• jkop
    905
    . . .consciousness itself . . .is a non-sensory experience - capable in principle of being undergone in a state where all of the five interactive senses are negated. . . .Robert Lockhart
    What's it like to be senselessly undergoing a state of negating something?

    . . The significance of this fact consists in the consequence that our experience of consciousness is inimical to the method of scientific description, capable soley of describing our sensory perception of material interaction. . .Robert Lockhart
    Please feel free to describe a senseless experience of an immaterial interaction.
  • Babbeus
    60
    Very few, this is why when we want deeper understanding of reality - in science, mathematics or foundational philosophy - we usually don't rely on common everyday-life understanding of the words but we go deeper and become more formal with the definitions. Do you have a different view?
  • Terrapin Station
    13.8k
    Do you have a different view?Babbeus

    Yes--my different view is that words like "brain," "rock," stereo speaker," etc. aren't that confusing. I don't have to wonder what they could possibly refer to when people use them unless they use them in a very strange/unusual way.
  • Babbeus
    60
    Yes--my different view is that words like "brain," "rock," stereo speaker," etc. aren't that confusing. I don't have to wonder what they could possibly refer to when people use them unless they use them in a very strange/unusual way.Terrapin Station

    1) "That confusing" is misrepresenting what I said
    2) What is "usual" and "unusual" depends on contingencies and can change over time (maybe you wanted to say that you would make deeper consideration on the meaning only when you personally feel it strange/unusual wrt your experience but this is just your personal psychological attitude)
  • Terrapin Station
    13.8k
    1) "That confusing" is misrepresenting what I saidBabbeus

    "Confusing" in the sense that you can't make out what a word like "brain" refers to.

    ) What is "usual" and "unusual" depends on contingencies and can change over timeBabbeus

    Yeah, obviously. You're not a non-adaptable robot are you?
  • Robert Lockhart
    170
    Jkop: We could of course agree that, in order that it be objectively examined, a phenomenon requires to be isolated from all super-imposing effects. So then with the case of our experience of consciousness itself: Without conducting the experiment, we could agree that in a situation where the awareness of all five of our interactive senses was negated – say in a laboratory contrived artifice for example – we would yet in principle be capable of retaining our conscious self-awareness. This simple observation suffices to demonstrate then that our experience of the phenomenon of consciousness is, uniquely, non-sensory in nature.
    In this regard all scientific theory, from for example the most basic of the geometric theorems of Pythagoras to the most complex mathematically argued propositions relating to the sub-atomic phenomena which the Large Hadron Collider was built to evaluate, are comprised of reasoned propositions intending to provide a logically rigorous description of a putative relation existing between sensorialy perceivable observations. It requires to be recognised - in principle - that such a methodology is fundamentally incapable of describing such a connective relationship between a phenomenon which is perceivable sensorialy and one which is, as is uniquely the case concerning consciousness, susceptible to non-sensory perception!
    It is for this reason in practice therefore, in their inevitable incapacity to provide such a requisite connective description, that all scientific attempts at describing consciousness are of a standard that would not, in the context of describing sensorialy perceived phenomena, be accorded the status of scientific theory at all!
  • jkop
    905
    Whence the rhetoric? I asked you two straightforward questions.
  • Benjamin Dovano
    76
    Consciousness is the totality of memories, experiences, knowledge and thoughts that one has. All those together are assembled by thought into the " ME " - the self-aware being. And therefore you identify yourself with your memories, knowledge, beliefs etc. - and you can say: " I am this and that ... "
    It is a material process, those memories and experiences are stored in the brain, it is not a Hocus Pocus magic thing. Your consciousness is You.
  • Benjamin Dovano
    76
    The container is the content, like the observer is the observed.
    There is no separation in that. It's like saying " I must control my anger - and separate anger from yourself, instead of acknowledging that you are anger itself.
  • Terrapin Station
    13.8k


    I'm confused why you're addressing me in your reply. Did I seem to be saying that I thought that consciousness is a "Hocus Pocus magic thing"?
  • Benjamin Dovano
    76
    I might have pressed the wrong reply.. :) sorry
  • unenlightened
    9.2k
    Who's been reading Krishnamurti, then?
  • Robert Lockhart
    170
    Jcop: My post was an attempt to argue in favour of the proposition that the scientific method, capable as it is soly of describing interaction between sensorialy perceivable phenomena, is in principle therefore incapable of describing the interaction by which the brain produces consciousness in that our experience of the latter phenomenon consists ultimately - as I attempted to point out - in the form of a non-sensory perception. Setting aside the adequacy or otherwise of the exposition of the argument in my post, the idea being advanced is hardly a rhetorical one.
    The OP might have been better titled, ‘How in terms of an analogous sensorial experience, the perception of which we accordingly would all be capable of undergoing, might you provide a description of consciousness capable in principle of being commonly agreed?’ The short answer to that question then would be – in that there exists no sensorial experience which is annalagous to our experience of consciousness – you could not provide such a description.

    As to your two ‘straight forward questions’ – ‘What’s it like to be senselessly undergoing a state of negating something?’ and, ‘Please feel free to describe a senseless experience of an immaterial interaction’ – these statements do strike me as examples of meaningless rhetoric, accordingly permitting no possibility of framing a reply.
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