Philosophy Discussion Forums | A Humans-Only Club for Open-Minded Discussion & Debate

[SteveKlinko]

Yes, Consciousness is almost meaningless because people think it is so many different things. I also think that there is really no such thing as some generalized Consciousness concept. There is only Conscious Experience. Without some kind of Conscious Experience there is no Consciousness.

Don't get too hung up on the exact words used. In this topic/context, Consciousness and Conscious Experience are one and the same.

But that is not true by virtue of all these theories that say they Explain Consciousness, but have nothing to say about Conscious Experience. Think about the theories that claim to Mathematically measure how much Consciousness is here or there based on some complexity or computation criteria. They literally claim that they are Measuring Consciousness but when pressed to say how they are Measuring or Explaining an actual Conscious Experience like Redness, there is only Silence. They are not Viewing Consciousness as Conscious Experience. I don't think they even know what they are Measuring when they say they are Measuring Consciousness. This is why we must always specify Conscious Experience and not just some generic Consciousness concept that nobody understands. I know what the Experience of Redness is. Let's specifically Explain that to start with, and then we can generalize after that.

[Consul]

Consul quoted:

QUOTE>
"Indeed, Spinoza…affords an interesting example of a kind of seamless panpsychism. In discussing Spinoza's cosmology, I noted that, for Spinoza, consciousness is an attribute pervading the universe, something like a field suffusing spacetime. Were that so, conscious minds might be local concentrations of psychic energy in the consciousness field coinciding with material densities that make up the bodies or brains of conscious creatures."

(Heil, John. What is Metaphysics? Cambridge: Polity Press, 2021. p. 130)

Within the quotation is the implication that there are entities the author calls "conscious minds". David Hume noted " the self is nothing over and above a constantly varying bundle of experiences".(Stanford). The human bundle of experiences is a larger more complex bundle than that of a clam for instance, not to mention bundles such as garden rakes, or computers. Each thing is a bundle of experiences _(maybe only a simple off or on experience)_ . I admit that seems daft but why stop at living organisms? Can things that are not sentient not experience even if they lack all memory of what they experience?

There is a substantialistic reading of "mind" and a non-substantialistic one: Given the former, minds are mental substances; and given the latter, minds are complexes of mental occurrences or mental attributes (whose substrates or subjects are mental or physical substances). Heil uses "mind" in the latter sense.

Hume's bundle view of selves or subjects is false, because no bundle of experiences can be its own subject. Subjects of experiences are nonexperiences.

Note that in the Spinozean cosmos described by Heil, the subject or substrate role is played by spacetime itself (or regions thereof). Ordinary material objects such as chairs and tables are reduced to complexes of material properties, whose substrate is a region of spacetime, with spacetime being regarded as a substance—as the only substance there is.

[Consul]

Don't get too hung up on the exact words used. In this topic/context, Consciousness and Conscious Experience are one and the same.

But that is not true by virtue of all these theories that say they Explain Consciousness, but have nothing to say about Conscious Experience. Think about the theories that claim to Mathematically measure how much Consciousness is here or there based on some complexity or computation criteria. They literally claim that they are Measuring Consciousness but when pressed to say how they are Measuring or Explaining an actual Conscious Experience like Redness, there is only Silence. They are not Viewing Consciousness as Conscious Experience. I don't think they even know what they are Measuring when they say they are Measuring Consciousness. This is why we must always specify Conscious Experience and not just some generic Consciousness concept that nobody understands. I know what the Experience of Redness is. Let's specifically Explain that to start with, and then we can generalize after that.

Unfortunately, the phrase "conscious experience" is itself ambiguous: In the first-order sense, the adjective "conscious" is redundant, with "nonconscious experience" being a contradiction in terms; and in the higher-order sense, a conscious experience is one of which its subject is conscious (aware).

Given the higher-order interpretation, "nonconscious experience" is not a contradiction in terms, because subjects may be able to have experiences of which they are not conscious.
However, according to higher-order theories of first-order (phenomenal) consciousness, consciousness (awareness) of it is necessary for it, such that no mental occurrence is an experience unless its subject is conscious (aware) of it (by virtue of inner attention, introspection, or reflection).

[SteveKlinko]

Don't get too hung up on the exact words used. In this topic/context, Consciousness and Conscious Experience are one and the same.

But that is not true by virtue of all these theories that say they Explain Consciousness, but have nothing to say about Conscious Experience. Think about the theories that claim to Mathematically measure how much Consciousness is here or there based on some complexity or computation criteria. They literally claim that they are Measuring Consciousness but when pressed to say how they are Measuring or Explaining an actual Conscious Experience like Redness, there is only Silence. They are not Viewing Consciousness as Conscious Experience. I don't think they even know what they are Measuring when they say they are Measuring Consciousness. This is why we must always specify Conscious Experience and not just some generic Consciousness concept that nobody understands. I know what the Experience of Redness is. Let's specifically Explain that to start with, and then we can generalize after that.

Unfortunately, the phrase "conscious experience" is itself ambiguous: In the first-order sense, the adjective "conscious" is redundant, with "nonconscious experience" being a contradiction in terms; and in the higher-order sense, a conscious experience is one of which its subject is conscious (aware).

Given the higher-order interpretation, "nonconscious experience" is not a contradiction in terms, because subjects may be able to have experiences of which they are not conscious.
However, according to higher-order theories of first-order (phenomenal) consciousness, consciousness (awareness) of it is necessary for it, such that no mental occurrence is an experience unless its subject is conscious (aware) of it (by virtue of inner attention, introspection, or reflection).

