• Jack Cummins
    5.3k
    I am partly writing this thread in response to a comment on the thread on science, objectivity and truth by @Agent Smith, querying what does Daniel Dennett mean by the idea that consciousness is an illusion? I think that is a good question because while I am not sure that I agree with Dennett' s outlook, it is important to consider what he means exactly. In understanding what he means by the idea of consciousness as an illusion, the following statement is useful as a means of clarification of his perspective:
    'When we evolved into an us, a communicating community of organisms that can compare notes, we became the beneficiaries of a system of user-illusions that rendered versions of our cognitive processes...'

    Dennett argues that 'consciousness is an evolved user- illusion in, 'From Bacteria to Bach and Back: The Illusion of Minds' (2017). His argument seems to go as follows, 'consciousness is not a physical and free will is not a phenomenon isolated from causation'. He connects the evolution of language with the emergence of human consciousness and culture, suggesting that words are memes or tokens. He says, 'Words have, in addition to the visible or audible parts of their tokens, a host of informational parts(making them nouns and verbs, comparative and plurals, etc,) Words are autonomous in some regards; they can migrate from language to language and occur in many different roles, public and private'. He also argues that, ' The evolutionary origin of language is an unsolved, but not insoluble, problem, and both experimental and theoretical work has made progress in formulating testable about a gradual, incremental evolutionary process, both cultural and genetic, that could transform the verbal dexterity and prolixity of modern language users'

    It appears that Dennett's understanding of consciousness is connected with language. About 6 months ago there was a thread on this forum about the understanding of the term consciousness, in which it became apparent that people use the term differently with some sering it as being based on the medical definition of being alive while others have seen it in much more specific ways. In this thread,

    I am thinking about the nature of human consciousness. I am wondering how others understand Dennett's outlook and also about the connection between human consciousness and language in culture. In many ways this does go into the field of anthropological consideration. I am also rereading Julian Jaynes' ideas about the connection between language emerging from images in the development of consciousness. However, I will end this here, and I am interested to know your understanding of the relationship between language, consciousness and culture.
  • Agent Smith
    9.5k
    The universe, curiously, behaves intelligently, (almost) as if it were alive and...thinking...conscious...like us. The universe has no brain (or so I'm told)...it can't think, it can't be conscious and yet...it is/is not. :chin:

    We pride ourselves as conscious but we can't hold a candle to the (brainless) universe. In that sense, the consciousness/intelligence we ascribe to ourselves is (relatively) nonexistent: comparing our consciousness to the universe's is like comparing human life to a stone's "life" and that's putting it mildly. Consciousness is an illusion! We might as well be dead.

    An interesting line of reasoning follows: compared to God, we're borderline with respect to life, just as viruses are to us. Problem of evil? Does a virus suffer? (Alert! Off-topic!)
  • tim wood
    9.2k
    The universe, curiously, behaves intelligently,Agent Smith
    Hi. According to whom and why do they think so? (And what do they tell us it means to "behave intelligently"?)
  • Agent Smith
    9.5k
    Hi. According to whom and why do they think so? (And what do they tell us it means to "behave intelligently"?)tim wood

    The universe, if a man, is a principled man. It's laws are just what you'd expect of something well-designed (watchmaker analogy). Nothing in the universe is ever wasted (recycling). Against the formidable foe of pure chance and luck, it deploys its own powerful version of randomness (DNA mutations)...it seems to be saying "two can play at that game." I don't know about you but, to me, this is the very definition of intelligence.
  • Jack Cummins
    5.3k

    I was really thinking about this question with reference to Dennett's outlook, but it does include wider questions about the underlying processes of life, possibly the idea of the will to life as an underlying aspect of the world, as suggested by Schopenhauer. It may be about going beyond the apparent aspects of 'metaphysics' and thinking about origins of culture, consciousness and what is distinct about human beings from other lifeforms. It is likely that that human beings have elevated themselves to the top of the hierarchy of the design.

