Consciousness Trilemma

[The Grand Nudger]

I wouldn't call that position, eliminative materialism, word salad. I just think it is incoherent, an empirical argument leveled against empiricism. The eliminativists are basically saying that the experiences of observers who don't actually exist aren't really about anything.

No, they're not.  See, that Dennet quote is so useful.

Here's another quote, and a link, so that you can learn about the positions you're constantly tripping over.

Eliminative materialism (also called eliminativism) is the claim that people's common-sense understanding of the mind (or folk psychology) is false and that certain classes of mental states that most people believe in do not exist. It is a materialist position in the philosophy of mind.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eliminative_materialism

I know, I know, it sounds so radical.....that we might have to rethink the notions of mind a bunch of primitives came up with in the absence of nueroscience. Perish the thought. Next thing you know cats will marry dogs, the justice system will collapse, people will become amoral monsters, and it will be armageddon..and then, by god, then.....we'll really wish we'd believed in ghosts.

[Edwardo Piet]

Neo, I think you have to decide whether you're interested in understanding consciousness or interested in constructing an understanding which you think would have the most social utility.

Why can it not be both?

He's not saying it can't be both but the point is to notice that those are two separate questions.

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I wouldn't call that position, eliminative materialism, word salad. I just think it is incoherent, an empirical argument leveled against empiricism. The eliminativists are basically saying that the experiences of observers who don't actually exist aren't really about anything.

No, they're not.  See, that Dennet quote is so useful.  

Here's another quote, and a link, so that you can learn about the positions you're constantly tripping over.

Eliminative materialism (also called eliminativism) is the claim that people's common-sense understanding of the mind (or folk psychology) is false and that certain classes of mental states that most people believe in do not exist. It is a materialist position in the philosophy of mind.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eliminative_materialism

I know, I know, it sounds so radical.....that we might have to rethink the notions of mind a bunch of primitives came up with in the absence of nueroscience.  Perish the thought.  Next thing you know cats will marry dogs, the justice system will collapse, people will become amoral monsters, and it will be armageddon..and then, by god, then.....we'll really wish we'd believed in ghosts.

Yeah... to use one of the terms Dennett coined against himself... "Greedy reductionism"... that's what Dennett is doing by saying that qualia is illusory or non-existent.





I'm not a fan of Dennett. He takes the same silly approach both with free will and consciousness. He says his approach is saying that "consciousness does exist it just isn't what you think it is" and "free will does exist it just isn't what you think it is" but then he uses completely different defintiions and basically changes the subject.

His approach is always to sidestep the issue rather than address it head on. He thinks he's being scientific and purifying a definition but he's really not. Scientists address scientific questions but he's basically doing bad philosophy by redefining the terms so as to fail to address the philosophical questions.

Qualia cannot be an illusion. And as for his response to Sam Harris on the matter of free will... like I've said before:

When compatabilists like Dan Dennett says that hard incompatabilists such as Sam Harris are a "compatabilist in everything but name" that's, ironically, a clear knockdown argument against the compatabilist's own statement. It's basically admitting that all compatabilism is is a name. A term "free will" that's used despite having absolutely no difference ontologically from incompatabilism.

In case this isn't clear... look at this analogy:

When compatabilists respond to hard incompatabilists with "You're a compatabilist in everything but name!" that is exactly analogous to a naturalistic pantheist responding to an atheist with "You're a pantheist in everything but name!".

My added bold. This is why Dan Dennett's approach is silly.

And saying it seems like qualia exists but they really don't is as retarded as saying that it seems like squares have four sides or it seems that bachelors are unmarried.

If you seem to be conscious... you're conscious. Without seeming there is no consciousness and without consciousness there is no seeming. It's the same fucking thing. Whether something is or is not the case... if it seems to be the case then that's a matter of it seeming to someone to be the case... i.e. subjectivity i.e. consciousness.

[Neo-Scholastic]

Why can it not be both? Is it not important for making good decisions to know what is true? If our concepts about what it means to be human are false then our choices will reflect that. To know what is best for humanity it helps to understand what it means to be human. The way I see it, if the consequences of an idea undermine human dignity then a little extra scrutiny seems wise. If extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence then that would include claims that come at great cost like denying many of those things that make life worth living such as values, meaning, autonomy, and personal identity.

My         ->        Point
           Your
           head

Just a little condescending don't you think?

[Edwardo Piet]

Well, the point going over your head may or may not have social utility... but it still went over your head nonetheless.

[Whateverist]

My         ->        Point
           Your
           head

Just a little condescending don't you think?

Well if my point didn't entirely escape you I'd never know it by your response. That's why I thought it best to get my pompous ass game on, level 3.

[The Grand Nudger]

Ham, your criticism arises from a common and commonly rebutted misunderstanding of eliminative materialism. I appreciate that you think the subject ha been changed..but ofc it has, since "the subject" to which you're referring is folklore and the philosophy surrounding folklore...which isn't, at all, what dennet is trying to explain.

[Edwardo Piet]

But the fact he thinks qualia is an illusion just demonstrates that he is talking nonsense.

He does the same with free will. He thinks he's purifying a subject by not using an old folk lore definition. But the correct response is to tell someone how their understanding is wrong.... not to redefine matters altogether.

It's literally impossible to be wrong about the fact one has qualia and phenomenology.

Watch this. Galen Strawson explains clearly and plainly how Dennett is talking nonsense (he also quotes Dennett too and explains how nonsensical it is).





If you think consciousness is an illusion you may as well think circles have 4 sides.

It's the most certainly known fact in the universe. Beyond any science. The fact that oneself is conscious is the only thing you can know 100% to a guarantee outside tautologies.

[The Grand Nudger]

But the fact he thinks qualia is an illusion just demonstrates that he is talking nonsense.

Or, that you're thick.  

Watch this. Galen Strawson explains clearly and plainly how Dennett is talking nonsense.

Except that he doesn't.  He keeps conflating the term illusory with non-existent, and the non-existence of one object:the folkloric qualia, with the non-existence of another:whatever qualia actually is.  This is the same mistake preempted by dennet, and discussed more than once in thi thread.  

He demonstrates, by plainly saying..that he has no clue why anyone would advance these positions..he reckons it's because they;re incompatible with physics........parse that, he think nuerologists are chiefly concerned with physics.  He goes on to say that he doesn't care what story "they" tell about the brain.

I'm sure he's a smart guy, but, like any other guy..when asked for a comment out of his area of expertise, he stumbles.  

I'll explain, for you and for Strawson(lol)...one more time.  To say that some aspect of qualia is illusory, is to say little more than that some aspect of a stage illusion....is a stage illusion.  That it is a misapprehension.  To say that the singular sense of self is not representative of any actual singular self, that it does not exist, is not to say that there is no system to which the term self refers.

(as regards free will, dennets on the record stating his opposition to epiphenomenalism, since he's not an epiphenomenalist, he thinks that mental events can be causal. This is his version of free will)

[Neo-Scholastic]

Just a little condescending don't you think?

Well if my point didn't entirely escape you I'd never know it by your response.  That's why I thought it best to get my pompous ass game on, level 3.

I'll just plead ignorance on this one. Whatever it was, it was apparently just to clever for subtle for me at the moment. Work is so stressful right now I put my xanax in a Pez dispenser.

[Edwardo Piet]

Or, that you're thick.  

No that most definitely would be you.