Consciousness - What's the Problem?
I've never felt I've really understood the 'Hard Problem' of consciousness. Although not a new problem, David Chalmers seems to be the contemporary go-to source. Here he is in 1995 with 'Facing Up to the Problem of Consciousness':
"It is undeniable that some organisms are subjects of experience. But the question of how it is that these systems are subjects of experience is perplexing. Why is it that when our cognitive systems engage in visual and auditory information-processing, we have visual or auditory experience: the quality of deep blue, the sensation of middle C? How can we explain why there is something it is like to entertain a mental image, or to experience an emotion? It is widely agreed that experience arises from a physical basis, but we have no good explanation of why and how it so arises. Why should physical processing give rise to a rich inner life at all? It seems objectively unreasonable that it should, and yet it does." [my italics in there]
It seems to me all this distils down this to two short questions:
• Why do we have consciousness?
• How can we have consciousness?
Why Consciousness?
Consider that consciousness contains mental models of the world and its phenomena. Not a single, complete or accurate models certainly, but without doubt this still is a very adaptive feature. As humans have flourished via co-operative activity it’s not hard see the value of making abbreviated mental models we can transmit easily to others. Harvesting blackberries together we might discuss the ideal quality of that deep blue we know means a great pie will had at the end of the day. We'll probably share a good mental image of the topography of the area – discuss foraging directions, maybe even externalize this image with a little mud-map. That curious sensation of middle C is a usually rattlesnake around here, so best share that between our mental models as well. The day passes. When blissfully pondering all this I feel a twinge of anxiety as you catch me standing about savouring blackberries. You never do like me to leave you with all the work whilst I go about philosophizing - usually you punch me in the arm. Some internal realities are quickly updated to my mental model – with both your experienced emotions and mine - present, past and future. As the day progresses our similar but unique mental models constantly update as our external and internal conditions change and flow.
How Consciousness?
So, just in this, we have an everyday example of consciousness showing some pretty obvious functions at work. Familiar, but I doubt it’s a simple thing below the surface. In the pursuit of a piece of pie doubtless a great deal of complex brain activity went on. Had dragging about meters of cable through the brambles seemed more practical, I'm sure at least crude correlations of increased EEG brain activity could have been seen varying with demands of consciousness.
I think the workings of the material world is sufficient to account for this phenomenon (Physicalism is it?). While it's obviously too crude to say 'the mind is the brain' - it seems reasonable to propose the mind is at least 'a function of the brain'.
Patricia Smith Churchland derided mind-brain correlations such as Roger Penrose's theories, saying that "Pixie dust in the synapses is about as explanatorily powerful as quantum coherence in the microtubules." (Brain-wise: studies in neurophilosophy, 2002). I suspect this conflates ‘material substance’ with ‘material function’. We know very well of one way to model the world using tightly organised flows of energy through matter. We call this computing. Let me stress here that I’m not saying that the mechanics producing consciousness are just the same as for computing. But we at least know that very complex world-modelling occurs sans the pixie dust. Sure, it would be very nice to know exactly the minutest brain mechanisms involved. And I expect we will do, down the track, but even Darwin was not wrong until the discovery of genes.
To my mind what's more perplexing is the how of subjectivity. How can a thing be conscious of itself? Is there a little man in our heads who monitors our sensations and feelings? If so, who is conscious of this monitoring - another little man? That’s an oldie but a goodie, and I can't quite remember the author of this reductio (I think it was a reply to Descartes’s ‘ghost in the machine’, does anyone else know?). In any case, Nagel sparked concerns like again these back in during the Hard Problem's revival from the 1970s.
"If physicalism is to be defended, the phenomenological features must themselves be given a physical account .." (OK, we've covered some of that ground but we’ll return to it)
"... But when we examine their subjective character it seems that such a result is impossible. The reason is that every subjective phenomenon is essentially connected with a single point of view, and it seems inevitable that an objective, physical theory will abandon that point of view." ("What is it like to be a bat?" 1974).
Herein lies a questionable assumption: That consciousness consists of "a single point of view". In reality internal experience is often quite conflicted, and we are in least two minds about everything from a menu preference to ideas of jurisprudence. Despite what we say, we often aren't even fully aware of how we feel about things until our emotional responses to events interact over time with our thoughts about them. Personally I don't hold much faith in Freud, but one thing he got right is that a mental persona consists of far more than a "single point of view".
Physiologically that really shouldn't surprise us. Almost our entire brain is bifurcated and duplicated, not to mention subdivided into a complex web of many smaller structures all in continual inter-communication. Often these are working on different aspects of the same task – ‘parallel processing’ if you like. We don't need call upon an infinite series of observers to account for the subjective experience when just such a hall of mirrors would suffice: The inner life of self-consciousness may consist of one brain region of the interrogating another for results, then this process reversing and repeating towards resolution. Of course, when asked for if we want that second slice of pie we have to quickly gloss over this process and present a single view. The ‘single point of view’ is a necessary fiction, but a fiction nevertheless (here I think, is an interesting intersection with theories of personal identity)
Who is not familiar with subjective phenomena of an 'internal monologue'? Well, that's a question I'd love to see investigated. It might be very fruitful research to compare the reports of the internal monologue of people with very different brain anatomies, especially those with only one hemisphere (yes, surprisingly they can often function quite well) or those with a severed corpus callosum (that pencil-thin connective nerve bundle between the hemispheres).
Say no to Philosophical Zombies:
All this relates back to the 'why' question. If there was none of this inner modelling and updating then perhaps we wouldn't have or need any subjective experiences. We probably could get by as philosophical zombies - the kind of stimulus-response automata that B.F Skinner thought his lab rats were. (David Chalmers also came up with this image).
But being in two minds about things, while unfashionably indecisive, is very adaptive indeed:
First, playing out various consequences in a mental model hurts a whole lot less than relying on continual trial and error.
Second, we can also play out our own conflicting motivational processes in the relative safety of our own skulls - checking and balancing these against one another before acting in the world.
Third, we can model that vital element of human social reality – ‘other minds’. Thinking about how things effect other people's reactions is a vital faculty. Even better is to empathise with another. Doing this is almost to run their software on your own hardware. In the complexity of the human social world this seems far more adaptive than just running the basic zombie algorithm.
I'm sure there are many aspects to the Hard Problem I've overlooked. This is my first post. It’s blueberry pie I seek, not the humble stuff.
"It is undeniable that some organisms are subjects of experience. But the question of how it is that these systems are subjects of experience is perplexing. Why is it that when our cognitive systems engage in visual and auditory information-processing, we have visual or auditory experience: the quality of deep blue, the sensation of middle C? How can we explain why there is something it is like to entertain a mental image, or to experience an emotion? It is widely agreed that experience arises from a physical basis, but we have no good explanation of why and how it so arises. Why should physical processing give rise to a rich inner life at all? It seems objectively unreasonable that it should, and yet it does." [my italics in there]
It seems to me all this distils down this to two short questions:
• Why do we have consciousness?
• How can we have consciousness?
Why Consciousness?
Consider that consciousness contains mental models of the world and its phenomena. Not a single, complete or accurate models certainly, but without doubt this still is a very adaptive feature. As humans have flourished via co-operative activity it’s not hard see the value of making abbreviated mental models we can transmit easily to others. Harvesting blackberries together we might discuss the ideal quality of that deep blue we know means a great pie will had at the end of the day. We'll probably share a good mental image of the topography of the area – discuss foraging directions, maybe even externalize this image with a little mud-map. That curious sensation of middle C is a usually rattlesnake around here, so best share that between our mental models as well. The day passes. When blissfully pondering all this I feel a twinge of anxiety as you catch me standing about savouring blackberries. You never do like me to leave you with all the work whilst I go about philosophizing - usually you punch me in the arm. Some internal realities are quickly updated to my mental model – with both your experienced emotions and mine - present, past and future. As the day progresses our similar but unique mental models constantly update as our external and internal conditions change and flow.
How Consciousness?
So, just in this, we have an everyday example of consciousness showing some pretty obvious functions at work. Familiar, but I doubt it’s a simple thing below the surface. In the pursuit of a piece of pie doubtless a great deal of complex brain activity went on. Had dragging about meters of cable through the brambles seemed more practical, I'm sure at least crude correlations of increased EEG brain activity could have been seen varying with demands of consciousness.
I think the workings of the material world is sufficient to account for this phenomenon (Physicalism is it?). While it's obviously too crude to say 'the mind is the brain' - it seems reasonable to propose the mind is at least 'a function of the brain'.
Patricia Smith Churchland derided mind-brain correlations such as Roger Penrose's theories, saying that "Pixie dust in the synapses is about as explanatorily powerful as quantum coherence in the microtubules." (Brain-wise: studies in neurophilosophy, 2002). I suspect this conflates ‘material substance’ with ‘material function’. We know very well of one way to model the world using tightly organised flows of energy through matter. We call this computing. Let me stress here that I’m not saying that the mechanics producing consciousness are just the same as for computing. But we at least know that very complex world-modelling occurs sans the pixie dust. Sure, it would be very nice to know exactly the minutest brain mechanisms involved. And I expect we will do, down the track, but even Darwin was not wrong until the discovery of genes.
To my mind what's more perplexing is the how of subjectivity. How can a thing be conscious of itself? Is there a little man in our heads who monitors our sensations and feelings? If so, who is conscious of this monitoring - another little man? That’s an oldie but a goodie, and I can't quite remember the author of this reductio (I think it was a reply to Descartes’s ‘ghost in the machine’, does anyone else know?). In any case, Nagel sparked concerns like again these back in during the Hard Problem's revival from the 1970s.
"If physicalism is to be defended, the phenomenological features must themselves be given a physical account .." (OK, we've covered some of that ground but we’ll return to it)
"... But when we examine their subjective character it seems that such a result is impossible. The reason is that every subjective phenomenon is essentially connected with a single point of view, and it seems inevitable that an objective, physical theory will abandon that point of view." ("What is it like to be a bat?" 1974).
Herein lies a questionable assumption: That consciousness consists of "a single point of view". In reality internal experience is often quite conflicted, and we are in least two minds about everything from a menu preference to ideas of jurisprudence. Despite what we say, we often aren't even fully aware of how we feel about things until our emotional responses to events interact over time with our thoughts about them. Personally I don't hold much faith in Freud, but one thing he got right is that a mental persona consists of far more than a "single point of view".
Physiologically that really shouldn't surprise us. Almost our entire brain is bifurcated and duplicated, not to mention subdivided into a complex web of many smaller structures all in continual inter-communication. Often these are working on different aspects of the same task – ‘parallel processing’ if you like. We don't need call upon an infinite series of observers to account for the subjective experience when just such a hall of mirrors would suffice: The inner life of self-consciousness may consist of one brain region of the interrogating another for results, then this process reversing and repeating towards resolution. Of course, when asked for if we want that second slice of pie we have to quickly gloss over this process and present a single view. The ‘single point of view’ is a necessary fiction, but a fiction nevertheless (here I think, is an interesting intersection with theories of personal identity)
Who is not familiar with subjective phenomena of an 'internal monologue'? Well, that's a question I'd love to see investigated. It might be very fruitful research to compare the reports of the internal monologue of people with very different brain anatomies, especially those with only one hemisphere (yes, surprisingly they can often function quite well) or those with a severed corpus callosum (that pencil-thin connective nerve bundle between the hemispheres).
