Subjects are points in spacetime? — fdrake
We're getting way off topic with fundamental ontology. I want bring you back to the question this whole sideshow seemed to distract from
what is missing from the third party account? — Isaac
I just answered this: the perspective of being those states. — Terrapin Station
But where is that perspective if not in "Particular dynamic state of synapses, neurons, etc"? I'm afraid "At various reference points, including the reference point of being the thing in question." isn't really a coherent location for me. — Isaac — Isaac
I said "to my satisfaction". I prefer consistency, I can't really conceive of a reality that can be two ways at once, so two apparently conflicting models are sufficient to convince me that they can't both be right. — Isaac
For (a) we're talking about some way the world really is, — Isaac
For (b) if it is possible for someone to be wrong, then our brains are not inevitably arranged to reflect reality accurately. — Isaac
The fact that I'm constructing people does not lead to the fact that I can construct them however I'd like to construct them. — Isaac
I didn't say the absence of properties wasn't a concept. There's a difference though between positing the absence (or skepticism) of properties and the positing of some particular property (light, location, shape etc) as being real.
One is simply agnosticism, the other dogmatism. — Isaac
The claim is that properties are incoherent without a person to define them thus. Not that they aren't there. — Isaac
Given your ontology, there's no way to make sense of "this model is right." You don't even believe that there are any objective properties. — Terrapin Station
There's no frame-of-reference-free frame of reference, so to speak, or there's no "view from nowhere." Properties are unique from every point of reference, and there's no preferred point of reference. — Terrapin Station
That doesn't imply that we can't get things right. — Terrapin Station
Why not? What would constrain it? — Terrapin Station
You weren't being skeptical. You claimed that there are no objective properties. — Terrapin Station
Wait so now there are objective properties, it's just that the objective properties are incoherent? — Terrapin Station
How is that an important part of consciousness? Important for what? What do we even mean by, "what things are like experientially to the bearer of the consciousness"? What is a bearer of consciousness and how can something be experientially to it? What does that even mean? I think we take many of these ideas and patterns of speaking for granted without really understanding what it is that we are saying.Presumably an important part of consciousness is what things are like experientially to the bearer of the consciousness in question. — Terrapin Station
The latter is what I would propose because if it's not the same, then how does consciousness and the world interact? What would the experience be about, and then how can things that aren't consciousness be about other things that aren't consciousness?So if we can't tackle that scientifically, we have a problem with devising scientific accounts of consciousness. We can just ignore it and not care about it, but then we're ignoring a big part of what we we're supposedly addressing. An alternate track--one that many have taken--is to try to deny that there is such a thing in the first place, or at least deny that it's any different than what things are like outside of consciousness. — Terrapin Station
its always been an entire lived event involving a red thing. — Isaac
"Classing all the cases together" is a way of talking about the concepts we formulate as such--those are abstractions that range over a number of unique instances. And sure, insofar as we're talking about concepts, that's fine. — Terrapin Station
Given we're both looking at some distinct particular objects classed nonetheless together under the concept (which is to say, under any or all of my and your countless mental instances of the concept) of 'yellow-wavelength-reflecting', I notice that my dynamic brain states during this period all have properties which it is natural for me to class together as (which is to say, under any or all of my countless mental instances of my concept of) yellow (in the mental sense). And I wonder (as y'do) if my concept of mentally-yellow is roughly coextensive with yours, as I assume is the case with our concepts of EMR-yellow, and as might be tested if I got the right kind of acquaintance with your brain states and their properties?
I suspect "norms informing perception" is why it seems so natural to some to describe their experiences as containing "red quales" or "seeing redness". — fdrake
'Red' seems primarily used as a description of external states of affairs, never internal ones. I think there's still some sleight of hand being done here to define a post hoc division of the memory of experience into the 'qualia' of actual experience — Isaac
The brain certainly divides things up, different cortices deal with different aspects of the experience, but evidence from synathetes, phantom limb, paraprenalia, psychosis...all indicate very strongly that the consciousness does not have any direct isolated access to those cortices. If it did, then synathetes, for example, would be able to divide up their number identification experience from their colour identification experience prior to the hyper-connection between the two which causes the mixed sensation. — Isaac
All of which put together makes a 'redness' quale nothing but a philosophical conceit. — Isaac
sometimes we can expect red and see green? Movies, green blooded human = replicant or something, the basis of surprise there. — fdrake
Unsure the internal/external distinction makes sense for most things like this. When your phenomenal self model (Metzinger) can assimilate to include a table, or when your apartment becomes a living memory bank (alzheimers patients); the boundaries break down due to what is involved with what. It seems more productive to think of these structures as ones of involvement that span the distinction between mind and body, rather than retroactively imposing more categorical distinctions which don't seem to be there — fdrake
I often end up writing stuff even I don't believe just to get the ideas that surround it down before the next ones take over. — Isaac
Redness' I think should be consigned to use only by printers and paint manufacturers! — Isaac
(having a two psychologists for parents is not always a good thing, but we did stop experimenting eventually, promise). — Isaac
he panic is the brain's response to contradictory information, just like travel sickness (motion feedback from the eyes, no motion feedback from the body). The interesting thing, for me, is the strong extent to which most of what we think of as our model of reality is the brain's kind of buffer against this panic. Most sensations, including memory-based ones, are actually contradictory to some extent. The stories our brain tells us, the illusion of self, is all about minimising the confusion. I think that's why we love stories so much. — Isaac
it's easy to use a vocabulary that we're used to that nevertheless contradicts the nature of the topic. Sort of like trying to draw on white paper with white chalk. — fdrake
Shame the flames we'd like to burn these ideas in are red. — fdrake
I can't imagine not being academically interested in your kid if you're academically inclined. I'm more surprised that you stopped experimenting than that you started! — fdrake
Do you have a citation for this type of account? — fdrake
m a bit skeptical that "panic" is one sort of thing; my understanding of it neurologically, which is probably wrong, is that it's a neural/endocrine response to some threat that sets off a bunch of bodily cascades (including behavioural), the "threat" can be really abstract; nowadays a work meeting can be a tiger in the bush. — fdrake
but the brain seems to perceive an inconsistent environment as one of the bigger threats. — Isaac
Ever wondered what the evolutionary advantage could possibly be of legs turning to jelly at the exact moment you need to run away from said tiger in the bush? — Isaac
I wonder what the scope of environment is there? I guess as abstract as can be habituated within. — fdrake
I thought it was so you could politely ask the girl to go on top. — fdrake
so habituated conceptual environments don't seem to have the same effect. — Isaac
"hey, why's my heart beating faster, there's no tiger I can see" and panicking about the difference between the autosomal information and the perceptual information and completely ignoring the conceptual information that would have made sense of it all. — Isaac
"Classing all the cases together" is a way of talking about the concepts we formulate as such--those are abstractions that range over a number of unique instances. And sure, insofar as we're talking about concepts, that's fine.
