I don't agree. Why would you say that? Do you really believe Dennett would deny that being awake and being asleep are different states? He's not so stupid. — Janus

I don't know how to say this, but a quote from Zen Buddhism and one Zhuangzi should do the trick. $\downarrow$

Before one studies Zen, mountains are mountains and waters are waters; after a first glimpse into the truth of Zen, mountains are no longer mountains and waters are no longer waters; after enlightenment, mountains are once again mountains and waters once again waters. — Dōgen

Now I do not know whether I was then a man dreaming I was a butterfly, or whether I am now a butterfly, dreaming I am a man. — Zhuangzi

Dennett does not see consciousness as an illusion; he sees the common notion of consciousness, the "folk" conception of consciousness, as being an illusion. — Janus

So that whenever he's challenged, that's what he says - ducks behind a wall of academic jargonese and hand-waving and baffles the punters. 'Oh I don't mean that consciousness is an illusion'. But that is exactly what he believes. He believes he explained it in a book called Consciousness Explained. Why else have a title like that? Why did his critics call it 'Consciousness Explained Away'? Galen Strawson said he should be sued for misleading advertising! I don't know why you keep saying this about Dennett, it's completely mistaken. He’s a lumpen materialist, he believes that everything you think is just the snap crackle and pop of neurons being driven by the selfish gene.

The elusive subjective conscious experience — the redness of red, the painfulness of pain — that philosophers call qualia? Sheer illusion.

Human beings, Mr. Dennett said, quoting a favorite pop philosopher, Dilbert, are “moist robots.”

“I’m a robot, and you’re a robot, but that doesn’t make us any less dignified or wonderful or lovable or responsible for our actions,” he said. “Why does our dignity depend on our being scientifically inexplicable?” — NY Times

I’ve asked you before - do you see the answer to that rhetorical question? Because I can see it as clear as day. The idea that through scientific analysis, you can arrive at a complete understanding of the human - of any human - is a practical definition of ‘scientism’, because humans are subjects of experience, not objects of scientific analysis. Dennett’s scientism can’t explain anything that can’t be accommodated by his idea of the objective sciences, so it has to be eliminated. It’s as simple as that. He spells it out, says it in no uncertain terms, with no room for ambiguity.

I know I keep saying this, but it’s exasperating that a well-read intelligent thoughtful philosophical person can’t see it.

Dennett does not see consciousness as an illusion; he sees the common notion of consciousness, the "folk" conception of consciousness, as being an illusion. — Janus

:up:

Walking is not as real as legs that do the walking.

Consciousness/mind, just like walking, is an activity. To think that consciousness/mind is an object, like legs are, is a mistake; this error gives warrant to Dennett's claim that consciousness is an illusion.

I know I keep saying this, but it’s exasperating that a well-read intelligent thoughtful philosophical person can’t see it. — Wayfarer

Do you really believe Dennett doesn't enjoy his life, doesn't enjoy music, nature, poetry and whatever? If he does enjoy life, then what is he missing? When he says that the redness of red, and the painfulness of pain are illusions he is not saying that red is an illusion or pain is an illusion. There is a nuance there which I think you fail to see, probably because you haven't read the man himself. Perhaps you simply can't bring yourself to read Dennett; it might be a waste of time for you; but no more, and probably ;less, of a waste of time than leveling inapt criticisms at him. I think you just have a polemical antagonism to Dennett "and his ilk" and can't see beyond it. I think it is good, and very useful, to read those we find ourselves disagreeing with, more than it is to read those we find confirmation of our own beloved ideas in.

That said, there is no problem with disagreeing with Dennett. I don't share all of his conclusions myself. But the issue is not one of 'the good guys on one side and the bad guys on the other' as you seem to be framing it. The disagreement is over possible ways of interpreting the human situation, ways none of which can be definitively tested; so it comes down to being more of a matter of taste than anything else in my view. When it comes to that, to matters of taste, surely you are not going to demonize someone because they don't think much of Bob Dylan as a poet, are you?

