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

Again, you simply assert that it is logically impossible for consciousness to come from material things. You never attempt to prove this assertion. All you can do is repeat this argument from authority that some famous person(s) wrote something that appears to agree with you.

I've posted links to essays that make arguments that it is logically impossible. That is quite different than simply saying "Oh this famous guy says it's impossible so it's impossible."

Also aren't your explanations summaries of what Dennet said in Consciousness Explained? Not that I mind, just amusing that you'd criticize others for quoting rather than summarizing.

It doesn't matter that Harris is famous (not even true outside certain internet circles), what matters is he's an atheist with a neuroscience Phd. Tallis is an atheist who had a long career as a neuroscientist. The reason I present their arguments is to show that one can have expertise in neuroscience, be an atheist, and still see that non-conscious constituents will not suffice to produce consciousness and its varied aspects - Reason, Subjective Feels, Aboutness of Thought, or Memory.

In any case I actually think save for an article of faith regarding certain kinds of brains you pretty much agree with me that arrangements of non-conscious matter don't produce consciousness.

You think nails are not conscious, and anyone who believes this is "as dumb as a nail". Why?

You don't think aggregates like stampedes, war, concerts, and so on have consciousness. Why?

You don't think today's computers have consciousness. Why?

The answer to those "Why" questions, IMO, is because either their constituents have no consciousness or aggregates don't magically confer consciousness. Seems to me we both agree on the above lacking consciousness because we share that reasoning.

This means we both recognize that consciousness will not be produced by the vast majority of arrangements of that which has no consciousness nor aggregates where their components may have consciousness...we only differ on a v[e]ry particular set of arrangements that are called "brains".

But on this question of brains...isn't the only real difference between us simply that, for the sake of logical consistency, I followed our shared reasoning all the way through?

That is not how science is done. Science is done by looking at evidence and reason. Is there any reason to believe that it is logically impossible for matter to produce consciousness?

Science is just one system of investigation, and subject to logic. Reason tells us you can't get Something from Nothing, any more than you can have "round squares" or that "2 + 2  = 7". If I said future Science will show us nails have consciousness even if their constituents lack consciousness of any kind...would you accept that?

Thus, for the same reason nails don't have and won't produce consciousness, I think it's obvious Harris doesn't think it's logically possible for any arrangement of non-conscious constituents ->

To say “Everything came out of nothing” is to assert a brute fact that defies our most basic intuitions of cause and effect—a miracle, in other words.

Likewise, the idea that consciousness is identical to (or emerged from) unconscious physical events is, I would argue, impossible to properly conceive—which is to say that we can think we are thinking it, but we are mistaken. We can say the right words, of course—“consciousness emerges from unconscious information processing.” We can also say “Some squares are as round as circles” and “2 plus 2 equals 7.” But are we really thinking these things all the way through? I don’t think so.

Consciousness—the sheer fact that this universe is illuminated by sentience—is precisely what unconsciousness is not. And I believe that no description of unconscious complexity will fully account for it. It seems to me that just as “something” and “nothing,” however juxtaposed, can do no explanatory work, an analysis of purely physical processes will never yield a picture of consciousness.

I'm not even sure how much clearer he could be? As I said he does accept he could be wrong but to me that's just a throwing a bone out of pity to people like Dennett who wasted their whole lives evangelizing for the Materialist faith only to see increasing numbers of atheists abandon that dogma. Harris just showed the folly of that faith in a few paragraphs, which has got to hurt people like Dennett.

As for the soul needing a brain, if you can't even show how the brain produces consciousness why would anyone think it needed a brain*? Memories, thoughts, feels, logic - all of these are intertwined with our conscious experience.

Finally, for the record, running to the accusation that those who don't share your faith that non-conscious atoms can produce consciousness believe in "magic" - a term I'm not sure you even have a concrete definition for - is definitely not a strong argument.

*Assuming souls do exist. Not getting caught in that silly Catch-22 again...

Do you consider the "filter" model to be analogous to the "limiter" model? I am in agreeance that a secondary function of the brain is to act as a central control center ~ or an aircraft with a pilot controlling it via all of the complex mechanisms provided, as it were.

I didn't even know there was a difference?

Harris doesn't address these head-on as you request.  I don't want to draw your attention from Sci's response, but I will try to frame the issue from my personal point of view.

