However, it just follows from being Bert(n), that you are Bert(n). There is nothing here to explain. — Banno

Sure, but only with certain assumptions. The assumptions are that 'Bert1' or 'Bert2' is not vague and does not vary in its meaning, nor the entity that it designates, which may be fine assumptions for most purposes. But for many speakers these assumptions are not always made in certain contexts. Consider Barney, who believes in reincarnation. Barney says "Phew, I might have been a snail. I could have been a snail had I not done that good deed in a previous life. I am Barney, rather than Sammy the Snail, because I did the right thing."

Barney might be mistaken or deluded in his metaphysics, but is he literally gibbering? I think not. He is making perfectly good sense on the assumption that his most essential self is his soul and his body is more of a happy accident. You understand what he means don't you?

Yep, that's obvious. — schopenhauer1

No, it isn't!

Rocks are insentient. — Wayfarer

No they aren't.

Dualism is normally contrasted with monism rather than materialism. Materialism is only one form of monism. The other main monisms are idealism (one substance and it is primarily mental), and neutral monism (one substance which is in itself neither mental nor physical but gives rise to these two). There is also property dualism which could be construed as a substance monism, namely that there is one substance which has both mental and physical properties which are not reducible to one another. I guess I am a panpsychist property dualist monist. Spread that on your toast. :)

Can you make sense of this? "In some possible world, Bert is not Bert"? — Banno

Crucially, that's not what I said! I said that I might not be bert1. This is exactly what is at stake, whether the words 'I' and 'bert1' have the same meaning, or perhaps referent, or not, and under what circumstances. And whether this is a grammatical or metaphysical issue.

Metaphysically, I take the view that consciousness (bear with me with the 'c' word, this is relevant) is not complex. There are not different kinds of it. By contrast, the content of consciousness, namely what we are aware of, admits of limitless complexity and variety. In my metaphysics there is a duality between the observer and the observed; they are not the same thing. The observer is not an object in the world. I know you don't agree with this and I'm not trying to argue for it here. The point is that there is a metaphysical assumption behind my language use, such that the referent of 'I' and 'bert1' can be separated under some circumstances. For the purpose of this thread, a question like 'Why am I bert1?' can be made sense of by separating the referents of 'I' and 'bert1', such that I do not gibber. By 'I' I mean consciousness (in this context) and by 'bert1' I mean a certain set of content to that consciousness.

However, if you take a different metaphysical view, in which there is no separation between observer and observed, and no metaphysical difference between the referent of 'I' (when bert1 is speaking) and 'bert1', then indeed, any such questions such as 'Why am I bert1?' is rendered vacuous, based on a grammatical muddle. And I take it this is your view.

Do you agree, then, that there is a metaphysical element to this issue, not just a grammatical one?

Perhaps you think that the grammatical error causes the metaphysical error?

(I don't want to persuade you you are wrong about the metaphysics, just that you are wrong to say this is a grammatical problem rather than a metaphysical one).

That is not to say that people who ask such questions are never muddled about grammar, they might be I suppose, but I think it far more likely that they simply have different metaphysical assumptions that make sense of their utterances.

Thanks Banno, that's better. The rigid designator thing is perhaps relevant here I think. I'll reply properly later when I have more time.

No I couldn't, that would be impossible. As I am always me (construing 'me' as the objective form of 'I') and could be nothing else. However it is possible (at east logically, if not practically) that I could be someone other than bert1.

Indeed. Perhaps we agree after all. Rather than me try to guess what you think the grammatical muddle is, could you spell it out?

'I am I' tells me nothing about the world.

'bert1 is bert1' tells me nothing about the world.

'I am bert1,' prima facie, tells me something about the world.

What's going on here Banno and Street?

Yeah, I think it is a real issue. As for an answer, I am not sure. I think it might be "Because I am most interested in being this one."

The most convincing way to me is to come up with a plausible definition of 'God' that has a referent.

Definition:
'God' refers to that which is:
unified and continuous (not made of parts),
eternal (not in the sense of infinite time, but in the sense of non-temporal, absolute simultaneity),
omnipresent (spatially everywhere, i.e. is space),
omniscient (not in the sense of knowing the set of all facts but in the sense of an omnipresent conscious substance aware of its behaviours)
omnipotent (not in the sense of being able to perform any act described in any random sentence with a verb (e.g. kill something that's dead), but in the sense that there is no power which is not God's. All existing things are relatively stable behaviour-patters of God's body. This power to self-move, do Big Bangs, create particles which then persist seemingly autonomously, is God's omnipotence.)

