Consciousness : Quality or state of being aware especially of something within oneself — Basko

I'm not so sure about this definition. What entails "oneself"? What is something that one can be aware of within oneself? What is the difference of being aware of something within oneself and being aware of something outside of oneself? In other words, what is the boundary of oneself?

I can be conscious of something, having some qualitative experience and at the same time not being aware of my conscious experience, therefore i don't realize, know or show persception of my conscious activities ..
I am not aware but i experience - this being said, the "I" lose it's meaning.
It's like experiencing something without realization of experiencing and without realization of oneself identity. — Basko

If "I" loses its meaning then what does the experiencing? I think what you are talking about is the difference between being self-aware, or self-conscious, and being aware of everything else. You turn your awareness back on itself and in doing so, you become self-aware.

No, because both of those can be defined functionally and performed by a machine. It leaves out the subjective experiences. — Marchesk

The brain is a machine. If you can't explain the relationship between your brain and your subjective experiences, then how can you declare so confidently that machines don't have subjective experiences? What is a subjective experience - a soul? It seems a bit religious to keep declaring things like this - as if human's and their brains are special machines that have this extra quality about them that other machines don't have.

Subjectivity, qualia, what it's like, color, pain, imagination, etc. — Marchesk

How does all of this not entail attention and awareness? How can one be aware and attending particular things without subjectivity?

Much of your post seems to be mischaracterization of the problem and/or a poor choice of terms.

Take your first sentence for instance:

The hard problem also has to do with the fact that we are trying to understand the very thing we are using to understand anything in the first place. — schopenhauer1

What do you mean by "understand"? How do you understand something you use, if not by using it?

Consciousness is the very platform for our awareness, perception, and understanding, so this creates a twisted knot of epistemology. Indeed, the map gets mixed into the terrain too easily and people start thinking they know the hard problem when they keep looking at the map again! — schopenhauer1

What do you mean by "map"? I can use the map to get around the world because the map is about the world. Also, the map is part of the world!

We cannot help it, as a species with language. Language itself is a form of secondary representation on the terrain. We largely think in and with language, so to get outside of that and then reintegrate it into a theory using language is damn near impossible. For example, let's take a computer. The very end result is some "use" we get out of a computer. The use is subjective though. Someone can use the computer as a walnut cracker, and it would still get use out of it. The users experience and use of the computer is what makes the computer the computer. Otherwise it is raw existence of a thing. A computer is nothing otherwise outside of its use to the user. — schopenhauer1

What do you mean by "use"? How can you use something without knowing, or understanding, anything about it? Could you use a pillow as a walnut cracker? Using a computer instead of a pillow for cracking walnuts says something about the nature of walnuts, pillows and computers, no?

Then, let's go down to the other end to its components. Computers are essentially electrical signals/waves moving through electrical wires- moving on/off signals. These electrical signals are just impulses of electricity through a wire. That is it. However, because we quantized and represented things into a MAP of 0 and 1, and further into logic gates that move information to make more quantified information, we now have a way of translating raw existing metaphysical "stuff" into epistemically represented information. Every time we look at any piece of raw stuff, we are always gleaning it informationally. — schopenhauer1

An analogy would be digitizing an analog signal. Our brains seem to compartmentalize the stream of information from the environment. The mental objectification of "external" processes and relationships makes it easier to think about the world to survive in it.

Some ways that try to answer the hard problem is to call consciousness raw "stuff" rather than information (panpsychism or some sort of psychism). It is a place holder for simply metaphysical "existing thing" that we then represent as "mind stuff" or "mentality" or "quale". Other than panpsychism, which is just a broad view of "mind stuff", there is not much else one can do to answer the hard problem, because it will ALWAYS have a MAP explanation of the terrain. What is an electrical signal if not simply represented as a mathematical equation, an on/off piece of data, a diagram, an output of usefulness (the use of a computer discussed earlier)? The raw stuff of existence can never be mined. The terrain is always hidden by the map. — schopenhauer1

This is kind of what I was wanting to get at when talking about the monistic solutions. If the rest of reality is really made of the same "stuff" as the mind, then I don't see a mind-body problem. I don't see a reason to be using terms like "physical" and "mental" to refer to different kinds of "stuff", rather than different kinds of arrangements, processes, or states, of that "stuff". This is also saying that the experiential property isn't necessarily a defining property of the "stuff", rather a particular arrangement of that "stuff". So you can have objects without any experiential aspect to them. In other words, realism can still be the case and the world and mind still be made of the same "stuff".

Physicalism and Panpsychism aren't really saying anything different. They are both saying that the mind and world are made of the same "stuff" that can interact. There are simply different kinds of arrangements, processes, or states of this "stuff". The only difference is what they call the "stuff" - "physical" or "mental".

Try this: what exactly does it mean to say that an object exists mind-independently, apart from the obvious "It's there when no one is around". We know what it means to say an object we perceive is there; we can see it. touch it and so on. We don't know what it means for an unperceived object to be there: the best we can say is that if we were there we would be able to see it, touch and so on. But that really amounts to saying nothing at all outside of the context of perception. — Janus

What do mean "what is your brain like or where does your mind go when you are alone in a dreamless sleep"?

Can you explain what you think the relevance of this question (these questions?) is to what you have quoted me as saying above?

I'll hazard an answer in any case: for me my brain is not like anything, because I am not directly aware of its existence; I believe it exists via secondhand accounts that tell me that if my skull were opened there wold be brain to be found there. — Janus

If you're questioning an object's existence independent of some perception of it, then I ask you what your mind is like when no one is perceiving it. How is it that your mind can cease to exist and then come back retaining its memories and sense of self? Notice that I haven't used the word, "brain". Your mind is an object in the world that others can perceive. If we couldn't then how did it ever come to pass that someone made the claim that other minds exist? You might say that I don't know that other minds exist, but unfortunately solipsism brings its own baggage that make it untenable.

Why can I still see your body when you are asleep and dreaming, that seems to behave as if you are having a dream? If dreaming were a different reality, then why is your body still here in this one and why would I see you acting out your dream in this world (talking in your sleep, moving your arms and legs, sleep walking, etc.)? Your brain in this world still has a hold of your consciousness in some way even when you mind is off in another. By looking at your brain, I can get a clue of whether or not you are using sensory data supplied by the senses or the brain itself.

I haven't said we can't observe things; we do it all the time. I haven't said we cannot "get at" (if by that you mean 'perceive') objects, either, so I don't know where this is coming from. — Janus

Well then, what do you mean by "observe" and "perceive"? Where is the perception relative to the perciever?

Would it make sense to continue to call them "simulations"? If we found out that Big Bangs are really the start of a new simulation, and that is the natural way all universes begin, with no beginning and no end, then that would be "reality", not "simulations".

This also raises the question of whether or not the simulations that we create in our computers are real universes where the NPCs are really conscious themselves.

So I guess it's okay to raise pigs in horribly crowded environments and eat them, but not bring them back to a disembodied existence. Still, it's a step closer to envattment. If you're a pig, how do you know the farmer didn't sneak into your stall last night to hand you over to some mad scientists who removed your brain and hooked it up to some machine? — Marchesk

And how does the farmer know that some alien didn't sneaked into his farm and kidnap his brain to use as a battery?

In other words, this line of thinking just brings about an infinite regress of worlds where some conscious entity is unaware of the world as it is. How do the aliens or mad scientist not know whether their own experiences aren't themselves based on their brains being in a vat?

Try this: what exactly does it mean to say that an object exists mind-independently, apart from the obvious "It's there when no one is around". We know what it means to say an object we perceive is there; we can see it. touch it and so on. We don't know what it means for an unperceived object to be there: the best we can say is that if we were there we would be able to see it, touch and so on. But that really amounts to saying nothing at all outside of the context of perception. — Janus

So what is your brain like when you are alone in a dreamless sleep? Where does your mind go when you are alone in a dreamless sleep? Ive asked you this question several times now.

Also what does it mean to observe something? If you are saying that we cant get at the "external" object, then we're not observing in the first place, so you can't say we're observing something without getting at something about that thing. We would be imagining, not observing, so you are making a category error.

if we can never get at the object as it is independent of the Mind and what you're saying is there is no such thing as observations. There are only imaginations. But then how do we communicate our imaginations without using objects in the external world like computer screens? Ive also asked this question several times now.

What this inference allows is a mapping of phenomenology onto mechanism — Marchesk

Why is there a mapping at all? Talking about mappings implies some kind of dualism.

I want to know why minds appear as brains when we look at them.

How is translating words not a type of language use? And it seems to me that in using language or translating languages, you follow rules. If you want to talk about language as a game, or something that is used, then that implies rules to follow to play the game or use words correctly.

That raises question of how does the Chinese Room manage to perform perfect translations. Can that be done by mere rule following?

