Consciousness Trilemma

[bennyboy]

I accidentally ninja-edited you. If you have time, you can check my previous post to see if you have anything to add or change.

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Well, in the view of eliminative materialists it's not that we don't know where "that element" is, rather..that what we do know rules out the notion that any such element could or -does- exist...and that no such element is required to explain the object or subject that we are discussing.  That's the trifecta.  Element x cannot be found.  There are good reasons that no such thing as element x -could- exist, and element x is not required.  

It's a nice collection of words, but there's a problem. When I watch a movie, the sounds and sights are coordinated in my experience, and my interest in mind is not to wonder IF, but to wonder WHY. Unless a theory actually answers the questions posed, then it's not really a theory at all.

For example, if you ask, "Why do solid objects transform energy to heat when they collide?" and my answer is that 99.9999% of a "solid object" is empty space, and that even the .000001% is so highly suspect that you should doubt that it exists in the classical sense, so you should consider the objects illusory-- then what of it?

You might be perfectly willing to concede the philosophical point. Then you'll wander off to find someone who has a decent answer to your question.

-but we do know where, and when...and it isn't in a single place or time, and it certainly isn't the present...... despite seeming, itself, explicitly depending upon a present moment for a singular observer.  

That's a pretty big can of worms. I could at this moment be reliving my life on my death's bed, or I could be God imagining an unfolding drama that exists nowhere in my mind. Time is relative, but if you are going to define a particular moment as "now," it would have to be the sense of awareness itself.

If seeming can't be flawed, why does it seem flawed?  In any case, I'll say the same to you that I said to Ham, but elaborate.  If you're comfortable with this "seeming" business as being, in actuality, a construct of memory rather than a description of some then-present or now present happening...you're already on the spectrum of what eliminative materialists propose about consciousness.  

I'm not talking about seeming of content. I'm talking about the seeming of coordination.

I could quote you saying that, over and over, and you know it, lol.  I wasn't trying to argue that point with you, I was trying to show you an area of agreement between you and eliminative materialists.  From that point, obviously, yall diverge from each other.  Neither of you thinks that consciousness as-described fits within a materialist position.

Fair enough.