RE: Consciousness Trilemma
May 29, 2017 at 6:59 am
(This post was last modified: May 29, 2017 at 7:59 am by Edwardo Piet.)
Everything I am saying backs up what I have said. Conscious experience itself cannot be an illusion because experience is however things seem to be to us and it's just a tautology that however things seem to us is however they seem to us.
I have admitted repeatedly that there are such things as cognitive illusions and we can be mistaken about when and what we can be consccious of in that it may not correspond with objective reality but I have been consistent in explaining that even if absolutely nothing we were conscious of corresponded to objective reality and all we could experience was conscious ilusions of objective reality the conscious experiences themselves really would be whatever they are, by definition, and they really would be however they subjectively seemed to be to us, by definition, and there is absolutely no distinction between how conscious experience subjectively appears to us and how it actually is to us, the subjective seeming is identical to the subjective reality even if none of it corresponds to objective reality so to say that all conscious experience itself is illusory is indeed to make a distinction where no distinction can be made and to equivocate between objective and subjective reality (which, yes, is also objective in a ontological sense but the parts of objective reality that are also subjective are by definition the only parts of objective reality that can be absolutely knowable to be real subjectively, even if we are mistaken about how it corresponds to unsubjective objective reality). To say that conscious experience itself is illusory or unreal when it's the only part of reality we can know to be real directly and subjectively with epistemic certainty is indeed to make this category error I am talking about. It's one thing to say cognitive ilusions and other illusions exist in that our conscious experience doesn't accurately map onto unconscious reality but it's another thing to state that conscious experience itself is illusory or to deny its reality. To say that all conscious experiencening itself is unreal is just completely meaningless. Consciousness really is however things seem to be to us, regardless of whether it corresponds to objective reality.
Far from being mysterious, consciousness is the one thing we can directly know to be real. It's the external world that is mysterious, not the internal world, look at quantum mechanics and how even the experts state that even they don't understand it and that it's not only queerer than they suppose it to be but it's also queerer than they can suppose it to be.
Even if the entire external world is an illusion and we're all in a computer simulation or we're all brains in vats... our internal world cannot be an illusion. Even if the whole external world is an illusion and our conscious experience doesn't map onto real objective external reality beyond that illusory world... we still know that at least our subjective conscious experience itself is real even if it is mistaken about external reality it cannot be distinct from how it appears to be to itself because we're talking about the reality of subjective apparentness here. This is what Strawson means when he says that this is one area where you cannot open up a gap between how things seem to be and how they actually are. Because what would it mean for something that you seems a certain way to you to not really be that way to you? That would mean that it merely seems to seem a certain way to you. And what would that be like? Well, that would be the same as it seeming.
Even if the whole of external reality is an illusion: conscious experience itself is however things really seem to be to us, including all the illusions we do experience. We can not mistaken about the fact that things seem to be to us however they seem to be to us. The one thing that we can know with a certainty is completely real is our own conscious experience even if the whole world is The Matrix. Conscious experience is not and cannot be an illusion. As Strawson has said: with regards to consciousness the having is the knowing. How would a computer ever know what it was like to be conscious? By having conscious experiences.
You say that the term "ontological subjectivity" is only a composite term and that the term makes no sense when you put those two seperate words together but you fail to understand the basic dichotomy that all ontology either has subjectivity or it does not. An alive wakeful human brain is an example of ontology that does. You equivocate inanely when you say that that would refer to "a being". In philosophy the term "ontology" refers to all being itself i.e. existence. Not "a being" in the everyday sense like a living being :facepalm: :facepalm: Next you'll be conflating "intentionality" in the philosophical sense with intention in the everyday sense :facepalm: :facepalm:
You're trying, you're really trying but neither you nor Rhythm is going to get there because you fail to apprehend the logical errors you're making and when either of you fail too hard to address my argument you both fall back on either bare assertions that it's not true by definition that conscious experience itself really does seem to us how it really does seem to us or you make the category error of asking me to provide third person perspective epistemically objective evidence for the reality of first person perspective ontologically subjective conscious experience, or last of all, you merely barely assert that what I am saying is word salad, psychobabble or that a term is meaningless when you don't understand.
And the fact you merely insist that when the elimativists say that consciousness experience is illusory that that doesn't mean that consciousness experience is unreal it is clearly you that is merely talking semantic nonsense. You're simply denying the meanings of words and making shit up there.
I had little hopes for Rhythm understanding this but I'm actually rather sad that you do not understand this, Jor, because I not only like you a lot as a person but I also on occassion admire you as someone who appears to be fairly intelligent and is at the very least rather well educated. And on an irrelevant note: It rather saddens me that you can't even disagree with me about this without thinking that I'm an asshole.