Then again, doesn't a language game involve rule following? — Marchesk

And computers can follow instructions, which are rules for doing something.

Does following rules entail understanding and knowledge? If so, then a computer posesses understanding.

The man in theChinese room does understand something - the rules for returning certain scribbles when given certain scribbles. If the scribbles have another meaning then that just means you need to provide the rules for using the scribbles with the different meaning.

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I've pointed this out many times over the years, but if you wind up positing that we can't observe what things like trees are really like, if we can't posit that we can simply observe external things like trees, we certainly can't posit that we can observe things like brains, eyes, nerves, other people (or even the surfaces of your own body), experimental apparatuses to test how perception works, etc. So one winds up undermining the very basis of one's argument. (At least if one is trying to formulate this argument on any sort of scientific grounds.) — Terrapin Station

Exactly. Not to mention it undermines language use as we use objects in the world as the medium to communicate. If we can't get at the computer screen, how can I hope to get at the words on the computer screen, or the words in the ink on the paper?

What many here fail to talk about is the aboutness of the mind - which is a defining feature of the mind. It is talked about in other philosophy forums, but I don't know why it's not talked about here. Aboutness is what makes it feel like a perceiver and objects being perceived (the Cartesian Theatre) in the mind. There is no perceiver in the mind. The perceiver would be the whole body, or at least the entire nervous system which includes the senses.

How is it that we can get at the object that isn't a perception via a perception? How is it that we can talk about our perceptions as if they were objects? When we use words to refer states of affairs like objects and events, are we referring to the perception or the object? If the perception is already about the object in some way, can't we talk about the object by talking about the perception?

Where is the "you" that perceives? — Harry Hindu

Consciousness is a general term for mentality, including awareness. Perception is one set of mental "modes." So is the notion of a self or "you." The location of all of this is your brain. — Terrapin Station

So "you" are just a perception in your brain? When you use the word, "I" you are referring to a perception in your brain? When "you" aren't being perceived in the brain but something else is, then what is doing the perceiving and where is that thing that is doing the perceiving?

These aren't trick questions. I really want to know what you think.

Is consciousness divided into a perceiver and an object of perception, ie the Cartesian theatre, or is consciousness and perception one and the same? Isn't "awareness" a synonym for "consciousness"?

Where is the "you" that perceives?

Not all shapes and sounds are words, but all words are some shape or some sound. So it seems that shapes and sounds are more fumdamental than words, as words are just particular shapes and sounds weve learned how to categorize and interpret in a particular way.

So what does it mean to say that I used a particular shape/color or sound in some way that I have learned? How does one use shapes and sounds (sensory impressions)?

Is any thing some way independently of any view? The category error seems to consist in thinking that it could be. I think the best that can be said about this would be that a thing is such as to appear such and such a way to such and such a viewer. — Janus

What about an entity with multiple senses like us? You only see one side of the coffe cup but can feel the other. Which sense is informing you how the coffee cup is? Or are you getting information about two different coffee cups - one you feel and the one you see?

Does your mind exist independently of some external view, or is the Cartesian theatre view what is necessary for your mind to exist?

If there are no independent things then categorizing the world would be a grave error and there would be no such things as category errors. If there is no independent thing of me, then I am the solipsist and you are not independent of me.

To say that there are no independent things is to say there are no distinctions, then why is my mind full of distinctions?

Does the mind make the world more complicated or less complicated? Is the world simpler than we think, or more complex than we could think?

The puzzle is the difference between how the world appears to us and how it is. — Marchesk

It seems to me that we are talking about relationships when talking about how it appears, and not when talking about how it is. Appearances are how something is relative to something else, like how the coffee cup is relative to some body with senses, like eyes. You don't see the other side of the cup, only the side facing the senses.

How something is, is how it is independent of any view - not relative to any sensory organs. It seems to me that we're simply making category errors when we confuse appearances with how things are.

Is the problem that of working out what a universal refers to? What sort of thing?

And if so, why assume that there is some thing that each word refers to? — Banno

The problem is working out how universals are useful. They may or not point to a particular thing (a universal object) in the world, but it would be fair to assume there is something about individual things which allows us to universalize.

At which point we look at the similarity among individual things and debate what that entails. Or alternatively, the similarity reflects an organizational feature of our minds. — Marchesk

Exactly. Ideas and mental categories are just other things that we refer to with words, and ideas can refer to things in the world, but not always. The problem is that we cant discern which of our ideas are about the world and which are just imaginings. Is the color we see an actual property of the object or of my perception of it? When you talk about objects, are talking about mental objects, or non-mental objects? Are you talking about the perception, or the cause of your perception?

