consciousness?

[Angrboda]

Ignoring that you just essentially conceded every point I made, let me try to recap.


Allow me to propose an admittedly biased consolidation here.

Your claim: "Clearly, reality consists of both observable third-person facts and first-person qualitative experiences."

A) a priori reasoning cannot establish the nature of consciousness (thus this conversation; more below);

B) we have no actual empirical evidence of consciousness itself (even physicalists are lacking here, at present);

C) if it is non-material (my term was actually, had "properties"), there can be no empirical evidence of consciousness;

D) empirical evidence is our only source of a posteriori knowledge;

C1) Since a priori and a posteriori are the only means by which we can acquire knowledge of the nature of consciousness, and both are excluded, we cannot have knowledge of the nature of consciousness (at present, based on what we know);

C2) If [C] and no empirical evidence of consciousness is possible in principle, and [A] holds (not knowable a priori), then knowledge of the nature of consciousness is not possible even in principle;

C3) If we (currently) do not have knowledge of the nature of consciousness [A, B, & D], then the assertion that "Clearly, reality consists of ... first-person qualitative experiences" is clearly absurd, as it is inherently a claim about the nature of consciousness.


Feel free to correct my errors and elaborate where I have been insufficient.


In your previous posts there appears, to my impression anyway, an underlying assumption that I think needs to be made explicit and either confirmed with justification, or denied. That is the assumption that there are certain facts about conscious experience about which consciousness cannot be wrong. Given that this is a statement about consciousness, it seems prima facie evident that the justification for this assumption can't come from the impressions of subjective experience, as the circularity there is obvious, rendering the justification null and void. You seem to want to suggest that the nature of consciousness is not justifiable by external evidences, so it would appear you can't derive it from there. (And I'm noting that this in some ways parallels the above.) Descartes went down this road only to conclude cogito ergo sum, which itself is not even necessarily defensible (we'll skip that debate please); Descartes would be faced with the same dilemma that unless you demonstrate both that "I doubt" and I am incapable of being wrong about "I doubt", even that fails. (There are lengthy dissections in the literature; I'm not personally familiar with them. My chosen tack is to observe that there are possible worlds in which entailment doesn't hold [or at least, is unknowable], then entailment itself is contingent. As such, it's impossible to say on Descartes argument whether or not he exists in such a possible world, so it's impossible to assume the validity of the entailment cogito ergo sum. [Usually I frame this differently; this is a condensation].) Moreover it's not apparent whether the "I" that exists is "consciousness" or the being that is experiencing consciousness, as both are consistent with the conclusion (which leaves us back at the starting line with arguing whether the "I" is an aspect of a physical brain or an independent entity or plenum). (Sorry for the digression, I know you like to be thorough.)

So ultimately, even taking Descartes into account, there is no fact of consciousness about which that consciousness cannot be wrong. Descartes thought experiment, while certainly fascinating, cannot settle the matter of whether the consciousness that believes itself to exist in reality as part of a brain is any less correct than the consciousness that believes it exists as a fact independent of the brain. Therefore, Descartes cogito ergo sum cannot be used to demonstrate that, "Clearly, reality consists of both observable third-person facts and first-person qualitative experiences," in the sense that both exist as distinct parts of reality (instead of the one being subsumed by the other, via the physicalist explanation). So, Descartes doesn't abet your claim. And it's not altogether clear to me that you can demonstrate that there is any other fact of consciousness "about which consciousness itself cannot be mistaken." So you do not, to my view, have any reliable foundation for the claim that "first-person qualitative experiences" are a part of reality independent of being processes implemented in the brain. (And I realize in formulating this last sentence that I may have constructed a strawman. Feel free to let me know if that is the case.)

I know this became all fuzzy and rambling and ended up rather pear shaped. I apologize for that. I should probably just stop engaging such subjects until I'm feeling better. (or at least willing to do the necessary editorial work)


Anyway. Regards.