Before one studies Zen, mountains are mountains and waters are waters; after a first glimpse into the truth of Zen, mountains are no longer mountains and waters are no longer waters; after enlightenment, mountains are once again mountains and waters once again waters. — Dōgen

That's one I've quoted myself on these forums more than a few times. I'm a fan of Dogen, even though I don;t agree with everything he says. That one I do agree with and I have used it as an analogy with the transition from naive realism, to idealism and back to a sound critical realism.

It's tempting to treat qualia as fundamental, so that maybe existence is even 'made' of/from qualia, but I think the concept is problematic if not paradoxical.

C.S. Peirce introduced the term quale in philosophy in 1866.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qualia

There are recognizable qualitative characters of the given, which may be repeated in different experiences, and are thus a sort of universals; I call these "qualia." But although such qualia are universals, in the sense of being recognized from one to another experience, they must be distinguished from the properties of objects. Confusion of these two is characteristic of many historical conceptions, as well as of current essence-theories. The quale is directly intuited, given, and is not the subject of any possible error because it is purely subjective. — CS Peirce

"The quale is directly intuited, given, and is not the subject of any possible error because it is purely subjective."

If it's impossible to be wrong, it's impossible or just meaningless to be right also.

Along these lines, 'being-in-the-world' and 'being-with-others-in-language' seem to be 'equiprimordial.' Wittgenstein spoke of an urge to thrust against the limits of language. Can we hope for more than an objective correlative?

The only way of expressing emotion in the form of art is by finding an “objective correlative”; in other words, a set of objects, a situation, a chain of events which shall be the formula of that particular emotion; such that when the external facts, which must terminate in sensory experience, are given, the emotion is immediately evoked. — TS Eliot

There's no way for Eliot to know that he's getting 'the' emotion he wanted, not if emotion is (misleadingly) understood to point to an inaccessible inwardness as opposed to a cluster of related practical significations.

Yet I think I know what people want to say with 'qualia.' It's part of that urge.

Finally, the wiki page on qualia features a red square, as if that could successully point to the quale of red. Does that sound right? Or does it not assume a singular quale for red? Not only without any evidence but in a context of the impossibility of evidence that's guaranteed by the concept/grammar of the word 'qualia.'

Walking is not as real as legs that do the walking.

Consciousness/mind, just like walking, is an activity. To think that consciousness/mind is an object, like legs are, is a mistake; this error gives warrant to Dennett's claim that consciousness is an illusion. — Agent Smith

If minds are brains, then minds are nouns.

Do you really believe Dennett doesn't enjoy his life, doesn't enjoy music, nature, poetry and whatever? If he does enjoy life, then what is he missing? — Janus

I have no doubt, but it has nothing whatsover to do with his philosophy (so called.) That is one of the many blatant contradictions about the man - affable, genial, concerned, friendly, but according to his philosophy, none of these qualities have any basis in reality, they're convenient fictions only. You're attributing nuance to him only because, for some reason, you seem to think he has something important to say, when, if he's important, it's as a warning, like, 'DON'T GO THERE'.

Dennett also likes to argue against philosophers of mind who still believe that human consciousness arises from an immaterial substance like a rational soul or in an irreducible free will which gives human beings the power to choose independently of material causation. Nonsense, says Dennett, we are complex machines, and the mind is just the motion of brain cells and neurological processes that will one day be replicated by the fancy robots of Artificial Intelligence. We may still speak of human "souls," Dennett argues mischievously, as long as we understand them to be made up of tiny robots. And we may still speak of "free will" as long as we mean the way our genetically programmed selves react to the environment rather than the rational choice of ultimate ends.

None of this would be very surprising if Dennett followed his Darwinian materialism to its logical conclusions in ethics and politics. After all, scientific materialists have been around for a long time, attacking religion, miracles, immaterial causes, and essential natures. Think of Lucretius and his poem about the natural world consisting of atoms in the void, or Hobbes's mechanistic universe of "bodies in motion," or B. F. Skinner's "behaviorism," Ayn Rand's "objectivism," E. O. Wilson's "sociobiology," Darwin's Darwinism, and even Nietzsche's "will to power." But all of these materialist debunkers of higher purposes and soul-doctrines drew conclusions about morality that were harsh and pessimistic, if not cynical and amoral. Lucretius saw that a universe made up of atoms in the void was indifferent to man, and he counseled withdrawal from the world for the sake of philosophical "peace of mind"-letting the suffering and injustices of the world go by, like a detached bystander on the seashore watching a sinking ship, and treating the spectacle of people dying with equanimity as impersonal bundles of atoms in the void. Hobbes, Skinner, Rand, and Nietzsche saw humans as essentially selfish creatures of pleasure, power, and domination who in some cases can be induced by fear and greed to lay off killing each other. Darwin never spelled out the moral implications of his doctrine, but presumably he could not have objected to the strong dominating the weak or to nature's plagues and disasters as ways of strengthening the species. Herbert Spencer's Social Darwinism-the survival of the fittest in a competitive world-is a logical conclusion of Darwinian natural science.

