IT’S ABSURD!!! WHY SHOULD THE BRAIN GIVE RISE TO CONSCIOUSNESS, AND WHY SHOULD CONSCIOUSNESS NECESSARILY BE A REPRESENTATION OF THE EXTERNAL WORLD???
This article is dedicated with the highest respect to an unofficial mentor, David J. Chalmers (pictured above with brain). Without him, the author would to this day remain in philosophical darkness.
Atheism is defined simply as disbelief in the existence of a God, gods, goddesses, and spirits (with spirits potentially worshipped as deities). It means nothing more than that. However, the belief is not quarantined, as the atheist possesses additional beliefs concerning the world and how it operates that stroll behind disbelief in the existence of God like children behind a parent. These “descendent†beliefs, implying the existence of an atheistic world yet uninvolved in the basic definition of atheism collectively constitute an atheistic propositional family.
[b]A propositional family is a “family†of beliefs related in the sense that a belief within the propositional family will logically imply the others (if the relevant beliefs collectively and individually obey the law of non-contradiction). The primary directive of a propositional family is to describe the nature of the world in which an individual exists. For example, the beliefs that make up an atheistic propositional family supposedly answers a basic question posed by the atheist: “I believe that God does not exist, yet what type of godless world do I inhabit?â€
It can be argued that stereotypical atheism is instantly recognized by the vastly popular and nearly universally held beliefs of it’s propositional family. Of interest to this paper is stereotypical atheism in terms of it’s beliefs concerning the nature, limitations, and eventual fate of consciousness within a world in which God does not exist.[/b]
Important To Remember While Reading This Article:[b] Most philosophers speak of consciousness and the concept of simulated reality as if they are two distinct existences----yet consciousness is a simulated reality, one that “simulates†or accurately represents an external world that is believed to exist independent of conscious experience. If every living organism in the universe were to simultaneously lose the capacity for consciousness five seconds from ‘now‘, the external world is believed to be that which would remain.
A conscious being is actually a “first-person Player Character†within a “video or role-playing game†(whose appearance and behavior more or less accurately mimics the world believed to exist beyond the “video/role-playing gameâ€) that is believed to erupt into “play” if electric activity exists within the cerebral cortex.
Thus, humans only perceive and exist within a ‘virtual’ counterpart to the ‘real world’ beyond consciousness. For example, a conscious being only perceives the ‘virtual’ trees rather than external world trees, ‘virtual’ brains rather than external world brains (typically observed within medical and neuroscientific context), and the ‘virtual’ experience of gravitation.[/b]
[b]However, if one chooses to subscribe only to stereotypical atheism and it’s propositional family, when it comes to consciousness certain members within the family are remarkable for their assumptions concerning the nature of subjective existence—uncompromising concerning their assumption of the conditions that determine the origin, maintenance, and termination of consciousness.
These consciousness-explaining beliefs are detailed below as three tenets that decree the nature and limitations of consciousness:[/b]
[b]The Three Central Tenets Concerning The Existence And Nature Of Consciousness According To Stereotypical Atheism
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The physical, biological brain is the currently existing known creator of consciousness
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The brain causes consciousness to come into existence from a previous nonexistence of that consciousness. This previous nonexistence is negatively inferred from the seeming “fact†that consciousness ceases to exist at death (the cessation of electrical activity within the neocortex due to sudden destruction and/or dissolution of the brain)
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Human sensory perception(and presumably the sensory perception of most non-human organisms), primarily visual perception, presents a relatively accurate representation or facsimile of the appearance and behavior of the external world believed to exist beyond the existence of any and all consciousness[/b]
TENET ONE: The physical, biological brain is the currently existing known creator of consciousness
"It is widely accepted that conscious experience has a physical basis. That is, the properties of experience (phenomenal properties, or qualia) systematically depend on physical properties according to some lawful relation.
To put the issue differently, even once it is accepted that experience arises from physical systems, the question remains open: in virtue of what sort of physical properties does conscious experience arise? Some property that brains can possess will presumably be among them, but it is far from clear just what the relevant properties are. Some have suggested biochemical properties; some have suggested quantum-mechanical properties; many have professed uncertainty. A natural suggestion is that when experience arises from a physical system, it does so in virtue of the system’s functional organization."
(Chalmers, David J: Absent Qualia, Fading Qualia, Dancing Qualia, consc.net/papers/qualia.html)
CHALLENGE TO TENET ONE:
[b]One can challenge Tenet One by the observation that there exists insurmountable explanatory gaps in the very notion that a physical object (the brain) possesses the power to give rise to a phenomenon that, according to stereotypical atheism, previously did not exist within the universe before the brain’s electronic operation.
No other entity within the universe is believed (with equal certainty) to possess the ability to create or give rise to subjective experience. Given that a functioning biological brain is still nevertheless a physical object, the dependence of the existence of consciousness upon the later existence of the brain (in comparison to the history of the universe prior to the existence of the first neuron)—given the eternal existence and indestructibility of the physical (as an obvious implication of the first law of thermodynamics) is arguably preliminary evidence that consciousness is a distinct existence from the physical.
