Question on physical laws and consciousness

[Luke Skywalker]

So let's suppose that all observable behavior in the universe is governed by physical laws, and that these physical laws can in principle be expressed through objective, mathematical relationships.

I don't see how subjective qualia could emerge from quantum mechanical wave functions, but you could always just say that consciousness, while a subjective phenomenon, is just a strange consequence of electrical impulses in your brain and otherwise has no effect on the material world. Most people here would say, therefore, that everything you do simply follows from the laws governing the movements of the particles that make up your body.

However, lots of the things you do follow from your awareness that you have a consciousness. The simplest example is that a professor who writes a paper on why consciousness exists obviously has a consciousness. But the action of putting to paper that work is something that's happening inside the physical universe, and therefore you ought be able to predict it from initial conditions. But the action could only happen if the brain is aware of not only consciousness, but very particular subjective qualia with no mathematical analogue, and the brain itself is made of particles that presumably interact in a certain predictable way, that "way" being laws that do not reference the existence of a subjective consciousness...so therefore, how does the professor write the article?

So I'm a little tired and I've no delusions that this is a brilliant question that nobody has thought to have asked or answered before, is there something simple that I'm missing?

[Purple]

Well basically the way I understand it is thus. Your awareness of your own consciousness is just a part of your mechanism. Consciousness is basically system software on the hardware of your body. And like software it's just a product of the physical arrangement of your body that when observed from a certain level of abstraction seems to be something less complex. But in the end it's still just a mechanical part of your system. Just like software is in the end just electrons traveling between bistable multivibrators. It exists and is happening inside the physical universe as much as anything else that involves electric and chemical impulses running through your brain.

And I am mentioning software for a reason. When you look at a physical memory chip that contains the game Doom you won't actually see Doom on there. What you will see is a bunch of capacitors in different energy states. If you run the game and pause at a certain point to observe your hardware you will again not "see" doom, only hardware in a certain state of existence. The thing you call "doom" does by your original definition from your OP not exist. And yet we can both agree that like consciousness Doom are real. The reason for this is that both are abstractions. Their existence is merely your perception of what happens when the machine you are observing be that your PC or your body gets into a certain state based on its memory be that a hard drive or your neurons.

[Purple]

Missed the edit mark. God I bloody hate that thing. I am a compulsive editor and it drives me insane!!!

Our brains are simply constructed in such a way that we observe "big" things as opposed to small things. And quite a lot of times this means making stuff up to arrange and organize this input. An apple, a cat and a house are all just arrangements of atoms. But what we observe is not individual atoms but an apple or a cat or a house. Those are all things our brain-machines made up.

At least this is how I understand it.

[Luke Skywalker]

Well basically the way I understand it is thus. Your awareness of your own consciousness is just a part of your mechanism. Consciousness is basically system software on the hardware of your body. And like software it's just a product of the physical arrangement of your body that when observed from a certain level of abstraction seems to be something less complex. But in the end it's still just a mechanical part of your system. Just like software is in the end just electrons traveling between bistable multivibrators. It exists and is happening inside the physical universe as much as anything else that involves electric and chemical impulses running through your brain.

And I am mentioning software for a reason. When you look at a physical memory chip that contains the game Doom you won't actually see Doom on there. What you will see is a bunch of capacitors in different energy states. If you run the game and pause at a certain point to observe your hardware you will again not "see" doom, only hardware in a certain state of existence. The thing you call "doom" does by your original definition from your OP not exist. And yet we can both agree that like consciousness Doom are real. The reason for this is that both are abstractions. Their existence is merely your perception of what happens when the machine you are observing be that your PC or your body gets into a certain state based on its memory be that a hard drive or your neurons.

I think where this analogy runs into problems is that the connection between hardware and software can be quantified within our physical laws, while something such as the feeling of concrete cannot. In our current laws of physics, there is no equation that predicts the existence of consciousness, let alone its specifics, and I don't know how you could possibly come up with one. You call consciousness an abstraction, but clearly it is real enough that our awareness of it can affect our actions, and therefore events within the universe, ie, a professor writing an article about the existence of consciousness. From our current physical laws no such article would be predicted.

[Purple]

I think where this analogy runs into problems is that the connection between hardware and software can be quantified within our physical laws, while something such as the feeling of concrete cannot.

Can't it? Everything you know or think you know exists is actually an abstraction created by our brains for the purpose of processing. Feelings are thus just an abstraction for the molecular arrangement inside your brain.

In our current laws of physics, there is no equation that predicts the existence of consciousness, let alone its specifics, and I don't know how you could possibly come up with one.

Why do you need one? If you observe your brain as a computer and your molecular arrangement as its hardware than it becomes clear that consciousness is predicted by the fact that the existence of matter is predicted. Abstract concepts can be derived down to their actual physical manifestation.

You call consciousness an abstraction, but clearly it is real enough that our awareness of it can affect our actions, and therefore events within the universe, ie, a professor writing an article about the existence of consciousness. From our current physical laws no such article would be predicted.

Do you know what the word "abstraction" means? It is a simplified model used to approximate, explain or just name a certain concept or group of concepts for the purposes of being able to process them. Rounding numbers for example is creating an abstraction of real numbers. Are rounded numbers not real enough to work from? Similarly so consciousness is merely a simplified model of our own bodies created by our brains to ease/enable functioning.

[Jub]

I think where this analogy runs into problems is that the connection between hardware and software can be quantified within our physical laws, while something such as the feeling of concrete cannot.

Except that it can be, a sufficiently advanced scientist could look at see exactly which path the signal takes up the nerves to the brain and which neurons fire as a result of the stimulus. To deny that things like smells, colors, and a sense of touch are based on the physical world is to say that the external methods for adding new information to a system exist outside of the laws of physics and that clearly isn't the case.

In our current laws of physics, there is no equation that predicts the existence of consciousness, let alone its specifics, and I don't know how you could possibly come up with one.

We're just learning to model how the brain works so it's not surprising that we don't have exact models for things like consciousness yet. However the field is advancing by leaps and bounds year over year and it's only a matter of time before our understanding can start asking deeper questions about how the physical world relates to consciousness. Then we can look at what the minimum levels of processing power are required to be conscious are and play around with how the exact arrangement of neurons and programming effects that.

You call consciousness an abstraction, but clearly it is real enough that our awareness of it can affect our actions, and therefore events within the universe, ie, a professor writing an article about the existence of consciousness.

That only works if you believe in free will. If you don't than thinking a thing doesn't change anything because nothing really changes anything. I subscribe to this view and think that all we are and do is predetermined based on a chain of events going back to the big bang. I think that once we create machines capable of self learning and sapience more people will start to question what makes us any different from the machine that we programmed and as our knowledge of how thought works is advanced we will literally see how easy it is to change a mind.

[Luke Skywalker]

Can't it? Everything you know or think you know exists is actually an abstraction created by our brains for the purpose of processing.

