Is the Filter Theory committing the ad hoc fallacy and is it unfalsifiable?

Human conversation does require consciousness, yes.  That's not the point. The point is, when two are more humans are conversing, we call the sum of their actions "conversation". That's how English works. If we want to give a name to several people conversing in ways that we recognize as something distinct, we can give that event a name. In this case, we call their group actions a "conversation". A conversation is not made of atoms. It cannot be weighed on a scale. It is not a physical object. But it doesn't really fit into the category of "non-physical object" either. It is a name we give to a set of actions by a set of entities that together makes an identifiable event --a conversation.

I gave other examples in this class where the entities doing the actions might not be conscious: a cattle stampede, a viral infection and an avalanche. The viruses and snowflakes are not conscious. The cattle might be. But in each case, these entities are together doing an action. We call the overall event by a name, such as a stampede, an infection, or an avalanche.

Likewise, when neurons are all working together to observe sensory inputs, recall memories, determine what the body will do, and issue signals that cause the body to do what the neurons collectively ask, we have a name for that conglomeration--a mind.

I agree the stampede is not conscious, even though the cattle are. Same with the concert goers not making the concert itself conscious, the soldiers not making the war conscious, and so on.

Even more so, I agree an aggregation/arrangement of snow doesn't produce consciousness.

So even *if* the neurons were conscious themselves as individual cells, it doesn't make the aggregate conscious. But since we are assuming here the neurons aren't conscious, there's even more reason to believe their arrangement cannot produce consciousness.

As Sam Harris would say, to say non-conscious processing produces consciousness is akin to saying "there are round squares" and "2 + 2 =7".

Edit: I think you could even extend your criticisms of computers being conscious to your argument for neuronal information processing?

Not sure about "problematic", but it can certainly be confusing, and thus inappropriate to some degree or another, if seriously claimed that said molecules or neurons are "vying for attention". But Materialists / Physicalists often seem confused ~ they so often use the language of conscious intent while not actually believing that neurons are conscious or intentful. Materialists / Physicalists never seem to really care about correcting this confusion, either...

Yeah I think this is why the (retired) neuroscientist Raymond Tallis rejected Materialism/Physicalism, because the explanations sneak in the very consciousness that is supposedly being explained.

I feel like there is a layperson type Materialism that just sees bodies, including corpses, and doesn't see souls. This is a position I think is reasonable.

Then there's a philosophical Materialism that wants to shut the door on any kind of religion or spirituality, that argues absurdities.

I also think it is generally best to avoid the endless medical tests that exist nowadays. Eventually something will get us, does  it really matter that much what it will be?

I don't want to get too deep into discussing medical advice, for which I don't think forums on 'Net are a good place, but for myself I would say the purpose of routine check ups is not death but quality in this life.

Human conversation does require consciousness, yes.  That's not the point. The point is, when two are more humans are conversing, we call the sum of their actions "conversation". That's how English works. 

Likewise, when neurons are all working together to observe sensory inputs, recall memories, determine what the body will do, and issue signals that cause the body to do what the neurons collectively ask, we have a name for that conglomeration--a mind.

Merle, you have done a fine job here defending your and maybe Dan Dennett's view of the brain.  However, science is the point here, and science has left Dan behind.  Dennett is a Barwise Award winner and I have no status to formally debate his arguments.  However, I will offer an opinion that Dennett is not taken as relevant in modern discussion, which emphasizes the tools of information science.

Brian made an excellent point about the lack of a physical model for the production of consciousness.  I am more aggressive with presenting an informational model that does. A conversation has measurables, besides that of materials and forces, there is the scope of information transfer and measurements of its actualization.  These measurements are much more germane to the topics of mind and the functionality of phenomenal conversation. 

During the conversation, semiotic symbols are offered (in what ever language) and the symbols are coded on one end and decoded on the other.
Decoding is not a physical process.
 
After decoding there are expectant values quantifying the mutual information gain from senders to receivers. HARD NUMBERS MIND YOU.  Again, not physical measurements - but a measure of COMMUNICATION.  see the work of C. Shannon, et all.

Communication (as measured in bits and bytes) is good - but understanding is better.  It takes the structuring of information.  Datasets from past experience must be accessed and merged with current observations of environmental probabilities.  Again, how and under what conditions information is structured to achieve functionality is a primary subject of information science, not physics or chemistry.   Sure, chemistry uses information processing to create an overview of data.  But the phenomenon is IP acting on physical data, with informational outcomes.

