Consciousness Trilemma

[Edwardo Piet]

So much vitriol, Hammy... calm down.

I admit I mostly skimmed all of your and Khem's posts, but I noticed this bit about what is perceived doesn't happen simultaneous with the actual world events.
This reminded me of the concept of Real-Time Control... essentially, to act fast enough so that the system doesn't change from when it was sensed to the time of acting upon it.

So, as I see it, the time it takes for our brains to process information and make a conscious decision is, for the most part, irrelevant. We operate in Real-Time.
Our present is a present with a small and mostly irrelevant delay.

The vitriol started when Khem suggested I was 'thick' for his own inability to understand he's utterly deluded in denying the reality of consciousness, his own inability to comprehend relevant tautologically true statements and his own inability to recognize his own fallacious arguments, equivocations and non-sequiturs. I wouldn't have pointed out how much of a thickie he was if he didn't decide to suggest I was thick because he's too stupid to follow my own sound reasoning and avoid his own fallacious reasoning.

[pocaracas]

So much vitriol, Hammy... calm down.

I admit I mostly skimmed all of your and Khem's posts, but I noticed this bit about what is perceived doesn't happen simultaneous with the actual world events.
This reminded me of the concept of Real-Time Control... essentially, to act fast enough so that the system doesn't change from when it was sensed to the time of acting upon it.

So, as I see it, the time it takes for our brains to process information and make a conscious decision is, for the most part, irrelevant. We operate in Real-Time.
Our present is a present with a small and mostly irrelevant delay.

The vitriol started when Khem suggested I was 'thick' for his own inability to understand he's utterly deluded in denying the reality of consciousness, his own inability to comprehend relevant tautologically true statements and his own inability to recognize his own fallacious arguments, equivocations and non-sequiturs. I wouldn't have pointed out how much of a thickie he was if he didn't decide to suggest I was thick because he's too stupid to follow my own sound reasoning and avoid his own fallacious reasoning.

We all recognize our own reasoning as sound and others' reasoning (if it doesn't match up with our own) as fallacious.
I'm almost certain he feels the same about you

[bennyboy]

Then consciousness doesn't exist, since there is no such happening, only the happened, Benny.

Sure there's a happening. I'm experiencing percept A, and then I'm experiencing percept B. That is happening.

That's kind of the crux of their entire point.  If -you- insist that consciousness is something that it is not and cannot be, then consciousness does not exist.  That it seems that way, to you, to all of us...is no certifier that it is that way...and specifically in this case, it demonstrably isn't and logically could not be..in the absence of some unknown element x.  I mean that in the strongest possible sense.  Some unkown element x that is distinct from the brain, and has it's very own physics, unrelated to or divorced from the physics of literally every other object in existence....but also some unknown element x that can forcibly overcome the limitations of the brain.  See, we know the brain can't do what you think consciousness is.  So whatever consciousness actually is is not only capable of doing that thing..but jacking the brain into lockstep with it, in spite of it's limitations.  It's capable of fooling your brain into thinking that you're doing what cannot be done.  

I've said that consciousness is the awareness of the fact of awareness. In this thread, people keep talking about the NATURE of consciousness-- insisting it must be X, and then demonstrating that X cannot be mapped onto any physical system or property and is therefore an "illusion" or "does not exist."

But consciousness isn't an object of inquiry. We verbalize it, then talk about the verbalizations as a proxy for the actual happening of the coordination of percepts.

Obviously, no one attempting a material explanation of consciousness wastes much time with that noise.  Maybe, just maybe, it's not some mysterious element x doing any of that, but the brain itself.

There are a lot of maybes, and they are sometimes fun to talk about. But not everyone has such an elevated interest in the semantics we usually turn over. Most people wake up, look around, and occasionally wonder what it means. No very useful philosophy is going to happen when mind, in its capacity or even tendency toward irony, decides that mind is an illusion.

[Edwardo Piet]

Irrelevant, since my comment only denies that consciousness is or can be a happening.

It's not irrelevant to point out the incoherence of your statement that consciousness never happens in the present but it does happen in the past.