Oh well.
I have admitted repeatedly that there are such things as cognitive illusions and we can be mistaken about when and what we can be consccious of in that it may not correspond with objective reality but I have been consistent in explaining that even if absolutely nothing we were conscious of corresponded to objective reality and all we could experience was conscious ilusions of objective reality the conscious experiences themselves really would be whatever they are, by definition, and they really would be however they subjectively seemed to be to us, by definition, and there is absolutely no distinction between how conscious experience subjectively appears to us and how it actually is to us, the subjective seeming is identical to the subjective reality even if none of it corresponds to objective reality so to say that all conscious experience itself is illusory is indeed to make a distinction where no distinction can be made and to equivocate between objective and subjective reality (which, yes, is also objective in a ontological sense but the parts of objective reality that are also subjective are by definition the only parts of objective reality that can be absolutely knowable to be real subjectively, even if we are mistaken about how it corresponds to unsubjective objective reality). To say that conscious experience itself is illusory or unreal when it's the only part of reality we can know to be real directly and subjectively with epistemic certainty is indeed to make this category error I am talking about. It's one thing to say cognitive ilusions and other illusions exist in that our conscious experience doesn't accurately map onto unconscious reality but it's another thing to state that conscious experience itself is illusory or to deny its reality. To say that all conscious experiencening itself is unreal is just completely meaningless. Consciousness really is however things seem to be to us, regardless of whether it corresponds to objective reality.
Far from being mysterious, consciousness is the one thing we can directly know to be real. It's the external world that is mysterious, not the internal world, look at quantum mechanics and how even the experts state that even they don't understand it and that it's not only queerer than they suppose it to be but it's also queerer than they can suppose it to be.
Even if the entire external world is an illusion and we're all in a computer simulation or we're all brains in vats... our internal world cannot be an illusion. Even if the whole external world is an illusion and our conscious experience doesn't map onto real objective external reality beyond that illusory world... we still know that at least our subjective conscious experience itself is real even if it is mistaken about external reality it cannot be distinct from how it appears to be to itself because we're talking about the reality of subjective apparentness here. This is what Strawson means when he says that this is one area where you cannot open up a gap between how things seem to be and how they actually are. Because what would it mean for something that you seems a certain way to you to not really be that way to you? That would mean that it merely seems to seem a certain way to you. And what would that be like? Well, that would be the same as it seeming.
Even if the whole of external reality is an illusion: conscious experience itself is however things really seem to be to us, including all the illusions we do experience. We can not mistaken about the fact that things seem to be to us however they seem to be to us. The one thing that we can know with a certainty is completely real is our own conscious experience even if the whole world is The Matrix. Conscious experience is not and cannot be an illusion. As Strawson has said: with regards to consciousness the having is the knowing. How would a computer ever know what it was like to be conscious? By having conscious experiences.
You say that the term "ontological subjectivity" is only a composite term and that the term makes no sense when you put those two seperate words together but you fail to understand the basic dichotomy that all ontology either has subjectivity or it does not. An alive wakeful human brain is an example of ontology that does. You equivocate inanely when you say that that would refer to "a being". In philosophy the term "ontology" refers to all being itself i.e. existence. Not "a being" in the everyday sense like a living being :facepalm: :facepalm: Next you'll be conflating "intentionality" in the philosophical sense with intention in the everyday sense :facepalm: :facepalm:
You're trying, you're really trying but neither you nor Rhythm is going to get there because you fail to apprehend the logical errors you're making and when either of you fail too hard to address my argument you both fall back on either bare assertions that it's not true by definition that conscious experience itself really does seem to us how it really does seem to us or you make the category error of asking me to provide third person perspective epistemically objective evidence for the reality of first person perspective ontologically subjective conscious experience, or last of all, you merely barely assert that what I am saying is word salad, psychobabble or that a term is meaningless when you don't understand.
And the fact you merely insist that when the elimativists say that consciousness experience is illusory that that doesn't mean that consciousness experience is unreal it is clearly you that is merely talking semantic nonsense. You're simply denying the meanings of words and making shit up there.
I had little hopes for Rhythm understanding this but I'm actually rather sad that you do not understand this, Jor, because I not only like you a lot as a person but I also on occassion admire you as someone who appears to be fairly intelligent and is at the very least rather well educated. And on an irrelevant note: It rather saddens me that you can't even disagree with me about this without thinking that I'm an asshole.
Oh well.