However, the physical brain is collocationally unremarkable compared to all other non-brain entities within the universe. A living, functioning brain within a skull is composed of the same building blocks that comprise a brick, car, planet, or galaxy: atoms.[/b]
b The function of the brain is governed by and explicable to physical properties and laws, yet the brain is the only physical object in the universe commonly believed to possess the capacity to produce behavior inexplicable to physical cause and effect.[/b]
"It is widely believed that physics provides a complete catalogue of the universe’s fundamental features and laws. As physicist Steven Weinberg puts it in his 1992 book Dreams of a Final Theory, the goal of physics is a “theory of everything” from which all there is to know about the universe can be derived. But Weinberg concedes that there is a problem with consciousness.
Despite the power of physical theory, the existence of consciousness does not seem to be derivable from physical laws. He defends physics by arguing that it might eventually explain what he calls the objective correlates of consciousness (that is, the neural correlates), but of course to do this is not to explain consciousness itself. If the existence of consciousness cannot be derived from physical laws, a theory of physics is not a true theory of everything. So a final theory must contain an additional fundamental component."
(Chalmers, David J: The Puzzle Of Conscious Experience, consc.net/papers/puzzle.html)
According to a popular and well-known member of the propositional family of stereotypical atheism, consciousness requires a neural correlate of consciousness, such that no conscious experience can exist independently from a pre-existent physical embodiment sustaining electrical activity. This electrical flow transforms a physical representation of an experience into the creator of that experience.
"What does it mean to be a neural correlate of consciousness? At first glance, the answer might seem to be so obvious that the question is hardly worth asking. An NCC is just a neural state that directly correlates with a conscious state, or which directly generates consciousness, or something like that. One has a simple image: when your NCC is active, perhaps, your consciousness turns on, and in a corresponding way. But a moment’s reflection suggests that the idea is not completely straightforward, and that the concept needs some clarification.
As a first pass, we can use the definition of a neural correlate of consciousness given in the program of the ASSC conference. This says a neural correlate of consciousness is a “specific system in the brain whose activity correlates directly with states of conscious experience”. This yields something like the following:
“A neural system N is an NCC if the state of N correlates directly with states of consciousness.â€
States of consciousness
(i) Being conscious
“The first option is that the states in question are just those of being conscious and of not being conscious. If the NCC is in a particular state, the subject will be conscious. If the NCC is not in that state, the subject will not be conscious.”
(ii) Background state of consciousness
"A related idea is that of the neural correlate of what we might call the background state of consciousness. A background state is an overall state of consciousness such as being awake, being asleep, dreaming, being under hypnosis, and so on.
A neural correlate of the background state of consciousness, then, will be a neural system N such that the state of N directly correlates with whether a subject is awake, dreaming, under hypnosis, and so on. If N is in state 1, the subject is awake; if N is in state 2, the subject is dreaming; if N is in state 3, the subject is under hypnosis; and so on."
(iii) Contents of consciousness
"There is much more to consciousness than the mere state of being conscious, or the background state of consciousness. Arguably the most interesting states of consciousness are specific states of consciousness: the fine-grained states of subjective experience that one is in at any given time.
Such states might include the experience of a particular visual image, of a particular sound pattern, of a detailed stream of conscious thought, and so on. A detailed visual experience, for example, might include the experience of certain shapes and colors in one’s environment, of specific arrangements of objects, of various relative distances and depths, and so on."
(Chalmers, David J: What Is A Neural Correlate Of Consciousness? consc.net/papers/ncc2.html)
TENET TWO:[b]The brain causes consciousness to come into existence from a previous nonexistence of that consciousness. The nonexistence of subjective experience before it arises from a functioning brain is negatively inferred from the common belief that consciousness ceases to exist at death (the cessation of electrical activity within the neocortex).
One of the most famous beliefs within the propositional family of stereotypical atheism posits the view (taken for granted as absolute truth and propagandized within secular fiction, on-the-street common belief, scientific speculation, and so on) that consciousness is not as eternal and as self-existent as the physical, such that the cessation of the function of an individual brain yields an irreversible cessation of consciousness:[/b]
“Never mind the philosophical implications of death or the religious possibilities inherent in the idea of survival; the horror film suggests we just have a good close look at the physical artifact of death. Let us be children masquerading as pathologists. We will, perhaps, link hands like children in a circle, and sing the song we all know in our hearts: time is short, no one is really okay, life is quick and dead is dead."
(King, Stephen: Danse Macabre, Berkeley Books and Everest House Publishing, 1979, 1982)
If consciousness depends upon the physical in order to exist, then it is commonly taken for granted that the brain must somehow create consciousness ex nihilo, such that the brain, alone of any other entity and causal process in the universe, transcends transformative causation (creation of a new entity through transformation of a pre-existing material) in order to give rise to consciousness.
“Causes of the sort that are acknowledged in everyday experience and in scientific explanations either do not involve conscious agency, or, if they do, they also involve the transformation of some pre-existing material.”
