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

Can you point to a post in this thread that does explain how consciousness is produced in the first place, other than appealing to something that looks like magic?

You really need to give a clearer explanation for what "magic" means and why we should think negatively of it.

For me "magic" - following philosopher Hilary Putnam -  is the assertion of an unintelligible brute fact, especially when the assertion is for something new being created as an effect even though the cause lacks all potential to produce said effect.

Why it seems to me emergence of consciousness from non-conscious constituents is magic ->

"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 emergent 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)...

...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..."
 -Peter Sjöstedt-H, Panpsychism: 3 Reasons Why Our World is Brimming with Sentience

While I don't think there are satisfying explanations to be found for why my consciousness exists by anyone, including Panpsychics like Sjöstedt-H , I think the idea it came [from] constituents that lack all mental character is definitely the worst and most "magical".

Really the charge of "magic" has no teeth if it comes from someone who tells me non-conscious constituents will be able to make entities that have Subjectivity, Thoughts About Things, and are able to access the Laws of Logic.

However, your references to the work by Sam Harris appear to have no other point then to take Harris as an authority. For in that post, he basically just discusses his awe at the fact that consciousness exists. Reading that link doesn't lead me to information about any experiments or any significant argument other than Harris's awe at the thought of consciousness.


He simply does not say that. He says,


So he is saying it is impossible to conceive of what it even means for unconscious things to make consciousness. He is not saying it is impossible to happen. Further down he says,  "Consciousness may very well be the lawful product of unconscious information processing." So how can you use that post as proof that consciousness cannot come from unconscious information processing? Harris actually says the opposite.

I referenced Harris because he's a Neuroscience PhD (legitimate expertise) and New Atheist "Horseman" (lack of bias toward belief in souls). His argument is there for anyone to read. Just say you disagree with Harris, but it's just odd to deny what his position clearly is.

Yes he throws Materialists a bone and says it may turn out to be true. Seem to me nothing more than pity, possibly also some cover knowing his fellow atheists will accuse him of heresy for going against the Materialist faith. Look at that full statement:

Consciousness may very well be the lawful product of unconscious information processing. But I don’t know what that sentence means—and I don’t think anyone else does either.

So you think Harris says something is impossible to conceive but will still happen? When someone compares a proposition - Consciousness coming from Non-conscious Info Processing - to "round squares" and "2 + 2 = 7" - and says that same proposition is as illogical as Something coming from Nothing..does that really sound like someone who believes that proposition will one day be shown be true?

Anyway that's just from his essay Mystery of Consciousness I. Here's some more quotes from there by the way ->

The problem, however, is that no evidence for consciousness exists in the physical world.[6]

Most scientists are confident that consciousness emerges from unconscious complexity. We have compelling reasons for believing this, because the only signs of consciousness we see in the universe are found in evolved organisms like ourselves. Nevertheless, this notion of emergence strikes me as nothing more than a restatement of a miracle.

I believe that this notion of emergence is incomprehensible—rather like a naive conception of the big bang. The idea that everything (matter, space-time, their antecedent causes, and the very laws that govern their emergence) simply sprang into being out of nothing seems worse than a paradox. “Nothing,” after all, is precisely that which cannot give rise to “anything,” let alone “everything.”

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.

Also from Mystery of Consciousness II:

But couldn’t a mature neuroscience nevertheless offer a proper explanation of human consciousness in terms of its underlying brain processes? We have reasons to believe that reductions of this sort are neither possible nor conceptually coherent. Nothing about a brain, studied at any scale (spatial or temporal), even suggests that it might harbor consciousness. Nothing about human behavior, or language, or culture, demonstrates that these products are mediated by subjectivity. We simply know that they are—a fact that we appreciate in ourselves directly and in others by analogy.

How is it that unconscious events can give rise to consciousness? Not only do we have no idea, but it seems impossible to imagine what sort of idea could fit in the space provided.

Again, you can disagree with Harris, but I don't see what's gained by refusing to acknowledge what he is clearly saying. I mean he still doesn't AFAIK, believe in Survival or God or Psi. He just believes that non-conscious constituents, however arranged, will not produce consciousness.

[Will respond to the rest of your post later.]

...
Is the Filter Theory of consciousness really an ad hoc 'excuse'? Is it also unfalsifiable?

As far as I can tell, Ad Hoc Rescue is an attempt to discredit another argument, it isn't an actual argument in itself.

https://finmasters.com/ad-hoc-fallacy/

Ad hoc fallacy, or ad hoc rescue, occurs when someone comes up with a rationale or explanation to dismiss the counter-evidence to their claim in a bid to protect it. 

Since the ad hoc rescue is not an actual argument, it technically cannot be a logical fallacy. However, it is often still classified as one because it’s used as a substitution for a proper argument.

I don't see how the filter model of the brain fits that scenario. The filter model explains more of the evidence than the production model does (see below) so it is a better theory than the production model.

The filter model is no more or less falsifiable than the theory that a radio doesn't generate the radio program. You study it sufficiently using materialist science and eventually you will understand exactly what it does and how it works. Eventually you will see that none of the circuits have the ability to generate the program. Most people don't think the eye generates visual hallucinations - because they know how the eye works. 

https://sites.google.com/site/chs4o8pt/s...wbedukkprm

Everyone knows that consciousness is influenced by the brain. For example, a brain injury can cause amnesia. However, this correlation between neurological states and mental states does not prove the brain produces consciousness (the production model of the brain). The same correlation would occur if the brain is a filter of non-physical consciousness (the filter model of the brain). In the filter model, the brain is said to filter some aspects of consciousness the way a colored glass can filter out some wavelengths of light. What passes through the brain filter is a restricted set of conscious faculties that we have while in the physical body. The production and filter models can both explain how brain injuries might cause loss of function like amnesia. However, the filter model can also explain how brain injuries can result in new mental capabilities that the production model cannot explain. This is because a filter can break in two ways: it can be clogged, or it can be punctured. According to the filter model of consciousness, when brain damage causes loss of function like amnesia, that is like a clog in the filter. When brain damage produces new mental capabilities, such as ESP or in Acquired Savant Syndrome (see below) that is like a hole in the filter. Furthermore, if you release the conscious mind from the brain as happens during a near death experience you should have expanded, unfiltered, consciousness. This is exactly what happens during a near death experience (see below). The production model cannot explain how injuries to the brain could produce new functions like ESP or Acquired Savant Syndrome, or how expanded consciousness could occur during a near death experience, therefore the filter model is a better explanation of how the brain functions.

As to whether the universe is conscious...Not sure. My point is much smaller, that non-conscious constituents can't produce consciousness. Anymore than red paint, no matter its arrangement on the wall, will turn green. This means either one puts consciousness into the constituents or believe the consciousness is separate from the non-conscious constituents. Of course the question of the nature of matter comes up, and how to put consciousness back in so that you get our human consciousness. Can the subjectivity of particles become my subjectivity, can the thoughts of particles become my thoughts, can their use of Reason become my personal use of Reason?

First, let me say, this thread has been quite an interesting experience. I have learned a lot here. I hope others have also learned from me. The experience has certainly made me think.

Although the level of dialog has not been perfect here, it has been far above the level of dialog I have sometimes seen elsewhere on the Internet. When people discuss controversial subjects, often incognito using pseudonyms, the dialog can quickly go off the rails. The folks here have, in general, done a good job at maintaining decent conversation, so I am thankful for that.

Second, I should explain that I cannot possibly reply to everything that has been addressed to me. This thread has taken far more of my time than I expected. And I am well aware, that even if I took a couple days off to address everything written to me, the next day I would probably find even more, so I would actually become even further behind. There is no way possible to dig out of this hole.

That being said, all I can do is take that which I think is most important and respond to that. My failure to respond to something here does not necessarily mean I have no answer. It could mean I have no time.

Rather than hitting everything that you say with a shotgun response, I think it is more useful to concentrate on what I consider to be the major points.

My interest here is in the concept of survival after death. I first wrote about it 20 years ago as part of my Questioning website which I have now put back on the web as The Mind Set Free. At that site, I wrote about the change in my thought life from an Evangelical Christian to a skeptic. One of the many subjects I wrote about was Is There Life after Death?. Later I uploaded that post to The Secular Web. Somehow, Ian Wardell found my post and left some comments. I replied to his comments at If Only Souls Had a Brain. When those posts were later referenced in this thread, I found out about it and joined in this discussion.

We have spent a lot of time discussing consciousness, but that is really a sidetrack to the main point. However, it has some relevance, and keeps coming up, so onward, let's talk about consciousness.

Where does consciousness come from? I see three alternatives:

1. The underlying unconscious nature of reality is such that, when humans exist, they are conscious. (e.g., Physicalism)
   
2. The underlying conscious nature of reality is such that, when humans exist, they are conscious. (e.g., Pansychism)
   
3. The underlying nature of reality is such that, conscious souls exist that interact with human bodies to make conscious humans. (e.g., Dualism)
   

Views 2 and 3 are definitely the most popular here. If we were to take a poll, I don't know which of those two is the most popular.