Objection1: Why on earth call that 'God'? That's just the universe, or reality.
Answer: Because the universe or reality is not commonly considered to be conscious and intentional. This definition makes that explicit. Surely a conscious universe is about as Goddish as you can get, but I'm not bothered if you don't want to call it 'God', especially if you want to avoid a whole lot of other false and pernicious baggage that often goes with the word.

But consciousness emerged late in the history of the universe.
This is the big substantive question that cannot be solved by making a definition. No, it didn't, in my view. Consciousness is not emergent. Panpsychism is true. See every other post on the forum I have ever made ad nauseum.

Objection2 Even if I agree with this definition and that the universe is conscious, I still don't see what this has got to do with the Torah, the New Testament, the Koran, and all the holy texts and creation myths of any religion that espouses a creator God consistent with your definition. Nor do I see why such belief means we should hate fags, suicide bomb people and deny evolution.

Answer: That's all fair enough. As far as holy texts and creation myths are concerned, there tends to be very little metaphysical commitments in them (unless you take them literally of course, which would be foolish). The reason I might want to maintain a connection between such texts and a belief in the conscious reality defined above is that I think it might be the case that such stories contain subjective metaphorical accounts of what it feels like to create an universe, and may provide insights into the relationship between the creator and the created and the intentions behind such actions. Science is clearly much better placed to provide an objective non-metaphorical account of the physical details of what happens, but it is silent on what it feels like to be the substance undergoing those processes. There are no characters or drama in physics, and as such it is incomplete.

Also, I have no problem with cherry-picking. Just because I find one bit of the Bible edifying, I don't have to swallow the lot.

In summary, this approach is defining God as the reality-as-continuum we already know.

In short, these links (posted in the previous comments) show that only sketchy images are passed from the retinas to the rest of the brain... :) — Damir Ibrisimovic

Sure, but what has that got to do with subjective experience?

I'm not defending SteveKlinko's sketch towards a theory of consciousness, I think it is wrong. What I am defending is his characterisation of the problem which his theory is a genuine attempt to grapple with. Yet you still have not stated the problem yourself, and I am doubtful you understand what it is.

You quoted my question, but did not answer it. Here is wikipedia's characterisation of the problem:

"The hard problem of consciousness is the problem of explaining how and why sentient organisms have qualia or phenomenal experiences—how and why it is that some internal states are felt states, such as heat or pain, rather than unfelt states, as in a thermostat or a toaster."

My preferred solution to this is to deny that there are unfelt states, and suggest that consciousness is an intrinsic property of everything. That brings its own problems, but it is a putative solution to the problem.

Can you have another go at stating the problem, and then say what your solution is?

We know that neural processing must have something critical to do with qualitative experience. — apokrisis

We don't know that. That's a hasty generalisation.

Isn't this all solved by panpsychism?

Your thoughts? Let me hear about arguments to be had over the metaphysical significance. — HuggetZukker

There was a great thread on the old forum involving an attempt to disprove physicalism by attempting to show that there is some information that is non-physical, namely indexical information. The idea is that even if you know every single bit of objective public information about the world (which is an intuitive, if crude and perhaps wrong) characterisation of 'physical' information, and you are situated in this world, you still can't tell which person in the world you are until you open you eyes and make a local observation. Only then will you know which bit of the world you are in. No amount of studying the point-of-view-invariant stuff about the world will give you that bit of information. Therefore this is non-physical information. Therefore physicalism is false. There were lots of objections, mostly about the details of the thought experiment that the peoster concocted to illustrate this. There were better objections. some objected that this was an impoverished concept of physicalism. Some said that even if this does show that indexical information is not analysable in terms of non-indexical information, this proves nothing about consciousness - why can't a non-conscious robot make a local 'observation' and figure out which one of the many different robots it is? Another guy went further and said that all information is actually indexical information. I'm not sure where I stand on all this. I don't think I agree with the robot objection - I think if we want to imagine the robot has a point of view we are tacitly importing our own point of view into the robot. But then I have always had idealist sympathies.

