http://www.nybooks.com/daily/2018/03/13/the-consciousness-deniers/
What the essay misses, is that denial of consciousness is pushed by Buddhism.
Basically the author supports materialism, properly interpreted by him (consciousness is material/natural). That implied denial of consciousness comes from a logical deduction on false premises ....
1. Everything is natural/materialist
2. Consciousness is immaterial
Therefore consciousness must be an illusion.
He also blames the "basic consciousness problem" on naive views of matter ... that based on early modern physics (Descartes and Newton) ... and the idea that matter is well understood (academic hubris).
Read the article and it's bullshit.
First off, I very much doubt that Daniel Dennett would deny the existence of the very thing he has spent his life studying. For one thing, there does seem to be no way to characterize consciousness without invoking some sort of activity; even at its most idle, conscious people acknowledge and are at least somewhat aware of the passage of time. The notion of a completely static consciousness is thus absurd. Furthermore, take in the fact that consciousness is at the mercy of the integrity of the brain and the health and activity of its neurons, that consciousness is made up of distinct functional modules connected to regions of the brain, and a plethora of other evidence that points to the conclusion that human consciousness is based upon the neurological functions of the brain. It categorically does not point to a group of people who think that what they're studying does not exist â€" I would challenge Strawson to explain why there are entire fields of study devoted to subject matter the experts believe don't exist in any form. Even theology doesn't engage in that kind of retardedness.
I think that you would be hard-pressed to find a cognative scientist who denies the existence of consciousness. At best, they would claim that consciousness is an illusion â€" but
that's not the same thing, as Strawson claims. Illusion being "a false idea or belief," appears third on a Google definition, and not at all on Merriam-Webster. Instead, the majority of definitions for 'illusion' point to mistaken impressions or something that is likely to be misinterpreted, implying strongly that there is a reality to consciousness for there to be a mistaken impression of. So what is the mistaken impression and what is the reality of consciousness? It's the illusion that consciousness is something you
have, rather than the reality that it's something you
do. Consciousness is less like the
liver, and more like the
digestion.This illusion, of course, is aggravated by its language (falling unconscious is described as "losing consciousness", as if consciousness is something you drop on the floor, rather than "stopping consciousness"), and the fact that it does seem to the subjective experience like it's just sitting there in your head. But again, this is an illusion â€" a mistaken impression. Even idle, there's a lot happening underneath the hood that, if it simply stopped and be static, consciousness would simply vanish.
Quote
This is how philosophers in the twentieth century came to endorse the Denial, the silliest view ever held in the history of human thought. “When I squint just right,†Dennett writes in 2013, “it does sort of seem that consciousness must be something in addition to all the things it does for us and to us, some special private glow or here-I-am-ness that would be absent in any robot… But I’ve learned not to credit the hunch. I think it is a flat-out mistake, a failure of imagination.†His position was summarized in an interview in The New York Times: “The elusive subjective conscious experienceâ€"the redness of red, the painfulness of painâ€"that philosophers call qualia? Sheer illusion.†If he’s right, no one has ever really suffered, in spite of agonizing diseases, mental illness, murder, rape, famine, slavery, bereavement, torture, and genocide. And no one has ever caused anyone else pain.
The above is complete fucking idiocy. Again, what is being claimed is that consciousness and qualia and the whole host of terms we use to describe experiences are not as they seem. The image is not passively red; it is actively letting you know that it is red. You are not passively experiencing pain, you are empained â€" it is actively thrust into your consciousness to be actively acknowledged by your conscious processes. This is what the mainstream of cognitive science says, including Dennett.
Strawson has set up a strawman of cognitive science and equivocation between "
illusion" and "
delusion."
PS, note that "life" has the same fundamental confusion about it: life being something you have and lose, instead of an activity that proceeds or ceases.
Good observation ... I found it tendentious too. But then rhetorical exercises frequently are.
I don't happen to support Dr Dennett (his homunculi theory is taken directly from the Great Chain of Being of the ancient gnostics) ... but I would agree that given the loose way English is used, proving he actually is a Buddhist would be a hard sell. Unless of course we have photos of him on his off-hours at an ashram or temple.
Sounds like consciousness has been likened to the supernatural, in some circles? Thus, why many scientists like to distance themselves from it. But, consciousness is a real, palpable thing, albeit subjective, in terms of our experiences.
Some scientists, such as Roger Penrose, think that consciousness is associated with some quantum effect or other. But there's a long way to go before they make any real sense of the idea:
Quantum consciousness (https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Quantum_consciousness)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3WXTX0IUaOg
Dr Al-Khalili is a real scientist ...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_qgSz1UmcBM
this isn't some woo woo as you find on many QM mysticism films.
Dr Penrose is someone I have followed in the past, including his work on the tie between QM and consciousness, because of Schroedinger's Cat.
Well, some people view the world wearing God-glasses and some don't. It is rather easy to tell them apart.
Quote from: Baruch on April 04, 2018, 09:27:53 PM
Dr Penrose is someone I have followed in the past, including his work on the tie between QM and consciousness, because of Schroedinger's Cat.
