"Consciousness is not just a matter of having a subjective perspective within the world; it also includes the sense of occupying a contingent position in a shared world. From within this experiential world, we manage to conceive of the world scientifically, in such a way that it fails to accommodate the manner in which we find ourselves in it. Hence the real problem of consciousness is that of reconciling the world as we find ourselves in it with the objective world of inanimate matter that is revealed by empirical science.” — Matthew Ratcliffe’s paper
...where the self~world distinction is bridged from the start and so doesn't build in a dualistic Hard Problem. — apokrisis
The human mind is the product of four levels of semiosis. — apokrisis
Can you unsee the empty space around you that isn't empty at all? Can you unsee colors that scientists claim doesn't exist outside of your head? When scientists claim that the world isn't as it appears, what does that say about how "brains" (other minds) appear?Hardly. One is an easy mistake to make - a high level act of interpretation. The other is found to be constitutive of interpretations themselves.
You can unsee the mysterious figure. But you can't unsee the Mach bands. And having noted this interesting difference in your qualitative experience, you would then look to its separate causes. — apokrisis
I know plenty about brain function, but nothing about how brain functions create the conscious feeling of say, depth perception. How do neurons create the sensation of empty space?A textbook example of Dunning-Kruger in action. The less folk know about brain function, the more they feel confident the Hard Problem is a slam dunk. — apokrisis
It's the only point from which you know anything about the world, including brains. When you talk about brains and their functions you can't help but talk about them from your own starting point. A valid conclusion is that the world is not as it appears in the mind, but the mind is as the world is in the sense that it is not physical, but informational.Phenomenology ain't the destination even if it seems the starting point. It might correctly identify the embodied and intersubjective nature of human experience. But as an academic thread of thought, it wanders away into no clear conclusion. It winds up in PoMo plurality and "disclosure of ways of being. Nothing of any great interest results. — apokrisis
Semiosis doesn't seem like the sort of thing that could produce a mind. Semiosis seems like a product of the mind. — Daemon
Yeah, I never understood how scientists could say that processes are reversible - as if while the rest of the universe moves forward, some other processes could move backward in time. It seems to me that the whole universe would have to be moving backward, not just different processes within it. Time is the illusion. Change is fundamental. When something changes, there is no sense of forwards or backwards. Everything changes relative to everything else.That's the problem with apokrisis' metaphysics, it gets the temporal relation of cause and effect backward. But that's just the manifestation of a deeper problem, inherent within scientism in general, a complete misunderstanding of the nature of time. When physics represents fundamental processes as reversible, it's obvious that they are employing a misrepresentation of time. This is the "denial of the obvious" I refer to above. When we deny the obvious, we can produce a very simple model of reality which appears to avoid all the hard problems, such as the causal role of the free will of the individual. But then instead of having an unbridgeable gap within the theory (dualism), there is an incompatibility between the theory and the fundamentals of experience. The theory does not correspond with basic observation. This is the manifestation of a failure to respect the difference between past and future. — Metaphysician Undercover
Yeah, I never understood how scientists could say that processes are reversible - as if while the rest of the universe moves forward, some other processes could move backward in time. — Harry Hindu
Like I said, time is an illusion. They don't go forwards or backwards in time. They simply change.That's where virtual particles come in. Their name is a misnomer. They go back and forth in time all the time. Before real particles came into existence, there were only these VPs. — EugeneW
Like I said, time is an illusion — Harry Hindu
Like I said, time is an illusion. They don't go forwards or backwards in time. They simply change. — Harry Hindu
If everything is made of virtual particles, then what use is the term, "Virutal"? The virtual only makes sense in light of the real. It doesn't make sense to say that all particles are virtual.Virtual particles form a clock, — EugeneW
What does that even mean - as if time is a container in which things fluctuate? Fluctuation is a type of change. They don't fluctuate forwards and backwards in time (whatever "in time" even means). They simply change relative to each other.Why they don't go forwards or backwards in time? They even fluctuate in time. — EugeneW
What does that even mean - — Harry Hindu
Do you distinguish between consciousness and its contents? — unenlightened
Not really... It is more likely that consciousness is itself emergent in whatever capacity it is so emergent. "He is what he is," so to speak. You are you, singularly, in whatever productive form that happens to emerge. What do you think about that? — Garrett Travers
I am so, unbelievably disappointed in the responses contained in this thread. The endless dismissal of science with absolutely no support whatsoever is borderline sickening coming from a group of people that call themselves by the name of philosophy.... — Garrett Travers
Yeah, I never understood how scientists could say that processes are reversible — Harry Hindu
— Matthew Ratcliffe’s paper
In other words, a science that accounts for experiencing organisms needs a theory of semiosis. It needs to place the epistemic cut (between self and world) at the centre of its inquiry. It needs a general theory of modelling relations to create a meta-theory large enough to encompass both mind and matter, healing the Cartesian rift. — apokrisis
Material processes can never explain consciousness. They lack the vital element, namely consciousness itself.
Semiosis can be defined as "the process of signification in language or literature". — Daemon
Semiosis doesn't seem like the sort of thing that could produce a mind. Semiosis seems like a product of the mind. — Daemon
It sounds to me like you’re more sympathetic to Dennett’s heterophenomenology than to Ratcliffe’s critique of it. Would you agree? — Joshs
Well everyone accepts it is the kind of thing that could produce life. — apokrisis
Well everyone accepts it is the kind of thing that could produce life. Genes are the informational coding mechanism that brings "brute matter" alive, giving it shape and purpose. — apokrisis
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