point still holds. You can look at a reflection of your eyes but you don't see yourself seeing. You only see. — Wayfarer

The eyes, in this analagy, stands for consciousness. The eyes seeing themselves (in a reflection) would correspond to consciosuness examining itself. That's what the hard problem is about - consciousness being inaccessible. However, I can access my own consciousness and check if it's only physical.

To see the eye seeing itself = to be conscious of consciousness conscious of consciousness (itself), is a different, higher order, matter altogether, no?

@Wayfarer Don't you see any problems, errors. mistakes, stupidity, in what I said below?

The eyes, in this analagy, stands for consciousness. The eyes seeing themselves (in a reflection) would correspond to consciosuness examining itself. That's what the hard problem is about - consciousness being inaccessible. However, I can access my own consciousness and check if it's only physical.

To see the eye seeing itself = to be conscious of consciousness conscious of consciousness (itself), is a different, higher order, matter altogether, no? — TheMadFool

You're making it more complicated than it is. The fact that the eye can't see itself is very simple, isn't it? I can reflect on myself, I can think about what I think, but this problem of reflexivity remains, because, as I said, the subject who thinks is not an object, except for by inference. Let's not lose sight of the wood for the trees. Have a look at the two refs I gave the paragraph starting 'It has been remarked....'

You're making it more complicated than it is. The fact that the eye can't see itself is very simple, isn't it? I can reflect on myself, I can think about what I think, but this problem of reflexivity remains, because, as I said, the subject of who thinks is not an object, except for by inference. Let's not lose sight of the wood for the trees. Have a look at the two refs I gave the paragraph starting 'It has been remarked....' — Wayfarer

I don't wanna rain on the nonphysicalist's parade but just imagine you're all alone on some deserted island and you decide to, since you have all the time in the world, study consciousness. You teach yourself everything about neuroscience and other allied subjects. What's your next move? Isn't it to apply your knowledge to consciousness and the best part is you have access to that subjectivity which the hard problem claims is the stumbling block - it being allegedly inacessible to objective scientific methods. I dunno. I'm just throwing this out there because I respect what Chalmers and others have said about the whole subjectivity deal with consciousness. I sense I'm wrong but how exactly?

*

Thanks Wayfarer.

If any problem qualifies as the problem of consciousness, it is this one. In this central sense of "consciousness", an organism is conscious if there is something it is like to be that organism, and a mental state is conscious if there is something it is like to be in that state.
— David Chalmers, Facing up to the Hard Problem

As it happens, and even though I agree with the thrust of this, I think it could be explained better. Where Chalmers uses the term 'experience', I think the correct word to use is 'being'. What he's saying is that no purely objective account of the mind is the same as 'the nature of experience'; describing an experience is not the same as having an experience. And the capacity for experience is unique to beings, who are the subjects of experience (even very simple beings, but not inorganic nature - this is not panpsychism). — Wayfarer

I read this and it still doesn't resonate much. I understand that an objective account by beings who can't transcend their own perceptions is unlikely (phenomenology/blind spot/etc). I've read some Chalmers and Nagel and I still can't see why what we call phenomenal experience, qualia, etc, is not just a kind of simulation created by an interplay of sense data and memory.

I'm not saying you and some philosophers are wrong (we ultimately do not know) but, for what it's worth, the sense of self I am aware of when I experience things doesn't seem especially remarkable to me. It fades, it wavers, it's inconsistent, it miscalculates and it seems comprised of little bits of information that comes together like an old-school Disney cartoon - single cells moving quickly, creating the illusion of life and a narrative. Or something like this. I've had sympathy for views along these lines for decades but I am open to something more interesting.

I can reflect on myself, I can think about what I think, but this problem of reflexivity remains, because, as I said, the subject who thinks is not an object, except for by inference. — Wayfarer

I think that this is a temporal issue. To reflect on yourself is always to look backward in time at what has occurred, the past. This is an observational act, and it is the issue with the empirical sciences in general, what is observed is always what has happened, and is therefore in the past.

There is another aspect of human existence, and living being in general, and this is the way that we relate to, and anticipate the future. We can access this to a small extend, through introspection (which is somewhat different from reflection) , but the problem is that introspection is still an observational position. Because of this, the knowledge that we get through introspection, concerning the way that we anticipate the future, is always through the lens of how this fundamental capacity to anticipate the future, affects us (alluding to human affections), as living physical bodies, rather than being able to see this capacity as a cause

So even in introspection we are always looking at the effects of that fundamental capacity to anticipate the future, and we cannot see its true nature as a cause. This is the very same issue we have with God. We know God through His effects, the reality of physical existence, but we cannot see Him directly as the cause, His existence is inferred. Therefore when we proceed toward understanding this form of causation, it is through logic alone, and the logic is only as reliable as the premises employed. Since our premises are derived from the observational, empirical knowledge, they are in a sense tainted, as backward looking, toward the past, so that they need to be inverted to be fully logical. This is why the physicalist who sees everything from the perspective of empirical knowledge, without inverting that knowledge to make it fully logical, i.e. consistent with the rational mind, will think that the idealist, or dualist has everything backward.

