tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-398117239974416524.post2325131098476140816..comments2024-01-13T08:01:37.708+00:00Comments on Postcognitive Topics: Embodiment and 'The Hard Problem'PostCog Topicshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06744695402349056096noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-398117239974416524.post-75251926342946546332013-02-28T20:44:05.645+00:002013-02-28T20:44:05.645+00:00"I think that positing that we have an object..."I think that positing that we have an objective view of the world is wrong, but positing that there is a world is not."<br /><br />I like that distinction. I also agree that there is more going on than we are conscious of at a given moment; and calling that the world is fine though as you say from a non-human perspective it may be perceived as a very different type of thing than what we know as the world.<br /><br />Emphasising the role of the observer in science shouldn't, I feel in practice, lead to the need for changing things that much- it's more just how theories are framed. What I think is the wrong way to proceed is to try hard to explain everything but consciousness, leaving it to the end of the list because it is the hardest, and then try to explain it as if we are starting from scratch. Chalmers, though I admire his emphasis on consciousness, does this in his article.<br /><br />Everything that we will have just said while explaining the 'physical' stuff will have necessarily involved a description of consciousness too, as we won't just have described the 'world' but our phenomenal experience of the world.John Francis Leaderhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09910120798817791748noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-398117239974416524.post-49856382579164094772013-02-28T19:42:42.206+00:002013-02-28T19:42:42.206+00:00I see what your saying. I will try and lay out my ...I see what your saying. I will try and lay out my position; perhaps they really aren't so different. I think that positing that we have an objective view of the world is wrong, but positing that there is a world is not. <br /><br />I don't advocate disregarding the role of the observer, and I don't intend on reifying some particular analytic split, but I do think that if I were the last conscious being in the world and I died, the world would still be there. That is not to say that it would be as I experienced it; clearly that makes no sense. But it would be there.<br /><br />I would also think that, while alive, I experienced the world the way I did because I had to survive in it. This does not necessitate that all things with experience experience the world the same way; the way the world is experienced by them will depend on how it is advantageous to them that it should appear. However, based on this, I also make the assumption that it will generally be most advantageous to have experience with some kind of truthful relationship to the world, even if it is not, and can never be, some sort of absolute accurate reflection of reality.<br /><br />I also think any effort to overcome an analytic split between subject and object or self and world can only begin when we aknowledge our experience is actually of something. Otherwise how do we know we're not the old brain in the vat?Hugh Turpinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17652077683560563501noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-398117239974416524.post-70501077775786024392013-02-28T19:01:40.859+00:002013-02-28T19:01:40.859+00:00"without recognising them as aspects of consc..."without recognising them as aspects of consciousness."<br /><br />My wording in the above sentence may have been a little more categorical than I intended it: I mean simply to emphasise that speaking empirically of something, absent of conscious experience, will never be possible by definition as any such thing will always have the imprint of consciousness upon it, i.e. the experiencing and the experience will have an inseparability.<br /><br />"I suppose I feel that the attempt to say the world is an aspect of consciousness is anthropocentric, even solipsistic."<br /><br />I think I'd see 'the world' and 'consciousness' as simply being inseparable from each other: neither better or worse but just parts of the same whole that can be split for analytic purpose but ultimately co-occur.<br /><br />So in that sense consciousness certainly isn't better than or more important than that which we experience, but I do take issue with the materialistic approach of posing an objective world that exists outside of conscious experience.<br /><br />I think there is a risk of anthropocentrism if we assume that everything works in the way we do, however it is equally dangerous, and probably covertly anthropocentric, to forget the role of the observer. <br /><br />Probably the best human enquiry can yield is a form of constructive objectivity, where we put together venn diagrams of what we each subjectively know, however not losing sight of our own limitations in doing so.John Francis Leaderhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09910120798817791748noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-398117239974416524.post-86879681268324317882013-02-28T15:04:48.059+00:002013-02-28T15:04:48.059+00:00I do, however, completely agree that Chalmers'...I do, however, completely agree that Chalmers' speculative notions of what consciousness is are spurious. Hugh Turpinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17652077683560563501noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-398117239974416524.post-29166210559350673862013-02-28T14:55:41.763+00:002013-02-28T14:55:41.763+00:00Thanks John. I'm not sure I subscribe to your ...Thanks John. I'm not sure I subscribe to your idea that things 'are aspects of consciousness'. I'd say our experiences of things (or the fact that we experience some of the sensory flux as particular 'things', if you prefer) are aspects of consciousness, but this is a more trivial claim.<br /><br />So I grant that the world presents itself to us through consciousness and we can have no experience of it except through the structure of our consciousness. However, I think there must be some relationship between our conscious experience of things and things as they are in themselves, though it is no doubt highly constructed. I don't think we experientially constitute a world without any anchor in reality outside of ourselves; this would just be far too unadaptive. What is useful is very often also what is true independently of us. I suppose I feel that the attempt to say the world is an aspect of consciousness is anthropocentric, even solipsistic. We can dissolve the boundary between mind and world to a degree, or make it shiftable according to context, but I don't know if we can let one consume the other. That way lies eliminative materialism or solipsism, depending on the direction.<br /><br />I certainly agree that a scientific treatment of consciousness would be wonderful (were such a thing possible), but I'm not sure how we could go about ultimately ground scientific enquiry in phenomenology.Hugh Turpinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17652077683560563501noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-398117239974416524.post-65337425407482138802013-02-27T22:17:29.557+00:002013-02-27T22:17:29.557+00:00Nice post, I've the links loaded and ready to ...Nice post, I've the links loaded and ready to read. I certainly agree with Chalmers' emphasis on the hard problem and his dissatisfaction that various theorists set out to solve the 'problem of consciousness' but inevitably end up talking about something else.<br /><br />Where I disagree with Chalmers is his rather polite approach of allowing everything else but consciousness to be explained and then trying to latch on the consciousness that is left. The only reason we know of anything physical is via consciousness.<br /><br />That's not to say that things don't exist when we're not aware of them but simply that we can't speak of them in any meaningful way, and certainly not empirically, without recognising them as aspects of consciousness.John Francis Leaderhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09910120798817791748noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-398117239974416524.post-38651920773107278952013-02-27T13:57:16.060+00:002013-02-27T13:57:16.060+00:00Excellent foot for thought there Hugh!Excellent foot for thought there Hugh!Fredhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12698509790614656032noreply@blogger.com