Consciousness Trilemma

[The Grand Nudger]

If I, Ham, defined human consciousness as "the stuff that souls do", would you grant that this type of consciousness exists, or argue against any suggestion that it doesn;t by saying "squares have 4 sides!"?

No but that's an absurdly false analogy. I'm DEFINITELY not going to bother with you if that's the best you've got. The fact that you can't seem to be conscious unless you have a consciousness to experience that seeming is a tautology like "squares have 4 sides". Comparing it to "the stuff that souls do" is a pathetic strawman.

Is it?  Dennet says, in no uncertain terms..that he doesn't think that consciousness described or defined as as x exists...and you respond with

"ZOMG dennet says consciousness doesn't exist!" -over and over and over...........


Explain to me how, after making that mistake right at the outset, anything else you say pursuant to that can be relevant criticism of his position, rather than you fapping on endlessly about your own misapprehension?

Here you go, second time i've posted this....

Are zombies possible? They're not just possible, they're actual. We're all zombies. Nobody is conscious — not in the systematically mysterious way that supports such doctrines as epiphenomenalism."

B-mine. The footnote to this passage, which has created the industry of sensationalism surround it...is this...

It would be an act of desperate intellectual dishonesty to quote this assertion out of context!

Meanwhile, he advocates for his own description and definition of consciousness..which sort of strongly suggests that he thinks that you have a consciousness...........even though he, like you, thinks that some people are super duper wrong about that consciousness..and as such, we do not possess the sort of consciousness -they- advocate for....like the one where consciousness is the stuff the soul does....or the experience of the non-existent humonculus.

[Edwardo Piet]

Is it?  Dennet says, in no uncertain terms..that he doesn't think that consciousness described or defined as as x exists...and you respond with

"ZOMG dennet says consciousness doesn't exist!" -over and over and over...........

Because he's committing a fallacy by changing the definition and then pretending he's addressing the first one. He cannot make any arguments against X existing if he's not even addressing it because he's instead defining it as Y.

Consciousness as most people believe in CANNOT be an illusion. It's literally the only thing we KNOW is true and we KNOW is real and we KNOW cannot be an illusion.

We can completely be mistaken about the essence and the details of it but the fact that we are conscious at all cannot be an illusion.

He does the same stupid shit with free will when he redefines it altogether and then responds to people who don't believe in what he doesn't believe in either with "you're a compatabilist in everything but name!" he may as well be a pantheist yelling at an atheist for refusing to label the universe "God".

What Dennett fails to realize is he is exposing his own position as nothing but empty labelling of other things.

Explain to me how, after making that mistake right at the outset, anything else you say pursuant to that can be relevant criticism of his position, rather than you fapping on endlessly about your own misapprehension?

I'm not making a mistake by saying that he is completely failing to address consciousness by labelling something else as consciousness.

Are zombies possible? They're not just possible, they're actual. We're all zombies. Nobody is conscious — not in the systematically mysterious way that supports such doctrines as epiphenomenalism."
B-mine.  The footnote to this passage, which has created the industry of sensationalism surround it...is this...

And he's wrong. The science supports epiphenomenalism. And no it's not "mysterious" but it is unfalsifiable. Studying things other than consciousness and then labelling it as "consciousness" and saying "See! We can study consciousness!" is just pathetic. That's like looking under the bed and failing to find any monsters and then labelling your bed as a "monster" and saying "look I found a monster!"

Consciousness by definition is unfalsifable and untouchable by science. You can study the mind, you can study how consciousness comes about, but you can't study the subjective experience of consciousness itself by merely labelling something else as "consciousness".

Meanwhile, he advocates for his own description and definition of consciousness..which sort of strongly suggests that he thinks that you have a consciousness...........even though he, like you, thinks that some people are super duper wrong about that consciousness..and as such, we do not possess the sort of consciousness -they- advocate for....like the one where consciousness is the stuff the soul does....or the experience of the non-existent humonculus.

He thinks we have a consciousness but he fails to realize that us being mistaken about aspects of our consciousness doesn't make our consciousness itself an illusion.. When the fuck will you understand?

Whether our consciousness is a soul, or magical or non-magical or any of that... the fact we appear to be consciousness means we must be conscious regardless of what kind of consciousness it is. And that CANNOT be an illusion.

You can't call the existence of something an illusion merely by addressing the essence of it.