Another thread about indexicals was an attempt to reduce indexical propositions to non-indexical ones. So relative, context-dependent propositions involving indexicals were replaced by ones with 'objective' reference points. So "I am here now" could be rendered "Bert1 is in the train station at 10:15". And then the inevitable objection and responses:
"Yes, but which Bert1, which year and which train station? You still need an indexical to disambiguate."
"No, still no need for an indexical: Bert1 with a mole on his arse, Portaloo train station in 3466".
"OK, but there are two Bert1s with moles on their arses, two Portaloo train stations and I don't know which civilisation's calendar you are using. You still need an indexical."
"No, it is the Bert1 who is speaking, not any other."
"But there are two Bert1s speaking in all the relevant train stations in each calendar time. I still don't know which one you are."
...and so on and so on. The idea is that by duplicating all 'objective' frames of reference you render them ambiguous, thus making indexicals necessary to disabiguate. Of course, for any practical purpose, it is possible (albeit inconvenient) to do without indexicals. But if you take it to its extreme logical conclusion, it seems to me that propositions involving indexicals can still be shown to be non-reducible to non-indexical propositions.

Either way, you are having 2) happening on undecided 1) relations. I could claim a relation too... :)
But I do not. You are still looking for the totality of visual impressions somewhere in the brain... :) And that's unrealistic, to put it mildly... — Damir Ibrisimovic

This is unclear Damir. It's not clear you actually understand the difficulty SteveKlinko is describing. Maybe you do understand it, and you have a good answer, but so far nothing you have said indicates that (not that I have really understood much of what you have said). Can you state in your own words the philosophical problem that SteveKlinko is patiently and repeatedly raising?

Dfpolis

Thanks for mentioning Stace. I had not heard of Stace before. My only brush with analyses of mystical reports is William James' Varieties of Religious Experience.

It's an unfortunate feature of pathologically argumentative philosophers (like me) that that we tend only to talk to people with whom we disagree over a point we find interesting. I have to make an extra effort to even acknowledge helpful and interesting posts that I do not find disagreeable in some important way, hence this reply.

I am not averse to some forms of panpsychism. Integrated Information Theory (IIT) shows how consciousness higher than protoconsciousness might emerge. IIT is a panpsychist (or maybe panprotopsychist?) theory, and I'm not averse to it. It could well have the answer, but I'm not decided on the matter. — HuggetZukker

I'm a full-on panpsychist as I can't really make sense of the notion of proto-consciousness. Even if there's a smidge of subjective awareness, there's subjective awareness, and that's just full consciousness in the relevant sense it seems to me. I can't make sense of the idea that there is something somewhat similar to, or a more basic form of, subjective awareness, but isn't quite subjective awareness.

IIT is very interesting. I do think it is a panpsychist theory, but I also think it is false for the same reason I think many theories of consciousness are false, namely it is reductive. It says that consciousness just is integrated information. That's just wrong. Integrated information is integrated information. Consciousness is consciousness. The hard problem us untouched. To avoid reductionism, it would have to say something like 'consciouness arises from, or is caused by integrated information', but then we have a mystery again as to how exactly that happens. (Reductions are theoretically good when we can get away with them, because they don't involve mysteries.) I do, however, think that the IIT is a valuable theory. It may well be a decent theory of identity - that is to say, a conscious individual is defined as the system that integrates information, perhaps. Any system that integrates information has a roughly unitary consciouness that persists as long as the system persists and keeps functioning. Searle's tough objection to panpsychism: "What are the units supposed to be?" might find its answer: "The units are systems that integrate information." It's an interesting and plausible possibility it seems to me.

I'll reply to the stuff about indexicals when I can find a bit more time.

Damir,

Are you aware this is a philosophy forum? You seem innocent of the philosophical issues.

This is a floppy OP with no interesting philosophical question. It may as well be "Hey guys, some dumb people believe in spooky stuff! Are you dumb too?"

Based upon scientific research, there is no "detailed graphics" in our brain. So, I suggest that we see what our retinas see... :) — Damir Ibrisimovic

Thanks for your reply. I think we are struggling to communicate.

Anyone else could be HuggetZukker
— bert1

What does this mean? I used to find the notion meaningful, because I (more or less automatically) thought of a being as having some non-physical essence of being. It led me to ask myself, "why am I me instead of someone else," but hidden in this question was the actual meaning of "by what means and criteria or logic did this spectator (I) enter this particular life?" So there was the assumption of a discrete essence of being built in.

