Apparently, quite a few deep thinkers have concluded that human Consciousness is an impenetrable mystery. David Chalmers famously called it the "Hard Problem", and he is not even on the list below*1. I don't know what Chomsky's motivation was, but he explains his reasoning in the extensive article linked by Manuel in another thread : https://web.ics.purdue.edu/~drkelly/ChomskyMysteriesNatureHidden2009.pdf1. Are there "deep" arguments that I don't understand?
2. What is Chomsky's real motivation for adopting mysteryism?
3, Is Chomsky really a mysterianist, or he hides something? — Eugen
2. What is Chomsky's real motivation for adopting mysteryism? — Eugen
He’s saying there’s not been a technical notion of matter/material since the 17th century, so the mind/body problem can’t be answered (since we don’t know what “body” is). — Mikie
*1. New mysterians : — Gnomon
Reality, existence, consciousness, and many other things have no clear definition or "technical notions". Still... — Eugen
I'm sure Nagel shouldn't be on it. — Wayfarer
avoiding the topic in an obvious way. — Eugen
I have only a superficial knowledge of the New Mysterian appellation. So I'll let you argue with the Wiki editors, and Dr. Owen Flanagan about what names should be on the list of thinkers, who have punted on the quest to answer the ancient Mind/Body question. The only one I know something about is polymath Martin Gardner, who labelled himself as a Mysterian*1 in a Skeptical Inquirer article many years ago. But then, he was actually referring to the God question : essentially admitting to being an Agnostic instead of an Atheist.I see that list is drawn from Wikipedia. I don't trust the provenance of that article and I'm sure few of those names would be willing to be described with that name. I'm sure Nagel shouldn't be on it. The only one who willingly adopted it was McGinn afaik.
Besides what would it be to 'explain' consciousness? The whole idea might be a red herring. Of course it is true that psychology is not a precise science, but then you're dealing with the subject of experience, not objects whose properties can be precisely specified. — Wayfarer
A Russian guy once told me: "You know what your problem is? You don't have enough problems." — frank
Like the dog never being able to use a laptop, there will be things we will never be able to do or understand. — Manuel
But there's no reason why another, intelligent being somewhere else in the universe would have any problem understanding how matter thinks or have any issues contemplating gigantic distances. — Manuel
The failure of the mechanistic model, he points to gravity, means the failure of intelligibility. We do not know what is going on, how it all works together. — Fooloso4
Besides what would it be to 'explain' consciousness? — Wayfarer
The term physical is just kinda like an honorific word, kinda like the word 'real' when we say 'the real truth'. It doesn't add anything, it just says 'this is serious truth'. So to say that something is 'physical' today just means 'you gotta take this seriously'. — Noam Chomsky
What would we expect from an explanation? It seems to me the motive of a great deal of the theorising about consciousness is to dispell any lingering notion that it is something mysterious or inexplicable. After all it's right at the centre of your existence, so the suggestion that something this obvious and fundamental might be at the same time irreducible to the categories of the natural sciences can't be allowed to stand. So I suspect that a lot of attempts at explanation are motivated by that itch. — Wayfarer
:up:I dispute that there is anything that can be described as purely or only physical. — Wayfarer
Who can say ahead of time what we can manage ? How many times must the 'impossible' be achieved to make us doubt our doubt of ourselves ? Wittgenstein used going to the moon as an example of the impossible once. It was 'obviously' impossible, right ? — plaque flag
If such a being exists, it would know. Not a semantic issue. Dogs understand/know/are familiar with smells we cannot, that's just a biological fact. Same with Cats and night vision. — Manuel
What can we mean by saying Neptunians understand something like "how matter thinks" unless we also understand ? — plaque flag
We know it can, but we don't see how it's possible. — Manuel
So do I, and, for basically the same reason, I also dispute the purely or only mental — plaque flag
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