The point is that there is a "coming of age" for information science to model mind as the informational processing of biological data.  To me and maybe others here, you keep repeating claims of "magic" intent coming from electro-chemical sparks, rather than seeing how biology has simulated logic gates in response to information processing demands. (1)Did neurons figure it out like little minds in themselves, or (2) did living things evolve to exploit natural information tools?

I suggest that choice two is the more pragmatic.

ps.  Charles Darwin's theory of evolution includes mental evolution.

A different "take" on this - a look at just a little of the actual data relevant to these issues.

From: Rivas, Titus. The Self Does Not Die: Verified Paranormal Phenomena from Near-Death Experiences. International Association for Near-Death Studies. Kindle Edition.

The following are a few cases selected randomly from this compilation of more than 100 generically similar cases in various categories. This book contains over 100 reliable, often firsthand accounts of uncanny perceptions during NDEs that were later verified as accurate by independent sources. These near-death experiencers were everyday people from all over the world — many of whom were clinically dead, unable to see or hear.

"CASE 6.3. Aunt Cilla

In Günter Ewald’s 2007 book Nahtoderfahrungen (Near-Death Experiences), he described Renate A.’s NDE, as recounted by her husband, Bernd A., from Schleswig-Holstein in Germany. Renate had her NDE in 1993 when the couple lived in Saarland. At that time, Renate had a serious alcohol problem, which Bernd tried to help her with. Due to her alcoholism, her physical condition had seriously deteriorated. On Christmas Day 1993, it caused her to fall into a coma, and she was admitted to a hospital. The attending physician reassured Bernd and sent him back home. There, in his wife’s handbag, he found a note from a doctor dated December 15, 1993, to the effect of, “Mrs. A.’s illness is life threatening. Liver cirrhosis. There is acute danger caused by bleeding of esophageal varices (veins).” The day after Christmas, Bernd received a call and learned that his wife had been transferred to the university clinic in Homburg. He went there as quickly as he could, but on arrival discovered that his wife was not in her room. Renate turned out to be in the recreation room where she could smoke a cigarette. The night before, when the doctors had already given her up for dead, she had had an NDE. She had seen her late father and her aunt Cilla, among others. Both had made sure that she returned to her body because her time had not yet come. What was so exceptional about this case was that both Bernd and Renate knew that Renate’s father had died, but they thought that her aunt Cilla was still alive and well. A week after Christmas, Bernd visited his mother-in-law. She asked him if she could accompany him to the hospital and whether Renate was recovered enough to hear sad news. Renate’s mother had received a letter that very day stating that her sister Cilla had died and that she had been laid to rest 3 days before the letter had been written. Counting back the days, this meant that Cilla had died shortly before Renate’s NDE.
SOURCE Ewald, G. (2007). Nahtoderfahrungen: Hinweise auf ein Leben nach dem Tod? [Near-death experiences: Indications of life after death?]. Kevelaer, Germany: Topos.

CASE 3.23. An Exceptionally Smooth Resuscitation

In his book Recollections of Death, cardiologist Michael Sabom (1982) recounted a January 1979 interview he had with Mr. J., a 46-year-old laborer from a small American town in northern Georgia. In January 1978, Mr. J. had had a heart attack with cardiac arrest for the second time, during which he had had an NDE. The patient observed his resuscitation only visually, without feeling anything. He saw how everybody stood back for the nurse who resuscitated him. He also saw them give him only one shock on his chest and what the defibrillator that was used looked like. From up above, Mr. J. also observed the heads of the doctors and nurses, along with the room in which he was lying. He also saw a sink, his bed, and two machines. Mr. J. saw his wife, too, standing outside the door to his room, crying.

Sabom consulted the medical file of the resuscitation and read that the resuscitation had gone exceptionally well and smoothly. This description corresponded with the patient’s observation that he received an electrical shock only once. His observations of the defibrillation agreed with the standard procedure. Sabom also sought to get in touch with the patient’s wife. She could still remember that she had, in fact, cried when her husband experienced cardiac arrest. She also confirmed that the patient’s descriptions agreed with the resuscitation, as she herself had observed it through the glass partition wall.
SOURCE Sabom, M. B. (1982). Recollections of death: A medical investigation. New York, NY: Harper & Row.

