Consciousness Trilemma

[Whateverist]

Neo, I think you have to decide whether you're interested in understanding consciousness or interested in constructing an understanding which you think would have the most social utility.

Edited to say: it must be your conditioned response to always assume the world and everything in it was constructed by a perfect being which makes you think that what has the most use is what God would have done. So long as you lean on this sort of thinking, your opinion can't be taken seriously.

[Amarok]

Neo, I think you have to decide whether you're interested in understanding consciousness or interested in constructing an understanding which you think would have the most social utility.

Edited to say: it must be your conditioned response to always assume the world and everything in it was constructed by a perfect being which makes you think that what has the most use is what God would have done.  So long as you lean on this sort of thinking, your opinion can't be taken seriously.

Not to mention as an extension of my previous post Neo will propose theist nightmare fuel without blinking an eye

[Whateverist]

Neo, I think you have to decide whether you're interested in understanding consciousness or interested in constructing an understanding which you think would have the most social utility.

Edited to say: it must be your conditioned response to always assume the world and everything in it was constructed by a perfect being which makes you think that what has the most use is what God would have done.  So long as you lean on this sort of thinking, your opinion can't be taken seriously.

Not to mention as an extension of my previous post Neo will propose theist nightmare fuel without blinking an eye

Can you clarify that for me, Tiz?

I guess you're saying Neo will use the fact that it is a nightmare for believers as a justification for believing what believers believe, obviously begging the question.

[Amarok]

Not to mention as an extension of my previous post Neo will propose theist nightmare fuel without blinking an eye

Can you clarify that for me, Tiz?

I guess you're saying Neo will use the fact that it is a nightmare for believers as a justification for believing what believers believe, obviously begging the question.

There that

But there also the fact they are just fine  or blind with some of the terrifying consequences of there own view . That someone like myself find scary. But that fact does not make theism wrong .

[Bunburryist]

(*Hat-tip Maverick Philosopher, here)

It appears that of the following three propositions only two can be true:

1) Conscious experience is not an illusion.
2) Conscious experience has an essentially subjective character that purely physical processes do not share.
3) The only acceptable explanation of conscious experience is in terms of physical properties alone.

I must hand it to Maverick Philosopher because this trilemma so neatly identifies and clarifies the dominant positions with respect to philosophy of mind. Like him, I am inclined to accept 1) and 2) which entails that I must reject 3). I have some inkling of where other AF members would place their bets but it would be nice to let people weight in and see where the discussion leads.

I'll go with 1 and 2

[Neo-Scholastic]

In the most extreme case it is a complete lack of experience, which Jor for instance does not hold apparently. One level down from that is the idea that consciousness isn't anything at all - more like the center of gravity in statics, a fictional point from which to calculate force vectors.

Oh.  That sounds like word salad to me.  The word "consciousness" is about something-- and you don't have to be able to define exactly WHAT that something is when you open your eyes in the morning and become aware that you are experiencing things.  You can't really call labels illusions; you can only call our perceptions of whatever we made the label for mistaken.

I wouldn't call that position, eliminative materialism, word salad. I just think it is incoherent, an empirical argument leveled against empiricism. The eliminativists are basically saying that the experiences of observers who don't actually exist aren't really about anything.

[Edwardo Piet]

It appears that of the following three propositions only two can be true:

1) Conscious experience is not an illusion.
2) Conscious experience has an essentially subjective character that purely physical processes do not share.
3) The only acceptable explanation of conscious experience is in terms of physical properties alone.

Perhaps, but it's also quite possible that all three are false.

No it isn't. 1) absolutely cannot be false.

[Neo-Scholastic]

Neo, I think you have to decide whether you're interested in understanding consciousness or interested in constructing an understanding which you think would have the most social utility.

Why can it not be both? Is it not important for making good decisions to know what is true? If our concepts about what it means to be human are false then our choices will reflect that. To know what is best for humanity it helps to understand what it means to be human. The way I see it, if the consequences of an idea undermine human dignity then a little extra scrutiny seems wise. If extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence then that would include claims that come at great cost like denying many of those things that make life worth living such as values, meaning, autonomy, and personal identity.

[bennyboy]

Oh.  That sounds like word salad to me.  The word "consciousness" is about something-- and you don't have to be able to define exactly WHAT that something is when you open your eyes in the morning and become aware that you are experiencing things.  You can't really call labels illusions; you can only call our perceptions of whatever we made the label for mistaken.

I wouldn't call that position, eliminative materialism, word salad. I just think it is incoherent, an empirical argument leveled against empiricism. The eliminativists are basically saying that the experiences of observers who don't actually exist aren't really about anything.

Meh.  I'm capable of solving that philosophical crisis by opening my eyes in the morning and watching the sun rise.  Again, I don't have to be able to accurately or completely define myself to know that somebody is watching the sun, and that people keep calling that somebody Benjamin.

[Whateverist]

Neo, I think you have to decide whether you're interested in understanding consciousness or interested in constructing an understanding which you think would have the most social utility.

Why can it not be both? Is it not important for making good decisions to know what is true? If our concepts about what it means to be human are false then our choices will reflect that. To know what is best for humanity it helps to understand what it means to be human. The way I see it, if the consequences of an idea undermine human dignity then a little extra scrutiny seems wise. If extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence then that would include claims that come at great cost like denying many of those things that make life worth living such as values, meaning, autonomy, and personal identity.

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