But as mentioned, we don't need to assume that physicalism means the same as an older variety of materialism, in which it is very difficult to situate consciousness, simply because when we open up the brain, we don't see the qualitative consciousness of another person. It may simply be that the qualitative consciousness hasn't been detected yet, or can't be, using the experimental tools we have at our disposal. This is par of the course in physics - lots of phenomena are postulated but need technology or conditions to develop in order for them to be confirmed. — RolandTyme
It's the more general point that we have this phenomena, we have these developing lines of enquiry in physics, so we should be exploring all options. — RolandTyme
that does not define the experience you have of looking at the pencils and thinking there's three of them. It merely defines how the experience is produced. — ernestm
To say "consciousness is an illusion" is to not explain the illusion itself — schopenhauer1
It may simply be that the qualitative consciousness hasn't been detected yet, or can't be, using the experimental tools we have at our disposal. — RolandTyme
The hard question goes beyond this and asks "How are the physical components equivalent to mental components". How is what you are saying addressing that? — schopenhauer1
By saying that mental components are a fiction we get into the habit of acknowledging as a convenient aid to succesful cognition. "What was my previous brain-shiver?... Oh yes, the one selecting this or that picture." — bongo fury
"What" is this "fiction we get into the habit of acknowledging"? — schopenhauer1
The picture in the head. It doesn't happen. — bongo fury
Then why are we even talking of pictures in the head? — schopenhauer1
For my part, I thought they were included among your alleged "mental components"? — bongo fury
How is it the nerve-firings are these fictions? — schopenhauer1
Your inner film show doesn't. — bongo fury
Some people in both the idealist and the materialist camp (in much different fashions) want to claim that first person consciousness is an "illusion" of some sort. Is using the term "illusion" just another term for the "mind" and this "illusion" still has to be accounted for or can the concept of illusion have its cake and eat it too? In other words, can illusion really claim that the mind only "feels" like it exists, but does not really and that's the end of the story or does the "feels like" phenomena of illusion still have to be accounted for in some way? — schopenhauer1
I agree. I think people do a switcharoo and try to explain the causes of consciousness as some sort of hitherto unexplored origin and then because it is some genus of causes which is not what we originally thought, they want to then go an extra step and say the actual consciousness is therefore an illusion. If we want to bring in Wittgenstein, we can bring it there. It's not even an illusion as much as something that was not what we originally thought. They are confusing everybody by misusing the word illusion. — schopenhauer1
We don't think, yet here we are thinking. — schopenhauer1
I don't say we don't think. Unless you are saying zombies don't think? — bongo fury
If you say you don't have anything like reportable internal events, you would be the first conscious person to do so. — schopenhauer1
The theater in the brain is reported. What are they reporting? — schopenhauer1
I don't deny having filed such reports most of my life. But I do insist they were all fictional: concerning non-existent images and audio, and too often also non-existent homunculi. — bongo fury
So what is the nature of this non-existent fictional images and audio and homunculi? — schopenhauer1
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