Consciousness Trilemma

[Edwardo Piet]

So it's a nonsensical neologism coined by John Searle.

No it's not. The fact you don't understand what "ontologically subjective" means and I give you John Searle's explanation of it doesn't mean he "coined it".

Obviously ontological subjectivity isn't defined as one separate term. Each of those words mean things seperately and make sense put together. You don't need Searle for that. I used his explanation because he explains it well and instead you just pretend he "coined it" and ignore what ontological subjectivity obviously is.

Ontology is about being. About entities, about something that exists. Something that exists either has subjectivity or it doesn't. Its ontology is either subjective or it isn't. It either has conscousness or it doesn't. Obviously the ontology of consciousness is subjective. What is your problem with things that are just true by definition? Next you'll be asking me to prove that consciousness is subjective. You literally repeatedly do the equivalent of asking me to prove that all squares have four sides.

Try thinking about shit for a change instead of blindly regurgitating bullshit.

Try understanding that words fucking mean things.

 It isn't a sensible definition because it endorses the conclusion that ontologically subjective phenomena are not also ontologically objective.

No it doesn't. Nowhere does he say that something can't both be ontologically objective and subjective.

All ontology is objective but some of it is also subjective. There are conscious objects and unconscious objects. Consciousness is by definition a conscious object. It has subjective ontology. It's ontologically subjective.

In other words, it's nothing more than the mysterians' claim that consciousness has no third hand objective description.  That's begging the question on Searle's part and being stupid about philosophy on your part.

No this is your own misrepresentation. Nowhere does Searle say that something can't  both be ontologically objective and ontologically subjective. And if he did say that, he'd be wrong.

And the reason you can't be wrong is what?  Stop bleating and start backing up some of these statements.

I can't be wrong because I'm stating tautologies or following logical lines with premises that are tautologically true.

You are asking me to prove something true by definition is true. Like I said you may as well ask me to prove that all squares have four sides.

And the misrepresentations just keep on coming.  You have presented no argument.  You've claimed consciousness itself, not the thing in its intentionality, cannot be an illusion.

I have repeatedly explained why that position is tautologically true. Let me spell it out for you again. For something to be illusory it has to be the case that something is not what it appears to be. But consciousness is by definition subjective appearance to the self. Consciousness is what something seems to be to someone, so that itself cannot be an illusion. You can't say that the reality of the appearance of something to someone isn't what it is when what it is is the appearance of something to someone. You're literally arguing that illusions themselves aren't really experienced which makes the illusion itself an illusion of an illusion and thereby not really an illusion. If you're telling me that something isn't really not real you're telling me it's real. A double negative equates to a positive.

When the testimony of the witness is impeachable, we must rely on other facts for the truth.  That isn't acting as if first hand experience isn't real, it's acting as if first hand experience is illusory.

I don't think you understand what I am saying. I have tried to explain it many times... I am not saying that the first hand experiences aren't mistaken about external reality, and I am not saying that they aren't mistaken about the nature of internal subjective reality either... I'm saying that that however our experiences really seem to be that's how they really seem to be. Do you spot the tautology yet?! Saying that they don't really seem how they really seem and that what you really seem to be conscious of is not what you really seem to be conscious of is just akin to saying that a square doesn't really have four sides.
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The point that Dennett makes in the video is telling in that regard.  Consciousness must take both time and space inside the brain to develop.  It makes no sense to talk of a 'now' in which you are experiencing something.

It doesn't matter what the mechanics or the structure of it is. See above. I'm merely being a realist about the fact that however consciousnes does appear to be that is how it appears to be. And however it seems to us that is indeed how it seems to us. We can't be mistaken about however it appears to us, we can only be mistaken about our memories of how it did appear, or our expectation about how it will appear or other details like that. If consciousness is however things appear to us then it is however things appear to us.

Yes I agree that consciousness takes both time and space to develop. But all that exists in the present is now. Once again that's something else true by definition that you will have a problem with (do you have a problem with the notion of squares having four sides too?)... the fact that consciousness takes time and space to develop doesn't address the fact that consciousness is happening now. We are experiencing it now. You may think it's absurd to speak of consciousness 'now' but it's just as absurd to speak of it existing in the future or past but not in the present. Obviously consciousness takes many steps to develop but each step is very real and can be divided into smaller steps. Every pulsing moment is relevant. Consciousness is happening now. It will happen in the future and it has happened in the past. This is all true by definition provided that you assume that consciousness isn't going to disappear forever everywhere in the future and that the fact it existed in the past is not merely a false memory. But even if the past is all false memories and never happened, and even if the future never arrives... one thing we do know is that consciousness is happening now. And now. And now. In the present moment. We are experiencing it now. It is ongoing.

It doesn't matter how mistaken we are about the details. I will repeat it again. However consciousness really seems to us that is how it really seems to us. That's just a tautology but have fun banging your head against the equivalent of the fact that a square has four sides.

 There is no imaginary finish line in the brain where things pass from being perceived to being phenomenologically experienced.

More shit that Dennett discusses that is irrelevant to my point.  We could be completely deluded about consciousness but the way things really seemed to us would by definition be how they really seemed to us. You have a problem with things being true by definition though... you talk of me parroting the same babble. Despite the fact that truths of definition are the only truths we can know to be true with 100% certainty.

Consciousness is spread out in space and time in the brain.  That spreading out matters.

Obviously the fact that time is made up of instants and that you can't have a past and a future without a present and the very fact that it takes time just further demonstrates my point that consciousness is happening now if it is right now taking time to develop.

 

Therefore any naive supposition that consciousness is 'experiencing' the moment must be an illusion.

Nope. You've once against conflated A) being mistaken about when we think consciousness is happening or how or why we think it is happening  with B) The very fact that we really are consciously aware of whatever we really are conscious aware of. We can't "Not really" be consciously aware of whatever we're really consciously aware of.

 You can bleat all you want about how it's not an illusion,

I've already repeatedly admitted that those details can be illusory. You still haven't explained how the way things really do subjectively appear to us can't be how they really subjectively appear to us. And do you see how you're never going to do that? You may as well be saying that objects that really have four sides don't really have four sides.

but unless you're advocating something other than a material basis for consciousness, you are wrong.

No I'm not. I'm advocating that consciousness is physical.

You make the silly mistake that because everything real is physical and consciousness itself is mental instead of physical then consciousness can't be real. But obviously it's the equivocation fallacy to think that consciousness itself cannot be physical.

Basing your position on absurd neologisms isn't helping your case any.  Searle has buried his real objection in nonsensical terminology, and you fall for it hook, line, and sinker.

He didn't invent it. It's not a "neologism". He merely popularized it and explained it.

Ontological subjectivity is obviously ontology that is subjective. Everything is by definition ontology, some things (i.e. minds) have subjectivity.

You ought to know what the term means simply by understanding the words separately, putting them together grammatically and reading them.... I mean... that's what I do

Cannot be substantiated objectively?  Your claim is nothing but a claim.  Like I said, unsubstantiated.

You're asking me to substantiate the first person subjective fact of my consciousnes via third person evidence objectively. What do you want me to do telepathically send my consciousness into you?

As I have said... however consciousness really appears to us that is how it really appears to us. Consciousness experience itself cannot be illusory regardless of us being wrong about any specific details. We KNOW we are experiencing SOMETHING WHEN we DO EXPERIENCE SOMETHING.

You're playing word games.  The what referred back to "the model by which the brain represents its own process to itself."  That is the that of consciousness.

Well, that model is certainly conscious subjective experience if that's what we're consciously experiencing subjectively. But you wish to tell me that we're not really experiencing subjectively whatever we really are experiencing subjectively.

To say that EVERYTHING we're experiencing we're not really experiencing... is just a complete failure to make a distinction between real/not real at all. It's the same effect as saying everything we experience is real.

This is all in the context of responding to the anti-reductionist argument based upon Liebniz' law.  There is nothing in the brain that is literally a red stripe.  He makes clear the literal nature of the comparison by talking about striations in the brain, etc.  He isn't saying that the red stripe does not exist as a representation of a red stripe in the brain, but that it does not literally occur there.  I think you've misunderstood the point he was trying to make there and its limited applicability.  The line on the slide says, "If A is a red stripe, and nothing in the brain is a red stripe, then nothing in the brain is identical to A."  That's as far as that particular point goes.  You've mushed together quining and a limited response to the Liebniz'ian argument until they're the same thing in your mind.  He goes on to state the materialist's response that, "it only seems to you that there is a red stripe that you are experiencing."  No conflation, just your misunderstanding a classic argument in the literature for something that Dennett was advancing.

Well OBVIOUSLY the illusion of the red stripe doesn't literally exist in the brain as a red stripe. But he already pointed out that the red stripe was just an afterimage and an illusion and then he said that that red stripe (i.e. the illusory afterimage of the red stripe) didn't exist in the brain. Obviously the illusion of the red stripe exists in the brain in the form of neurons otherwise such a cognitive illusion wouldn't even be experienced. He's saying it's an illusion so it doesn't really exist. He's conflating illusoriness with nonexistence.

