Three possibilities come to mind:
Is there an evolutionary purpose?
Does it arise as a consequence of our mental activities, a sort of side effect of our thinking?
Is it given a priori (something we have to think in order to think at all)?
EDIT: Thanks for all the responses! Just one thing I saw come up a few times I’d like to address: a lot of people are asking ‘Why assume this?’ The answer is: it’s purely rhetorical! That said, I’m happy with a well thought-out ‘I dispute the premiss’ answer.
Or, as you acknowledged before, it seems like you experience them. That experience of weighing up all the inputs, applying your mood and whatever else you bring, feels like making a decision freely.
These parameters are all examples of the complex inputs that precede a decision. And each of these inputs could be understood as the inevitable result of a causal chain.
It’s super complex and likely involves technology that we don’t yet possess, but if I could perfectly simulate a brain identical to yours, with the same neural states, and the same concentrations of relevant chemicals in its simulated blood at the moment of the decision, that simulated brain would have to produce the same output as as your meaty one.
Yes.
If I’m to be precise, it seems that I exist on what seems to be a planet in what seems to be a universe. On that seeming planet it seems as if I am surrounded by what seem to be things - some of which seem to be alive and others of which seem not to be. And among the ones that seem to be alive, there are some that seem to share the classification I seem to possess, as a human being.
In my seeming experience as what seems to be accurately desgnated a human being, I seem to experience some things, among them the process of seeming to make choices. And that process of seeming to make choices is a thing that I seemingly perceive the other seeming humans who seem to exist seemingly relate to be a part of their seeming lives as well.
And so on. Since I, as seems to be the case with all other beings that seem to exist, live behind the veil of perception, I cannot know for certain that any part of what I experience represents an objective reality. So every single aspect of my experience of life, most accurately, can only be said to seem to be as I perceive it to be.
I simply don’t believe that to be the case, if for no other reason than that that would appear to make creative reasoning impossible. If reason was merely the manifestation of a rigid causal chain, then all reason would follow the same paths to the same destinations. The fact that human history is, viewed one way, a record of new chains being followed to new destinations, means that there must be some mechanism by which consciousness can and does effectively “switch tracks.” Or even introduce entirely new ones.
Nor do I believe that to be true, since while consciousness appears to be a manifestation of the mechanical workings of the brain, it is not itself merely those mechanical workings - it is a “thing” unto itself. And I believe, quite simply, that the relationship between consciousness and the brain is not unidirectional, but bidirectional - that just as the physical state of a brain can be a proximate cause of a chain of thought, a chain of thought can be a proximate cause of a physical state of a brain.
And in fact, I would say that that’s easily demonstrated by the fact that one can trigger a response - fight or flight for instance - merely by imagining a threat. There’s no need for any physical manifestation of the threat - a wholly conscious, wholly non-physical imagining of it is sufficient. That says to me, rather clearly, that consciousness can serve as a cause - not merely as an effect.
And on a side note, thanks for the responses - this subject particularly fascinates me, but I find intellectually honest debate on it to be vanishingly rare.
You’re welcome. I too find it very interesting, though my expertise in it is below amater level.
I am a little confused about your model of continuous and the brain: you speak of consciousness appearing to be a manifestation of the brain’s processing, but talk about what seems to be a communicative relationship between the two. My understanding is that consciousness is entirely an emergent property of the brain, impossible to distinguish from the squishy mechanics. If yours is significantly different to this, then it is no wonder that our beliefs diverge.
That consciousness is (theoretically) an emergent property of the brain doesn’t make it indistinguishable from the brain. I would say that it’s self-evidently a thing unto itself - while consciousness appears to be (and logically is) a manifestation of brain activity, it is not that brain activity in and of itself. My experience of consciousness undoubtedly manifests via the firing of neurons and release of chemicals, but it is not merely the firing of neurons and release of chemicals - it’s an experience unto itself.
To use a potentially poor analogy, consciousness might be viewed as the fruit of the plant of the brain. While the fruit comes to be solely through the workings of the plant, it still, fully formed, has an existence outside of, and even to some degree independent of, the plant.
Or something like that…
I guess, if we’re looking at trees, I see it more like the shelter provided by the tree. The shelter cannot exist without the tree, it consists entirely of the tree, and when a tree attains certain properties it creates/becomes a shelter almost definitionally.
Note that here I’m making a distinction between a shelter and a sheltered area. The sheltered area is not the shelter; it is an effect of the shelter. I don’t think there’s room for the sheltered area in my consciousness analogy. So don’t think about it too hard?
Anyway, do you believe there is any ingredient to consciousness other than the physically of the brain? For example a “spark”, or a soul, or a connection to something external to the brain?
I get where you’re going with that analogy. It’s a bit awkward, just because, as you did, you have to stipulate shelter as opposed to the sheltered area, but with that stipulation it does work, and quite well really.
