Are you going to make a thread for the second proof soon? I think I have more to contribute to that. I've nearly finished the book, and it has some interesting ideas.

Yes but we still know there isn't a sound though without having to be told. At least I think we do. I know that sound can't play on this board so perhaps I am fitting that into my interpretation.

I think Physicalists generally believe everything is matter and motion or describable ultimately by the standard model/ particle physics. They are not necessarily epistemic reductionists as in psychological events always reduce to biological vocab (pain = c-fiber firing), but they (including system-scientists) generally agree that there is ontological reduction. Sean Carroll's blog is probably the best example of this,

Idealists argue that everything is ultimately composed of ideas. This is a vastly different ontological commitment. For example, ideas might act on each other from the top down. The stuff you find in Hegel is very different from the stuff you will find in Dennett/Dawkins/Krauss.

I don't know much about Ken Wilber. But I did watch a youtube video where he claimed to stop his brainwaves. I think people should be careful about making silly claims otherwise they will find themselves with quack status.

Likewise, I believe that there was of course motion in dream images. Yet on closer examination, I realised that there is only a swirling sense of flow or zoom. The image itself was a static single frame with a sense of motion added. — apokrisis

Hi Apokrisis, I always enjoy reading your posts. Do you have any literature for this claim?

A new way of thinking about consciousness... — Sam26

Hi Sam, thanks for the bump and video. I enjoyed your Wittgenstein and NDE threads.

That's an interesting video. I've read Koch's confessions of a romantic reductionist (who also worked on IIT) which is a very good read. I don't know much about IIT but looking over that video it seems close to the global workspace stuff (abstract functional relationship described as mathematical architecture) highlighted above. If you notice towards the end of the interview, Tononi admits that consciousness is still specific mechanisms located in a specific place in time. Koch and Tononi flirt with a limited version of panpsychism which I think is problematic.

is itself simply a neural construct. So whatever he says, is just the cunning genome's way of attempting to propagate, disguised as 'philosophy'. — Wayfarer

In Dawkins' Selfish Gene (which is one of Dennett's bibles) he advocates a type of radical free will:

We have the power to turn against our creators. We, alone on earth, can rebel against the tyranny of the selfish replicators. — Dawkins

He did elaborate on this in his end notes that the brain as a organ (its surrounding structure ect) can be understood as separate from the genes/memes but did not say how.

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Also aren't memetics still considered a pseudoscience? <That's in reply to the Dennett lecture, not Dawkins.

One is the real tree, the other it’s double image — apokrisis

Why is it one has phenomenological privilege over the other? After holding the eye in place, if you then close the other eye then the image of the manipulated eye becomes dominant.

If you push one eyeball are you conscious of two trees or two mental trees?

I don't know what that means. — Hachem

Sorry, it was another poster who made a thread about light and reflection, but looking back over their thread they were more into the cognitive aspect whereas you're challenging the physics of it.

OP, you're not the poster dukkha are you?

There are connections like that which make sense, yes, but that's not "the entire thing". Even something so simple as "has anyone seen Billy?", or why there were so many one-off characters having conversations at the Roadhouse, are more of what I'm referring to. — Noble Dust

You're right, looking back, the entire Audrey plot was more ambigious than I realized. I was under the impression there were enough clues (with Richard and Dopple Coop and Doc Hayward's skype call) to establish she was a in a nut house. One of the scenes in the Roadhouse involves characters talking about Billy, and one establishing they visit a nut house and lifted a jacket. Meaning that Audrey may have heard the Billy story and concocted her own narrative during hypnosis.
So in light of the thread, I may have unconsciously attempted to put that together after the fact and then forgot it wasn't clear.

Anyway, the frog bug I thought was the Judy villain entering Sarah. The horse in the white of the eyes (Sarah's horse) and dark within (Sarah after removing her face). That and the 'call' DoppleCoop received sounded like her. And finally when he got the right co-ordinates for Judy, he appeared to be heading towards Sarah's home before the fireman interfered and moved him to where he will be destroyed by Freddie and his glove. :P

So I think there is a workable literal plot to it.

lways interpreted the first two seasons as trying to make sense of sexual abuse in general, and the "cycle of abuse"; I interpret Leland's lines in his death scene to mean that Bob was also a real person who abused him in his childhood. — Noble Dust

Yep this is a common one. I'm also a fan of Paronoia Agent so that has an influence on my interpretation that Bob (originally Leland's personal trauma) may have been an example of mass hysteria that became real.
Interestingly tulpas are something similar to this which cropped up in the new Season.