Say no to Philosophical Zombies:
All this relates back to the 'why' question. If there was none of this inner modelling and updating then perhaps we wouldn't have or need any subjective experiences. We probably could get by as philosophical zombies - the kind of stimulus-response automata that B.F Skinner thought his lab rats were. (David Chalmers also came up with this image).
But being in two minds about things, while unfashionably indecisive, is very adaptive indeed:
First, playing out various consequences in a mental model hurts a whole lot less than relying on continual trial and error.
Second, we can also play out our own conflicting motivational processes in the relative safety of our own skulls - checking and balancing these against one another before acting in the world.
Third, we can model that vital element of human social reality – ‘other minds’. Thinking about how things effect other people's reactions is a vital faculty. Even better is to empathise with another. Doing this is almost to run their software on your own hardware. In the complexity of the human social world this seems far more adaptive than just running the basic zombie algorithm.
I'm sure there are many aspects to the Hard Problem I've overlooked. This is my first post. It’s blueberry pie I seek, not the humble stuff.
Comments (145)
Is our having consciousness a hard problem? I don't think so, but then I'm not a serious philosopher--or a psychologist either. If we weren't conscious it wouldn't be a problem at all. All I know is that a lot of smart people have been chipping away at this question and haven't so far come up with much. It may be that we can't.
There are more serious philosophers who will give you a run for your money. They'll be along shortly.
As for animals, yeah I too would be very surprised if they were all devoid of any subjective experience. One unintentional implication of my parallel processing notion is it opens the possibility of machine consciousness. Care to accompany me up that garden path?
I don't agree that this is what the thrust of Chalmer's questions are. Asking 'how' or 'why' is a different question to what Chalmers raises. I think this is the salient paragraph in his paper:
Now, my argument in favour of Chalmer's position, is that experience is irreducibly first-person. In other words, it is not an object or a phenomenon, in the sense that things that we experience are objects or phenomena. So the question is not 'why do we have consciousness?' but 'what is consciousness?', which is really a question about the first-person nature of experience.
In short I've argued for "what is consciousness" as being merely the activity of multiple processors in constant communion to continually construct and update a model of the world.
I agree that sounds pretty dry and uninteresting compared to the glory of the actual thing, which is a very good clue I might have missed something.
Churchland, of course, denies that there are any such facts.
What you then write is an abbreviation of what Thomas Nagel describes as ‘neo-Darwinian materialism’ - a model which proceeds to describe consciousness in basically adaptive terms, as one of the various means by which organisms have succeeded in passing on their protoplasm, as a way to....well....pass on their protoplasm. This was the substance of his book, Mind and Cosmos: Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature is Almost Certainly False - which was greeted with universal scorn by its many critics on account of it being sceptical of typical evolutionary materialist accounts of consciousness.
Here's a long media essay on 'the consciousness debate'. There's also a good profile of Dennett here.
(I should tell you where I'm coming from in all this. I'm a staunch opponent of scientific materialism. I'm a new-age type, interested in 'consciousness' from the viewpoint of the perennial philosophies and finding a spiritual path. That has grown to take in some aspects of philosophical theology, but is nothing like ID or mainstream religion per se.)
This is the root of the problem. If you take away this premise, "that experience arises from a physical basis", there is no such problem. Why accept a premise which causes an irresolvable problem? Doesn't that tell you something about the premise?
That was actually me quoting Chalmers there. Sorry about the poor formatting of my post - I really need to learn how to drive this thing properly.
But yes, I agree with him that experience arises from a physical basis. I'm not sure I agree this is actually the most widespread view. As for the last part, my post was an attempt to outline a plausible model for a physiology of conscoiusness.
The wiki entry on Dennett describes him as one of the 'The Four Horsemen of Athiesm' along with Dawkins etc. - lol.
Thanks for outlining the paradgim you're writing from. Me, I'm coming from the opposite direction with a strong respect for the scientific method (if not the reality). But unlike Dawkins I don't see spiritual experience as irrelavent. Rather I see there's an urgent challenge to integrate both epistemologies in a way that doesn't comprimise the truths each has uncovered. I'd throw art into the mix to as well.
(that old parable about the blind men and the elephant)
I agree, and don't in fact think there are two realms. Rather, I have some kind of materialist view.
You may have mistaken my position from my note to Wayfarer, saying I think spiritual experiences can provide important insights. However, I am currently of the opinion that these have a phyisiological basis.
As for the problem you raise that monists have explaining appearances of duality, I'm pretty comfortable with that, in principle. Appearances are deceiving in all kinds of fields, and is not the work of most enquiry occupied with the task of reconciling our understandings with the appearances of things?
That might seem tad too general. I like better William James' anaology of consciousness as a wedding ring. An observer on the outside or would provide a very different report from one on the inside. Neither report is a false one. The two appearances are not mutually exclusive, but neither is complete.
I hesitate to use computing analogies because i don't want to infer that brains operate just like computers. Anyway, if you wanted to sell me your computer I have no doubt you'd kindly describe it for me. I reckon you'd go on describe both it's physical form (e.g. hardware) and functions (e.g. software). If you only described one of these aspects I'd fuss and complain that your description was incomplete. But I expect you would readily give me the full description I'm looking for. On that basis I'd probably buy that computer before I took you to be a dualist (really ... some of my best friends are dualists!)
Most references to papers I follow up on are available on line. Just type in the name of the reference followed by PDF. If that doesn't work, a lot of things are available really cheaply on Amazon, sometimes electronically. I got Schrodinger's "What is Life" for $1.
Just thought over that analogy I gave you. It's no good. The descriptions of both the software and hardware are both external descriptions, thus neither pairs well with the subjective experience.
Let me try again:
I say I know my car because I've driven round in it the last 20 years and know it's peculiar handling idiosyncracies. As a rule I avoid looking under the hood. My mechanic is always patching it up. When roll it into the shop he says "Ah, there's a car I know well". Wisely he never drives it and and remains unaquainted with a unique driving experience.
We both know something of the car - but neither can say he fully knows it. Suppose a third person comes along who has both these kinds of knowings - maybe a mechanic who bought that model way back and has been nurturing it ever since. This guy has direct experience of its function and an indirect experience of its workings: two very different experiences the one physical thing.
Hope that washes.
I'm not sure I can make sense of this. Who or what is conscious of a material world? This would seem to imply two categories, mind (subject) and matter (object). How would one make them not-two?
One analogy that is useful here, is that this is rather like saying that the drama in movies has a basis in the film (although perhaps the analogy is dated, as nowadays it is digital media.) The impulse to locate the explanatory basis of experience in the physical, is surely rooted in the desire for a scientific certainty in which to ground all of the existential anxieties of life. We want the assurance that the same astounding power which science has used to create the devices that now fill our every waking moment, can also explain to us who we are, to banish the nagging feeling that this is something we don't know. That's what I think the underlying impulse is.
I've been dwelling on this question for years - actually it is why I joined forums - and the view that I've come to is, in brief, that 'modernity is a state of mind'. The division of the world into the objective realm of scientifically-mediated facts, and the subjective realm of privately-held beliefs, is very characteristic of the outlook of modern liberal individualism which arose as a consequence of the Enlightenment and the Scientific Revolution. Whereas it is simply taken for granted by many people, I think the task of philosophy is to make it the subject of critical awareness, to deconstruct it.
Modern analytical philosophy, especially in the English-speaking world, sees itself as very much a junior assistant or hand-maiden of science, which provides most of the important knowledge about the world. The reigning paradigm is what Nagel describes as 'neo-Darwinian materialism', for which Daniel Dennett is a prominent advocate.
Frank Jackson, as I understand it, originally devised the 'Mary's Room' thought experiment to show the shortcomings of materialist theories of mind, but ultimately changed his view and fell into line with the mainstream again.
Anyway - my considered view is that nothing is 'truly' or 'only' physical. Nothing whatever. Of course there are physical things, but their nature is still fundamentally mysterious. It had been hoped that a fundamental particle, and then a fundamental theory, would be found, which would banish mystery, but alas, it doesn't look like it's going to happen any time soon, what with the arguments about bubble universes and parallel worlds.
I think there are more noble reasons than those to employ a scientific paradigm. If nothing else, I can pave my road to Hell with good intentions!
Conversely, as much as I respect the phenomonea of spiritual experience I've seen plenty go sour there too.
The safest course then, is probably just to deal with the philosophical argument at hand, and leave analysis of motives to our biographers.
Now I've been outed as Monist I should really fess up an confess I think the distinction of categories like mind and matter, subject and object are ultimately illusioury (a very useful illusion neverthess). It is the material of the world that gains self awareness, however imperfect and limted.
The most surprising phenomenon is that, despte all the evolutionary pressure not to, sometimes this "subjective" awareness expands to include in the model a very direct understanding that these dichotomies are illusuory. When this occurs in spite of the 'rational' brain functions we've got on our hands what is often called a 'spiritual insight'. Of course then this gets instantly contextualised by culture etc. And we then have to settle for just religion.
See, even materialists can be hippies.
Or, if one is to go with Idealism, it is the Cosmic Mind that conceives of the idea of matter, and a finite locus of that mind that experiences it as such, while there is never any actual separation between them.
As well, there's the Advaita Vedanta take, as per this Shankara quote ...
[i]Brahman alone is real
The world is illusory
Brahman is the world[/i]
Take your pick :wink:
While you were replying I just edited that last post and Hippied it up a little more.
Lol, I was a hippie back in the Paleolithic. It wasn't till those yuppy Greeks showed up in the forum that all the arguing started.
Back on topic ... Your question just triggered this thought about the materialism vs idealism debate, in that the question could be rephrased as follows: Is it 'real' matter that is experiencing the illusion of mind? Or is it 'real' mind that is experiencing the illusion of matter? Wadya think?
I'm only nitpicking: The way I read this it might, or might not, convey an implicit assumption of the permanency of the self … even in so far as consciousness/experience not being possible devoid of something other which is experienced. I’m presuming this will be much ado about nothing new to you, all the same:
Where one to take the experiences of all those who are reputed to have had intense spiritual experiences—this via meditations or otherwise—their awareness/consciousness in such instances increase far beyond what our average commonplace states of consciousness are. Hence, were such experiences to be believed as non-bogus, then the magnitude of our consciousness can become greatly amplified in terms of both quantity and quality of awareness.
