Everybody can only focally be conscious of one thing at a time. — bahman
Then the decision and all the options form a coherent whole, which is one thing, of which the decision-maker is conscious. — BlueBanana
Even so, we can be conscious of a decision. We can attend to a choice presented to us. The choice could be whether or not to hit a button. The choice could consist of a whole panel of buttons, as in a vending machine. — apokrisis
So yes, attention is a thing. It narrows our focus on the world, or even out thoughts, by suppressing whatever seems extraneous. So attention itself involves a decision. It is the choice not to be focused on anything else at some moment. And that choice could exclude a vast range of other possibilities already. — apokrisis
Then conscious of some particular area of action or choice, like the bounteous variety of a vending machine, we might narrow our attention still further to the Mars bar. And even then, there is the choice to buy it, or not. — apokrisis
If buying the bar is our daily habit, then we could just hit the right button with little attention. There is also habit or automaticism. As much as possible, we want to make our choices in a learnt and routine fashion. Attention is there to deal with choices and decisions that are surprising, novel or significant. — apokrisis
The fact that attention is a narrowing of awareness - an active exclusion of many alternatives - is the feature, not the bug. It is how we avoid just acting out of unthinking habit, even if mostly we want to learn to act out of unthinking habit. — apokrisis
Your argument seems to boil down to the observation that the experience of contemplating two things together, whether simultaneously or in quick succession for sake of comparison, is vague and hard to describe in contrast to the two things contemplated separately. — sime
But why should experiential vagueness be interpreted epistemically? — sime
Take another example; the problem of identifying colours that are poorly illuminated. One reports that the hues are ambiguous. But why should colour ambiguity under poor illumination be considered 'evidence' that poorly illuminated colours are hard to determine? For if the illumination is increased we are no longer comparing like for like. — sime
One is simply conscious of alternative possibilities. I look in a refrigerator. I see several foods that creates an image. I then might gradually widdle it down to two or three possibilities, all envisaged as a single image in memory. Then I choose one course of action. Reach and grab the apple. — Rich
I think you are explaining unconscious decision. You can neither be conscious options as an coherent image nor you can consciously give them a weight. — bahman
Are you conscious of the options at the moment you decide? — bahman
Of course. There is an image in my mind and I consciously decide to take action in a certain direction. What's going on in your mind? Are you groping in the refrigerator and removing what ever you touch? Don't you see all of the choices and choose one? Maybe your mind works differently? — Rich
You seem to be working with a homuncular notion of awareness. — apokrisis
Language demands that we speak of the “I” who is the self behind every mental doing. And so when we are attending and consciously deciding, there is this elusive “we” now apparently an extra part of the picture. We lose sight of the fact that this we-ness is part of the process, part of the construction, part of the action. It describes the fact that the brain was doing something, and that included taking a point of view, and a point of view implies “an observer with a choice”. — apokrisis
So you seem to accept functional talk. There is what it is like to be behaving habitually or to be behaving attentionally. However you also want to assign a further identity to the doer of any doings. Language demands that there be an efficient cause. — apokrisis
And you believe grammar more that you believe psychological functionalism. — apokrisis
I believe that there is a doer which can initiate or terminate a chain of causality otherwise there is no free will. — bahman
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