The problem of consciousness is one of the hardest facing science and philosophy today. But in order to inquire fruitfully into this great problem, we first need to make sure we are asking the same question, and have an adequate initial clarification of what we are talking about. There are perhaps five leading ideas in the existing philosophy and science of consciousness: qualia; what it is like for something to be that thing; subjectivity; intentionality; and phenomenality. Each of these five ideas has advanced inquiry in different directions, but they have all failed to provide an initial clarification of the subject. They demonstrate the unfortunate fact that minds are not meeting – we seem concerned with different subjects.
Consciousness, Actually
What are the key questions on consciousness?
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Dzen_o 20 November 2014
It can be rigorously proven that all/everything in our Universe and outside is/are some informational patterns/systems, which are elements of utmost fundamental absolutely infinite “Information” Set ; including our Universe is a sub-Set and consists of 3 main subsets: “Matter”, “Alive” and “Consciousness”.
The subset “Consciousness” and its elements – individual consciousnesses - cannot be/ become material principally – that are different informational systems; rather roughly as, for example, a computer’s hardware and soft. Hardware is purely material – though in this “a pail with a sand” the sand is organized properly by a consciousness. And as there is no any part of PC designer’s consciousness in the PC (as well as in the programs that run in the PC) – analogously, in certain sense, there is no, in certain sense, consciousness in a brain as in some material / biological hardware.
However the consciousness interacts with material objects, at least with specific ones. For example, the consciousness uses the brain as hardware/stable house; and, of course, to use the brain and, further, e.g., the [material] body, it is necessary for the consciousness to act by using some material impacts. For example – if a finger touches a something hot, in material finger’s material nerves some concentration of some ions is changed, and corresponding material pulse goes to material brain without consciousness, the hand twitches back “automatically”, i.e. –“materially”. But the same hand movement can be done by mental command – as that is if material heat acts. What consciousnesses makes and how powerfully can act “materially” – it seems nobody knows now.
For given/ known system Matter + consciousnesses(es) seems as reasonable to suggest that the consciousnesses is the product of development of some primitive “non-material” code that always – till Matter’s Beginning – existed in the Set; at that – the code was a very little, utmost primitive – and so stable part/ subroutine of some rather more complex “program code”, which was able to form primitive biological molecules up to a bacterium and so build for himself a stable hardware/ house to live and develop.
The material objects (and Matter as a whole) cannot be “consciousnesses”, since these (this) informational structures are built given that every material object exists and exchanges by information (interacts) with every other material object by using true information exclusively and using some exactly determined initial conditions. Just therefore, if a human guesses existent rules for “material” informational exchange (“Nature laws”) successfully, the human can use the laws steadily and be sure, that they don’t change time to time or case to case.
Thus material structures change in rigorous framework, practically deterministically; they can evolve, but they cannot develop/”progress”. (Therefore, for example, so called “artificial intellect” never will be the intellect) .
More – see “the Information as Absolute” , http://viXra.org/abs/1402.0173
Cheers
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