RE: Consciousness Trilemma
May 28, 2017 at 8:49 am
(This post was last modified: May 28, 2017 at 9:28 am by Edwardo Piet.)
(May 28, 2017 at 8:02 am)Khemikal Wrote: If I, Ham, defined human consciousness as "the stuff that souls do", would you grant that this type of consciousness exists, or argue against any suggestion that it doesn;t by saying "squares have 4 sides!"?
No but that's an absurdly false analogy. I'm DEFINITELY not going to bother with you if that's the best you've got. The fact that you can't seem to be conscious unless you have a consciousness to experience that seeming is a tautology like "squares have 4 sides". Comparing it to "the stuff that souls do" is a pathetic strawman.
You are not remotely addressing the category errors the elimativists are making when they conflate ontological subjectivity and epistemic subjectivity.
The whole starting point of science requires conscious observers in the first place.
I've already explained that it's logically possible for the whole material world to be an illusion but consciousness itself cannot be an illusion.
You're a fucking idiot sticking to your elimativist guns because you dismiss something that can't be logically wrong as akin to "folk psychology".
Terrible analogy, terrible logic.
No wonder you argue against things that are true by definition when you're the same fucking idiot who thinks there can be alternative universes where 2+2=5
You're a dumb cunt.
(May 28, 2017 at 8:02 am)Khemikal Wrote: Similarly, when an eliminative materialists suggests that people believe in, and believe that they experience particular mental states or advocate for particular descriptions of consciousness, they are describing something that doesn't exist, despite how compellingly it might present itself to us.
OH MY GOD YOUR ANALOGY IS SO TERRIBLE.
For FUCK'S SAKE. We're mistaken about the details of our consciousness but we are not mistaken about the fact we are conscious because that's not even fucking possible.
For fuck's sake. The whole of science depends on conscious observers, the whole of the material world may be an illusion but consciousness itself cannot be.. We can be completely mistaken about what we are conscious of because we could be a brain in a vat for example, and indeed the whole of the material world could be an illusion, but the fact we are conscious of something cannot possibly be mistaken!
Literally... arguing against the very existence of consciousness or calling consciousness itself an illusion is literally the most irrational thing a human being can do. It's fucking hilarious that elimativie materialists are trying to use science to call the very thing they need to test their own claims illusory.
Their logical skills are pathetic. You're not dealing with my arguments at all. I already explained that you can't make a distinction between real/illusory with regards to consciousness itself because making such a distinction requires our own consciousness in the first place. If all that existed was our consciousness then the distinction between real/illusory wouldn't even make sense. You can't say that consciousness is an illusion when its very reality is more fundamental than anything else and if it is an illusion then everything is an illusion making your own claim completely meaningless and self-defeating nonsense.
I'll spell it out for you real simple: Something is an illusion if the way something appears to be doesn't correspond with the way something actually is. With consciousness you can't make that distinction because something cannot seem to be a certain way to you without you being conscious of that seeming it to be a certain way.
Why am I bothering explaining all this stuff to you when you are going to continue to think that because the details are illusory then the fact that even illusions are present to us must also be an illusion? RECOGNIZE THAT THAT IS 100% A COMPLETE AND TOTAL NON-SEQUITUR! ONTOLOGICALLY SUBJECTIVE DOES NOT EQUATE TO EPISTEMICALLY SUBJECTIVE! FOR. FUCK'S. SAKE. YOU ARE NOT ADDRESSING THE CATEGORY ERROR THAT DENNETT IS MAKING THAT SEARLE POINTED OUT!
Do you not realize that an illusion of an illusion=not an illusion? Do you not fucking realize that if something seems to be ANYTHING to you then you MUST be conscious of something.
STOP IGNORING THE LOGICAL ARGUMENTS I AM MAKING AND FALLING BACK ON "Neener neener, folk psychology, blah blah blah tradition and common sense are often mistaken, you may as well believe in souls". I'm not interested in arguments from authority, and appeals to anti-traditionalism, nor am I interested in strawmen and bad logic. Fuck knows why I have been interested in you dealing with the actual logical arguments I am making when you have time and time again displayed that your logical skills are too poor to debate with me.
I'm sorry but science can't trump logic with definitions as much as you'd like it to, you equivocating fuckwit. You're doing the equivalent of saying that because a universe came from empty space teeming quantum activity that means a universe came from 'nothing' as in absolutely nothing at all.
You can't on the one hand realize you're not addressing a definition but changing the definition and then on the other hand pretend like you're eliminated the original definition by failing to address it.
You can define consciousness as an illusion of subjectivity all you want but under the normal definitions that makes as little sense as saying a universe came from literally "nothing".
TL;DR: Your subjective experience can be illusory in that what you think you are experiencing you aren't experiencing and you're really experiencing something else... but the fact you are experiencing SOMETHING. The fact that subjective experience exists CANNOT be an illusion. That is LOGICALLY IMPOSSIBLE.
Why am I bothering arguing with a fuckwit who thinks 2+2 can=5 provided that you change the universe? Why am I bothering with a fuckwit who thinks that if an extra thing popped into existence that would mean that two things and two things weren't identical to four things and not five things by definition? Why am I wasting my time with a moron who doesn't understand modal logic? Why am I bothering trying to explain the fact that we seem to be conscious means that our consciousness isn't an illusion? Why am I bothering explaining that being mistaken about the details of our consciousness doesn't mean we are mistaken about the fact we are conscious? Why am I wasting my time explaining that if you change the definition then you're failing to make any argument at all against the original definition meaning that our consciousness is NOT an illusion in the sense we normally mean it? (If you're going to redefine consciousness to not mean "subjective experience", you're a moron who may as well redefine God to mean "the universe" and then say "the original definition was crap because God doesn't exist so I decided to redefine "God" to mean "the universe" which does exist."
)Recognize that by redefining the problem you ignore the problem altogether. Whatever elimativist materialists are talking about, it's not consciousness. Because consciousness isn't an illusion by definition. SEEMING requires a CONSCIOUS SUBJECT. Something cannot SEEM to be real without the SEEMING ITSELF AT LEAST BEING REAL.
What something appears to be may be mistaken, but the fact that something appears to be something cannot be mistaken.
Holy crap saying consciousness is an illusion is more illogical than calling the material world an illusion, you need to realize that. You could be a brain in a vat and the whole world you are experiencing is illusory, you could be dreaming and what you seem to be conscious of doesn't really exist. You can be wrong about what you're conscious of. But you can't be wrong about being conscious of SOMETHING. That's FUCKING LOGICALLY IMPOSSIBLE.
Such a dimwit.
If I don't respond at your further attempts to pathetically fail to rebut me it's not because I don't have a rebuttal it's because I've already rebutted you repeatedly and you still don't understand basic logic so I'm tired of wasting my time on you. I get so pissed off because not only do you suggest I'm thick when you're the stupid fucker here but you continue to poorly educate people throughout this thread that their consciousness may be an illusion when I've already spent time explaining how impossible that is. I don't want you to miseducate people with your equivocating wankery. If you change the definition then you are by definition talking about something else and thereby cannot eliminate the original definition! Stop being a fallacious fuckface!