And if you're talking about your perception, can you also be talking about the object because perceptions have a property of aboutness to them. Is that a scary or taboo word around here - "aboutness". Thats a philosophical word, no?

Think of light as the TV screen. We don't see objects. We see light, which explains the optical illusions of mirages and bent sticks in water. We look at the TV to indirectly get at the football game in another city. We don't see the game, we see the TV, which transmits information via causation. — Harry Hindu

That doesn't sound right. We see the game via the TV. Otherwise, how would you be able to see what goes on? The tv is a means by which we can remotely watch a game. Even in person, we're still seeing the action via light. That's how vision works. — Marchesk

Isn't that what I said, just using different words?

What happens when the TV screen goes black? Why are you not seeing the game any longer, even though the game is still going on? What happens when you have no light? What happens to objects and their shapes? What happens when you use a colored light bulb - what happens to the colors of the objects? Are the properties of the objects changing, or the property of light changing? Can't you talk about both objects or light by talking about your visual perceptions?

What about if you get cataracts and the shapes of objects change? Is it the properties of the object that are changing, or the properties of your visual system? Can't you talk about objects, light or your visual system by talking about your visual perceptions? What is your eye doctoring trying to get at when he asks you about your visual perceptions of objects - like a sheet of paper with ink scribbles taped to the wall?

Which one do you want to talk about? How is it that you can look at an apple and get at all three? And in determining which one we are talking about, we determine what change the perception of the object undergoes based on the change in the other two. If changing the light bulb changes the color of the object, then the color has to do with the light, not the object. If you have cataracts, and your visual perception of objects that you remember change, then the shape of objects has to do with your visual system. If there are changes in the perception of the object without changes in the other two, then we can say that is a changing property of the object.

The star as it was thousands of years ago. — Marchesk

So what are you saying - that you're watching a "home video" of the star as it was when it was a "adolescent"?

You say, "star", but the star is presently gone. So what are you referring to when you say "star"?

Note that what is happening here is ambiguous language use, not the ambiguity of stars, the light they emit and your visual perception. Which one are you referring to when you say, "star"?

Why do minds take the shapes of brains when I look at them? — Harry Hindu


Probably because that's the biological center for having minds.
— Marchesk

I don't get this. We don't look at minds at all. We attribute the functions that we call mental to the perceptible physical object we call the brain. Of course, the CNS and in fact the living body with its essential to life functions are necessary for the occurrence of mental phenomena, so it's not merely the brain. — Janus

But what is being questioned are the existence and nature of "physical" objects, which a brain would qualify as being. I don't really see the need to bring in the incoherent "physical" vs. "non-physical" distinction. Let's just say that there are objects. What is being questioned is whether or not these objects are of the mind only (solipsism), of the world only (naive realism), or something else, like a (causal) relationship between the two - mind and world?

What I can be sure of is the existence of my own mind. Whether or not there are other minds, I can only induce from the existence of my mind as it relates to the behavior of my body, and the behavior of other similarly shaped and behaved bodies. But then, why does something that doesn't have a shape (whether it does or not is still something that probably needs to be established) - my mind that I'm sure exists - take on a shape in another mind? Why does my own mind take the shape of my brain when I look at in a mirror? If my mind is not shaped, then why does it appear that way to others and even myself when looking in a mirror?

And if the mind (again the one thing I'm sure exists) is not shaped, yet it is mentally modeled with shapes, what does that say about all the other stuff in the world that we perceive as having shapes?

You can't explain what an object is like independent of looking at it because what it is like cannot be described in any terminology other than sensation based language. That is, it smells like A, tastes like B, sounds like C, feels like D, and looks like E. Even such things as length and width cannot be described except in terms of how long it looks or feels. — Hanover

Yes, but what does it mean for something to look and feel like anything? Isn't there an aboutness to how they look and how they feel? Are you not informed of something?

Aboutness is the relationship between cause and effect. You are able to get at the object, among other things, by looking at something. We can talk about our perceptions and still be talking about the world. Our perceptions are just another thing we can talk about directly. I can talk about what it is like to feel something, and I can talk about things that make me feel something. It just depends on what the focus of the discussion is.

