Consciousness Trilemma

[bennyboy]

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

Sure there's a happening. I'm experiencing percept A, and then I'm experiencing percept B. That is happening.

That's kind of the crux of their entire point.  If -you- insist that consciousness is something that it is not and cannot be, then consciousness does not exist.  That it seems that way, to you, to all of us...is no certifier that it is that way...and specifically in this case, it demonstrably isn't and logically could not be..in the absence of some unknown element x.  I mean that in the strongest possible sense.  Some unkown element x that is distinct from the brain, and has it's very own physics, unrelated to or divorced from the physics of literally every other object in existence....but also some unknown element x that can forcibly overcome the limitations of the brain.  See, we know the brain can't do what you think consciousness is.  So whatever consciousness actually is is not only capable of doing that thing..but jacking the brain into lockstep with it, in spite of it's limitations.  It's capable of fooling your brain into thinking that you're doing what cannot be done.  

I've said that consciousness is the awareness of the fact of awareness. In this thread, people keep talking about the NATURE of consciousness-- insisting it must be X, and then demonstrating that X cannot be mapped onto any physical system or property and is therefore an "illusion" or "does not exist."

But consciousness isn't an object of inquiry. We verbalize it, then talk about the verbalizations as a proxy for the actual happening of the coordination of percepts.

Obviously, no one attempting a material explanation of consciousness wastes much time with that noise.  Maybe, just maybe, it's not some mysterious element x doing any of that, but the brain itself.

There are a lot of maybes, and they are sometimes fun to talk about. But not everyone has such an elevated interest in the semantics we usually turn over. Most people wake up, look around, and occasionally wonder what it means. No very useful philosophy is going to happen when mind, in its capacity or even tendency toward irony, decides that mind is an illusion.