Why on earth would he say that a red stripe didn't literally exist in the brain as a literal physical red stripe when that's beyond obvious and he had already started talking about the appearance of an illusory afterimage of a red stripe?

He said that a red stripe is being experienced but there is no red stripe that we are experiencing. That is logically contradictory. You can't experience something that isn't there at least as an illusion or an appearance.

That's because ontologically subjective doesn't mean anything.  It's a stand-in for Searle's assertions about consciousness.

Doesn't mean anything?



You're bascically saying that the ontology of consciousness isn't subjective because the very idea of any ontology being subjective "doesn't mean anything". You're saying that no one is conscious.



Jor... words mean things. What you are trying to say is not the same thing as what you are actually saying.

Let me quote back something of yours I already quoted in this post... and enbolden your most epic fail of all in this thread, which completely betrays your undervaluing of tautological truths and your failure to recognize that words actually mean things... and this really does just show what nonsense you're talking about.

When the testimony of the witness is impeachable, we must rely on other facts for the truth.  That isn't acting as if first hand experience isn't real, it's acting as if first hand experience is illusory.

My bold.

I don't... I don't even.

It isn't acting as if first hand experience isn't real it's acting as if first hand experience is illusory? You do realize that an illusory experience is an experience that isn't real and an experience that isn't real is an illusory experience? That's what an illusion means: an experience that isn't real. And yet you say I play word games.....





You don't know WHAT the fuck you're talking about do you?

Oh I see Jor! I see! You're not saying subjective experience isn't real you're saying it's illusory! (!) I understand (!) Makes perfect sense (!) /sarcasm

Words mean things.

So you and Dennett can redefine your ass off as much as you like and pretend you're being scientific... but pretending words mean things that they don't mean isn't what science is about. Sure, if it gets the science done. It doesn't change the matter of philosophical truths. Science isn't about philosophical truths. Just because atoms in the scientific sense are splittable doesn't mean atoms in the original sense of the word aren't unsplittable. So if the objective of the study of atoms was to try and prove that atoms in the original sense of the word were splittable... science would fail by definition. The difference between science and the elimativists, is science actually recognizes when it's changing the subject and actually knows its limits and what it can test and can't test. Unlike yourself and Dennett.

There's that assertion again that experience can't be illusory.  Shame you've got nothing to back it with.

We can experience illusions, yes. But that is not the same thing as all experiences being illusory... because that would include even illusory experiences being illusory. Take note of that. If no experiences are real then experiences that are unreal aren't really unreal. Which makes them real. But keep trying to have your cake and eat it too.

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I was going to say that I think consciousness is an illusion but then Hammy blew my mind.
Thanks Hammy. :-)

^^^This guy gets it^^^

Happy to blow your mind.

You're welcome, LL.

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It appears that of the following three propositions only two can be true:

1) Conscious experience is not an illusion.

In this context, how would you call conscious experience an illusion?  Usually an illusion IS an experience-- of a physical object or property that is not there, or is there in a form radically different than you perceive it.

Yeah it's utter nonsense. Your real perception as it seems to you can't be not how you really perceive it as it seems to you.

But some people really like to make their non-sequiturs and category errors.

It's as though many people think something can't be both physical and mental, and they also believe that all that really exists is the physical... therefore the mental doesn't really exist and its existence is illusory. It's a serious equivocation fallacy. There's absolutely no reason that something can't be both physical and mental. In fact, ironically, it's dualism to think otherwise. Dualism being what most materialists and physicalists are afraid of. And the standard cop-out by the elimativists is to simply say that the other side of the coin, the mental, isn't real. Thereby they can stick to their monism and avoid dualism because only the physical is REAL.

Yes, only the physical is real. Including the mental which is also physical and real. There is no contradiction there unless you're making a serious category error. No need to say that what you're really conscious experiencing isn't really being consciously experienced. That's retarded. But I understand that those who are intellectually inferior who aren't able to avoid the category errors have to fall back on logically inchogerent cop-outs. It's what Dennett is referring to when he says that materialists have to bite the bullet otherwise dualism follows. No they don't. Consciousness is both real and physical. There's no contradiction.

And their cop-out doesn't even work. By saying that there are two types of stuff: real physical things and imaginary mental things... they're still failing to avoid dualism.

The correct answer to the problem is that there's one type of stuff, it's all physical, it's all existent and some of it gives rise to consciousness. Even the cognitive illusions exist within the physical brain in the form of neurons. They just don't represent something real in external objective reality. Cognition itself cannot be an illusion... because cognition itself has to at least seem to be something and it really does seem however it really seems to seem.