Author: Christophe Theron
Date: 18:47:16 03/18/01
Go up one level in this thread
On March 18, 2001 at 15:29:12, Dan Newman wrote:
>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.
Sounds like chinese to me. :)
Nice chinese BTW, but still... :)
Seriously, I probably need to introspect a little bit more in order to try to
understand what some people find mysterious about "conscience".
If you find that mysterious, then I know there must be some reason for it. If I
don't find it mysterious it might be because I have missed something about it.
But so far all I understand about this is that it is like a kind of Larsen
effect. Or a mirror in front of a mirror? Or an infinite recursion?
Recursion is hard to understand for the human brain. Conscience is maybe a
problem of this kind.
Christophe
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