"When I hear about Schrodinger's cat," Stephen Hawking once said, "I reach for my gun."
Quote from: Unbeliever on April 05, 2018, 01:14:37 PM
"When I hear about Schrodinger's cat," Stephen Hawking once said, "I reach for my gun."
Penrose and Hawking frequently disagreed at a professional level ...
As Wittgenstein reached for the poker, when listening to Popper lecture ...
Cantabrigians ;-) Popper was London School of Economics, and Penrose is Oxford. Both Hawking and Wittgenstein were Cambridge.
Quote from: Deidre32 on April 04, 2018, 07:37:19 PM
Sounds like consciousness has been likened to the supernatural, in some circles? .
Whenever something cannot be explained, be it Arora Borealis, fire, or creation, in steps the Pope or some other charlatan to explain by decree that it is the hand of God at work. Consciousness makes a fine target for the exploitation of ignorance. I can't explain it. You can't explain it. No one else can explain it. Therefore, God.
You can easily understand consciousness by explaining it through QM, especially if you don't understand QM.
Yeah, to paraphrase Bill O'Reilly, thought goes in, thought goes out - you can't explain that!
Schrodinger's cat has to be dead or alive. You can't say it's both on the grounds that you don't know. Even if you throw in some obscure chemicals that create a poisonous gas and you don't know if they combined or not. That is an irrelevant detail to make the story more interesting. But that cat is either dead or alive. Your lack of knowing alters nothing about the reality inside the box.
Quote from: SGOS on April 05, 2018, 07:46:33 PM
Whenever something cannot be explained, be it Arora Borealis, fire, or creation, in steps the Pope or some other charlatan to explain by decree that it is the hand of God at work. Consciousness makes a fine target for the exploitation of ignorance. I can't explain it. You can't explain it. No one else can explain it. Therefore, God.
Some may claim that. I don't think that the ability of apes to explain things is unlimited. I also don't think our apish explanations are as solid as we like to think. That doesn't imply that the Vatican is right, of course.
Quote from: SGOS on April 05, 2018, 08:00:37 PM
Schrodinger's cat has to be dead or alive. You can't say it's both on the grounds that you don't know. Even if you throw in some obscure chemicals that create a poisonous gas and you don't know if they combined or not. That is an irrelevant detail to make the story more interesting. But that cat is either dead or alive. Your lack of knowing alters nothing about the reality inside the box.
That is why it is a fun problem. And of course Penrose doesn't have an explanation, just a research program. For example, I did watch one actual graduate level QM lecture (from a Canadian university) that supported (for no particular reason) the many universe theory ... which says that in some infinite universes, the cat is alive, and in other infinite universes the cat is dead. It doesn't have to be either/or if you allow infinite parallel, non-identical universes. The QM function collapses once we know, not because we know, but because we have interfered by opening the box.
And yes, you are proposing classical realism. I happen to agree with you. I don't accept infinite universes.
Quote from: SGOS on April 05, 2018, 07:50:45 PM
You can easily understand consciousness by explaining it through QM, especially if you don't understand QM.
But doesn't that only explain one's lack of understanding?
Quote from: Unbeliever on April 05, 2018, 07:52:01 PM
Yeah, to paraphrase Bill O'Reilly, thought goes in, thought goes out - you can't explain that!
Bill O'Reilly is an example of a random thought generator these days.
Quote from: Baruch on April 05, 2018, 08:48:20 PM
But doesn't that only explain one's lack of understanding?
Yeah, probably.
Quote from: SGOS on April 05, 2018, 08:00:37 PM
Schrodinger's cat has to be dead or alive. You can't say it's both on the grounds that you don't know. Even if you throw in some obscure chemicals that create a poisonous gas and you don't know if they combined or not. That is an irrelevant detail to make the story more interesting. But that cat is either dead or alive. Your lack of knowing alters nothing about the reality inside the box.
If you're trying to promote the hidden variable theory, Bell's Theorem pretty much shows that something like that wont work.
It's not about not knowing. The cat is both alive and dead because it is occupying both those states. That's the reality.
Quote from: Jason78 on April 06, 2018, 06:58:05 PM
If you're trying to promote the hidden variable theory, Bell's Theorem pretty much shows that something like that wont work.
It's not about not knowing. The cat is both alive and dead because it is occupying both those states. That's the reality.
I can give no response to that. It makes no sense to me.
Quote from: SGOS on April 05, 2018, 08:00:37 PM
Schrodinger's cat has to be dead or alive. You can't say it's both on the grounds that you don't know. Even if you throw in some obscure chemicals that create a poisonous gas and you don't know if they combined or not. That is an irrelevant detail to make the story more interesting. But that cat is either dead or alive. Your lack of knowing alters nothing about the reality inside the box.
That's always been my view. The ignorance of whether the cat is dead or alive does not describe the actuality of its existence or death. And, BTW, Schrodinger should have used a mouse. Some people care about cats. Not many care about mice. His choice of a "cat" influences the way people view his analogy. I personally have to push my thoughts around that every time I read of his thought experiment.