If view #1 is correct, than survival after death is not likely. Of course, one could argue that humans have a physical astral body in addition to their physical material body, and that the astral body survives death. So this view does not automatically rule out life after death. But seeing all the problems with a separate astral body, this view makes life after death unlikely.

If view #2 is correct, any survival of my self after death would hardly be described as being "me". Instead, the underlying consciousness that exists in my person would somehow break up. Later people might include some of my atoms and some of the underlying consciousness of the universe that made up me, but they would not be me. Of course, we could make the same claim for astral bodies described above. Overall, this view does little to make survival after death more likely. Discussion of #2 versus # 1 is more of an academic exercise in where our consciousness comes from. You find that topic fascinating, but to me, it is a diversion.

If view #3 is correct, survival would be much more likely. However, it leaves open many questions. Where did souls come from? Why does one soul get linked to exactly one body? How can souls interface with the molecules of a body? Why does so much evidence indicate the brain is foundational to our mental life? How can we explain all the issues with a disembodied soul retaining our self-identity? ( If Only Souls Had a Brain. )

You have argued incessantly that option #1 is impossible. But through it all, I don't actually see a significant reason posted here that proves it is impossible. Yes, you endlessly quote people like Sam Harris, who apparently does not think #1 is the correct answer,. But when it comes down to it, all you and Harris can seem to express is a sense of awe at the mere possibility that matter can produce consciousness. I find no solid arguments from you proving that #1 cannot be the answer, just continued statements of personal incredulity. Harris, however, seems to say statement #1 is possible, but he leans toward #2.

Even if you could prove statement #2 is far more likely than statement #1, so what? I have already acknowledged that statement #2 may be true. It really doesn't make much difference to this conversation. Either way, my personal survival as an identifiable continuation of myself remains unlikely.

So, unless somebody wants to make a case that statement #3 is correct, and wants to deal with the questions I have about statement #3, I don't find much here that seriously makes a case for soul survival.

I know you think that molecules cannot produce consciousness. Do you think that molecules could do any of these functions without input from some non-material something?

1. Make a sunflower follow the path of the sun.
   
2. Make a jellyfish--that has neurons but no brain--respond to simple physical signals.
   
3. Make a toad have brain states that direct it to jump.
   
4. Make a monkey have brain states that direct it to do its monkey business.
   
5. Make a Homo habalis do what the Homo habalis enitities did.
   
6. Make a "philosophical zombie", that is, a human body and brain without consciousness, do something very similar to what humans do.
   
7. Make the full experience of human thought.
   

After all this discussion, I am well aware you think molecules cannot do # 7. But I still don't know how you would answer the other six.

I think molecules can possibly do all of this, but the further you go up the scale, the stronger case can be made that something (either material or nonmaterial) that is currently unknown is involved.

That pretty much rules out all science textbooks too. And all scriptures... Where does it all end?

There is a difference between a book that tells anecdotes, and one that uses scientific reason, especially if the one that uses reason has been reviewed by experts in the field who vouch for it.

It is not for us to refute.  It is you who are making the claim, now prove it, and when you try, remember that correlation does not equal causation and information processing is not consciousness.  While you are at it, maybe you can explain how consciousness can emanate from physical matter.

I have given the evidence for my claim at If Only Souls Had a Brain, Is there Life After Death, and here on this thread. A more exhaustive source is the book, The Myth of an Afterlife.

Several times on this thread I have mentioned the problems with a soul separate from the body, including retrograde amnesia after brain injury, the affect of anesthesia, and the brain's affect on speech. I haven't seen a serious attempt to address these problems from a dualist perspective. Instead the problem is just waved off with cries of a "filter", with no significant discussion of how a filter could account for the observations.

Instead of a generalized dismissal out of hand (amounting to an invalid argument by simple assertion), how about some actual detailed alternative plausible explanations for the 6 example cases? Remaining aware that these "normal" materialistic explanations whatever they are (plus more that you also require), need to be strong enough and applicable to every one of the rest of the more than 100 cases in the book. The devil is in the details as they say. 

What we basically have in these books is hearsay. The author says he heard a doctor tell of hearing from a patient about an NDE. That is hearsay. It would not be admissible in court, because it is notoriously unreliable.

Even if we have the direct statement from the person with the experience, we are talking about a simple anecdote that is expressed without cross-examination. We don't have access to the background information, and don't have the chance to question the claimant skeptically. Many falsehoods can slip through using this method.

What I would find more impressive would be an experiment where patients likely to need resuscitation would agree to participate in a trial under controlled conditions to see if they could verify the state of a random card in an operating room if they ever ended up in this situation.

Concerning your gambling and terrorist activity arguments. Straw men, since you automatically make the unjustified assumption that the human spiritual entity released from the body would have the same degree of consciousness and desires and inclinations and addictions and whatnot of the human embodied personality, and you also make the assumption that the disembodied human spirit would have the necessary capability in the world to do what you expect.

If surviving souls do not have a degree "of consciousness and desires and inclinations and addictions and whatnot of the human embodied personality," similar to what the soul had as part of the earthly person, and souls do not have the capability to communicate with us, is it even proper to call your surviving soul, "you"?

If communication from the dead is only done occasionally through skilled mediums, why not set up controlled tests of this? Mediums could meet with sympathetic cancer patients that expect to die in the next few months, and set up a time and place to meet after death and communicate hidden information with these mediums. If the protocol was supervised by skeptical scientists who could act as a check to prevent cheating, this test could give significant results. Even if the results were not 100%, if they are significantly above the answers expected by chance, it would be evidence.

The filter model is no more or less falsifiable than the theory that a radio doesn't generate the radio program. You study it sufficiently using materialist science and eventually you will understand exactly what it does and how it works. Eventually you will see that none of the circuits have the ability to generate the program. Most people don't think the eye generates visual hallucinations - because they know how the eye works. 

https://sites.google.com/site/chs4o8pt/s...wbedukkprm

Would you please explain to me how the filter model answers some of the basic questions I have asked on this thread? For instance, how does the filter model account for retrograde amnesia [1] after a stroke? See this post.

[1] I meant anterograde amnesia. --Merle 7/6/2023

Again, this is my point:

• The activities of the mind require the brain. If the brain is destroyed, then, as far as we know, anything that would be left that had been part of the cause of my thoughts could not be expected to carry on the activities of the mind that occurred in this life. If the brain is missing, it is hard to see that anything that remained would continued to output any mental functioning that would continue to be the self. 
  

After 400 posts, I don't find anything here that substantially refutes that claim. Can you point to a post here that refutes this claim?

It is undeniable that specific parts of the brain are necessary for certain mental activities and that brain damage can affect one's mind. William James, the father of american psychologist, who believed in survival, accepted this fact.

What's more important here, however, is that there's evidence that mental functions can continue in spite of severe damage to the parts of the brain which are responsible for them. I'll just mention one recent article by biologist Michael Nahm which touches upon these phenomena:

The Importance of the Exceptional in Tackling Riddles of Consciousness and Unusual Episodes of Lucidity

Merle, you've been here for over a month. This is a forum dedicated exclusively to the discussion of phenomena that challenges the assumptions that you're precisely alluding to. If you wish to find information that substantially refutes the claims that you're making, then I suggest you go forward and read the other threads that people here have posted instead of repeatedly asking for others to come to this thread specifically to "refute" the claims that you're making.

Would you please explain to me how the filter model answers some of the basic questions I have asked on this thread? For instance, how does the filter model account for retrograde amnesia after a stroke? See this post.

I feel like this question of amnesia has been addressed a few times over? ->

1. There's at least one study where those with amnesia remember things in dreams they claim to not remember on waking. I linked to it at least twice.

2. Since brains made of non-conscious constituents aren't the kind of things that could hold thoughts about things, they also cannot hold memories.

3. Filter Theory posits the Higher Self is constricted by a brain. Bergson even calls it a "vice". Brain-based illness would be a tightening of the vice, whereas stuff like artistic talent blossoming for elderly with dementia, Sudden Savants, and Terminal Lucidity are the vice loosening.

4. Survival cases show souls having memories, and psychic research in its nature supports the Filter Theory.

Even if one discounts 4, the other 3 are still there. Even rejecting 2 because it brings in some philosophy you have 1 & 3.

As a tentative Point #5 I'd probably throw in the question physicist Adam Frank raises, that the place of consciousness in physics is unknown and the "observer" may or may not require consciousness. It's not as directly related but I think the fact that consciousness may have a direct role within physics, rather than physics just not being able to account for consciousness (Hard Problem), seems interesting. Same with the necessity for qualia in natural selection, Mathematical Platonism, and the issue of Fine Tuning.

Science seems to directly run into the consciousness the materialist evangelicals were trying to "cash out" in terms of non-conscious constituents. To me even comparing amnesia to such a huge problem is like comparing a glass of water to a tsunami, so even if there were no accounting for it under the Filter Theory it still wouldn't shift the scales by much.

(I know you posted something that quoted me, will reply later )