HE'S AT IT AGAIN FOLKS

Is that intended to convey anything? Or is it just graffiti.

I think he's referring to DDHH-bashing or should it be called DDHH Syndrome? ;)

I have no idea what that is supposed to mean, either.

Post-apocalyptic man/horse porn?

He is, in Aristotle’s words, “maintaining a thesis at all costs.” — Thomas Nagel

Likewise, Nagel seems to maintain the question as unanswerable (or as if it would take some future science).

I think he's referring to DDHH-bashing or should it be called DDHH Syndrome? — John

What's DDHH?

Really? The four horsemen?

Ah, gotcha.

For what it's worth, I understand the appeal to reductionist accounts of mind like Dennett's (no spooky shit), but in general agree that these theories are ultimately insufficient and more often than not motivated, not by independently good reasons, but by a deeply-entrenched opinion that the world needs to be a certain way (prophetic reasoning masking as a smug "I told you so" attitude), while the jury is still out. It's good to see people like Nagel who are willing to challenge this dogma and entertain different views, even if I don't agree with them either.

I don't know what it could sensibly even mean to say that consciousness is an illusion. An illusion compared to what purported reality, exactly?

I have to say these kinds of questions seem utterly pointless to me.

(Y)

Dennett's career is based on that apparently outrageous claim, and he's clever enough to be tenured for it. And you may think it pointless, but it is not insignificant, a great deal hinges on it. I get criticized a lot for 'obsessing' about Dennett, but it's because he the most prominent advocate of philosophical materialism in modern culture. So if you want to show the shortcomings of philosophical materialism, the central weakness of its strongest exponent is a good place to start!

Dennett believes that our conception of conscious creatures with subjective inner lives - which are not describable merely in physical terms - is a useful fiction that allows us to predict how those creatures will behave and to interact with them.

Sounds like solipsism (a denial of other minds) to me...

If one actually reads Dennett, the "illusion" is actually the substance of mind, rather than conscious experiences themselves. What he's really trying to break down is the idea of the ineffable conscious subject, as if our presence as existing conscious beings was somehow inexplicable or nonsensical.

His point is the conscious subject, as envisioned under substance dualism, the subject that is of mind contrary to body, is an illusion. We, as conscious beings, as minds, exist and there is nothing controversial about this-- conscious states are just another state of the world, a instance of "body" (e.g. one has an arm, a leg an experience here, an experience there and so on).

What Dennett is trying to draw out is the controversy over "what is a likeness" is a red herring. There is no such thing as that substance of mind. Experiences exist, and felt as they are (i.e. have a "what is a likeness" ), but that this doesn't amount to a substance of mind and subject contrary to body. All it means is that, for example, a conscious experience of a bat exists and it among to living through a feeling.

That's all there is too it: a conscious subject existing and feeling in the world, born form various preceding states. No explanatory gap or hard problem. Conscious subjects are understood to exist.

So, you believe Dennett is doing nothing more ambitious than attacking substance dualism? Thinking along Spinozan lines:if extensa (materiality) and cogitans (consciousness) are two attributes of one substance, then one is no more nor less real than the other and they are simply real in different and incommensurable ways, no? Doesn't Dennett go against this idea, though, in saying that only what is material is real?

I don't find anything much to disagree with in what you say here, but, on the other hand,I doubt what you say reflects Dennett's views.

Regarding what you say about the "what-it-is-like-ness" of experience; I always thought it is strange to say that there is something it is like to experience anything, because I don't think experience is like anything else; or that any experience is really like any other except insofar as it involves the same object or circumstances or similar objects or circumstances. So, I would prefer to say that 'it is something to experience something' rather than 'it is like something to experience something'. Or perhaps it would be better just to say "experience is real" or simply "experience is", just as we might say "materiality is real" or simply "materiality is".

I mean, no one knows what materiality "really is" any more than anyone knows what experience "really is", as far as I can tell.

Dennett asks us to turn our backs on what is glaringly obvious—that in consciousness we are immediately aware of real subjective experiences of color, flavor, sound, touch, etc. that cannot be fully described in neural terms even though they have a neural cause (or perhaps have neural as well as experiential aspects). — Nagal

Here is the reasoning Dennett is trying to criticise.

There is a nasty equivocation here. Who said that consciousness was to be described in neural terms? Experience is not the brain. Colour, flavour, sound and touch are not states of brain. In describing any of these things, in having knowledge of the existence and causation of conscious state and subjects, the brain isn't even mentioned in the first place.

Right of the bat, the substance dualist beings in the reductionist equivocation of consciousness with with various other states of the world (e.g. particles, chemicals, brains) and uses it as a trustworthy account of how the description of consciousness works.

Supposedly, I can't, for example, describe the presence of an experience itself, the colour red, the existence of someone's happiness, etc.,etc. for those things can't be reduced to a description of some other state (e.g. particles, brains). According to the substance dualist, giving description of experience or conscious subject must mean talking about particles and brains.

Where does this leave us though? Well, seemingly without the ability to talk about the presence of consciousness. If, as the substance dualist speculates, description amounts to reductionism, then any account of conscious must be inadequate. Conscious subjects must be ineffable, outside any description or account of existing states, including all causality (hence the "hard problem" ), a subject of a different realm ("mind") which cannot be given by existence (body).

Substance of mind is a solution to a self-inflicted injury of the substance dualist. It's posited to fill out consciousness because, in the first instance, the substance dualist has already reduced it to other states. Since the substance dualist doesn't allow consciousness to exist or be caused on its own terms, they are left posing the illusionary (in Dennett's terms) subject of mind to account for the presence of consciousness.

I don't think he has the words or concepts to state it clearly, but insofar as this topic of consciousness as an illusion goes, yes. (I mean there's more to his philosophy, but I'm not talking about that here).

Consciousness is material-- i.e. states of the world. The "illusion" is consciousness is somehow outside this, in the subject of the substance of mind, such that experiences and conscious subjects are inexplicable.

In Spinozan terms, the "consciousness" we are talking about, our experiences, the existence of experiencing entities, the causation of these things, etc., is extensa.

Cogitans refers to logical significance, about meaning, about what is understood. It's not the presence of a conscious state but the logical expression of a state or idea.

So, for example, when I experience my screen, it is an instance of extensa-- this state of consciousness exists and is caused by the interactions of many other existing things-- and also cogitans-- my experience has a logical significance or meaning, regardless of whether it exists or not.

In Spinozan terms, the "consciousness" we are talking about, our experiences, the existence of experiencing entities, the causation of these things, etc., is extensa. — TheWillowOfDarkness

I disagree with you that this is Spinoza's view. He clearly states that extensa cannot have causal influence on cogitans, and cogitans cannot have causal influence on extensa. The two are, for him, attributes or expressions of the one substance. They are the one substance viewed from two different angles, so to say that they can causally influence one another would be a category error. Neural processes in the brain do not cause thoughts or consciousness, and thoughts or consciousness do not cause neural processes in the brain. They are one thing, which may be seen in those two ways, as thoughts/ consciousness or as neural processes, but which is not reducible to either one. In fact, according to Spinoza, substance has infinite attributes; of which we know only two, which means both that there are infinitely many attributes, and that the attributes are infinite. So materiality (extensa) and thought/ consciousness (cogitans) are in-finite.

... I didn't say they could influence each other.

My point was the "conciousness" spoken about in the context of states of our experiences and their causation is extensa.

The mistake was your equivocation of extensa with "not conciousness​" and cogitans with "conciousness." These terms don't refer to a mind/body split, but to the difference between being an existing state and a logical expression.

If the only attributes we know are extensa and cogitans, material and thought, then the question as to what to call mental (or even what might be thought of bodily) states that are not specifically thoughts, such as sensation, emotion, desire, volition, intuition, consciousness and so on, arises. I believe that Spinoza counts them collectively as modes of the attribute thought. It would seem odd to refer to them as modes of extension, because none of them can be coherently understood as extended.

I know Spinoza would not countenance a (substantive) "mind/body split" and this is precisely where his standpoint diverges form Descartes'. The point is that there is no (substantive) mind/body split, but that nonetheless some things are rightly viewed as mind, and others as body. Now as manifestations of substance they may be essentially the same, but that doesn't change the fact that a physical thing is not mental, or that a mental thing is not physical. They are the one thing, not as attributes, or their modes, but only as substance, in other words. To repeat the point, the mental and the physical are understood by Spinoza to manifest differently as modes of different attributes, but he does not understand them as being manifestations of different substances. I think you are still unclear on this very important distinction.

f one actually reads Dennett, the "illusion" is actually the substance of mind, rather than conscious experiences themselves. What he's really trying to break down is the idea of the ineffable conscious subject, as if our presence as existing conscious beings was somehow inexplicable or nonsensical. — TheWillowOfDarkness

That's about right. So what Dennett objects to is the idea that the subject of experience could be something that is, in principle, beyond the ken of the objective sciences. It is the very definition of scientism. He simply wants to treat subjects as objects, and can't fathom why this is regarded by other philosophers as both naff and offensive. In effect, he says that humans are not actually beings - this is why he is happy to say that they are simply 'moist robots' - but then he doesn't understand why humanists might have a problem with that. Especially because the kinds of problems they have aren't really states of the world.

Consciousness is material-- i.e. states of the world. — TheWillowofDarkness

Nonsense. Is it a state of Mars or Venus? Is it a state of the Milky Way galaxy? Can you see it through a telescope? Where would you go looking for it?

