Consciousness Trilemma

[bennyboy]

This is especially so in the case of a material monist view, since there's no observation that can be made about the minds of others without begging the question.

This gave me a great way to bring you round to the fold.  You have a penchant for stating that materialism cannot, for example, explain consciousness.  This, in your estimation, is indicative of some problem with materialism.  Eliminative materialists agree that many explanations of consciousness -cannot- explain consciousness, because, from an eliminative materialist's pov..what they describe is not only not happening, it can't happen.  

Where you see a problem with materialism, they see a problem with the description.

I describe consciousness as the awareness of the fact of awareness.  In fact, I don't define it as that-- the word is is a label FOR that. I know that I am conscious in this way, because it's the only way in which a person can be said to be conscious.

---

Label it how you like, the fact is that these ideas or impressions occur concurrently with the experience of the intentional subject.  They can be made into ideas when we talk about them or when we introspect, but these ideas are still there while you're experiencing contemplation of an intentional subject.  Introducing a semantic distinction does not in and of itself introduce a phenomenological distinction.  The phenomenological picture is that we are aware of being aware while we are aware of other things.

I don't agree that those ideas ARE intrinsically there. Ideas about self, about physical systems, and even about the nature of consciousness represent the content of conscious experience, not the awareness that one is experiencing.

This consciousness-as-object really isn't consciousness at all.  It's an idea of consciousness, a component of the world view.  As I said to Hammy, this isn't so much a theory of mind as an extension of the other components of one's world view.

Now you're making an empty semantic argument.  The fact that these distinctions can appear as intentional subjects is no evidence that when they appear in the phenomenology of consciousness that they do so as intentional subjects.  They do not.  They appear as qualia having an apparent referent of consciousness itself.  It's not a theory of mind, it's just an observation of what is present in the contents of consciousness at any time.

That "observation of what is present in the contents of the consciousness at any time" is better simply called "world view." And this represents the content of experience, which may be called illusory if it doesn't map well to something in reality.

What I call consciousness, the state of awareness of the fact of awareness, is not contingent on the nature of ideas or experiences.

This is especially so in the case of a material monist view, since there's no observation that can be made about the minds of others without begging the question.

Ho hum.  And this has what to do with the point under discussion?

It demonstrates that proposition (3) is founded on philosophical assumptions which beg the question. (3) may be correct, but it cannot be known to be so.