“Either our commonsense intuitions about ordinary intra-mundane cases of causation can reasonably be applied to the beginning of the universe (or to consciousness itself—author’s inclusion within quote), or they cannot be. If they can be, then creation out of some uncreated “stuff†may actually be quite a lot more likely than creation ex nihilo! In our experience of the world, after all, the making of enduring things always involves the transformation of some pre-existent material.”
(Morriston, Wes: Creation Ex Nihilo And The Big Bang, philoonline.org/library/morriston_5_1.htm)
Is The Brain Capable Of The Magic Of “Creation Ex Nihilo�
It is a popular belief (generally taken for granted as truth until one begins to think philosophically) that the creation of consciousness by the physical brain involves:
b Neural Incantationism (“Brain Magicâ€)[/b]
[b]Neural incantationism is the common (and strangely popular) belief that the physical brain (analogous to the Christian God’s “word-magic†utilized for the creation of light within the Creation tale of Genesis), somehow possesses the power to cause a previously nonexistent entity (conscious experience) to come into existence through the process of the dynamic “incantation†(hence the term: neural incantationism) of electrical activity within the biological neurons of the cerebral cortex).
Of note in this matter is Adolf Grunbaums’ criticism of God’s existence-causing verbal-magic:[/b]
"As we know from two thousand years of theology, the hypothesis of divine creation does not even envision, let alone specify, an appropriate intermediate causal process that would link the presence of the supposed divine (causal) agency to the effects which are attributed to it.
The Book of Genesis tells us about the divine word-magic of creating photons by saying “Let there be light.” But we aren’t even told whether God said it in Hebrew or Aramaic. I, for one, draw a complete explanatory blank when I am told that God created photons. This purported explanation contrasts sharply with, say, the story of the formation of two photons by conversion of the rest-mass of a colliding electron-positron pair. Thus, so far as divine causation goes, we are being told, to all intents and purposes, that an intrinsically elusive, mysterious agency X inscrutably produces the effect."
(Grunbaum, Adolf: Creation As A Pseudo-Explanation In Current Physical Cosmology, infidels.org/library/modern/explanation.html)
[b]One might accuse Grunbaum of a double-standard as well as logical disconnection, as a believer in neural incantationism proposes that the brain performs the same “non-existence-into-existence†magic as the God of the Bible (conceptually, aside from the difference between verbal speech and electrical flow within a computational component, what is the difference in the inscrutable process that causes a nonexistent entity to begin to emerge into existence?). Grunbaum’s criticism of the irrationality of God’s creation ex nihilo in Genesis applies equally to neural incantationism.
If one takes the logic of the popular view that consciousness only comes into existence when the physical universe produces a biologically functioning brain (and that the same consciousness must cease to exist if that brain should cease to function) all the way, then one would find this logic equal to the logic that one could cause Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny to spontaneously come into existence simply by wagging one’s fingers back and forth (such that a physical object moved in a prescribed manner somehow causes something that previously was as real as Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny to become real in comparison to Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny).[/b]
The psychophysical view below, in terms of how the physical determines the nature of conscious experience, is estranged from stereotypical atheism (existing within a propositional family of atypical atheism as an unpopular or largely unknown form of psychophysicalism). It fails qualification for membership within stereotypical atheism due to the fact that it dares to propose that consciousness is a conserved quantity (analogous to physical energy), such that consciousness has always existed (as an intrinsic or “internal†property of the physical) from the very beginning.
b Panprotopsychism[/b]
[b]David J. Chalmer’s notion of panprotopsychism conceptually solves the problem of creation ex nihilo as an explanation for the existence of consciousness. Panprotopsychism proposes consciousness to be a non-physical quantity conserved within the physical (such that consciousness is as eternal as the physical) and in a sense phenomenally obeys the first law of thermodynamics (in terms of indestructibility if not the capacity to transform) in the form of microscopic mental “particles†or protophenomena.
If panprotopsychism is true, the necessity for ex nihilo magic for the creation of consciousness dissipates, with consciousness pre-existent at a level so minimal as to be qualitatively indistinguishable from an absence of consciousness (before an accretion of physical material forms a functioning brain, and following cessation of function of the brain). Large conglomerations of micro-consciousnesses collectively combine within a functioning brain in panprotopsychism to give rise to the normal experience of macro-consciousness.[/b]
"Type-F monism is the view that consciousness is constituted by the intrinsic properties of fundamental physical entities: that is, by the categorical bases of fundamental physical dispositions. On this view, phenomenal or protophenomenal properties are located at the fundamental level of physical reality, and in a certain sense, underlie physical reality itself.
This view holds the promise of integrating phenomenal and physical properties very tightly in the natural world. Here, nature consists of entities with intrinsic (proto)phenomenal qualities standing in causal relations within a spacetime manifold. Physics as we know it emerges from the relations between these entities, whereas consciousness as we know it emerges from their intrinsic nature.
As a bonus, this view is perfectly compatible with the causal closure of the microphysical, and indeed with existing physical laws. The view can retain the structure of physical theory as it already exists; it simply supplements this structure with an intrinsic nature. One could give the view in its most general form the name panprotopsychism, with either protophenomenal or phenomenal properties underlying all of physical reality."
