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ribbleton 08-Nov-07, 13:38	What is consciousness ? We ordinarily take it that consciousness is something we have. It is because in seeing the page we don't have the neurons or whatever that the neurons are not part of the consciousness. ... The most useful form of the proposition that consciousness is something we have is this: with respect to consciousness, there is no difference between appearance and reality. Any views?
ribbleton 10-Nov-07, 09:05	Consciousness and existence The room I am in right now could go on existing without me existing and yet it is my view that the room is my consciousness. It is a necessary condition of the room existing that I be in a certain neural state, so it can't exist without me. Is it then a purely intentional object, a mental product? Not according to me since it is also dependent for its existence on the world of atoms, which can exist without my neural states. There is, we are assured, nothing spooky about this room, nothing beyond common sense—it is a physical thing in space. Is this a consistent argument?
jkg20 11-Nov-07, 08:50	Not clear enough to say The argument you give isn't clearly enough expressed to decide whether it is consistent or not. The very first statement you make looks like an inconsistent conjunction (if the room is your consciousness, and assuming your consciousness cannot exist without you, then the room certainly cannot exist without you). However, it maybe that the statement is ambiguous, and that under one interpretation it isn't inconsistent. Please clarify the premises of the argument, and then we can see whether it is consistent or not. Once we've done that, we can look at soundness.
ribbleton 11-Nov-07, 09:56	Ok clarity problem? Lets put the view simpler. What it is for you to be conscious of the room you're in isn't for there to be anything going on in your cranium. Something going on in your cranium is necessary to your being conscious, but the cranial goings-on cannot be identified with your awareness of the room. What it is for you to be aware of the room is for there to be a certain state of affairs outside your head. This state of affairs, outside your head, is your phenomenal world, your mental world. It is in space; it is physical; therefore, it can interact causally with other physical stuff. It is related (in some unspecified way) to the perceived part of the extra-mental physical world. This phenomenal world thus depends on neural goings-on in your cranium, and on the extra-mental world. But it itself exists independently of what it depends on. footnote It begins from, or anyway rests on, the proposition that perceptual experience appears to include nothing whatever other than an existence of external things.
jkg20 11-Nov-07, 10:20	Deleted by jkg20 on 11-Nov-07, 10:26.
jkg20 11-Nov-07, 10:48	Inconsistent, I think Okay, that's helped, but it may be that there's still something I'm misunderstanding, since to say that something can exist independently of something it depends on sounds inconsistent in itself (unless the dependency is only contingent). So let me show you how I interpret what you've just said. You state: "What it is for you to be aware off the room is for there to be a certain state of affairs outside your head" This sounds like a statement of identity: 1) My consciousness of the room is identical with a state of affairs that is happening outside of my head. You also say that what is going on in my cranium is necessary for my consciousness of the room. Let's phrase this as: 2) Necessarily, to be conscious of the room I must have a head. Now, the identity statement (1) would appear to allow for the following possibility 3) My head might not exist, but because my consciousness of the room is identical with a state of affairs external to it, my consciouness could still exist. But (3) entails (4) Possibly, it is not the case that to be conscious of the room I must have a head But (4) is straightforwardly inconsistent with (2). So, if I've understood your argument correctly, it is inconsistent. So either: A) My restatement of your position in (1) is not accurate. Or   You have a conception of identity statements which does not entail that it is possible for non-identical things to exist independently of each other. Or C) You actually don't think that it is necessary for their to be "cranial goings on" inside my head in order for me to be conscious of the room. Or D) The argument you gave is inconsistent. If (A), please clarify what you meant by the original statement. If (B), I need to hear more about your conception of identity, since the conceptions of it I am familiar with all allow for the possibility that non-identical things can exist independently of each other. If (C), you need to be clearer about what you think the relation is between brains and consciousness. If (D), adopt another position.
ukip 11-Nov-07, 11:13	Consciousness of something? Question about consciousness that has always puzzled me is - can we be conscious without being conscious of something?! I mean, can we imagine being in a sort of buddhistic trance where we are "consciousnessing" without there being an object we are conscious of?
ribbleton 11-Nov-07, 12:09	Response jkg20 says, in the engaging style of Samuel Johnson, refuting absurdity by common sense claims inconsistency. More also may be said. The room could exist without me existing? Thus how can the room be my consciousness? This is rather natural objection, However it is a necessary condition of the room existing existing that I be in a certain neural state, so it can't exist without me. Note that there is no sufficient neural condition for those objects, so that they certainly cannot be regarded as mental products of some kind: they are not supervenient on what is in the head. Indeed, they also have a foot in the objective, material world outside; yet they are what consciousness is. Footnote. It is no contradiction in supposing that a being can be necessarily dependent on other sustaining features of its world and yet be understood as has having 'being-in-itself'.
jkg20 12-Nov-07, 01:04	Consciousness without its objects Interesting question biggie. I've always assumed that to be conscious is to be conscious OF something, but that may be just because that's what most philosophers I've read on the subject take for granted. Having said that, if the buddhist were asked to explain the difference between his state of 'objectless' consciousness and a state of unconsciousness, it may be that he'll have to have recourse to objects of his state ('god', 'the infinite', 'inner being' etc etc).
jkg20 12-Nov-07, 01:25	Still inconsistent (I think) Although I'm rather flattered to be compared to Samuel Johnson, I still have to object to a number of things. You say 'it is a necessary condition of the room existing that I be in a certain neural state'. This commits you to the claim that the room could not exist without you being in certain neural states: that's just a conceptual fact about what a 'necessary condition' is. Well, under the following interpretative argument, what you say is true: 1a) By 'this room at t1' I mean the walls, ceiling and all objects (animate or inanimate) within it at time t1. 2a) I am an animate object in this room at t1 and I have certain neural states 3a) Therefore this room at t1 could not exist without my neural states, and thus my being in this neural state is necessary for the room to exist at t1. True but trivial - 3a is derivable from 1a and 2a using nothing but logic. Under a different interpretation we have: 1b) By "this room at t1" I mean just the architectural structure (walls, ceiling, etc). 2b) I am an animate object in this room at t1 and I have certain neural states. 3b) Therefore this room at t1 could not exist without my neural states, and thus my being in this neural state is necessary for the room to exist at t1. This argument is not consistent. (1b) and (2b) can be true but (3b) can be false. (3b) in fact now becomes a substantive claim which requires an argument that you've not yet given. As far as I can tell, the argument you give gains any slight plausibility it may have from a conflation of these two interpretations.
jkg20 12-Nov-07, 01:43	On 'being in itself' Ribbleton says: "It is no contradiction in supposing that a being can be necessarily dependent on other sustaining features of its world and yet be understood as has having 'being-in-itself'" Well, this depends on what he means by 'being-in-itself'. If he means 'being-not-dependent-on-any-other-thing-but-itself', it is false because it is self-contradictory to understand something as both necessarily dependent on something, yet not dependent on anything at all. If by 'being-in-itself' he just means 'existence' pure and simple, then what he says is uncontentious, since all he is saying is that it is possible to understand that things which are necessarily dependent on other things can exist. That's true, but (almost) trivially uncontentious. However, if this is what he means, one has to wonder why he introduced the apparently superfluous notion of '-in-itself'. Finally, though, he may be saying something like this: 1) Object A has a certain nature or essence that depends necessarily on state of affairs B. but 2) Object A has certain characteristics that can be considered in isolation from its necessary dependence on B. One might think here of the following example.The existence of daylight is necessarily dependent on the sun being above the horizon. However, I can consider certain characteristics of daylight (the way it casts shadows, for instance) without having to consider the fact that the sun is above the horizon. This is true, perhaps, but my being able to do so has absolutely no metaphysical consequences for either daylight or the sun or the horizon. So, (1) and (2) are consistent, but combined they are irrelevant to our metaphysical concerns about what consciousness is.
jkg20 12-Nov-07, 02:11	Consciouness without its objects (the sequel) I think biggie has once again hit a very important nail on the head that it may be worthwhile clawing out of the wood to expose: The notion of "my consciousness of A" can be understood purely in terms of an activity of mine ("my being-conscious-of-A") or in terms of a relation between me and something other than me ("my consciousness-of A"). (For the moment, I ignore the complication where I am merely thinking about myself). If we give metaphysical and heuristic priority to the activity, and take consciousness as a given, then one can see how idealism gets its bite, since it is tempting to start thinking of the notion of "the object A" as just an abstraction from "my being-conscious-of-A". That gives some sense to the somewhat counter-intuitive idea that objects of consciousness are dependent on consciousness itself. One the other hand, if we give the relational interpretation metaphysical/heuristic priority, then we are given three things: me, the object A, a relation of some kind between me and A. Here it is more natural to think of me and A as having an independent existence, and that perhaps my consciousness of A is something that can be explained by examining what is going on in me when I am conscious of it. This is the idea that gives general plausibility to the pursuit of a physiological explanation for consciousness. The act-object/act-only distinction in conceptions of consciousness have often been conflated/confused/vacillated between by philosophers and scientists when they talk about the mental in general. Even truly great philosophers such as Kant do this (just read the first few sections of Critique of Pure Reason to see him switching been an act-object and act-only conception of an 'intuition'). I think if one is going to try to argue for a certain view of what consciousness is, one needs to be careful that the arguments given do not turn on an ambiguity between these two conceptions.
