@richrf,
A better question to explore to find the nature of consciousness is to examine why we think we are conscious in the first place. A post-human, nonbiological, transcendental psychologist might start with, "Well where does it feel conscious?".
The term 'fact', I thought originally meant that a theory was a fact if it was proved, meaning 100%, but if by fact we include the extremely close like 99% (as 'scientific' fact does, because scientists recognize that such a 100% fact is not possible) to make theories worth exploring further, then Rich, I don't see the problem with that, and that is what is meant by "evolution is a fact". The evidence is rather incontrovertible. And I am not going to go linking sites while not explaining them at the same time to help support this certainty. Doing the research is something I think you have to direct yourself to do, because I have noticed that when it comes to the somehow touchy subjects beliefs construe with so deeply, nobody can convince anybody else, and it was just a useless game by the end of it. I don't even know why we've been bickering over this. Nobody is right or wrong, if there are only levels of certainty. There is simply that which can be applied better and to many more ways to higher levels of thinking.
A theory can be beneficial to other theories ( 99% equates to .99, and .99 * .99 = .9801, a lesser certainty). You have a string of theories yet certainty and relevance to the way we observe the world around us can still be maintained. And that's what we want, right? We want to understand the world. While there is nothing to understand, we do so anyways, because it helps in some way or another... this 'manipulation'. And no matter how many connections we make, they are never objective connections, we invented them. But what is the problem with that sort of relativism? Why would we want a 100% fact anywhere? It would only get in the way. We realize through our own wisdom that this fact, "Oh... because of this fact I will forever have to live with the fact(haha, either we have all fact or no fact at all) that I can never fly, this dam etching gets in the way, or that constant is static, now I can't do this or that", but whatever you do you can't get rid of it, or change your methods, because it is a fact and you still have to deal with it, you can never get around it. How could such a fact exist. It goes against the virtues of innovation and ingenuity. There would be no Da Vinci, we'd always be that child playing in the sand, "Oh look mom, I found this shiny pebble".
Thankfully, that's not the way the world works. We have non-locality. We can get from A to B through inventing ways. If there was just one fact, that's all it takes, that system would only have one way to get from A to B, and heck you'd have to discover it. Yet you could not exist unless the fact were pre-discovered, which can't happen unless you're able to do such. Useless paradox, why not avoid it altogether?
And science recognizes this intricacy of the world. It works to accomplish the possibility of getting to B. It realizes that it must redefine 'fact' for relevance purposes. Because it seems embedded in our morality that we want 'efficiency' and 'improvement' and 'duality' (because we 'do' recognize it) such as good and evil, don't you think that we'd therefore find it just simply morally outstanding to find from a series of choices and paths, a better one? To say that there isn't a better one is to say that humanity has no need of the higher function of wisdom, or knowledge. We'd only require the fact. We might as well have no cognitive awareness of such higher functions, because such a 'fact' exists, and the wisdom and knowledge attained cannot match the best, that which is fact. All that emerges from an absolute such as an absolute fact, could not exist, because how can relativistic systems such as wisdom and knowledge ( also in that they are relative to 'facts') emerge from an absolute system. But anthropically speaking, they seem to be core elements in the qualities of 'humanness' altogether, so then this 100% fact is not compatible.
How could something 'higher' in a system be an emergent phenomenon from that which was 100% certain from the relative perspective of the higher phenomenon itself. It would make more sense that things emerged from uncertainty, but the uncertainty was certain only in that which the uncertainty's system governs. The higher order of the system cannot absolutely 'know' the lower order of the system which follows a different 'syntax' altogether. And from the perspective of that lower order syntax, let's say there are emergent possibilities. Well how many? It would be an uncertainty. It is like trying to say, what is the future going to be like 100 years from now, and that's the potential, uncertain, emergent, higher level order. Likewise, from the perspective/syntax of the higher level order, the 'knowing' of the lower level is left uncertain, and limited to analogy.
And what if the higher level order has the tools to help create these analogies and understandings and masks. For whose benefit are they intended (not that intended is the right word); for the higher level order, or the lower level order? Perhaps there is no actual division between the higher and lower levels at all. It is obvious that such a division is not intended, again, intended is not the right word.
But it's interesting because you could make a dividing line (even if the dividing line doesn't exist) anywhere in the system of fact <--> wisdom. And the left side would not be able to 'know' or be 100% certain, or able to relatively measure as 'knowingly' the right side. It would have to 'empathize' sort-a-speak for the right side in order to formulate analogies and masks to understand and devise certainties as to what the right side is, especially the farther away from the dividing line one goes.
Quote: Philosophies of life rooted in centuries-old traditions contain much wisdom concerning personal, organizational, and social living. At the same time, ancient philosophies of life have little or nothing to say about fundamental issues confronting us as advanced technologies begin to enable us to change our identity as individuals and as humans and as economic, cultural, and political forces change global relationships.
- Max More "principles of extropy".
This says it better than I. Let's not be so conservative as to make an effort to condone science for its lack of eastern philosophical simplicities. They have different motives, and evidently, different purposes. There are similarities. Science uses monistic words, well venerated in contemporary research. So does eastern philosophy except it isn't really 'research'. The difference in motives is that people who admire the eastern religions and branches of philosophy get clingy to the monistic words and concepts. Science wishes to realize their indivisibility. One is psychologically conservative, one is psychologically liberal. I could say these are the psychological mechanisms which ultimately drive the choice between either side, it's not about finding the right answer out of some innate right or wrong to 'know' of each side (because there is none).
So my question, and this is not geared to anyone specifically, is this. Firstly, consciousness is becoming more relevant a problem (because if it can first be made into a problem then it is made useful in a more liberal way) for science, and legalities. Philosophy will soon have a vague picture of what consciousness is if one isn't willing to read a textbook about it first. And since I think conservative and liberal motives and feelings are both important, and they are both prevalent here (that's just my picture ok, nothing to take offense to, everybody), how are we going to reconcile the two, while still maintaining a spirited discussion?? (rhetorical question)
Edit: In answer to Rich's question. No there is no simple
scientific statement that explains consciousness. And that's because science is not going to make a statement of that nature until it is very well undertstood, and right now, there is no experiment which can determine (as a 'scientific' fact) that hard consciousness exists. And so, to the view of a scientist, this is the problem. It is a biological problem I am assuming because it is assumed consciousness should be explainable via understanding the biology. Biological mechanisms ought to correlate (and of course in many ways they do) to consciousness.
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