Yes, but that abstraction itself has specific qualities not predicted by any part of modern quantum theory. The fact, for example, that red looks a certain way and blue looks a certain way isn't something that our laws of physics would predict.

Think about it this way: imagine a super-intelligent computer is fed all of the current laws of physics and initial conditions of the universe and asked to make predictions of the universe's unraveling. It may predict the emergence of human beings who form societies and chat on the web. However, in no manner could it mathematically derive from those initial conditions and the laws of physics supplied to it that there will be an internet user who makes a thread about why there appears to be this subjective consciousness, because that subjective consciousness isn't predicted by the laws of physics.

Now, if you can show me the math from any of the fundamental physical laws, or heck, even any postulated unified theories, that predicts the existence of this "abstraction", feel free to do so.

Why do you need one? If you observe your brain as a computer and your molecular arrangement as its hardware than it becomes clear that consciousness is predicted by the fact that the existence of matter is predicted. Abstract concepts can be derived down to their actual physical manifestation.

A non-sequitur if I've ever seen one. How in the world does the existence of matter imply the existence of consciousness? Consciousness is evident because we can observe and experience it, but it is not evident in our mathematical laws.

Do you know what the word "abstraction" means? It is a simplified model used to approximate, explain or just name a certain concept or group of concepts for the purposes of being able to process them. Rounding numbers for example is creating an abstraction of real numbers. Are rounded numbers not real enough to work from? Similarly so consciousness is merely a simplified model of our own bodies created by our brains to ease/enable functioning.

And where is the physical mechanism, through any of the fundamental forces, through which the brain can create this consciousness, which has subjective qualia of a totally separate nature from all particles and forces known to science?

Except that it can be, a sufficiently advanced scientist could look at see exactly which path the signal takes up the nerves to the brain and which neurons fire as a result of the stimulus. To deny that things like smells, colors, and a sense of touch are based on the physical world is to say that the external methods for adding new information to a system exist outside of the laws of physics and that clearly isn't the case.

The problem is unifying this with the rest of our physical laws. You can establish an if-then relationship between a certain set of neurons firing in a certain sequence and conscious experience, but you won't be able to explain how this appears from physics.

That only works if you believe in free will. If you don't than thinking a thing doesn't change anything because nothing really changes anything. I subscribe to this view and think that all we are and do is predetermined based on a chain of events going back to the big bang. I think that once we create machines capable of self learning and sapience more people will start to question what makes us any different from the machine that we programmed and as our knowledge of how thought works is advanced we will literally see how easy it is to change a mind.

Free will is probably an illusion. My confusion is that determinism (the kind that takes into account the randomness of QM - non-deterministic observations, but concrete probabilities/laws) suggests that the laws of physics are mathematical and quantifiable, and I don't see how consciousness can be explained mathematically or from first principles. Maybe I'm just being short sighted.

[Jub]

The problem is unifying this with the rest of our physical laws. You can establish an if-then relationship between a certain set of neurons firing in a certain sequence and conscious experience, but you won't be able to explain how this appears from physics.

Yes you will, if a certain set of neurons firings produces the same result across multiple simulated or lab grown brains then we can say that x software (aka. life experience or simulated life experience) and y hardware (aka the physical structure of the brain) produces z result. In your opinion can physics explain how a computer functions? If it does then science and physics can understand how a brain produces thoughts, if not then you're clearly misinformed as to how the world functions.

Free will is probably an illusion. My confusion is that determinism (the kind that takes into account the randomness of QM - non-deterministic observations, but concrete probabilities/laws) suggests that the laws of physics are mathematical and quantifiable, and I don't see how consciousness can be explained mathematically or from first principles. Maybe I'm just being short sighted.

You're getting hung up on thinking consciousness itself is special and thus looking for reasons why it must be so. If you don't treat it as anything aside from a byproduct of x software running on y hardware it becomes clear.

[Luke Skywalker]

Yes you will, if a certain set of neurons firings produces the same result across multiple simulated or lab grown brains then we can say that x software (aka. life experience or simulated life experience) and y hardware (aka the physical structure of the brain) produces z result.

Yes, I agreed that if-then relationships could, and already are being, established. But, excluding gravity, we have come to understand all behavior in the universe within a quantum mechanical framework that breaks every event down into fundamental particles interacting through mathematically quantifiable laws. A particular set of particle arranging into neurons that fire a particular way and then create this weird "consciousness" is not a plausible emergent phenomenon. A person smiling, a sun exploding, and a robot climbing a hill can all be broken down into the laws of quantum mechanics and general relativity; consciousness, to my knowledge, can not.

In your opinion can physics explain how a computer functions? If it does then science and physics can understand how a brain produces thoughts, if not then you're clearly misinformed as to how the world functions.

Break down a computer far enough and you'll see quantum mechanics at work, from the way transistors function to something as simple as your fingers pushing the keys down through electrostatic repulsion. Please explain to me how through any of the fundamental forces neurons could create subjective qualia.

You're getting hung up on thinking consciousness itself is special and thus looking for reasons why it must be so. If you don't treat it as anything aside from a byproduct of x software running on y hardware it becomes clear.

This "byproduct" is not predictable from Schrodinger's equation, or any law of physics. It isn't even clear how you could produce a consistent, unified theory of physics that would predict in its math that a particular, arbitrary arrangement of particles behaving in an arbitrary, unremarkable fashion would create subjective qualia.

[biostem]

I think another problem is that "wetware" like our brains have many more variables than conventional computers; I mean, person A may have a different layout of neurons than person B, they may have different metabolic rates, and even the way basic "subsystems", like how they interpret visual input, may be different. That's also not taking into account things like O2 levels in their blood, blood glucose levels, differences in body temperature, age, and so on.

While I do feel that there is a certain degree of determinism in our behavior, I do not think that the ability to predict someone's behavior would be 100% reliable, even if you knew all the various inputs they were receiving.

While I think that we can agree that people are able to develop basic functions, (like sight, hearing, etc), through similar means, they are not exactly alike - and in some extreme cases, people who were born with brain damage, have different parts of the brain take over those other functions.

[Jub]

Yes, I agreed that if-then relationships could, and already are being, established. But, excluding gravity, we have come to understand all behavior in the universe within a quantum mechanical framework that breaks every event down into fundamental particles interacting through mathematically quantifiable laws. A particular set of particle arranging into neurons that fire a particular way and then create this weird "consciousness" is not a plausible emergent phenomenon. A person smiling, a sun exploding, and a robot climbing a hill can all be broken down into the laws of quantum mechanics and general relativity; consciousness, to my knowledge, can not.

How is consciousness special? The robot climbing a hill is observing its surroundings, making judgments on where to step and where not to, and in more advanced cases pick its own route to get between points a and b; other than the difference in processing power and ability, how is this different than a human doing the same task? If we can understand one using physics how is the other any different?

