Granted we don't understand how [consciousness] happens, but the question being asked is perhaps an impossible one. If it is to be answered, I can't see how it could be anything but science that answers it. If it is unanswerable, then what conclusions could we draw from that? — Janus

Agreed. Or as I said in the "Mind as Uncaused Cause" thread:

"[We need] a completely different understanding of what terms like "physical," "mental," "subjective" et al. mean. The "hard problem," I think, has all the hallmarks of a question that has to have been stated incorrectly, though it's the best we can do at the moment . . . we shall see."

I would be astonished if consciousness as a phenomenon didn't turn out to be biological, and capable of scientific explanation. Subjectivity -- what it's like to be conscious -- may be a different matter.

The same distinction I made between the subjective and the merely personal. — Wayfarer

I have always wondered why Husserl still maintains the idea of a self, ego, (in your case subjectivity) in this domain of the transcendental. Especially when he relates it to intersubjectivity. Husserl would say that every man can have access to this domain of the transcendental, so what is true for one is true for the rest. Is there, again, the hope in a repetition? Something that repeats itself from man to man in which a particularity is neutralized, in this case the monadic ego. Just wonder...

I would be astonished if consciousness as a phenomenon didn't turn out to be biological, and capable of scientific explanation. Subjectivity -- what it's like to be conscious -- may be a different matter. — J

It may be a different matter, or perhaps not. "What it's like to be conscious'—is that not a manifold of perceptions and bodily feelings? Surely animals have such manifolds, different to ours of course, and neither we nor they are conscious of all the different aspects that go to making up what might be described as simply a sense of being there that we and they may be more or less aware of.

Consciousness should not be viewed naturalistically as part of the world, since consciousness is precisely the reason why there was a world there for us in the first place.

Great!

Sure, but there is no way to communicate about qualitative experiences in a way that is any different to what science, or any other intellectual field, does when it constructs knowledge and talks about things. You can't really go any deeper — Apustimelogist

Different sciences talk about things in different ways. Some rely on reductive causal abstractions, some begin from the contextually particular circumstances of persons in interaction. It’s not a question going into the ‘depths’ of an inner subjectivity but of staying close to the interactive surface of intersubjective practice and. it abstracting away from it with with claims to pure ‘objective’ description.

Everything science says is a statement of subjective experience. Your subjective experience sits smack dab in the very heart of scientific concepts, by way of the intersubjective interaction which transforms subjective experience into the flattened , mathematicized abstractions that pretend to supersede it, while in fact only concealing its richness within its generic vocabulary. — Joshs

Science attempts to explain how and why what we all observe is the way it is. It is unquestionable that we, and the other animals live in and experience the same world. Nonetheless how we experience the same things differs from individual to individual.

Science records individual observations of phenomena and attempts to understand them in ways which are consistent with the vast and coherent body of scientific knowledge and understanding which has evolved over at least hundreds of years,

I agree with you that science deals in generalities—pretty much everything we talk about does. Symbolic language is all generalizing, and individual experience is very particular. Symbolic language cannot discursively present the living particularity and dynamism of experience—it can only do that allusively via poetry and literature.

If we do not invent objects out of whole cloth, what are the constraints put upon the way we constitute them? Will the lifeworld allow anything? Or, said another way: If we did invent objects out of whole cloth, how would we be able to tell the difference between doing that and merely constituting them through intentional acts? What would mark one or the other description of what we do as being the correct one? — J

We can’t invent out of whole cloth.Wr invent what we want to invent, but what we want is already conditioned and informed by ways of understanding the world that we share with others. The fiction writer expresses aspects of the norms of their culture even when they think they are being utterly original. What is true and false, what ought to be and what ought not to be get their intelligibility from such larger partially shared patterns of meaningful practices. The world that we co-construct talks back to our inventions, offering constraints and affordances that are specifically responsive to those constructions.

Science attempts to explain how and why what we all observe is the way it is. It is unquestionable that we, and the other animals live in and experience the same world. Nonetheless how we experience the same things differs from individual to individual. — Janus

The world is not a static frame with objects in it, it is a process of reflexive self-change , and our sciences, arts and other forms of creative niche construction particulate in this process. Since this world continues to be what it is by changing with respect to itself, there is no ‘same’ world for any part of it to relate to. There are only partially shared patterns of action and interaction among its elements, including us humans. the aim of science is not to represent , but to change our interaction with it in ways that are intelligible and predicable.