If I say the Experience of Redness, for example, people might tend to think about Physical Red Things and Red Electromagnetic phenomenon, rather than the Thing that is in your Mind which is the Conscious Experience of Redness. It just enforces the desired perspective. Better to possibly be redundant than misunderstood, which is rampant on Consciousness Forums.

[Belindi]

Consul wrote:

Hume's bundle view of selves or subjects is false, because no bundle of experiences can be its own subject. Subjects of experiences are nonexperiences.

I did not say subjects of experiences I said experiences. There is no essence of an individual.

[UniversalAlien]

I used to restore old radios, the kind with vacuum tubes, tubes where you could see the electricity flowing through them...

Er, no, you couldn't. You saw the thermal radiation from the heating coils in the valves. Electricity is invisible.

For Humans this is true - But remember I am UniversalAlien, one of a long line of evolving intelligences from elsewhere.

Not only can we see electricity - We are also capable of generating it {think electric eel}

We sometimes debate theories of what Humans call consciousness with Humans to check on your current state of Evolution.

Evolulution being an experiment in biology - You see biology is an experiment - it is has no natural occurrence in the original
design of the Universe.

[Consul]

Better to possibly be redundant than misunderstood, which is rampant on Consciousness Forums.

Right!

[Consul]

I did not say subjects of experiences I said experiences. There is no essence of an individual.

Do I not have an essence? Isn't there something it is or takes to be me rather than anybody or anything else?

[Consul]

If I say the Experience of Redness, for example, people might tend to think about Physical Red Things and Red Electromagnetic phenomenon, rather than the Thing that is in your Mind which is the Conscious Experience of Redness.

"The thing that is in your mind" may well be a subjective display of neuroelectric fireworks!

[Consul]

"The thing that is in your mind" may well be a subjective display of neuroelectric fireworks!

"It is possible then that the sensation and the internal movement of the nervous centres may be at bottom one and the same unique event, condemned, by the two ways in which it is known, always and irremediably to appear double."

(Taine, Hippolyte. On Intelligence. Translated by T. D. Haye. London: Reeve & Co., 1871. pp. 192-3)

[Belindi]

I did not say subjects of experiences I said experiences. There is no essence of an individual.

Do I not have an essence? Isn't there something it is or takes to be me rather than anybody or anything else?

What makes you unique is not essence it's experiences vis a vis environments including of course human environments. Individuals are unique because of unique relationships and unique environments.

There is no essence of Belindi. What I have typed has never been typed before in the history of the universe.

[Pattern-chaser]

Yes, Consciousness is almost meaningless because people think it is so many different things. I also think that there is really no such thing as some generalized Consciousness concept. There is only Conscious Experience. Without some kind of Conscious Experience there is no Consciousness.

Don't get too hung up on the exact words used. In this topic/context, Consciousness and Conscious Experience are one and the same.

But that is not true by virtue of all these theories that say they Explain Consciousness, but have nothing to say about Conscious Experience. Think about the theories that claim to Mathematically measure how much Consciousness is here or there based on some complexity or computation criteria...

I think you underestimate our ignorance. Those theories say nothing of conscious experience, just as they say nothing about consciousness. Consciousness delivers conscious experience, because that's what consciousness is/does. Consciousness has no purpose other than to deliver conscious experience. The two are not synonyms, but here in this discussion, the differences between them are unimportant, IMO.

[SteveKlinko]

If I say the Experience of Redness, for example, people might tend to think about Physical Red Things and Red Electromagnetic phenomenon, rather than the Thing that is in your Mind which is the Conscious Experience of Redness.

"The thing that is in your mind" may well be a subjective display of neuroelectric fireworks!

There is Neuroelectric Fireworks and there is Conscious Experience. It is a Speculation to say they are the same thing. There certainly is no chain of Logic that gets you to that conclusion. But, of course, maybe someday someone will come up with a chain of Logic.

[SteveKlinko]

Yes, Consciousness is almost meaningless because people think it is so many different things. I also think that there is really no such thing as some generalized Consciousness concept. There is only Conscious Experience. Without some kind of Conscious Experience there is no Consciousness.

Don't get too hung up on the exact words used. In this topic/context, Consciousness and Conscious Experience are one and the same.

But that is not true by virtue of all these theories that say they Explain Consciousness, but have nothing to say about Conscious Experience. Think about the theories that claim to Mathematically measure how much Consciousness is here or there based on some complexity or computation criteria...

I think you underestimate our ignorance. Those theories say nothing of conscious experience, just as they say nothing about consciousness. Consciousness delivers conscious experience, because that's what consciousness is/does. Consciousness has no purpose other than to deliver conscious experience. The two are not synonyms, but here in this discussion, the differences between them are unimportant, IMO.

But the people that push these theories talk about Consciousness all the time as if they have solved the problem and as if they understand Consciousness. But when you pin them down about Conscious Experience the theories collapse because the theories were never about Conscious Experience, but rather the theories were about some ambiguous Consciousness concept. I think everybody understands the specificity of saying Conscious Experience as opposed to Consciousness. We are obviously at an Impasse on this argument.

[Pattern-chaser]

Here is a review of Antonio Damasio's book "Feeling & Knowing - Making Minds Conscious". It looks interesting. Other work of Damasio's that I have read were all worth the trouble.