An illusion? Well, a convenient fiction at least. It turns out the these is no distinct redness in the material world. There is in fact a seemless array of available wavelengths across very wide spectrum (most of which is quite invisible to us but still real). We perceive a distinct redness after our red colour cones are triggered by a certain range wavelengths. — Kym

There is a problem with taking this approach. If red is an illusion or convenient fiction, then what makes light waves any more real?

We've come to explain vision in terms of photons bouncing off objects into our eyes because we perceive color in the first place, and then did a bunch of experiments to explore the phenomenon and came up with a physical theory as a result.

Empiricism is undergirded by subjectivity. If you make the subjective an illusion, then there goes the basis for knowledge about the physical world.

I have to admit it used to stick in my throat though — Kym

Possibly in need of some loving attention to the throat chakra? :smile:

I think there I was trying to head off being tagged with a strict correspondence theory of consciousness. Sure we see the world, but that vision is distorted. Personally, I'm really interested in understanding these distortions.

As for the vortex of solipsism this threatens to hurl us into:
I really like the pragmatic attitude of scientific enquiry that says "OK - here's my take on things. It maybe be wrong, but let's see how far we can drive in it before it breaks down".

Even if that Sutra is dead right, the apparent nihlism of it all seems so terrifying. It's like looking down the gullet of a black hole.

the apparent nihlism of it all seems so terrifying. — Kym

Curiously I don't feel any nihilism at all, at least not from that heartfelt Thich Nhat Hanh version, a truly compassionate master IMO, as I see it more as 'emptifullness.'

TNH also relates this story to speak to such misunderstandings of the Heart Sutra with the following allegory ...

The Zen master asked the novice monk:
“Tell me about your understanding of the Heart sutra.”

The novice monk joined his palms and replied:
“I have understood that the five skandhas are empty. There are no eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body or mind; there are no forms, sounds, smells, tastes, feelings, or objects of mind; the six consciousnesses do not exist, the eighteen realms of phenomena do not exist, the twelve links of dependent arising do not exist, and even wisdom and attainment do not exist.”

“Do you believe what it says?”

“Yes, I truly believe what it says.”

“Come closer to me,” the Zen master instructed the novice monk. When the novice monk drew near, the Zen master immediately used his thumb and index finger to pinch and twist the novice’s nose.
In great agony, the novice cried out “Teacher! You’re hurting me!” The Zen master looked at the novice. “Just now you said that the nose doesn’t exist. But if the nose doesn’t exist then what’s hurting?”

Yes. This speaks of a very important disjuncture between 'academic' and 'lived' understandings
(to grope for some terms)

A huge chasm dividing my own consciousness I can tell you!

This speaks of a very important disjuncture between 'academic' and 'lived' understandings — Kym

I couldn't agree more on that point, and which could also certainly apply to the 'Bernardo Kastrup' thread I started. I'm now enjoying this thread, which does make a nice compliment to that one, only without so much QM stuff (quibbling mindsets)

BTW, I attended a small audience of Thich Nhat Hanh's in Sydney, years ago. He discussed the issue of his students' self-immoliations during Vietnam's crisis. Any thoughts or feelings on this matter yourself?

I'm not familiar with the case you're referring to, and so hesitate to comment. I may look into it, and get back to you, but in the meantime, here's a talk by him on his emptiness teachings, titled 'Emptiness is Not nothing' which seems pertinent ... if so inclined

Consciousness cannot, whatever it is, be an illusion. The very notion of an illusion requires that there be something conscious that is being deluded. Any scientist, or anyone else, who says consciousness is an illusion is just misusing language.

Thanks for that vid.

My take on the issue is that the mental construction of 'self' is one of the "interesting distorting fictions" I've been circling around. We can't be too hard on it though, because without it we can't filter our perceptions enough to survive as organic beings. Nor can we be adaptively selective in what actions we make. Without self, all distinctions cease - hence the void, shortly followed by death if we keep it up. With a self, isolation and confusion are inevitiable. A comic-tragedy really, at least to those like, me far less skilled in compassion than Thich Nhat Hanh.

