DRFseven

I don't understand you. If that's what you're saying, too, then why do you disagree with croc, because I agree with croc (not about consciousness being one thing; I see no reason to think that's true, but about the world outside our senses being an unknown). Why did you say you weren't having it? And I'm sorry to have been rude.

guyver2199

i think a large part of the problem conserning consiousness is the fact that we have absolutely no factual reaon to believe that our senses are accurate. we could very well be a brain in a vat being fed data by a compute. what difference does it make if tht computer is silicone going by wrote or a carbon based body reacting to the world. it is pointless to doubt your senses as there are no other means of discerning the world
that is not to say tha our senses are correct but that they are our only option. to deny them without an alternative would be to accept death, without some foundation there would be no way to learn.

DRFseven

This is what I don't get. How can something be "manifestly obvious" if we don't perceive it?

Yes, that is what I thought I was saying. We work for coherence in our illusion because it's the only game we've got.

On what basis is the demon's illusion more radical (regarding that to which we may be blind) than anything else?

Again, I don't think it's immune; I'm saying it feels as if it's immune, doesn't it? What can we do with that besides proceed with that feeling?

My thoughts might be more like, "we can satisfy our belief that we accurately know the contents of our own minds but we cannot satisfy our beliefs about the outside world." But I think my definition of intuition matches what you suggested for most people, except that I would say the feeling of having intuition about something is probably often false and amounts to more of a wish than an intuition.

Sure it can, but all we're after is something that feels right; that feels as if it works.

[ May 09, 2002: Message edited by: DRFseven ]</p>

Ierrellus

IMO,

The only reasonable explanation of our ability to manipulate matter in our environment is that our senses report the environment to us with some degree of accuracy.

Ierrellus

DRFseven

I agree with what you said except for the part about doubting your senses being "pointless." To me, the sensation that what we know is absolute is like the sensation that we have free will. In both cases, we have no choice but to proceed as if what we feel is true, i.e., we feel that we DO have free will and that we DO know things, but it is the feeling that the reasoning that thoughts DON'T arise without cause and that we DON'T know of other than that caused by sensation that, itself, becomes a mitigator of our own reasoning on those issues.

owleye

DRFseven...

"I don't understand you. If that's what you're saying, too, then why do you disagree with croc, because I agree with croc (not about consciousness being one thing; I see no reason to think that's true, but about the world outside our senses being an unknown). Why did you say you weren't having it? And I'm sorry to have been rude."

1. I think croc's reality (his ultimate reality) is that which is not susceptible to observation. I don't think it is a fair characterization to call croc's reality "the outside world." My computer is part of the outside world, but since I can see my computer, it could not be considered by croc as ultimately real.

2. Secondly, I believe croc's reality is in some sense accessible, but, of course, not by the senses. Rather it is accessible through the intellect. I say this principally because he uses an analogy or a metaphor (much in the way Plato did) to describe it. As such, we may be able to understand croc's reality through it. I have translated this to mean that we can access croc's reality using a kind of intellectual intuition.

owleye

crocodile deathroll

The cathedral windows is only an analogy, as you know cathedral windows refract, absorb and scatter light spectrum in many complicated ways and put their own unique stamp on what was a much more homogenous spectrum outside to all those windows facing towards the sun.
To observe all the colors form the cathedral interior in the first then the visible spectrum outside has to be largely unfiltered wavelengths of visible light, so there necessarily has to a set of preexisting conditions for that colored stained glass effect to be observed in the first place.
Yes I agree like the light in the cathedral the source of consciousness is hidden from us. We can remember back to our earliest childhood memories at about 2 years of age and no further, even though I am sure a baby is conscious. I feel that when we know enough about the nature of consciousness and ultimately to the source of consciousness I will be putting my money on a single unified principle as soon a neural complexity achieves a certain critical level at around 13 weeks gestation. I am sure that will be the source and it would be homogenous followed by a very rapid phase of dichotomies as shortly after that initial flashpoint at 13 of 14 weeks.
This puts Teilhard De Chardin's theory upside down. Teilhard De Chardin's speculates that his noosphere is currently a lot loosely organized and incoherent individual sapient beings, but as science and technology develop there will be a planetization and it will ultimately coalesce into into a supersapient being, or a kind of unified collective consciousness that is yet to be. A theory that is starting be become popular with the emergence of the internet. I can never be sure that this will never happen although to me it sounds a little too much like science fiction to me.
I think the noosphere did very temporarily exist, but it could no way continue as a single superbeing is initially highly unstable. We are at feel one with all 13th fetuses past present and future, because they all experience exactly the same phenomena of consciousness. It is only when we start adding episodic memories to it we are lineated to a single trajectory through space and time and it is only though this trajectory we draw our personal experiences from. This flashpoint for the noosphere is the very instance the universe becomes aware of itself but when life has evolved to a critical stage.

