For starters: your logical steps from brain uses electricity -> consciousness is in the brain -> therefore consciousness is in the electrical impulses is a non-sequitur.
To illustrate: CPUs blah blah mathematics
Okay, fine. Consciousness is exclusively in the brain. Now your whole metaphor falls apart, because mathematics is not exclusively in the CPU. It is not subjective. It does not arise from the existence of the CPU. It is a concept separate from the CPU, or indeed any matter.
Now before you reply with “ah, but that’s totally different” carefully examine why you think it’s different for consciousness…
I thought about it, and my conclusion is “it’s because I’m not a fuckin moron” .
In addition, there are more than just electrical impulses going on in the brain.
Pedantry. “Electrical impulses” is a close enough phrase to describe a host of related but slightly different things.
All the rest of your questions are stupid ridiculous garbage based on some weird fixation you have with electricity. Like I said, it’s a phrase I used to avoid giving a 3 semester lecture on the minutiae of everything going on in the brain.
My comment just touched the tip of an iceberg that is an entire realm of philosophical and scientific debate that has occupied some of the brightest minds, across multiple disciplines, for decades. But sure, it’s just stupid ridiculous garbage 🙄
Philosophy, as a field, is full of idiots and I have no respect for it.
But also the premise dealt with the tip of the iceberg and nothing more. The extent of our conversation is (heh) just the tip.
“Consciousness is electrical impulses in the brain”. That’s it. The extent of our debate is whether this is true or not. Not how those impulses give rise to consciousness, which is what the greater debate (among those who are not idiots) is about.
Petroleum is what makes cars move, obviously. That’s it!
All those engineers and mechanics who waffle on about physics, laws of motion, and engines and stuff are all a bunch of idiots. I have no respect for them. I don’t need to know about that stuff to talk about how cars work!
You just put petrol in it, it burns and it moves. Burning petrol is what makes cars move. That’s all we’re talking about here! The extent of our debate is whether or not petrol makes cars move. Not how it makes cars go, that’s a wider debate for non-idiots.
(Electric cars? Nonsense. Where’s the gas tank?)
(Boats? No, they’re completely different. I mean yes you put the same fuel in them, but they’re clearly not cars, so it’s not the same.)
Instead of dismissing philosophers as idiots (which might be arguable!) why don’t you actually address the arguments raised? Explore it logically as a scientist.
Do you not see the point they’re making?
“Electrical impulses” isn’t an explanation of consciousness any more than gas (petrol) is the cause of locomotion of vehicles.
It’s involved, sure, but is it a complete explanation, a good explanation, or even necessary for locomotion to happen?
If you look in a brain and see electrical impulses are required for consciousness, is it any different to looking inside an engine and seeing that gas is necessary for it to move? Take them away and they both stop.
You can put petrol in a canister but the canister doesn’t move. Even if you set fire to it. You can put electrical impulses in a computer, but the computer isn’t conscious, even if you make it “think” with AI.
Or is it? How do you know? Does “electrical impulses” get you any closer to knowing?
Think a bit more deeply about what you are actually arguing. But watch out: you’re in danger of becoming a philosopher!
Instead of dismissing philosophers as idiots (which might be arguable!) why don’t you actually address the arguments raised?
Because philosophers love semantic traps, and the best counter to them is either a long, detailed explanation (for someone asking in good faith) or ridicule (for someone who would patiently read your long, detailed explanation and then just come up with another semantic trap that they demand you explain away).
“Electrical impulses” isn’t an explanation of consciousness any more than gas (petrol) is the cause of locomotion of vehicles.
For example. Gasoline is literally the cause of locomotion in vehicles. You put gas in, car go. It gets more complicated than that. Everything always gets more complicated, down to the quantum level. It is fallacious* to demand a specific level of complexity and declare that as “an explanation”. There is no such thing. It is all relative.
“Consciousness is electrical impulses in the brain” is a true statement. It’s just not detailed enough for these guys. But instead of saying “I want more detail”, they say “you are wrong”, because that’s the true point of modern philosophy. Being able to say, “hah, I am so much deeper and more intellectual than you”. Not finding solutions to problems. Science finds solutions to problems.
Anyway, to get back to semantic traps, in this case they decided that an arbitrary level of complexity is “correct” and everything else is “wrong” but they never stated or even defended that premise. And when confronted with it, they deflect. This is why philosophers are deserving of scorn: they play with the multiple interpretations of words to try to make their opponent look wrong or stupid. Note for example the first clumsy attempt, saying “if consciousness is electrical impulses, then electrical impulses are consciousness, so why isn’t a computer conscious?” Obviously middle school level reasoning, but they gloss over the second part (“then electrical impulses are consciousness”) so quickly and with such authority that if you’re not paying attention you don’t notice. But it’s patently ridiculous, and their whole premise rests on it. “Muslims are all people, therefore all people are Muslims”. Ridiculous. Not even worthy of going down that rabbit hole, because they’ll just pull another ridiculous thing out of their sleeve and dress it up in flowery language. It’s not worth the effort, just call them ignoramuses and let them know you can see through their bullshit.
*another semantic trap I see incoming: “aha! You used the word ‘fallacious’ but this doesn’t correspond to any of the explicitly listed 26 known fallacies! Haha so dumb.” Philosphers love defining things and then using their definitions against you, as if they were authoritative and not their own personal (sometimes wildly incorrect) definition
Look I understand you don’t like philosophy and philosophers, and you’ve been riled up by the other commenter.
I’m not trying to trap you with some philosophers bag of tricks. I just would like to explain what you are missing… and forget “philosophy”… let’s just look with cool and calm and scientific logic.
But it seems like atm you are reacting with anger and stubbornness, digging in your heels in and it is blinding you to some basic principles of science and an intriguing mystery.
Gasoline is literally the cause of locomotion in vehicles.
You said this is a true statement. You seem totally convinced and unwilling to accept any possible challenge to this. But please come back to this when you’re calmer and with and open mind and re-evaluate it.
Ask yourself: is it always true? Is it true if I don’t press the gas pedal? Is it true for electric vehicles? Do cars keep moving non-stop until they run out of gas? If gas is the cause – why not? If I put gas in an electric car will it go? If I put wheels on a gas canister and put gas in it, will it move?
This is just plain simple logical analysis. No traps. Just evaluate if the statement you said is true is really true.
Just because some vehicles won’t work without gas doesn’t mean gas is the cause of locomotion. Nor is it a very good explanation of what locomotion is. Locomotion can happen without it. Gas is not required at all for locomotion in general. It can be involved, sure. It can be needed for certain kinds of locomotion, sure. But is it the cause? Does it do anything to significantly explain how a car moves? Or would that require something else?
If you had never seen a plane before and you asked me “how does it fly?” would you be satisfied with my explanation of “aviation fuel causes it to fly”?
I’m happy to have a calm discussion about this when you’ve cooled down and explain calmly and logically why. It’s a super interesting line of thought. No philosophers semantic traps, I promise.
I mean, as I said, it always gets more complicated. Almost every question you could ever ask can be accurately answered with “it depends”. That’s just the nature of reality.
The core of my disagreement in this conversation/flyting is when they should have said “I desire more detail”, they instead said “you are wrong”. It gets a tiny bit epistemological, but “electrical impulses in the brain” is broad enough and succinct enough that we can say it is true, for the level of detail the commenter was giving. It is generally understandable for those who wish to understand it. In a certain sense, if you zoom in enough very little is really true/correct since you can find exceptions and additional details etc etc. The earth is round…kind of. The sky is blue…kind of. You can tailor the level of complexity of your statements to match your audience. Almost every “true” statement can have an asterisk next to it. Almost nothing is always true.
In this case (dealing with the nature of consciousness) past a certain level of detail, we don’t know how it works. But when you zoom out enough, we do. I could zoom out even further and say “consciousness is awareness of internal and external existence”. Or “consciousness is a thing”. Or “consciousness is”. All of these being correct statements, though useless to the conversation.
So all your additional questions boil down to a request for more detail, some of which we know and some of which we don’t (the “hard problem”). If the conversation had gone in that direction, that’s fine. But it didn’t. It went in the “you’re wrong and stupid, look how smart I am for pointing it out” direction.
If you had never seen a plane before and you asked me “how does it fly?” would you be satisfied with my explanation of “aviation fuel causes it to fly”?
Maybe, maybe not. Most people are in fact satisfied with that, or maybe “burning fuel pushes it and wings catch the air and lift it”. Some people go deeper into an explanation of lift. Some go even farther.
The point is it’s foolish to say that “aviation fuel makes it fly” is wrong. It’s not wrong, it’s just at an insufficient level of detail for you.
You are wading in with extreme arrogance in an area you clearly know very little about.
Many of the most prominent ideas in the field of consciousness are from physicists, biologists, and other scientific fields. The issues are in some cases fundamental to the philosophy of science itself. This is the very bleeding edge of science, where hard physics and metaphysics collide.
Why do you think consciousness remains known as the “hard problem”, and still a considered contentious mystery to modern science, if your simplistic ideas can so easily explain it?
Do you think your naive ideas have not already been thoroughly debated and explored by scientists and philosophers over years of debate and research? The extremely simplistic and basic points you have raised (even ignoring the fallacious ones) are easily invalidated by anyone with even a basic grasp of this field (or indeed basic logic or scientific methodology).
Besides the above, you have clearly not understood the main point of my comment, not engaged in any actual logical debate or analysis of the issues raised (indeed you don’t even to comprehend or recognise what these are) and demonstrated a near total ignorance of modern theories of consciousness.
You had a chance to open your eyes to a whole realm of knowledge and discovery in a fascinating field at the cutting edge of modern science and reason and you just utterly failed to engage with it, handwaving it away with ignorance and stupidity.
The issues are in some cases fundamental to the philosophy of science itself.[…]your simplistic ideas[…]your naive ideas[…]modern theories of consciousness[…]You had a chance to open your eyes to a whole realm of knowledge
Who’s the arrogant one? Piss off, blowhard. I respect scientists. Not people like you, who pretend to be one.
Okay, I’ll give it a shot.
Okay, fine. Consciousness is exclusively in the brain. Now your whole metaphor falls apart, because mathematics is not exclusively in the CPU. It is not subjective. It does not arise from the existence of the CPU. It is a concept separate from the CPU, or indeed any matter.
I thought about it, and my conclusion is “it’s because I’m not a fuckin moron” .
Pedantry. “Electrical impulses” is a close enough phrase to describe a host of related but slightly different things.
All the rest of your questions are stupid ridiculous garbage based on some weird fixation you have with electricity. Like I said, it’s a phrase I used to avoid giving a 3 semester lecture on the minutiae of everything going on in the brain.
My comment just touched the tip of an iceberg that is an entire realm of philosophical and scientific debate that has occupied some of the brightest minds, across multiple disciplines, for decades. But sure, it’s just stupid ridiculous garbage 🙄
You probably think you sounded really clever.
Philosophy, as a field, is full of idiots and I have no respect for it.
But also the premise dealt with the tip of the iceberg and nothing more. The extent of our conversation is (heh) just the tip.
“Consciousness is electrical impulses in the brain”. That’s it. The extent of our debate is whether this is true or not. Not how those impulses give rise to consciousness, which is what the greater debate (among those who are not idiots) is about.
Petroleum is what makes cars move, obviously. That’s it!
All those engineers and mechanics who waffle on about physics, laws of motion, and engines and stuff are all a bunch of idiots. I have no respect for them. I don’t need to know about that stuff to talk about how cars work!
You just put petrol in it, it burns and it moves. Burning petrol is what makes cars move. That’s all we’re talking about here! The extent of our debate is whether or not petrol makes cars move. Not how it makes cars go, that’s a wider debate for non-idiots.
(Electric cars? Nonsense. Where’s the gas tank?)
(Boats? No, they’re completely different. I mean yes you put the same fuel in them, but they’re clearly not cars, so it’s not the same.)
I specifically called out philosophy as being full of idiots rather than literally any other field for a reason.
For example, your post.
Instead of dismissing philosophers as idiots (which might be arguable!) why don’t you actually address the arguments raised? Explore it logically as a scientist.
Do you not see the point they’re making?
“Electrical impulses” isn’t an explanation of consciousness any more than gas (petrol) is the cause of locomotion of vehicles.
It’s involved, sure, but is it a complete explanation, a good explanation, or even necessary for locomotion to happen?
If you look in a brain and see electrical impulses are required for consciousness, is it any different to looking inside an engine and seeing that gas is necessary for it to move? Take them away and they both stop.
You can put petrol in a canister but the canister doesn’t move. Even if you set fire to it. You can put electrical impulses in a computer, but the computer isn’t conscious, even if you make it “think” with AI.
Or is it? How do you know? Does “electrical impulses” get you any closer to knowing?
Think a bit more deeply about what you are actually arguing. But watch out: you’re in danger of becoming a philosopher!
Because philosophers love semantic traps, and the best counter to them is either a long, detailed explanation (for someone asking in good faith) or ridicule (for someone who would patiently read your long, detailed explanation and then just come up with another semantic trap that they demand you explain away).
For example. Gasoline is literally the cause of locomotion in vehicles. You put gas in, car go. It gets more complicated than that. Everything always gets more complicated, down to the quantum level. It is fallacious* to demand a specific level of complexity and declare that as “an explanation”. There is no such thing. It is all relative.
“Consciousness is electrical impulses in the brain” is a true statement. It’s just not detailed enough for these guys. But instead of saying “I want more detail”, they say “you are wrong”, because that’s the true point of modern philosophy. Being able to say, “hah, I am so much deeper and more intellectual than you”. Not finding solutions to problems. Science finds solutions to problems.
Anyway, to get back to semantic traps, in this case they decided that an arbitrary level of complexity is “correct” and everything else is “wrong” but they never stated or even defended that premise. And when confronted with it, they deflect. This is why philosophers are deserving of scorn: they play with the multiple interpretations of words to try to make their opponent look wrong or stupid. Note for example the first clumsy attempt, saying “if consciousness is electrical impulses, then electrical impulses are consciousness, so why isn’t a computer conscious?” Obviously middle school level reasoning, but they gloss over the second part (“then electrical impulses are consciousness”) so quickly and with such authority that if you’re not paying attention you don’t notice. But it’s patently ridiculous, and their whole premise rests on it. “Muslims are all people, therefore all people are Muslims”. Ridiculous. Not even worthy of going down that rabbit hole, because they’ll just pull another ridiculous thing out of their sleeve and dress it up in flowery language. It’s not worth the effort, just call them ignoramuses and let them know you can see through their bullshit.
*another semantic trap I see incoming: “aha! You used the word ‘fallacious’ but this doesn’t correspond to any of the explicitly listed 26 known fallacies! Haha so dumb.” Philosphers love defining things and then using their definitions against you, as if they were authoritative and not their own personal (sometimes wildly incorrect) definition
Look I understand you don’t like philosophy and philosophers, and you’ve been riled up by the other commenter.
I’m not trying to trap you with some philosophers bag of tricks. I just would like to explain what you are missing… and forget “philosophy”… let’s just look with cool and calm and scientific logic.
But it seems like atm you are reacting with anger and stubbornness, digging in your heels in and it is blinding you to some basic principles of science and an intriguing mystery.
You said this is a true statement. You seem totally convinced and unwilling to accept any possible challenge to this. But please come back to this when you’re calmer and with and open mind and re-evaluate it.
Ask yourself: is it always true? Is it true if I don’t press the gas pedal? Is it true for electric vehicles? Do cars keep moving non-stop until they run out of gas? If gas is the cause – why not? If I put gas in an electric car will it go? If I put wheels on a gas canister and put gas in it, will it move?
This is just plain simple logical analysis. No traps. Just evaluate if the statement you said is true is really true.
Just because some vehicles won’t work without gas doesn’t mean gas is the cause of locomotion. Nor is it a very good explanation of what locomotion is. Locomotion can happen without it. Gas is not required at all for locomotion in general. It can be involved, sure. It can be needed for certain kinds of locomotion, sure. But is it the cause? Does it do anything to significantly explain how a car moves? Or would that require something else?
If you had never seen a plane before and you asked me “how does it fly?” would you be satisfied with my explanation of “aviation fuel causes it to fly”?
I’m happy to have a calm discussion about this when you’ve cooled down and explain calmly and logically why. It’s a super interesting line of thought. No philosophers semantic traps, I promise.
I mean, as I said, it always gets more complicated. Almost every question you could ever ask can be accurately answered with “it depends”. That’s just the nature of reality.
The core of my disagreement in this conversation/flyting is when they should have said “I desire more detail”, they instead said “you are wrong”. It gets a tiny bit epistemological, but “electrical impulses in the brain” is broad enough and succinct enough that we can say it is true, for the level of detail the commenter was giving. It is generally understandable for those who wish to understand it. In a certain sense, if you zoom in enough very little is really true/correct since you can find exceptions and additional details etc etc. The earth is round…kind of. The sky is blue…kind of. You can tailor the level of complexity of your statements to match your audience. Almost every “true” statement can have an asterisk next to it. Almost nothing is always true.
In this case (dealing with the nature of consciousness) past a certain level of detail, we don’t know how it works. But when you zoom out enough, we do. I could zoom out even further and say “consciousness is awareness of internal and external existence”. Or “consciousness is a thing”. Or “consciousness is”. All of these being correct statements, though useless to the conversation.
So all your additional questions boil down to a request for more detail, some of which we know and some of which we don’t (the “hard problem”). If the conversation had gone in that direction, that’s fine. But it didn’t. It went in the “you’re wrong and stupid, look how smart I am for pointing it out” direction.
Maybe, maybe not. Most people are in fact satisfied with that, or maybe “burning fuel pushes it and wings catch the air and lift it”. Some people go deeper into an explanation of lift. Some go even farther.
The point is it’s foolish to say that “aviation fuel makes it fly” is wrong. It’s not wrong, it’s just at an insufficient level of detail for you.
You are wading in with extreme arrogance in an area you clearly know very little about.
Many of the most prominent ideas in the field of consciousness are from physicists, biologists, and other scientific fields. The issues are in some cases fundamental to the philosophy of science itself. This is the very bleeding edge of science, where hard physics and metaphysics collide.
Why do you think consciousness remains known as the “hard problem”, and still a considered contentious mystery to modern science, if your simplistic ideas can so easily explain it?
Do you think your naive ideas have not already been thoroughly debated and explored by scientists and philosophers over years of debate and research? The extremely simplistic and basic points you have raised (even ignoring the fallacious ones) are easily invalidated by anyone with even a basic grasp of this field (or indeed basic logic or scientific methodology).
Besides the above, you have clearly not understood the main point of my comment, not engaged in any actual logical debate or analysis of the issues raised (indeed you don’t even to comprehend or recognise what these are) and demonstrated a near total ignorance of modern theories of consciousness.
You had a chance to open your eyes to a whole realm of knowledge and discovery in a fascinating field at the cutting edge of modern science and reason and you just utterly failed to engage with it, handwaving it away with ignorance and stupidity.
Who’s the arrogant one? Piss off, blowhard. I respect scientists. Not people like you, who pretend to be one.
You respect scientists? Yet you reject science and scientific thinking when it hits you in the face.