(Chalmers, David J: Consciousness And It’s Place In Nature, consc.net/consc-papers.html)
TENET THREE:Sensory perception (primarily visual perception) is a relatively accurate representation or facsimile of the appearance and behavior of the external world beyond conscious experience.
CHALLENGE TO TENET THREE: THE LACK OF A CAUSAL LOGIC EXPLAINING HOW AND WHY CONSCIOUS EXPERIENCE MUST BE A FACSIMILE OF THE EXTERNAL WORLD DUE ONLY TO AN EXCHANGE OF FORCES BETWEEN EXTERNAL WORLD BRAINS AND EXTERNAL WORLD ENVIRONMENTS
[b]An anti-facsimile realist (a philosopher who holds that the the appearance and behavior of the external world is wholly distinct from the contents of sensory consciousness) can argue that it is not logically necessary that the only external world that can impose the appropriate forces upon the brain (in order for it normally function within the parameter of Chalmer’s “conditions Câ€) such that it produces the subjective experience of the world as it in fact is experienced) must be an external world that resembles or represents the contents of the sensory experiences produced from that brain.
One can argue that there exists no logic to the notion that the mere appearance of the external necessitates it’s resemblance in the contents of visual perception, and that the abstract pattern of causal relations within the brain must yield a relatively accurate visual facsimile (and non-visual sensory representation of non-visual aspects) of the external world. Why should the brain, with it’s bizarre appearance (compared to the appearance of the world surrounding it), and it’s particular abstract pattern of causal organization necessarily yield a facsimile or representation of the external world that is believed to exist independently of consciousness itself? Other causal organizations that function in a similar manner to the brain (computers, etc.) do not necessarily yield conscious experience, or necessarily yield a visual facsimile of the world surrounding a brain-like mechanism.
One might argue that there exists no transparent logic to the notion that the magnitude and sequencing of forces exchanged between the brain and the external world must give rise to subjective contents of visual perception that must resemble the external world beyond consciousness. There seems to exist an insurmountable explanatory and logical abyss between the notion of physical forces exchanged between physical objects (external world-brains and external world-environments) and a necessary arousal of subjective experience from the physical object of the brain; the abyss widens in the face of the notion that the particular subjective experiences that arise must mimic an imperceptible world.
A seemingly insurmountable explanatory and logical gap remains between (the conceptual notion of) the appearance of an external object and it’s representation within subjectively experienced visual perception. The necessity of visual representation of the external world fails explanation through holographic representation of the world upon retinas or (subjunctively) neurons, and fails explanation through the forces indirectly yielding latent image representation and electronic intercommunication between external world-objects, and external world-eyes, retinas, and occipital lobes (if these exist).[/b]
FORCE IMPLIES FACSIMILE?
[b]To make matters worse, the notion of ‘force’ (a push or a pull) within the external world beyond consciousness is beyond the comprehension of beings whose only knowledge of reality is “first-person-video-gameâ€-subjective experience: describing or asserting the nature of that which exists forever beyond the information gained while conscious is either a cognitive mistake or an act of meaningless cognitive presumption.
Forces that are consciously experienced are felt as that which are called tactile experiences impinging upon an organism with differing degrees of pressure. Such tactile experiences are accompanied by other experiences such as pain (or abrupt cessation of consciousness), irritation, and pleasure. These tactile experiences are inferred to exist within other conscious beings apart from the subject of experience (an inferred to “exist†within colliding or touching inanimate objects)–as objects and persons are observed to dynamically react to objective attempts to displace their position in space.[/b]
[b]If one accepts psychophysicalism (the view that the physical brain creates and maintains the existence of consciousness), the functioning of the biological brain that is placed in “code†by such terms as: “communication between nerve cells†or “the transmission of informationâ€, is ultimately reduced to a transmission of forces between physical objects.
The brain can be reductively explained as a mechanism that transmits the forces imposed upon it from the environment within a continuous (yet vulnerable) causal loop. These forces affect (in varying degrees) all the virtually innumerable neural components that make up the brain–resulting in a causal feedback in the form of a force exchange between the brain and it’s environment (in the form of the internal physical behavior of the organism upon itself and it’s behavior toward the external world).[/b]
The Quasi-Religiosity Required For A Belief In The Necessary Truth Of Facsimile Realism
[b]As stated before, the concept of ‘force’ within the external world beyond consciousness is arguably incomprehensible—given that the external world and consciousness are conceived to be two very distinct types of existence (that is, one must be conscious in order to experience the world in it’s phenomenal modality: the external world, if it exists or mirrors the contents of consciousness at all, does not require the existence of consciousness in order to exist. It follows, then that one does not transparently reduce to the other).
The causal relationship between two distinct existences (such as the conceivably distinctive existences of consciousness and the ‘physical’ can be argued to be merely speculative and “non-empirical†(as opposed to Chalmer’s “pre-empiricalâ€), straightforwardly requires a quasi-religious faith in the existence of the external world, external world ‘forces’, a causal relationship between the external world and (significantly) human consciousness, and a faith in the a priori necessity of a relative mimicry of the external world (primarily through visual perception) within the contents of consciousness.
