Consciousness Trilemma

[The Grand Nudger]

Then consciousness doesn't exist, since there is no such happening, only the happened, Benny.

That's an utterly incoherent statement. You can't have a 'was happening' or a 'will be happening' without a 'happening'.

Irrelevant, since my comment only denies that consciousness is or can be a happening.  Sure, happenings turn into happeneds and without one you can't have the other, but so what?  That doesn't change the fact that consciousness is and cannot be any present seeming, any happening... so..if it's described as such..then it either doesn't exist, or is illusory.  You...physically cannot be experiencing an apple "in the present". Whatever that present seeming is is necessarily delayed and colated by many regions of the brain over some span of time. You can, physically, be experiencing an executive summary of composite time. If consciousness is insistred to be the former..it does not exist. If you will allow for consciousness to be the latter, it might exist...but you've -already- denied the accuracy of it's own self reporting. You've acknowledged that the way seeming itself seems..is in error, which is exactly what eliminative materialists propose.

Which would you prefer?  Obviously, I don't demand that consciousness own report of itself be accurate.  That it's not some present thing doesn't, in my view of consciousness, lead to the inexorable conclusion that it does not exist.  Hell, personall...... I suspect that these mental states -do- map, I don't agree with eliminative materialists. I do, however, think that what they map to will be alot more like the eliminative materialist view of consciousness than the cartesian view. So, my disagreement with them is, at times, semantic. I commonly use the computer analogy to show that -all- processing is distributed over space and time. The work a cpu does is only central and discrete with reference to the other components...internally, a cpu also has dimensions and exists in time. It's processing happens over the surface of the chip and through time..but that doesn't stop us from calling it a cpu. Eliminative materialists take issue, in computer analogy terms, that our brains -have- a cpu. Well, cpus don't have internal cpus either. I think that in their (understandable) focus on the brain, they set themselves off searching for the cpus cpu, when it;s simpler to consider the brain the -body's- cpu.

You make logical contradictions and simply deny that you're making them.

We KNOW consciousness exists. To be aware of the nonexistence of consciousness is to be aware i.e. conscious.  Therefore it's not nonexistent it's existent! You are making a self-defeating argument. You make such ridiculously contradictory statements. You can't experience pain or suffering or happiness without consciousness. We KNOW consciousness exists. And to call it an existent illusion is to say that it seems to be one way but is in fact another way... but the seeming itself is consciousness so that's just another illogical conclusion.

"OFC consciousness exists, it's just not what you think it is"

As I have repeatedly spelled out for your stupid fucking brain: The fact that what we are conscious of is something that was produced by unsonscious areas of our brain a moment before we experienced it consciously does not make consciousness itself an illusion.

What is the conscious area, and what is the unconscious area? Where is the physical humonculus?  

I was just watching a talk where Dennett compared the so-called 'illusion of consciousness' to what he calls the 'user illusion' on a computer screen... the fact that what we see on the screen seems to be how the computer works when in reality that's not what's going on in the computer at all. Yes but what's on the screen is not a fucking illusion. It's really there and your eyes are really seeing it.

In the same way, your consciousness' own report of itself is real, it's just in demonstrable error.  You, for example, think it's a physical humonculus in the present.  Eliminative materialists do not need to invoke time traveling data being fed to a non-existent region of the brain.  

This is analogous to the stupid fucking error he makes with consciousness. It doesn't matter if what's going on in the brain in unconscious areas that lead to your consciousness is completely different to how you experience it consciously... that doesn't make your conscious experience an illusion.

What conscious areas?  That would clear up a whole lot.  In fact, if you could point to the conscious area you will have cracked the nut of consciousness entirely, showing that it does map to discrete mental states..upending all of nuerology in the process.  

For fuck's sake. Dennett talks about you thinking you are conscious of things you're not really conscious of... but the thinking you're conscious in itself is a state of consciousness. This is a profound confusion on his part.  He says it only 'seems' that you are conscious. Well, guess what, when you seem to be conscious of something that itself is the experience of consciousness that we call consciousness. The seeming is the being. There's no fucking illusion. Not knowing how consciousness is produced or the delay of consciousness doesn't fucking make the experience an illusion.

Again, it;s not an issue of "not knowing how consciousness is produced" - consciousness as described -cannot- be produced that way..cheifly...because information processing takes time and there is no humonculus, at least no physical humonculus.  Even if there were, it would only delay reduction.  How is that nonexistent (non)physical humonculus conscious?  How does it, do it?  

An experiential illusion can only be applied to something that is experienced on the inside that in the outside isn't happening... but when we're talking about consciousness we're only talking about what's happening on the inside. And what seems to be happening to you is what seems to be happening to you. That's just a fucking tautology.

So much stupid.

Your description of whats happening on the inside is without evidence, and a great amount of evidence to the contrary exists, so?

If a person insists that consciousness is x, and it is not, or cannot be x..then consciousness as described does not exist. This statement only proceeds logically -from their insistence on inaccuracy-. If a person is willing to let go of that insistence, that seeming must be the way it seems to be, then there's no need to say consciousness does not exist.