. So now I can ask: Is the utterly formless, structureless flow nevertheless constraining, in some degree, of what we can constitute as an object or event? How is this flow not "whole cloth," as it were? — J

It is not as though this flow were devoid of textures, of consonances and dissonances. When we slap abstractions like self-identical spatial object and effluent causation over the flow, we are not producing such distinctions out of thin air, but forming idealizations out of the constants and affordances which emerge from our own activities.

Indeed. In this matter, we're in much the same position as 18th century scientists speculating about Democritean atoms. We don't even have a vocabulary in which to form the questions.

The world is not a static frame with objects in it, it is a process of reflexive self-change , and our sciences, arts and other forms of creative niche construction particulate in this process. — Joshs

I presume you meant 'participate'...anyway I haven't anywhere said the world is a static frame with objects. It becomes that in the discursive telling, though.

That's true, as I see it.

OK. I will think about this vocabulary of "textures," "consonances," "dissonances," and "affordances." These terms pose some obvious problems, as you are well aware. But I'll see if I can clarify them for myself before posing questions.

Different sciences talk about things in different ways. Some rely on reductive causal abstractions, some begin from the contextually particular circumstances of persons in interaction. It’s not a question going into the ‘depths’ of an inner subjectivity but of staying close to the interactive surface of intersubjective practice and. it abstracting away from it with with claims to pure ‘objective’ description. — Joshs

Sure, but then I don't understand what the issue is. We have a whole range and breath of intellectual fields, sciences, arts, humanities that generate knowledge or culture in different ways. So I don't really understand what the central issue is here.

No wonder Husserl expressed admiration for Buddhist principles. But I think more germane to the theme of ‘seeing truly’ are the opening sentences of the IEP article:

There is an experience in which it is possible for us to come to the world with no knowledge or preconceptions in hand; it is the experience of astonishment. The “knowing” we have in this experience stands in stark contrast to the “knowing” we have in our everyday lives, where we come to the world with theory and “knowledge” in hand, our minds already made up before we ever engage the world. However, in the experience of astonishment, our everyday “knowing,” when compared to the “knowing” that we experience in astonishment, is shown up as a pale epistemological imposter and is reduced to mere opinion by comparison.

‘Wisdom begins with wonder’ comes to mind.

Not much rescuing of the subject there, insofar as the subject still has the functional necessity for understanding the content the study of looking implicates. — Mww

Bernstein goes on to make an interesting point. He says that Husserl "fails to stress the dialectical similarity" between objectivism and transcendentalism — J

Yep.

But what does part 2 achieve in relation to part 1? It achieves a form of philosophy which more fully incorporates the subject. There are lots of targets involved in part 1, and phenomenology hits some and misses others. At the same time, I am not sure if Wayfarer targets certitude in the way that J does. That Husserl wants a foundation that will withstand historical vicissitudes may not be a problem at all, even for Wayfarer.

However, in the experience of astonishment, our everyday “knowing,” when compared to the “knowing” that we experience in astonishment, is shown up as a pale epistemological imposter and is reduced to mere opinion by comparison.

Well said, IEP!

I do often notice a general deficiency of wonder both in myself and among others, although at least I wonder why.

I do often notice a general deficiency of wonder both in myself and among others, although at least I wonder why. — Wayfarer

Have to become a lover or a poet.

Wonder. And the suspected deficiency thereof.

Might that be your bridge to the phenomenological “self-meditation”, by which one “….is able to liberate oneself from the captivation in which one is held by all that one accepts as being the case….”?

We’re getting there…..

Sure, but then I don't understand what the issue is. We have a whole range and breath of intellectual fields, sciences, arts, humanities that generate knowledge or culture in different ways. So I don't really understand what the central issue is here — Apustimelogist

The issue for me is that incorporation of the insights I mentioned can inform and transform the content of the hard sciences, just as it has already begun to have its effect on biology, neuroscience and cognitive psychology.

