Philosophy can even be considered ridiculous, hypocritical, stupid, in its efforts to assign to quantums and neurons and structures and molecules the task of building a good relationship of man with himself. — Angelo Cannata
science is research that, as such, improves human knowledge and human condition. — Angelo Cannata
It is an easy fact, though: how can we think of "understanding" ourselves, our consciousness, our being "I", by identifying it as a "hard problem of consciousness", or a matter of quantums and electrons? — Angelo Cannata
consciousness is you, the subject, the one who is waiting to be met. — Angelo Cannata
The T Clark rule, one of many - If many informed and intelligent people disagree with an assertion, then it is not easy, obvious, self-evident, a priori, or common sense. — T Clark
Philosophy can even be considered ridiculous, hypocritical, stupid, in its efforts to assign to quantums and neurons and structures and molecules the task of building a good relationship of man with himself.
— Angelo Cannata
The purpose of science is not "building a good relationship of man with himself."
science is research that, as such, improves human knowledge and human condition.
— Angelo Cannata
Science is not research that "improves human knowledge and human condition."
It is an easy fact, though: how can we think of "understanding" ourselves, our consciousness, our being "I", by identifying it as a "hard problem of consciousness", or a matter of quantums and electrons?
— Angelo Cannata
So.... It's an easy fact. And if I disagree, I'm ridiculous, hypocritical, stupid. The T Clark rule, one of many - If many informed and intelligent people disagree with an assertion, then it is not easy, obvious, self-evident, a priori, or common sense. It may be true, but it's not easy.
consciousness is you, the subject, the one who is waiting to be met.
— Angelo Cannata
And digestion is the processing of food in the mouth, stomach, and intestines, but it can still be understood by good old everyday science.
But seriously, you're clearly just trying to raise up a fuss. Consciousness discussions go around in circles and never get anywhere. You haven't even defined what you mean by the word. You'll find it has many different meanings. — T Clark
Not that I agree for sure with quantum role in consciousness, but I find it an idea worth to be considered.
Quantum is one of the littlest form of matter we know that exists and runs into everything.Humans are made from matter also. So the possibility in every human-material aspect such as consciousness, quantum to have some role doesn't sound too irrational at all, when you follow that line of thought. — dimosthenis9
Neither makes it right of course, but it is an idea worth considering. That's all. Being so aphoristic about it as if you already know what consciousness is exactly and what is made of isn't the right attitude. Cause no one does yet and yeah, Consciousness is a damn Hard Problem. Maybe the hardest one.So we have to be open to different approaches also. — dimosthenis9
There is nothing "negative" or "positive" about being open or close-minded. — chiknsld
; it's like when someone tells you that you need to have "respect" for others. — chiknsld
I would say the best thing is to try to agree with people at first, at least so the truth can be uncovered. — chiknsld
Talking about personal things like what attitude one should have, really doesn't get us closer to any analytical truth. — chiknsld
What I am talking about is not morality, it is knowledge, a different approach to knowledge. You cannot gain knowledge of consciousness through quantums and relativity, because consciousness is you, the subject, the one who is waiting to be met. You cannot meet yourself through quantums and metaphysics. — Angelo Cannata
Coming from a science and not philosophy background, my first reaction is that in order to truly understand something, you must first extract yourself from within it and observe it objectively.
This is obviously very difficult, perhaps even impossible, in the case of consciousness. We can only really understand consciousness when inhibiting that consciousness, leading to my doubt that we can objectively figure out what that consciousness is.
How can we exit a casual loop of consciousness, where our understanding of consciousness is biased by requiring consciousness? — PhilosophyRunner
He is trying to make up a fuss? I don't see anything wrong with what he said, but I do see you as constantly quick to disagree and making personal comments. — chiknsld
Coming from a science and not philosophy background, my first reaction is that in order to truly understand something, you must first extract yourself from within it and observe it objectively. — PhilosophyRunner
This is obviously very difficult, perhaps even impossible, in the case of consciousness. We can only really understand consciousness when inhibiting that consciousness, leading to my doubt that we can objectively figure out what that consciousness is. — PhilosophyRunner
How can we exit a casual loop of consciousness, where our understanding of consciousness is biased by requiring consciousness? — PhilosophyRunner
consciousness is you, the subject, the one who is waiting to be met. — Angelo Cannata
Coming from a science and not philosophy background, my first reaction is that in order to truly understand something, you must first extract yourself from within it and observe it objectively.
This is obviously very difficult, perhaps even impossible, in the case of consciousness. We can only really understand consciousness when inhibiting that consciousness, leading to my doubt that we can objectively figure out what that consciousness is.
How can we exit a casual loop of consciousness, where our understanding of consciousness is biased by requiring consciousness? — PhilosophyRunner
How did we extract ourselves from the description of a planetary system, where our understanding of the system was biased by our position within it? — Possibility
Coming from a science and not philosophy background, my first reaction is that in order to truly understand something, you must first extract yourself from within it and observe it objectively.
This is obviously very difficult, perhaps even impossible, in the case of consciousness. We can only really understand consciousness when inhibiting that consciousness, leading to my doubt that we can objectively figure out what that consciousness is.
How can we exit a casual loop of consciousness, where our understanding of consciousness is biased by requiring consciousness? — PhilosophyRunner
in order to truly understand something, you must first extract yourself from within it and observe it objectively — PhilosophyRunner
How did we extract ourselves from the description of a planetary system, where our understanding of the system was biased by our position within it?
The first step to understanding something from which you cannot extract yourself is to get a sense your limitations and variability with regard to understanding it. Then use your imagination to hypothesise alternatives to ‘consciousness’ as an anthropocentric perspective, and find a logical reconfiguration of reality that would include consciousness as a limited, variable structure within it - like Copernicus did with our planetary system. — Possibility
If you are attempting to describe consciousness, then why would you want to leave it in order to describe it? It seems to me that consciousness is something that you have direct access to and it is the attempt to extract yourself from it and then believe that you can describe it more accurately from outside of it that is wrong. I think that thinking of consciousness as something internal vs external is the wrong way to go about it as well.How can we exit a casual loop of consciousness, where our understanding of consciousness is biased by requiring consciousness? — PhilosophyRunner
I don't think it's that hard. Consciousness is more than our experience, it is also behavior. We recognize consciousness in others without having to actually experience what they are.
How did we extract ourselves from the description of a planetary system, where our understanding of the system was biased by our position within it?
While we are a necessary part of consciousness - it doesn't exist without us.
Hence I suggest we are less able to observe consciousness objectively, than we are able to observe the solar system objectively. — PhilosophyRunner
Is not our behaviours an outcome of consciousness, but not consciousness itself? — PhilosophyRunner
However there is a missing step, an assumption, between them and consciousness itself. Maybe we will wave that assumption always as required, because otherwise we are stuck in out analysis. But it is an assumption nevertheless, is it not? — PhilosophyRunner
Philosophy can even be considered ridiculous, hypocritical, stupid, in its efforts to assign to quantums and neurons and structures and molecules the task of building a good relationship of man with himself. Pascal taught us not to escape ourselves through the "divertissement", through diversion.
We can even consider noble, honourable, this pseudo-science, because science is research that, as such, improves human knowledge and human condition.
It is an easy fact, though: how can we think of "understanding" ourselves, our consciousness, our being "I", by identifying it as a "hard problem of consciousness", or a matter of quantums and electrons? This is still the typical, prehistoric, rough, mentality of solving problems through "understanding", which means grasping, conquering, destroying, sacking, war.
What I am talking about is not morality, it is knowledge, a different approach to knowledge. You cannot gain knowledge of consciousness through quantums and relativity, because consciousness is you, the subject, the one who is waiting to be met. You cannot meet yourself through quantums and metaphysics. Rather, what Pascal suggested was "esprit de finesse", spirit of fineness, or we can just say spirit. — Angelo Cannata
The problem is in the ambiguity of the concept of consciousness. For example, a computer is able to react to the presence of a person or even to the expression of her face. Can we call this consciousness? If the answers is yes, then consciousness is everywhere, because everything is able to react to anything. If the answer is no, then it becomes extremely difficult to show the difference. When I say “extremely difficult”, I refer also to Chalmers’ expression “hard problem of consciousness”. Obviously, anybody is able to show that their position is not stupid, since the very existence of the “hard problem of consciousness” is impossible to prove.
In order to talk properly about consciousness we need first to admit this ambiguity and confusion. The first problem about consciousness is in using the word “consciousness” as we knew what we are talking about, while actually we are in the middle of the deepest confusion and ambiguity. — Angelo Cannata
I agree with a lot of what you wrote.
But we cannot directly measure the dog's consciousness. We can measure behaviour, we can even measure neural correlates of consciousness.
While we can directly measure the position of planets and their motion, for example.
If I design an artificial dog that behaves exactly as a natural dog, is that artificial dog conscious? I don't think that is as easy question to answer.
Never mind dogs, I can never know how other people exactly sense the world. I can think of my own consciousness and extrapolate based on behaviour I see. But haven't we all had a time where we later found out that what we thought what person thought, was not actually what they thought. Neither of us can truly, precisely know what someone else is thinking. — PhilosophyRunner
Let's forget about my experience of my own consciousness for a minute — T Clark
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