Given this, philosophers who deny or who are hesitant to claim with certainty that the external world is necessarily and undeniably represented within sensory perception (with non-sensory cognition and emotion more or less relating to the information gained by the senses) can argue that whatever external world exists may itself (in principle) assume a natural and coincidental or teleologically contrived causal set-up with the brain (including a virtual world containing virtual brains, bodies, and ‘virtual’ psychophysical relations without an external world counterpart) in order to produce a type of world experienced by the “individual†the brain assumes itself to be.[/b]
Questioning The Psychophysical Relation: Why Should Certain Brain-States Yield Certain Conscious-States?
[b]Once the brain fully develops, are it’s neurons relatively immobile? Are synaptic connections between neurons permanently fixed? In terms of an almost outmoded notion of brain development (neural immutability) and expectation of predictable and reproducible psychophysical regularities between brain-states and conscious-states (in order to comprehend the mind/body relation through the reliable prediction of which neural systems will give rise to which conscious experiences). A neurally and synaptically immobilized brain (allowing for minute degrees of neural motion with neurons “swimming†within intercellular fluid) seems required for accurate and reliable prediction of the manifestations of psychophysical law.
Neural immobility would allow differences between NCCs (neural correlates of consciousness) to be explicable only to the number of neurons making up a particular NCC (and the differing types of neurons making up a particular NCC), the position of pre- and post-synaptic connections between each neuron (and glial cell), and their particular location within a given region of the brain. Differences in function between NCCs, (given that all action potentials are identical) would be entailed as differences in chemical distribution per neuron and differences in firing rate.
NCCs within this model are “partnered†with only one conscious experience, a fixed gradient of experiences that collectively summate to form a “complete†experience, or a fixed set of different (yet related) experiences, with differences between experiences determined by differences of firing rate and neurotransmitter location and proportion.
Neural and synaptic immobilization would give rise to a bizarre and intriguing philosophical phenomenon if neural immobilization was the rule of the psychophysical game: Neural Predestination.
Neural predestination (NP) is the view (ensured by neural immobilization) that one’s entire past, present, and future is “predestined through neural prepackage within brain structure. If new neurons fail to emerge within the fully developed brain (asserted by anti-neurogenesis philosophy) and there are no changes to the positionings of synaptic connection between neurons, then the immutable neurons that mature and survive development of the adult brain and their distinctive neural systems handle the entire destiny of a living organism, such that the NCCs within a given brain are predestinators that await universal causal momentum to activate the proper firing rates, firing sequences, and chemical proportions giving rise to corresponding future experience.
For example, the NCCs that correspond to the experience of an individual’s seventieth birthday party pre-exists within the brain even while the individual is currently only twenty years of age (according to the neural immobilization model). These “seventieth-birthday†neurons can be fancifully imagined to not fire for seventy years, yet Hebb’s rule prevents such procrastination. It would be more likely that the relevant NCCs survive through preoccupation with the formation of other experiences, firing at different rates and different neurotransmitter proportion and distribution until the appointed time (the fateful birthday party).[/b]
The “seventieth-birthday†NCC or NCCs activate at the proper time, with the effects of aging upon the relevant cells forming the final piece of the puzzle of one’s neural predestination.
Neural Predestination Through Laplace’s Determinism
Neural predestination (with or without neural immobilization) is written in stone if Laplacean Determinism is true. Laplacean Determinism (derived from the deterministic philosophy of Pierre-Simon Laplace, b.1749- d.1827) is the view that the universe is physically construed in such a way that there exists mechanical principles in place which constrain the universe to travel only one possible causal path.
[b]If Laplacean Determinism is true, then the death of John Lennon, for example, is the only possible future outcome even from the moment of the Big Bang.]
However, discoveries within neuroscience, old and new, shatter the chimerical dream of neural predestination through neural immobilization (one can argue that neural predestination continues to exist, albeit in a different form). Contrary to the outmoded view that new neurons do not form within the brain upon adult development, empirical evidence of the existence of neurogenesis challenges views of neuronal immutability:[/b]
“Adult neurogenesis is a recent example of a long-held scientific theory being overturned, with the phenomenon only recently being largely accepted by the scientific community. Early neuroanatomists, including Santiago Ramon y Cajal, considered the nervous system fixed and incapable of regeneration. For many years afterward, only a handful of biologists (including Joseph Altman, Shirley Bayer, and Michael Kaplan) considered adult neurogenesis a possibility. Only recently, with the characterization of neurogenesis in birds and the use of confocal microscopy, has it become reasonably well-accepted that hippocampal neurogenesis does occur in mammals, including humans (Eriksson et al., 1998; Gould et al., 1999a).”
(Wikipedia Article: Neurogenesis, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neurogenesis)
"There is good evidence that changes within the nervous system are induced internally not only via the acquisition of new information (learning or change in software) expressed in changes in electric and chemical signals, but also in changes in structure. Nerve cells and synaptic connections between them form and break down over time.
The nervous system is not static. We know that synapses constantly break down and form anew. Each time a nerve cell dies, thousands of synaptic connections are destroyed. Learning also reflects in anatomy as new synapses, connections, form. You lose mental capacity with age, Alzheimer disease through the misuse of drugs and degeneration you are really destroying more and more synaptic connections between neurons. Thus although you generally lose neurons with time and with them abundant synapses, you form others through learning and mental exercise. If you continue to learn as you age by doing problems, reading, and expanding your vocabulary, you will form new synapses. Adult life is a race between neuronal loss and synapse formation."
(Yanofsky, Charles: Beyond Biology, pneuro.com/publications/insi … part2.html)
Given the constant state of flux within affected areas of the brain, one seems forced to abandon the notion of neural predestination altogether, as it seems that NP depends upon neural and synaptic immutability and immobilization. However, there arguably remains a quasi-indeterministic neural predestination (QINP) if Laplacean Determinism is true (in which NP continues to exist independent of human prediction, with unknowable neural mutation, neurogenesis, and functional change nevertheless following a Laplacean causal maze).
A Challenge To Laplace’s Determinism: Gouldian Indeterminism
Laplacean Determinism is challenged by Gouldian Indeterminism (derived from the statements of Stephen J. Gould within his article: The Evolution Of Life On Earth
"Homo sapiens did not appear on the earth, just a geologic second ago, because evolutionary theory predicts such an outcome based on themes of progress and increasing neural complexity. Humans arose, rather, as a fortuitous and contingent outcome of thousands of linked events, any one of which could have occurred differently and sent history on an alternative pathway that would not have led to consciousness."
“This point needs some belaboring as a central yet widely misunderstood aspect of the world’s complexity. Webs and chains of historical events are so intricate, so imbued with random and chaotic elements, so unrepeatable in encompassing such a multitude of unique (and uniquely interacting) objects, that standard models of simple prediction and replication do not apply.”
"History can be explained, with satisfying rigor if evidence be adequate, after a sequence of events unfolds, but it cannot be predicted with any precision beforehand. Pierre-Simon Laplace, echoing the growing and confident determinism of the late 18th century, once said that he could specify all future states if he could know the position and motion of all particles in the cosmos at any moment, but the nature of universal complexity shatters this chimerical dream. History includes too much chaos, or extremely sensitive dependence on minute and unmeasurable differences in initial conditions, leading to massively divergent outcomes based on tiny and unknowable disparities in starting points."
(Gould, Stephen J: The Evolution Of Life On Earth, geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/ … gould.html)
[b]Despite Gould’s observation of the inherent unpredictability of the physical chaos that underlies natural process, one can argue that Gouldian indeterminism is ultimately an illusion that hides an underlying Johnny-On-The-Spot Determinism (and in a psychological sense, a further johnny-on-the-spot predestination). This type of “determinism†(and psychological predestination) is derived from the notion of the causal determination of that which becomes actual on a second-to-second basis as opposed to that which continues to exist only in potential.
If two or more states are possible before an event occurs, the state which becomes actual is the “deterministic†state—in the sense that it has been determined from the operation of antecedent causes to become the “winner†causally selected for actuality from the well of potentiality.
This johnny-on-the-spot determinism can be argued to defeat Gouldian Indeterminism through the observation that regardless of human unpredictability of the “fortuitous and contingent outcome of thousands of linked events†and the “extremely sensitive dependence on minute and immeasurable difference in initial conditionsâ€, the physical players involved in the deterministic game raging beyond human observation and prediction is bound to derive a causal “winner†that flaunts the trophy of actuality over potential existence.
In terms of brain operation, a johnny-on-the-spot determinism exists in the form of a contingent and vulnerable Laplacean Determinism (as one can argue that Laplacean Determinism exists at least within the concept of the machine) in which:[/b]
b neural function is constrained to “normal functioning†within a spectrum of possible brain-states that allow: (a) adequate representation of external reality (if facsimile realism is true), and: (b) unanimous reality consensus between beings observing the same representation of the external world (which conceptually determines that one‘s representational perception of the external world is “adequate“).[/b]
"One might take the moral of the above to be that one cannot require an NCC to correlate with consciousness in “unnatural” cases. What matters is that the NCC correlates with consciousness is “natural” cases, those that actually occur in the functioning of a normal brain. the most conservative strategy would be to require correlation only across cases involving a normally functioning brain in a normal environment, receiving “ecologically valid” inputs of the sort received in a normal life.
The trouble with this criterion is that it seems too weak to narrow down the NCC. The reason is that in normal cases all these will be linked in a straightforward causal chain, and the systems in question will not be dissociated. But it seems wrong to say that merely because of this, all the systems (perhaps even the retina) should count as an NCC.
The moral of this is that we need a correlation across a range of unusual cases as well as across normal cases, as it is these cases that yield interesting dissociations.
The central case of the neural correlate of the content of consciousness can be put in more specific terms. An NCC (for content) is a minimal neural representational system N such that representation of a content in N is sufficient, under conditions C, for representation of that content in consciousness."
(Chalmers, David J: What Is A Neural Correlate Of Consciousness? consc.net/papers/ncc2.html)
A simple rule emerges, manifest within a vulnerable Laplacean determinism that governs any future mutation or functional wonder of the brain (with mutation of the human brain the most significant example); the brain must, despite any future changes to the brain through evolutionary mutation or neurogenesis, continue to reflect and represent the external world (if facsimile realism is true) or at the least to continue to agree with reports of a consensus reality (if facsimile realism is false and the world exists within a realm of non-representational foundationalism (which supports skeptical or metaphysical hypotheses such as The Brain-In-A-Vat, The Matrix, or The Evil Genius)
The notion of consensus reality (inferred to exist due to verbal reports of different beings reporting similar experience and physical behavior implying that different beings are experiencing the same object and event) functions as preliminary (conceptual) evidence that if the brain is indeed responsible for the existence of consciousness, then a primary demarcation of a “normally†functioning brain is appropriate representation of the external world inferred through agreement with a consensus of beings claiming similarity of experience. Any change in the structure and function of the brain through evolutionary mutation or neurogenetic incidence is adopted into the family of “normal function” of the brain if it does not radically alter representation of the external world and if it continues to allow the mutated organism to perceptually agree with a consensus reality.
The Irrationality Of A Belief In The A Priori Necessity Of Conscious Representation Of The External World
[b]Facsimile Realism (the view that consciousness—particularly human visual perception–more or less exists as a facsimile or representation of the external world beyond consciousness) is logically coherent and insists that it is an “obvious” truth, so much so that it is generally taken for granted as an unquestioned axiom of the nature of existence. Remarkably, it is commonly accepted that FR is the only possible subjective outcome of a particular causal set-up between the external world and external-world brains.
However, one can argue that the notion of the a priori necessity of the existence of Facsimile Realism is illogical. While it is logical to assert the the logical and metaphysical possibility of FR, it is not logical to assert it’s epistemic and a priori necessity (such that it is not rational to claim that one has certain knowledge that FR cannot possibly be false).
To clarify, it is necessary to posit a disambiguation:[/b]
b An argument against the a priori necessity for the psychophysical partnerships in actual mind/body relationships simply asks the question of why and if the neural systems that emerge within the natural selection for the human brain must give rise to the very experiences that in fact are experienced within the ‘real world’— with such experiences being the only possible experiences that can arise from the brain, with such a psychophysical restriction existing before the existence of the brain itself?
(2) One can argue that there exists a yawning logical and explanatory abyss between the type of psychophysical partnerships that exist and the notion that they must be what they are if and when brains come into existence—if one derives the belief in an a priori necessity for the (a posteriori nature of) psychophysical partnerships from neural incantationism.
(3) The gap is not so wide if one invokes Chalmer’s panprotopsychism, yet one can ask the question of why the psychophysical partnerships derived from panprotopsychism must be what they are before the physical existence of brains. Why should the “correct†protophenomena be present within the particles that make up human and animal brains (operating with “normal function“, to yield the varying and relative dimensions of the representational perception of the external world?[/b]
Pre-Conclusion: The Absurdism Underlying The Relationship Between Consciousness And The Physical And Facsimile Realism
“How did I get into the world? Why was I not asked about it and why was I not informed of the rules and regulations but just thrust into the ranks as if I had been bought by a peddling shanghaier of human beings? How did I get involved in this big enterprise called actuality? Why should I be involved? Isn’t it a matter of choice? And if I am compelled to be involved, where is the manager—I have something to say about this. Is there no manager? To whom shall I make my complaint?”
–Kierkegaard, Søren. Repetition in Kierkegaard’s Writings, vol. 6, Princeton University Press, 1983
“Heidegger coined the term “thrownness” (also used by Sartre) to describe this idea that human beings are “thrown” into existence without having chosen it. Existentialists consider being thrown into existence as prior to, and the horizon or context of, any other thoughts or ideas that humans have or definitions of themselves that they create.”
(Wikipedia article: Existentialism, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Existentialism)
The Real Core Of The Mind/Body Problem: Psychophysical “Thrownness”
In review, several (conceptual) facts concerning the brain, the psychophysical relation, and the external world beyond consciousness must be placed upon the table in order to better demonstrate an underlying absurdism in the concept of the very nature of the psychophysical partnerships themselves—and to demonstrate the absence of an epistemic necessity and logic to the notion that the causal interaction between external-world environments and external world-brains necessitates external world-representation in conscious experience.
The Absurdity Of Facsimile Realism
The inherent absurdity of Facsimile Realism can perhaps be demonstrated by serious attention to objections to the claim that conscious experience must represent the appearance and behavior of the external world beyond consciousness:
b The brain i[/i] looks or appears nothing like the external world surrounding it. Neurons i[/i] are not the same in terms of appearance and substance as the subjective experiences to which their electronic function is believed to give rise. The external world would not typically be imagined to bear the same appearance as the external world-brain that it imposes upon to produce conscious experience.
(2) There has not been observed a representation of external world objects within neurons themselves. The only direct image representation of the external world within a living organism seems to be the holographic latent image formed upon the retina due to refraction of light within the cornea, lens, and aqueous humor of the eye.
The significance of the retina to visual perception requires the transformation of light energy into chemical and electrical energy within the retinal rods and cones, to initiate an action potentials within the optic nerve that travel to the brain’s occipital lobe. Without this electrical “jump-starting” of the optic nerve by the retina, the image upon the retina accomplishes nothing save to exist only as a useless “projector screen”.
(3) Beyond the optic nerve, any “representation” between the external world and the operation of the brain (sans conscious experience) is proposed to exist in the form of an electronic “code”, with conscious experience represented by synaptic positioning, neurotransmitter distribution and proportion, and action potential rate.
(4) The external world cannot be experienced (such that the only reality known to exist is the first-person “virtual reality†experience of a single conscious observer), thus one can make the ultimate argument that the very claim that conscious experience must be a representation of the world beyond consciousness is illogical.
(5) The illogicality of the belief can be demonstrated as follows: how does an empirically-inaccessible state of affairs (the external world) somehow reveal it’s existence to the mind of an individual if it exists beyond the consciousness of the individual? In other words, why must something that exists beyond consciousness be objectively true (independent of sheer coincidence) due to a conscious being’s assertion or belief in it’s truth?[/b]
Why should the physical brain, shaped as it is with such a strange and distinctive appearance and internal causal operation (compared to the world surrounding it) necessarily give rise only to a consciousness that must mimic the external world beyond consciousness (such that counterpossibilites and counterhypotheses such as the Brain-In-A-Vat, Matrix, and Evil Genius Hypotheses, respectively, are unquestionably false)?
Conclusion
[b]At the end of the day, while a transparent logical coherence exists within a notion that external world-environments (imagined as facsimiles of consciously perceived environments) and external world-brains exchange forces within a fragile and contingent causal loop, coherence dissipates with the notion that the emergence of conscious experience from this causal loop must be a subjective experience that represents or mimics the appearance and behavior of the external world, or that the psychophysical partnerships are what they are through an inscrutable constraining mechanism, such that before the existence of brains, the only consciousness that can emerge from the future existence of “normally functioning†brains is the consciousness that is in fact experienced.
That is to say, if at the bottom level consciousness and the physical are two distinct existences, then one can argue that the nature of consciousness is not necessarily determined by the dispositions of the physical: consciousness is simply what it is from the very beginning (naturalistic dualism) or exists as it does by random chance as it emerges from nonexistence (neural incantationism).
To make matters worse, as the existence of the physical cannot be proven, the notion of a causal relationship between consciousness and the physical is ultimately speculative, making it arguably illogical to claim certainty of the existence of physical causality itself: empirical knowledge reveals that the only causality that certainly exists is the ’virtual’ causality within the simulated reality that is consciousness itself.
Finally, Non-Representational Foundationalism (the view that the appearance and behavior of the external world beyond consciousness is wholly distinct from the contents of subjective experience) remains negatively justified, given the quasi-religious faith required to accept Facsimile Realism. Facsimile Realism is supported by a supremely powerful intuition whose strength outmatches all counterintuitions in favor of Non-Representational Foundationalism or Solipsism.
The instinctual response to the sheer power of the intuition supporting the existence of facsimile realism is to give in to it and presuppose that the universe is somehow “whispering in one’s ear†that facsimile realism must be objectively true. This response is typical of the so-called epistemology of the modern world, where extremely powerful beliefs and intuitions are sometimes held to possess a “magical†revelatory power and to function as a telescope into the imperceptible external world.
However, a philosopher can make the charge that a belief in the existence and possession of such supra-conscious revelatory power is ultimately irrational—unless one’s predictions are reproducible and verifiable through empirical demonstration (for example, the same charge can hold that belief in revelatory knowledge from God is irrational, unless such claims are supported by empirical demonstration of a revelatory claim).
Facsimile Realism (and Non-Representational Foundationalism), the external world itself, and the a priori necessity for the psychophysical partnerships fail to narrow epistemic space through empirical knowledge of their objective existence. One might choose to be so bold as to claim that one is gifted with a special epistemic power of “a consciousness that can see beyond consciousness itself†(supra-conscious revelation), yet the philosopher choosing to hold to a “no nonsense†philosophical and epistemological honesty can argue that despite the unbelievable strength of the intuition of the truth of:[/b]
b An a priori necessity for ‘real world’ psychophysical partnerships
(ii) A logic to the notion that physical forces exchanged between physical objects transparently implies the existence of non-physical (or the secondary physicality of) consciousness
(iii) The truth of facsimile realism over non-representational foundationalism (or even solipsism), and;
(iv) A belief in the existence of the physical itself[/b]
—the intuition itself is irrational (if it yields a belief in the epistemic certainty of the empirically-inaccessible concepts above), and can be argued to be only an unconditional Pavlovian response (as a contrived or accidental psychological response within the ’virtual’ mind of a ‘virtual’ being having a particular conscious experience) arising as a causal “reflex†through continuous experience of the regularities and predictabilities of a type of conscious world.
END
I admit that Chalmers is anti-materialist, and I suspect my “unofficial mentor” is atheist or at least agnostic (I don’t know. I conversed with Chalmers himself via e-mail six years ago, but I was more interested in his entailment of a more reductive explanation of 
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Don’t feed me Wikipedia Chalmers. Go to Chalmers’ Online Papers on Consciousness. Update me on zombies!!!