First of all, you are an excellent writer. — Fire Ologist

Thank you :pray:

Phenomenology can focus on the glass itself, which represents the subject, and is simultaneously colored by the “out there” as it vaguely reflects your own face on the inside of the window pane - the subjective imposed on the objective, in one simultaneous view. — Fire Ologist

That’s not quite it. The allegory of ‘me looking out the window’ is the self-awareness of the act of looking. A reflection of oneself in a pane of glass is not itself first-person - it is not a subject. That’s the key point. Remember, what this is addressing is the omission or exclusion of the subject so as to derive a view which is hoped to be, if not completely objective, then as near to it as possible.

I would be astonished if consciousness as a phenomenon didn't turn out to be biological, and capable of scientific explanation. Subjectivity -- what it's like to be conscious -- may be a different matter. — J

Suffice to say here that the reason I start with the ‘Cartesian division’ is to highlight the way in which modern science and also culture simply assumes the ‘self-other’ or ‘self-world’ division. That in itself is a kind of implicit stance or way of being in the world, fundamental to the modern mindset. Modern thought has been completely world-changing in its sweep, but Chalmers is saying, ahem, pardon me, but what about 'consciousness'? (by which I think he actually means 'being'.) Hence my often-quoted reference to Bernstein's 'Cartesian Anxiety'. There's a section devoted to that in The Embodied Mind.

The authors see the 'Cartesian Anxiety' as a fundamental tension in modern thought that arises from the legacy of Descartes' dualism ('the Cartesian division). This anxiety stems from the fear that if knowledge cannot be grounded on an absolute, objective foundation, then we are left with relativism, where knowledge can never be secure. The authors argue that this dichotomy—between a fully objective reality independent of our perception and a world where everything is merely a projection of the mind—is itself a false problem, one that has trapped Western epistemology in an unresolved crisis.

Their alternative is grounded in enactive cognition, which dissolves this anxiety by showing that knowledge is neither an objective grasp of an external reality nor a purely subjective construction. Instead it is an embodied process that arises through our interaction with the world. Cognition, in this framework, is not about representing a pre-given reality but about bringing forth a world through lived experience and structural coupling with the environment. This challenges the Cartesian assumption that knowledge must be either a mirror of reality or a complete fabrication of the mind.

The authors draw from Buddhist philosophy to support this perspective, particularly the idea of dependent origination, which suggests that there is no fixed, independent reality separate from our cognitive engagement ('everything arises due to causes and conditions'). The enactive, embodied approach to knowing moves beyond the paralysis of Cartesian Anxiety and recognizes that meaning emerges through our dynamic interactions rather than being imposed from an external or internal source.

However, in response to @Joshs remarks above, I'll note that the Buddhist principles in the book provide a normative dimension to the practice of enactivism which is often absent in contemporary approaches. Buddhism pursues a transformative insight, which has resonances with Husserl's epochē (which is made especially clear in the IEP article on the Phenomenological Reduction). This transformative element provides a kind of 'pole star' that differentiates it from moral relativism but without falling into dogmatism.

I don't understand what the issue is — Apustimelogist

I understand your perplexity. What drew me to philosophy was the quest for enlightenment. This is something that is often said to be 'spiritual' but that actually is a very over-used word and not especially helpful due to its rather Victorian connotations. Suffice to say that I've always had the intuition that there's something deeply the matter with the consensus understanding of the nature of existence. There is some vital insight that is missing or generally not appreciated or understood. For many, that need is addressed by religion, but I wasn't able to accept the answers provided by the religion I was brought up in (Anglican, although I retain elements of it.) I think philosophy proper, too, addresses this sense, albeit in a much more rigorous way. But if you go back to the figure of Socrates, he was, in his own way, a seeker of enlightenment, not that he would ever make direct pronouncements on where that lay. But I always felt that his emphasis on self-knowledge, and the characterisation of Socrates given as he faced his own death (in The Apology and also in The Phaedo) makes him a seminal figure in philosophical spirituality.

I think, overall, European philosophy and existentialism share more of that orientation than does English-speaking academic philosophy. Phenomenology was the wellspring of a great deal of that. I'll also acknowledge that this kind of philosophical spirituality is in the minority on the Forum.

A relevant essay might be Thomas Nagel's Secular Philosophy and the Religious Temperament. Nagel defines 'religion' as

the idea that there is some kind of all-encompassing mind or spiritual principle in addition to the minds of individual human beings and other creatures – and that this mind or spirit is the foundation of the existence of the universe, of the natural order, of value, and of our existence, nature, and purpose. The aspect of religious belief I am talking about is belief in such a conception of the universe, and the incorporation of that belief into one’s conception of oneself and one’s life.