Your denial that consciousness is or can be happening is even more retarded than denying that its happening is non-illusory.

 Sure, happenings turn into happeneds and without one you can't have the other, but so what?

...so your saying that there is happeneds but not happenings is logically incoherent.

 That doesn't change the fact that consciousness is and cannot be any present seeming, any happening... so..if it's described as such..then it either doesn't exist, or is illusory.  

To say it doesn't exist is to say you're not conscious. To say it's not real is to say you're not experiencing it. And the experience of consciousness is what consciousness is. It's neither the case that you're not conscious or you're not experiencing consciousness.

Which would you prefer?

I'd prefer you to recognize your own incoherent statements including the false dichotomy you are setting up.

 Obviously, I don't demand that consciousness own report of itself be accurate.

Being wrong about how consciousness works doesn't make the experience of consciousness 'unreal' or 'an illusion'.

 That it's not some present thing doesn't, in my view of consciousness, lead to the inexorable conclusion that it does not exist.

More contradictions on your part. If it's never present then it's never existent. If it doesn't ever happen in the present then it doesn't ever happen in the past. You are utterly terrible at logic, go do something else.

I've already pointed out that it's incoherent to say that its never happening ever was happening. Your response to my pointing out your statement was logically inchorent was to say 'so what?'.

So you're talking nonsense, that's what.

"OFC consciousness exists, it's just not what you think it is"

Meaning he has redefined it and decided to tell everyone that's what it 'really is'. It's fucking retarded.

The thinking itself is an experience that you're really conscious of.

Being wrong about how consciousness works has no bearing on the reality of the experience of consciousness. Again, he, and you, are retardedly confusing the difference between an illusion and a delusion.

What is the conscious area, and what is the unconscious area? Where is the physical humonculus?

Irrelevant. I've already dealt with all this. I accept Dennett's multiple drafts theory and don't think there is one area in the brain where it 'all comes together'. I agree with him that consciousness is 'winning' or 'fame in the brain' and the areas that win out are the conscious areas at that time.

What I don't agree with him is his non-sequitur that because he's explained how it works and people were wrong, deluded, about how their consciousness works that that somehow makes the areas in the brain that win out that you're conscious of 'illusory' or 'not real'. That makes zero sense. He confuses the difference between an illusion and a delusion.

Like he's said, he describes the screen with icons and a desktop on your computer as a 'user illusion' with the reasoning that that's not what is going on on the inside of the computer. That's not what a fucking illusion is. An illusion is something that seems one way but is in fact another way. But the screen and user-interface is not the same fucking thing as the inside of the computer. The computer screen and what's on it is as real and non-illusory as the inside of the computer. It doesn't matter how the insides work and light up the comptuer screen that doesn't make the screen an illusion. You can be completely deluded about how computers work but that doesn't make the computer screen itself an illusion. In the same way as he confuses delusion and illusion here retardedly he does the same thing with consciousness: It doesn't matter how the insides of the brain works and what areas of your brain--what multiple drafts--work in order for us to experience what we refer to as 'consciousness' it doesn't make conscious experience an illusion. You can be completely deluded about how brains work but that doesn't make conscious experience an illusion

He doesn't get everything right... he starts off well and I accept his Multiple Drafts model and I agree that there is no homunculous in the brain or experiencer that is distinct and seperate from the experience. And it is indeed more like the clothes having no emperor than the emperor having no clothes. But the clothes themselves are fucking real and non-illusory. His conclusion that because he's described the mechanics behind consciousness that that makes the experience itself an illusion is just a non-sequitur.

He's not right about everything. But keep flicking your tongue against his buttcrack if it makes you feel any better.

In the same way, your consciousness' own report of itself is real, it's just in demonstrable error.

Okay so you just agreed that I am right. More contradictions on your part. You're saying it's real i.e. not illusory and not non-existent (before you were creating a false dichotomy between saying it's either not real or doesn't exist). It's just deluded or in error. I agree. This is exactly what I have been saying the whole time and and exactly how Dennett is wrong and you have been wrong up until you contradicted yourself here. Finally you understand (that is, you understand until you contradict yourself again).