Hallucinogen-based experiences, such as those of Aldous Huxley in his “Doors of Perception”, greatly complicate matters in terms of preferred ontological explanations, but they are reported to occur all the same. When not going haywire, these again purportedly endow selves with increased awareness that is often enough coupled with a highly increased sense of selfless being (i.e., increased impartiality of awareness relative to all that is other in normal states of being, with its hypothetical zenith being that of an experienced, complete non-duality of being/awareness ... attested to by some within history).
Cases such as these speak toward the possibility of consciousness becoming far more and qualitatively far different than what we take it to be in everyday life.
Having addressed the generally more pleasant, in not wholly imaginary (as many atheists will believe), aspect of the conscious self holding the potential to transmute into something much greater than ordinary human conscious being, there then are the more explanatorily accessible instances where human consciousness can become diminished, fragmented, or else cease holding presence.
To dwell a great deal on DSM examples of mental disorders would get depressing, but, in passing, there is everything from extreme cases of schizophrenia, to multiple personalities, to catatonia, to sleep walking with awareness of the external world, to states of indefinite unconsciousness. In these cases, at least typically, the awoken human consciousness becomes less and other than what it ordinarily is as a unified point of view, such that it is no longer as functional, if at all so.
Less unnerving are the ordinary transitions from wakefulness to sleep, in which our ordinary awoken consciousness becomes gradually reduced in magnitude; would be termed hallucinatory if its sometimes occurring, half-awoken experiences would likewise occur while fully awoken; and eventually cease to hold presence—until, in some instances, it then holds presence as a first person point of view during REM dreams—after which it again awakens and thereby holds an awoken presence.
In all aforementioned cases, what it is like to so be/experience still holds. But all these examples—both of increased magnitude, including instances of non-dualistic awareness rich in meaning, and of decreased magnitude of human consciousness, including that of a lack of presence—do point to there not being such a thing as a permanent conscious state of being—ultimately, not even to a necessary first person point of view in order for awareness to be.
In other words, there is no requirement for awareness to be a self as typically understood and held onto by most everybody: one which is differentiated from everything that is other and is thereby dualistic in its experienced being; one which defines itself (e.g., I am stupid/smart, talented/a klutz, poor/wealthy, etc.) and then clings onto its own self-produced definitions of what it is as an otherwise intangible awareness/self.
I get that there’s a linguistic quagmire when it comes to what consciousness signified and how the term is used; to me, though, it nevertheless seems blatant that there is a clear cut distinction between consciousness per se and being conscious of, this as a staple part of our commonsense understandings.
I tend to think you’d agree with more rather than less of what I’ve mentioned … ?
Or at least tentatively.
I think Descartes has to shoulder much of the blame for the confusion. In an extreme bout of scepticism he asserted "I think therefore I, am" as at least the one thing he could be sure of. (Discourse on the Method, and Principles of Philosophy)
But really, it doesn't follow that a conventional isolated 'self' must exist to do the thinking. If he was just a little more curmudgeonly he would uttered the more accurate "Thinking occurs, therefore ... well, just thinking occurs".
Not much to build an academic career on I admit. But it may have reduced centuries of insomnia for the rest of us now snared in the dichotomy.
What I make of David Chalmer's point is simply that because of the first-person nature of experience, then it's not fully describable in objective or third-person terms. And this is the very nub of the argument between Chalmers and Dennett. Chalmers basically says that, because experience is first-person - a 'what it feels like to be something', as he puts it - then no functional description in terms of what consciousness does, can ever fully capture it. And that is exactly what Dennett objects to. He says there is nothing but the activity of objects - in this case, organic molecules and neurotransmitters - which gives rise to the illusion of first-person experience. This quote from his well-known (some would say 'notorious') book Darwin's Dangerous Idea, makes it very clear:
Daniel Dennett, Darwin’s Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meanings of Life (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1995), 202-3, quoted by Steve Talbott, Evolution and the Illusion of Randomness
And this opposition between Chalmers and Dennett throws the whole question into relief, in my opinion. You don't need to posit an 'immortal soul' - all you need to show is that any 'objective account' of the nature of consciousness (or the self, or experience) must necessarily be incomplete. But rather than admit that, Dennett must argue that actually being itself, the apodictic and first-person nature of experience, is itself an illusion (hence D B Hart's review of his latest book being called The Illusionist). The small coterie of so-called 'eliminativist materialists' which includes him, P & P Churchlands, Alex Rosenberg, and sundry others, all maintain this (what I would regard as an) obvious fiction. And that's because to admit that mind or experience or the first-person perspective has an innate reality basically undermines their entire project. No need to mention mysticism or altered states or anything else. Plain old 'subjectivity' (or actually 'subject-hood') will do the job.
1) Neural Activity for Red happens.
2) A Red Conscious Experience happens.
How does 1 produce 2?
That is the Hard Problem of Consciousness. The Physicalists will say that the question is irrelevant because 2 is just an Illusion. I disagree with the Illusion argument. Even if we could settle on what an Illusion is, the Physicalists will still have to explain how we Experience the Red in the Illusion. The key is in thinking about the Redness of the Red. What is that? It's something. But what is it? It's in our Minds.
I like to call the Red Experience in our Mind, Conscious Red Light. We think that Redness is a Property of Physical Red Light. But Physical Red Light does not have Redness as a Property. Conscious Red Light in the Mind has the Redness Property. Physical Red Light has wavelength as a Property. Conscious Red Light has Redness as a Property but does not have Wavelength as a Property. I view Physical Red Light and Conscious Red Light as two different things that both exist as a reality. One is in the Physical World and the other is in some kind of Conscious World.
Why would you think that things in one realm ought to correspond with things in the other? Shouldn't they just be two complimentary aspects of existence?
Hey Steve,
I agree with half of this physicalist view: Yes for the illusion part. No for its irrelevancy.
An illusion? Well, a convenient fiction at least. It turns out the these is no distinct redness in the material world. There is in fact a seemless array of available wavelengths across very wide spectrum (most of which is quite invisible to us but still real). We perceive a distinct redness after our red colour cones are triggered by a certain range wavelengths.
This is outlined succinctly in a Wiki article at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_vision
(I'd love to post some illustrative graphs here but that seems beyond my Palaeolithic skill-set I'm afraid)
I agree there is an absurd incongruousness to it all! Despite our gloriously nuanced experience of colour vision we only have 3 kinds of receptors! (Red, blue and Green). I too felt the internal revolt when I nerdily informed my artist friend of all this.
Yet it happens.
That sight is a 'physical' process must surely be acknowledged by those who are unfortunate enough to lose the physical equipment to produce it (either the eyes or their associated brain hardware) . Certainly, the newly blind can still vividly recall 'redness' ... at least until the years pass and redness fades from memory. But this this recollection is not usually what we mean as 'perception'.
Still, yes, there seems to be a huge qualitative gap between the hardware and the experience. Clearly, work still needs to be done to chart all the steps (this is not the only field that can be said of). I hope the info here goes some way towards bridging it. I hope even more that my pet theory of a multiple processor model (presented in my original post), might turn out to be on the right track.
Quoting SteveKlinko
Oh yeah. The second part: How can illusiory subjectivity be important? Although illusiory in nature, the subjective experience itself forms a reality that has very real and external consequences. An astronaut might look down say: "Wow, no lines - it turns out those geographical borders are all just an illusion!" Well yes and no. You only have to walk too far north along the Korean peninsular to learn a painful lesson of the truth of 'social' realities. Beside which, in-the-illusion is where we live. How can it not be important to us?
Cheers then
Question. If physicalists are so on board with consciousness being illusory, why do physicalists so often gag at the notion that our phenomenal reality is an illusion (as per Eastern philosophies--and not per commonsense notions of illusions concerning what is otherwise commonly shared/objective phenomena)? Never quite got that.
Even as a physicalist I'm not sure either. I can speak from experience that the meditational practices are often difficult and psychologically discomforting.
I don't want to get too ad-hominum about all, but I suspect it's just an over-enthusiasm for empiriicism. It's great tool that has been very productive for us. But even the best tools have their limits.
(By the way, how can I make that lttle arrow+name link you guys all do?)
Quoting Kym
when logged in, go to the bottom of the post next to the time posted, an arrow will appear labeled "reply"; clicking on it puts the arrow+name in the post you're writing
Thanks
The next question is function. Should this, or else my former @name techinique, alert the named person that there is a message for them?
... Wait, just checked: the @mane style didn't leave a message indicator for me. But the reply-arrow will.
1. the one Chalmers concentrates on..how does physical activity generate sensations or qualia. Maybe this one is not that hard. It is clear that certain physical vibrations or energy deterministically generates sounds and colors. I would assume something like this also happens in the brain.
2. This may be the most "hard problem". How are the different sense modalities bound together into a single conscious entity. I think that Chalmers and most philosophers make a critical error here by assuming that problem number one comes first and number two second so that qualia are first created and then bound together into a unity. I think number two comes first and has no dependence on number one. Conscious entities exist and are fundamental aspects of the universe. We can say that all animals (even single celled protozoa) are conscious and come with the inherent ability to sense qualia in there environment.
3. This and the next problem are ignored entirely by Chalmers. Conscious entities are efficacious. If they were not so we would not be having this discussion. Given the existence of quantum physics and probability waves I dont think this is such an impossible idea anymore.
4. What is called indexicality. Why I am I me and not you. Even if we concede that points of view or perspectives exist in the world, why am I this one particular point of view. Nagel pointed out that even in a world where everything is understood objectively this one very important fact would be missing.
see: https://philpapers.org/rec/SLETLO-2
I'm loathe to fess up to this right now, but I am in fact a bot agorithm so I'm probably not the best one to answer this.
More seriously, I need to think on those points before replying - after my CPU cores have cooled little.
I often presume that from an Eastern philosophy perspective, the ultimate reality is taken to be that of non-dualistic being/awareness. Hence the occasional Eastern metaphor of dualistic experience—that of self and other—being “illusion” or “dream” or some such—like you said, the veil of maya. As per Buddhism, that whole “neither is there a self nor not a self” predicament.
Having said that—to be more pragmatic about things—the world of dualistic experience will likely continue for inestimable eons yet to come, is replete with facts unearthed by the empirical sciences concerning our commonly shared world, and is for us selves about as real as real can get. Besides, if one for example buys into the Anima/Spiritus Mundi motif, our world still has a lot to teach us about ourselves.
More to the thread’s topic, when it comes to what consciousness is and how it should be conceptualized, the issue reminds me of some of the lyrics to an old-time song called “Epic” by the band “Faith No More” (the song can be found on youtube):
I have never quite understood arguments that end up with the conclusion that Consciousness is an Illusion. In my way of thinking an Illusion is something that doesn't really exist. The Red Experience certainly Exists. So how do Physicalists understand the meaning of the word Illusion?
Also, I think that the experience of Red does not need Color Cones or even a Retina or Eye (Except during the development stage). Think about the Red you can Experience while Dreaming. Dark room no Light.
I like to start with the Redness that I See and contemplate on that. Redness is a Property of a Conscious thing. Redness is a Property of the Physicalist Illusion of Red. How can an Illusion have a Property? Something that has a Property must be more than just an Illusion or a Convenient Fiction.
I'll assume then, that you mean interaction or something like that, when you say "correspondence". So, there is interaction between the mental and the physical. Where's the problem?
Quoting lorenzo sleakes
I think this idea of a single conscious entity has been misleading assumption in the debate since Descartes (at least).
Quoting lorenzo sleakes
Me, I see it as a two-way causal flow. On one hand the other outside world is certainly a cause of internal experiences - via perception etc. On the other hand this is doubtless effected by the equipment we have available - including neurological wiring of a-priori concepts .. like causation for instance (ow... my head hurts).
Quoting lorenzo sleakes
I haven't read this yet but should. I the meantime I'd posit as a place-holder a notion that the distinction between me and you is just a temporary anomaly. For most of the time we are just universe stuff. Right now there are two patterns in the stuff (at least) that has some consciousness of universe stuff in general. Don't worry though, things will return to normal shortly!
* End application file run *
I'm not sure I've done enough reading of the Physicalist boffins to answer for them. But years back asked a big-time Zen teacher why Buddhists said we all live in the 'Maya' world of illusion - when there was so obviously correspondences beween the world and my experiences of it. He said, yes a material world does exist but it's SO different from how we perceive it that we more accurately should say we're living in an illusion.
Hope that is of some comfort .
Not sure what zen makes of the Heart Sutra, as its mention may just earn a whack from the master's keisaku and some more zazen in the zend?. However, it may still be applicable here ...
[i]Avalokiteshvara
while practicing deeply with
the Insight that Brings Us to the Other Shore,
suddenly discovered that
all of the five Skandhas are equally empty,
and with this realisation
he overcame all Ill-being.
“Listen Sariputra,
this Body itself is Emptiness
and Emptiness itself is this Body.
This Body is not other than Emptiness
and Emptiness is not other than this Body.
The same is true of Feelings,
Perceptions, Mental Formations,
and Consciousness.
“Listen Sariputra,
all phenomena bear the mark of Emptiness?
their true nature is the nature of
no Birth no Death,
no Being no Non-being,
no Defilement no Purity,
no Increasing no Decreasing.
“That is why in Emptiness,
Body, Feelings, Perceptions,
Mental Formations and Consciousness
are not separate self entities ...[/i]
And so on and so forth ...
Well, I can tell you for certain that my mob certainly liked to chant it a lot. I have to admit it used to stick in my throat though.
There is a problem with taking this approach. If red is an illusion or convenient fiction, then what makes light waves any more real?
We've come to explain vision in terms of photons bouncing off objects into our eyes because we perceive color in the first place, and then did a bunch of experiments to explore the phenomenon and came up with a physical theory as a result.
Empiricism is undergirded by subjectivity. If you make the subjective an illusion, then there goes the basis for knowledge about the physical world.
Possibly in need of some loving attention to the throat chakra? :smile:
I think there I was trying to head off being tagged with a strict correspondence theory of consciousness. Sure we see the world, but that vision is distorted. Personally, I'm really interested in understanding these distortions.
As for the vortex of solipsism this threatens to hurl us into:
I really like the pragmatic attitude of scientific enquiry that says "OK - here's my take on things. It maybe be wrong, but let's see how far we can drive in it before it breaks down".
Even if that Sutra is dead right, the apparent nihlism of it all seems so terrifying. It's like looking down the gullet of a black hole.
Curiously I don't feel any nihilism at all, at least not from that heartfelt Thich Nhat Hanh version, a truly compassionate master IMO, as I see it more as 'emptifullness.'
TNH also relates this story to speak to such misunderstandings of the Heart Sutra with the following allegory ...
[i]The Zen master asked the novice monk:
“Tell me about your understanding of the Heart sutra.”
The novice monk joined his palms and replied:
“I have understood that the five skandhas are empty. There are no eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body or mind; there are no forms, sounds, smells, tastes, feelings, or objects of mind; the six consciousnesses do not exist, the eighteen realms of phenomena do not exist, the twelve links of dependent arising do not exist, and even wisdom and attainment do not exist.”
“Do you believe what it says?”
“Yes, I truly believe what it says.”
“Come closer to me,” the Zen master instructed the novice monk. When the novice monk drew near, the Zen master immediately used his thumb and index finger to pinch and twist the novice’s nose.
In great agony, the novice cried out “Teacher! You’re hurting me!” The Zen master looked at the novice. “Just now you said that the nose doesn’t exist. But if the nose doesn’t exist then what’s hurting?”[/i]
Yes. This speaks of a very important disjuncture between 'academic' and 'lived' understandings
(to grope for some terms)
A huge chasm dividing my own consciousness I can tell you!
I couldn't agree more on that point, and which could also certainly apply to the 'Bernardo Kastrup' thread I started. I'm now enjoying this thread, which does make a nice compliment to that one, only without so much QM stuff (quibbling mindsets)
BTW, I attended a small audience of Thich Nhat Hanh's in Sydney, years ago. He discussed the issue of his students' self-immoliations during Vietnam's crisis. Any thoughts or feelings on this matter yourself?
Thanks for that vid.
My take on the issue is that the mental construction of 'self' is one of the "interesting distorting fictions" I've been circling around. We can't be too hard on it though, because without it we can't filter our perceptions enough to survive as organic beings. Nor can we be adaptively selective in what actions we make. Without self, all distinctions cease - hence the void, shortly followed by death if we keep it up. With a self, isolation and confusion are inevitiable. A comic-tragedy really, at least to those like, me far less skilled in compassion than Thich Nhat Hanh.
As for the fireworks, I don't want to drive the discussion off topic, but I may have to issue an erratum.
Looking for articles I'm thinking It may have been his colleagues he was talking about, rather than his students. But that was from around 1987 so you'll have to cut me some slack there.
Would 'delusion' be a better term? Consciousness is deluded? I scratch about for the correct words in this area (check the x-ray)
OK thanks for the link. I'll let that sleeping dog lie just here. But PM me if you do want to open that discussion.
Meanwhile I checked of the thread you opened: Eleven pages of response. Nice one.
The hard problem is reconciling mechanism with the idea that consciousness is a unified phenomenal experience.
The best explanation in cognitive neuroscience is the global workspace model which identifies consciousness as a collapse of neuronal coalitions in order for the brain to focus on a single decision. So granting consciousness the necessary identity as a functional (attention) description may solve the problem. You have a scientific description for it as well as a first person description.
However within the materialist/physicalist/mechanist paradigm this model is just a useful fiction that describes the higher level property of attentional spotlight/ consciousness. The real (efficient) work is being done by electrons and quarks and yet there is a phenomenal experience for the higher level attentional description. Either everything is mechanistic or there is ontological dualism (mental and physical) or pluralism .
To that point, this blog post may be of interest here ... Plotinus and the problem of absolute self-consciousness
I think we are perhaps in agreement just there. Except maybe you might be a tad more optimistiic tham me about achieving full understanding. But I like the pragmatists' approach of just saying "Damn it let's just give it a crack anyway".
Hi Jess. Do you mean to imply there are actually women on this forum? I was wondering.
Quoting JupiterJess
The term belongs first I think to Chalmers. But nevertheless good old Wiki gives a concise overview of various ways it has been used. Me, I just like the mental image the "Philosophical Zombie" paints in my head. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophical_zombie
If you mean how I meant to use it, then I can clarify that at least:
At first sight, consciousness seems redundant. Seemingly a person or animal could react to the world 'normally', without the intervening step of internal consciousness. Kind of like a machine following an algorithm, or the Behaviourists’ black-box model of stimulus-in / response-out. But dead inside, like a Zombie. This notion raises the question of "why do we need consciousness?"
Leaving aside just now the increasing probability that you are reading a response from a bot-algorithm, I at least feel confident that you lot out there have internal experiences as well.
But then I would say that.
Thanks, I'll get down to reading that link properly.
Meanwhile I must confess I've been at a loss to take on the idea of Universal Mind.
1. It seems so far that mind is only seen manifest in local structures (sentient organisms). So, there are are only localized POVs. Not very universal.
2. It also seems that evolutionary pressure mandates endless fabrications of 'self'. Which, as discussed, seems the very antithesis of universal consciouness.
Or maybe I've mis-conceived of it. Whaddya think?
I guess so. I mainly stick to PoM threads so don't know the demographic. There is a dearth of us in philosophy overall, especially analytic philosophy. There are more in continental philosophy I believe.
Quoting Kym
Okay so to subscribe to the logical possibility of zombies you have to subscribe to strong anthropic mechanism first? As in it's all bottom up cognition and you can have a complete mechanistic description like billiard balls colliding with each other.
I've always suspected the zombie argument is really an argument against reductionism where if the argument was rephrased to allow for top-down causation the problem would vanish. That's really why Descartes mental substance exists because he had already decided that mechanism was sufficient to describe everything else, including the other animals.
Wouldn't this suggest that the bottom-up model is missing something?
I completely agree with that interpretation of Illusion in that we never really experience the External World directly but only through our internal Conscious representation of the External World. Our Internal Conscious experiences are Surrogates for the External phenomenon. The Zen interpretation seems at least to admit that the Illusion experience is at least Something. But the way I understand how the Physicalists use Illusion is to try to minimize the Conscious phenomenon and make it go away. They say Consciousness is an Illusion and doesn't really exist so there's nothing that we even need to study here. No Explanatory Gap and no Hard Problem.
But the way I see it, the experience of the color Red (Redness) is a real phenomenon that needs to be Explained. Redness is a Conscious phenomenon not a Physical phenomenon. I like to say that Physical Red Light has Wavelength and other Properties that exist in the normal Physical Space that Science can explain. I also say that Conscious Red Light (the thing we actually experience) has Redness and other Properties that exist in some as yet unexplained Conscious Space that Science does not know how to deal with yet. We should think about Conscious Space, at this point, as just a tool that gives Conscious phenomena a place to exist for the sake of discussion. Think about the Redness of Red. It must be explained. It does not exist in Physical Space but only in Conscious Space. If Science can show that Conscious Space is part of Physical Space then the Hard Problem will be solved. But up to this point Science has not shown that. The Hard Problem remains.
I think calling Conscious experience an Illusion is very misleading and counter productive for understanding Consciousness. Consciousness is not an Illusion but is rather a whole different realm of Phenomena that are unexplained by Science at this point.
Yeah. I find it easy to use use some terms a bit fast and loose. Itchy trigger finger.
Quoting Marchesk
It certainly does. The Zombie position is not one I agree with. I'm pretty sure Chalmers disagreed with it too. But rather, he was laying out all the possibilities before proceeding with his argument.
But you must admit, the image of a Zombified greek philosopher is pretty cute.