As Locke attempted some time ago to draw a distinction between primary and secondary traits, with the former being of the object itself (like length and width) and the latter being those imposed by the person (like color or flavor), it became clear upon analysis that there really isn't any such distinction. All we know is what sense, and what we sense is subject to interpretation by our sense organs and brain. We have no reasonable basis to conclude that the apple we see in any way reflects some absolute reality.

As Kant noted, all we can reference is the phenomena, that which we perceive. We cannot even coherently discuss the noumena or the things in themselves. It makes no sense to ask what something really looks like without referencing what I subjectively see it to look like. — Hanover

Now, if I can communicate with you, using language, about my own perceptions and feelings, using objects in the world as the medium (ink and paper, computer screens, the atmosphere when I speak, braille, my hands with sign language), then how is it that we can understand each other if we can't really get at the objects in the world and perceive them similarly enough to communicate? How does language use work if we aren't using "external" objects in the world to communicate "internal" perceptions and feelings?

We should expect that our perceptions are geared toward our survival, but not in exposing us to absolute reality, whatever that even means. That is, the apple appears bright red and tastes sweet to us because that makes it noticeable and delicious to those who have eaten them and outsurvived those who did not. — Hanover

The bold part is you saying something about absolute reality. What is survival?

Your/My mind is part of absolute reality. Isn't the existence of your own mind the one thing that you can be sure of? If you want to quibble with terms and ask, "How do you know it's a "mind"?", then let's just say that something is happening - even if it's an "illusion". There are differences and changes. There is something rather than nothing and that something is what I am referring to - my "mind" - and that is either all of absolute reality (solipsism), or part of absolute reality (realism).

Sure. But you've made indirect realism difficult by locating all the properties with the perceiver. — Marchesk

I'm not making it difficult. What I'm asserting IS indirect realism.

https://www.iep.utm.edu/perc-obj/

The indirect realist agrees that the coffee cup exists independently of me. However, through perception I do not directly engage with this cup; there is a perceptual intermediary that comes between it and me. Ordinarily I see myself via an image in a mirror, or a football match via an image on the TV screen. The indirect realist claim is that all perception is mediated in something like this way. When looking at an everyday object it is not that object that we directly see, but rather, a perceptual intermediary. This intermediary has been given various names, depending on the particular version of indirect realism in question, including "sense datum, " "sensum," "idea," "sensibilium," "percept" and "appearance." We shall use the term "sense datum" and the plural "sense data." Sense data are mental objects that possess the properties that we take the objects in the world to have. They are usually considered to have two rather than three dimensions. For the indirect realist, then, the coffee cup on my desk causes in my mind the presence of a two-dimensional yellow sense datum, and it is this object that I directly perceive. Consequently, I only indirectly perceive the coffee cup, that is, I can be said to perceive it in virtue of the awareness I have of the sense data that it has caused in my mind. These latter entities, then, must be perceived with some kind of inner analog of vision. — Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy

Think of light as the TV screen. We don't see objects. We see light, which explains the optical illusions of mirages and bent sticks in water. We look at the TV to indirectly get at the football game in another city. We don't see the game, we see the TV, which transmits information via causation.

If effects are about their causes, then I don't see the problem of how you get at the properties of those external objects with your perceptions.

Minds do perceive shapes, but as far as we can tell, shape does not depend on the perceiver. That's what makes it an objective property. — Marchesk

...an objective property of perceptions.

When looking at a distant star, the light takes thousands of years to reach your eye. The star could have exploded yet the light is still traveling across space and interacting with your eyes. When you see the "star" what is it that you are attending in your mind?

Probably because that's the biological center for having minds. — Marchesk

I didn't ask about location. I asked about shape. Why do minds take the shape of brains when I look at them? The mind can still be located in the head, but why the shape of a brain in the head?

Why does the mind take a shape in another mind at all?

I see issues with the idea that we see external objects as they exist independently of us, that we see things as they are outside of us, yet it seems many people still assume it as if it was self-evident. — leo

The problem is that by asking what something looks like independent of looking at it is an incoherent question. Its like asking if you can get the same result (how something looks) with different causes (the object doesnt refect light that interacts with your visual system). How does the object look when the lights are out, or when it partially submerged in a clear glass of water?

The correct way to phrase the question would be "what is the object like independent of looking at it?"

Doesn't science explain what something is like independent of looking at it - as if from a view from no where?

If we want know what it looks like, or what it is like when we do look at it, just look at. But remember that you're no longer taking about just the object. Youre talking about your perception of the object, which is the effect of several prior causes, and therefore different than talking about the object independent of perception.