Quote from: Cavebear on April 07, 2018, 12:38:00 AM
That's always been my view. The ignorance of whether the cat is dead or alive does not describe the actuality of its existence or death. And, BTW, Schrodinger should have used a mouse. Some people care about cats. Not many care about mice. His choice of a "cat" influences the way people view his analogy. I personally have to push my thoughts around that every time I read of his thought experiment.
In addition to the abhorrent nature of the analogy, it makes no sense in a macro-environment for things as big as cats. At the quantum level, such a thing may be possible, because we believe the quantum reality is not the reality explained by the physics we deal with in our perceived reality. Or maybe that doesn't happen at the quantum level either. Who knows? We might be saying a quantum thing is two different things at the same time on the grounds that we can't actually see it, just like the cat.
Quote from: Cavebear on April 07, 2018, 12:38:00 AM
That's always been my view. The ignorance of whether the cat is dead or alive does not describe the actuality of its existence or death. And, BTW, Schrodinger should have used a mouse. Some people care about cats. Not many care about mice. His choice of a "cat" influences the way people view his analogy. I personally have to push my thoughts around that every time I read of his thought experiment.
Maybe that's why Hawking hated it so much he wanted to grab his gun whenever anyone mentioned it.
Also, Shroedinger had no intention of the thing being taken seriously, he was trying to mock the then-new quantum theory.
Quote from: Unbeliever on April 07, 2018, 02:00:52 PM
Maybe that's why Hawking hated it so much he wanted to grab his gun whenever anyone mentioned it.
Also, Shroedinger had no intention of the thing being taken seriously, he was trying to mock the then-new quantum theory.
He had helped invent quantum theory, but didn't like what he created, same as Einstein. He and Einstein tried to collaborate, but broke up on personality differences. After the rise of Hitler, Schroedinger fled to Dublin Ireland, as Einstein fled to Princeton NJ. At that point, the synergy of European physics was dead.
And yes, some proponents take the quantum realism position (that QM is reality itself, not a mere pragmatic model of reality). So even large things like super-tankers, have a wave function, and can at low probability quantum tunnel from one side of the Earth to the other (aka Bermuda Triangle).
The man speaks for himself ...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hCwR1ztUXtU
QuoteSo even large things like super-tankers, have a wave function, and can at low probability quantum tunnel from one side of the Earth to the other (aka Bermuda Triangle).
Well, such a circumstance would certainly (or uncertainly) save on shipping costs!
Quote from: Unbeliever on April 07, 2018, 02:30:24 PM
Well, such a circumstance would certainly (or uncertainly) save on shipping costs!
Alas, a small probability of ending in the Earth's core instead of near Australia!
Schrodinger of course stands opposite ... his contemporary advocate ... Alan Turing, who supposed that humans are automatons, and hence a sufficiently complex computer could think.
Quote from: Unbeliever on April 05, 2018, 07:52:01 PM
Yeah, to paraphrase Bill O'Reilly, thought goes in, thought goes out - you can't explain that!
And there is often no particular connection in him... LOL!
Quote
Schroedinger: "Do electrons think?"
I tried to view the video out of perverted curiosity, because the question is preposterous. But I couldn't understand Schroedinger well enough to last more than 90 seconds. I did note that he answered the question with an unqualified "No" in 27 seconds, but I didn't think there was much of substance he could have added in the next 14 minutes of his broadcast, so I didn't go further. I think I may have had too much coffee this morning.
Quote from: SGOS on April 08, 2018, 10:00:40 AM
I tried to view the video out of perverted curiosity, because the question is preposterous. But I couldn't understand Schroedinger well enough to last more than 90 seconds. I did note that he answered the question with an unqualified "No" in 27 seconds, but I didn't think there was much of substance he could have added in the next 14 minutes of his broadcast, so I didn't go further. I think I may have had too much coffee this morning.
He is easier to understand (in English) than Einstein ...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_TmlYGdBodQ
From pre-WW II. He became less pacifist, toward Germans, later.
Quote from: SGOS on April 08, 2018, 10:00:40 AM
I tried to view the video out of perverted curiosity, because the question is preposterous. But I couldn't understand Schroedinger well enough to last more than 90 seconds. I did note that he answered the question with an unqualified "No" in 27 seconds, but I didn't think there was much of substance he could have added in the next 14 minutes of his broadcast, so I didn't go further. I think I may have had too much coffee this morning.
Too much coffee in the morning, too much wine at night; sort of the same thing. I have always personally thought the Shoedinger argument of little value. Sure, you don't know whether the cat is dead or alive, but it IS one or the other. I suspect it will someday be considered as silly as the old Greek idea you can't catch up to slower runners due to the fractional reductions.
Math doesn't ALWAYS represent reality...
Quote from: Cavebear on April 09, 2018, 11:40:35 PM
Too much coffee in the morning, too much wine at night; sort of the same thing. I have always personally thought the Shoedinger argument of little value. Sure, you don't know whether the cat is dead or alive, but it IS one or the other. I suspect it will someday be considered as silly as the old Greek idea you can't catch up to slower runners due to the fractional reductions.
Math doesn't ALWAYS represent reality...
Pythagoras has disowned you. Please return all unused mathematics to the IP owner ;-)