My current thinking is that to be is to experience, such that one is identical to one's whole experience. Within this framework, X could not experience exactly what it's like to be Y without actually being Y as a consequence. The brain interprets sensory information, steers the body appropriately, and everything it does, including the very important storage of, and access to memory; a prerequisite for the sense of continuous being.

Then one could still ask "why am I me instead of someone else," but within this framework, and presuming that dead objects also do not have discrete essences of being (another topic), the question drops to the same level of meaning as that of "why is the pencil on my desk not a carrot?" (Or why is A=A?) That is a completely different type of question than "by what means and criteria or logic did this essence (I) enter this particular life?"
5 days ago — HuggetZukker

Sure, I see that the questions we ask (Such as 'Why am I bert1, and not HuggetZukker?) seem to be theory-laden, and perhaps they are.

Consider, though, how "Bert1 is bert1" is a very different proposition from "I am bert1". I am bert1 tells me who I am in a way that bert1 is bert1 does not.

Some analyse this in terms purely of language use and see no metaphysical significance in it. I do see metaphysical significance in it.

Another way of approaching this is to ask "By examining all non-indexical information in the world, can I figure out which one I am?" Again, even if the answer is 'no' there is further argument to be had over the metaphysical significance of that.

I don't have a really good example, sorry. I don't know whether one can currently know anything about this sort of thing. I'm reminded of hypnagogia, which I have by the way experienced myself accompanied by exploding head syndrome and sleep paralysis.

There is an evolutuionary continuum for abilities such as flight, olfactory sense, social behavior, problem solving, etc. Could the same not (perhaps) be the case for consciousness? Maybe some simple animals have, or hypothetical advanced future artificial intelligences, will have, quasi-consciousness. I'm just speculating! — HuggetZukker

My own view is that consciousness could not be an emergent phenemenon, because it does not admit of degrees. All emergent things emerge gradually (to a greater or lesser extent) because of the complexity of the interactions that they emerge from. Consciousness is one of those few concepts that does not seem to admit of degree. Consider your suggested examples, both of them involve experience, and so fall clearly within the definition of 'consciousness'. There is 'something it is like' to be in those states, to use one formulation.

That is why I asked for examples of intermediate stages between conscious experience and no experience at all. What people usually offer is examples of very vague and diffuse experience, and contrast that with sharp wakeful experience. But both these are still examples of experience. What I'm after is some intermediate stage between experience (no matter how vague and diffuse) and no experience at all. It seems to me that the concept of experience does not allow for this, and that makes any theory of conscious emergence fatally problematic.

Damir

I'm interested in how you perceive the problem of consciousness pre-theory. I was struck by the sharp contrast between your statement saying how consciousness and brain activity seem very different, but that there is no need to separate them. We wouldn't say that about other things that seem very different, for example, we wouldn't say "Dogs and bicycles seem very different, but there is no need to separate them." However, we might say "Water and ice seem very different, but there is no need to separate them," but even then the identity between ice and water is only at a deeper level (H2O), superficially they remain very different.

The vast majority of things are different from one another, and we don't even bother starting to come up with a theory of their identity - doing so would just seem like madness. Why is it different with consciousness and brains? Why even do we start to think that they might be the same thing, such that we would even bother making a theory about their identity, or at least close relationship?

I read your replies but I still think your have not addressed my point. You don't have to if you don't want to of course.

EDIT: you have suggested a theory of your own, maybe that is what you mean.

I did read it. You said it seems separate. I know you don't think it is separate, but you have not acknowledged that the person who says things are not as they seem is the one with work to do.

It's true that subjective experience seems like a whole different category, — Damir Ibrisimovic

Here.

When does it stop? — Posty McPostface

The right person can make it stop. The right person can take away all decisions and responsibility. We only start to think when our will is thwarted. Reason is the circumference of the will.

Regarding identification and getting stuck in a particular definition of oneself, I think de-identification is hard to do by itself. The mind tends to identification. However there is an alternative. If you want to get out of an identity, identify with something else that is not consistent with the identity that you want to escape. To do that just pay lots and lots of attention to the new identity. Overwrite your hard drive rather than erase it, at least as a first step. What do you think?

It's true that subjective experience seems like a whole different category, but that is the nature of all subjective experiences... :)

We do not need to artificially separate these two... :) — Damir Ibrisimovic

But you separated them yourself in the previous sentence!

