Consciousness is a pure information process, and therefore computable.

Or consciousness is not an information process.

We only know of one thing that is not an information process, and that is entropy.

Given that entropy is precisely the creation of new information, and that this is a big part of most people's conception of free will, it seems reasonable to conclude that consciousness is much like a combination of self reference and entropy generation rather than some special other thing.

You can demonstrate that humans react (and quite predictably) to weather - when it rains, they take their umbrellas out, when there's a hurricane, they seek for shelter, and so on. It's not evidence that human behaviour is an emergent property of weather and nothing else.

In case of consciousness then, this observation only proves that the brain function is susceptible to physical and chemical factors (which is rather obvious).

But not that this function can be FULLY reduced to the computational aspect though.

It doesn't even invalidate the belief in a supernatural soul, or some sort of metaphysical "spark" required to ignite consciousness (which, just to be clear, I personally don't subscribe to, but it's beyond the point) - just because the brain is affected by physical factors doesn't prove it is ONLY physical factors that are at play. It doesn't demonstrate that they have a monopoly.

The big question persists: how does it happen that a computational system, no matter how complex, FEELS something?

> You can demonstrate that humans react (and quite predictably) to weather - when it rains, they take their umbrellas out, when there's a hurricane, they seek for shelter, and so on. It's not evidence that human behaviour is an emergent property of weather and nothing else.

In the literature, there's a term "necessary and sufficient" which is used quite often. For instance, destroying a certain percentage of a certain type of dopamine receptors is necessary and sufficient to produce parkinsons-like symptoms in rats.

Rain can be demonstrated to make people take umbrellas out, but it's not sufficient. Sometimes it rains and people don't take umbrellas out. It's also not necessary, sometimes people take out umbrellas when it's too sunny. So it's hard to establish that strong causal relationship between rain and umbrellas.

With consciousness, we can't point to a single example of human consciousness which is not at the same place at the same time as a reasonably well-functioning human brain. We can't prove 100% that it's sufficient, but it certainly seems to be necessary, and there's zero evidence so far it's not sufficient.

> The big question persists: how does it happen that a computational system, no matter how complex, FEELS something?

This is actually fairly well understood. So if you are talking about "feeling" in the sense of emotion, we actually have a very detailed understanding of how that system works.

So some of our lower brain regions are responsible for preparing our body for action. For instance, if you've been bitten by a dog before, your brain might learn to get your body ready to run when there is a large dog around. Your sympathetic nervous system will kick in when your visual cortex detects the right patterns, and elevate your heart rate, quicken your breathing, and cause your hairs to stand on end.

So your emotions are essentially a sense which observes that type of sympathetic arousal in your body. Your emotional systems will notice that your body has entered flight-or-fight mode, and will interpret that based on your context and memories to signal to your higher brain function that you are experiencing fear or anxiety.

So that's just one example, but it's extremely plausible to me that consciousness/subjective experience is either just the sum total of all these functions the brain is performing, or is some emergent property on top of them, or else is even some highly specialized function of some subsystem of the brain we don't fully understand yet.

For instance there are credible arguments that the thalamus is the seat of consciousness in the brain.

I'm talking about consciousness, not emotions. About the sense of self. Understanding how emotions manifest as a chemical process doesn't have much to do with it. It doesn't solve the consciousness issue, doesn't explain how this "observer process" that is self-aware (and capable of registering: "oh, I'm experiencing such and such emotion now") comes to be.

This is my own contention as well. See down the page here for th section on consciousness, the thalamus, what I've found anatomically and speculation on how it works

https://sites.google.com/site/pablomayrgundter/mind

Assumes a definition of consciousness, which is not in evidence. What drugs or trauma alter is experience, which one might define as the content of consciousness, i.e. thoughts, beliefs etc.

OK, let's try this: consciousness is the canvas on which subjective experience is painted.

But I'm afraid that's not much help, because it begs a definition of subjective experience, and because it side-steps the nature of the blank canvas.

If you can’t even define what this elusive thing might be, how can you raise this as a serious argument against the idea that consciousness is a product of brain function?

To extend the analogy: the painting isn't reliable - it's not even certain it's not a hallucination. But there has to be a substrate to paint on, even if the painting itself consists of layer upon layer of deception.

I don't know if this is true; but it seems more plausible to me than that consciousness is an accidental consequence of the bizarre tumblings of matter.

And anyway: the idea that consciousness is emergent, and matter is fundamental, doesn't offer any explanation of the subjectivity of experience and consciousness. You can't explain consciousness as "emergent" without saying first what it is that emerges. Of course, the appearance of consciousness arises from programs like Eliza, or LaMDAwhotsit. They were made to produce that impression.