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can't differ with anything said in that piece, but you’re right in guessing I’m not a Sam Harris fan. Those are aspects of the ‘secular Buddhism’ debate. The secular Buddhists want to divest Buddhism of what they see as the religious trappings, the traditional Buddhists think the secular Buddhists are a Trojan Horse trying to smuggle scientific materialism into Buddhism. (I lean towards the traditionalists.) Interestingly, Sam Bercholz, who started Shambhala Publications, one of the largest Buddhist publishers in the US, had a near-death experience. He didn't see the white light, in fact he had a vision of hell, which he described in his recent book A Guided Tour of Hell. — Wayfarer

The writer in the piece generally (in her Dennett articles or when she is reviewing global workspace theory) denies there is a such a thing as a stream of consciousness or a time when things come together to complete a person. She's also a materialist monist and so reminds me most of Harris' (imo vile) free will article where he says that if you switched atoms with Joshua Komisarjevsky you would be that person.
I know little about Buddhism, but the hell description surprised me in that it would seem to necessarily entail an individual subject that experiences consequences after death. I know less about Secular Buddhism but from the very brief article I read, it sounds something that is occurring in the west since the Enlightenment. I will look into it more when I have time.

But these conceptions occur in two radically separated domains of discourse. (Although, incidentally, Buddhists don't deny hell - the Buddhist hells in traditional literature are numerous and ghastly, although they're not eternal.) — Wayfarer

Re: the hell stuff. It's curious how misrepresented Buddhism appears in the west, especially by Harris and Blackmore. I suspect the 'hell' stuff and all elements of the supernatural are disregarded by most of them.

See this article relevant to this thread (I was searching Blackmore and her argument against AP ect):

https://www.near-death.com/science/articles/dying-brain-theory.html

I have practiced Zen now for nearly twenty years. At the heart of this practice are the ideas of letting go, of non-attachment, and of no-self. The idea is not that there is no self at all, but that the self is not what we commonly think it is. ‘I' am not a persisting entity separate from the world, but a flowing, ephemeral, ungraspable part of that world. As anyone who has had a mystical experience knows, everything is one. I think those lessons, and many more, were thrust upon me in that original experience. They gave me not only an academic desire to understand strange experiences but the motivation and insight to pursue a spiritual life.

As happens with many NDErs, my experiences and my research have taken away the fear of death, not because I am convinced that 'I' will carry on after this body dies, but because I know there is no one to die, and never was. If others, like ZipZap, disagree that is their prerogative. All any of us can do is seek the truth to the best of our ability, and - even if that truth turns out to be quite different from what we hoped or expected - to accept it when we find it. — Blackmore

Which parts? — Noble Dust

Are you asking which parts Mark Frost had a hand in or which parts made sense? If the latter, on a literal level the entire thing made sense. The fireman has to put out the 'fire' (nuke goes off and the bell starts ringing) and has enlisted numerous agents to get the job done. The FBI are also working to this end and have informants like Ray in Dopple-Cooper's gang.

But underlying that is the metaphysical attitudes concerning Lynch's own philosophy. And this is the interpretational part, that "everything that is a thing comes from consciousness" and that it may all be a story of someone making sense of their abuse by their father (Laura is the one).
No matter how she tries to escape, she always wakes up back to its reality. So in a very real way she is pulling her reality together to justify it.

This Lost Highway quote is a fairly good summary for that:

Ed: Do you own a video camera?

Renee Madison: No. Fred hates them.

Fred Madison: I like to remember things my own way.

Ed: What do you mean by that?

Fred Madison: How I remembered them. Not necessarily the way they happened. — Lost Highway

Yes loved it. I always think there should be more on the philosophy of dreams anyway. Some too easily take verdical experience and a strong distinction between dreams and waking reality as a self-evident proposition.
I'm not sure the show didn't make sense. A lot of it did make sense and it needs to be remembered there are two authors to it. Mark Frost had a lot of input.

I have the subjective experience of this particular moment of asking this question. — Alec

Eliminativism most likely (denial of subjective experience/ appearance vs the reality), I think that's what can be interpreted the "stubbornly persistent illusion" quote.

Anyway, the B-theory of time is the modern Parimendes and so the classicial criticisms apply. Such as how it is possible to be persuaded by the result of argument if change is not possible. In order to accept B-theory, you have to accept minds can change in some way and the change must be in some way the result of the argument.

I have a good education in biology and cognitive science so it's hard for me to accept that it simply isn't psychological phenomena. I do have issues with materialist theories of consciousness and made my objections known. I haven't read through this thread, but I will when I have more time.

If it does exist then it would have to be whatever consciousness is.