We know God through His effects, the reality of physical existence, but we cannot see Him directly as the cause, His existence is inferred. — Metaphysician Undercover

There’s is mystical union, theosis, which is said to be non inferential.

I still can't see why what we call phenomenal experience, qualia, etc, is not just a kind of simulation created by an interplay of sense data and memory. — Tom Storm

Illusions can only be experienced by a subject, which points back to cogito ergo sum.

Ehhhh....reason can’t tell us what not to think. It does a fine job of telling us how silly our thinking might be.

To say I think about myself thinking myself, is easy, considering myself thinking myself is merely the object the subject thinks about. It is, however, the premier transcendental illusion, insofar as me thinking about me thinking about myself, is the same as me thinking me that thinks. To say I think myself, is to have the subject that thinks, “I”, and the object thought about, “me”, be identical. And at least as far back as Aristotle, a subject cannot be an object, for all objects of thought are either phenomena or conceptions, which makes “me” as the object I think either derived from sensibility, in which case I must have an intuition of “me”, an impossibility in that all intuitions are sensuous, or derived from understanding, which is the source of conceptions. But that which is derived from understanding must always inhere with the categories, which, while transcendentally deduced, are only empirically employed. Hence, either way, the “me” that the “I” thinks, ends as being impossible to cognize, hence, a transcendental illusion, or, an example of one of the “Paralogisms of Pure Reason“, when it is claimed to be a legitimate object of thought.

“...From all this it is evident that rational psychology has its origin in a mere misunderstanding. The unity of consciousness, which lies at the basis of the categories, is considered to be an intuition of the subject as an object; and the category of substance is applied to the intuition. But this unity is nothing more than the unity in thought, by which no object is given; to which therefore the category of substance—which always presupposes a given intuition—cannot be applied. Consequently, the subject cannot be cognized. The subject of the categories cannot, therefore, for the very reason that it cogitates these, frame any conception of itself as an object of the categories; for, to cogitate these, it must lay at the foundation its own pure self-consciousness—the very thing that it wishes to explain and describe. In like manner, the subject, in which the representation of time has its basis, cannot determine, for this very reason, its own existence in time. Now, if the latter is impossible, the former, as an attempt to determine itself by means of the categories as a thinking being in general, is no less so....”

We can think thinking in general, the fundamental ground of speculative metaphysics; we just cannot think our own thinking.

Interesting, yes, and thanks for that.

Still, that we used to grunt over who gets to sit where around the campfire, but now we talk about parallel universes....doesn’t say much more than evolution is a natural occurrence.

Illusions can only be experienced by a subject, which points back to cogito ergo sum. — Wayfarer

Yes, but I wonder whether the subject itself is much more than a trick. :razz: But this does seem unlikely.

Yes, but I wonder whether the subject itself is much more than a trick. — Tom Storm

BUT, 'an illusion' can only be had by a subject. That is the whole point of Descartes' argumentWhich, you know, was actually anticipated by Augustine millenia beforehand in City of God.

In respect of those truths I have no fear of the arguments of the Academics. They say, ‘Suppose you are mistaken?’ I reply, ‘If I am mistaken, I exist.’ A non-existent being cannot be mistaken; therefore I must exist, if I am mistaken. Then since my being mistaken proves that I exist, how can I be mistaken in thinking that I exist, seeing that my mistake establishes my existence? Since therefore I must exist in order to be mistaken, then even if I am mistaken, there can be no doubt that I am not mistaken in my knowledge that I exist. It follows that I am not mistaken in knowing that I know. For just as I know that I exist, I also know that I know.

I understand W. I heard this from David Bentley Hart too when he was going after the implacable Dennett. I remain ambivalent.