It's horrendous how poor Dan's logic is when he's supposed to be a professional philosopher. But philosophy is indeed one area where the amateur can exceed the pro.

He talks about people experiencing red stripes that don't exist but only seem to exist. Lol. They must at least exist as illusions. He says there is no red stripe in our brain. Well, obviously not literally something that looks like a red stripe but there must be the corresponding brain cells that generate the illusion. There must be a "red stripe" in neurological form.

It's him who conflates nonexistence with illusoriness. Whether it's an illusion or not it must exist at least as an illusion.

And the point is even illusions are experienced consciously. Consciousness itself cannot be an illusion in any sense. Only the DETAILS of it can be. The fact we are conscious cannot be an illusion

How many times do I have to explain it to you? My position is always the same but yours is shifting. Now you've reverted to saying that I am responding as if he's saying consciousness doesn't exist or consciousness is an illusion. Why do you think I'm not the only one who responds to him like that? Because he's addressing what "consciousness" really means and saying it doesn't exist or it's an illusion. He can label something else as "consciousness" all he likes but if he's saying what consciousness actually is is an illusion then he is in at least one sense --in the sense that most people mean--saying consciousness is an illusion.

I am tired of you. You are so bad at logic. You are so thick. How many more times do I have to explain that being mistaken about the details of consciousness does not make consciousness itself an illusion?

By calling something else "consciousness". He simply fails to address "consciousness" at all. It makes no sense to say the original definition was "crap". There is no such thing as a "crap definition"... only a crappy understanding of a definition or a useful or useless definition. It doesn't fucking matter if "consciousness" the way most people mean it is a completely useless definition--it's not about utility. It's about the fact that he's addressing something else altogether so he can't make any arguments against the original definition.

Let's stop calling it "consciousness" since he has looking-glassed the word (Strawson's term for what Dennett does...To "looking-glass" a word is to redefine a word into something so you address literally everything except the very thing that you're supposed to address).... let's talk about subjective experience.

Subjective experience CANNOT be an illusion. The fact that we are experiencing something subjectively CANNOT be mistaken. We can be mistaken about the contents of it, we can be mistaken about the details of it, we can think we are experiencing one thing but we are in fact experiencing something else. But the fact we are experiencing SOMETHING SUBJECTIVELY.... that is the most certainly known fact in the universe and cannot be an illusion.

Now Dennett can redefine consciousness so it no longer means subjective experience... but then he can't actually address subjective experience at all. To jump back into talking about subjective experience again after changing the definition into something else other than subjective experience is to equivocate. Dennett is an equivocating fuckwit. Consciousness is subjective experience. Dennett needs to buy a fucking dictionary. Saying "you can't just trust tradition" won't cut it if all he's doing is speaking another language and pretending like he's addressing consciousness when he's not. It would make far more sense for him to use another word than to use the same word and change the meaning of it altogether.

[The Grand Nudger]

It's like you've got two arguments running over each other in your head.  That he's wrong, or that he's being unreasonable.

For the very last time.  Dennet thinks that there is some x we call consciousness.  Yes, he thinks that some mental states, that most people believe in....such as the feeling of being associated with the humonculus, do not, will not, and cannot map to discrete mental states.  Mostly, because there doesn't appear to be any humonculus(for example), and there -does- appear to be a whole set of distributed, non-localized processes and structures that present themselves as-such to us.

If that humonculus doesn't exist, that won't stop you from feeling as-though it does, right? There's no need to deny that you feel as-such, oir that you feel, in order to say that this feeling is illusory, is there? In that vein, if consciousness is defined along the lines of the homunculus in the cartesian theater, then..no, in Dennets opinion..it doesn;t exist. He thinks that definition is shit, though, so he;s going to need to get a better one if he wants to explain what he thinks is actually happening, right?

[Edwardo Piet]

For the last time, the subjective experience itself that everyone believes in is not an illusion even if the specific kind of consciousness some people believe in is a delusion or many aspects of what they experience is not what they think it is and are illusory. Their subjective experience itself is not an illusion. By redefining consciousness Dennett isn't addressing it he's addressing something else altogether and using the same word. So he can't make any arguments against consciousness until he actually talks about consciousness rather than his labelling of something else as "consciousness".

