I don't agree that consciousness is primary; only a small part of experience is conscious experience. What is primary is our experience, both conscious and unconscious or subconscious, of being in a world with others. including inanimate objects, both natural and human-made, landscapes, plants, animals, humans, music, literature, painting, architecture, the media, the sciences, money and politics and so on.

I was using the word conscious with a broader meaning not the psychological meaning. So, specifically I am speaking of mind that has memory and duration, will, and creative intuition.

Thanks for pointing this issue out.

Noble Dust:

Regarding the timelessness at the end of lives, I should add that that stage, with no time, events, body, identity, problems, lack, incompletion, or any knowledge that there ever were or could be such things, is close on the way to what we worldly-beings could call "Nothing".

It's at the end of lives. I haven't claimed that our life-experience possibility-stories are objectively real, though I call them "actual" to us.

I suggest that that Timelessness that is arrived at before shutdown, and that full Nothing that is being approached then, has more reality than the relative world of possibility-stories.

So, during shutdown, as the former-person reaches timelessness, in close approach to Nothing, that person is approaching a state-of-affairs that's more real, natural, and basic than hir previous lives, life-experience possibility-stories, in the relative worlds.

Of course each life seems very long, and it's said that we live lots of them. But their overall duration is slight, in comparison to the Timelessness at the end of lives.

...not that any of us are even anywhere near close to that end-of-lives.

Michael Ossipoff

So how are you a physicalist then? I'm confused at this point. You're posting a lot of stuff in this thread, and I've kind of lost the thrust of it, as well as my own interest in it. I was responding to a very specific problem I thought I saw, and kept my comments very specifically about that (consciousness), but at this point I'm having a hard time understanding your views on any of these topics.

I don't agree that consciousness is primary; only a small part of experience is conscious experience. What is primary is our experience, both conscious and unconscious or subconscious, of being in a world with others. — Janus

But conciousness is constant, at least in waking life. Consciousness just means the state of your mind right now as you read this; it's the same state when you go clean the kitchen, go to work, have sex, etc. At least that's my conception of it; it's a very broad, basic state of existence; the only basic one, in fact. Of course it's also a spectrum; if you're sleep-deprived or drunk, your conscious experience kind of obtains in a different way. The subconscious and the unconscious are "fundamental" to experience, if you will, but I can't see the use in saying that they're a significantly larger portion of experience itself.

So how are you a physicalist then? — Noble Dust

Yeah we've already been over this.

I don't call myself a Physicalist..I'm not a metaphysical Physicalist.

But "Physicalist" is evidently used with two different meanings.

A metaphysical Physicalist (which is what I mean by "Physicalist") is someone who claims that this phsyical world is independently existent, and is the fundamental, primary Reality, the fundamental, primary Existent.. ...and is Reality itself.

But Physicalism is used with a 2nd meaning too "Philosophy-of-mind Physicalism evidently refers to the position that we're completely described by our physical definition or description, without such nonphysical separate entities as spirits, mind, or consciousness.

Though I'm not a metaphysical physicalist, I probably would be called a philosophy-of-mind Physicalist.

When I say "Physiclism", without a qualifying-phrase, I'm referring to metaphysical Physicalism.

I'll often denote philosophy-of-mind Physicalism by the abbreviation "pomp, to avoid a long phrase.

I'm confused at this point.

Well, I've been fairly explicit.

You're posting a lot of stuff in this thread, and I've kind of lost the thrust of it, as well as my own interest in it.

Well then it's a good thing that you let me know now.

I misunderstood, and thought you were interested in these subjects, and might be interested in my comments. Otherwise I wouldn't have posted comments to you. But alright, sure, there won't be any more comments to you, since you aren't interested.

But, in return, I'm not interested in hearing from people who aren't interested, so let's not hear from you agaIn, O Noble Dust.

I was responding to a very specific problem I thought I saw, and kept my comments very specifically about that (consciousness), but at this point I'm having a hard time understanding your views on any of these topics.

Then just disregard it.

Michael Ossipoff

But, in return, I'm not interested in hearing from people who aren't interested, so let's not hear from you agaIn, O Noble Dust. — Michael Ossipoff

You'll hear from me if I decide to say something. ;) don't succumb to the ways of Thanatos!

But really, no ill will towards you, Michael. Cheers and all the best; maybe we'll wrangle again elsewhere at some point.

maybe we'll wrangle again elsewhere at some point. — Noble Dust

No, my time is too valuable to discuss anything with someone who has expressed disinterest in what I say.

(It won't mean that you've said something irrefutable)

Michael Ossipoff

But conciousness is constant, at least in waking life. Consciousness just means the state of your mind right now as you read this; it's the same state when you go clean the kitchen, go to work, have sex, etc. At least that's my conception of it; it's a very broad, basic state of existence; the only basic one, in fact. Of course it's also a spectrum; if you're sleep-deprived or drunk, your conscious experience kind of obtains in a different way. The subconscious and the unconscious are "fundamental" to experience, if you will, but I can't see the use in saying that they're a significantly larger portion of experience itself. — Noble Dust

'Conscious' is one of those words that are used and interpreted many different ways. Quite often it is taken to mean 'not asleep', literally. I don't use it that way, because that is an uninteresting, uninstructive way of using it. Think about all the moments you can remember of your experience from the twenty four hours before you woke up this morning: those were the moments you were most conscious. Some of those moments may have occurred when you were asleep, dreaming. It is not a black and white 'on-off' phenomenon; it shades away into subconsciousness, unconsciousness.

If you misuse "conscious" that way, it renders the word useless, since nothing is now not conscious.