The hard problem of consciousness

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_problem_of_consciousness

The hard problem of consciousness suffers from the hard problem of explanation. An explanation of one topic leads to questions about the explanation itself again. For example Why does matter exist? Because of the big bang. Why did the big bang happen? Because of branes colliding (M-theory in physics). Why did branes colide? Why do branes exist? etc. etc.

The functioning of the brain produces consciousness. Why does the functioning of the brain produce consciousness? How does the functioning of the brain produce consciousness. How does the functioning of your brain produce your consciousness? Just because an object has a brain does not mean that it can understand something. A cow has a brain but it does not understand calculus. Can the brain of a cow be constructed in such a way that it could understand calculus? The brain the size of a cow could be constructed to solve calculus problems. Can it also produce the behavior of a cow at the same time? Just because a cows brain might be constructed to solve calculus problems will it understand calculus like a mathematician?

For the understanding of explanations of the hard problem of consciousness the brain has to be structured in the right ways and then function in the right ways also. There is also the satisfaction factor in the explanation. You can be satisfied with an explanation, not satisfied or some where in between as in sort of satisfied with the explanation. An explanation can be more than just verbal it can be experiential.

Imagine this example, and there are an enumerable amount of different variations to it. You (or some others) set up your nervous system in such a way that you can see the exact physical experiments that you are doing to it. So you experience turning off the functioning of one to many neurons through out the bain and see what effect it has on your consciousness. You can see and directly control the amount of chemicals in the brain and see what happens to your consciousness. The are many devices that can be connected to the brain so that you can observe in many different ways the functioning of the brain as your consciousness changes over time do to the experiments that you are doing to the brain. You will experience changes in your consciousness as you change the structure and functioning of the brain. You can without ever doing all of these experiments change your brain structure and functioning to the point that you have memories of doing these experiments and being satisfied with the explanation that the structure and functioning of the brain produces consciousness.

If you make enough changes to the structure and functioning of the brain your brain will be producing someone else's consciousness. So will you disappear? Will you be aware of being some one else? What will you be aware of? What happens when the changes to the structure and functioning of the brain switches back to where it was originally? You would not have knowledge of the event ever occurring at all because there would be no difference between the curent structure and functioning and the way it was when you started. This is not the only way the brain can be changed in its structure and functioning. It is very likely that there are many ways to install in the your consciousness, memories of changing into someone else's consciousness and then changing back into your old conscious self.

The important thing is not so much the explanation but what and how you can use the explanation to modify your environment, But more specifically how you can use an explanation to modify your own consciousness.

The explanation that the structure and functioning of the brain produces consciousness is a great explanation because it is such a technologically useful explanation. It does not make a lot of sense if a person does not understand what the brain is and how it functions. Or what consciousness or structure and functioning means.

Children that are curious (and some adults with limited social manners about questioning behavior) can ask an endless sequence of question. They may not be aware of why they are doing it. They are not satisfied with just one answer. But why? Many times because the answer never completely makes sense to them. An explanation is only complete in the total context of understanding. We can call it the web of understanding. An explanation has to be tied into a person's web of understanding to make sense to that person. Since people are different their web of understanding is different. Consequently, before a person or other conscious being understands something the explanation has to be adequately tied into their web of understanding. Sometimes that web of understanding is not capable of understanding an explanation. There are many different ways to explain something. Many times more basic ideas need to be understood first before a person can understand an explanation. As well as having a web of understanding there is also a web of explanation. When a child or adult asks question after question about a topic he is using a web of explanations to create an increasing web of understanding.

For different people to understand the hard problem of consciousness what will have to be used are different webs of explanation to create the proper or satisfying web of understanding

There are many different itoneuropaths that produce awarepaths that understand the hard problem of consciousness both rationally (objectively) and subjectively and do not see it as a problem at all. Whats more there are likely many awarepaths with the same ixperiencitness that both understand the problem and see the solution and on the other hand do not see the solution and or understand the problem.