[The Grand Nudger]

I admit I mostly skimmed all of your and Khem's posts, but I noticed this bit about what is perceived doesn't happen simultaneous with the actual world events.
This reminded me of the concept of Real-Time Control... essentially, to act fast enough so that the system doesn't change from when it was sensed to the time of acting upon it.

So, as I see it, the time it takes for our brains to process information and make a conscious decision is, for the most part, irrelevant. We operate in Real-Time.
Our present is a present with a small and mostly irrelevant delay.

It may be mostly irrelevant to it's operation (eliminative materialists don't think, for example, that this delay causes it not to work) - but it is very relevant with regards to an accurate description -of- that work..and whether or not that accurate description matches our experience and descriptions of it.

In their view, that's just one of many discrepancies between consciousness as-described...as-experienced, and what our brains are actually doing.

---

It's not irrelevant to point out the incoherence of your statement that consciousness never happens in the present but it does happen in the past.

Your denial that consciousness is or can be happening is even more retarded than denying that its happening is non-illusory.

The alternative is to propose that the product of information processing can travel between points in zero time.

...so your saying that there is happeneds but not happenings is logically incoherent.

-I'm- saying that consciousness is (and can only be) information processing that happened, rather than something that -is- happening as we experience it to be. More damningly, what was happening bears no resemblance to our description of it in any case.  So start over, again, from there.  

To say it doesn't exist is to say you're not conscious. To say it's not real is to say you're not experiencing it. And the experience of consciousness is what consciousness is. It's neither the case that you're not conscious or you're not experiencing consciousness.

LOLNO, Ham, just no.  I'm saying (and dennet was saying) that consciousness doesn't exist as described and insisted upon by people who don't realize that they are proposing a humonculus with an attached system capable of processing in zero time.  This has been explained to you from the outset, and yet you persist.  Start over from there.  

I'd prefer you to recognize your own incoherent statements including the false dichotomy you are setting up.

Imagine a world in which you are wrong, and have completely lost the pulse of what I, and eliminative materialists are saying..if you ever had it, and start over from there.

---

Sure there's a happening.  I'm experiencing percept A, and then I'm experiencing percept B.  That is happening.

Sorry, missed you in the shuffle.  You can't be "experiencing percept a".  The experience, itself, is necessarily delayed in time.  It can't be something that you're presently doing, it can be something that you've done and experience-as the present.  You think and feel as though it is happening, but in truth, it already happened.  You couldn't have access to the product of that processing (even if there were a humonculus -or- an element x), unless it had already been done, because it would not yet exist.

I've said that consciousness is the awareness of the fact of awareness.  In this thread, people keep talking about the NATURE of consciousness-- insisting it must be X, and then demonstrating that X cannot be mapped onto any physical system or property and is therefore an "illusion" or "does not exist."

-and just in that extremely sparse definition you've managed to be wrong about a basic attribute of that experience.  You cannot be aware, in the present tense, of awareness.  That awareness, itself, must have also been processed.  You are getting a picture of time, not a video feed.  The seeming itself, is not what it seems to be. You can, however, posess a story about what you felt like at that time, cobbled together after the fact, cobbled together after you have access to that processing. The delay may be "no-time" to you.......but..........

But consciousness isn't an object of inquiry.  We verbalize it, then talk about the verbalizations as a proxy for the actual happening of the coordination of percepts.


There are a lot of maybes, and they are sometimes fun to talk about.    But not everyone has such an elevated interest in the semantics we usually turn over.  Most people wake up, look around, and occasionally wonder what it means.  No very useful philosophy is going to happen when mind, in its capacity or even tendency toward irony, decides that mind is an illusion.

When mind decides that some descriptions of mind are an illusion..you mean....?  Like the illusion of zero time processing fed to a nonexistent humonculus?  Ultimately, this entire thread has been about that simple, initial, misapprehension.  Call consciousness x, and it;s easy to see the mistake.