I'll just accept the almighty Wikipedia's stance on emergence for now: — schopenhauer1

I'll try and tackle the issues of emergentism at a later date. I am fairly familiar with that page and systems science. From what I recall (it has been a couple of years since I read it) Bedau's essay linked on that page is fairly useful. http://people.reed.edu/~mab/papers/weak.emergence.pdf

More-or-less yes. According to Schopenhauer — schopenhauer1

Thanks. So in the same way you can identify that as being identical to conscious experience, can the same not be done for a particular semiotic process? So the phenomenal bit is being identical to that metaphysical process which sees itself as something living in the world. If not why not?

This is really what the identity theorist wanted but they failed so it moved on to functional identity.

"In answer to the question “why are these states conscious?” it can be replied that this is what it means to be conscious. If a state is available to the mind in this way, it is a conscious state (see also Dennett 1991). " http://www.iep.utm.edu/hard-con/#SH3b

The problem with this is that it forgets that this is only an epistemic identity. Its ontological identity is still bundles of neurons which do not have the character of "phenomenal first person experience". So the difference between the two (semiotic and the materialist functional) is that holistic ontological identity is built into its theory.

I don't necessarily buy the Peircean metaphysics being posted but I can see it as a better solution for the hard problem than the materialist one.

btw, this whole abolishing gender thing. Does it not sound a little imperialistic at all? Are you sure all of the other cultures on the planet want it abolished?

You would have to explain this in order for me to talk more definitively on this. — schopenhauer1

Sure, I have a longer post typed out, but I think this can be understood in fewer words.
How would your namesake express the identity of consciousness? It it identical to a particular manifestation of the Will?

I think we need to discuss what is meant by emergence. Does emergence mean new pheonomena being manifested at the top level, like a materialist soul shuffling around the matter?
Or does it only mean epistemic emergence and all the true causes are at the bottom level and the top level vocab is only useful/indispensibly for us à la: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intentional_stance.

I think both are problematic, but since Apokrisis is not really a materialist his philosophy can get around the first issue. The phenomenal identity would be identical to the semiotic relation (with its physically real sociological augmentation= I am) which is similar to the classic: Water = H20. You really only have to accept abstract functional states can also have phenomenal identity.
I doubt classical materialism can/should have that.

It would become the past of the time traveller doing the changing and so it depends entirely on their person and what they believe. They wouldn't have any 'collective knowledge' to answer to.

There are various pragmatic arguments for God's existence. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Will_to_Believe James' will to believe essay is probably the best example of them so in that sense God would fulfill the criteria of your example.

I think what you have with Pierce is a mind model of the universe. The need for an interpretant makes its so. — MikeL

It does look like that. The interpretant part appears suspicious and wishy-washy. Let's use the example of a dictionary: you have the ink and the form of the word for the representamen. The semiotic object would be the description/definition of the word. And the interpretant would be the (literate) person who reads it.
It appears pansemiosis would have to also be panpsychism of some sort.

. It would not last. The next words the monkeys typed after typing Shakespeare would be gibberish. — MikeL

I'm not good with probability but isn't the analogy that it is an infinite amount of time? So eventually there will come a time when you get Shakespeare again and again ect, like rolling two dice and getting a 12 after a 12 and so on.

Why does the mind move through these different states? — Rich

I'm still unsure about the evolutionary advantage of dreams anyway. It seems like it should be selected against since it presents false scenarios which could confuse the animal and get it into danger.
I can see the purpose of sleep. It puts the animal out of commission for a time when it is not at an advantage in its environment.
Perhaps evolution is the theory of the "fit enough" (like StreetlightX said recently) and the symbolic element of dreams provides animals with good enough symbols to help it most of the time. But then we're going back into Hoffman's illusion theory since it implies everything is like that.

i.e., we "die" when we go to bed but are "resurrected" when we wake u — darthbarracuda

This view appears a lot but I'll never be able to consider it because between the time I go to sleep and the time I wake up, I have extensive dreams. And I am changed by these experiences and my interactions in them. I am not the same person when I wake up. I actually start writing notes so I remember to type them up later into a journal.
There does appear to a mental 'reunion' of sorts for me upon waking, but that feels more Thomistic than Aristotelian.

The OP concerns a topic I'm familiar with, but I also have plenty on my reading plate. Instead of making others take the time to digest the Velmans papers, it might encourage them to make that effort if you could address the contents from your own perspective (i.e., indicate what you agree/disagree with, provide some questions and/or propositions to jumpstart discussion). Otherwise, for all I know, I could just be doing your homework for you. — Galuchat

I included a wiki article which is three short paragraphs. I'm not sure of any philosophy of mind course that would set something distinct as homework considering the author is not listed even on Double-aspect theory wiki page (I just checked), but okay. Part of the reason I made the thread was when I searched Reflexive monism there were no threads. And the paper was only once brought up on a suggested reading list a couple of years ago. I gave a brief overview of the paper which I feel captured its main points.