Break down a computer far enough and you'll see quantum mechanics at work, from the way transistors function to something as simple as your fingers pushing the keys down through electrostatic repulsion. Please explain to me how through any of the fundamental forces neurons could create subjective qualia.

Qualia are a purely philosophical idea, but for any qualia there is a physical connection to represent it. If the information is words on a page the physical link is the ink and paper used to form the book, if the information is a thought - such as this ancient copy of Moby Dick and the copy on my e-reader are similar - then the physical link is the state of the brain thinking the thought, if the information is a smell then the physical component is both the molecule bound your scent receptor and the state of your brain as it processes the stimuli. Qualia is useful only to describe philosophical things and has no use when trying to determine things like how consciousness comes into being.

In the case of thoughts, if our ability to measure and record experiences becomes better, I may one day be able to see how your red differs from my red and experience how you smell something versus how I smell that same thing. At that stage the big philosophical questions asked by qualia can be answered by science.

This "byproduct" is not predictable from Schrodinger's equation, or any law of physics. It isn't even clear how you could produce a consistent, unified theory of physics that would predict in its math that a particular, arbitrary arrangement of particles behaving in an arbitrary, unremarkable fashion would create subjective qualia.

You would do it through experimentation with various lab created and purely mathematical models for how the human brain works and then expand outward. You also have yet to define consciousness in a testable way, define the term and I can better answer how it can be tested.

I think another problem is that "wetware" like our brains have many more variables than conventional computers; I mean, person A may have a different layout of neurons than person B, they may have different metabolic rates, and even the way basic "subsystems", like how they interpret visual input, may be different. That's also not taking into account things like O2 levels in their blood, blood glucose levels, differences in body temperature, age, and so on.

While I do feel that there is a certain degree of determinism in our behavior, I do not think that the ability to predict someone's behavior would be 100% reliable, even if you knew all the various inputs they were receiving.

If we had a perfect model supplied with perfect date - in this case that would mean a perfect model for how thoughts are processed, the exact inputs, and the current state of the brain - why couldn't we make that call? What aside from the complexity of the brain and it's workings would preclude a person with perfect information from knowing what a person is, will, and has thought?

While I think that we can agree that people are able to develop basic functions, (like sight, hearing, etc), through similar means, they are not exactly alike - and in some extreme cases, people who were born with brain damage, have different parts of the brain take over those other functions.

None of that speaks to determinism being the case, it merely shows that brains are complex and adaptable things.

[Starglider]

In short, essentially all of these questions are illusionary paradoxes created by the fact that human introspective capability is awful. Human self-awareness evolved to be useful in practical and social scenarios, not to be complete, self-consistent or well-grounded on neat axioms.

Yes, but that abstraction itself has specific qualities not predicted by any part of modern quantum theory. The fact, for example, that red looks a certain way and blue looks a certain way isn't something that our laws of physics would predict.

That is an absolutely insane level confusion, between micrometre scale brain connectivity and femtometre scale physics. Quantum theory has nothing to do with brain function. I realise some famous people who really should have known better (cough Penrose cough) have made this mistake, but it's even less excusable now than it was in the 1980s.

Think about it this way: imagine a super-intelligent computer is fed all of the current laws of physics and initial conditions of the universe and asked to make predictions of the universe's unraveling. It may predict the emergence of human beings who form societies and chat on the web. However, in no manner could it mathematically derive from those initial conditions and the laws of physics supplied to it that there will be an internet user who makes a thread about why there appears to be this subjective consciousness, because that subjective consciousness isn't predicted by the laws of physics.

Why not? How do you know? Do you have a super-intelligent computer? I would say that such a prediction is entirely possible, even for a relatively simple (i.e. realistic for a future supercomputer) simulation, because subjective consciousness is an adaptive feature that probably arises quite commonly in organisms with highly evolved nervous systems. The subjective nature of qualia is not some impossible mystery, it is determined by your evolutionary history. It seems like philosophers who ask this stuff do not read any perceptual or evolutionary psychology; your 'awareness' is chock full of features that obviously come from evolved quick-fixes to animal survival needs.

Now, if you can show me the math from any of the fundamental physical laws, or heck, even any postulated unified theories, that predicts the existence of this "abstraction", feel free to do so.

Why would physics be concerned with the structural details of nervous systems? Why are you even thinking about physics, not biology and psychology? Incidentally when physicists do try to do biology/psychology/philosophy, it usually ends really badly.

And where is the physical mechanism, through any of the fundamental forces, through which the brain can create this consciousness, which has subjective qualia of a totally separate nature from all particles and forces known to science?

Unfounded speculation (ass-pull). Subjective qualia are quite easily describable as neuron firing patterns in various neural maps. This is not hypothetical; modern fMRI and electrode arrays, while still relatively crude, put this basic fact beyond reasonable doubt. The question of why you generate the descriptions you do when you reflect on basic sensory qualia is more abstract and will take a lot more work (and better tools) to answer; essentially you are asking why are 'reflective qualia' structured the way they are, and reflection is more diffuse and complicated than basic sensory input. It's still just webs of neurons though, and we will get the details eventually. In the mean time nothing in the field of neuroscience gives any reason to believe that any other mechanism is required to create these phenomena.

Except that it can be, a sufficiently advanced scientist could look at see exactly which path the signal takes up the nerves to the brain and which neurons fire as a result of the stimulus. To deny that things like smells, colors, and a sense of touch are based on the physical world is to say that the external methods for adding new information to a system exist outside of the laws of physics and that clearly isn't the case.

The problem is unifying this with the rest of our physical laws. You can establish an if-then relationship between a certain set of neurons firing in a certain sequence and conscious experience, but you won't be able to explain how this appears from physics.

Ok this is an outright non-sequitur. You are just chanting 'physics physics physics' with no semantic content now. Neuron firing is a physical (chemical) process. End of story, no further explanation possible or required.

Free will is probably an illusion.

It's a problem of construction. The seeming absence of free will is less of an issue when you stop taking such a conventional view of time and causality. Human consciousness existing at an instant in time is intuitive, but physically nonsensical. Human thought is inherently a time-series, coherent only over relatively long (very long in physical terms) time scales, so further extrapolation is actually not as wild as it first seems.

Amusingly, many artificial intelligence programs actually meet the naive human conception of how the mind works much better than human brains themselves do. Unsurprisingly I know since the basis for most programs was how humans think thought works, but I still find it funny.

I don't see how consciousness can be explained mathematically or from first principles. Maybe I'm just being short sighted.

Expecting consciousness to come out of a simple, back-of-napkin equation is typical unfounded physicist arrogance (not that all or even most physicists try to do this, but the ones who do are definitely arrogant). Actually it's arrogant and silly even when psychologists and cognitive scientists try to do it, but at least they're working at the right level of abstraction. You would not expect to explain even a desktop PC with a handful of equations. It would require physical laws plus several gigabytes worth of schematics and symbolic functional models. Why would the minimum description length of the brain be anything less than a fair sized chunk of the human genome?