The Unversal Mind Topic
I think I've already hinted that I have a lot respect for the phenomenon of mystical experience - however tainted it can become by culture etc. The universal mind experience is one the seems to crop up again and again cross-cultures. So I'd suspect there's probably really something to it.
But since I'm not in that club, I'll have to make do with philosophy for now.
So far the only grasp I've got on it is along the lines of this: The phenomenon of consciousness is a subset of the phenomenon of information. That's something I certainly can see is omnipresent. Thinking now of thousands of gradations of sentience occurring throughout the animal kingdom, then the plant kingdom, mcro-biota and so on. Then even simpler information as transferred and stored mechanically in molecules and viral crystal structures, then down to the acoustic vibrations in the surrounding furniture that reflect my banging on this typewriter – itself a kind of model of the world.
In this way I can see consciousness as information omnipresent, but very concentrated in places, for example in a human's sentience.
Do you think this take on it is on the right track. Or am I barking up the wrong tree do you think?
Quoting JupiterJess
This is awkward for me since I'm secretly a determinist with a predilection for bottom-up explanation wherever possible (Occam's razor etc.). Yet, no Zombies for me!
Weird, hey?
As I remember it the pZombie was a discussion tool for asking the question: What would be the difference if Consciousness was removed from the Human Mind? The question was asked because people were really wondering what the purpose of Consciousness was. There were people that thought that there would be no noticeable difference because they thought Consciousness was just an Illusion and had no real purpose. It was Insane denial of the purpose of Consciousness. If you take away the Visual Conscious experience you would be Blind. We could not move around in the world with just Neural Processing. Removing the Conscious Visual experience removes the final stage in the Visual process that lets us See. People who think that the pZombie would be undetectable deny the Primacy of Consciousness in our existence.
Few years back I found myself working with fiesty philosophy graduate and earned some contempt when I let slip that I might be a panpsychist. "So you believe that table is sentient?" he barked in the staffroom. In reality I slunk away in embarrased silence.
These days I'd hope to at least say "Not right right now, but just wait around a bit will you?". The point being that over time pretty much all atoms will get a go as they're cycled through the system. The table-form we were looking at was just a temporal anomaly really.
So there's the time dimension to consider too.
Quoting SteveKlinko
Lol, my first uni study was Psychology run by a rampant B.F Skinner loving behaviourist who would have no truck with the mention of any mental states. Oddly, he was also a rampant Freudian.
Strange world this one.
I think so.
"Experience" being a central one. "Consciousness" being the main one. The "subjective/objective" dichotomy being another pivotal one. All three are involved. None of them are adequate for taking account of what's going on in the minds of thinking and/or believing creatures...
Yeah, that notion got kicked around a lttle yesterday I think
Let's suppose you believe that reality consists of two realms, we can neutrally call them realm A and realm B. If they are genuinely two distinct realms, then they are self-contained insofar as all the elements in one realm can be accounted for in terms only involving other elements of that same realm. This is real dualism about reality.
However, realm A becomes epiphenomenal with regard to realm B and vice-versa. But the principle of sufficient reason would then require us, from the perspect of realm B, to reject the existence of realm A, since realms that just "tag along for the ride" have no sufficient reason for existing. Similarly, the principle of sufficient reason would require us to reject the existence of realm B when considering things from realm A. We might want to try to take a third way, but we are assuming that reality just consists of two realms, so there is no third realm we can go to for adjudication.
So, we then suppose that realm A and realm B are not separate realms. We might think that everything we previously presumed to be in realm A can be accounted for by things in realm B, or vice-versa, but we thus eliminate one of the two realms we presumed to exist in the first place. We might want to try an approach that said that there is at least one thing in what we used to call realm A that cannot be accounted for by things in realm B, but then we are just keeping realm A as a self-contained realm, but with a shrunken domain, and once again from the perspective of the enlarged realm B, it becomes epiphenomenal and so its raison d'être is removed. And similarly, from the perspecive of this reduced realm A, realm B is redundant.
So, the principle of sufficient reason pushes us towards monism.
There might be some conceptual confusion going on in the above, maybe in my assumption that if reality consists of two realms, then the principle of sufficient reason is applicable in both realms individually. But if the alternative is to say that the principle of sufficient reason has to be applied from neither realm A nor realm B, then we seem to have two choices. First, we could suppose that the principle is to be applied from a perspective in reality. But then we have have to introduce a third realm to reality, and the same line of thought as applied above to realm A and realm B would reapply to realm A + realm B + realm C, and the pressure for monism remains. Alternatively, we could try the line that the principle of sufficient reason is not to be applied from any perspective in reality at all, but that requires that we be able to make a distinction between not applying a principle from within reality, on the one hand, and not really applying the principle at all, on the other, but that smells like a distinction without a difference.
Let Realm A be the Conscious Realm where all our Conscious experiences happen. We can put all Conscious experience in it's own Realm because we don't know what Conscious experience is yet. For example Science does not say anything about what the experience of Red is. At this point it just Is. So it makes sense to put it into a separate Realm.
Let Realm B be the Scientifically known Physical World of Material, Energy, and Space. The Brain can produce Neural Activity for the color Red while we are Awake or while we are Dreaming. This Red Neural Activity can produce a Conscious Experience of Red in the Conscious Mind. This Red Neural Activity is the Neural Correlate of the Conscious experience of Red.
So we know two things:
1) Neural Activity for Red happens in Realm B.
2) A Red Conscious experience happens in Realm A.
But the obvious question jumps out at us: How does 1 lead to 2? Just because 2 is Correlated with 1 doesn't mean that they are both in the same Realm. There is a Huge Explanatory Gap between 1 and 2. This is the Hard Problem of Consciousness.
At this point the experience of Red for example is not understood by Science. In fact Science has no idea what it is. It is truly one of unsolved Mysteries of Science. The only thing that Science has come up with is that it is an Illusion. So how do we experience that Illusion? The Red experience must be explained.
But the Conscious Visual experience consists of all the Colors. These Colors are painted onto that Conscious Visual screen that is embedded in the front of your face that you probably don't even think about. But that is what you should be thinking about. If you think about the Conscious Visual experience and specifically the color Red you will eventually understand the Mystery of it and you will become a Dualist.
So look at something Red. Think about the Redness of the Red. What is that? That Redness is a Property of the Conscious experience of Red. The Redness Property only exists in Realm A. There is no Property of Redness in Realm B. All there is, is Neural Activity. But even the Physical Red Light that causes all this from Realm B does not have a Property of Redness. Realm B Red Light has Wavelength as a Property. The Conscious Red experience does not have Wavelength as a Property only Redness.
.
To separate two things as "distinct" things, does not require that those things do not interact with each other. You and I are distinct things yet we are interacting here. So I think you are placing unnecessary restrictions on your definition of "genuinely" distinct. If that is what is required to be genuinely distinct, then absolutely nothing could be genuinely distinct from anything else, because it would have to be self-caused. So that definition of "distinct" is unreal and unacceptable. We ought to allow that distinct things may interact with each other.
Quoting jkg20
I don't see how you bring the principle of sufficient reason to bear in this way. What you have described is simple solipsism. You are suggesting that I must reject the reality which you apprehend with your mind, because my apprehended reality is the only true reality. But since I can recognize that your perspective is different from mine, there is no real reason for me to reject yours. From my perspective, you might "tag along for the ride", but from yours, I might "tag along for the ride". So you haven't given sufficient reason to reject one or the other.
Quoting jkg20
It is only by your assumption of a third realm that you claim A and B are not separate. As I explained above, A and B may be distinct, and interacting. When you give reality to this "interacting", you make A and B parts of a larger whole, C, which contains this interacting. But there is no necessity to assume C. There is simply A interacting with B and the reality of the interactions is accounted for by the activities of A and the activities of B.
This is why there appears to be a "problem" of consciousness. We keep assuming that if A and B interact, the "interaction" itself ought to be evident. So we look for the interaction. But this is a mistaken procedure because the assumption of this third realm, the realm of interaction, is not supported logically. there is no need to assume a realm of interaction. We have activity occurring in A, and activity occurring in B. Some of the activity in A might be the cause of some activity in B, and vise versa. There is no need to assume C, the realm of interaction, unless your intent is to make A and B two parts of a larger whole, C. But that is simply the intent to reduce the two distinct realms to one realm, C. It is a monist intent. If the realm of interaction is not supported by evidence, then this is an incorrect procedure, and the monist intent is a misguided attempt to simplify what cannot be simplified..
The metaphysical issue concerns distinct realms, not distinct things within realms. You and I are distinct things, perhaps, but we are not in distinct realms. Metaphysical dualism requires two distinct realms, and the only way I can see of fleshing out the notion of separate realms is in terms of self-containment. That things within the same realm might interact with each other is unproblematic (or at least less problematic) but that things might interact across realms is precisely the issue I'm trying to dive into at an abstract level. Descartes, for instance, gets into trouble at this point - he believes he has established the existence of two distinct realms (he calls them "substances"), the mental and the physical, but if they are genuinely distinct, how can they possibly interact? Of course, Descartes just assumed that they did interact, rather than pursuing the idea that the very notion of two distinct metaphysical realms interacting does not make sense in the first place (which I think is one of the issues Spinoza has with Descartes).
I suppose I'm trying to approach the issue purely metaphysically, not epistemologically (and therein may lie my confusion). That we might not know enough about which realm a given thing should be assigned to seems to me to be a different issue from pursuing the very idea of two metaphysically distinct realms in the first place. Whilst am happy to assume that what there is might have an effect on what we can know, I'm less inclined to believe that what we can know might have an effect on what there is. But maybe I'm making the kind of mistake here that Kant thought he'd analysed and treated in his Critique of Pure Reason.
:up: Yes indeed, and oh look, is that Idealism I see entering the stage, rearing its headless Mind?
I'll reiterate. This is not what "distinct" means. Your premise that distinct realms must be "self-contained" is simply designed to support your monism. It is begging the question.
There is no logical reason for you to insist that one distinct realm cannot interact with another distinct realm. It appears like you have not read my entire post.
When I see that a Phenomenon in A is correlated with a Phenomenon in B I just naturally ask how does this happen? The Correlations are predictable and consistent enough that we must assume there is some kind of causal Interaction between A and B. I think we need a C Realm, at least as a place holder, for the Interaction to take place in. Obviously when we better understand what Consciousness is, Realm C will roll into the other two Realms, or the 3 Realms may all roll into one Realm. I think we really need this Realm C to keep us concentrating on what the problem really is. I think it is a Connection Problem and a Processing Problem.
I don't see how "self-containment" is even relevant. I would think that if the descriptive terms used to describe the properties or attributes of the members of one realm are distinct from, and not reducible to the descriptive terms of the other, then the two are distinct.
Quoting snowleopard
No I wouldn't agree. The whole point I am arguing is that the distinction is real, not apparent.