CASE 3.24. The Jacket and the Tie 

Cardiologist Maurice S. Rawlings, affiliated with a diagnostic center in Chattanooga, Tennessee, described a case of a hospital patient who was suffering from recurring chest pain and severe depression. She happened to be a nurse herself by profession. Dr. Rawlings was asked to examine her, but when he arrived at the hospital, she was not in her room. Rawlings finally found her unconscious in the bathroom. She had tried to commit suicide by hanging. She had put a collar on herself—a collar used to support the neck—and then hung the collar on a coat hook on the bathroom door. After that, she had slowly bent her knees and finally lost consciousness. Her tongue and eyes looked swollen, as did her face, which also had a dark bluish color. Rawlings lifted her off the coat hook and laid her on the floor. He ascertained that she had enlarged pupils, and he could not hear a heartbeat when he placed his ear to her chest. He administered external heart massage and mouth-to-mouth respiration. Her roommate alerted some nurses to come and help. The patient was then administered oxygen through a ventilation mask. When electrocardiography was performed, however, the EKG showed a flat line, indicating that electroshock would not have helped—that is, the heart was in asystole, not in ventricular fibrillation that could respond to electroshock. She then also received several medications. Finally stabilized, the patient was brought by gurney to the intensive care unit, where she remained in a coma for 4 days. On the second day or so after she had awoken from her coma, Rawlings asked her whether she could remember anything about what had happened. The patient stated that she had observed all the effort he had gone through for her. She remembered that he had taken off his brown plaid jacket and tossed it on the floor and that he had loosened his tie, which had brown and white stripes on it. She also remembered that the nurse who came to help him had looked worried. She recalled that Rawlings had asked the nurse to get an Ambu bag (a mask with a balloon to give a patient artificial ventilation) and an IV catheter and that two men with a gurney had come. All these memories were correct, and Rawlings stressed that the patient was clinically dead when she observed these things. The patient recovered completely and even returned to nursing work. As it happened, she could not remember her suicide attempt at all and experienced no suicidal thoughts.
SOURCE Rawlings, M. (1991). Beyond death’s door. New York, NY: Bantam Books."

Discussion:

These are among more than 100 other cases of verified paranormal knowing and other veridical paranormal phenomena described in accounts by NDE experiencers and investigated by Titus Rivas and colleagues.

Of course materialist skeptics will always question the validity of such reports, since they conflict with their deep almost religious belief in materialism. They can always find some flaw or other, no matter how unlikely, where there just might be some "normal" explanation.

But how likely is it that every single one of the more than 100 verified veridical NDEs compiled and documented in this book, and of the host of others that must exist but were not found, has a conventional "normal" explanation? This "normal" explanation has a wide range of choices, ranging from fraud, coincidence, some sort of medical errors in reporting, to anesthesia awareness, hallucination, it goes on, with generally minimal plausibility.

If even only just one out of all these cases is valid, then it is known that it is a fact that sometimes an NDEer will lose consciousness with brain dysfunctional after incurring deep trauma, and somehow still experience leaving their physical body and going elsewhere, to observe various things that they could not have normally known and that still were later verified by investigators. These observations can sometimes be of the physical body being worked on by the resuscitation team, seen from the perspective of the ceiling of the ER or operating room.

By strong implication of this, during a period during which their brain was dysfunctional due to severe trauma, a victim's consciousness still exists and is sometimes capable of separating from the brain and body as some sort of mobile center of consciousness and traveling to some other location in the physical world or other realms, veridical details of which are later recounted to investigators and found to be correct.

This clearly is impossible if the conscious mind is a function of or in some other sense really one with the physical brain neurons.

Therefore the conclusion from a lot of experiential data in evidence: the mind is not a function of the physical brain neurons and theories of mind that assume this are invalid.

To believe that every single one of all the experiences documented in "The Self Does Not Die" is invalid, really somehow being a fraud or misperception or coincidence or anesthetic awareness or hallucination or whatever, reveals a strong and unquestioning religious faith in materialism.

I don't want to get too deep into discussing medical advice, for which I don't think forums on 'Net are a good place, but for myself I would say the purpose of routine check ups is not death but quality in this life.

All I can say, is that when I post a message like that on the internet discussion lead by a doctor, and many contributors are doctors or medical researchers, I am met with agreement.

I won't lead this discussion astray, but be assured, there are solid reasons to do as I do.

(I will elaborate by PM if you would like me to).

David

I think that the awareness is generated by the brain as a whole.

What do you think generates your awareness? Magic? If not magic, how does the thing that you think generates your awareness differ from magic?

This is such an ironic thing to hear coming from someone who believes that unconscious matter, by some sort of categorically unknown process, magically gives rise to conscious experiences.