I get criticized a lot for 'obsessing' about Dennett, but it's because he the most prominent advocate of philosophical materialism in modern culture. — Wayfarer

He does not advocate, say, Searle's materialism.

It's not about the "observed." This issue goes to the logical significance of the subject. Substance dualism puts the concious subject beyond the world. Supposedly, my states of experience aren't instances of existence, without a coherent beginning or end in the world, without origin or source. In others words, substance dualism argues there are no concious subjects in the world. Experiences are beyond the world, there is no mind (i.e. concious entity) present or resulting from the world.

The mind of the substance dualist (the "illusion" under Dennett) is destructive to the subject. Why? It takes all relevance from our actions. When the mind is of the world, it forms states of ethical consquence. How one thinks and acts has an impact on others. What I do causes experiences in others, so in my thoughts and actions I am always impacting on others in the world.

Under substance dualism, there is no such responsibility. Since minds have nothing to do with the world, what I do cannot impact on them. I might as well bash someone's head into the ground repeatedly-- it's only a body after all. It can't cause anything in the mind of another, can't destroy any subject's mind in death. The fact this person stopped experiencing the world, doesn't see their family and friends, etc., is just a "mystery."

It's the substance dualist who denies being to the subjects of the world. Blinded by the absence of an "observed" conciousness, they want to treat experiencing subjects as something not of the world. They deny are presence as subjects of the world, as beings who are impacted by the actions and thoughts of others. In their hasty reducionism, the substance dualist has failed to consider that states of existence might sometimes be more than what appears to the eyes and ears.

When I say conciousness is material, I DO NOT mean some other state-( e.g. brains, particles, Venus or Mars). I mean that conciousness itself, the states of experience which don't manifest to sight, sound, touch, taste, etc., is material. Material states are not only what one sees through a telescope. Some material states are "nowhere."

What Dennett is trying to draw out is the controversy over "what is a likeness" is a red herring. There is no such thing as that substance of mind. Experiences exist, and felt as they are (i.e. have a "what is a likeness" ), but that this doesn't amount to a substance of mind and subject contrary to body. All it means is that, for example, a conscious experience of a bat exists and it among to living through a feeling. — TheWillowOfDarkness

It seems to me like this is only workable if one makes a wholly different notion of what "materialism" is supposed to entail. Dennett's not an eliminativist. The mind exists, but according to him it is not itself a different substance, it's just one of the many different sorts of specimens in the world. In which case, the material world has to be altered to account for this fact.

Our notion of what amounts to the material world, yes.

Dennett is sort of caught between his own rhetoric, which still sounds like eliminativism on many occasions, and the dogmatic substance dualists who are only interested in saying there is a problem with the existence of consciousness. He gets misread as arguing an outright contradiction ( i.e. "minds exists" "the experiencing subject is an illusion" ), by people such as Nagel and Wayfarer, for they are more interested in creating a problem of meaningless than what is being argued about consciousness.

..they are more interested in creating a problem of meaningless than what is being argued about consciousness. — TheWillowOfDarkness

I agree. It is as if consciousness would have to remain beyond explanation and current scientific principles, no matter what. No reconception, clarification, nor scientific discovery under currently accepted principles would be enough. But who are they to know?

That chemicals should magically form a consciousness is a story that befits a truly creative mind. That such same chemicals should move on to create illusions is magical realism at is finest. That someone could figure out how to make a good living off such myth-telling is pure genius in the style of Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

Dennett's not an eliminativist. — darthbarracuda

He most certainly is.

Dennett or Nagel? And at what?

Reading a book on the science of consciousness right now by Antti Revonsuo, and this bit stood out (from the chapter covering the philosophical mind-body problem):

"The first person's point of view is not accepted as a valid source of data in the physical sciences, therefore it is possible to argue that subjective experiences are not a part of the overall scientific data that need to be explained by the sciences. Viewed from the third-person's objective point of view, consciousness (as data) does not exist, only behavior and brain activity do; therefore it is easy, perhaps even necessary, to eliminate consciousness from science as an erroneous folk-psychological hypothesis.

Then again, the opponent of eliminativism can argue that we need not accept the third-person's point of view of the physical sciences as authoritative or all-inclusive. If consciousness, whose very existence - as Descartes showed - is beyond any doubt whatsoever, can nevertheless be denied by some type of science, then there is something seriously wrong with the science rather than with consciousness. The task of science is to faithfully describe and explain the world: how the world works and what sort of entities it consists of. If there are undeniable subjective phenomena in the world that cannot be captured through the objective standpoint of the physical sciences, then we need to revise the scientific standpoint so that it will not be blind to consciousness anymore. We need a science that admits and takes seriously the reality of the inner subjective world. The least science can do is to stop pretending that such a reality does not exist."

This seems applicable to issues outside of the one at present.