Hmm...I'd disagree on this as I don't know how much clearer Harris could be. When you compare the idea that non-conscious information processing produc[es] consciousness to the proposition that "2 + 2 = 7"...how could that be anything but a statement that both are logically impossible?

But maybe I am misunderstanding you?

Anyway it's not very important, as this...

The question of consciousness being fully casual from physical processes is dead in the water, as soon as science started to measure information.  The "something else" that is involved with awareness and functional biological information processing is the objective meanings in an informational environment.  It is not an object structured by materials and energy, it is an object structured from bits and bytes in the local environment and the ability for a logical response to personalize outcomes.  The activity is not measured by electro-chemical charges, but by the structuring of relations.

This is a methodological argument.  It reduces the fine argument of Chalmers, et all -- to a simple statement.  You will not get a restructuring of probabilistic outcomes, different that predicted by physics/materials science -- without a change in the informational states of the system.  Changes measured in information science units. 

Living things do exactly that when customizing to address their own needs.  They change probable outcomes to match an inner environment of states.  You cannot have a strictly limited field of physical measurements (SI units) and expect a direct change in intentional actions.  For that, you need a separate set of variables and equations.  The tools of information science parse behavior and intelligence.  Ecology of a real environment can be measured and their informational actions are mapped to causes.  The keystone of energy is the physical observation of applied force.

The keystone of information science is the observed outcomes from structuring a decision, based on learning.
There is no way to go from a data-set of positional locations, material properties and ambient forces and get a direct quantum answer of "move now is best for me".  Measure the information and meaningful relations in the environment, contrast with expected outcomes and - voila' - a science method that can predict outcomes where mind has changed events from natural and inanimate - to natural outcomes from the information processing native in living things.

You need units of measure from logical inference, of mutual knowledge and understanding, as well as from thermodynamics.  Thermodynamics is where the changes in local probability are quantified after learning has taken place.

...is pure gold!

I'm actually looking at a paper that seems to align with your ideas? ->

What Is Consciousness? Artificial Intelligence, Real Intelligence, Quantum Mind, And Qualia

Stuart A. Kauffman, Andrea Roli

We approach the question "What is Consciousness?" in a new way, not as Descartes' "systematic doubt", but as how organisms find their way in their world. Finding one's way involves finding possible uses of features of the world that might be beneficial or avoiding those that might be harmful. "Possible uses of X to accomplish Y" are "Affordances". The number of uses of X is indefinite (or unknown), the different uses are unordered, are not listable, and are not deducible from one another. All biological adaptations are either affordances seized by heritable variation and selection or, far faster, by the organism acting in its world finding uses of X to accomplish Y. Based on this, we reach rather astonishing conclusions:

(1) Artificial general intelligence based on universal Turing machines (UTMs) is not possible, since UTMs cannot "find" novel affordances.

(2) Brain-mind is not purely classical physics for no classical physics system can be an analogue computer whose dynamical behaviour can be isomorphic to "possible uses".

(3) Brain mind must be partly quantum-supported by increasing evidence at 6.0 sigma to 7.3 sigma.

(4) Based on Heisenberg's interpretation of the quantum state as "potentia" converted to "actuals" by measurement, where this interpretation is not a substance dualism, a natural hypothesis is that mind actualizes potentia. This is supported at 5.2 sigma. Then mind's actualizations of entangled brain-mind-world states are experienced as qualia and allow "seeing" or "perceiving" of uses of X to accomplish Y. We can and do jury-rig. Computers cannot.

(5) Beyond familiar quantum computers, we discuss the potentialities of trans-Turing-systems.

Hmm...I'd disagree on this as I don't know how much clearer Harris could be. When you compare the idea that non-conscious information processing produc[es] consciousness to the proposition that "2 + 2 = 7"...how could that be anything but a statement that both are logically impossible?

But maybe I am misunderstanding you?

Anyway it's not very important, as this...


...is pure gold!

I'm actually looking at a paper that seems to align with your ideas? ->

What Is Consciousness? Artificial Intelligence, Real Intelligence, Quantum Mind, And Qualia

Stuart A. Kauffman, Andrea Roli

Let me try to go over these 3 sources to answer your questions.  It may take a little while, the new Tononi et all paper is extensive.

In just a glance at this, it looks very interesting.  I have followed Kaufmann, since he brought his stance on an "included middle".  The (2) thru (4) points could just be a better version of my rant.  My intuition says (1) is correct, but don't have the background to say - yes.  The term "affordance" is getting to be in wide use.  As a long suffering advocate of direct perception, its very encouraging.

 iv. Qualia are experienced and arise with our collapse of the wave function.