Eliminative materialists think that x exists.  There, all comments regarding the notion that they deny the existence of x are handled.  Eliminative materialists think that some descriptions of x, don't exist.  That those descriptions, instead of being x, are a compelling misapprehension produced by the system that is x.  Illusions. You are not, for example..."aware of awareness". Your brain has access to a post processing narrative, with the narrative center of gravity, and referent time that, to you..seems to be the present even though it cannot be.

Whatever you are seeing in front of you, like whatever you are thinking..didn't -and couldn't- be happening now. It took time for signals to go from your eyes to your brain..and in that time, whatever moment they represent has passed. It also took time for signals to travel -around- your brain...and in that time, whatever moment they represent has also passed. You sense of being aware, in the present tense, of awareness - again present tense-..is not and cannot be an accurate description of consciousness.....but ofc you still feel that way. So do I. So do eliminative materialists. We all acknowledge that we report feeling that way. It;s just that this report is necessarily in error. It cannot be what it reports itself as. Sure, sure, consciousness is often mistaken with regards to the objects it perceives.....but when consciousness is mistaken regarding it's own self-report...that's a little more pernicious. The proposition of eliminative materialists is not that nothing is happening in the brain, that there is no processing, for example presently happening at some time y......but that what we describe as consciousness does not or cannot map to a discrete mental state, that it does not match with what processing -is- happening at that time y.

[The Grand Nudger]

lol..since I'm responding to everyone in thread simultaneously, I'll drop a line for you too Jorg.  

I know that I'm taking liberties in communicating eliminative materialism to Benny and Ham.  It's a gamble, trying to explain what eliminative materialists are saying from their (Ham and Benny's) respective points of view.  A much harder and more accurate description of the various positions on that spectrum is certainly possible...but I don't think that it's necessary to address their comments. If we can get passed the "hurr durr they said consciousness doesn't exist" song and dance..I;m confident that the rest will fall into place, and a more substantive discussion of the position can be had.

(maybe, then, you and I can resurrect our own axes on the subject and grind them against each other, lol)

[Neo-Scholastic]

In the meantime, thank you, all of you. Your discussion has been good reading.

[pocaracas]

I admit I mostly skimmed all of your and Khem's posts, but I noticed this bit about what is perceived doesn't happen simultaneous with the actual world events.
This reminded me of the concept of Real-Time Control... essentially, to act fast enough so that the system doesn't change from when it was sensed to the time of acting upon it.

So, as I see it, the time it takes for our brains to process information and make a conscious decision is, for the most part, irrelevant. We operate in Real-Time.
Our present is a present with a small and mostly irrelevant delay.

It may be mostly irrelevant to it's operation (eliminative materialists don't think, for example, that this delay causes it not to work) - but it is very relevant with regards to an accurate description -of- that work..and whether or not that accurate description matches our experience and descriptions of it.

In their view, that's just one of many discrepancies between consciousness as-described...as-experienced, and what our brains are actually doing.

I've mentioned before on this forum that I think our awareness, our self that is seemingly detached from our brain, is at a sort of abstraction level, "removed" from the brain's inner workings, but intimately dependent on it.

Like in a programming language. You have to define the basic numbers, then you can bring them together in arrays, then matrices and even n-dimensional matrices. At some point, you have an object which is a matrix and there are some operations that you can perform on it and with it. And you prefer to use this object and these operations without thinking of all the processing that goes on under the hood, down to each number and memory location and stuff that you don't care about when wanting to add a matrix to another.
Our consciousness doesn't need to be aware of all the workings of the individual neurons... there seems to have been no evolutionary drive for that. But it works fast enough for most of our interactions with the real world to seem as instantaneous, or, to use better terminology, in real time.

If one wants to map out all the neurons and neuron interactions that collectively "produce" our consciousness, then, yes such a delay will be there.
I don't get why you say there is a discrepancy...

[The Grand Nudger]

I've mentioned before on this forum that I think our awareness, our self that is seemingly detached from our brain, is at a sort of abstraction level, "removed" from the brain's inner workings, but intimately dependent on it.

Eliminative materialists could agree.  Where you use the term abstraction, they might use the term illusion..but there;s one additional difference, that seems small but means a whole bunch, and we'll be coming around to that in just a moment.