Quoting SteveKlinko
The C realm here is completely imaginary. What is real is the activity of A and the activity of B. That there is a "causal interaction" is your description, so it is something which is completely a product of your mind, imaginary. If you want to assign "reality" to this causal interaction you would need to base it in something real, independent of your mind. You could assign reality to the passing of time, to make the causal interaction real, but this is not introducing another "realm", it is just assuming that the passing of time is real, and is common to both realms.
Quoting SteveKlinko
Do you agree, that the passing of time satisfies the conditions required of the place holder (realm C)? We do not need the realm C as a place holder if the passing of time is real and common to both A and B, allowing for causal relations.
Well then this may be one of those cases of having to agree to disagree. I fully concede that, not being a formally educated philosopher, I am coming at this more from the perspective of mysticism, via the lens of Buddhism/Taoism, that has evolved over time into this version of Idealism, perhaps akin to dual-aspect or dialetical monism, which may be a bit too numinous for some here. Nonetheless, I remain open to being otherwise enlightened -- although I may now have to shut the door on physicalism -- in this cyberspace crucible of cogent thinkers, such as @jkg20 and others, wherein I can put these ideas to the test of tenability. So far, it remains a work in progress.
Doesn't that miss jkg20's point? After all, the way you make this statement assumes you've already settled that there are two realms for different attributes to apply in. Jkg20, as far as I can tell, is posing some very abstract metaphysical questions (metametaphilosophical ?) concerning making the kind of divisions that some people are kind of helping themselves to.
One approach, and perhaps this was more like what you are getting at, is to say the dualism issue isn't about two distinct realms at all, but just about two distinct kinds of attributes that are possessed by things that are in one and only one realm. You kind of cede to monism in doing that at some level, but perhaps can keep some form of dualism going at the level of properties, although perhaps even there jkg20's abstract issues about realms and epiphenomenalism/principle of sufficient reason might crop up (in a recast form perhaps).
I've nothing against speculative philosophy, as opposed to the dry analytic kind that jkg20 seems more focussed on, but there's some terminology in what you say that does cry out for clarification before someone like me could even begin to understand what you're talking about. I suppose for "finite locus of mind" you mean something like the traditional "subject of experience"? But what is this "Mind-at-large", you mention, and what are its emanations?
If the idea is that realm C contains the necessary and sufficient conditions for causal occurences, the passing of time won't cut it. Time passing might be necessary for causation, but since we can imagine nothing happening over a period of time, it is not sufficient.
The Physical Realm is real and the Conscious Realm is real. The Interaction is completely real, we just don't know what it is yet.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Just because Causal Processes can happen over time doesn't mean you don't need a C Realm. Any Causal Process of the C Realm must deal with Physical Realm Activity and translate that to Conscious Realm Activity. Maybe these Causal Processes are in Realm A and Realm B but somehow a Bridge between Realm A and B must be constructed.
I don't think that this really resolves the issue. The issue is not that we can make two different types of descriptions concerning the same thing, it is that some things require one type of description, and other things require another type of description. So the things get placed in different categories. Consider that there are concepts, which are immaterial objects, universals, and there are also physical things which are material objects, particulars. Do you see how it is not the case that the two different types of descriptive terms can be applied to things of both classifications, but it is the case that the things require a different type of description, and this necessitates the distinction?
Quoting ProcastinationTomorrow
That's exactly why the argument from sufficient reason doesn't hold as a valid argument. Activities in realm A may be causing activities in realm B, but the determination that the activities in realm B are posterior in time to the activities in realm A doesn't suffice to prove that the one is the cause of the other. So it may still be the case that activities of realm A cause activities of realm B, without any realm C. The realm C is just required to prove that the one causes the other. It is the proof which requires this unity of coherency between the two realms. However, in order that activities in realm A may cause activities in realm B, the passage of time must be common to both, because "cause" implies a temporal succession
Quoting SteveKlinko
As I explained above, the "Bridge", which is realm C is not necessary. The realm C is only required to prove a causal relation. Realm A and realm B be may be causally interactive without any realm C. The so-called "Bridge" is just needed to understand the causal relation. However, since understanding is already a property of the one realm, let's say realm A, the Bridge would be entirely within realm A, principles of understanding, and not a real bridge, nor a realm C, at all.
This is the real problem of consciousness. We assume a material, physical, world, a realm which is outside the realm of consciousness. But we have no real way to understand it because everything which we understand is within the realm of consciousness. So we poke and prod at this material world, observing how it behaves in response, but we can only make conclusions based on a supposed causal relation, because we haven't discovered any real Bridge. There may not actually be a Bridge, and any constructed Bridge would just be within realm A, and only a false Bridge
Yes, I think so - in any case I'm still waiting for a definition of distinctness of realms in terms other than self-containment. However, your point about the dualism issue possibly making sense when shifted to talk of properties rather than realms is food for thought - I'll have to think about that - but I initially I think my general point could be recast.
Assume two distinct realms, be it properties or substances or whatever: what makes them distinct? You cannot just help yourself to the fact that they are distinct (well, you could, but then you wouldn't be doing metaphysics). So, you try to move forward by providing necessary and sufficient conditions for something to be in one of the realms or the other. But, if they are not strictly logically contradictory conditions, how do you rule out the possibility of one thing meeting the necessary and sufficient conditions for being in both realms, and thus destroying their distinctness? Because, one wants to insist, precisely because the realms are distinct - but then we are back to where we began - we're just asserting and not establishing distinctness. So, we shift the abstract definition of distinctness a little more and we add the condition that the realms are self-contained - but what does that add? What it adds, at least under one expansion of the idea, is that the items in distinct realms could exist in the absence of all items in any other possible realm, which clearly excludes the idea of one thing being in two actual realms, because one thing cannot exist in its own absence. And now here comes the principle of sufficient reason (which, incidently, is not uniquely concerned with causation). The principle of sufficient reason simply states that only that exists for which there is a reason why it exists (the reason may be a cause, but it may be something other than a cause). But now suppose we adopt the perspective of one of these mooted self-contained realms. All things in it exist independently of any other realm. So, what would motivate, from the perspective of this realm, the idea that there might even be another realm at all? Since this realm is self-contained, there is no causal dependence of this realm on any external realm. Also, if we suggest that a second realm might be the causal offshoot of this realm, the principle of sufficient reason reapplies - why would there be such an offshoot if nothing within this realm requires it? We might try to look for non-causal connections between realms that could answer the demands of the principle of sufficient reason, but even though not all reasons are causes, I'm not sure whether a non-causal reason would fare any better at giving (from the perspective of one realm) a sufficient grounds for the existence of another realm. Having said that, it's entirely possible that there are options that have not crossed my mind.
So, the next move is to say that the principle of sufficient reason should not be applied from the perspective of any given realm, and so has no bite in this line of thought. But is it possible to apply that principle without applying it from some realm or another? This is a genuine question, not a rhetorical one, by the way.
Alternatively, we ditch the principle of sufficient reason entirely - but, since that is (arguably) the principle that motivates all science and philosophy (if you make a difference between the two) that seems a little drastic and possibly self-stultifying.
So, I remain currently unconvinced that dualism is a genuine alternative to monism.
I hope I can illustrate a slightly different perspective on this question for you. I take the sense of 'domains' when applied to this question to be in some sense allegorical. Think of 'the domain of natural numbers' or 'the domain of physical law'. The domain of natural numbers is real - 2 is part of it, the square root of two is not. But there is no literal domain in the sense of a separate realm. The reason I add that qualification, is that I think there is an overwhelming urge to ask, of a domain, 'where could it be?' But obviously such 'domains' are not spatially located.
In any case, a rough definition of what I understand as the 'intelligible domain' is precisely the domain of such things as numbers, logical laws, natural laws, conventions, and the like. There are things which can only be grasped by a rational intelligence, i,e. a mind capable of counting, reasoning and so on. So in answer to the question 'what is rational intellect?' the answer is 'the faculty which is capable of grasping such ideas.'
Now that is very different from the way 'mental substance' is usually depicted, but I think this is because the sense of 'mind-substance' is indeed fatally mistaken. It's not a ghostly ethereal stuff or protoplasmic entity. I would say the appropriate analogy is that of the relationship between words and meaning. The same idea can be expressed in any number of languages, or indeed in any number of media. So 'the idea' is nearer in meaning to 'geist' or 'spirit', than an 'ethereal thinking substance'. Or rather, it is the 'substance' in the sense of the 'substance of the idea' or 'the gist' of something.
More could be said but I will leave it there, along with a reference to a paper I have found helpful, Frege on Knowing the Third Realm, Tyler Burge
Quoting jkg20
This really does speak to the most profound implication of Idealism: that there is no ethereal substrate producing any substance. That which emanates these cosmic ideas/forms, as in its sapient analog, i.e. us, is more like how one's imaginative mind conceives of a language, or even a poem -- it is an entirely cognitive event. And more and more, as I read these comments -- especially in @jkg20 's most recent reply to @ProcastinationTomorrow making the case for monism -- I can only deduce (although it's now becoming one's direct experience) that there is but one realm, one boundless 'container,' by whichever preferred name: That which emanates these cosmic ideas/forms. So to pick a name, say Awareness, everything that is conceived, imagined, perceived, experienced, without exception, is contained within that Awareness, including even the apparency of a subject/object divide. As Wheeler put it ... "There is no 'out there', out there".
I don't know about that. If you go back to the early tradition, the relationship between abstract universals and particulars was a major theme. The whole idea of abstraction was related to the question of the intelligibility of particulars.
In any case, what interests me about the Frege essay was his acceptance of the reality of number - Frege believed that number is real in the sense that it is independent of thought: 'thought content exists independently of thinking "in the same way", he said "that a pencil exists independently of grasping it. Thought contents are true and bear their relations to one another (and presumably to what they are about) independently of anyone's thinking these thought contents - "just as a planet, even before anyone saw it, was in interaction with other planets."
Quoting snowleopard
That is the philosophy of Vijñ?nav?da, translated as 'mind-only Buddhism' which forms a major part of the monastic curriculum in Tibetan, Chinese and Japanese schools of Buddhism. It is considered a very advanced subject of study.
@Wayfarer ... Interesting ... This no doubt explains why I’ve always resonated with those metaphysical/spiritual expressions, even before being inclined to interpret and articulate them in terms of Idealism.
Be that as it may, I’m no longer even sure that I can give voice to an ultimate expression, as here again I must bow to the opening lines of the Tao Te Ching. And once more I must concede that the most appropriate name for what I’m positing here may be ‘mystical Idealism’. As such it may well even be unspeakable, unrelatable, and incomprehensible to the physicalist or substance-dualism mindset. It often feels as if I grok something I cannot quite convey, and which at best can only ever be an insufficient translation of some immanent, noumenal ‘language’ that must forever elude the gasp and expression of one’s finite, maya-bound locus of mind. Thus, perhaps poetry, metaphor and paradoxical allusions may be as good as it gets. Nevertheless, it also seems to be one’s creative imperative to try.
Have a read of What Is and Isn't Yog?c?ra (which is another name for the Vijñ?nav?da school.) This is by a Western scholar of Buddhism and compares the similarities and differences between it and Western idealism. The passage on how Cartesian dualism gave rise to the opposing positions of idealism and materialism is especially useful, I think.
Gödel believed something similar. Both were some sense mathematical Platonists:
[quote=Rebecca Goldstein]Gödel was a mathematical realist, a Platonist. He believed that what makes mathematics true is that it's descriptive—not of empirical reality, of course, but of an abstract reality. Mathematical intuition is something analogous to a kind of sense perception. In his essay "What Is Cantor's Continuum Hypothesis?", Gödel wrote that we're not seeing things that just happen to be true, we're seeing things that must be true. The world of abstract entities is a necessary world—that's why we can deduce our descriptions of it through pure reason.[/quote]
Quoting jkg20
Are you familiar with Platonic epistemology? There's a very useful Wikipedia summary in an article on the analogy of the divided line. Plato distinguishes dianoia (mathematical and geometric knowledge) from pistis, opinions or beliefs. And that is because he thought mathematical proofs (and the like) possess an intuitive certainty that is not possessed by sensible objects. And that's even reflected in Galileo - 'the book of nature is written in mathematics'. But, Platonism is highly unfashionable nowadays, because it speaks of innate knowledge and inherent ideas, which goes against the grain of current empiricism.
I basically agree. I said that there needs to be a Realm C but that was probably a little too strong. I think the Bridge is still needed even though it doesn't have to be a whole new Realm. I don't think you can just assume that it is all in Realm A or Realm B. If we can all agree that there are at least the two distinct Realms, Physical and Conscious, then we need to understand how things that happen in the Physical Realm can cause things to happen in the Conscious Realm. If the answer is that it is all in the Physical Realm then that's good too. But Science is nowhere near making that determination. This is the Hard Problem of Consciousness. There is a Huge Explanatory Gap here.
The best approach, I find, is to reverse this position, and look at how things in the conscious realm cause things in the physical realm. The evidence of a temporal priority is much clearer this way, and we can proceed toward understanding this priority through concepts such as final cause and free will.
Yes I think it must work both ways. I would call the Interaction from the Conscious Realm to the Physical Realm: Conscious Volition.
sorry to get back late,
so what's your answer to Leibniz's gap?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leibniz%27s_gap
Simply Understood: The awareness that the mental reality of consciousness and the physical reality of existence are merely two (2) parts of the whole being. They both are connected and communicate their existences for the experience of the identifier. Both parts are made up of independent communicating members (Cells) that also act as sensor receptors and communicators that alert the person (conscious identifier, receiver and actuator) of their extreme conditions, pain, pleasure, texture, hot, cold, hunger, exhaustion.
Both the physical members and the mental identifier ( Persons awareness/consciousness) play their part to continue in a unified equilibrium that remains acceptable and satisfactory of both for the protection to exist. This is the awareness of the exterior and interior influences and affects that triggers the alert response that this equilibrium has fluctuated into extreme conditions and place it back into harmonious equilibrium.
This mental awareness and differences can have defining levels depending on varied conditioning of physical exterior, mental internal or prolonged historical experiences. -MC-
There are 3 different realities or defined conscious realities. The Physical, Mental, and Spiritual realities. The spiritual reality is a higher level of the combined physical and mental stimulation that is heightened to varying degrees. The practice of physical and mental disciplines insight you a further conscious spiritual reality experience(s).
I.E. Consciousness is the awareness of different realities and your experiences in them….. “Period”! ??
*Nailed it!!!! :)
One analogous way of thinking about consciousness is the cosmological super computer.
Think of your brain as the hard drive with some built-in operating systems (certain instincts) and self-consciousness (self-awareness/a priori). Then think of the software development over time, where one acquires knowledge about the world from childhood through infinity (in theory)... . That software represents experience input.
However, unlike a computer which is designed with a binary code, your consciousness is not designed as such. If the computer acted like the conscious and subconscious mind working together in unison, for illustration purposes, it would crash or lock-up.
How does the conscious mind and the subconscious mind work together(?). The computer operates on an 'a or b' premise (binary 0-1), and the mind on the other hand not only can operate in a binary fashion, but has the ability to break the rules of formal logic and work together in unison.
The infamous example of logical contradiction is when driving a car subconsciously while negotiating traffic or even crashing while daydreaming about something else. In logic, to try to describe it you would say something like: I'm driving, yet seemingly not driving at all. And that's because I crashed thinking about something totally different. So were you consciously driving when you crashed, or subconsciously driving? And how long can one do that?
So in my view, that's one quick example of a 'hard problem'.
- You can be mentally aware of your interior mental reality (Thoughts) or your physical exterior reality (physical existence) at any moment and the varying degree of focus in these realities. Hopefully you do not choose to be focused so much at one time in anyone of these realities or extreme things can happen. I.E. Car Crash (Mental) Making Kids (Physical) Ooops!
- Consciousness : The awareness of existence in a mental, physical or spiritual experience or a combination of these three realities.
"Consciousness : The awareness of existence in a mental, physical or spiritual experience or a combination of these three realities. "
OMG problem solved LOL!!!!
Does that mean if I focus on driving I'll never daydream again!!!?
No, seriously, please provide me the specific details of how and why I can be in two different realities all at the same time... . Hence: I was driving, but not driving.
Is that logical (sorry for the rhetorical question)?
Hence your doing two things at once, having a physical reality experience because of a mental choice and having a mental thought reality experience again because of choice. And because driving really can be that easy because of conditioning and repetition it can feel quite mundane (boring) to the mental awareness, experience or stimulation. (Got to love Multitasking, boy isn't the body amazing)!!! LOL
Think of it as (3) Planes or reality, The Physical, Mental, and Spiritual planes that can all support and transverse into each other with varying degrees of focus using your sensory receptors, perceived cognitive memory recall and let me add "CHOICE"! -MC-
It's existential, ultimately you have no control over that constant flow of ideas. There is no choice to stop your stream of consciousness. Otherwise in theory, you are no longer alive.
However, let's assume it were a choice one makes consciously, unless I'm misinterpreting you, in that case I would have to say: I chose not to drive when I was driving, therefore, I chose to crash instead.
Is that logical?
-Oh! and you do have control, You have to be mentally aware that you have control and take control over your flow of thoughts! Most people I guess, don't know... Meditate, control the flow!! Easy life goes~
1. Sure it's logical to be aware of your consciousness but that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about awareness and control of your subconsciousness while you're conscious. If you are saying by choice you can manipulate your subconsciousness at anytime, then why would one choose to daydream and intentionally crash?
2. You're almost there with answering the question relative to dreaming. That is precisely your subconscious. And that subconscious is operating without your conscious awareness and associated inability/ability to choose.
Therefore, the question remains, am I consciously or subconsciously driving while I'm daydreaming (and God forbid crashing)?
Your Consciousness is the only determining factor that can make physical choices as relates to external factors, impute or stimuli, so if your not aware of your consciousness while driving, than your not driving because your not being aware of these factors and you crash. I guess, your subconscious can only make programmed involuntary motor functions per it's design.
So, "YES" it can be determined that your subconsciousness because of your mental choice to "Start driving" is trying to help you drive but your conscious awareness has left to seek other more favorable (mental or physical) stimulus or interests until the jolting reality of impact brings you back! OUCH.... I guess we need to make car seats like a Chinese bed of nails and extra volatile shocks to keep us in a conscious sense of physical reality while driving. -MC-
*Can I get an AMEN!! :)
Sorry had to catch a workout.
Ok on your first point yes we agree daydreaming while driving can be associated with boredom viz. stream of consciousness. (And although we didn't talk about this, you certainly can choose, to say compute abstract concepts like math in your mind while you're driving your car; however, that would still present a logical contradiction when explaining the nature of it.)
On your second paragraph, okay then. If you believe it's the subconscious mind taking over while you're daydreaming & driving then our logical contradiction rears its ugly head henceforth: I am sort-of driving, but not really driving because I crashed daydreaming.
So if it's only a half-truth that I'm driving. How do we compute that?
One could not argue then .5+.5 =1 because that would imply I'm half a person or in two places at once. Accordingly, the only other value that might represent this is 1+1=1.
Our minds defy logic no?
Your Subconsciousness has no part in the continual decision making that is needed when things change. Your conscious awareness of reality, where you are in it and what is happening around you is your responsibility not the subconscious that's primary duty is to keep your physical motor functions going so you can "hopefully" safely experience reality in the moment while it is happening.
3017 Amen: So if it's only a half-truth that I'm driving. How do we compute that?
Your consciously are not driving because you choose not to be aware of driving even though you look like you physically are driving because your former decision or choice has put you in the drivers seat and headed you down the road. So pay attention, focus and be aware of what your doing while your doing it.
So you physically can appear to be driving but you're consciously are not. 2-1=1 you crash.
1= Conscious awareness of self, choice, focus, attention, and physical activity.
1= Subconscious ability to provide involuntary motor functions and sensory perception feedback.
(2) is the desirable outcome for success of the desired activity from point A to point B.
1+1=2 (A successful drive)
1-1=1 (A "Crash" because of lack of a constant)
"And you are "RIGHT" One could not argue then .5 +.5 = 1 because that would imply I'm half a person or in two places at once."
Because this is exactly "TRUE" Except instead of being a half of a person you are a whole person with 2 mental parts with different functions that control different functions to make 1 whole functioning system (Person). .5 of one mental part/function and .5 of other mental part/function. ( .5 Aware Consciousness .5 Active Subconsciousness = 1 Functioning cognitive Person.)
I'd have to refer you back to my very first post : "Solving Consciousness" Re-read with deeper understanding and you'll get it. Understand the definitions of all words used and it will define the awareness of the meaning. :)
You seem to be hung up on this idea of volition yes?
I would say to you study the science of psychology, and as you would say focus, on the phenomenon of daydreaming. Then hopefully you will see that it has little to do with choice. Study the phenomenon relating to our stream of consciousness.
I do think however your argument would be more persuasive, if maybe you had the experience in designing a robot. Maybe only then you would see the distinctions relative to the illogical nature of the human condition, the human mind.
I think you were getting close with your analogy to being in a dream state before bedtime. But you lost me. And so if I follow your reasoning then daydreaming would not exist.
The only way I can make sense of your analysis is thus: I chose to drive my car and also chose to daydream and crash it.
And that's because you believe we have control of our minds at all times, correct?
Lets keep in mind we have already identified "consciousness" and what consciousness is.
Alright lets go for it! Lets tackle it head on... This undefined unidentifiable mystical gray area where the conscious awareness fades from the mental physical reality of one self in action and motion into a purely unintentional internal mental reality of thought or daydreaming.
Could it be paralysis
Could it be a internal switch
May it be a sensory perception
An rhythmic vibration
A soothing transition of one conscious variable into another
Ultimately we are trying to find out "why" we are not aware of this seemingly passive transition of mental space and time as it reverts to the physical reality we are connected to or are to remain connected to in a critical high stakes involved activity.