Just opened the paper!  (iv.) is a professional opinion that is fully coincident with my claims of how and when mind happens.  I am digging in.

Let me try to go over these 3 sources to answer your questions.  It may take a little while, the new Tononi et all paper is extensive.

In just a glance at this, it looks very interesting.  I have followed Kaufmann, since he brought his stance on an "included middle".  The (2) thru (4) points could just be a better version of my rant.  My intuition says (1) is correct, but don't have the background to say - yes.  The term "affordance" is getting to be in wide use.  As a long suffering advocate of direct perception, its very encouraging.

Yikes, if [your] calm and measured posts are "rants" I must come off as an unhinged lunatic!

Yikes, if [your] calm and measured posts are "rants" I must come off as an unhinged lunatic!

There's no hope for me!

Do you consider the "filter" model to be analogous to the "limiter" model? I am in agreeance that a secondary function of the brain is to act as a central control center ~ or an aircraft with a pilot controlling it via all of the complex mechanisms provided, as it were.

Yes. 

The biggest limitation of this aircraft electronic system analogy seems to be that with the human mind/brain but not with the pilot/interfacing aircraft electronics system, the interface with the vastly complex mechanisms of the brain is totally unconscious, and to the conscious mind the interface is totally transparent with the human coming to identify him/her self with the system as a whole.

Thinking back I recalled Peter Sjöstedt-H had an essay on Panpsychism, which I have doubts about, but I think his criticism of the Materialist faith's doctrine of Emergence is really good:

It is easy to say that mind emerges from certain, say, neurological activities in the brain. But substantiating what this word ‘emerges’ actually means and implies in such statements is far from easy. That a whirlpool emerges from water, or that water emerges from H2O molecules are examples of emergence that can be observed and explained using structural, i.e. primarily spatiotemporal, language. But that the patterned movement of particles in a brain makes emerge mental states that cannot be observed or described in structural, spatiotemporal terms, is a claim that is not scientific: it is not directly observable, it is not quantifiable, and there is no known transordinal nomology: no bridge laws that would explain the matter-mind emergence (laws that would have to cover more than the human species). One cannot ‘zoom into’ an emotion to observe that from which it has emerged – as one can zoom into a whirlpool or into water – thus applying the emergence observed in nature to explain the mind is a disanalogy, a category mistake. [19] We cannot simply infer that as chemistry emerges from physics, and as biology emerges from chemistry, so sentience emerges from biology. No: there are no known laws of nature that can render explicable the emergence of emotion from motion, of sentience from insentience.

Furthermore, emergentism, as a physicalist doctrine, cannot accommodate mental causation (that mental events such as desire can have an effect upon the world) – as mentality is not an accepted force of nature – yet most emergentists do not want to fall into epiphenomenalism (that mental states are powerless aftereffects of physical activity, the mere steam of a locomotive engine [20]). But not being able to accept nor reject mental causation is to have your cake and eat it, which is essentially a reductio ad absurdum, a reduction to absurdity, a fatal infliction to emergentism...

There would be a monumental jump in the universe even with the simplest emergence of sentience: there would be a point in time, presumably concurrent with an organism, where there suddenly pierced into reality some kind of entity – with its own perspective – that was no longer fully structurally describable. This would have been an emergence of kind rather than an emergence of degree. For such a claim, the burden of proof lies upon the person who believes it...

The founder of population genetics, evolutionist Sewall Wright puts the case stronger still, claiming that:

‘[The evolution of a] new organ … involves nothing more mysterious than differential growth … . Emergence of [this kind] … poses no serious philosophical difficulty. Emergence of mind from no mind at all is sheer magic. … [M]ind must already have been there when life arose and indeed must be a universal aspect of existence…’ [24]

Wright points out that this alleged emergence would present the occurrence of magic not only during the course of evolution, but even during each pregnancy:

‘The emergence of mind in the course of individual development from the fertilized egg presents a similar problem and one that is an everyday occurrence instead of a single event in the remote past. It would appear that the mind of a human being must develop from something of the nature of mind in the fertilized egg and, back of this, in the separate germ cells and in the nucleic acid molecules.’ [25]

I've posted links to essays that make arguments that it is logically impossible. That is quite different than simply saying "Oh this famous guy says it's impossible so it's impossible."

No, it is not. You can quote a million words from an authority. It is still an argument from authority.