If two things seem very different, the default assumption is that they are different, not that they are the same!

The person who wants to say they are, in fact, the same is the one with work to do.

Evidence suggests that consciousness involves brain activity. — Tyler

I doubt this. Can you give an example of what you mean?

When I presented my thoughts to my friend, he expressed disappointment in me. He said, he had thought I was a smart, rational person, who would reject such superstition. In frustration he argued something to the effect of, "You are you, because who else could be you?!" I couldn't even define my stance in a way that sounded logical, since it was ultimately an illogical stance. — HuggetZukker

I don't like the sound of your friend, sorry. It seems to me quite possible that you could be someone else, and not just because, grammatically, the referent of 'you' is variable. 'Why are you HuggetZukker and not, say, SteveKlinko?' is an interesting question that your friend has not got to grips with. There was a really good thread about indexicals on the old forum. Gone now unfortunately. To answer your friend's question, 'Anyone else could be HuggetZukker.'

EDIT: I think you had it right in your middle stage of thinking prior to the Occam's Razor cut.

I've since grown comfortable with the concept of emergent consciousness. I am only made of my physical self, which is undergoing constant change, meaning I'm basically a new me every day. There's no eternal self, and probably no sharp line to draw between conscious and unconscious. — HuggetZukker

Could you give an example of a creature, or a state of being, or structure or function or whatever, which is neither clearly conscious nor clearly not-conscious?

I'm not sure what you mean by 'social justice has gotten to the point of ridiculousness'. Do you mean that society is ridiculously unjust? Or ridiculously just? Or that people who think that society is unjust have taken a ridiculously extreme view of its injustice, and it is in fact much more just than they perceive? Or something else?

Edit: also, do you mean danker or darker? You might mean danker, which would be interesting.

I can't remember The Sophist (is that the right one?) very well from my A-levels, but I do remember thinking Callicles' arguments in favour of might being right were stronger than Socrates' opposing reasoning.

The quality of something is how it feels.

EDIT: is the OP asking for a definition or a theory?

You posit that we know only ourselves,
— Hanover

I didn't posit this though. — Benkei

I posit my self-knowings at least twice a day into an old t-shirt.

My son, this is not a sin and therefore can not be forgiven. You are being too sensitive. Now, get out of the confessional; there is a long line of people who have real sins to confess and for which severe penance will be required. — Bitter Crank

If only confession were so popular absolution had to be rationed.

As a homosexual, I would much prefer people reference us as "a group of perverted, immoral, disgusting, monsters, a genuine threat to the American Way of Life" (or Turkish, Russian, North Korean, Saudi Arabian, Ugandan... WOL) than have them say that about me personally. While we certainly are a collective threat to American manhood and empire, I am as pure as the driven snow. — Bitter Crank

Indeed, it's far less personally offensive. However I suspect it's a heck of a lot more dangerous. Individual members of a collective threat (such as the Gays) are targeted because they are an example of that collective - and any example will do, it doesn't matter about any of your other virtuous individual qualities. Whereas an attack on you as an individual (rather than a representative example) must take into account all your complexities.

Genocide starts in the waters of hate and psychopathy. — Buxtebuddha

This doesn't seem right to me. Doesn't genocide happen when one group is demonised and blamed for the suffering of another group? In which case the origin is in the suffering and passivity of a population.

Do you really think that posting on the internet fuels some sort of intense madness? I presume most people have their big boy pants on and won't jump off a cliff based on criticism from invisible internet strangers.

One hopes your presumption is correct. I fear it may not be. My particular comment is obviously insignificant. But a heap of a million other similar ones may become significant.

As in when dealing with groups as vague as Republicans or Democrats pretty much every type of person is represented, so there's not a lot you can say accurately with any force. — Baden

Indeed

Identity politics have existed since the Roman Republic. They have since been vital in supplying universal suffrage, civil rights, LGBT rights, worker's rights, woman's rights, etc. Criticizing identity politicstout court, as Peterson often does, is crap, and done from a privileged vantage point of being a white male. — Maw

Sure, you could be right. I'm fairly new to the concept.

It's the private sense (the spotlight sense) that seems like it has to be something that's either on or off. — gurugeorge

Indeed. If the spotlight is on anything at all, it's on.