But such conclusions are alien to Daniel Dennett. He is a Darwinian materialist in his cosmology and metaphysics while also strongly affirming human dignity as well as a progressive brand of liberalism in his ethics and politics. Herein lies the massive contradiction of his system of thought.

What's happening is that Western culture is still living off the remnants of its decaying Christian ethos. It's that which underwrites Dennett's genial liberalism, even while he has spent most of his career attacking its foundations. If he really lived out of what he believes is the case, he would be nothing like the genial bearded fellow of his persona. And he even acknowledges that!

Daniel Dennett [takes] a different view. While it is true that materialism tells us a human being is nothing more than a “moist robot”—a phrase Dennett took from a Dilbert comic—we run a risk when we let this cat, or robot, out of the bag. If we repeatedly tell folks that their sense of free will or belief in objective morality is essentially an illusion, such knowledge has the potential to undermine civilization itself, Dennett believes. Civil order requires the general acceptance of personal responsibility, which is closely linked to the notion of free will. Better, said Dennett, if the public were told that “for general purposes” the self and free will and objective morality do indeed exist—that colors and sounds exist, too—“just not in the way they think.” They “exist in a special way,” which is to say, ultimately, not at all.

So please stop telling me there's 'something I don't understand' or 'something I'm not seeing' here. I see it as clear as day.

the issue is not one of 'the good guys on one side and the bad guys on the other' as you seem to be framing it. — Janus

It's exactly that. Scientific materialism is a corrosive philosophy, it degrades civilization and human culture everywhere it comes into contact. As Dennett himself says it's a 'universal acid' that eats through everything it touches (including, emphatically, philosophy). So somehow, we're expected to entertain it as a possible theoretical outlook. 'Oh, good ol' Dan, he's just like Santa Claus. Mischeivous twinkle in the eye.'

How is Dennett's philosophy "corrosive"? If holding such a philosophy hasn't turned him into an unfeeling robot, or someone with no enjoyment in life, then what is the problem with it?

If you are simply not interested in it, then fine, don't read his work or comment on it (which, respectively, you haven't and therefore shouldn't anyway). If you want to critique it then study it and attempt to refute it, point by point.

Your characterizations are not philosophical critique, but childish expressions of your strawman thinking and unfounded distaste in my view. Your personal feelings of distaste are not philosophically interesting.

Here's an example:

If he really lived out of what he believes is the case, he would be nothing like the genial bearded fellow of his persona. And he even acknowledges that!

Daniel Dennett [takes] a different view. While it is true that materialism tells us a human being is nothing more than a “moist robot”—a phrase Dennett took from a Dilbert comic—we run a risk when we let this cat, or robot, out of the bag. If we repeatedly tell folks that their sense of free will or belief in objective morality is essentially an illusion, such knowledge has the potential to undermine civilization itself, Dennett believes. Civil order requires the general acceptance of personal responsibility, which is closely linked to the notion of free will. Better, said Dennett, if the public were told that “for general purposes” the self and free will and objective morality do indeed exist—that colors and sounds exist, too—“just not in the way they think.” They “exist in a special way,” which is to say, ultimately, not at all. — Wayfarer

For fuck's sake! He acknowledges it? The quoted passage is not Dennett speaking. You are making yourself look like a joke, Wayfarer.

How is Dennett's philosophy "corrosive" — Janus

Exactly as he explains in Darwin's Dangerous Idea.

point by point. — Janus

There's only one point at issue - the insistence that matter has intrinsic reality. When that's seen through, the rest collapses.