Anyway, usually I agree or disagree in the discussion feed itself. I prefer OP's set out like Mongrel's unconscious thread where questions are posed and the OP appears unbiased. Point taken though, I'll make the questions more apparent.

To answer one question posed, I think his claim about reduction leading to eliminiativism is a correct one. Most modern (reductive) attempts at defining consciousness (like Baar's and Dehaene's global (neuronal) workspace) are ontologically eliminativist because consciousness is never presented as such.
I'm not as familiar with neutral monist theories as others here so I can't answer why physics appears to give more exact answers than phenomenal perception (which within the context of the paper included the biological sciences) does, which is why I thought it worth discussing. I believe there needs to be greater justification than QM (wave-particle duality).

I'm not the one to have this discussion with you, but I would love to listen in. You need to round up some more participants. I wonder if people think consciousness discussions have been beaten to death recently on this forum. — T Clark

It covers similar territory to the Hoffman thread, so that may have exhausted discussion for the time being. However this covers it from a specific philosophical perspective (neutral monism). Although the writer is a psychologist they are philosophical papers. A big difference between this view and Hoffman is that he reviews empirical claims (Sperry's emergentism and Global workspace) and makes the argument that they are all reductive and lead to elimininativism.

My working thought is that we want the experience of "losing ourselves" — Crane

I'm not sure this is true as there is big appeal and popularity in lucid dreaming and wanting your completed free-willing waking-self to be within it rather than fragments of yourself, which is all about uniting the reflective part of the mind with the automatic parts.

For me it is that metaphysical aspect of it. The mind is still sort of unknown and spooky.

Technology seems like a mutation of the natural order of things, an artificial aggregate of dissimilar parts and pieces that have been forced into an unnatural symbiosis. The natural world is put under examination and forcibly man-handled into submission; we might even see technology as nature being tortured. — darthbarracuda

Have you considered a career in writing? :)

A purpose is the reason why things happen — apokrisis

If this purpose can be made known (as you believe) then couldn't people in theory act against it's will for the sake of acting against it. And so it wouldn't by definition be the purpose of certain actions anymore?
An example I recall reading was Kurzweil and google were working on ways to circumvent the second law of thermodynamics. Sorry if that sounds superficial and this sounds self-defeating as far as philosophy goes, but I always believed that a telos wouldn't be able to be revealed until after it is reached. You can't be told your fate is to turn right before doing so because you could then decide to turn left.

So I got around to watching the video. It's the same points as the Atlantic article. I did wonder though whether Dennett stole the computer icon metaphor for him when advocating his instrumentalism in his most recent book. Anyway, it makes sense that the brain's neurology too would be one of these symbols like Snakes and trains so I'm glad he made that point instead of glossing over it unlike the other Ted talk I linked. That seems to be his main point. How is consciousness created by the brain? - How does data get deleted by the recycling bin icon. (For the purpose of metaphor the "body" part of the mind/body problem is the same as the recycling bin icon). His solution being the bolded don't since they are only useful fictions to help guide us by evolution and the programmer/designer.

So it's more or less Berkeley's subjective idealism without the God part. He doesn't think he needs the God bit.

What are Zeno's paradoxes of motion? — MikeL

hi, I think the arrow one might be closest to your OP (in that it discusses a specific moving object).
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/paradox-zeno/#Arr What I meant by that is visualising time at instants. Being able to switch the balls. I'm not sure if being able to divide motion in such a way is possible, but the thought experiments exist.

Isn't this the same thing as Zeno's paradoxes of motion?

Thanks for the link, I read his article before and the evolutionary argument against naturalism is an old one. Lewis had his own version of it.

I'll watch the video when I'm feeling better and give a review (bad day, need something way lighter).

But I did see this similar one recently https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lyu7v7nWzfo and it annoyed me due to how superficial it was. Has anyone read Midgley's" Are You an Illusion?" I haven't but reading the synopsis and the Guardian review, I think the book touches on the same criticisms I would have for that video.
It (the video) was loaded with the naturalist trope about how we should be humble we are just brains, and that consciousness is not special. Hoping the Hoffman video isn't the same.

There is also the question that after AI arrives, what is to prevent future AI from being created? Surely it will want to cripple the human mind in some way as to prevent later competition.

I'm curious, what are your thoughts on the global workspace theory stuff?
(global neuronal workspace et al.)