[Wittrs] Re: Minds, Brains and What There Is

  • From: "Cayuse" <z.z7@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: <wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Tue, 29 Sep 2009 18:43:40 +0100

brendamirsky wrote:
"Cayuse" wrote:
Some of the "contents of consciousness" may be categorized as
'subjective', and some may be categorized as 'objective'. Those
"contents", then, either /encompass/ the union of the set of
phenomena qualified as subjective with the set of phenomena
qualified as objective, or else they /consist/ of that union. Thus
conscious experience is neither subjective nor objective.

<snip>
You speak of "subjective" and "objective" with regard to what you
call the "contents" of consciousness but I don't have the sense that
you have fully explicated these terms for the purpose of this
discussion. Needless to say the terms may mean different things in
different contexts so we have to be clear on what it is we do mean
here, how we ARE using these terms.

It doesn't matter how these terms are used, except inasmuch as
they are not synonymous. Since they qualify different kinds of items
in the "contents of consciousness", the "contents of consciousness"
encompass /both/ of these qualified categories.


Now you also say this: "Those 'contents', then, either /encompass/
the union of the set of phenomena qualified as subjective with the
set of phenomena qualified as objective, or else they /consist/ of
that union."

What does THIS mean? What is it to "encompass the union"?
How does a union get encompassed? More, what does it mean to say
that the "contents" "consist of that union"? How is a union a content
(assuming "content" is even an appropriate term for what is meant here)?

Example:
The set of all integers /encompasses/ the the set of all positive integers
/and/ the set of all negative integers (i.e. the /union/ of those two sets),
but does not /consist/ of that union since it omits something.
The set of all integers /consists/ of the set of all positive integers
/and/ the set of all negative integers /and/ zero (no remainder).


More precisely, the view that p-consciousness has no place
in a physicalist paradigm.

I'm sorry but I don't understand that.

Since the idea has no empirical content, it cannot be studied
objectively.

Phenomenal consciousness has no empirical content? But we can get
reports about what anyone is seeing all the time and that's pretty
empirical don't you think? We can also determine what someone or some
inarticulate subject is seeing via various research strategms.

Reports are publicly observable. Regarding "what someone or
some inarticulate subject is seeing via various research stratagems",
the overt /behavior/ of that someone or of that inarticulate subject
is also publicly observable. Based on such behavior (including any
verbal reports they may make), we can /imagine/ what another
/may be/ experiencing, but their /experience/ is not publicly observable.


I was making the point that consciousness involves experience
which means experiencing what we call experiences and that
to be in THAT position is what it means when we speak of
being a subject, i.e., having a point of view, etc.

In what manner does consciousness "involve" experience?

If by "consciousness" we mean awareness, as in being aware of this or
that, then anything we are aware of is an experience and that means
an experiencer experiencing an experience.

Since you say that consciousness "involves" experience, you can't
be using the two words synonymously. In what way do they differ?
(And since you've added a third word "awareness", are you
using the words consciousness and awareness synonymously?)


By "access consciousness" I mean what Block identified in his paper
as belonging to what he called "access consciousness" in contrast to
"phenomenal consciousness".

So by "access consciousness" you mean what Block calls "access
consciousness" All right. What DOES he call "access consciousness"?

Ned Block:
Consciousness is a mongrel concept: there are a number of very different
"consciousnesses." Phenomenal consciousness is experience; the phenomenally
conscious aspect of a state is what it is like to be in that state. The mark
of access-consciousness, by contrast, is availability for use in reasoning
and rationally guiding speech and action. These concepts are often partly or
totally conflated, with bad results. This target article uses as an example
a form of reasoning about a function of "consciousness" based on the
phenomenon of blindsight. Some information about stimuli in the blind field
is represented in the brains of blindsight patients, as shown by their
correct "guesses," but they cannot harness this information in the service
of action, and this is said to show that a function of phenomenal
consciousness is somehow to enable information represented in the brain to
guide action. But stimuli in the blind field are BOTH access-unconscious and
phenomenally unconscious. The fallacy is: an obvious function of the
machinery of access-consciousness is illicitly transferred to phenomenal
consciousness.
http://www.bbsonline.org/Preprints/OldArchive/bbs.block.html


I'm referring to your claim above that there is no "first-person
perspective", no "consciousness".

I'm sorry but where do you think I made any such claim?

Let's rewind a bit then:

To take this "third-person world" as the primary datum (in which
this "first-person perspective" now has to be accounted for) is to
put the cart before the horse.

There is no horse if you are right vis a vis "the all".

Sticking to the terms I used in my comment above,
are you saying that there is no "third-person world"?
Or there is no "first-person perspective"?

WEB VIEW: http://tinyurl.com/ku7ga4
TODAY: http://alturl.com/whcf
3 DAYS: http://alturl.com/d9vz
1 WEEK: http://alturl.com/yeza
GOOGLE: http://groups.google.com/group/Wittrs
YAHOO: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Wittrs/
FREELIST: //www.freelists.org/archive/wittrs/09-2009

Other related posts: