So this would include neuroscientists Christof Koch, Anil Seth, and Stanislas Dehaene?
But it is.
I don’t know who they are. You need to think for yourself. Thinking for yourself is what philosophizing is about. Reading other sources are ok, but you need to synthesis for your own ideas on these topics. What is the point parroting what others said?
It is more than that.
What I do is accept the science.
I am not a scientist. I would read them for interpretations or synthesising new ideas. What I don’t agree, I would criticise them. I don’t deny science. I would try to be selective on reading and quoting what is absolutely relevant for the topic in discussions.
This involves understanding the science, and my earlier post was to point out that the way you are expressing yourself suggests you do not.
When you reply to me with the following -
and
you appear to be implying that I am ignorant of what I am talking about. I am not ignorant of what I am talking about. Indeed, my earlier point was to suggest that anyone who cannot see the brain as anything beyond physical matter is ignorant of what I am talking about.
No, I wasn’t. My point was, that I don’t deny brain is the precondition of consciousness. If you read my posts, then you would have seen how many times I have emphasised on the point.
But I found it odd you shouting brain is consciousness.
I think consciousness is far more than just saying it exists, or it is brain functions. Saying brain is consciousness or consciousness exists are meaningless claim. Not because they are wrong, but because they are self evident.
My point was consciousness is the capacity evolved by learning in the world interacting, communicating and surviving as well as doing things for wellbeing for the being in the world.
I rejected the claim positing consciousness to particles, atoms, electrons or information processing systems as nonsense.
No-one said “brain is consciousness” – for you to write this suggests to me that you have limited understanding of the point I have been trying to make.
Rather - the brain is a vastly complex organ made up of billions of neurons that generate, transmit and integrate biological signals in an extensive interconnectivity that produces all thought – and this includes consciousness.
All neuroscience investigating consciousness begins with the incontrovertible premise that consciousness comes about from these actions of the brain.
As Alan McComas writes in his book - Galvani’s Spark: The Story of the Nerve Impulse -
“The nerve impulse is the mechanism by which the brain conducts its affairs, the currency for all its transactions”
It is the brain that is responsible for all of this.
Not sure if it is a fair comment. It is not limiting. It is about knowing the boundaries between philosophy and other subjects.
I kept on saying on this many times too. Brain alone cannot do anything. It must be the brain in a living human being, functioning and working as a full biological person.
Yet we can discuss the movement of muscles, and the work done by the movement, in physical terms, because muscle movement is a physical process. Study the muscle fibers and describe them at all points during movement. Time how long the movement lasted. How much weight was lifted, or how fast and far did the person walk? Calculate how many ATP are needed to perform the various movements. Just because muscle movement is not a physical object doesn’t mean it isn’t physical, and reducible from biology to chemistry to physics.
None of that can be said about consciousness. It is not physical.
Why should philosophy be isolated? Why should science not inform philosophy?
I’m not sure why you are making this point. It seems obvious.
You missed my point.
Movement is not physical. It is the function of muscles.
Consciousness is not physical. It is a function of the brain.
Movement is not a physical object. But it is a physical process.
Consciousness is not a physical object. And it is not a physical process.
It is not isolation. It is a common sense or ability telling the difference between different subjects in the topics and methodologies they cover.
Every subjects has its own traditional topics and methodologies. We don’t want to discuss overly and soley on physics, biology or whatever other subjects in philosophical discussions without due concern on the relevance to the main topic.
Philosophy has it own topics and methodologies. Not knowing the boundaries is often quite serious problem, which leads to confusion and waste of time, space and effort in the discussions.
That seemed to be the part you and most folks were forgetting in the claims, which I felt as important.
What are nerves, then? Motor and sensory nerves that carry sensations up, and commands, down — nerves that, er, connect the brain to the rest of the body?
N.B. There are lots of connections within the bodymind, many of them literal, some of them more figurative, and still others thoroughly physical. As in physics. E.g. every scrap of matter in the Universe is connected to every other scrap by gravity.
Not really, I don’t think. Your brain is connected to a blood supply, but it isn’t really disconnectable, is it? Literally, of course, it can be disconnected, just as Aztecs disconnected their victims’ hearts from the rest of their bodyminds. But in practice, in real life, many connected things cannot be disconnected, in any meaningful or useful way.
Nerves are physical. … Unless you want to characterise the nerves as bodily stuff, and what they carry as the ‘connection’?
And yet, wouldn’t you say that philosophy and science are connected? 
No physical connection (that I know of) there, and yet…
Yes, absolutely! But I think consciousness is an attribute of mind, perhaps in the same way that the mind is an emergent attribute of the body (as far as we know). That’s why I use the term “bodymind” — it’s all one thing.
I don’t see a human being in the biological anatomic way. Yes, they all exist in our bodies, but it is the subject of biology or anatomy, which I am not interested in.
In philosophical methodology, I see a human being as a whole being with the complete healthy living human body which exhibits the signs of consciousness. That is, perception, will, desire, emotions, feeling, sensations, imagination, rationality, reasoning and thoughts, and most importantly linguistic capabilities for communication. This is it. The totality of these features are what consciousness is. Nothing else.
I don’t want to reduce a human being below that. I am not interested in a human being with separated body parts or disembodied minds for speculation or philosophzing.
We are not going to find anything resembling mind or consciousness from the body parts such as the brain in a glass bottle, or atoms and particles from the scraped powder of toe nails.
Neuroscience/biology recognizes the human condition, too.
Understanding the neuroscience/biology that produces the human condition does not “reduce” it - it elevates it to the greatest wonder and awe known in existence.
Philosophy could ask “how biology or neuroscience is possible?”, but it doesn’t expect they can answer any philosophical questions.
But when the question is about consciousness, science does have something to contribute.
Science cannot deal with the topic like consciousness which is not visible and unobservable. Hence it is limited in its scope, afraid.
Science has its ways!
And if philosophy cannot see consciousness, neither, upon what does it build its bedrock?