Nagel is a professed atheist, and an analytical philosopher, but he does at least grasp the sense of what those like myself feel is missing in secular philosophy.

All that said, you may well still not see what the issue is, but I hope that clarifies a little what I think it is.

Further to the distinction between the structures of subjectivity and the merely personal, a snippet from the IEP article on Phenomenological Reduction (a very detailed and deep article, I will add, and one I’m still absorbing)

Thus, it is by means of the epochē and reduction proper that the human ‘I’ becomes distinguished from the constituting ‘I’; it is by abandoning our acceptance of the world that we are enabled to see it as captivating and hold it as a theme. It is from this perspective that the phenomenologist is able to see the world without the framework of science or the psychological assumptions of the individual.
— IEP

The same distinction I made between the subjective and the merely personal. — Wayfarer

For Husserl the objectivity of science is ensured by ideality as a repetition that transcends singular experience and can be repeated in different subjectivities (Ideas concerning a pure phenomenology and a phenomenological philosophy, Book I, § 18). The question is always how in an increasingly Cartesian enclosure there can be a communication and transmission for the ideality of meaning and truth to occur. According to this, the ideality of meaning must betray the principle of the principles of phenomenology, which is the pure evidence of meaning as something given as ideal once and for all immediately for consciousness.

Thanks all for the very constructive feedback, I’m away from desk for today look forward to further remarks and criticisms. — Wayfarer

No problema.

The issue for me is that incorporation of the insights I mentioned can inform and transform the content of the hard sciences, just as it has already begun to have its effect on biology, neuroscience and cognitive psychology. — Joshs

Hmm, I don't really recognize that at all, I don't think.

The Virtue of Detachment

As seen above, a scientific orientation often leads us to assume that objectivity is the sole criterion for what is real. This approach seeks to arrive at a view from which the subject is bracketed out or excluded, focusing exclusively on the primary and measurable attributes of objects and forces. In this framework, the subjective is relegated to derivative status. However, in so doing, scientific objectivity also excludes the qualitative dimension of existence — the reality of Being. This exclusion lies at the heart of the hard problem of consciousness, which is inextricably linked with the Cartesian divide. Scientific objectivity seeks to transcend the personal, but it does so at the cost of denying the reality of the subject¹⁰.

Since ancient times, both Eastern and Western philosophies have prized detachment as a virtue. It shares many characteristics with scientific objectivity but with a crucial difference. While both aim to transcend personal biases and arrive at an understanding of what is truly so, philosophical detachment seeks its goal through the transcendence of the ego, rather than by bracketing out the subjective altogether

To understand this distinction, we must first differentiate the subjective from the merely personal. The subjective refers to the structures of experience through which reality is disclosed to consciousness. In an important sense, all sentient beings are subjects of experience. Subjectivity — or perhaps we could coin the term ‘subject-hood’ — encompasses the shared and foundational aspects of perception and understanding, as explored by phenomenology. The personal, by contrast, pertains to the idiosyncratic desires, biases, and attachments of a specific individual. Philosophical detachment requires rising above, or seeing through, these personal inclinations, but not through denying or suppressing the entire category of subjective understanding.

Skeptics and Stoics

Husserl’s epochē has precursors in ancient philosophy. In ancient skepticism, particularly as practiced by Pyrrho of Elis, epochē refers to the suspension of judgment. It is the act of withholding assent to any belief or claim due to the insufficiency of evidence to determine its truth or falsity. By suspending judgment, Pyrrho and his followers sought to achieve ataraxia (tranquility) and freedom from conflicting emotions by recognizing the limitations of human knowledge and the potential for conflict in clinging to opinions. This pursuit of ataraxia — freedom from conflicting emotions and attachment to opinions — echoes the Stoic ideal of apatheia, which we now turn to examine.

Stoic philosophy, which is enjoying a cultural resurgence, is built on the foundation of apatheia — not mere indifference or callousness, but a state of calm equanimity that comes from freedom from irrational or extreme emotions (mood swings, in today’s language). The Stoics believed that apatheia was the essential quality of the sage, unperturbed by events and indifferent to the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. ‘Detachment,’ said one ancient worthy, ‘is not that you should own nothing, but that nothing should own you.’