croc

owleye

croc...

"The cathedral windows is only an analogy...."

The quotation you cited was WJ's and I was responding in accordance with my understanding of what your thesis was. When I taught Introductory Philosophy to freshmen, many students were unable to understand that Plato's Parable of the Cave was a metaphor. They couldn't quite remove themselves from its literal meaning. It may be that some on this board have the same problem.

Note that when philosophers speak about consciousness, they usually restrict themselves to what is called self-consciousness. That is, it isn't enough to say that humans are conscious, for example, to indicate that they are not asleep or not in a coma, or not fully anesthetized, or in one or another state of wakefulness. What is needed is to add to this that we are aware that we are conscious. That is, any feelings, perceptions, thoughts, etc. which form part of the stream of consciousness, is (on reflection) understood to be part of _our_ stream of consciousness. This makes it difficult to attribute consciousness to others. Thus, for you to say you are sure that infants have consciousness, going so far as to suggest a wager of its onset at 13 weeks gestation, you would have to demonstrate that they are self-conscious, not just awake.

I recently heard an anthropologist speak about a test to determine whether the great apes were self-conscious. They painted an X on the foreheads of a few chimps while they were asleep. When the chimps stood in front of a mirror, they responded by (frantically) attempting to wipe the X off their forehead. This was enough for anthopologists to decide that they had (self-)consciousness.

owleye

Synaesthesia

DRFseven,
Well that’s a good question. How indeed is it obvious to you that I exist even if you don’t perceive me? Given your very accurate model of the world, the hypothesis that a human is producing these words is vastly superior to any other theory. (I won’t bear out the superiority of the theory in detail, but I think you can see what it is.) It is obvious in the sense that it is very easy to make sense of events within that theory and only very tortuous and improbable theories can account for the event without the ‘obvious’ theory.

We can lighten the burden of understanding by exorcising those garage dragons and invisible unicorns.

Any arbitrarily selected agency or being is highly improbable. The more complex beings have a higher a priori improbability in addition to being difficult to deal with. To have a chance of a workable theory, therefore, all the a priori improbable entities that it posits should be supported by a framework of evidence.

We should, in short, have a reason to believe in a thing. Given that there is simply no reason to believe in an omnipotent illusion maker and plenty of reason to believe that we live in a physical system, the more parsimonious explanation is conceptually preferable even if empirically equivalent.

Feelings of certainty, according to human experience, are notoriously poor guides to truth. Their essential weakness being that their illusionary illuminance is so brilliant and overarching that the glare can obscure gaping holes in it’s workability.


owleye,
People on PCP can cease to recognize themselves in a mirror and yet they are conscious. I think part of the problem is that we don’t yet clearly know how to characterize consciousness. How can we hope to measure it by such crude tests?

Whatever consciousness is or does, those tests do seem to indicate a degree of cognitive sophistication. Being able to recognize that the mirror produces an image of that face from which “we” peer out requires different levels of representation. Quite a remarkable feat.

Regards,
Synaesthesia

[ May 11, 2002: Message edited by: Synaesthesia ]</p>