>It seems quite obvious to me that "consciousness" is caused by complex algorithms being run by the human brain.

Why "consciousness" in quotes? You don't have it? Are you a bot? And where is the obviousness from? Just this is how problems usually go down, so you assume this one will go the same way?

>But even if science shows that is false, there will always be another scientific explanation.

I mean, science is pretty cool, and having some faith in it is fine, but why this much? Why say always when it doesn't have one now?

> Even if souls exist, they would have to interact with physical matter to work, and so, in principle, could be studied scientifically. Observed and experimented with. And in principle, we could deduce the logical rules that explains their behavior, and build artificial souls, or simulate souls on a computer.

Yes, if they do interact with the outside world, they can be studied by science as much as they do interact. But how do you study them where they don't, where they just provide qualia and the outside world doesn't look any different? Isn't science about reproducible empirical evidence, which qualia don't provide?

>hard problem is weird

Well, you using consciousness in quotes as a, hopefully, conscious person is also weird. I don't see how you avoid the disconnectedness when you see that no science can even know whether you're conscious or not.

>Why "consciousness" in quotes?

Because I'm not convinced "consciousness" is a meaningful concept that actually exists. No one has the slightest idea how to define it or what it really means, so it's a very vague non-precise term at best. But I accepted it for the purpose of this discussion.

>where is the obviousness from? Just this is how problems usually go down, so you assume this one will go the same way?

Because there is abundant evidence that the brain is the mind. Brain damage causes mental impairment, and we can observe it through fMRIs and interact with it through various experiments. We can reproduce some behavior from computer algorithms somewhat similar to biological neural networks, and I don't see why we won't eventually be able to reproduce all of it. Modelling the brain computationally is a huge field of research that has made a huge amount of progress in recent years. Not to mention neuroscience in general, which has produced a huge amount of knowledge.

But beyond that, it would be really strange if the physical laws that govern are universe are magically invalid in this one specific place. We know from evolutionary theory that humans aren't special. We are just the product of random mutation and natural selection, from the first accidental self replicators. There is nothing special at all about humans, we are just regular animals made of physical matter, that have been selected for intelligence.

Of course it's possible this is all wrong. It's also possible that the Earth is really flat, and evil gods are manipulating all our observations and distorting photos taken from space, etc. But anyone who believes that is crazy.

>Yes, if they do interact with the outside world, they can be studied by science as much as they do interact. But how do you study them where they don't, where they just provide qualia and the outside world doesn't look any different?

"Qualia" is also a vague imprecise term. If this "consciousness" stuff actually interacted with the physical world, then we would, in principle, be able to observe it. But if it doesn't, then it's irrelevant to us. Totally disconnected from anything you can ever observe or experience.

If you say "I am conscious", then some chain of events caused that event. Perhaps a thought formed in the neurons of your brain. In principle we could study your brain and see why it believes it is conscious, and what things are causing that behavior. If it's caused by "souls", then, at least in principle, we could study the behavior of the souls, and observe them interacting with physical matter to make you say words or think thoughts.

Seriously read the link I posted, it goes into that in great detail.

Evolution doesn't show that at all. I think it shows that we weren't created by some kind of god, but more of an accident. If that's the case, it makes it much less likely that there are souls or other supernatural-ish explanations for consciousness, and so we are much more likely to be simply physical matter.

Rocks and unicellular life are simply physical physical matter, and they are not conscious. We would not have evolved to be conscious, in a coherent manner too, if there was no benefit to it.

>Because I'm not convinced "consciousness" is a meaningful concept that actually exists. No one has the slightest idea how to define it or what it really means, so it's a very vague non-precise term at best. But I accepted it for the purpose of this discussion.

Pick your poison. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/consciousness/#ConCon

If you deny that you experience qualia, well then the core proof for it is gone. At which point we might as well put the whole discussion in quotes.

Still, what makes the definition different from the definition of matter? Do you deny the existence of matter also?

>Because there is abundant evidence that the brain is the mind. Brain damage causes mental impairment, and we can observe it through fMRIs and interact with it through various experiments. We can reproduce some behavior from computer algorithms somewhat similar to biological neural networks, and I don't see why we won't eventually be able to reproduce all of it. Modelling the brain computationally is a huge field of research that has made a huge amount of progress in recent years. Not to mention neuroscience in general, which has produced a huge amount of knowledge.

You mean, abundant evidence than the brain seems to interact with the mind. I think it's inherently tied with the brain too, but I don't think there's anything that bridges the gap and makes the brain = the mind.

>But beyond that, it would be really strange if the physical laws that govern are universe are magically invalid in this one specific place.

Sure, and yet we experience the mind and it's nothing like the things we measure with science. Shouldn't that shake your faith in the universal intelligibility of all things under science?

>Of course it's possible this is all wrong. It's also possible that the Earth is really flat, and evil gods are manipulating all our observations and distorting photos taken from space, etc. But anyone who believes that is crazy.

We experience consciousness. Again, if you don't, then perhaps I'm talking to a bot, at which point I don't deny that I won't be able to show to you what consciousness is. It does have to be experienced.

Your comparisons with flat earth and manipulative evil gods are wholly uncharitable. Science supports the proposition of a round-ish earth; it doesn't of a flat earth. Science doesn't say anything about the existence or lack of existence of consciousness, your intuitions about the future progress of science do. Don't you see the difference?

If this invokes craziness for you, then perhaps you should think longer about what science is and what it says, and compare that with your intuitions about what you think it will be.

>"Qualia" is also a vague imprecise term. If this "consciousness" stuff actually interacted with the physical world, then we would, in principle, be able to observe it. But if it doesn't, then it's irrelevant to us. Totally disconnected from anything you can ever observe or experience.

Funny. It actually is just about the only thing we experience of the outside world. There are people working on the best definitions we have for qualia - if they're not satisfactory to you, do you propose we stop discussing them even though we experience them?

I mean, maybe we should stop discussing unexplored problems in science too.

>If you say "I am conscious", then some chain of events caused that event. Perhaps a thought formed in the neurons of your brain. In principle we could study your brain and see why it believes it is conscious, and what things are causing that behavior. If it's caused by "souls", then, at least in principle, we could study the behavior of the souls, and observe them interacting with physical matter to make you say words or think thoughts.

I mean, I get it, you think it's linked with the brain. It probably is, but we only get reports from people saying it is, that's one thing. The other thing is that even if it is linked with the brain, it doesn't mean that the brain = the mind.

Do you have a different source for the argument? No offense. Yudkowsky isn't an expert on philosophy of mind or philosophy at all, and I don't know of any philosophers who take him seriously. I skimmed it and I'd read it if it was not so long, but I'd prefer a SEP article or something else trustworthy in this case as it's such a long read.

> Science doesn't say anything about the existence or lack of existence of consciousness, your intuitions about the future progress of science do. Don't you see the difference?

I didn't say science said anything about conscious. I said that there is zero scientific support for dualism, or anything like it. Those theories are incredibly unscientific. You are making very strong claims that have zero evidence.

But even if dualism is true, my larger point is correct, that we could study the "souls" if they interact with physical matter. We could learn exactly how they work, and perhaps build artificial ones from physical matter. And if they don't interact with our universe, then they are irrelevant to us.

This discussion started about quantum mysticism and whether science could ever explain consciousness. To assert something is "beyond science", even in principle, is ridiculous.

>I didn't say science said anything about conscious.

Well you did say:

>If this "consciousness" stuff actually interacted with the physical world, then we would, in principle, be able to observe it. But if it doesn't, then it's irrelevant to us. Totally disconnected from anything you can ever observe or experience.

I mean, how am I to read it. It reads like you're denying what you yourself experience if it isn't registered with scientific techniques.

We are yet to receive an actual datapoint from someone's mind, and it doesn't even seem like we know how we could do that. So all of your talk about scientific and not scientific theories seems to me a category mistake.

There's no scientific support for dualism. There's no scientific support for physicalism. Science can inform them, but we don't have scientific datapoints supporting either one. We merely have rational, or, if you will, philosophical arguments for them. I think I have made arguments against physicalism, namely, that we have no scientific method of accessing the contents of a mind, and we have no idea how to go about doing it.

What I'm hearing from your arguments is just your intuition telling you that all things are or will be intelligible under science, and having faith is fine, but at this point you have to know that this is the most grandiose claim of all in this discussion.

And to be specific, if dualism is true then we can't study minds with science. Science is about corporeal bodies, minds under dualism aren't corporeal. We can study what they do to the physical world, and guess how and when they appear to be linked with it, but we can't pry into the actual contents of the mind, not with science at least. Because under dualism, they aren't physical.

People like you are part of the reason it takes science so long to move forward in areas that contain mysteries. You say there's nothing to argue against, yet you are making an argument anyway, proving that there is, in fact, something to argue about. You are arguing against a very strange and specific version of what is called "the hard problem". At the heart of the hard problem is a simple question: how can we causally explain conscious experience? It's very convenient to say "oh it's just complexity. Done." But that doesn't solve anything and it's not particularly helpful. It leaves many questions unanswered. Why does consciousness seem to be unitary? Why does only a small portion of the information reach conscious awareness? Whence the feeling of free will? You should feel free to ignore these and many more questions, but to dismiss the inquiry entirely is, bluntly, stupid.

I've never argued for souls or anything immaterial, I simply think we haven't fully understood or explained the nature of consciousness.

Ok my terminology may have been wrong, fine. But this thread started off about quantum mysticism and whether or not physics or science could ever explain consciousness. I strongly object to that. And the people that promote views like that are the kinds of people that talk about "the hard problem of consciousness". Materialists generally don't talk about it or find it that interesting.

You're right that I don't have a complete explanation of consciousness, and of course no one does. But if we stop talking about the really crazy theories like epiphenomenalism, the answer must be that it's some kind of algorithm. A lot of people reject that idea completely with really bizarre arguments, hence my hostility.

I understand where your hostility comes from, but dismissing consciousness on the terms that there are so many people who use that term to make stupid claims and crazy theories is just taking the easy way out.

Has any materialist seriously considered what exactly is this material they so take for granted? When you really scrutinise it, you see that it can't be found. All you can find are models - mental representations of what it is. Does that mean that nothing exists? Of course not - you know that's not the case. This knowing is the hard problem, and you are right that it will never be solved by science, but not because it doesn't exist, but because the ability to do any science at all requires an "observer" and an "observed", and consciousness precedes both these concepts. It is the knowing in which all models can be experienced - how could something that includes all ever be explained by anything within it?

I find it quite ironic that materialists are so opposed to dualism, while at the same time being so entrenched in it. Not in the sense of "mind vs. matter" or "soul vs. body" (they managed to outgrow that naive philosophy), but in a sense of "knowing" that everything is matter while overlooking the fact that a distinct and separate knower has to exist in order to see this matter. That's as dualist as it gets...