Another few examples from the more than 100 veridical NDEs from The Self Does Not Die: Verified Paranormal Phenomena from Near-Death Experiences, by Rivas, Dirven and Smit, International Association for Near-Death Studies. Kindle Edition. Waiting for some plausible "normal" materialist neuroscientific explanations. 

"CASE 3.9. The Hair Clip

In 2012, intensive care nurse Baroness Andrea von Wilmowsky of Pöcking, Germany, reported to Pim van Lommel the following case from her nursing days. The following account is translated by Wanda Boeke from von Wimowsky’s own German-language book: One day a woman with a severe heart attack was admitted to our ward for resuscitation. Resuscitation efforts had already been attempted for a time en route to the hospital, but it didn’t look like there was much of a chance of her surviving. She was already clinically dead. At first we didn’t really know whether we should continue resuscitation, but did it anyway. It became the most chaotic resuscitation I’ve ever witnessed. There were too many people, and they kept stepping on each other’s feet and getting in each other’s way. An IV bottle was swept off the table in the middle of this chaos and smashed to pieces. I was a newlywed at the time. My husband had cut a hair clip in the shape of a rose for me out of plywood. I was wearing the hair clip that particular day. The thing must somehow have slid out of my long hair and fallen on the floor. Once on the floor, it was broken when somebody stepped on it. I noticed I was missing the hair clip once the resuscitation had been successfully accomplished. Our patient lived, but no one thought that she would survive in the long term. She was still completely unconscious when I left for a three-week vacation after that shift. When I first returned to work after that vacation, I saw the patient again. Things were still not going well for her, but she was conscious, and now and then we were even able to talk with each other. At some certain point, out of the blue, she asked me, “What happened to your pretty rose hair clip?” I replied that the hair clip unfortunately had broken not too long ago. Something about that question perplexed me. There was something odd about it. But, I always had a lot to do, so I didn’t think about it anymore. My subconscious must have done so, though, because about three days later as I was riding home on my motorcycle on a country road, it hit me: There was no way she could have seen that hair clip, was there!? This was so disturbing to me that I had to slam on the brakes and come to a screeching halt. It was shocking! I almost couldn’t stop thinking about it until my next shift started, and then I asked her right away how she knew about my clip. In response, she told me the following: During the resuscitation she had had an out-of-body experience in which she hovered in a corner of the room near the ceiling. She had gazed down on the whole scene from above, although she knew that she was actually lying there down below and that we were working on her. But this didn’t worry her one bit. She observed everything. She also saw who had stepped on my hair clip and was able to give me a description of the “culprit.” It was a doctor, and I didn’t have a clue about any of this until that moment! She had also seen the glass bottle fall on the floor and smash to pieces. Her story made me speechless! Then she told me even more. In this most unusual situation she had seen an extremely bright light and experienced an extraordinary sense of joy—a feeling she had never had before in her life until then! All of her questions had been instantly answered. She had felt utterly happy and at one with the world—and precisely at that moment we had pulled her back into her pain-riddled body! She didn’t thank us for that. Years later I realized: This patient had told me about a near-death experience, in the middle of the 1980s in East Germany!
SOURCE von Wilmowsky, A. (2012). Segelfalter [Sail swallowtail; e-book]. Amazon Digital Services.

CASE 3.13. Tom Aufderheide’s Patient

In his book Erasing Death, resuscitation specialist Dr. Sam Parnia reported the account of Tom Aufderheide, MD, a leader in the area of resuscitation technique research. Dr. Aufderheide’s story involves the first patient whom he resuscitated when he was a brand-new doctor. The patient had a cardiac arrest, and Aufderheide felt that he had been given great responsibility because he was on his own. He thought, “How could you [the more experienced doctors] do this to me?” Aufderheide tried to resuscitate the patient using a defibrillator, but the man would just have another attack. It went on like this from about 5:00 a.m. until 1:00 p.m. At about that time, hospital staff came to bring the patient his lunch. Considering the patient was unconscious and Aufderheide was famished, the doctor decided to eat the patient’s lunch. Finally, many hours later, the patient’s condition did stabilize. About 30 days afterward, the day before the patient was to be discharged, he addressed Aufderheide. He told the doctor that he had had an NDE. At the end of his story, he said, “You know, I thought it was awfully funny . . . here I was dying in front of you, and you were thinking to yourself, ‘How could you do this to me?’ And then you ate my lunch!” In 2013, Aufderheide was a professor of emergency medicine and director of the Resuscitation Research Center at the Medical College of Wisconsin. Rivas sent him an e-mail that Aufderheide answered on September 30, 2013. The doctor confirmed the accuracy of Parnia’s presentation in Erasing Death and revealed that his patient’s observations had in fact been far more extensive. The man had told him that during his NDE he had been able to witness a conversation in the hallway between Aufderheide and the patient’s wife and that he had observed a cardiac monitor that was outside of his physical field of vision. Aufderheide pointed out that the patient’s paranormal impressions started at a time when the patient’s resuscitation had not even been started yet. The patient received the thought that popped up in the doctor’s mind (“How could you do this to me?”) before the resuscitation had begun. Aufderheide wrote Rivas, “That got my attention, and to this day I have no explanation.”
SOURCE Parnia, S. MD (with Young, J.). (2013). Erasing death: The science that is rewriting the boundaries between life and death. New York, NY: HarperCollins.