— Terrapin Station
What about insofar as we're using concepts to talk about (e.g. compare and sort) the unique instances? — bongo fury
[That] question seems to be about concepts where they aren't abstractions ranging over a number of particular instances. I wouldn't say that would qualify as a concept. It would just be a name and/or description of the particular. ("Description of" isn't really possible without concepts ranging over a number of particulars, though.) — Terrapin Station
Re the content of that paragraph, I don't think there's any way to experience someone else's consciousness--I think that in principle that is impossible. — Terrapin Station
Oh, I get it. I'm right to interpret your "concepts" as mental events analogous to general terms like adjectives. (No?) But when I blithely speak of using them to sort particulars you are alarmed because you see a general term as naming (or pointing at or designating or referring to) a whole class of or abstraction from the instances, as an entity in its own right. You can't see it referring to a particular and still being general? (Correct me.)
But can't a nominalist deny the class or abstraction, and reconstrue a general statement (e.g. a predication or attribution or description) quite simply as shared naming, i.e. as ascribing the property to, or simply pointing out and thereby sorting under the term, all of the instances, severally? I'm not saying that approach doesn't throw up problems. But it's what I was about in the second paragraph. — bongo fury
What have 'properties' got to do with measures of the degree to which I find a model to be right? — Isaac
Right. Which is exactly what I'm saying. There is no 'way things are' there's only the 'way things seem from here' or the 'way things seem from there' (where 'here' and 'there' are not here limited to spatial specifications), so where does this leave your "there is a coin"? Only from a certain perspective. — Isaac
Why not? What would constrain it? — Terrapin Station
Biology. — Isaac
How is that an important part of consciousness? — Harry Hindu
What is a bearer of consciousness — Harry Hindu
and how can something be experientially to it? What does that even mean? — Harry Hindu
if it's not the same, then how does consciousness and the world interact? — Harry Hindu
How is it subjective when your experience is part of the world and is an effect and a cause of other things? What does that even mean to insert, "subjective" into this?Because the whole gist of it is (subjective) experience. — Terrapin Station
Both of which aren't conscious-like, so how does consciousness get input from the senses and produce output in our behavior?Through our senses (for input) and our motor skills (for output). — Terrapin Station
How is it subjective when your experience is part of the world — Harry Hindu
Both of which aren't conscious-like, so how does consciousness get input from the senses and produce output in our behavior? — Harry Hindu
Concepts are a means of calling/considering phenomenon a and phenomenon b the "same thing"--namely whatever the concept term is. So I think we used "yellow" as an example. That way you can see the color of, say, a car and the color of a guitar and use the term "yellow" for both. (Which is using a general term--that's what concepts are, and referring to particulars--the particular yellow of that particular car--for example, if that answers that question). — Terrapin Station
"Classing all the cases together" is a way of talking about the concepts we formulate as such--those are abstractions that range over a number of unique instances. — Terrapin Station
What about insofar as we're using concepts to talk about (e.g. compare and sort) the unique instances? — bongo fury
In terms of our experience, it's a particular dynamic state of synapses, neurons, etc.
— Terrapin Station
Particular in the sense of general but awaiting a clear physical definition (which would decide if a particular brain state was an instance of it)? — bongo fury
With respect to the object (the objective stuff), it's the fact that it reflects that wavelength of EMR, sure. — Terrapin Station
In terms of our experience, it's a particular dynamic state of synapses, neurons, etc. — Terrapin Station
They have experiences. Those experiences have properties. — Terrapin Station
It seems to me that that 'chopping up' of experience that we do prior to applying the label "quale" to it isn't particularly reflective of what it's like at all. What it's like to be in any experiential state is a colossal feedback and intermingling of my senses and thoughts. — fdrake
...what in this experience furnishes the distinction between the shape and the colour of the table? — fdrake
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