As for the fireworks, I don't want to drive the discussion off topic, but I may have to issue an erratum.
Looking for articles I'm thinking It may have been his colleagues he was talking about, rather than his students. But that was from around 1987 so you'll have to cut me some slack there.

Would 'delusion' be a better term? Consciousness is deluded? I scratch about for the correct words in this area (check the x-ray)

@Kym ... Ok, now I recall the events you're referring to all those many years ago. Not sure that it's even relevant to the OP, and I could of course speak to it and offer my subjective secular and/or spiritual interpretation, but why not let TNH 'speak' in his own words about those events, in addressing Martin Luther King, as interpreted through his Buddhist tradition.

OK thanks for the link. I'll let that sleeping dog lie just here. But PM me if you do want to open that discussion.

Meanwhile I checked of the thread you opened: Eleven pages of response. Nice one.

If by that you mean "we as conscious beings are deluded about the true nature of reality" then that is certainly better than "consciousness is an illusion". At least at a superficial level it appears to make sense as a proposition, the truth or falsity of which can be investigated. However, it needs to be pointed out that even making sense of the notion that we are deluded requires a background assumption that at least sometimes we are not deluded. So "we as conscious beings are deluded about the true nature of reality" cannot sensibly be taken to mean "we as conscious beings are permenantly deluded about the true nature of reality".

I don't think the zombie argument has ever been expressed to my satisfaction so I'll put how I understand the hard problem in explicit terms.

The hard problem is reconciling mechanism with the idea that consciousness is a unified phenomenal experience.
The best explanation in cognitive neuroscience is the global workspace model which identifies consciousness as a collapse of neuronal coalitions in order for the brain to focus on a single decision. So granting consciousness the necessary identity as a functional (attention) description may solve the problem. You have a scientific description for it as well as a first person description.
However within the materialist/physicalist/mechanist paradigm this model is just a useful fiction that describes the higher level property of attentional spotlight/ consciousness. The real (efficient) work is being done by electrons and quarks and yet there is a phenomenal experience for the higher level attentional description. Either everything is mechanistic or there is ontological dualism (mental and physical) or pluralism .

This might be better suited to the BK thread, but I'll carry on here, so that it doesn't get lost in the shuffle ... I suppose one idealist interpretation might be that we as finite loci of 'Mind' are, by definition, 'deluded' with respect to whatever some now obfuscated, noumenal, apparently infinite Mind may be. And yet, what could that be other than such a Mind apparently dreaming up countless self-observing, finite points of view? I must concede that not I'm not quite sure what to make of this notion of a self-reflecting Mind individuating into countless recursive minds, or what its telos might be, other than for the sake of this relational experience.

To that point, this blog post may be of interest here ... Plotinus and the problem of absolute self-consciousness

I think we are perhaps in agreement just there. Except maybe you might be a tad more optimistiic tham me about achieving full understanding. But I like the pragmatists' approach of just saying "Damn it let's just give it a crack anyway".

Hi Jess. Do you mean to imply there are actually women on this forum? I was wondering.

I don't think the zombie argument has ever been expressed to my satisfaction ... — JupiterJess

The term belongs first I think to Chalmers. But nevertheless good old Wiki gives a concise overview of various ways it has been used. Me, I just like the mental image the "Philosophical Zombie" paints in my head. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophical_zombie

If you mean how I meant to use it, then I can clarify that at least:
At first sight, consciousness seems redundant. Seemingly a person or animal could react to the world 'normally', without the intervening step of internal consciousness. Kind of like a machine following an algorithm, or the Behaviourists’ black-box model of stimulus-in / response-out. But dead inside, like a Zombie. This notion raises the question of "why do we need consciousness?"

Leaving aside just now the increasing probability that you are reading a response from a bot-algorithm, I at least feel confident that you lot out there have internal experiences as well.

But then I would say that.

Thanks, I'll get down to reading that link properly.