I have read the links you posted. I see a lot of statements that the writers do not know where consciousness comes from, and skepticism that it is fully material. But I find no solid evidence of the claim.

Again, to be scientific, you must show reasons that the brain cannot produce consciousness, not quote people that agree with you.

Read real scientific papers in the scientific literature. You will find very few quotes. That is not what science is based on.

Also aren't your explanations summaries of what Dennet said in Consciousness Explained? Not that I mind, just amusing that you'd criticize others for quoting rather than summarizing.

No. I do not say to believe these things because Dennet does, not do I go around quoting him. That is not the way science works.

It doesn't matter that Harris is famous (not even true outside certain internet circles), what matters is he's an atheist with a neuroscience Phd.

I find it interesting that many people use the word "atheist" almost as a synonym for "really smart person". Somehow people think that, if an atheist thinks this, then it must be true.

No, what matters is not that Sam Harris is an atheist. What matters is if he has convincing arguments based on real evidence that matter cannot be conscious.

And he is not making the point that matter cannot be conscious, only that physics might never explain it.

Tallis is an atheist who had a long career as a neuroscientist. The reason I present their arguments is to show that one can have expertise in neuroscience, be an atheist, and still see that non-conscious constituents will not suffice to produce consciousness and its varied aspects - Reason, Subjective Feels, Aboutness of Thought, or Memory.

Uh, huh, he is an atheist.

I guess he must be really smart, huh?

In any case I actually think save for an article of faith regarding certain kinds of brains you pretty much agree with me that arrangements of non-conscious matter don't produce consciousness.

No sir, I have explained to you why I trust science rather than appeal to a god of the gaps. There is a long history here. Those that trust science, and use methodological naturalism to explore the world, often end up finding out how the world works and often end up with real answers that drive science forward. Those who say, "a god did it", are constantly backpedaling and admitting that here, once more, science explains this thing which was once thought to be supernatural.

And I don't see a lot of difference between saying a nonphysical god did it, a nonphysical soul did it, or a nonphysical whatchamallit did it. (I take it your money is on the whatchamacallit, yes?) All are appealing to an an entity that could be described as magic.

What is magic? "The power of apparently influencing the course of events by using mysterious or supernatural forces" or "having or apparently having supernatural powers".  That's the first two definitions that come up when I ask Bing, "define:magic."  By the common meaning of the word magic, appealing to nonmaterial, non-natural forces to effect thing in the world is supernatural magic. Your nonphysical souls and nonphysical whatchamacallits look like magic. 

You think nails are not conscious, and anyone who believes this is "as dumb as a nail". Why?

You don't think aggregates like stampedes, war, concerts, and so on have consciousness. Why?

You don't think today's computers have consciousness. Why?

None of these has anywhere near the human mental capacity. Computers can exceed humans in numerical calculations, but they fail in the vast parallel analysis of patterns that humans are good at. We don't know what is involved in consciousness, but computers are not close.

The answer to those "Why" questions, IMO, is because either their constituents have no consciousness or aggregates don't magically confer consciousness. Seems to me we both agree on the above lacking consciousness because we share that reasoning.

This means we both recognize that consciousness will not be produced by the vast majority of arrangements of that which has no consciousness nor aggregates where their components may have consciousness...we only differ on a v[e]ry particular set of arrangements that are called "brains".

Why do you think nails will never be conscious? After all, in your view, why cannot these nonphysical whatchamallits (or souls) that you think make humans conscious also make nails conscious too? In fact, some people here seem to think these powers that I call magic actually might be making nails conscious.

I promise, you are safe here. If you tell me that a box of nails could be conscious, I won't joke that you are dumber than a box of nails.  

Without awareness, real consciousness would be impossible. That seems to rule out nails being conscious.

As for the soul needing a brain, if you can't even show how the brain produces consciousness why would anyone think it needed a brain*? Memories, thoughts, feels, logic - all of these are intertwined with our conscious experience.

How can you explain that after a stroke, a person often loses the ability to remember new things? I don't see any answer here that looks thought out.

How can you explain that damage to the brain can hinder a person from forming sentences? I don't see any answer here that addresses that adequately.

And no just saying "filter" is not an answer.

I explained my view here: post #290 (And yes, I see that particular post doesn't mention that something might be working in conjunction with the neurons of the brain, but I have mentioned that many times.) Can you show me anybody who did a better job on this thread of explaining how the mind works?