Nothing in the subjective field is perceived nor can be perceived precisely because the events in the subjective field consist of the perceivings , whether veridical or not, of the events in the objective field

Then how does Searle know that there is a subjective field if it's not perceived? It almost sounds like Searle is saying the objective field and the subjective field are the same thing, which is how it seems to me.

Its why we can turn our knowledge and awareness back up on themselves of being aware of being aware and the knowing that I know.

We want to know to what extent the world is like our experiences and to what extent it's different. So for example, we've determined that an object's shape is a property of the object, but not its color and only partially it's solidity. — Marchesk

Do minds have shapes? Why do minds take the shapes of brains when I look at them?

If you can't tell what properties exist in perception and what exist in objects, then why be a realist? — Marchesk

Is there no room for indirect realism? You seem to think the only viable options are dualism or naive realism.

If you can't tell what properties exist in perception and what exist in objects, then why be a realist? — Marchesk

Because of causation. Effects (perception) are about the cause (object), but effects are not the same as the cause.

Do causes and effects have the same properties even though they are different? You keep avoiding the question, yet accuse me of playing games.

We want to know to what extent the world is like our experiences and to what extent it's different. So for example, we've determined that an object's shape is a property of the object, but not its color and only partially it's solidity. — Marchesk

Youre not answering the question and I dont know if id agree that shape is a property of objects. It certainly is a property of our perception of objects.

You brought up dualism. What does dualism say about what is different about the part vs. the whole? In what way does dualism solve the problem without creating more problems like how different stuff interacts, or the relationship between a whole and its parts?

Is the difference substance, properties, or what? If we can safely assert that mind and world do interact, then what is so different about them? Why wouldn't they have the same substance or properties that allow them to interact, and any differences would entail different configurations of that substance or property?

Another way of looking at it is that your car engine is part of your car but they are both considered physical. But what does that mean - that they have the same substance or properties that allow them to form causal relationships, or come together to form larger macro processes or structures?

I'm not sure I understand why people don't understand the basics of these discussions. But okay, I'll continue to play along. — Marchesk

Theres no game here.

Go back to what YOU said:

And when we try to understand the nature of the world, we want to know what is the same and what is different from how the world appears to us — Marchesk

I asked:

What do you mean by "the same"? — Harry Hindu

In other words, what do you expect or imagine to be the same between a part of the world and the whole world?

What would you expect to be different between a part and the whole other than one being a part and the other being the whole?

I guess I'm asking about the ontological differences and similarities between a part and the whole?

What I should better have said is that they are the same thing - as in there is a ritual of desensitising and disembodiment prevalent and resisted that is academic rigour (mortis). Recognisably Nietzsche's void looking back.

Whenever you have a goal, you can consult Harry's encyclopaedia, and the goal is nothing less than to replace the world with the encyclopaedia, and live entirely in rational thought. This 'fact' explains why the world itself is going to hell in a handcart.

Poetry re-embodies language, and puts us back into the world. Plato hated it and his footnotes still do. But the good is without form and rather constitutes the substance of being; physicality as in accumulations of stones or whatever, is the mere abstraction of the encyclopaedia. — unenlightened

Sure, many people need an escape from the cold hard truths of reality. Art, sports, religion and leisure allow us to go on living despite the awareness of death and no objective purpose or objective morality. But that is all okay. It is a rational fact that I am a intelligent, social organism that finds these escapes useful in achieving my goals as such. It makes me happy to participate in these activities. These are all rational facts as well, so I dont see how theres a conflict.

I think you are exhibiting some misdirected outrage. The world itself isn't going to hell in a handcart because of rationality. The world is going to hell in a handcart because this growing notion of self-entitlement, as if we should accept feelings as proof.

What do X-Rays look like? — Marchesk

Another strange question. X-Rays don't look like anything independent of eyes looking at them. To ask what something looks like is to ask how it appears in some mind that uses eyes to acquire information. Are you asking about appearances, or asking about x-rays?

Right, dualism is just one possible answer to the hard problem. — Marchesk

Dualism exacerbates the problem, not answer it. How do two different things interact? It seems the answer to that question is monism.

And when we try to understand the nature of the world, we want to know what is the same and what is different from how the world appears to us. Of course ultimately that understanding needs to include appearances — Marchesk

Im not sure I understand the problem. Why would you expect a part of the world, ie appearances, to be the same as the entire world? What do you mean by "the same"?