.doesn’t say much more than evolution is a natural occurrence. — Mww

Is there anything much more that can be said? Talking about parallel universes has come about due to us technologically augmenting what we can see along with the evolution of mathematics. But there is an element of what I refer to below in my response to Tom Storm as well: Wittgenstein's " Philosophy is a battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of language". Note that the "by means of language" is ambiguous; it could be the battle is by means of language as well as the bewitchment. Reminds me of a line from a poem by Jim Morrison (although he was talking about impotence):
" Words got me the wound and will get me well
If you believe it ". from 'The Death of my Cock'

Yes, but I wonder whether the subject itself is much more than a trick. :razz: But this does seem unlikely. — Tom Storm

An artefact of the fallacy of misplaced concreteness? We think in terms of the dyad subject/ object, or the grasper and the graspable. "Bewitchment by means of language"? The Buddhists point to the illusion of self as being due to our being mired in dualistic thought. The illusion seems to be that there is a higher kind of thought that can tell us determinate truths about the nature of reality, beyond just saying that it is not what dualistic thought tricks us into thinking it is.

BUT, 'an illusion' can only be had by a subject. — Wayfarer

More apposite, I think, would be to say that a subject can only be had by an illusion.

Yeah sure. The Chesire Cat's grin.

Yes, that's along the lines I was thinking.

'Philosophy is a battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of language' - more likely on this forum it's a battle against the bewilderment of common sense by actual philosophy. :wink:

Perhaps, but I'm not an actual philosopher so all I have is language. :razz:

This is why the physicalist who sees everything from the perspective of empirical knowledge, without inverting that knowledge to make it fully logical, i.e. consistent with the rational mind, will think that the idealist, or dualist has everything backward. — Metaphysician Undercover

:up: Materialist philosophers believe that mind is the output of the fortuitous combination of material substances, which ought to be sufficient to invalidate the merits of any so-called 'arguments' they presume to offer.

The subject of the categories cannot, therefore, for the very reason that it cogitates these, frame any conception of itself as an object of the categories. — Mww

:up: What I said, although I think it's put a lot more succinctly in the Upaniṣad.

I can reflect on myself, I can think about what I think, but this problem of reflexivity remains, because, as I said, the subject who thinks is not an object, except for by inference. — Wayfarer

But if we gain enough knowledge via quantum neuroscience to describe the substance of subjectivity as object, essentially an identity between quantum resonances (superposition amongst entanglement) and qualia, it could be the case that we reach a point where nothing remains to be explained in terms of consciousness, exactly as nothing remains to be explained about the circulatory system in terms of physiology. This does not mean that quantum neuroscience will displace the significance of personal, subjective experience, though it would change intuitions about our own minds as psychological neuroscience has already, probably in even more profound ways.

I think the issue of whether absolute comprehension of the subject is possible proves philosophically interesting from the vantage point of metaphysical thought experiment, but somewhat trivial when we consider what knowledge really is. Understanding has always been a process of moving from less to more robust explanations. Models of the circulatory system are not identical to the experience of our pulse, but does anything exist within the domain of physiology that remains to be explained? The subject/object gap might persist, but by any realistic measure the explanatory gap in relationship to the circulatory system has been resolved, and the same might happen for consciousness by advancing neuroscience into the domain of quantum mechanisms.

Maybe the problem is you're conflating a comprehensive model of consciousness' substance with infallible mastery over our own subjective experience.

I know. Offering proof of agreement.

Philosophy is a battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of language" — Janus

Yep. In other words, in order to do philosophy proper.....stop talking.

Doesn’t mean we shouldn’t philosophize as best we can.

But if we gain enough knowledge via quantum neuroscience to describe the substance of subjectivity as object, — Enrique

But it's a matter of principle, Enrique. Building a violin is not a matter of having enough bricks. You can't build a violin from bricks. You're not thinking philosophically about this issue, you're treating it as an engineering problem. When you don't know what kind of problem your addressing, there's no use saying that others aren't addressing it.

Building a violin is not a matter of having enough bricks. You can't build a violin from bricks. — Wayfarer

A violin is a substance, just as consciousness is, and we can build both with appropriate knowledge of substance, as I've started to show might be achievable. I think that's a faulty analogy.

I can appreciate the difference between subjectivity and objectivity, but it should be an aesthetic value, not an epistemic value.

It’s the philosophical issue which is evading you. But it’s been a clarifying discussion and thank you for it.

I can appreciate the difference between subjectivity and objectivity, but it should be an aesthetic value, not an epistemic value. — Enrique

Can you expand a little? Aesthetic?

By aesthetics I mean both the appreciation of our own first-person experience and the ethic of respect for someone else's. This basically amounts to deference for forms of expression that vary by individual and culture. The episteme should be built from this raw material into an edifice that is compatible as much as possible with everybody. That is what objectivity is, and that's what rationality pursues. Multigenerational progress within this valuation schema will make society as ideal as possible.

Not especially enigmatic: this perspective is responsible for modern academia's prestige, beginning as Medieval universitas that were a few individuals gathering with a teacher in someone's house to our huge, worldwide education systems.