    Nevertheless, as human beings it is easier to understand human consciousness than any forms of consciousness. So, I am still asking about the relevance of language for understanding how human consciousness emerged? That is because from my reading of Dennett and other writers, language and consciousness seem linked clearly.
  • Pantagruel
    3.4k
    I am thinking about the nature of human consciousness. I am wondering how others understand Dennett's outlook and also about the connection between human consciousness and language in culture. In many ways this does go into the field of anthropological consideration. I am also rereading Julian Jaynes' ideas about the connection between language emerging from images in the development of consciousness. However, I will end this here, and I am interested to know your understanding of the relationship between language, consciousness and culture.Jack Cummins

    I have always "answered" Dennett in my mind to the effect that he must have a completely different experience of what it means to be conscious than me. If Dennett chooses to argue that he isn't conscious in any strong sense of the word, I would question, for example, who or what is aware of the illusion? If there is nothing to be aware of an illusion, the entire concept of "illusion" loses its force. You end up with an empty semantics, devoid of any real meaning.
  • Jack Cummins
    5.3k

    I have sometimes wondered about Dennett' understanding of what it means to be conscious. I have thought about his ideas in relation to the reductive aspects of the ideas within behaviorism, especially that of B F Skinner. In some ways, I do wonder if the idea of consciousness being an illusion is bound up with the question of the value of consciousness and its significance. In thinking about consciousness, especially that the human individual it may be that the inner experience of the individual can be elevated beyond all proportion or diminished as of insignificance. So, when thinking of Dennett' point of view I am left wondering how much is about descriptive knowledge and how much is about the value of the meaning of inner aspects of human consciousness.
  • Pantagruel
    3.4k

    It's a descriptive knowledge that allows no force or value to descriptions of subjective experience.
  • ajar
    65
    what does Daniel Dennett mean by the idea that consciousness is an illusion?Jack Cummins

    As I see it, the issue for Dennett is that people typically don't know what they are talking about. One gets instead indignant hand-waving, the kind that he himself mischievously instigates by phrasing this situation so aggressively.
  • ajar
    65
    So, I am still asking about the relevance of language for understanding how human consciousness emerged?Jack Cummins

    To me this is connected to Wittgenstein's comments on sensation.

    We can also question the leap from us having the word 'consciousness' to the taken-for-granted 'fact' of there being some grand Entity that corresponds to that word.
  • Jack Cummins
    5.3k

    It is by no means a simple matter to consider the nature of consciousness and its origins. One interesting remark which may lead many of us to feel less alone in thinking about the nature of consciousness, especially in relation to where it stands in relation to physicality is Dennett's remark, ' I was the one who's terminally confused, and of course it's possible that our bold community of enthusiasts are deluding each other.'

    It may be that in attempt to form a cohesive understanding that some thinkers try to cut corners and simplify. There is so much uncertainty and I am not suggesting that people should give up trying. That would throw philosophy out of the window and be about giving up trying to understand. One idea of Wittgenstein's which may be of importance is that language limits our understanding of the world. This applies to consciousness and it may be that through understanding of the evolution of language that some light can be thrown on consciousness itself, as a way of going beyond what Searle describes as 'the mystery of consciousness'. Language may be an extremely important link in what is often seen to be the difficulty of explaining consciousness, especially that of human beings.
  • ajar
    65
    One interesting remark which may lead many of us to feel less alone in thinking about the nature of consciousness, especially in relation to where it stands in relation to physicality is Dennett's remark, ' I was the one who's terminally confused, and of course it's possible that our bold community of enthusiasts are deluding each other.'Jack Cummins

    I don't know the context of that quote, but I like Dennett suggesting that he is confused. To me that's the point. It's an important to first step to realize and confess that we don't know what we are talking about. This doesn't just apply to 'consciousness' but also to its supposed opposite the 'physical.' I guess I'm gesturing toward the mystery of the mystery. To ask the hard question earnestly is (hyperbolically) like asking why the integers are made of whipped cream. For context, I think that it's not about denying or defending the existence of consciousness but rather of emphasizing how realizing how murky the issue is in the first place. (What exactly is being defended or denied?)
  • Jack Cummins
    5.3k

    It may be worth noting the humility of an esteemed philosopher expressing some confusion, but at the same time, he is seeking to demystify the nature of consciousness, and look for the connection between consciousness, language and understanding.
  • tim wood
    9.2k
    Poetic, but in terms of the universe, all ignorance and stupidity and error thus intelligent. Or maybe, more simply, it just is the way it is, and intelligence something else.
  • ajar
    65
    he is seeking to demystify the nature of consciousnessJack Cummins
    :up:

    Perhaps that's why some find him offensive, because 'consciousness' tends to be perceived as a last hideout for the sacred from something like critical rationality.
  • Jack Cummins
    5.3k

    The idea of consciousness as ' a last hideout for the sacred' is an interesting idea, because it may be that many would prefer a perspective in which the individual human being has little value, the person being a mere number and of insignificance. This was the idea which I was thinking of when I wrote the thread on science and objectivity. Even though this thread was inspired by @Agent Smith's query about what did Dennett mean by the idea of consciousness as an illusion, it has ended up back to the philosophy of materialism and its implications for values. Some may find ways of constructing meaning against the void of illusions which may become apparent in the face of materialism.

    So, it may come down to the authenticity of meaning and about whether materialism captures the truth. What is really real and how much is about fabrications as fantasy? Perhaps, those who can live with their fantasy constructs are those who are valued in society, because this may be about validation and going beyond some kind of illusion. It does also come down to myth as an idea beyond material reality and it may be that there are social and political issues here, in the way that language and metanarratives of human meaning are communicated.
  • ajar
    65
    The idea of consciousness as ' a last hideout for the sacred' is an interesting idea, because it may be that many would prefer a perspective in which the individual human being has little value, the person being a mere number and of insignificance.Jack Cummins

    :up:

    I agree that bias can point in many directions (including against the sacred in any of its traditional forms.)

    Is it so obvious that a consciousness and value are connected? Do consciousness-eschewing behaviorists think that individuals have less value?

    As I see it, a Wittgenstein-adjacent view (and he was by no means the only thinker one could mention here) does dissolve the individual into the community, making language prior to sensation, making the community prior to the Cartesian ghost that dreams itself. (I think participate in language therefore I'm not an 'I' but (primarily) a 'we.')
  • ajar
    65
    So, it may come down to the authenticity of meaning and about whether materialism captures the truth. What is really real and how much is about fabrications as fantasy? Perhaps, those who can live with their fantasy constructs are those who are valued in society, because this may be about validation and going beyond some kind of illusion.Jack Cummins

    I like all of these themes. Can self-deception be advantageous? Is there some truth of the matter in the first place that makes self-deception possible? If there is such a truth of the matter, does it depend on or exist as a mediated substrate? (Is the truth of the matter the truth of some obscure Matter?) Is the game of philosophy a kind of veil-penetration contest? Who can strip the goddess nakedest? Is calling the goddess an onion with no center one more move in the game?

    Philosophy may lead more to the rejection of a popular set of pseudo-answers than to an answer.
  • Joshs
    5.6k
    As I see it, a Wittgenstein-adjacent view (and he was by no means the only thinker one could mention here) does dissolve the individual into the community, making language prior to sensation, making the community prior to the Cartesian ghost that dreams itself. (I think participate in language therefore I'm not an 'I' but (primarily) a 'we.')ajar

    And yet, for Wittgenstein the personalistic perspective doesn’t simply disappear into the communal whole. His approach is person relative, occasion sensitive and context dependent.
  • ajar
    65
    And yet, for Wittgenstein the personalistic perspective doesn’t simply disappear into the communal whole. His approach is person relative, occasion sensitive and context dependent.Joshs

    I will agree that personhood is significant. What needs to be corrected is the tendency to take personhood as fundamental rather than emergent. How can 'consciousness' have a meaning? (Well, a family of meanings.) (I think it does have such a meaning, that it plays a role or family of roles as a token within a community.)
  • Manuel
    4.1k


    As you can probably tell, Dennett is pretty divisive. Personally, I don't think he makes sense. So I'll skip commenting on him, don't want to ad-hominem just because I don't like that type of thought.

    I think the interesting fact about consciousness and language is that we don't have a good way to talk about ideas absent language. I think it's clear to many of us (if not most), that ideas are one thing, language is another, but as soon as we'd like to speak of ideas, we use language.

    There's plenty of stuff we can't talk about, language fails to capture many experiences accurately. Other times, we can express subtle experiences through language use.

    As for culture, who knows? It's what we're in all the time, but the only thing I can say about it, is that it's whatever is peculiar to us as about another group of people. Otherwise, it's the same.
  • Joshs
    5.6k
    What needs to be corrected is the tendency to take personhood as fundamental rather than emergent. How can 'consciousness' have a meaning? (Well, a family of meanings.) (I think it does have such a meaning, that it plays a role or family of roles as a token within a community.)ajar

    Phenomenology doesn’t take community to be primary, but rather subjective perceptive on community. Community is experienced differently by each participant in it , and taking community as primary is incoherent.
  • Jack Cummins
    5.3k

    I haven't been a big fan of Dennett really but in the last few weeks of reading him I do think that his writings are extremely important, if for nothing else other than capturing a major way of thinking in the twentieth first century.

