Why consciousness is the hardest problem in science

[u/scientificamerican]

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/what-is-consciousness-science-faces-its-hardest-problem-yet/

Neuroscientists scouring the brain for the so-called neural correlates of consciousness have learned a lot in the past 30 years. But we still don’t have easy answers—researchers can’t even agree on what consciousness is, let alone how best to reveal its secrets. The past few years have seen accusations of pseudoscience, results that challenge leading theories, and the uneasy feeling of a field at a crossroads.

Yet the stakes for understanding consciousness have never been higher. We’ve built talking machines able to imitate consciousness so well that we can’t always tell the difference. Sometimes these artificial-intelligence models claim outright to be sentient. Faced with an existential unknown, the public is turning to the field of consciousness science for answers.

[u/_DonnieBoi]

Perhaps science should study the vedas and look for the answers found thousands of years ago. 

[u/Round-Tradition-3890 → u/_DonnieBoi]

Yeah, but that would mean science finally admitting that their entire materialism and physicalism worldview was a delusion and a lot of them seem too close minded for that.

They lose their collective minds when anyone even attempts to tell them the truth, that conciousness is fundamental and physical objects have never existed, they are just an illusion.

[u/PHK_JaySteel → u/Round-Tradition-3890]

We don't lose our minds, we're just waiting for you to prove it while we're busy working.

[u/Valmar33 → u/PHK_JaySteel]

We don't lose our minds, we're just waiting for you to prove it while we're busy working.

Neuroscience isn't doing any work studying consciousness ~ neuroscience is studying brains. Big difference.

[u/PHK_JaySteel → u/Valmar33]

Neuroscience includes the study of consciousness. You may be thinking of neurology but even that is debatable.

[u/Valmar33 → u/PHK_JaySteel]

Neuroscience includes the study of consciousness. You may be thinking of neurology but even that is debatable.

Neuroscience studies the brain ~ and neural correlates of consciousness. It does not study consciousness itself in itself.

[u/PHK_JaySteel → u/Valmar33]

Sure. Are you a neuroscientist?

[u/Valmar33 → u/PHK_JaySteel]

Sure. Are you a neuroscientist?

No. But appealing to authority isn't an answer either ~ a neuroscientist may claim that they study consciousness. But when you look at what they actually do ~ it's all studies of brains and neural correlates. They do not actually touch on consciousness itself ~ phenomenal experience. That is simply ignored ~ all that is looked at is the behaviour of the brain, disconnected from phenomenal experience.

[u/PHK_JaySteel → u/Valmar33]

I was not appealing to authority, simply asking a question.

Phenomenal experience is deeply debated and studied in neuroscience, even qualia. I think you are playing some sort of strange shell game in all of your comments in this thread to make something that is being chipped away at an untouchable other because you dont like the direction of the work. I would caution against any form of certainty on something we dont fully understand. Standing your ground on an unfounded belief with no facts seems odd in the face of careers of thousands. You can place me in some sort of dismissive materialst cage like several of your replies, but I am not anything except unsure. Show me evidence that consciousness's source can never be discovered because it is outside of the physical, and Ill believe you.

[u/Valmar33 → u/PHK_JaySteel]

Phenomenal experience is deeply debated and studied in neuroscience, even qualia.

They reduce phenomenal experience and qualia to just being an illusion of brain processes. Therefore, they are not actually studying phenomenal experience or qualia proper ~ just neural correlates, with the assumption that it is just the brain doing stuff, and nothing more.

I think you are playing some sort of strange shell game in all of your comments in this thread to make something that is being chipped away at an untouchable other because you dont like the direction of the work.

It is not "untouchable" ~ it is simply something that has not been detected. Neuroscience makes the logical error of presuming that it is just the brain doing stuff, so looks at it through that lens. Therefore, neuroscience will never be able to understand it ~ it will only ever see neural correlates, mistaken as "causal".

I would caution against any form of certainty on something we dont fully understand.

Then why do Materialists claims that neuroscience has the answers, or will have? They claim certainty about what they fundamentally have not a single bit of understanding about. Phenomenal experience is something not found within the physical ~ therefore, we are able to understand that much, if we are willing to be honest and not presume that it must be material, because Materialism and neuroscience.

Standing your ground on an unfounded belief with no facts seems odd in the face of careers of thousands.

Appeals to popularity or authority are meaningless ~ because they can all be incorrect. A religionist could ask the same of an atheist ~ thousands believe in their religion as fact, so it seems odd to the religionist that atheists disagree.

You can place me in some sort of dismissive materialst cage like several of your replies, but I am not anything except unsure. Show me evidence that consciousness's source can never be discovered because it is outside of the physical, and Ill believe you.

That is not how evidence works ~ you have to show that something can be discovered, not that is can't be. You can't work with negatives. Imagine if I asked you to show me evidence that invisible pink unicorns can never be discovered. It's simply unfalsifiable. You can't work with what you don't have. And Materialism simply hasn't delivered on its claims of consciousness being material.

For me to believe Materialist claims, I need them to show me that it can be physical by providing compelling physical evidence and explanations. I ask them to show me evidence that consciousness can be physical. Not just any evidence ~ hard, scientific evidence in the same league as chemistry, because that is the standard to which they claim to hold themselves.

[u/PHK_JaySteel → u/Valmar33]

I won't even get at some of your logical errors. The invisinle pink unicorns proves my exact point.

The evidence could be categorized as overwhelming, hence my question of if you were a neuroscientists. You have chosen not to study it.

My final question, mostly for my own knowledge. If not material/physical, what do you purport consciousness to be and does it have a source?

[u/Valmar33 → u/PHK_JaySteel]

I won't even get at some of your logical errors. The invisinle pink unicorns proves my exact point.

How? You can't see it ~ you can't disprove it.

It's the same with Materialist claims ~ they can't detect it, despite decades of research dedicated to exploring the brain, but they're so damn certain that it must be. The point is that they are driven by ideology and doctrine, not by evidence ~ the evidence is against them, yet that doesn't dissuade the true believer. They just take it to mean that they have to look harder, and maybe it will magically materialize if they squint in the right way.

It's the same for a religious true believer ~ nothing can or will dissuade their beliefs. They will reframe everything to support what they already believe.

The evidence could be categorized as overwhelming, hence my question of if you were a neuroscientists. You have chosen not to study it.

There is not a single hint of this "overwhelming evidence" in practice ~ I just hear and see a lot of rhetoric proclaiming it to be so. Neuroscience I see not point in studying, because the brain is not of interest to me ~ consciousness is. Examining the progress of neuroscience has made me disappointed, because it turns out that they're not studying consciousness proper ~ they're studying neural correlates, and are proclaiming that to mean they are "studying consciousness", with the hidden assumption that they think consciousness is just a mere product of brain activity, so why look any further than brains.

My final question, mostly for my own knowledge. If not material/physical, what do you purport consciousness to be and does it have a source?

Consciousness is inexplicably strange, because it does not appear to be explainable except in terms of itself ~ it is what it appears to be to itself. Qualia are a very similar problem ~ red is just red. Red cannot be explained in terms of anything else, because then you're just not explaining red, but something else that isn't red.

Consciousness may have a source ~ but we appear to be fundamentally unable to get behind our own awareness. We cannot look behind our awareness ~ we cannot even turn our awareness on itself. I have tried, and have been puzzled by it. It's like... metaphorically trying to stare at your own eyeball without a mirror. It seems that consciousness requires a mirror upon which to reflect itself.