Re: [Sadhu Sanga] Which came first, consciousness or the brain? People Serge Patlavskiy Today at 6:44 AM To Online_Sadhu_Sanga@googlegroups.com BCC Yahoogroups Message body - Stuart Hameroff   on June 21, 2017 wrote: >The notion that consciousness emerged from complex brain  >computation is belied by the increasing number of mainstream  >scientists and philosophers who resort to panpsychism, not to  >mention Eastern philosophers and quantum consciousness  >enthusiast who all agree, in various ways, that qualia and feelings > existed before life. . [S.P.] First. There is nothing like "mainstream scientists and philosophers". The case is that comprehensive paradigm in the field of consciousness studies is not established yet. By "mainstream scientists" in this field we must understand those who do have their own solutions to how the objective events (like physical sensory signals) become transformed into subjective events (like appearance of new elements of experience, new elements of knowledge, new information, and suchlike).  . Second, as to "increasing number". Consciousness studies is a field where the quantity does not automatically change into quality. I mean that the increasing number of those who do not understand how consciousness works will never result in the effective version of the theory which explains how consciousness works. I have mentioned this fact yet in my reply to David Chalmers on Psyche-D forum on Oct 26, 2007. In his post on Oct 25, 2007 David wrote: . "We are pleased to announce the launch of MindPapers, a new website with a bibliography covering around 18000 published papers and online papers in the philosophy of mind and the science of consciousness." . As I see, nothing has changed in understanding of the problem among Arizona guys for the last decade -- a stagnation concerning new ideas continues. The mainstream cognitive environment in the field of consciousness studies must be constituted by the thinkers who do have their versions of the theory of consciousness, even if there will be just a few of them. . [Stuart Hameroff] wrote: >Which came first, consciousness or the brain? . [S.P.] As I hold, the possession of consciousness is indispensable for life. I use the term "consciousness" to stand for a natural ability of the living organism to reduce own overall entropy by processing the physical sensory signals and transforming them into elements of experience. I mean that to have an adequate model of the outer world (due to activity of consciousness) is as important for the organism as to consume food and to take part in energetic interactions. Here, by "living organism" I mean as unicellular, so multicellular organisms. My principle is: one organism -- one exemplar of consciousness. . In so doing, every living organism has such a brain+nervous system+sense organs (or whatever stands for these in the given organism) as is required by normal functioning of its exemplar of consciousness. So, possession of such a body organ as a brain is secondary in reference to possessing the exemplar of consciousness. . [Stuart Hameroff] wrote: > And I dont agree that consciousness is necessarily complex. . [S.P.] The adult and serious thinker must understand that this problem is extremely complex, and we can hardly expect to get easy solutions to it. Many those, who, as thinkers, are not still adult and serious, start directly from trying to explain consciousness. They naively expect that since they can explain how the wall-clock works (they have all the necessary methods and models to explain this), they can explain how consciousness works as well.  . But my solution is much more complex. This is because that, before to start talking about consciousness, I think it is necessary first to construct a special meta-theory (which would make room for the activity of informational factor in general and consciousness in particular) together with several important concomitant applied theories.  . A good analogy is as follows. Somebody may start from copying files to the flash drive -- this corresponds to start talking about consciousness immediately, or having used the traditional methods and models, like those we use in Physics. But, in fact, we have first to consider some operation system to make our computer to work -- this corresponds to constructing a special meta-theory. Then we have to install the drivers necessary for the flash drive to be "seen" or accessible by operation system, and then to format our flash drive under FAT32 or NTFS -- this corresponds to constructing the concomitant applied theories. And only then we may start copying files to the flash drive -- this corresponds to start constructing the required applied theory of consciousness. . The effective theory of consciousness cannot be constructed within the limits of the existing meta-theory called the Modern Materialistic (Physical) Picture of the World. By analogy, the MS Word program cannot be launched under DOS operation system -- it requires a special operation system, like MSWindows or iOS. So, to construct a special meta-theory and a set of concomitant applied theories is an objective necessity before we can start explaining how consciousness produces experience. In other words, the problem of consciousness is objectively irreducibly complex.  . [Stuart Hameroff] wrote: >What's complex about a toothache? . [S.P.] To be honest, I have no interest in spending time on playing with children in a sandbox. I patiently await for an adult and serious discussion of the problem. . With respect, Serge Patlavskiy From: "Hameroff, Stuart R - (hameroff)" To: "Online_Sadhu_Sanga@googlegroups.com" Sent: Wednesday, June 21, 2017 8:43 PM Subject: [Sadhu Sanga] Which came first, consciousness or the brain? Which came first, consciousness or the brain?   The notion that consciousness emerged from complex brain computation is belied by the increasing number of mainstream scientists and philosophers who resort to panpsychism, not to mention Eastern philosophers and quantum consciousness enthusiast who all agree, in various ways, that qualia and feelings existed before life. If so, feelings (e.g. due to Penrose OR events) in the primordial soup may have prompted the origin of life, and driven its evolution. Behavior is based on reward (feelings, not gene survival), including not only hedonism, but altruism and spirituality.   And I dont agree that consciousness is necessarily complex. What's complex about a toothache?   cheers   Stuart Hameroff