    It may be that there are inadequacies in language for talking about consciousness. Therefore, it is rather ironic that some philosophers, ranging from the logical positivists to Wittgenstein, see the philosophy as being restricted to the limitations of language. It seems like some kind of double knot.

    I have been reading Julian Jaynes recently and he sees language as arising from metaphors, especially those of poetry and song. He also maintains that subjectivity of self arose in connection with this. In the early stages of culture, there was less of a clear distinction between inner and outer reality. He refers to the way in which the Mesopotamians and writers of the Indian 'Upanishads' involved projection of thoughts as 'voices' from the gods.

    Also, I am inclined to think that anthropology may throw some light upon the evolution of language and that some dialogue between philosophy and anthropology may be important in thinking about language, which is a central aspect of philosophy. Language is about shared meanings in communication and it may be that in construction of the idea of 'self' others play an important role in mirroring. No person can exist as an entirely separate entity, even in cultures which value individualism.

    Some may see consciousness as an illusion, as Dennett does, and others, including some Buddhists see the self as illusionary. However, in some ways, while each person exists as a unique entity, in some ways each person exists as part of the web of culture and its consciousness, with language being the main point of reference. I do also wonder to what extent does individuals consciousness exist, and how dependent is it upon the physical aspects of reality?

    In previous times, in the context of dualism, many believed in the journey of the individual 'soul' beyond life on earth. Some people still adhere to that, which has a certain understanding of consciousness. However, many do not hold that view, and it may be that the individual lives on in cultural memory through artefacts. In that sense, information is the basis for continuity of the person. But, so much of the understanding of consciousness, human identity and its continuity comes down to language, but the origins of language itself may be important in considering this too.
  • Manuel
    4.1k


    We know a little about language, not much. I think it's "primary" use, so to speak, is to articulate thought to oneself.

    Communication is done by all animals, and they don't have language, if by language we have in mind what people do. So, language can't be about communication, it would be superfluous.

    Consciousness is a process of the brain, which we don't understand much at all. One can call it "physical" or "ideal", doesn't matter much what it's called. Our views about experience need not commit us to an ontology.

    Yes, I agree, Dennett does appear to articulate a strain of thinking which is misleading, imo, but, influential nonetheless.
  • Jack Cummins
    5.3k

    One aspect which is interesting is the way that languages vary unlike mathematical ones, like numbers and the basic principles of mathematics. Of course, there are underlying concepts which seem to coexist although expressed differently in words. I do wonder how the basic ideas seem to have a certain universality but with different expression in the many languages.

    There were signs and symbols developed in culture, including hieroglyphs and alphabets. There are some shared alphabets and some which are completely different. It could be asked how such similarities and differences come about. In some ways, it is about naming of objects in the physical world, but it is also about abstract concepts. Ideas may be understood a bit differently from one culture to culture, and this may be where the evolution of language is connected to philosophy, because this involves the naming and framing of basic ideas about life and the human condition.
  • Manuel
    4.1k
    One aspect which is interesting is the way that languages vary unlike mathematical ones, like numbers and the basic principles of mathematics.Jack Cummins

    Strictly speaking, mathematics is not a language. You can say "mathematics is the language of the universe" in a poetic sense, and that's perfectly fine and legitimate. But it's not to be confused with an actual language with syntax, phonemes and all the other technicalities belonging to linguistics.

    I do wonder how the basic ideas seem to have a certain universality but with different expression in the many languages.Jack Cummins

    That's an excellent question. I think Chomsky is right here, the different languages human beings use are rather superficially different, though to us the differences seem immense, but we have many of the same basic concepts, RIVER, MOUNTAIN, LOVE, TRIBE, FRIEND, ANIMAL, etc.

    It's quite mysterious, related to innate ideas in some manner.

    It could be asked how such similarities and differences come about. In some ways, it is about naming of objects in the physical world, but it is also about abstract conceptsJack Cummins

    Yep. It is curious, why so many different ways of talking about essentially the same things. When it comes to abstract concepts, almost nothing is known, it's very sophisticated and complex.
  • Jack Cummins
    5.3k

    The area of abstract concepts is where it gets so complex. As you say river, mountain and friend are more straightforward than ideas, although friend is connected to value attachments, so is less straightforward than mere objects. The nature of concepts in general may be why metaphysics may exist beyond language. This may have been thre basis for Plato's theory of Forms. Although it is hard to point to them in a concrete way, it may be that some basis of ideas exists independently of the human mind.
  • Wayfarer
    22.3k
    Dennett is an anti-philosopher. One of his most extreme books, Darwin's Dangerous Idea, talked about the 'universal acid' of Darwinism which dissolves everything it comes into contact with. And one of the very first things that are dissolved in that acid is the subject matter of philosophy. He represents the end-game - when a culture turns in on itself and uses the rhetoric and logic of philosophy to destroy philosophy.

    The nature of concepts in general may be why metaphysics may exist beyond language. This may have been thre basis for Plato's theory of Forms.Jack Cummins

    all of which is waved away as wishful thinking and obscurantism by Dennett and his ilk. '“We are survival machines – robot vehicles blindly programmed to preserve the selfish molecules known as genes. This is a truth which still fills me with astonishment', says Richard Dawkins, although the irony is the astonishment he speaks of is also an illusory projection of the selfish gene.
  • Jack Cummins
    5.3k

    I like the term anti-philosophy and it may be that he has not helped the art of philosophy. However, what may be worse is when people take the idea of consciousness as an illusion in an extremely shallow way to dismiss the importance of mind and consciousness. I do believe that he is at least wishing to understand the complexities of the nature of consciousness. It may be that the conclusion which he comes to is more one which represents the underlying view of many thinkers, based on cognitive psychology, more than from the angle of the historical development of ideas. This is bound up with a picture of reality which emphasises empirical observations above all other ways of understanding.
  • Wayfarer
    22.3k
    I do believe that he is at least wishing to understand the complexities of the nature of consciousness.Jack Cummins

    His agenda is not to understand but to deny; not to explain, but to explain away. (Did you know that his first book, Consciousness Explained, was parodied by many philosophers as 'Consciousness Ignored' or 'Consciousness Explained Away'?)

    In his essay Barbarism, Michel Henry examines the link that exists between barbarism and science or modern technology, from their opposition to culture understood as self-development of sensibility and of inner or purely subjective life of living individuals. Science is founded on the idea of a universal and, as such, objective truth, and which therefore leads to the elimination of the sensible qualities of the world, sensibility and life. There is nothing wrong with science in itself as long as it is restricted to the study of nature, but it tends to exclude all traditional forms of culture, such as art, ethics and religion. Science left to its own devices leads to technology, whose blind processes develop themselves independently in a monstrous fashion with no reference to life.

    [Scientific materialism] is a form of culture in which life denies itself and refuses itself any value. It is a practical negation of life, which develops into a theoretical negation in the form of ideologies that reduces all possible knowledge to that of science, such as the human sciences whose very objectivity deprives them of their object...these ideologies have invaded the university, and are precipitating it to its destruction by eliminating life from research and teaching. Television is the truth of technology; it is the practice par excellence of barbarism: it reduces every event to current affairs, to incoherent and insignificant facts.

    This negation of life results, according to Michel Henry, from the "disease of life", from its secret dissatisfaction with the self which leads it to deny itself, to flee itself in order to escape its anguish and its own suffering. In the modern world, we are almost all condemned from childhood to flee our anguish and our proper life into the mediocrity of the media universe — an escape from self and a dissatisfaction which leads to violence — rather than resorting to the most highly developed traditional forms of culture which enable the overcoming of this suffering and its transformation into joy. Culture subsists, despite everything, but in a kind of incognito; in our materialist society, which is sinking into barbarism, it must necessarily operate in a clandestine way.

    Such as anonymous posts on online philosophy forums.
  • Jack Cummins
    5.3k

    Yes, it may be that it is a reflection of materialism and scientific thinking, but the issue is that the people who adhere to ideas such as consciousness is an illusion don't seem to even question beyond the ideas. It may be that so many people have grown up in a climate influenced by Dennett and similar thinkers that to look beyond for other alternative perspectives can almost be seen as antiscience.

    Of course, it is up to each individual to come to their own conclusions but some ideas are represented more prominently in culture generally. Different individuals may come across specific ideas according to their family and educational background, and it is likely that some people are not that aware of the full diversity of ideas, especially historically.
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