[Ziggy Stardust]

Starglider said essentially what I was going to say, but better than I would have done. The one thing I want to re-emphasize, though:

Now, if you can show me the math from any of the fundamental physical laws, or heck, even any postulated unified theories, that predicts the existence of this "abstraction", feel free to do so.

Why would physics be concerned with the structural details of nervous systems? Why are you even thinking about physics, not biology and psychology? Incidentally when physicists do try to do biology/psychology/philosophy, it usually ends really badly.

I really don't understand Luke Skywalker's line of thinking, here. What does it even mean for fundamental physical laws to predict the existence of "abstraction"? It sounds a lot like Creationist arguments, vaguely asking how evolution would predict this or that feature of modern humans; it sounds like an arbitrary subjective bar being set simply to ignore the evidence rather than actually process a sensible argument. In fact, it is essentially the same argument that Purple used recently in the global warming thread that caused such a dogpile: he was basically saying, "Well, use fundamental math to show me that global warming is happening, because that's the only proof I'll accept!" It was stupid there, and it's stupid, here, too. It sounds an awful lot like an undergraduate who took one introductory class or read one textbook and is smug because they think they understand everything.

The issue of "abstraction" is actually fairly simply to describe in terms of physical properties. A corollary of the Maxwell equations, the Kirchhoff's circuit laws, are used to describe the relationships between current and potential difference (i.e. voltage) in a closed circuit (in fact, this is also shares a generalized relationship with Ohm's law). The Hodgkin-Huxley model uses an application of Kirchhoff circuits to describe the activity of nerve pulses; specifically, the voltage is generated due to concentration differences of potassium and sodium ions across nerve cell membranes (this is also a basic physical law known as the Nernst equation). The membrane operates as a transiently charged capacitor; in effect, the movement pattern of the charged membrane IS the nerve signal. This, too, is related to fundamental physics: the charged membrane is modeled as a soliton (which is used extensively not only in electromagnetism, but also quantum field theory and mathematical topology). This gives us a rigorous physical model for nerve pulses. Now, we can measure patterns of nerve pulses in a working brain in response to controlled stimuli by making use of MRI machines, the physics of which are very well studied and for the purposes of brevity I will omit. MRI studies have correlated "abstract" thought with patterns of nerve activity (which I just described as a function of basic physical laws); specifically, we see activation in the inferior frontal gyrus and middle temporal gyrus, while concrete thought differentially activates areas in the posterior cingulate, precuneus, fusiform gyrus, and parahippocampal gyrus. These activity patterns can be directly related to specific behavioral and cognitive phenomena. In fact, it is through these studies that we understand that the issue of abstraction is essentially an extension of hierarchical linguistic categorization; self-awareness is just the next logical step of being able to categorize the world around you into a set of broad, distinct categories (e.g. "animate thing", "inanimate thing", etc.).

All of this IS predicted by making use of physical laws. Without physical models for electrodynamics, we don't have the ability to so thoroughly understand the biomechanics of nerve cells. Without the ability to understand nerve cells, and without understanding the physics of nuclear magnetism, we don't have MRI machines that can be used to look at the brain.

[sarevok2]

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophical_zombie

what about philosophical zombies ? Assuming we are not pzombies where does conciousness come from ?

[Starglider]

What does it even mean for fundamental physical laws to predict the existence of "abstraction"? It sounds a lot like Creationist arguments, vaguely asking how evolution would predict this or that feature of modern humans; it sounds like an arbitrary subjective bar being set simply to ignore the evidence rather than actually process a sensible argument. In fact, it is essentially the same argument that Purple used recently in the global warming thread that caused such a dogpile: he was basically saying, "Well, use fundamental math to show me that global warming is happening, because that's the only proof I'll accept!" It was stupid there, and it's stupid, here, too.

Yes, exactly like that.

It sounds an awful lot like an undergraduate who took one introductory class or read one textbook and is smug because they think they understand everything.

And one textbook in the wrong field at that.

This gives us a rigorous physical model for nerve pulses.

Right although the actual computing element* is the synapses and they're a bit more complicated to model.

* Strictly the primary computing element, vigorous debate is still underway about the contribution from other bits of the brain e.g. role of glial cells in guiding creation of new connections.

self-awareness is just the next logical step of being able to categorize the world around you into a set of broad, distinct categories (e.g. "animate thing", "inanimate thing", etc.).

That is self-recognition and a self-environment embedding model. That is certainly a component of self-awareness, but usually when philosophers talk about it they are thinking more of abstract reflective capability, i.e. you are still self-aware even in a sensory deprivation tank. I am picking apart a single sentence though, I am sure you could give more detail if you wanted.

[Starglider]

what about philosophical zombies ?

What about them? Seriously, explain how the concept has a bearing on this argument. I'll give you a hint, the concepts where a zombie looks exactly like a human under both physical and behavioural examination are nonsensical. The concepts where an agent appears human but has a different 'unconscious' cognitive architecture are actually physically meaningful, but only in an artificial intelligence / though experiment context, where an agent has been deliberately constructed to avoid self-awareness (this is probably very very inefficient).

Assuming we are not pzombies where does conciousness come from ?

Are you even reading this thread?

[Jub]

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophical_zombie

what about philosophical zombies ? Assuming we are not pzombies where does conciousness come from ?

Starglider answers this far better than I can, but my take is that the claim is untestable and essentially a meaningless thought experiment.

[Ziggy Stardust]

Right although the actual computing element* is the synapses and they're a bit more complicated to model.

* Strictly the primary computing element, vigorous debate is still underway about the contribution from other bits of the brain e.g. role of glial cells in guiding creation of new connections.

I was actually going to write an aside very similar to that in my last post, but was afraid of over-digressing and diluting the argument. There definitely is ambiguity and unknowns involved, and our knowledge is actually very rudimentary in a lot of important ways. But I dislike the pseudo-philosophical convention that some people follow where they extrapolate the existence of an unknown component to a model into weirdo spiritualist "soul"/"human spirit" nonsense; which really is just Luke Skywalker's argument taken to its logical extreme.

That is self-recognition and a self-environment embedding model. That is certainly a component of self-awareness, but usually when philosophers talk about it they are thinking more of abstract reflective capability, i.e. you are still self-aware even in a sensory deprivation tank. I am picking apart a single sentence though, I am sure you could give more detail if you wanted.

