Reading this discussion with great interest. I'll add something soonish -- I'm planning on doing research in cognition engineering full-time after I complete my undergraduate studies :) 

I'm going to go ahead and agrue the other side of the coin, against myself as it were. It might be that consciousness is the byproduct of the advanced cerebral cortex present in some of the most cognitively niched organisms...If it is a byproduct, the positive must outweigh the negative, else it would have been furiously selected against.

It seems like you're still arguing the same side of the coin, the side that says that consciousness actually has an effect on the behavior of an organism. Otherwise you wouldn't be speculating about the positive and negative aspects of that effect.

I was trying to contrast your view against the idea that consciousness is a passive experience of the physical self. I looked it up on wikipedia and I guess what I'm describing is a variation of "Epiphenomenalism," where all mental processes (thinking, remembering, etc.) are physical, and it is only the experience of those processes that is beyond the one-way glass of consciousness.

So maybe the essense of our disagreement is how we use the word "consciousness" where I describe it as pure experience of self, and you maybe intend it to mean "thinking" or "awareness" or "mental model of the world which is sophisticated enough to include mental model of self." All of those things of course have to have an effect on behavior, and I agree are genetically selected for.

OMG too much philosophy. 

I didn't even know we were disagreeing actually, I just though we were discussing. Consciousness, to me, is not the same thing as self-consciousness. The latter we can actually measure for, with the aforementioned dot-test, however blunt a test it may be. The concept of consciousness is a trickier line to draw because we, and I mean we as in we the collective humanity, have trouble defining the concept. At least insofar as building a consensus around it.

And it is very much a philosophical question.

Suppose I get together with a bunch of engineers and built a small robotic device. Using a solar panel on the top of it, we instruct it to avoid light, seek out electrical sockets to re-charge itself as needed, and to harvest parts needed to construct another of its kind. We would have to inplement some type of software for this, where we prioritize its flight mechanic to win out unless it is in immediate need for power. The parts harvesting function would peek in priority somewhere before the deadline for assembly time versus own wear and tear. The process of evolution might be simulated by introducing a randomizing element to its software and replicating blueprint, similar in effect to the genetic variation we see in nature through random mutation.

This thing would behave very much like a cockroach. Would we say it's alive? Does it think? Is it conscious? 

Epiphenomenalism is an interesting idea. However, I feel it strays into the territory of the meta-physical. The mind works simple, neural cells firing in patterns. But because these cells are organised in a complex way, an amazing flexibility is possible. The consciousness, or the sense of awareness, must be physically represented somewhere in this organised chaos of neurons. Otherwise, we're embarking on a quest to find the dues ex machina, or the homonculus inside the homonculus.

And, if it's a passive experience of physical processes within the brain, what is it that is doing the experiencing? Somewhere those processes must spend resources and energy communicating their actions to this consciousness, and unless it provided the organism with a positive adaptation, it would be selected against. 

I have no idea why I separated that into two posts. 

well, I don't know if I would classify it as metaphysical in the usual sense, but I guess literally, it is. It's an idea that the conscious self, the thing doing the experiencing, is outside of the material world. This is why i don't think evolution has a bearing on it, becuase there's no energy cost as that is relevant only to material processes, and consciousness is not (or so I argue.)

I guess my other unspoken assumption here is that "Physicalism" is true, that the entire universe is governed by natural laws. Physicalism doesn't require the existence of conscious selves, but our direct experience confirms that at least one conscious self exists.

I see epiphenominalism as a natural result of theory of physicalism and the fact of consciousness. There are plenty of other approaches to the mind/body problem, of course. 

I hear his dog enjoyed ice cubes? 

...and i seem to remember ELEK having a penchant for chives.

The consciousness, or the sense of awareness, must be physically represented somewhere in this organised chaos of neurons.

Indeed, maybe we need to adopt a radical attitude to observe it. Did eliminative materialism come close? Another few questions that keep giving me the raspberry are "What about the body? Aren't the brain and the body a system, maybe consciousness is represented in this larger system?"

Then the slippery slope opens up and I fall to my death. 

.. should be created :) 

guys.

Plus I can (I think) understand your arguments which puts you one up on most philosophers :) 

If it was wrong, how would you know?

distrans: anaesthesia and other drug effects only seem to affect the mind when applied to the brain, which suggests against it. Of course, it's not that simple... 

What the hell kind of masturbational argument is that? 

It goes like this:

You can't just assume universal negatives are true. Physicalism is a universal negative. You can't just assume physicalism is true.

Is that "masturbational"?

/me wipes the seat down 

That's fucking confusing is what the fuck that is.

Thread closed by moderator. 

ohmygod we're all in the matrix, and you can't prove otherwise!

My point is of course that it's a statement that sounds very profound, but isn't really.

What are you after? The existence of god? 

That is MY FUCKING POINT, that physicalism isn't a valid theory because it's untestable.

Was "you can't assume physicalism is true" not clear enough? 

Surely if it's untestable then you HAVE to assume it... 

Only scientific theories have to be testable. Philosophy is almost entirely concerned with questions which are outside the bounds of science. 

move to philosophy thread 

We are discussing some questions here which aren't outside the bounds of science at all - whether there is an energy cost to consciousness, whether it is an adaptation, whether it is computable/can be produced with Turing complete computing devices, etc. Imo answering those with a philosophical style where you can take whatever assumptions you like for the purpose of argument isn't quite kosher. 

responding in PHIL 101 thread 

i thought i failed this class once already! isn't that enough for you?! 

the only way to fail philosophy class was to not attend 

someone started a thread for you guys to post all this shit in. 

that all rules.