CASE 3.16. Richard Mansfield’s Patient

In his book What Happens When We Die Dr. Sam Parnia included a case from a colleague: the seasoned cardiologist Richard Mansfield. Dr. Mansfield told Dr. Parnia that during one night shift, he had been called regarding a cardiac arrest. Together with other members of the medical team, he rushed to the patient, a 32-year-old man who had no pulse, was not breathing, and had a flat EKG (electrocardiogram). The team kept attempting to resuscitate the man, although there seemed to be little chance of saving him. They intubated the patient, and he was administered oxygen and 3-minute cycles of heart compression and adrenaline. He also received atropine, but his EKG remained flat and he did not exhibit any pulse. The team continued with the resuscitation for over half an hour, but when their efforts failed, they lost hope that the patient could still be saved. Considering the patient was 32 years old, they decided to keep going for a short while until it was clear that they could not succeed. Mansfield, as team leader, made the decision to stop the resuscitation. Before they stopped, he looked at the monitor once more to determine that it and the connections were functioning properly and that the patient still had no pulse. Then the team stopped and accepted that the patient had unfortunately died. They all thought that the outcome was terrible, because he was still so young. Mansfield left the patient in the room with the nurses, who prepared him for his family. The doctor went to the nurses’ station. He made notes in the patient’s medical file. While he was busy with this, Mansfield realized he could not remember exactly how many ampules of adrenaline they had given him. About 15 minutes later, he returned to the room to check the number of ampules. In the room, Mansfield looked at the patient and noticed that the man did not look quite as blue as when Mansfield had left the room. The patient looked pinker, which the doctor thought was very strange. With some hesitation, Mansfield walked over to the patient and checked his groin for a pulse. To Mansfield’s amazement, the patient turned out to have a pulse. This meant that the medical team had to resume the resuscitation. Finally, they succeeded in stabilizing the man, and he was then transferred to the intensive care unit, presumably without yet having regained consciousness. After the cardiac arrest, the medical team was convinced that the patient’s brain had suffered injury. However, about a week later, Mansfield was in this patient’s room and, to his surprise, not only had the man fully recovered, but he had not incurred any brain damage either. Mansfield described to Parnia what happened next: He told me everything that I had said and done, such as checking the pulse, deciding to stop resuscitation, going out of the room, coming back later, looking across at him, going over and rechecking his pulse, and then restarting the resuscitation. He got all the details right, which was impossible because not only had he been in asystole and had no pulse throughout the arrest, but he wasn’t even being resuscitated for about 15 minutes afterward. What he told me really freaked me out, and to this day I haven’t told anyone because I just can’t explain it. . . . I also know that I definitely checked the monitor, the leads, the gain [this is a technical means of checking that the flatline is truly flat], and the connections as well as the pulse before stopping. I just can’t explain it, and I don’t think about it anymore.
SOURCE Parnia, S. MD (2006). What happens when we die: A groundbreaking study into the nature of life and death. Carlsbad, CA: Hay House."

Thanks @nbtruthman , I've read that book but it's interesting to be reminded of parts I'd forgotten. The one from East Germany in the 1980s (CASE 3.9) is interesting as we in Britain didn't then hear much information from that part of the world.

The next one, "CASE 3.13. Tom Aufderheide’s Patient ", is described by Tom himself in the video shared in this post though the written text contains some additional details.

 non-conscious entities do not "work together", "observe", "recall", "determine" or "issue signals". Because these are qualities known only to be exhibited by consciousness. Matter has never been observed to ever do any of these things.

Are you serious?

If this is true, then what does the matter in the brain do? It consumes a large portion of the body's resources. Does it even have a purpose?