It's not fucking rocket science. If you're part of a debate and you label something else as the topic you're not part of the topic. If we're debating about religion and Dennett walks in eating ice cream and decides to call his ice cream "religion"... he can't pretend to be part of the debate if all he talks about is ice cream and likes to call it religion.

Yeah, sure, Dennett, your "religion" is ice cream. Fuck your religion and fuck your consciousness.

Strawson couldn't be more on the ball when he says Dennett looking-glasses words. I think it's absolutely excellent to have a term for exactly the stupid shit Dennett does when he completely fails to address a subject altogether and makes a career out of it by talking about things that are associated with it without addressing it itself.

His books are full of paragraphs of digressions and misdirections and obfuscations and he really doesn't like saying what he really means.

Take a look at Dennett's position on the matter of free will. After many many years he was pushed to get more and more clear about what he was actually saying until he eventually gave a talk where he literally admits that to him free will is like money, it's a social construct.

He may as well just say "the will is not free but I still wish to call it "free will" anyways."

And with consciousness he may as well say "I am not interested in actually addressing consciousness but I am interested in addressing many things associated with it and calling that "consciousness". Don't mind me when I pretend to be addressing it okay?"

Just... such an uber fail.

Here there is a wonderful irony, for the false naturalists – even as they doubt or deflate or deny the existence of experience, and revile Descartes, their favourite target, for being an outright realist about experience – are themselves in the grip of a fundamentally Cartesian conviction: the conviction that experience can’t possibly be physical, that matter can’t possibly be conscious. The irony is fierce because Descartes was at bottom aware that one can’t rule out the possibility that matter may be conscious. Many of the false naturalists, by contrast, have no such doubts.

Some of them will deny this. They will insist that they do admit the existence of consciousness or experience, and do allow that it can be physical. But they do this by changing the meaning of the word ‘conscious’ into something that involves no consciousness. They ‘looking-glass’ the term, by which I mean use it in such a way that whatever they mean by it, it excludes what the term actually means.

My bold

I'm done. It can't get any clearer than that how wrong you are. But sure, go ahead and keep going on and on about how you can't trust traditional terms and comparing subjective experience to souls, blah blah blah, you're so obviously wrong about subjective experience and consciousness it's laughable.

[The Grand Nudger]

I actually don't agree with his position on free will, I don't agree with every position he has on consciousness either....but at least I understand them enough to know what I don't agree with...lol.

Yes, he may as well say that, IMO, but I understand that if Dennet is trying to describe what we're actually doing, and not holding steadfast to some ridiculous folklore regarding free will...he will necessarily have to redefine free will.  

I don;t know whether or not our brain is bootstrapping itself, but it's demonstrably clear that a system -can- bootstrap itself, we use systems that do that all the time.  Dennet thinks that this bootstrapping might fit the description of free will, insomuch as what we seem to be talking about when we say "free will" could be that, instead of some mysterious x previously defined -as- free will, traditionally.

(by the by, ofc em try to describe whatever they can about consciousness from a position of objectivity rather than subjectivity.....think about it for a moment, it'll come to you. Where they get skeptical is where, in their opinion, after describing what can be objectively shown, there is nothing left to require a subjective explanation, and plenty to show us that our subjective description is in error. They wonder whether we actually feel that way, or if it's just a narrative we've told ourselves about feeling that way, with no identifiable mental analog, or whether it might actually be a composite description of other mental states or relationships to external objects.)

[Edwardo Piet]

He takes exactly the same silly approach with consciousness as he does with free will dude.

To transcript him from here at 21:30 in:





Dennett: [...]In fact one of the abiding themes in my work is--there are these tactical or diplomatic choice points--... you can say... "Oh consciousness exists... it just isn't what you think it is." or you can say "No, consciousness doesn't exist." Well, if you've got one view of consciousness...if it's this mysterious, magical ultimately insoluble problem--then I agree consciousness in that sense [it] doesn't exist. But... there's another sense--much more presentable I think--in which of course consciousness exists it just isn't what you think it is. That was a central theme in Elbow Room with regard to free will and in Consciousness Explained with regard to consciousness. [...]

My bold.

Here is his mistake. Right here where he includes "insoluble" in that list. He thinks that if it's an insoluble it doesn't exist. As far as he is concerned only things that are knowable by science are real. he completely conflates epistemic subjectivity and ontological subjectivity just like Searle says he does. He thinks that because it's subjective then it's not real. But it has a very real reality ontologically, just because it can't be measured objectively epistemically doesn't make it any less real.

He fails to realize that the first person subjective reality is more well known than anything third person in science. Sure we can be complete amateurs with regards to it and completely be mistaken about it... but we can know with 100% absolute certainty that it exists and the fact we are subjectively experiencing something cannot be an illusion.

Something doesn't have to be knowable for it to be non-illusory or existent. An illusion is something that appears to be one way but is another way in objective reality. With consciousness the appearance is the objective reality. Ontological subjectivity

Allow me to quote this again:

Searle has argued that critics like Daniel Dennett, who[ (he claims) insist that discussing subjectivity is unscientific because science presupposes objectivity, are making a category error. Perhaps the goal of science is to establish and validate statements which are epistemically objective, (i.e., whose truth can be discovered and evaluated by any interested party), but are not necessarily ontologically objective.

Searle calls any value judgment epistemically subjective. Thus, "McKinley is prettier than Everest" is "epistemically subjective", whereas "McKinley is higher than Everest" is "epistemically objective." In other words, the latter statement is evaluable (in fact, falsifiable) by an understood ('background') criterion for mountain height, like 'the summit is so many meters above sea level'. No such criteria exist for prettiness.

Beyond this distinction, Searle thinks there are certain phenomena (including all conscious experiences) that are ontologically subjective, i.e. can only exist as subjective experience. For example, although it might be subjective or objective in the epistemic sense, a doctor's note that a patient suffers from back pain is an ontologically objective claim: it counts as a medical diagnosis only because the existence of back pain is "an objective fact of medical science".[49] But the pain itself is ontologically subjective: it is only experienced by the person having it.

Searle goes on to affirm that "where consciousness is concerned, the existence of the appearance is the reality". His view that the epistemic and ontological senses of objective/subjective are cleanly separable is crucial to his self-proclaimed biological naturalism.

You fail to address any of this because, like Dennett, you are equivocating between ontological and epistemic subjectivity. You conflate the two when they're two completely different senses of the subjective/objective distinction.

Daniel Dennett's mentioning of "insoluble" in that list of a kind of consciousness that according to him doesn't exist that most people believe in, betrays exactly what Searle claims Dennett's view is: that he thinks that because consciousness is subjective it's unscientific to address it so he has to change the definition altogether.

The thing is it doesn't matter how insoluable it is, it still exists. He fails to realize that by addressing something else altogether and calling it "consciousness" he's not addressing consciousness he's addressing "consciousness"... i.e. he's addressing his own silly label. He's addressing something else he chooses to call consciousness.

He may as well bring out another book called "God exists, He just isn't what you think He is."... in which he explains to everyone that what God really is is Dennett's own inability to address the subject. And if you've got one view of God and think it's this silly man in the sky then of course God doesn't exist, but if you recognize that Dennett really does fail to address the subject, since that's what he's calling "God" in his next book (because he, of course, isn't really talking about God because he fails to address the subject) then of course God exists if by "God" we mean his failure to address the subject.

Then his next book will be called "Alternative Mathematics Explained" in which he talks about "Of course 2+2 can equate to 5 if by "2+2" we mean "2.5+2.5" or if by "5" we mean "4".

He's a fucking idiot... well he would be if he didn't make so much cash out of this. When talking about free will in this podcast and he says that Sam Harris is clinging onto some "core part" of what free will is... (because Sam refuses to succumb to Dan's silly re-definition) he says "I've made a career out of saying "that's not the core"".

Yes, Dennett, you've made a career out of it. Pity you've just made a career out of playing silly word games.

[The Grand Nudger]

Dennett: [...]In fact one of the abiding themes in my work is--there are these tactical or diplomatic choice points--... you can say... "Oh consciousness exists... it just isn't what you think it is." or you can say "No, consciousness doesn't exist." Well, if you've got one view of consciousness...if it's this mysterious, magical ultimately insoluble problem--then I agree consciousness in that sense [it] doesn't exist. But... there's another sense--much more presentable I think--in which of course consciousness exists it just isn't what you think it is. That was a central theme in Elbow Room with regard to free will and in Consciousness Explained with regard to consciousness. [...]

Of course consciousness exists?  What a dirty, dirty consciousness denier that dennet is!

........................................