We will identify that there are three different factors to help complete this understanding.
"Consciousness, Subconsciousness, Physical Reality, and Mental Awareness"
Lets Break it down:
Are we aware of our consciousness?
Are we aware of our consciousness in reality?
Are we aware of our subconscious?
Are we aware of our subconscious in action or actions?
Are we aware of our subconsciousness in physical reality?
Are we aware of our mental reality?
Are we aware of our physical reality?
Are we aware of our physical reality as it relates to the unfamiliar?
Are we aware of our levels of awareness?
I believe it is the last one we are trying to identify with..." Are we aware of "our" levels or focus of awareness as it relates to a combination of activities set in motion at varying moments in time.
Where does our levels of mental awareness go when involved in more than two different activities?
In Summary: I conclude to identifying it " with variables of different "DEGREES".
1. Experience (x2) - How much knowledge about all variables in the activity. i.e (driving a car) (thinking thoughts)
2. Time(x2) - Awareness of precise time needed in two non-relatable activities in the time of motion.
(Driving car - looking down at phone - changing the radio station, - Deep in mental thought of alternate
activities )
3. Speed(x2) - Mental Awareness of speed, distance, time from distant objects or internal mental activities in two non-relatable activities.
4. Awareness(x2) - Mental awareness of self, Physical awareness of reality, Unknown variables in reality. Unknown variables in mental consciousness.
5. Focus(x2) - How mentally focus can you divert in relation including all above factors to 2 different activities in motion while they are happening?
6. Conditions (x2) Of the two activities in motion at the specific time of action. The driving condition and the operators condition.
7. Mental/Physical Functions (x2) - The car and all it's functions and operations needed / the person and all it's functions and operations needed.
8. Conscious/ subconsciousness (x2) Driving car (Mental/Physical) - Changing radio station (Mental/ Physical/Emotional) - Deep in thought (Mental/Mental/Emotional)
If you would think of "Degree" as a Binary code on a scale of 1-10 and 1 being the least consciously aware or 10 being the most heightened conscious ability and you gave each one of the above mentioned variable a level of degree depending on the activity, but there was only a specific amount, or number that could be distributed before the awareness in one of the variables decreased. But remember to give(2 ratings) Because they have and are two different activities. Could you see how this could affect the result, answer or final outcome? The max available output is a rate of 140 total.
Not having enough relative and relatable experience with the varying degrees of variables of a car in motion, the surrounding factors, the conscious mental sensory perception of time, distance, speed which are all factors in the result.
There are obvious limits to our conscious awareness of what physical active, reality or environment is affecting or influencing us.
For example: An earthquake, Could you possibly know without instrumental devices when it will hit. Where you will be, what things around you could affect you. Ground opening up, Things falling off the walls, desk, shelves. What will hit you?
People or walking or birds smacking into Glass, not because it's not there. That would be because of knowledge, perception or lack of perception or awareness of it's qualities that make it exist. Same as the air we breath.
Weather it's sitting in a class listening to a lecture or driving a car down the highway to a familiar destination or just about to drift off from your mental awareness of physical self in a bed to a La La land of mental obscurity.
Possibly because one does not exercise oneself in the discipline of mental control. The mind has no identifying boarders of awareness and lacks the experience of time as related to mental distractions. Perhaps irrational emotions or strong creative ideas are pulling our minds from the sensory perception of time needed engage or two objectives at the precise time needed to execute the desired outcome correctly. Maybe we are wrong about relaxing and that relaxing is a passive response of the subconscious diverting your mental conscious mind away from the physical reality. Isn't relaxing emotional because it feels good and isn't emotional irrational that is the playground of the subconscious mind? Maybe comfort or relaxing is an extreme state of the senses that fades our ability to define awareness in our immediate consciousness in the moments of different activities or realities.
Time is also man made and is a form of measurement that is not accurate because we have not identified the expansive distance of time. So it is an obscured variable, that really is not relatable without
conditioning.
Daydreaming is part of a mental function
Driving is part of a mental function and a physical reality
Awareness is part of a Mental function of both the physical reality and mental reality.
Time and speed is the determining factor of an object in motion of where it is in reality.
Function(s) of the object in motion creates the ability to control that object.
I believe it does involve an equation where awareness and the mind has no real defining or precise sense of time. Or that time is so vast that identifying the conscious awareness of you in its vast reality of expansion is vibration-ally lost in some other greater mental space network we are connected or not connected to at the time of dual activities.
I rest here as I am exhausted! And my conscious ability to conclude further depths of thought on this subject matter is... For lack of better words "Moot"... You can continue to figure it out from here!!! I've got to get on with my life, but well... this was fun!
*** Please share your final thoughts, think I at least deserve that for trying... I would like to hear them. Cheers! :)
Lets keep in mind we have already identified "consciousness" and what consciousness is.
Alright lets go for it! Lets tackle it head on... This undefined unidentifiable mystical gray area where the conscious awareness fades from the mental physical reality of one self in action and motion into a purely unintentional internal mental reality of thought or daydreaming.
Could it be paralysis
Could it be a internal switch
May it be a sensory perception
An rhythmic vibration
A soothing transition of one conscious variable into another
Ultimately we are trying to find out "why" we are not aware of this seemingly passive transition of mental space and time as it reverts to the physical reality we are connected to or are to remain connected to in a critical high stakes involved activity.
We will identify that there are three different factors to help complete this understanding.
"Consciousness, Subconsciousness, Physical Reality, and Mental Awareness"
Lets Break it down:
Are we aware of our consciousness?
Are we aware of our consciousness in reality?
Are we aware of our subconscious?
Are we aware of our subconscious in action or actions?
Are we aware of our subconsciousness in physical reality?
Are we aware of our mental reality?
Are we aware of our physical reality?
Are we aware of our physical reality as it relates to the unfamiliar?
Are we aware of our levels of awareness?
I believe it is the last one we are trying to identify with..." Are we aware of "our" levels or focus of awareness as it relates to a combination of activities set in motion at varying moments in time.
Where does our levels of mental awareness go when involved in more than two different activities?
In Summary: I conclude to identifying it " with variables of different "DEGREES".
1. Experience (x2) - How much knowledge about all variables in the activity. i.e (driving a car) (thinking thoughts)
2. Time(x2) - Awareness of precise time needed in two non-relatable activities in the time of motion.
(Driving car - looking down at phone - changing the radio station, - Deep in mental thought of alternate
activities )
3. Speed(x2) - Mental Awareness of speed, distance, time from distant objects or internal mental activities in two non-relatable activities.
4. Awareness(x2) - Mental awareness of self, Physical awareness of reality, Unknown variables in reality. Unknown variables in mental consciousness.
5. Focus(x2) - How mentally focus can you divert in relation including all above factors to 2 different activities in motion while they are happening?
6. Conditions (x2) Of the two activities in motion at the specific time of action. The driving condition and the operators condition.
7. Mental/Physical Functions (x2) - The car and all it's functions and operations needed / the person and all it's functions and operations needed.
8. Conscious/ subconsciousness (x2) Driving car (Mental/Physical) - Changing radio station (Mental/ Physical/Emotional) - Deep in thought (Mental/Mental/Emotional)
If you would think of "Degree" as a Binary code on a scale of 1-10 and 1 being the least consciously aware or 10 being the most heightened conscious ability and you gave each one of the above mentioned variable a level of degree depending on the activity, but there was only a specific amount, or number that could be distributed before the awareness in one of the variables decreased. But remember to give(2 ratings) Because they have and are two different activities. Could you see how this could affect the result, answer or final outcome? The max available output is a rate of 140 total.
Not having enough relative and relatable experience with the varying degrees of variables of a car in motion, the surrounding factors, the conscious mental sensory perception of time, distance, speed which are all factors in the result.
There are obvious limits to our conscious awareness of what physical active, reality or environment is affecting or influencing us.
For example: An earthquake, Could you possibly know without instrumental devices when it will hit. Where you will be, what things around you could affect you. Ground opening up, Things falling off the walls, desk, shelves. What will hit you?
People or walking or birds smacking into Glass, not because it's not there. That would be because of knowledge, perception or lack of perception or awareness of it's qualities that make it exist. Same as the air we breath.
Weather it's sitting in a class listening to a lecture or driving a car down the highway to a familiar destination or just about to drift off from your mental awareness of physical self in a bed to a La La land of mental obscurity.
Possibly because one does not exercise oneself in the discipline of mental control. The mind has no identifying boarders of awareness and lacks the experience of time as related to mental distractions. Perhaps irrational emotions or strong creative ideas are pulling our minds from the sensory perception of time needed engage or two objectives at the precise time needed to execute the desired outcome correctly. Maybe we are wrong about relaxing and that relaxing is a passive response of the subconscious diverting your mental conscious mind away from the physical reality. Isn't relaxing emotional because it feels good and isn't emotional irrational that is the playground of the subconscious mind? Maybe comfort or relaxing is an extreme state of the senses that fades our ability to define awareness in our immediate consciousness in the moments of different activities or realities.
Time is also man made and is a form of measurement that is not accurate because we have not identified the expansive distance of time. So it is an obscured variable, that really is not relatable without
conditioning.
Daydreaming is part of a mental function
Driving is part of a mental function and a physical reality
Awareness is part of a Mental function of both the physical reality and mental reality.
Time and speed is the determining factor of an object in motion of where it is in reality.
Function(s) of the object in motion creates the ability to control that object.
I believe it does involve an equation where awareness and the mind has no real defining or precise sense of time. Or that time is so vast that identifying the conscious awareness of you in its vast reality of expansion is vibration-ally lost in some other greater mental space network we are connected or not connected to at the time of dual activities.
I rest here as I am exhausted! And my conscious ability to conclude further depths of thought on this subject matter is... For lack of better words "Moot"... You can continue to figure it out from here!!! I've got to get on with my life, but well... this was fun!
*** Please share your final thoughts, think I at least deserve that for trying... I would like to hear them. Cheers! :)
11 hours ago
I hope you had a great weekend Solvedit! Thank you for that careful analysis. As we both know explaining consciousness or conscious states of Being is very much a reductionist challenge to say the least. There is a lot to unpack, but let's take one at a time.
I agree, here's where we have agreement; you said:
"Are we aware of our levels of awareness?
I believe it is the last one we are trying to identify with..." Are we aware of "our" levels or focus of awareness as it relates to a combination of activities set in motion at varying moments in time.
Where does our levels of mental awareness go when involved in more than two different activities?"
Solvedit, as we know self-consciousness and self-awareness is generally thought of as the big distinction between us and lower life forms. It's still a mystery in and of itself. But it is that very existential thing, that creates the kinds of contradictions I've been trying to explain. For example, consider the following statements:
Socrates: "What Plato is about to say is false."
Plato: "Socrates has just spoken truly."
Which statement is true?