Author: Dan Newman
Date: 12:29:12 03/18/01
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On March 16, 2001 at 22:18:23, Robin Smith wrote: >On March 15, 2001 at 05:41:33, Dan Andersson wrote: > >>I could not agree more. A good reference for furter reading is Daniel C. >>Dennet's 'Consciousness explained.' It is a wonder of clarity and puts the >>question to many antique notions IMO. >> >>Regards Dan Andersson > >I have read Dennet's 'Consciousness explained' cover to cover. To me it would >have been better titled 'Consciousness explained away.' Although it tries, it >never does explain the problem of consciousness more than to say it is a figment >of our imagination. What poppycock. Who's imagination? > >Robin Smith I agree. Dennet seems to take aim at the problem (as indicated by the title) but fails to explain anything except his own models of how various mental functions might work. To some that may seem explanation enough. I think it completely misses the point. Those of us that see a mystery here weren't really puzzling over the details of the various kinds of mental activity (as interesting as that may be) but were instead looking at (what seems to us to be) a deeper problem/mystery. I'm not sure exactly what's going on, but there seem to be two sorts of people: those that see that there is a mystery and those that don't. This is very similar to what's going on in physics with one group of scientists who see mystery/deep philosophical implications in quantum mechanics and those that don't. I'm not sure where the fault, if any, lies. It could just be an emotional or philosophical bent that leads one person to "mystery" and another to prosaic explanations, or it could be a lack of perception of some sort (on either side). Or perhaps lunacy. Perhaps it's just a failure on the part of those that see the mystery to provide a convincing argument to those that haven't yet "seen" it. I suspect the latter. The nature of the mystery of consciousness makes it very difficult to explicate. I've tried for years to put it properly into words but have (I think) mostly failed. I think the problem may come about because of a sort of vicious circularity, but I'm not sure. The problem is that on the one hand, when we observe the world around us, we don't see the mystery (of consciousness). Everything seems (to those of us with a scientific bent) to be explicable in principle. The behavior of animals and humans, like the weather or any other physical phenomenon, seems to arise completely out of the interactions of their constituent parts (ultimately, particles, fields, and so forth) and have nothing of a mysterious sort involved. For instance, it seems perfectly explicable how a person can look at something, a cow for instance, and then say, "I see a cow". The light from the sun is scattered from the cow, impinges upon the lens of the eye, and is focused onto the retina where it is converted into electro-chemical signals which eventually enter the brain, get processed, etc. etc. Admittedly many of the details are very fuzzy, but the necessity of invoking anything extra beyond the physical seems nil. But if you are that person (instead of the observer of that person) there seems to be something more, something which isn't at all required to explain what the observer sees. It might be labeled conscious experience, or sensation, or being, or the buzz of being alive, or whatever, but whatever *it* is, it seems like it isn't at all required for things to be as they appear to be (to the observer of conscious entities) and seems to be entirely unconnected with any explanation of behavior that might be said to indicative of consciousness... Now, if you aren't very introspective or otherwise haven't observed this "phenomenon" within yourself, you likely will be very skeptical about its existence or importance. And even if you have, you might be inclined to dismiss it as unimportant or irrelevant. This (I suspect) is due entirely to personal preference and depends on your philosophical leanings (if you have any). Or perhaps some of us aren't conscious and some are. The ones that are not simply don't have this "experience" to report. Maybe only I am conscious (after all I'm only inferring that others are because 1) I don't particularly relish the idea of living as a solipsist and 2) it's a simpler theory to imagine others are conscious too) :). I suspect consciousness is the ultimate mystery, or one of the ultimate mysteries to set along side such mysteries as the nature of time and space or the nature and origin of the cosmos. It may be the sort of thing that can't ever be figured out. After all, an explanation of a "thing" is always in terms of other "things" which themselves must be explained if we wish completeness. It seems we can't extend this ad infinitum. If we terminate at some level, we then have unexplained things (like axioms in mathematics). If all is explained, the explanations must be, perforce, circular, and circular explanations seem worthless somehow... -Dan.
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