@The rest. Yes, again, he thinks that some,specific, mental states that most people believe in are illusory. He doesn;t think much of the humonculus in the cartesian theater. He understand that we, and he..feels that way, but he doesn't think that this is what we are, that it actually -is- that way.

What do you think? Is there a little physical man, as it were, in the space of your mind, such as it is, acting and making decisions? Will we find that, or a mental state that maps to that, in our brains? If not, then what? Will we suddenly cease to feel that way? What would you call that feeling? Is there no other conceivable way that such a feeling could be produced or achieved or arrived at, other than it's inassaultable truth? Does there have to be a man in your head, for you to feel like there's a man in your head? Do you have to have free will, to feel as though you have free will? Is the sheer existence of the experience, in either case, a certification of that experience's accuracy as-stated?

[Edwardo Piet]

Yes. He denies what consciousness actually is and labels something else as "consciousness". He says that if it's insoluble then it doesn't exist in that sense. It is insoluble and it does exist in that sense.

For fuck's sake. Subjective experience is scientifically unfalsifaible and unverifiable. It doesn't have to be a soul because the whole point is that we can study the brain and we can study the correlations but we can't study a person's subjective experience because we will never know what it's like to be them. Qualia is unfalsifiable and unverifiable. It can only be experienced by the person experiencing it.

Consciousness doesn't have to be soul stuff or mysterious or magical or nonexistent or illusory for it to simply be undetectable by science because science studies third person facts and not first person experience.

Labelling third person facts as "consciousness" isn't going to change the fact that subjective experience itself is unverifiable.

[The Grand Nudger]

Yes. He denies what consciousness actually is

You mean he denies what you think consciousness is...and that can only be true if you think that consciousness is, for example, the homunculus in the cartesian theater to which he was explicitly responding in his book.  If you don't think that, for example, he's not denying what you think consciousness is.  At least not in that instance...who knows what else you think consciousness is.

You both think that consciousness -is-.  

and labels something else as "consciousness". He says that if it's insoluble then it doesn't exist in that sense. It is insoluble and it does exist in that sense.

Because he thinks we have this consciousness stuff...of course.....it just isn't what some people think it is.

Quotemining is bad...Hammy.   

[Edwardo Piet]

You mean he denies what you think consciousness is

Ummm words and definitions are just made up dude. I KNOW what consciousness is going by the dictionary.

If he wants to redefine consciousness so it doesn't mean subjective experience or qualia, fine, but it's no wonder that I'm not the only intelligent person who realizes he's changing the subject and not even interacting with it.

...and that can only be true if you think that consciousness is, for example, the homunculus in the cartesian theater to which he was explicitly responding in his book.

BULLSHIT

I'm a reality about subjective experience. I'm not saying that I'm right about the characterization of my subjective experience. I'm saying that my subjective experience itself is real. It HAS to be. It cannot not be. That's impossible. I'd have no consciousness at all if I wasn't.

He's literally just addressing something other than subjective experience and calling that "consciousness" he's playing silly word games and thinks he's being scientific and going against "folk psychology", no he's fighting against the English language. He can call a potato "consciousness" and study that if he likes... and by doing that he certainly wouldn't be trusting folk psychology. But he'd still be being irrelevant as fuck.

 If you don't think that, for example, he's not denying what you think consciousness is.  At least not in that instance...who knows what else you think consciousness is.

It's not a matter of what I think it is. Consciousness is defined as subjective experience so if he's going to talk about something other than that then whatever he's talking about it's not consciousness. And many aspects of what we think our subjective expereince is may be illusory by subjective experience/consciousness itself is not and cannot be an illusion.;

Stop trying to defend such a ridiculous position, seriously.

Because he thinks we have this consciousness stuff...of course.....it just isn't what some people think it is.

Consciousness is subjective experience. So yes it is exactly what everyone thinks it is. Everyone who isn't a complete idiot and who has read the dictionary definition or speaks basic English knows that consciousness is subjective experience and they as a subject knows they experience things and know it exists.

What they think they are conscious of they can be wrong about and may not be what they think it is. But that's a different matter altogether.

Do you understand yet?

Quotemining is bad...Hammy.   

I didn't fucking quote mine I said it was from the very podcast that I already posted here. Watch the fucking podcast instead of calling me a quoteminer when I already provided the source of the quote.