Meanwhile I must confess I've been at a loss to take on the idea of Universal Mind.
1. It seems so far that mind is only seen manifest in local structures (sentient organisms). So, there are are only localized POVs. Not very universal.
2. It also seems that evolutionary pressure mandates endless fabrications of 'self'. Which, as discussed, seems the very antithesis of universal consciouness.

Or maybe I've mis-conceived of it. Whaddya think?

Hi Jess. Do you mean to imply there are actually women on this forum? I was wondering. — Kym

I guess so. I mainly stick to PoM threads so don't know the demographic. There is a dearth of us in philosophy overall, especially analytic philosophy. There are more in continental philosophy I believe.

At first sight, consciousness seems redundant. Seemingly a person or animal could react to the world 'normally', without the intervening step of internal consciousness. Kind of like a machine following an algorithm, or the Behaviourists’ black-box model of stimulus-in / response-out. — Kym

Okay so to subscribe to the logical possibility of zombies you have to subscribe to strong anthropic mechanism first? As in it's all bottom up cognition and you can have a complete mechanistic description like billiard balls colliding with each other.
I've always suspected the zombie argument is really an argument against reductionism where if the argument was rephrased to allow for top-down causation the problem would vanish. That's really why Descartes mental substance exists because he had already decided that mechanism was sufficient to describe everything else, including the other animals.

Yes, in this version of Idealism, Mind becomes an apparent plurality of individuated, 'dissociated' loci or iterations of itself (mini-minds?), an essentially cognitive event. Meanwhile, there is still some ultimate state it is like to be the Unitary Mind, which its human self-expressions, normally focused in their veiled imaginal, phenomenal, experiential state, might at least approximate as a samadhi state awareness, wherein the maya-spell is dispelled, revealing a pure Awareness or Beingness or Knowingness, or some such descriptor for the nameless. I suppose this could also be equated with the triune attributes of Brahman, satchitananda, i.e. Being/Consciousness/Bliss. Beyond that we're headed into noumenon territory, where I must bow to the opening lines of the Tao Te Ching about the ineffability of the Eternal Tao.

At first sight, consciousness seems redundant. Seemingly a person or animal could react to the world 'normally', without the intervening step of internal consciousness. Kind of like a machine following an algorithm, or the Behaviourists’ black-box model of stimulus-in / response-out. But dead inside, like a Zombie. This notion raises the question of "why do we need consciousness?" — Kym

Wouldn't this suggest that the bottom-up model is missing something?

I have never quite understood arguments that end up with the conclusion that Consciousness is an Illusion. In my way of thinking an Illusion is something that doesn't really exist. The Red Experience certainly Exists. So how do Physicalists understand the meaning of the word Illusion? — SteveKlinko
I'm not sure I've done enough reading of the Physicalist boffins to answer for them. But years back asked a big-time Zen teacher why Buddhists said we all live in the 'Maya' world of illusion - when there was so obviously correspondences beween the world and my experiences of it. He said, yes a material world does exist but it's SO different from how we perceive it that we more accurately should say we're living in an illusion. — Kym

I completely agree with that interpretation of Illusion in that we never really experience the External World directly but only through our internal Conscious representation of the External World. Our Internal Conscious experiences are Surrogates for the External phenomenon. The Zen interpretation seems at least to admit that the Illusion experience is at least Something. But the way I understand how the Physicalists use Illusion is to try to minimize the Conscious phenomenon and make it go away. They say Consciousness is an Illusion and doesn't really exist so there's nothing that we even need to study here. No Explanatory Gap and no Hard Problem.

But the way I see it, the experience of the color Red (Redness) is a real phenomenon that needs to be Explained. Redness is a Conscious phenomenon not a Physical phenomenon. I like to say that Physical Red Light has Wavelength and other Properties that exist in the normal Physical Space that Science can explain. I also say that Conscious Red Light (the thing we actually experience) has Redness and other Properties that exist in some as yet unexplained Conscious Space that Science does not know how to deal with yet. We should think about Conscious Space, at this point, as just a tool that gives Conscious phenomena a place to exist for the sake of discussion. Think about the Redness of Red. It must be explained. It does not exist in Physical Space but only in Conscious Space. If Science can show that Conscious Space is part of Physical Space then the Hard Problem will be solved. But up to this point Science has not shown that. The Hard Problem remains.