And as analogies should be, it’s intriguing.
But…
My first reaction is that it’s sort of similar to the “consciousness is an illusion” concept in that it appears to just move the problem back one step rather than solve it.
It seems to me that what you’re describing is the “space” (or maybe "framework would be better) in which consciousness takes place, but not consciousness itself.
The problem then (as is the problem with the consciousness is an illusion idea) is that that space/framework/whatever is only of note if a consciousness is introduced.
At the risk of bringing in too many metaphors, it’s akin to the “tree falling in a forest” thought experiment. The tree falling in the forest certainly generates disturbances in the air that, were there ears to hear them, would register as sound. But without ears to hear them, they’re just disturbances in the air. Similarly, it seems to me that the “shelter” that’s apparently intrinsic to the brain is only rightly considered “shelter” if there’s a consciousness to experience it. Without a consciousness to experience it, it’s just a space/framework/whatever.
I believe that consciousness in and of itself is obviously that.
I probably should’ve clarified - when I say “consciouness,” I’m referring to the state/process that’s at least one step removed from immediate perception.
I see a round red thing and recognize it to be food. That’s just perception.
I also recognize it to be the thing called an “apple” (in English - other languages have other words). I know that they grow on trees and come in many varieties, and I remember the tree in the side yard of the house I grew up in and how the apples were small and yellow and very good, but I had to generally get a ladder to get any apples, since the deer ate the ones close to the ground (and the ones on the ground, which at least meant I didn’t have to worry about cleaning them up), oh yeah and mom had a recipe for raw apple cake and it was delicious, but she bought the apples for that because the ones from the tree were too firm and tangy to bake with… and so on.
That’s the part that, to me, corresponds with the “shelter” in your analogy.
But that’s still not consciousness.
Consciousness is the apparently entirely non-physical “audience” to all of that - the “I” that’s aware of the process as it’s happening.
For example, it’s not the part that recognizes an apple, or the part that categorizes it as food, or even the part that remembers the apple tree and the cake and feels nostalgia - it’s the part that’s one step removed from all of that - the internal “audience” (of one) that observes that “I” am experiencing all of that.
And it seems to me that your view accounts for all of those subsidiary things, but doesn’t account for the “audience” - consciousness. Consciousness is distinct from, and at least one step removed from, all of those things.
And finally (though this has already gone on quite long) -
I don’t believe that consciouness is a manifestation of some “spark” or “soul” or anything else external. I think it’s really a relatively mundane function of the brain that we simply haven’t come to understand yet (and for as long as “science” remains blinkered by reductive physicalism, likely won’t be able to come to understand). The key, and the thing (to go all the way back) that ties it in with free will, is that I believe that (as I mentioned before) the communication between brain and consciousness is bidirectional - that there’s some mechanism by which conscious thought alone can at least affect if not wholly direct the path along which neurons fire, and likely not only pioneer new paths, but in some way “flag” them, such that the new path is (nominally) properly fitted into the whole.
And again - thanks. This is some of the most rewarding mental exercise I’ve had in a long time.
Haha “Don’t think about it too hard,” I suggested! But there’s some real value in what you’ve said: I do find your idea of an “audience” very helpful and will have to cogitate on it.
The first thing it makes me think of is a story about Doctor Who that I once made up while trying to sleep: are you familiar with Doctor Who? It’s a sci-fi show like a home-made British Star Trek with more tinfoil and more time travel.
In my story, if you’ll indulge me, one of the characters briefly enters a super-perceptual state where she sees some kind of invisible entity steal the consciousness out of her friend’s head, squirts someone else’s consciousness in there, and then makes off with the one originally belonging to her friend.
It’s like the audience from your analogy walked out of one brain and became the audience for another brain. Her friend wakes up, and doesn’t seem to be any different: the brain his conscientiousness inhabits still has all his memories and nobody else’s, so why would she expect him to be any different? But the “audience” observing their friendship hitherto has been spirited away to who-knows-where and this grieves her.
The middle of the story consists of her trying to track down the entity, and also her trying, with only ambiguous success, to determine any difference in his behaviours or thoughts. She becomes increasingly desperate as she imagines the invisible entity getting further and further away.
In the end, she tracks down a way to re-enter the state in which she perceived the entity originally. This time, she is able to look over a large group of people, and the punch line, of course, is that there are countless such entities swapping our “audiences” from head to head constantly. How many times in the last minute has she herself had her conscientiousness swapped for somebody else’s?
It makes me wonder if the ownership between brain and audience is a thing. Is that connection a necessary thing that is missing from our materialistic definition of a consciousness? Maybe that’s the nagging thing that you call a communication channel.
I’ve got another thought experiment to share which challenges this idea, but I’ve given you far too much to wade through already so I’ll save it.