Like in a programming language. You have to define the basic numbers, then you can bring them together in arrays, then matrices and even n-dimensional matrices. At some point, you have an object which is a matrix and there are some operations that you can perform on it and with it. And you prefer to use this object and these operations without thinking of all the processing that goes on under the hood, down to each number and memory location and stuff that you don't care about when wanting to add a matrix to another.
Our consciousness doesn't need to be aware of all the workings of the individual neurons... there seems to have been no evolutionary drive for that. But it works fast enough for most of our interactions with the real world to seem as instantaneous, or, to use better terminology, in real time.

OFC it doesn't need to be aware of all of it's workings, and it's self report doesn't -need- to be accurate (personally, I'd be more than surprised if it did and was, were not exactly talking about an intentionally designed machine here...eh?).  

However, our explanation of consciousness -does- need to be aware of it;s workings, and accurate with respect to them, or it's not an explanation of consciousness.  If we refer to those inaccuracies -as- consciousness......we aren't explaining consciousness at all.  We're just commenting endlessly about something that doesn't exist, but seems like it does.  

If one wants to map out all the neurons and neuron interactions that collectively "produce" our consciousness, then, yes such a delay will be there.
I don't get why you say there is a discrepancy...

Because there is a discrepancy, between how it feels to be, and what the brain is or can be doing.  

Now, about that key difference, from earlier.  Eliminative materialists suggest that how it feels to be will not, or cannot map to nuerons and nueron interactions (mental states).  Cheifly, because those nuerons are not only -not- doing what it feels like they are doing, they are incapable of doing what it feels like they're doing. Because of this, that self report which we all share is either artifact or illusion. Illusion, in the sense that it is something else presenting itself as-such..or artifact, in that it;s not even presenting itself as such, just a strange tick of language/culture to describe it as-such. Yet another story the brain is telling, based upon the inputs it's received.

[pocaracas]

Like in a programming language. You have to define the basic numbers, then you can bring them together in arrays, then matrices and even n-dimensional matrices. At some point, you have an object which is a matrix and there are some operations that you can perform on it and with it. And you prefer to use this object and these operations without thinking of all the processing that goes on under the hood, down to each number and memory location and stuff that you don't care about when wanting to add a matrix to another.
Our consciousness doesn't need to be aware of all the workings of the individual neurons... there seems to have been no evolutionary drive for that. But it works fast enough for most of our interactions with the real world to seem as instantaneous, or, to use better terminology, in real time.

OFC it doesn't need to be aware of all of it's workings, and it's self report doesn't -need- to be accurate (personally, I'd be more than surprised if it did and was, were not exactly talking about an intentionally designed machine here...eh?).  

However, our explanation of consciousness -does- need to be aware of it;s workings, and accurate with respect to them, or it's not an explanation of consciousness.  If we refer to those inaccuracies -as- consciousness......we aren't explaining consciousness at all.  We're just commenting endlessly about something that doesn't exist, but seems like it does.  

Given the very complex nature of the problem, for the time being, at best, all we can do is model artificial neurons and map out all the interactions they have and see what comes out. We'd have access to all the inner workings, but I doubt we can model the complexity, nor the number of neurons required to replicate a consciousness... so here we are... producing our best guesses.

If one wants to map out all the neurons and neuron interactions that collectively "produce" our consciousness, then, yes such a delay will be there.
I don't get why you say there is a discrepancy...

Because there is a discrepancy, between how it feels to be, and what the brain is or can be doing.  

Now, about that key difference, from earlier.  Eliminative materialists suggest that how it feels to be will not, or cannot map to nuerons and nueron interactions (mental states).  Cheifly, because those nuerons are not only -not- doing what it feels like they are doing, they are incapable of doing what it feels like they're doing.  Because of this, that self report which we all share is either artifact or illusion.  Illusion, in the sense that it is something else presenting itself as-such..or artifact, in that it;s not even presenting itself as such, just a strange tick of language/culture to describe it as-such.  Yet another story the brain is telling, based upon the inputs it's received.

So... these "Eliminative Materialists" are claiming that neurons cannot produce the feelings that we observe as consciousness, is that it? Why not?