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Consciousness

p0lka said:
I agree, but being able to think about ones experience in the first place is a mysterious thing.
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Night is a mysterious thing too. So are stars, the moon, the wind and volcanoes. But it's only mysterious because we used to assign supernatural causes to them.
 
p0lka said:
You keep banging on about souls when I already said those labels have baggage and shouldn't be used in my opinion, come on.
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The baggage is yours to carry. If you don't want to carry it then don't argue for a soul.

And yes "I'm convinced there has to be a magic airgap that has to be explained between my brain and 'me'" is arguing for a soul, no matter how much you huff at being told that is what you are doing.
 
Belz... said:
No it's not. Not any more than "flying in the air is what a plane does."
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Sure it explains that... but it can't explain the magic gap that doesn't exist that has to exist between the plane's material essence and how it creates "the process of flight." How can a plane, a physical object, create the action of flight? I see you're one of those dirty plane materialists.

And yes, that IS exactly the argument being made about the mind.
 
p0lka said:
If I'm puzzled about the personal feeling of being a plane that flies in the air, and the answer "flying in the air is what a plane does" is given to me, then yeah it's circular.
It also misses the point entirely.
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You aren't having an existential crisis about how a plane flies is the point.

It's a process created by a physical object. This causes people zero mental grinding of the gears until you point out that's all your mind is and then suddenly everyone forgets how to understand how a physical object can create a process and start getting trapped in Plato's Cave.
 
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p0lka said:
If I'm puzzled about the personal feeling of being a plane that flies in the air, and the answer "flying in the air is what a plane does" is given to me, then yeah it's circular.
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No it isn't. That's not what circular reasoning is. I'm not saying that it answers your question necessarily, but it's not circular.
 
JoeMorgue said:
You aren't having an existential crisis about how a plane flies is the point.

It's a process created by a physical object. This causes people zero mental grinding of the gears until you point out that's all your mind is and then suddenly everyone forgets how to understand how a physical object can create a process and start getting trapped in Plato's Cave.
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Also this.
 
"This a clock. It makes a ticking sound."
"Totally understand. I need no further part of that explained."
"Okay this is a brain. It makes a mental process."
"OH GOD I'M SO CONFUSED! HOW IS THAT POSSIBLE! HOW CAN A PHYSICAL OBJECT JUST MAGICALLY MAKE A PROCESS! YOU DIDN'T EXPLAIN THE AIR GAP BETWEEN OUR BRAINS PHYSICAL OBJECT AND HOW IT CREATES THE PROCESS! MATERIALISM! DUALISMS! QUUUUUUAAAAAAALLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!" *Collapses on the ground at the existential horror of it all*
 
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Darat said:
Oh, and as is now obligatory for me in these discussions - I found out only a few years back that I am a p-zombie. I lack an essential part of what people assume is "consciousness" - I have no "mind's eye". When someone says "imagine an apple" - those are just words for me, I do not have the "qualia" of a "red apple" unless my eyes are looking at a red apple. I cannot "see" my mother's face by "remembering" it, I can only see her face if she is in front of my working eyes.

It's called aphantasia.
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I didn't think that made you a p-zombie, just neuro atypical in a certain area - though I'm no expert on p-zombies. Did you learn to write using letter shapes? How far does the absence of imagery go? Are you aware of any adaptations your brain has made, or are there any to make?
 
JoeMorgue said:
"This a clock. It makes a ticking sound."
"Totally understand. I need no further part of that explained."
"Okay this is a brain. It makes a mental process."
"OH GOD I'M SO CONFUSED! HOW IS THAT POSSIBLE! HOW CAN A PHYSICAL OBJECT JUST MAGICALLY MAKE A PROCESS! YOU DIDN'T EXPLAIN THE AIR GAP BETWEEN OUR BRAINS PHYSICAL OBJECT AND HOW IT CREATES THE PROCESS! MATERIALISM! DUALISMS! QUUUUUUAAAAAAALLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!" *Collapses on the ground at the existential horror of it all*
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I think that all says more about your own feelings on the matter than anyone else's.

As elementary school students, we're taught about the brain. Down the the line we're taught the brain makes the mind.

That isn't difficult for anyone to grasp.

Most people that question it, are former believers.

The idea that what we're taught as children about the world and the body and our minds isn't scary. It's the common, default view.
 
JoeMorgue said:
"This a clock. It makes a ticking sound."
"Totally understand. I need no further part of that explained."
"Okay this is a brain. It makes a mental process."
"OH GOD I'M SO CONFUSED! HOW IS THAT POSSIBLE! HOW CAN A PHYSICAL OBJECT JUST MAGICALLY MAKE A PROCESS! YOU DIDN'T EXPLAIN THE AIR GAP BETWEEN OUR BRAINS PHYSICAL OBJECT AND HOW IT CREATES THE PROCESS! MATERIALISM! DUALISMS! QUUUUUUAAAAAAALLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!" *Collapses on the ground at the existential horror of it all*
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Oh, I thought your point was that the internal experience wasn't a real thing, because of the comparisons to souls etc. sorry.

I would want to know what caused the ticking in any particular clock though if someone claimed it just happened because it's a clock.
 
Minoosh said:
I didn't think that made you a p-zombie, just neuro atypical in a certain area - though I'm no expert on p-zombies. Did you learn to write using letter shapes? How far does the absence of imagery go? Are you aware of any adaptations your brain has made, or are there any to make?
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You are right.

Nothing about a subjective experience (what a p-zombie lacks) means you have to see vivid images when you close your eyes.
 
Minoosh said:
I didn't think that made you a p-zombie, just neuro atypical in a certain area - though I'm no expert on p-zombies. Did you learn to write using letter shapes? How far does the absence of imagery go? Are you aware of any adaptations your brain has made, or are there any to make?
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Speak for yourself. I've always thought of Darat as a p-zombie.
 
Mike Helland said:
Is there something else in the same category as the subjective experience?
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How is it special? Define it clearly with evidence of how you know it to be so.

"But... but my personal subjective first-person experience of qualia perception!"

So? Who cares? It's still just a process. A bunch of parallel processes running on a meat computer that will end when you die.

Period. End of discussion.
 
More than a century ago a philosopher named William James wrote a paper the title of which is "Does Consciousness exist?" It's been a while since I read this, but my recollection is, in short, that acknowledging how interesting and unique our consciousness is does not confer upon it any kind of ontological being. It is an event. There is no "hard problem" of consciousness if you come to the conclusion that it does not exist.

Now no doubt science has come a long way in those intervening years and James may well have been wrong, and many here will contend that it is a waste of time for philosophers or anyone else even to discuss the issue - certainly his conclusion did not stop a bunch of people from going on as if he had not said anything at all - but one might do well to consider it, as it does suggest that certain questions of consciousness can never be resolved - not because they are hard but because they are without meaning.
 
The fact that people can't stop going on about "The Hard Problem of Consciousness" yet nobody ever mentions "The Hard Problem of Insulin Production" tells you everything you need to know.

Because, as I said, nobody is looking for a soul is the gaps of our knowledge of our endocrine system.
 
JoeMorgue said:
How is it special? Define it clearly with evidence of how you know it to be so.
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Make a list of all the things that exist.

Most of them you can put into some type of category with other things.

Helium and oxygen for example. Liebniz and Newton. Dolphins and humans.

Most things fit into objective reality. They have measurable magnitudes like position and energy.

The subjective experience doesn't fit into that category.

It doesn't fit into any category.
 
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