The famous Meditations of Marcus Aurelius, a work that has been continuously in print since the advent of printing, exemplifies this philosophy. In it, Marcus Aurelius recommends avoiding indulgence in sensory pleasures, a form of ‘skilled action’ that frees us from the pangs and pleasures of existence. He claims that the only way we can be harmed by others is to allow emotionality to hold sway over us. Like other Stoics, Marcus Aurelius believed that an orderly and rational nature, or logos, permeates and guides the universe. Living in harmony with this logos, through rationality and temperance, allows one to rise above the individual inclinations of what might be deemed ‘good’ or ‘bad,’ as well as external circumstances such as fame and wealth. In cultivating these qualities, the Stoic sage enjoys equanimity and imperturbability in the midst of life’s troubles.

As Marcus Aurelius succinctly puts it:

You have power over your mind — not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength. (Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book VI, 8)

Through these shared themes of epochē and ataraxia we can trace a lineage of detachment — from the ancient skeptics, to the Stoics, to phenomenology — each offering a path to seeing beyond the limitations of subjective opinion.

----

10. Subject of David Chalmer’s famous 1996 essay, Facing Up to the Problem of Consciousness.

a scientific orientation often leads us to assume that objectivity is the sole criterion for what is real. This approach seeks to arrive at a view from which the subject is bracketed out or excluded, focusing exclusively on the primary and measurable attributes of objects and forces. In this framework, the subjective is relegated to derivative status. However, in so doing, scientific objectivity also excludes the qualitative dimension of existence — the reality of Being. — Wayfarer

I would prefer to say that scientific concepts are
themselves qualitative ( mass, motion, energy,’etc), and what characterizes them as leaving out what you call the subjective dimension is that these are peculiar kinds of qualities. They are flattened abstractions modeled as external to the subject. Bringing ourselves back into the picture returns scientific qualities back to the rich contexts of intersubjective relevance from which they were generated.

Stoic philosophy, which is enjoying a cultural resurgence, is built on the foundation of apatheia — not mere indifference or callousness, but a state of calm equanimity that comes from freedom from irrational or extreme emotions (mood swings, in today’s language). The Stoics believed that apatheia was the essential quality of the sage, unperturbed by events and indifferent to the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. ‘Detachment,’ said one ancient worthy, ‘is not that you should own nothing, but that nothing should own you.’ — Wayfarer

A detached attitude is not the absence of affect; there is no such thing as affectless awareness. All forms of rationality get their sense and meaning from an underlying affective stance. By elevating detachment, one is simply substituting one mood for others and then proclaiming it the supreme ‘rational’ value. Rather than aiming for detachment, one should do the opposite and immerse oneself as intricately as possible in the contextually shifting meanings that affective attunement to the world discloses. We need to get in touch with the bodily felt affective sense of situations in order to cope with a constantly changing world, and to creatively move forward. Detachment can be a useful preliminary means of preparing to experience the affective feel, tonality and meaning of a situation as a whole rather than getting stuck within one fixed conceptual detail of it.

I would prefer to say that scientific concepts are themselves qualitative ( mass, motion, energy,’etc), and what characterizes them as leaving out what you call the subjective dimension is that these are peculiar kinds of qualities. — Joshs

I see your point, but in the context of Galilean physics, the emphasis was certainly on the measurable attributes of bodies and its delineation from Aristotelian notions of purpose and teleology. Hence the wrangling in American philosophy about 'qualia' as the qualitative attributes of being.

Rather than aiming for detachment, one should do the opposite and immerse oneself as intricately as possible in the contextually shifting meanings that affective attunement to the world discloses. — Joshs

What would 'immersing yourself' mean in practice? I interpret detachment more in line with what is taught in mindfulness-awareness training - that you are very much aware of the swirl of feelings, sensations and thoughts, without becoming carried into them or away by them. An analogy often given is the 'lotus effect' whereby water forms droplets on the leaf surface rather than the leaf becoming saturated by them. As quoted in the OP, ‘Detachment is not that you should own nothing, but that nothing should own you.’

I should add that I can't claim to have reached any plateau of serene detachment, although I do see the point.