That's fair. I probably overstated the argument, a bit, and to be honest this is based on half-remembered literature I read when I was still working in a cog-sci lab. But, IIRC, the areas of the brain that were heavily and differentially activated during "abstract thought" (admittedly a very vague term; I don't remember exactly how these experiments defined it come to think of it) are also regions that are associated in a strong way with semantic and conceptual categorization tasks in a number of neurolinguistic studies. The basic line of argument was that thinking was that on a evolutionary timescale the ability to categorize objects (into broad abstract conceptual categories) is sort of a pre-requisite to true reflective capability. That is, before you can think, "what am I?" you have to already have an established abstract hierarchy of sorts to make any answer to that question meaningful in any way.

[Luke Skywalker]

Why would physics be concerned with the structural details of nervous systems? Why are you even thinking about physics, not biology and psychology? Incidentally when physicists do try to do biology/psychology/philosophy, it usually ends really badly.

Obviously I'm referring to the fact that the "details of nervous systems" ultimately fall within physical laws, hence why biology and chemistry both reduce to physics. Biology cannot violate the laws of thermodynamics for example, and the contraction of your muscles, the inhalation of breath, and the impulses in your brain ultimately could, in principle, be modeled with quantum mechanics. The problem with consciousness is that its existence is incompatible with said quantum equations in principle. If you think physicists' deficiencies in doing biology has to do with physics not applying to biological systems and not simply a practical issue of specialization, you're even dumber than I thought.

Also, this is a very important motif that runs through this discussion that you clearly don't have the cognitive capacity to figure out for yourself, so I'll put this in simple, bold letters:

THE MYSTERY IS NOT NEURAL ACTIVITY, WHICH CAN EASILY BE EXPLAINED. NOR IS IT DOUBTING THAT NEURAL ACTIVITY RELATES TO CONSCIOUSNESS, WHICH CAN EASILY BE ESTABLISHED. THE PROBLEM IS CONNECTING THIS RELATIONSHIP BACK TO PHYSICAL LAWS, AS YOU WERE ABLE TO CONNECT NEURAL ACTIVITY BACK TO MACKWELL'S EQUATIONS.

You can sprout all the mentally-deficient analogies to evolution and global warming that you want, but you'll still fail to understand that both evolution and global warming are observations that clearly follow physical laws in a foundational sense, in that they reduce to physical particles interacting in quantum mechanical manners. If you want to bring up another cute analogy while pathetically addressing me in the third person, you will bring forward one that actually has the same problem. Otherwise, the analogy is not an accurate argument. (Obviously)

I really don't understand Luke Skywalker's line of thinking, here. What does it even mean for fundamental physical laws to predict the existence of "abstraction"?

It means fundamental physical laws are supposed to be able to predict every observation. There may be practical problems with this, hence why there are certain engineering problems that we still don't know how to solve from first principles, but in theory we know that everything we've ever observed in the universe could be explained mathematically at the particulate level. Consciousness does not fall under these predictions, because there's no deduction from the mathematics of quantum mechanics of its existence, and indeed there isn't even a conceptual possibility of doing so.

It sounds a lot like Creationist arguments, vaguely asking how evolution would predict this or that feature of modern humans;

Evolution can predict "this or that" feature of modern humans, idiot, although this analogy is horribly constructed in either case because nobody is doubting the legitimacy of theory that consciousness exists (it can clearly be observed), or the neuroscientific theories behind it, but pointing out that no physical theory even pretends to predict it. In cases where we currently do not know the answer, we can still tell from the nature of the observation that it falls under the same umbrella of solvable problems that evolution could predict. We don't know exactly why humans enjoy music, but we can obviously tell from the parts of our brain structure that do enjoy music and various plausible hypotheses that this is an unsolved, but not an unsolvable problem. The existence of subjective qualia, however, is fundamentally different from the existence of, say, strange mountain formations because the latter, while unexplained, is obviously explainable and composed of fundamental particles obeying fundamental laws, while the former is intrinsically different from anything we've ever encountered. Is this seriously so difficult for you to understand?

it sounds like an arbitrary subjective bar being set simply to ignore the evidence rather than actually process a sensible argument. In fact, it is essentially the same argument that Purple used recently in the global warming thread that caused such a dogpile: he was basically saying, "Well, use fundamental math to show me that global warming is happening, because that's the only proof I'll accept!" It was stupid there, and it's stupid, here, too. It sounds an awful lot like an undergraduate who took one introductory class or read one textbook and is smug because they think they understand everything.

Look, I know you're trying to engage me vaguely in the third person to show-off your ability to use stardestroyer.net catchphrases ("creationist arguments", "arbitrary subjective bar", "sensible argument"), but you should be trying instead to not come off as mentally retarded. It's been explained to you multiple times that there's a difference between something that is unexplained and something that is unexplainable, and if you have something to say in response, I would suggest making a concrete refutation of my arguments rather than making bizarre analogies to global warming debates and unwarranted accusations of "arbitrary subjective bar", whatever the fuck that means.

The reason why it's not an "arbitrary subjective bar" is that every other mystery in science meets it. Mysteries about the early origins of the universe and the properties of spider webs have unexplained observations that nonetheless are reasonably assumed to follow from fundamental physical laws. Do I need to break this down into little baby language for you?

The issue of "abstraction" is actually fairly simply to describe in terms of physical properties. A corollary of the Maxwell equations, the Kirchhoff's circuit laws, are used to describe the relationships between current and potential difference (i.e. voltage) in a closed circuit (in fact, this is also shares a generalized relationship with Ohm's law). The Hodgkin-Huxley model uses an application of Kirchhoff circuits to describe the activity of nerve pulses; specifically, the voltage is generated due to concentration differences of potassium and sodium ions across nerve cell membranes (this is also a basic physical law known as the Nernst equation). The membrane operates as a transiently charged capacitor; in effect, the movement pattern of the charged membrane IS the nerve signal. This, too, is related to fundamental physics: the charged membrane is modeled as a soliton (which is used extensively not only in electromagnetism, but also quantum field theory and mathematical topology). This gives us a rigorous physical model for nerve pulses. Now, we can measure patterns of nerve pulses in a working brain in response to controlled stimuli by making use of MRI machines, the physics of which are very well studied and for the purposes of brevity I will omit. MRI studies have correlated "abstract" thought with patterns of nerve activity (which I just described as a function of basic physical laws); specifically, we see activation in the inferior frontal gyrus and middle temporal gyrus, while concrete thought differentially activates areas in the posterior cingulate, precuneus, fusiform gyrus, and parahippocampal gyrus. These activity patterns can be directly related to specific behavioral and cognitive phenomena. In fact, it is through these studies that we understand that the issue of abstraction is essentially an extension of hierarchical linguistic categorization; self-awareness is just the next logical step of being able to categorize the world around you into a set of broad, distinct categories (e.g. "animate thing", "inanimate thing", etc.).

You see, there was the point, which you could have tried to address, and then there was what you decided to do, which was to blurt out irrelevant knowledge to try to upend your intelligence. Current electromagnetic theory can easily explain (or rather make explainable) the existesnce of nerve pulses. What it cannot explain is the consequent rise of subjective consciousness and qualia, which by its nature cannot possibly arise from partial differential equations. We have the observation that consciousness arises from certain nerve pulses and this can be labeled a legitimate science (neurology). What we do not have is a fundamental physics foundation for how consciousness is predictable.

Notice how I say foundation, not exact mathematical deduction? If you disagree with this assertion, why don't you try to provide a foundational explanation for consciousness, just as you did for brain activity (something that is very easy to explain)?

All of this IS predicted by making use of physical laws. Without physical models for electrodynamics, we don't have the ability to so thoroughly understand the biomechanics of nerve cells. Without the ability to understand nerve cells, and without understanding the physics of nuclear magnetism, we don't have MRI machines that can be used to look at the brain.

Thank you for admitting that a) you are a moron and b) you cannot explain consciousness within your own paradigm, because when asked to do so, you only give first-principles explanations for the physical component of brain activity (which nobody asked for) and then vaguely wave your hands and say consciousness clearly follows without clearly explaining why it follows.

[Luke Skywalker]

That is an absolutely insane level confusion, between micrometre scale brain connectivity and femtometre scale physics. Quantum theory has nothing to do with brain function. I realise some famous people who really should have known better (cough Penrose cough) have made this mistake, but it's even less excusable now than it was in the 1980s.

You are an idiot. Quantum mechanics has to do with brain function in the same manner it has to do with throwing a baseball, in that it reduces to classical mechanics, electromagnetic theory, biology, etc.

This is just a lesson elementary logical comprehension that you should learn.

"X ultimately reduces to Y" does not mean "only X can predict Y", or that "X is practical in predicting Y". Neuroscientists do not need to learn quantum mechanics and the field would work just find without most all of QFT. This is not the point I am making at all.

Why not? How do you know?

Any empirical field of study, from neuroscience to Ancient European history, involves players that ultimately reduce to fundamental physical laws expressed in mathematical form. Consciousness does not follow this structure. If you want to say something of substance, you would be suited in:

a) refuting my assertion that consciousness does not follow this structure by explaining how the structure predicts it, in the same manner you could easily explain how the structure predicts Julius Caesar's assassination or why hot gases rise over colder ones.

b) finding another observation that falls under the same problems as consciousness, although this would only compound the issue.

I would say that such a prediction is entirely possible, even for a relatively simple (i.e. realistic for a future supercomputer) simulation, because subjective consciousness is an adaptive feature that probably arises quite commonly in organisms with highly evolved nervous systems.

You are once again proving that even the dumbest of creatures can figure out how to use computers nowadays. That consciousness would be a useful adaptive feature is meaningless if there were no physical mechanism through which the adaption could evolve. Being able to time travel would be a pretty sick adaptive feature, but nature has never evolved it because it is impossible. And that is a rather weak analogy on my part, because the concept of time travel is at least something that could be explained mathematically - you could create a theory of gravity that predicts its existence, because time is quantifiable.

Unfounded speculation (ass-pull). Subjective qualia are quite easily describable as neuron firing patterns in various neural maps.

Yes, because the causal link between the two has been found. That's great for neuroscience. That's not a first principles explanation. Rather, we don't need the exact details of such an explanation, as we do not have such exact details for almost anything, but we do need a framework, because we can provide such a framework for everything else.

You think physicists are "arrogant" for wanting to deal in all other sciences. This has issues for practical reasons, but it certainly does not refute the assertion that all science reduces to physics in principle. You have demonstrated the memorization of lots of terms but clearly have no clue what you're talking about if you think neural activity doesn't involve quantum mechanics. My taking a shit involves quantum mechanics. Even your faint brain activity does.

[Jub]

Luke, for one you seem to have missed one of my posts to you, secondly you are assigning to consciousness special properties that you don't assign to things like the functions of a computer. Seeing as you claim that something as complex as a computer, and thus, in theory, a computer running a 100% accurate model of a brain that is itself conscious, can be described using equations and physical laws, why do you feel that the study of human consciousness can't be described in the same fashion?

You've also failed to define the terms qualia and consciousness in ways that are testable by science and thus it's impossible to answer your questions to any degree of satisfaction. Define your terms and we can tell you how they would be measure, qualified, and quantified.

[Tribble]

Well, we can always use the dictionary definition as a starting point.

Qualia: The internal and subjective component of sense perceptions, arising from stimulation of the senses by phenomena.

Consciousness: 1. The state of being aware of and responsive to one’s surroundings 2. A person’s awareness or perception of something. 3. The fact of awareness by the mind of itself and the world.

IMO those terms can certainly be testable by science. I don't think there's anything special about human consciousness, apart from the fact that it is complex. Nor do I believe in such things as a soul. Or free will for that matter. That being said, given the massive number of external and internal factors involved I doubt we'll be able to predict human behaviour with 100% accuracy, at least not for a long time yet.

[Jub]

Well, we can always use the dictionary definition as a starting point.

Qualia: The internal and subjective component of sense perceptions, arising from stimulation of the senses by phenomena.

Consciousness: 1. The state of being aware of and responsive to one’s surroundings 2. A person’s awareness or perception of something. 3. The fact of awareness by the mind of itself and the world.

IMO those terms can certainly be testable by science. I don't think there's anything special about human consciousness, apart from the fact that it is complex. Nor do I believe in such things as a soul. Or free will for that matter. That being said, given the massive number of external and internal factors involved I doubt we'll be able to predict human behaviour with 100% accuracy, at least not for a long time yet.

If we use that definition of qualia, then we can test all three of those via various means be they psychological tests or imagining of the brain to test how it processes stimuli.

[Ziggy Stardust]

The problem with consciousness is that its existence is incompatible with said quantum equations in principle.

And why exactly do you think this? What about consciousness is incompatible with "quantum equations"?

If you think physicists' deficiencies in doing biology has to do with physics not applying to biological systems and not simply a practical issue of specialization, you're even dumber than I thought.

Where on earth did I imply that that physics don't apply to biological systems? My argument was the exact opposite.

THE MYSTERY IS NOT NEURAL ACTIVITY, WHICH CAN EASILY BE EXPLAINED. NOR IS IT DOUBTING THAT NEURAL ACTIVITY RELATES TO CONSCIOUSNESS, WHICH CAN EASILY BE ESTABLISHED. THE PROBLEM IS CONNECTING THIS RELATIONSHIP BACK TO PHYSICAL LAWS, AS YOU WERE ABLE TO CONNECT NEURAL ACTIVITY BACK TO MACKWELL'S EQUATIONS.

What exactly is your criterion for a "connection" back to physical laws? Apparently it isn't enough for you that we can use physical laws to explicitly model cognitive models of consciousness? Please explain exactly what evidence you are looking for, so we can save ourselves some time.

You can sprout all the mentally-deficient analogies to evolution and global warming that you want, but you'll still fail to understand that both evolution and global warming are observations that clearly follow physical laws in a foundational sense, in that they reduce to physical particles interacting in quantum mechanical manners.

Well, this proves you miraculously misunderstood both analogies that were being made. That's not a surprise, because just about none of your post has betrayed any sign of critical thinking skills.

If you want to bring up another cute analogy while pathetically addressing me in the third person, you will bring forward one that actually has the same problem. Otherwise, the analogy is not an accurate argument. (Obviously)

That you are unable to divine the purpose of the analogy does not invalidate it.

It means fundamental physical laws are supposed to be able to predict every observation.

What exactly do you mean by "predict every observation"? Do you not realize what a completely nonsensical statement this is? What about our ability to model cognitive processes of consciousness as I described in my previous post does not constitute a predictive physical model? This is the SAME problem we discussed in the global warming thread with Purple, which is why I made the comparison (which you were too stupid to understand). Purple was demanding exactly what you are, now: the use of fundamental physical laws to "predict every observation", with respect to weather/climate patterns instead of cognitive neuroscience. It's just as nonsensical a request in both paradigms. Fundamental physical laws can't perfectly predict the weather. That's the entire reason statistics as a discipline even exists, so we can build models of this uncertainty. You haven't even clearly defined what exactly you mean by "predict" and "observation" within the context of consciousness, and are displaying horrifically un-scientific logic in the process.

Consciousness does not fall under these predictions, because there's no deduction from the mathematics of quantum mechanics of its existence, and indeed there isn't even a conceptual possibility of doing so.

I expect you to present any proof of these statements.

Evolution can predict "this or that" feature of modern humans, idiot, although this analogy is horribly constructed in either case because nobody is doubting the legitimacy of theory that consciousness exists (it can clearly be observed), or the neuroscientific theories behind it, but pointing out that no physical theory even pretends to predict it.

Again, you missed the purpose of the analogy. Further proving that you are an utter dolt. In fact, I would guarantee I know far more about the relationship of modern human traits to our evolutionary history than you. But that's besides the point. The analogy was that Creationists use an argument whereby they can ignore any evidence presented by using vague terminology and shifting the goalposts as what constitutes evidence in the first place (this is the "no transitional fossil" meme). That's exactly what you are doing here. You are waving your hands and demanding evidence without clearly explaining what you even would take as evidence, and categorically rejecting everything everyone says by saying that "it's not good enough."

.We don't know exactly why humans enjoy music, but we can obviously tell from the parts of our brain structure that do enjoy music and various plausible hypotheses that this is an unsolved, but not an unsolvable problem.

Yet, when I posit the same process for exploring consciousness in my previous post, you reject that as insufficient evidence. You don't seem to have a clear idea of what you are even arguing at this point.

The existence of subjective qualia, however, is fundamentally different from the existence of, say, strange mountain formations because the latter, while unexplained, is obviously explainable and composed of fundamental particles obeying fundamental laws, while the former is intrinsically different from anything we've ever encountered. Is this seriously so difficult for you to understand?

Why are subjective qualia different from anything we've ever encountered? You need to substantiate this statement. We have the ability to model qualia as a function of certain physical phenomena.

Look, I know you're trying to engage me vaguely in the third person to show-off your ability to use stardestroyer.net catchphrases ("creationist arguments", "arbitrary subjective bar", "sensible argument"), but you should be trying instead to not come off as mentally retarded.

Good one, bro.

It's been explained to you multiple times that there's a difference between something that is unexplained and something that is unexplainable

Where? This is the first time in this thread you've addressed a post towards me, and nobody else that's posted since my post is disagreeing with me. Are you just completely unaware of what is going on around you or are you just perpetually dishonest? Where did I ever claim that there wasn't a difference between those two things? Fuck, my argument RELIES on there being a difference between those two things, moron! You are the one claiming that the issue of consciousness is "unexplainable", as opposed to simply "unexplained", and you have yet to actually present any evidence that this is the case.

I would suggest making a concrete refutation of my arguments rather than making bizarre analogies to global warming debates and unwarranted accusations of "arbitrary subjective bar", whatever the fuck that means.

That you are too stupid to understand the analogy is not my problem. Starglider knew exactly what I was talking about. And my accusation is ENTIRELY warranted, considering you are acting like an idiot and demonstrating severe intellectual dishonesty in this thread. Since apparently you don't understand basic English, "arbitrary subjective bar" means you haven't defined what you would accept as evidence, yet constantly rail at the lack of evidence.

You see, there was the point, which you could have tried to address, and then there was what you decided to do, which was to blurt out irrelevant knowledge to try to upend your intelligence.

You asked for a way to use physical laws to model consciousness. I did. Why is that irrelevant? Especially since you already admitted that the same process could be used for explaining "why humans like music"?

Current electromagnetic theory can easily explain (or rather make explainable) the existesnce of nerve pulses. What it cannot explain is the consequent rise of subjective consciousness and qualia, which by its nature cannot possibly arise from partial differential equations.

What ABOUT the subjective nature of consciousness makes it impossible to model mathematically? You keep stating this again and again without justifying it. The rise of subjective consciousness is explainable by neuroscience, and the elements of neuroscience are explainable by physical law.

We have the observation that consciousness arises from certain nerve pulses and this can be labeled a legitimate science (neurology). What we do not have is a fundamental physics foundation for how consciousness is predictable.

... yet we can use fundamental physical laws to predict states of consciousness.

Notice how I say foundation, not exact mathematical deduction? If you disagree with this assertion, why don't you try to provide a foundational explanation for consciousness, just as you did for brain activity (something that is very easy to explain)?

Why do you dismiss the relationship between consciousness and brain activity? This is exactly what I meant by "arbitrary subjective bar". You aren't using any rigorous, scientific, or logical method of making your argument, you are just using vague terminology and ranting that everything we say "doesn't count".

Thank you for admitting that a) you are a moron and b) you cannot explain consciousness within your own paradigm, because when asked to do so, you only give first-principles explanations for the physical component of brain activity (which nobody asked for) and then vaguely wave your hands and say consciousness clearly follows without clearly explaining why it follows.

Consciousness IS a pattern of brain activity. If we can explain a pattern of brain activity with physical components, we then have the ability to predict states of consciousness using those physical components. As I said in my previous post, behavioral fMRI studies WOULD NOT BE POSSIBLE if this were not the case. You just keep resetting your "arbitrary subjective bar" by saying that this doesn't count. Your entire argument seems to be circular: you are assuming from the beginning that consciousness somehow transcends its physical manifestations in the brain, and then getting angry that physical laws can't be used to explain consciousness.

[Luke Skywalker]

Let me try to explain the problem here to you for a third time.

Physical laws -> neural activity is easy. Even you were able to do it.
Neural activity -> consciousness is easy if you work with the fact that we've observed correlations between the two, and there is clearly a causal link.
Physical laws -> consciousness is impossible. You instead have to go physical laws -> neural activity, then neural activity -> consciousness through observational data.

Meanwhile, all of these are child's play:

Physical laws -> taking a shit
Physical laws -> JFK's assassination
Physical laws -> masturbating

Do you see the difference now?

And why exactly do you think this? What about consciousness is incompatible with "quantum equations"?

Remember how you eagerly and superfluously gave a first principles explanation for neural activity? Do the same for consciousness. Obviously, nobody is expecting exacting details, just as you did not give such exact detail in your original, entirely off base attempt.

I mean, the inherent incapability with any known law of physics should be obvious enough, but I suppose with you we'll just have to learn by doing, or failing to do.

Where on earth did I imply that that physics don't apply to biological systems? My argument was the exact opposite.

That was Starglider's point, which you seemed to agree with. Either way, your attempted explanation of consciousness simply explained neural activity, which I was already well familiar with. Then to jump from neural activity to consciousness you just waved your arms and pointed out that there's an observed connection, not realizing that an observed connection is a far less fundamental explanation than the first-principles one you were easily able to make to neural activity.

What exactly is your criterion for a "connection" back to physical laws? Apparently it isn't enough for you that we can use physical laws to explicitly model cognitive models of consciousness? Please explain exactly what evidence you are looking for, so we can save ourselves some time.

We don't use physical laws to directly model consciousness. We can use physical laws to model neural activity, and then use observed correlations to model consciousness.

"What exactly is your criterion" - at the least, the same criterion you took upon yourself to explain neural activity. Some sort of connection to electromagnetic theory, or any physical law, that even has a variable in there that would have some sort of relationship to subjective qualia.

Like, how many times do I have to repeat that neural activity and consciousness are not the same problem at all? The former leads to the latter; this does not mean the link between the two is adequately understood.

Well, this proves you miraculously misunderstood both analogies that were being made. That's not a surprise, because just about none of your post has betrayed any sign of critical thinking skills.

I love how you just vaguely claim that I "misunderstood" both analogies without bothering to explain how I did so, or addressing the specific justifications I made as to how the analogies are inadequate. You've clearly mastered all of the right catchphrases and sound bites found on these forums but can't be bothered to make a coherent argument to save your life.

What exactly do you mean by "predict every observation"? Do you not realize what a completely nonsensical statement this is?

It means that I can, with adequate instruction, explain everything that we have ever observed within this framework in the same manner you explained neural activity with electromagnetic theory, except for consciousness.

For example, the assassination of Juilius Caesar could, in principle, be explained through the neural activities of the various conspirators firing in a certain way due to the constituent fundamental properties, prompting them to grab knives, ambush Caesar through his eyes' limited field of vision, and then kill him through the momentum and pressure of the metal puncturing organs that are necessary to sustain neural activity in the brain. All of this is familiar content, because it has to do with what are ultimately connections of quarks and leptons behaving in a certain way. Consciousness is an entirely different beast, and I hope you don't come back to me by trying to confuse consciousness with neural activity yet again.

What about our ability to model cognitive processes of consciousness as I described in my previous post does not constitute a predictive physical model?

Because you modeled from first principles neural activity, but then neural activity -> consciousness required observation of a correlation that was not independently verifiable through scientific equations.

Fundamental physical laws can't perfectly predict the weather.

In practice, no. In principle yes, just as it can predict neural activity. Feel free to explain to me how it can predict consciousness, since you've wasted many a paragraph trying to dance around the issue.

I expect you to present any proof of these statements.

Fundamental particles have qualities such as spin, mass and charge, which in large scales can aggregate into classical qualities such as mass and tensile strength, but cannot aggregate into producing subjective qualia in a set of arbitrary conditions that are neurons firing a particular way.

The analogy was that Creationists use an argument whereby they can ignore any evidence presented by using vague terminology and shifting the goalposts as what constitutes evidence in the first place (this is the "no transitional fossil" meme).

The difference is you haven't presented any evidence whatsoever. You eagerly linked physical laws to neural activity (just as you could link physical laws to taking a shit or masturbating), but then to link neural activity to consciousness you just pointed out that we've observed a correlation.

Yet, when I posit the same process for exploring consciousness in my previous post, you reject that as insufficient evidence. You don't seem to have a clear idea of what you are even arguing at this point.

Consciousness isn't even a physical thing, isn't composed of elementary particles, and isn't any sort of force field that would have a mathematical relationship with said elementary particles. The interaction of elementary particles in a particular way seems to arbitrarily produce it, but that's hardly the same thing.

On the other hand, that a car starts properly when its components behave a certain way can easily be explained from first principles. That neurons firing in a certain way produces consciousness can not.

Why are subjective qualia different from anything we've ever encountered? You need to substantiate this statement. We have the ability to model qualia as a function of certain physical phenomena.

Are subjective qualia composed of atoms? Molecules? Muons?

Good one, bro.

Wow, I can just feel the brain cells frying in you right now.

Where? This is the first time in this thread you've addressed a post towards me, and nobody else that's posted since my post is disagreeing with me. Are you just completely unaware of what is going on around you or are you just perpetually dishonest? Where did I ever claim that there wasn't a difference between those two things? Fuck, my argument RELIES on there being a difference between those two things, moron! You are the one claiming that the issue of consciousness is "unexplainable", as opposed to simply "unexplained", and you have yet to actually present any evidence that this is the case.

If you think consciousness is explainable, feel free to provide that pathway to explaining it, since the first time you tried you got stuck at neural activity -> consciousness.

That you are too stupid to understand the analogy is not my problem. Starglider knew exactly what I was talking about. And my accusation is ENTIRELY warranted, considering you are acting like an idiot and demonstrating severe intellectual dishonesty in this thread. Since apparently you don't understand basic English, "arbitrary subjective bar" means you haven't defined what you would accept as evidence, yet constantly rail at the lack of evidence.

Starglider thinks that physics has nothing to do with neural activity. He's even dumber than you are. Meanwhile, you continue to complain about a lack of criteria when you have no problem explaining neural activity to my satisfaction, and could have easily transposed those standards into explaining consciousness.

You asked for a way to use physical laws to model consciousness. I did. Why is that irrelevant? Especially since you already admitted that the same process could be used for explaining "why humans like music"?

You can explain why humans take shits because taking a shit is a physical event. You can explain concepts such as justice and morality as categorical references to certain ideas and concepts that our brains and societies have created, the creation being a physical event (firing of neurons, penning of papers, etc.) You cannot explain consciousness the same way.

What ABOUT the subjective nature of consciousness makes it impossible to model mathematically?

Because you can't assign a number to red, but you can assign a number to spin, or to velocity.

... yet we can use fundamental physical laws to predict states of consciousness.

Bullshit. You use fundamental physical laws to predict neural activity, and then neural activity to predict consciousness through observed correlations.