You are making yourself look like a joke, Wayfarer. — Janus

You're talking to yourself man.

Exactly as he explains in Darwin's Dangerous Idea. — Wayfarer

Oh, have you read the actual work? Can you cite some text from it to support your contention?

There's only one point at issue - the insistence that matter has intrinsic reality. When that's seen through, the rest collapses. — Wayfarer

What does "intrinsic" mean there? Does it make the question different than asking whether matter is real? If so how? Please explain.

On the other hand, if I accept for the sake of the argument that the question is meaningful, and is different than merely asking if matter is real, and has an answer that is true or false, then please explain how we would go about finding out whether matter has intrinsic reality.

If it cannot be demonstrated whether matter has intrinsic reality or not, then it becomes a matter of opinion. In that case some will believe it does and others that it doesn't. Why would it be corrosive if those who believe it does do not seek to force or require others to share their view? Or vice versa? You seem to require that others must share your view or else "they just don't get it". So I think your attitude is divisive in that you don't believe a rational person could hold an opinion different to yours; if so, does it not then follow that it is (socially) corrosive in that would seek not to allow for diversity of opinion?

You're talking to yourself man. — Wayfarer

No, I'm talking to you. The question is whether you will take heed or not. Past experience tells me you will not.

Can you cite some text from [Darwin's Dangerous Idea] to support your contention? — Janus

Love it or hate it, phenomena like this [organic molecules] exhibit the heart of the power of the Darwinian idea. An impersonal, unreflective, robotic, mindless little scrap of molecular machinery is the ultimate basis of all the agency, and hence meaning, and hence consciousness, in the universe. — Daniel Dennett, Darwin’s Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meanings of Life (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1995), 202-3.

Everything Dennett writes is an elaboration of that theme.

What does "intrinsic" mean there? — Janus

Intrinsic: 'belonging naturally; essential.
"access to the arts is intrinsic to a high quality of life"

Materialism claims that matter is intrinsically real and that all else is derived from it.

Idealism claims that matter is not intrinsically real but that (for example) reality is imputed to it by an observing mind (although the specifics depending on the school of idealism).

The question is whether you will take heed or not. Past experience tells me you will not. — Janus

It depends on whether I judge an objection to be meaningful.

So I think your attitude is divisive in that you don't believe a rational person could hold an opinion different to yours; if so, does it not then follow that it is (socially) corrosive in that would seek not to allow for diversity of opinion? — Janus

Only in respect of whether Dennett's philosophy is valid.

The disagreement is over possible ways of interpreting the human situation, ways none of which can be definitively tested; so it comes down to being more of a matter of taste than anything else in my view. — Janus

So it's a matter of subjective opinion, once again. We've been there a hundred times already.

If minds are brains, then minds are nouns. — RogueAI

That would be correct, except mind is brain activity. It (the mind) isn't an object like a mouth is; instead, like talking is to mouth, mind is to brain.

Everything Dennett writes is an elaboration of that theme. — Wayfarer

But so what? He's not saying humans are mindless or without meaning. If humans are mindful and meangful what would it matter if matter were not?

Materialism claims that matter is intrinsically real — Wayfarer

I know what 'intrinsic' means. I want you to tell me what 'intrinsically real' means. Materialists say that matter existed prior to humans, that is that matter is not dependent on us or our perceptions. Is that what you mean?

Only in respect of whether Dennett's philosophy is valid. — Wayfarer

His philosophy is valid if it is consistent with its premises. I haven't noticed any glaring inconsistencies in Dennett's works. This is the criterion of validity for any philosophy. Dennett's premise is that matter exists independently of humans; matter either exists independently of us and our perceptions or it doesn't. No one really knows the answer, and I don't think there is any way to demonstrate the truth regarding that question. So people's opinions fall on one side or the other. What would you expect? That everyone should agree? Do you want to claim that people who beleive one thing or the other are therefore morally better and happier people?

Subjective opinion, once again. — Wayfarer

What more could it be? Or if there is an objective metaphysical truth how could it be demonstrated to be so? This is the question you can never answer despite your wishful assertions.

I haven't noticed any glaring inconsistencies in Dennett's works. — Janus

Despite them having been pointed out in clear English.

:roll: