This is my theory: we have a worldview that says individual humans possess qualities like creativity, initiative, depression, joy, etc. This developed out of an ancient worldview which populated the universe with living, conscious beings who expressed themselves through human action, as in the Homeric myths. It was like the psyche turned inside out

Some people have a double dose of our present worldview in which all the elements of the psyche are squashed into individual humans heads.

The fact that this worldview doesn't work in the extreme version of hyperindividualism, was pointed out by various philosophers including Wittgenstein.

Yet some people, like Dennett and Frankish, think that everyone looks at the world this way. I'm guessing that's because they look at themselves that way. They don't realize that some people don't really understand what it means to say that phenomenal consciousness is internal. It's not an object that has a location, so how could it be internal to something?

See what I mean?

And then it's interesting to compare Frankish's thinking to that of Penrose:

In case anybody's interested in illusionism:

Oh, shut up.

I seriously doubt the Portuguese were worse than the British or later the Americans in terms of how they treated slaves. — Olivier5

It was worse. I've gotta good book recommendation if you're interested.

He can be a toad sometimes. He does know a lot about hazardous waste, tho.

You’re just lucky they don’t ban for self-righteous
twat-ness. — DingoJones

I can't believe you said that about Tclark! :fire:

Chalmers has said that if there is a dissolution of the hard problem, the meta-problem of explaining why we think there's a hard problem has to first be addressed. — Marchesk

Yep.

I just don't know whether it seems like I'm phenomenally conscious is different than actually being conscious in the hard sense. — Marchesk

So he's saying there is a magic show or illusion, but it's missing something that would make it qualify as phenomenal consciousness.

I think Dennett does something similar, where he says there is experience, but it doesn't meet certain criteria often assigned to experience.

I'll check out Frankish, thanks.

If you tested pupillary response in a fully blind person you'd be doing it wrong. — Isaac

Depends on what kind of blindness they have. The GCS is a quick way to communicate clinical signs. It's not a definition of anything. There might be recommendations, like intubate if the GCS is 8 or lower, but that's not a hard rule.

In a Neuro ICU, you'll see cool attempts to rouse people. There's lots of screaming and physical assaults. For instance, I do sternal rubs to see if I can rouse people, but neuro intensivists cause bruising. They dig their thumbs into pinky nail beds and all sorts of other things in order to assess if there's withdrawal to pain.

But after that, they still don't know if the patient is conscious or not because they could be locked in.

You're pretty well versed on the topic, what would you say is the best argument against the hard problem?

It's obviously not the case if you've aware of savants or various neurological abnormalities, which you would hope educated people like philosophers and scientists would be aware of when making claims about the mind. — Marchesk

Well, yes.

Of course in all this I'm reminded of the certain scientific and philosophical skeptics who mistake their lack of visualization or lucid dreaming for those abilities not existing in other people. That's a kind of logical error whose name escapes me — Marchesk

I don't know if that would be a logical error. I'm guessing the strong bias towards believing that we're all the same has to do with communication.

Aphantasiacs report that they always thought that when people talked about visualizing things, they didn't mean it literally. It's that charity thing?

. I will not say that I have gnosis of them but only intuition and the extent of my current understanding. — TheMadMan

I see. :smile:

Never said I was. — TheMadMan

Right, but it takes one to know one.

I'm not into organized religion at all. For me there is a big difference between those who awakened and the religions created around them. — TheMadMan

I see. How did you come to be awakened?

Im not sure what that means. — TheMadMan

Interfaith is a progressive form of religion where the differences between Christianity (including all it's sects), Judaism, and Islam are downplayed to focus instead in their similarities. I guess in principle it would extend to other religions. Those are just the ones that show up most significantly for Americans.

When you actually learn what they said, you understand they were saying the same thing. — TheMadMan

Are you into interfaith?

And what would it be like as an octopus, where the nervous system is as much distributed in the tentacles, which act semi-independently, as it is in the head — Marchesk

Plus they don't have hemoglobin. They have hemocyanin.

Uh huh.

Dennett is the source of several well known thought experiments that show that phenomenal consciousness and functionality are identical, — Isaac

Really? Care to justify that statement?

The idea of the "hard problem" is that in order to make a thorough theory of consciousness, we need to explain phenomenal consciousness, otherwise known as experience.

In answer to the assertion that explaining functions of consciousness also explains experience, Chalmers is the source of several well known thought experiments that show that phenomenal consciousness and functionality are not identical, so proponents of aforementioned "function equals phenomenal" carry a burden of justifying that.

Chalmers doesn't believe that's possible and asserts that science needs to expand it's conceptual framework to include experience. His focus is on inviting creativity. He doesn't propose to offer a final answer

don't think that materialist folks are wired much differently than idealistic types — Olivier5

I didn't suggest that idealists and materialists experience the world differently. Idealism vs materialism is a mischaracterization of the issue.

This is an excellent point. Not only is it different, but everyone presumes that their own cognitive makeup is universal. Which leads to some incredibly frustrating discussions on consciousness. — hypericin

Exactly. People flat out won't believe it until they see proof. Note that some of the posters in this thread thought they were being insulted.

Still, as ever, working on this. Derrida is a very interesting way to consummate this Hegel-Heidegger evolvement of thought. — Constance

That a concept is a package of opposites goes back to Plato. It shows up in a lot of philosophy including Schopenhauer and Kant. Good stuff.

It's rude to refer to the police as pigs — Banno

Burn!!!

She is one of the smartest people I know. — T Clark

Sounds right. Ask her about how she found out she has aphantasia and her surprise at discovering that anybody has a "mind's eye."

This is an obstacle to creating a theory of consciousness: we're not all the same. Cognition can vary radically from one human to the next.

I think it's a real possibility that people who favor Dennett's view really are different somehow.

Goats are not subservient in the way pigs are. — Banno

What kind of pigs do you guys have? American pigs are dangerous, as in they kill people.

I said "kin to." That means similar to, but not the same as.

By the way, people with aphantasia have a statistically significant higher IQ. Weird, huh?

Go Somalia! :rofl:

If you disagree with Chalmers you must have brain damage — Isaac

We can't get to the question of whether Chalmers' view is true or false because there's no agreement about what his view is.

See, I told you that without resorting to insults, so I'm the better man. Obviously.

Obviously, I meant that I'm familiar with his ouvre.
1h — bongo fury

If you actually read his stuff and you're still this confused about what he's talking about, I don't know what to tell you. You may have something akin to aphantasia so that you have no frame of reference for understanding qualia.

Chalmers is pretty rigorous. Check him out.

Do you think that's what Chalmers and Nagel are suggesting? That a picture glows in the head?
— frank

Pretty much. Do I slander them? — bongo fury

They're talking about experience. Remember that pan-psychism is on the table as a possible explanation. I've never heard of the glowing picture theory.

How would you paraphrase

the felt quality of redness,
— Nagel/Chalmers

? — bongo fury

I wouldn't. I'd say that if you aren't willing to read an essay or book by Chalmers, you probably aren't really interested in the issue.

for there is this impossible "outside" of the "unhiddenness" of what we deal with that we face when we encounter a creative moment: the nothing of an unmade future possibility. Our freedom is the nothing. — Constance

Maybe so. But the first awareness of the concept of being accompanies recognition of nothingness. Nothingness is the background that allows being to appear to the intellect.

But how is this to be taken? I remember reading Hegel once, and he, as I recall, placed the nothing in dialectical opposition to being, thereby producing becoming, which God works out through our historical progress. That is pretty out there, but I have to look again to see how he spells it out. — Constance

I thought Hagel said becoming is primal and being and nothing emerge from it on analysis.

Unsurprisingly we often have to unpick an apparently reliable (because habitual) account alleging that a picture glows, somewhere inside our head. — bongo fury

Do you think that's what Chalmers and Nagel are suggesting? That a picture glows in the head?

Ah, the nothing. It is such a great, disturbing read. What thoughts have you here? — Constance

You were talking about being. It's a twin of the nothing.

is not about ’how the brain works’, it’s about the question of meaning. — Wayfarer

How is it a question of meaning? It's about a theory of consciousness.

We should do a reading of Heidegger's What is Metaphysics? It's so good.

Thread closed. — Isaac

Fine. Have a good day. :razz: