial intelligence theories nowadays.

In order to correlate or forward-chain facts together we have to use a
different logic. it is called "object oriented" thinking in computer
programming and deals with data structures which use a different "unification
of clauses" logic algorithm.

The most important problem we are faced with after understanding these two
ways of knowing things I believe is how do we human arrange the "rules of our
thinking" so that the mindfulness (of object oriented knowledge) can combine
with the faith (of backward reasoned goal-oriented knowledge) in order that
our minds will ask all the questions necessary to understand what we are
thinking about to give "definition to the defined" as Pascal argued for.

I don't know if these ideas will start any discussion off, Claire, to help
better understand your thought provoking questions. But, I am willing to go
on trying with you to get a better knowledge of what we are talking about
when we ask these questions.

Sincerely,
Andrew
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16 days ago


Andrew Harrell



Andrew Harrell

Independent Research Professional

Here is my proposal for one possible answer to Claire's question, "why do we
think". I say we think because we are. If in fact we are, as Descartes has
said, because we think...then I say we can also be (at the same time even)
and be thinking because we are.

This, as I have explained above, is an explanation because it refers back to
a goal (the goal of being) and it is a backward and forward chained (because
it assumes a fact, our existence) reasoning and mixing faith and mindfulness
together as one.
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16 days ago


G Donald Allen
G Donald



G Donald Allen

Professor of Mathematics

Just a couple of notes...

The falsification argument against functionalism is one center point of this
article. It is interesting, but seemingly assumes there is a single function
that must apply to all brains. While all the brains may process information
similarly, there must be accepted the parameters of these processes may
differ substantially. Thus, the concept of “redness” may and really can be
radically different from person to person. This negates the requirement of
predictability. It cannot be when two engines, while based on fundamentally
similar principles, operate with wide variations. The “zombie” argument
against functionality must be dismissed outright, for one cannot argue
against a concept using a “conceivability” premise, in this case about
consciousness.

Each brain must have an intrinsic profile which guides how it responds to
stimuli. However, the story cannot rest with this. The key point beyond the
(high) dimensionality argument given is scale. Perception is one of
these "higher" dimensions. Most people trying to explain consciousness have
this trouble. They try to explain complex events that occur on multiple
scales, from molecular to biological to gross modeling. This has proved
difficult in whatever venue you choose.

The scale problem is present as well in cosmology, wherein cosmologists have
simply given up determining a single functional and universal explanation in
favor of multiple such explanations consistent within their scale of
explanation and predictability. They address the dovetail of scales simply:
explanations must more-or-less agree when scales merge.
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15 days ago


Colin Cook
Colin



Colin Cook

Self employed

I think we have a fundamental problem with the simplest aspects of
consciousness, such as the experience of 'redness'. How would we give an
intelligent robot such an experience, so that it could relate to us in our
experience of redness? These factors within consciousness must have evolved
with our visual system, and I see no reason why such a factor could not be re-
created in a machine, albeit accidentally in an extremely complex sensory
system with lots of redundant and random elements that could be selected by
whatever feedback mechanism we provide the machine with to confer some
advantage for the machine, such as being able to select the right colour of
charging post, for example.
Moreover, what these machines need is some type of value system, where the
charged state of its power supply is registered as being higher in value than
the uncharged or partially charged state. I think once these values are
installed into a complex sensory machine, random changes (mutations if you
like) will work on the sensory structure to maximise its success.
But I think if we take apart such a system and try to find where it's
consciousness of redness exists, we will be just as mystified as we are with
living organisms.
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14 days ago



Dan O'Dea
Dan



Dan O'Dea

Science educator, philosopher, and author

Hi all (and especially Claire), please note the following.

The paper at the link was written by Nicholas Maxwell, Emeritus Reader in
Philosophy of Science at University College London, London, Britain. As I
read your comments, you all assume Claire wrote this, but in reality she
lifted the abstract directly from the paper WITHOUT CREDITING DR. MAXWELL.
That is poaching and unethical.

Claire, all you really need to do to avoid this problem is to add a citation
of the work, whether in front of the abstract (e.g., Dr. Nicholas Maxwell
notes in his paper "Three Philosophical Problems about Consciousness and
their Possible Resolution" that..., or at the end of the abstract, list the
author.

If you do not credit the original author in your posing the question, that
is poaching, or outright plagiarism.

Article #246
Subject: further explanation of my suggested solutions to the three problems
Author: Andrew W. Harrell
Posted: 2/16/2015 01:50:38 PM

Yes, Colin, Claire,Dan back to our three problems, not worry about whether
Claire has plagiarized.

I believe the answer to your statement, "what these machines need is some
type of value system, where the charged state of its power supply is
registered as being higher in value than the uncharged or partially charged
state is already contained in what I tried to explain earlier as the way
current expert system computer languages answer the question "why" of
anything. We can already explain "why" in a series of expert system
questions and answers when we chain logically backwards in the factual
database using the unification of variables algorithms in such languages as
Prolog. When we chain forward in a factual database in order to make
conclusion we can not trace the series of variable identifications back to an
original goal (which will be a logical postulate or condition or situation we
are trying to find a path to in the series of backward variable unifications).
If this is somewhat confusing I apologize but if we discuss it more I believe
it will become clear to you,