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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - Nov 29, 2017 - 10:27am PT
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"Because much of what we experience in the world around us and in our own inner life makes a lot more sense if we assume we are conscious"
For those denying that we are conscious - fantastic as that might seem - the belief is normally based on WHAT we are conscious OF, not the simple fact that we are aware.
Standard default claims like, "You only thing you are aware," or, "you only have the impression you are aware, but what is REALLY going on is physical processing," have repeatedly been shown to be logically incoherent statements - we can easily see why.
The obvious and common replies to the above speculations are (as mentioned): What is the difference between having the impression of being aware, and actually BEING aware? Who, and by what method, did someone become sufficiently aware to declare that awareness was physically caused illusion? And what criteria would have to be met for awareness itself to be "real?"
Efforts to posit awareness as physical artifact lead to the dead end known as Identity Theory. Other efforts to rank awareness AS content (as a feeling, thought, as information, etc.) have been shown as philosopher bloopers. Other wonky attributions (that the brain "assigned" awareness to itself, or the brain translated information into a "physically incoherent medium" --- all these postulate awareness beforehand. That is, you can't "attribute" a force or phenomenon to yourself if you don't have it in the first place.
Another blooper is the belief that more data will show us the way, when many argue that data is not the problem, rather the possible or even imaginable causal connection (whereby brain "creates" awareness) between objective functioning and subjectivity.
Even Integrated Information Theory posits their First Axiom as this:
Intrinsic existence: Consciousness exists: each experience is actual—indeed, that my experience here and now exists (it is real) is the only fact I can be sure of immediately and absolutely. Moreover, my experience exists from its own intrinsic perspective, independent of external observers (it is intrinsically real or actual).
The belief that this is wrong, that "we only have the impression we are aware, but something else more primary is ACTUALLY going on, and THAT, NOT awareness, is real..." harks back to Searle's comment that people are always trying to describe consciousness by describing something else (normally, physical processing), the fallout being we get no closer to knowing what awareness actually is.
"It's physical processing, dummy," is not a statement that developed enough to even be wrong. It is meaningless. Show us how, and you've answered the hard problem. The notion that "new data" will accomplish this is a belief that is quickly falling out of favor.
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Nov 29, 2017 - 11:56am PT
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For those denying that we are conscious
And where is Largo? He sounds disoriented.
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - Nov 29, 2017 - 12:14pm PT
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MH2: What specific point of those raised do you take issue with, and specifically, why? What is your take on the points raised? Where do you stand, and what might you add to move the discussion along - based on your own perceptions, thoughts, and experience?
Lobbing aspersions my way with silly references to disorientation make it sound like you've once again swallowed the bong water, and are proud of it.
Do you believe your are aware? If you do, but believe that objective processing "created" your awareness, what do you imagine are the physical causal properties whereby firing neurons or emergent global activation feel-back loops spawn, birth or are sufficient causes to create awareness? Or are you saying that awareness IS neuro functioning, that brain states and objective states are identical.
With all this great stuff to dig into, one wonders why you go off in silly excursions about me being confused. Which may be the case but it tends to stall out the conversation, like a turd in the punchbowl. There IS the comedy factor, so I'll give you that.
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Nov 29, 2017 - 01:40pm PT
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MH2: What specific point of those raised do you take issue with
I take issue with the statement that there are people on this thread who don't believe that we are conscious. Who are they?
I'm as sure as I can be that as I type this I am conscious.
Where do we go from there in our discussion?
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MikeL
Social climber
Southern Arizona
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Nov 29, 2017 - 03:09pm PT
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MH2: I take issue with the statement that there are people on this thread who don't believe that we are conscious. Who are they?
You’re mis-directing the conversation, and I think you’re being perverse. I mean it’s cute and clever and all, but there’s no substance to it.
The point is simply to notice the only thing you can be sure about: consciousness. You are. From there, one can make investigations, albeit somewhat less surely.
Without saying what’s it is, I’ve been finding big physical work exhausting—and wonderful. While it’s going on, it requires a push on my part to continue and finish at times. When it’s done, usually late in the day, I have a beer and later some food. The wellness that radiates from me touches everything in the hours that follow the completion of my work. “What is consciousness” come to awareness most intimately. There is no conceptualization or cleverness needed to see and understand it. It’s raw, wonderful experience without content.
Here's my work for the day. I have to sink a metal column 2' into the ground and cement it, to erect a sculpture I'm making. This took me about 8 hours of work. (I'm an old guy.)
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Nov 29, 2017 - 04:17pm PT
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Well said, done, and illustrated Mike.
I am happy to hear that you have awareness of:
The wellness that radiates from me touches everything
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - Nov 29, 2017 - 05:02pm PT
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MH2 say he doesn't think there are people on this thread who don't believe they are conscious.
Several ways to consider this, which is an interesting question.
First, there's a difference between having the illusion that we are conscious (Dennet et al), and ACTUALLY BEING conscious. That is, Ed stated that he is skilled in being able to sniff out the difference between what we think or believe is consciousness, but which really is something entirely different (an observable, measurable physical process).
Would Ed say he was ACTUALLY conscious, or merely was led to believe by firings in his brainpan that he was conscious, while really, it's all brain. We only experience consciousness as more than brain - but for a Type A physcalist, there is no force or phenomenon that is more than, or above and beyond, brain function.
What is going on here? People are merely chasing after fundamentals. For the physicalist, reality consists entirely of observable, or at any rate, measurable physical processes. Maybe not directly in all cases, but the existence of some thing or force can be confirmed by way of measuring associated stuff.
Integrated Info Theory, and several other faddish camps have flopped this and declared that consciousness is fundamental. Many interpret this as exhuming the largely discredited Copenhagen Theory per observers etc. But that's not it.
Per what mike said about empty experience, or empty awareness, that is, awareness sans content, this also is a largely misunderstood and misinterpreted concept. Even though there are examples of it found in everybody's day to day lives. But most people are not trained to notice when this process happens.
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MikeL
Social climber
Southern Arizona
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Nov 29, 2017 - 06:16pm PT
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John,
We need to be careful about putting people into boxes. They, themselves, might see that they are this or that, but in truth, I suspect that everyone’s life is an ambiguous and idiosyncratic affair. We take a little bit of this and a little bit of that to define and satisfy our want for an identity. Who are we? Who am I? When I finally admit that I don’t really know, I am compelled to grasp at labels. I’m lost, really. But I want to be something / someone that I can feel assured at / in.
The more i let go, the more I feel comfortable with being. All of this (life) seems to go nowhere—and that’s the very thing of it.
This sculpture that I’m designing and executing has a lot of math and engineering to it. I see the vision of the thing, but it’s really all process to me. Thank god I’m retired and can take the whole project as it comes. The process of artistic creativity has an ebb and flow to it. I wish I could have implemented this / that very process into my life earlier. (Contemporary life seems to be such an imposition on who and what we think we are.)
It’s strange, you know? Here I am, knowing what I now know at 70 (with much study and some experience), and I seem to just now be getting a handle on this “living” thing. It’s like being in a cockpit with the most sensitive controls.
It just seems best to glide along. And geez, . . . things get done. (Imagine that!)
Be well.
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WBraun
climber
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Nov 29, 2017 - 06:35pm PT
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I suspect that everyone’s life is ....
Life in this thread has not yet even been identified yet by the gross materialists.
They still have no real clue who they really are, why they are here and to where they are going.
They just guess .... but ultimately remain completely clueless ......
In the "future we will know" is all they can say, and then get frustrated and say;
"No One Knows"
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jgill
Boulder climber
The high prairie of southern Colorado
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Nov 29, 2017 - 07:50pm PT
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For those denying that we are conscious . . .
Oh man, I posted that quote because of its absurdity. I can't believe an argument spun off it.
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yanqui
climber
Balcarce, Argentina
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Nov 30, 2017 - 06:28am PT
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Life in this thread has not yet even been identified
Ha! There you go. Another tricky one to define. But does that really matter?