I don't know what determines consciousness and I would be fine with saying Data is conscious. It's the epistemological problem that Block explains which is we can't know either it's the hardware or the functions the hardware performs. It doesn't matter whether Data is convincing. We still have the same philosophical problem. — Marchesk

I think the problem lies more along the lines of figuring out if the hardware really exists as we perceive it. I'm sure my mind exists. Not so sure about brains. Brains could be mental models (the hardware) of others mental processes. The "hardware", ie the "physical" world, are mental models - the way minds model the world. It's not hardware (material or physical) all the way down. It's processes all the way down.

It's been the human experience since at least philosophical inquiry began and the distinction between appearance and reality was a thing. — Marchesk

This is assuming that appearances aren't part of reality. How does that make any sense?

Really? Care to show some scientific study that says just that? — Harry Hindu

Thanks. That'll do. — Banno

Yeah, I didn't think so. :wink:

What I said about the senses is accepted science. What you see, hear, feel and so on is mitigated by the nervous system. That the senses are far form passive is not something that ought be the subject of contention. So either you misunderstood, or you are wrong. — Banno

Really? Care to show some scientific study that says just that?

What is the "you" that sees hears feels and so on that is mitigated by the nervous system? Isn't the nervous system part of what it is to be "you"?

Perhaps we are doomed to forever talk past each other. — Banno

I'm not sure if we're talking past each other, or saying the same thing with different words.

Tell me, is there any one who agrees with you that meaning is causal? Does it have a history? — Banno

:brow: Why would I mention logic as the source of my insights and then make the logical fallacy of appealing to popularity like you did here?

Others agreeing with me doesn't make my ideas true or not. My ideas are based on logic and the way we use words like, "meaning", "information", "knowledge" and "understanding". When we ask what something means, we are asking about causal relationships. For example, "What is the meaning of life?" is a question about the origins and/or purpose of life.

One ought take care not to portray the senses as a diode, passing information in one direction only. There is feedback here, and hence complexity. Complexity occurs when small variations in the initial conditions are fed back into the system to be magnified and become great influences on the later conditions. — Banno

Senses do pass information one way, unless youre Superman and can shoot heat rays from your eyes.

One sees, reaches out, touches, holds, puts down. One is not situated passively, doomed only to absorb information. — Banno

Already said this. Go back and read my previous post. We react to the information that our senses provide based an our learned experiences. We eat apples, not the word, "apples". We read the word, "apple", not eat it.

We continue to use our senses to provide feedback of our reactions to prior stimuli. Our own actions provide information that we use to fine-tune our actions for future use. So, yes an information feedback loop occurs as a result of our using real-time information to shape our behavioral responses to accomplish some goal with more efficient means. We become better at with our most commonly used actions because that is what we have more information about. Practice makes perfect.

Better to think of oneself as embedded in the world. — Banno

Already said this too. Have you been paying attention? We are part of the world and therefore part of the information of the world. Our minds are as much of a causal force as anything else and is why we can access other minds thanks to the effects that they produce in the world. Words are about the ideas in a mind. Inventions are about ideas in a mind. Musical compositions are about ideas in a mind. We get at ideas in a mind every time we listen to the music some mind composed, or read the words they wrote. There are many levels of causes that lead to some effect that can go all the way back to the Big Bang. It's just a matter of what causal relationship, or what information, that is useful at any given moment per some goal. Information exists everywhere, but only minds have goals, so minds are what find any particular causal relationship useful, or attended to, or not depending on the present goal in mind.

One does not sit inside one's body, looking at mere phenomena and reacting to them. One is not separate from one's sensations and acts - far from it. One's sensations and acts are constitutive of what one is. — Banno

This is similar to my questioning what constitutes "you" - your mind, your body, or what? To say that one sits inside one's body is to say that one is potentially separate from one's body, ie. the soul. I have never implied, much less proposed, such a thing. You are your actions, but thinking and speaking are part of one's actions, or behaviors, and communicative of many things - not just what one is saying, but what language they are using, where they are from, etc.

One does not build meaning inside one's head and then transmit it. Building meaning is part of the complex interaction one has with the world. Hence language is not mere communication. It is an integral part of the self-referential complexity that creates oneself, the other, and the various things in our world. — Banno

Like I've been saying, meaning exists everywhere causes leave effects. Your interaction with the world is meaningful because you are part of that causal relationship. You are part of the world, which is to say that your existence is meaningful. Whether or not your existence is useful is a different story. Usefulness is related to goals and your existence could be useful or not dependent upon some goal, like your own survival, or some task a friend needs help with.