I think calling Conscious experience an Illusion is very misleading and counter productive for understanding Consciousness. Consciousness is not an Illusion but is rather a whole different realm of Phenomena that are unexplained by Science at this point.

Yeah. I find it easy to use use some terms a bit fast and loose. Itchy trigger finger.

Wouldn't this suggest that the bottom-up model is missing something? — Marchesk

It certainly does. The Zombie position is not one I agree with. I'm pretty sure Chalmers disagreed with it too. But rather, he was laying out all the possibilities before proceeding with his argument.

But you must admit, the image of a Zombified greek philosopher is pretty cute.

The Unversal Mind Topic
I think I've already hinted that I have a lot respect for the phenomenon of mystical experience - however tainted it can become by culture etc. The universal mind experience is one the seems to crop up again and again cross-cultures. So I'd suspect there's probably really something to it.

But since I'm not in that club, I'll have to make do with philosophy for now.

So far the only grasp I've got on it is along the lines of this: The phenomenon of consciousness is a subset of the phenomenon of information. That's something I certainly can see is omnipresent. Thinking now of thousands of gradations of sentience occurring throughout the animal kingdom, then the plant kingdom, mcro-biota and so on. Then even simpler information as transferred and stored mechanically in molecules and viral crystal structures, then down to the acoustic vibrations in the surrounding furniture that reflect my banging on this typewriter – itself a kind of model of the world.

In this way I can see consciousness as information omnipresent, but very concentrated in places, for example in a human's sentience.

Do you think this take on it is on the right track. Or am I barking up the wrong tree do you think?

Okay so to subscribe to the logical possibility of zombies you have to subscribe to strong anthropic mechanism first? As in it's all bottom up cognition and you can have a complete mechanistic description like billiard balls colliding with each other.
I've always suspected the zombie argument is really an argument against reductionism where if the argument was rephrased to allow for top-down causation the problem would vanish. That's really why Descartes mental substance exists because he had already decided that mechanism was sufficient to describe everything else, including the other animals. — JupiterJess

This is awkward for me since I'm secretly a determinist with a predilection for bottom-up explanation wherever possible (Occam's razor etc.). Yet, no Zombies for me!

Weird, hey?

Yes, I may well buy a ticket and venture along that intriguing track. Worth noting here that Kastrup draws the line at metabolic expressions, and does not go the route of panpsychism, wherein non-living expressions such as grains of sand, or thermostats, or meteorites, or electrons are considered to be having some sort of elementary conscious experience, never mind self-consciousness. And despite being a computer engineer, he also does not give credibility to the notion of conscious AI. He of course goes into a much more nuanced articulation of his reasons for this stance, which one can't really do justice to in a brief comment here.

Okay so to subscribe to the logical possibility of zombies you have to subscribe to strong anthropic mechanism first? As in it's all bottom up cognition and you can have a complete mechanistic description like billiard balls colliding with each other.
I've always suspected the zombie argument is really an argument against reductionism where if the argument was rephrased to allow for top-down causation the problem would vanish. That's really why Descartes mental substance exists because he had already decided that mechanism was sufficient to describe everything else, including the other animals. — JupiterJess
This is awkward for me since I'm secretly a determinist with a predilection for bottom-up explanation wherever possible (Occam's razor etc.). Yet, no Zombies for me!

Weird, hey? — Kym

As I remember it the pZombie was a discussion tool for asking the question: What would be the difference if Consciousness was removed from the Human Mind? The question was asked because people were really wondering what the purpose of Consciousness was. There were people that thought that there would be no noticeable difference because they thought Consciousness was just an Illusion and had no real purpose. It was Insane denial of the purpose of Consciousness. If you take away the Visual Conscious experience you would be Blind. We could not move around in the world with just Neural Processing. Removing the Conscious Visual experience removes the final stage in the Visual process that lets us See. People who think that the pZombie would be undetectable deny the Primacy of Consciousness in our existence.