I imagine a "What is "Life?" thread. Then we could argue about stuff like if autonomous robots are (or ever could be) alive. We could ask questions like: do robots have to be alive before they are conscious? (Equivalently: can a machine be conscious without being alive, or does the first entail the second?) Perhaps because the physical aspects of life are better understood than those of consciousness (we have identified "genetic material") it's easier to rule out the possibility that robots are alive. (Is it reasonable to say that "genetic material", say DNA or RNA or the equivalent, is a necessary condition for "life"?). Since we know less about the physical aspects of consciousness, we're not so sure about the consciousness stuff. Which is not to say I don't find Searle's "Chinese Room" an interesting thought experiment. However, it does not "prove" the computer is unaware. It simply shows how it's possible for an agent to follow a formal systematic process to convert input into output, without understanding both the meaning of the input it receives or the meaning of the output it produces (even though these have meaning to the agents that designed the algorithm and are interested in its applications). Not so surprising to anyone who has ever tried to teach math.
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Nov 30, 2017 - 07:21am PT
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Not so surprising to anyone who has ever tried to teach math.
Good analogy. Very funny and probably comes from the heart.
But what about Cozmo the Real Interactive Personality Robot? Suitable for children, or problematic? Is it bad for children to become attached to things which have no feelings? Are dolls a bad idea, too?
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yanqui
climber
Balcarce, Argentina
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Nov 30, 2017 - 07:29am PT
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Is it bad for children to become attached to things which have no feelings?
Children, no. Grown adults, maybe.
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - Nov 30, 2017 - 10:06am PT
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Yankee said:
"Which is not to say I don't find Searle's "Chinese Room" an interesting thought experiment. However, it does not "prove" the computer is unaware."
What concept of awareness are you holding in this regards, the phenomenon of which it remains "unproven" for the computer to have. This opens the door to the possibility - now or in the future - for the computer to BE aware. Put differently, What IS that awareness above and beyond it's association with the processing that occurs within awareness?
This last point is vital, IMO, because to know the fundamental nature of awareness itself, a person has to have some insight into awareness sans content. As mentioned, we have experiences of this - to lesser and greater degrees - throughout our lives it's just that we are not sufficiently tuned in to notice same.
And I'm with you, Mike. "Knowing" requires the ability to grasp some thing, object, force, phenomenon, including "me." When such things are acknowledged as empty and ungraspable, you have lift off.
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Nov 30, 2017 - 10:42am PT
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When such things are acknowledged as empty and ungraspable, you have lift off.
Blue skies.
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jgill
Boulder climber
The high prairie of southern Colorado
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Nov 30, 2017 - 02:14pm PT
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When such things are acknowledged as empty and ungraspable, you have lift off
Onto a higher Astral Plane! Fasten your seat belts, meditators!
Eat your heart out, Little Rocket Man!
;>0
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jgill
Boulder climber
The high prairie of southern Colorado
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Nov 30, 2017 - 07:24pm PT
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At one time I entertained the idea of empty awareness, but the more JL touts it the less probable it seems. A law of diminishing returns. There is no consensus of the definition of awareness, although some if not many think it a synonym of consciousness. Even JL strays into that territory (mapless) from time to time.
I am conscious of the drift of this thread, but unaware of its ramifications. So be aware of where you stand, conscious or not, and wary of philosophical ramblings of which one grows weary, if not unconsciously so.
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WBraun
climber
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Nov 30, 2017 - 07:49pm PT
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How many squares are there?
The mathematicians will haf to answer this one. :-)
I only know how to add and subtract (barely) and all my math ultimately equals ONE ....
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MikeL
Social climber
Southern Arizona
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Nov 30, 2017 - 08:46pm PT
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Largo: When such things are acknowledged as empty and ungraspable, you have lift off.
Jgill and MH2: “Blue skies,” and “onto a higher astral plane.”
You guys! :-D
Is it within your imagination to consider not taking anything very concretely or seriously? If lift off is a euphemism for taking things lightly, then isn't that also a euphemism for flight?
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Nov 30, 2017 - 09:02pm PT
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It is within my imagination to not take concretely or seriously your usage of "euphemism."
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