What creates oneself is simply one's interaction, of which language is just a part, with the world. One's actions are what defines one's self, of which language use is just one kind of action. You seem to think that language use is this god that creates the self, as if we couldn't be self-aware without language. That is strange.

Phenomenal are creature dependent. We see red not because the world is colored in, but because our visual system evolved to discriminate photons that reflect off surfaces in combination of three primary values. But that still leaves out the experience of red, because a detector or robot can make that discrimination without supposing there is any experience. — Marchesk

Phenomenal is dependent upon senses and a sensory information processor.

The reason you suppose there is an experience with brains is because you have experiences and you have similar hardware as other creatures that behave similarly, so based on inductive reasoning, you suppose there is an experience associated with brains.

If a robot has a similar shape and therefore behavior as you, then why not suppose that it has experiences as well? It seems to me you think that one's hardware (carbon-based vs. Silicon-based) is what determines whether or not there is an experience, and similar behaviors by different hardware are only the result of simulated consciousness.

So the question is, "what makes carbon-based creatures conscious and any other type of creature not?"

It seems that it is our limited experiences and our "humans are special creations" bias that lends us to think in such ways, which really puts our ideas about consciousness in this inductive box that we cant get out of without reflecting on our own biases and the reasons we have them.

Marmite. — unenlightened

We obviously have different goals in mind.

But I'm pointing towards a loss of meaning that results from the philosophical project of rationality. The objectivity addict produces a world of meaningless facts - because facts are only meaningful if someone gives a damn; that's what it means to be meaningful. — unenlightened

No. Rationality produces a list of facts, like an encyclopdia, that can be accessed when someone gets to the point of giving a damn (has a goal) in which those facts would be relevant. The meaning is already there. Relevancy, not meaning, is the more accurate term to use there.

Language is not the same as communication. It's is a medium of communication. — T Clark

SO what has been shown here is that language is far more than a medium for communication. It is philosophical myopia that leads one to think of language use as a conduit. — Banno

It is scientific myopia that leads one to think that their senses aren't part of the equation of explaining what language is and does. When using your senses, you acquire information - nothing else.

The world is the medium for communication and language is simply part of the world, as language exists as sounds in the air, ink on paper, or light on your computer screen, which you use your senses to access.

We can communicate without language use. Our behaviors and shapes of our bodies communicate our state of awareness and health. So language is just one way to communicate, not the other way around where communication is only one of the things language does. Your senses provide nothing but information. In a sense the world is communicating with you via your senses.

The rules of language use is just more information. Once we have the rules (knowledge of language use), we know how to interpret those scribbles and sounds as about ideas in other minds, not about the ink and the paper, or the sound, or the light on the screen.

In a sense, language use is how we communicate our own interpretaions of our sensory data which can be a certain shape with a certain color, taste and smell as "apple", or "word" and "sentence". How we interpret it shapes our response to it. We eat it or read it.

Claims have implications, no? That is what I was talking about - the implications of your claim. In order for a claim to be meaningful it needs to be compatible with the rest of what we claim or say.

Isnt that what it means to "think before you speak". To think about the implications of what you want to say before you say it.

Do you really think the whole thing out before you set it into words? That's not my experience. The setting out happens with the thinking. — Banno

So the phrase "think before you speak" is meaningless to you? And what would "You don't know what you're talking about." mean? What is the language game being played when using those phrases?

Does speaking it require different thinking that writing it? Why if you're saying the same thing?

Problems like this always come down to the naive vs indirect realism debate. We never perceive other minds. Why?

We perceive brains and computers - both of which process different kinds of information for different purposes. So how is it that we can then go about saying anything simulates a mind? How does something simulate a mind? What does that even mean?

Some of your writing is interesting. Then there is stuff such as this.

Not all words are nouns. Not all words refer to other things.

It appears that you do not have the background in analytic philosophy to follow the conversation going on here. — Banno

My intent wasnt to write something interesting. Is that what you are saying the point of this conversation is - to write something interesting - to get others to reply back, "Thats interesting"?

I'm trying to clarify what you said:

It's probably worth pointing out that a language game is not just words. It also involves slabs and apples, and other stuff. — Banno

Youre the one that implied that the language game doesn't involve just words but other stuff. What was the other stuff you were talking about besides the nouns you used as an example?

One only needs logic to follow any conversation. And if you're not being logical then are you really having a conversation?

For someone who has a habit of speaking in riddles, not answering questions, or only answers questions indirectly, it would be obvious why they think language is a game.