ribbleton 12-Nov-07, 04:20	biggie. Traditional response Confusing vehicle and content, act and object? My experience of a room is the vehicle of a certain content, rather as a word is a vehicle of meaning. My seeing the room is not the room I see but the means by which I see it; the seeing is not its own object. There is no commitment to sense-data here or odd introspective relations between the subject and the subject's experiences; there is just the simple fact that an experience is an event or state that carries a content. I for the of 'hell of it' shall attempt to deny that seeing an object is a relation between perceiver and object since seeing it is the object. This may turn out to be an absurd view , of course, and the truth is just that seeing is a relation to an object, rather as referring is. But we shall see!
ribbleton 12-Nov-07, 09:46	knowing and thing known'. The subjectobject relation is not to be characterized as the subject's attending to the content, or anything of the kind. To characterize it in this way would be, it seems, to introduce the definiendum into the definiens. Certainly, to repeat, the terms 'subject' and 'object' are not to be taken as carrying with them the Cartesian theory of a subject in the sense of a simple indivisible mental substance whose identity over time is primitive and irreducible. What is offered may owe something to Brentano's familiar characterization of consciousness. (Beyond doubt that characterization lies behind the logico-linguistic.) Consciousness is said by him to be, fundamentally, activity which has reference to a content, or activity which is directed upon an object. (1973 (1874)) We must understand something more precise than Brentano explains. It is true, certainly, that feeling good for no particular reason, and the sensation of warmth, do not involve objects or contents that can be said to be determinate in a certain sense. There is a great difference between the feeling and the sensation and, on the other hand, having the thought that one's father wrote a pamphlet about the consistency of Christianity and Communism. Still, we are not debarred from attempting to conceive of an indeterminate object or content. Nor are we debarred from using 'content' rather than 'object' where the former is more natural.
ribbleton 12-Nov-07, 11:26	The proposal. Is it coherent? The present aim, in fact, is not to rely on Brentano's conception of consciousness, but to use it to introduce a somewhat related one. It, like his, has the recommendation of being a realist conception, which is to say one which does not withdraw from its subject-matter. Realism about the mental, to speak freely, seems to me essential, and the opposed lookingelsewhere, whatever its roots, a kind of fastidiousness or want of nerve which is futile. The conception is related, also, in that both conceptions derive in a direct way from our pre-theoretical, firstperson grasp of consciousness, as cannot be said of any of behaviourism, causalism, or functionalism, nor really of the logico-linguistic criterion, derived though it is from Brentano. The alternative account, a minimal one, seeks among other things to give fewer hostages than Brentano's to philosophical fortune, or anyway to philosophical doubt. To think of any of one's conscious episodes in the moment after it has happened, is to think of a certain duality, one which has nothing to do with dualistic doctrines of mind and body. Think of feeling a sensation in one's knee—or noticing a cup, having the usual inattentive visual experience of a room, feeling good or depressed about nothing specific, being struck by the fact of a recent death, wanting to go to bed, deciding not to, momentarily intending to watch the news on television, picturing a face, thinking a question or a sentence, writing one, having a dream. Certainly there is great diversity here, and causal and other relations enter into our various conceptions of these things. It is also indubitable, and a fact of which philosophers and psychologists of different inclinations have made different things, that to think of any episode of experience is to think of two elements, two elements within the experience.
ukip 12-Nov-07, 14:21	Consciousness & Idealism Didn't a philosopher, perhaps Bertrand Russell, say that all we ever see are bits of our own brain?! (Maybe his idea of a joke.)
jkg20 13-Nov-07, 01:26	What a comedian that Russell was! Biggie, if he did say it, he was certainly joking: but academics aren't renowned for their sense of humour, so don't feel obliged to laugh. It may be that he was just highlighting the importance of keeping the act-obect distinction in mind when you try to develop a theory under which my seeing something is identical with some brain state of mine.
jkg20 13-Nov-07, 01:38	The proposal is coherent... ....if the proposal consists in the following propositions then it is coherent (which doesn't mean it is true) 1) Mental phenomena are real. 2) Mental phenomena are not identical to physical phenomena (such as neuronal activity) 3) Becuase of (2), accounts of mental phenomena need to make use of non-physical vocabulary. 4) All mental phenomena must be conceived of in terms of some duality. What isn't clear from the passages ribbleton cites, is what the author believes the duality is. It maybe simply the act-object duality, in which case (4) becomes 4) All mental phenomena must be conceived of in terms of a duality of act and object (although the object may be indeterminate). Is that the proposal you are talking about? If so, the contentious points - from a metaphysical perspective - are pretty much (1), (2) and (3).
ribbleton 13-Nov-07, 07:44	The philosophical sceptic The philosophical sceptic asks us for our justification. He points out that there is a gap. That is, the data do not logically entail the supposed conclusions -- it is not self-contradictory for me to accept as true all the propositions about your behaviour that in fact make me believe you are conscious -- but to doubt or deny that conclusion. Nor, it is said, is the conclusion produced by induction, the method of science and much else. Such extrapolation or generalization from limited evidence of things going together cannot be got into operation with respect to the past and other minds. We never have particular experience of documents plus past, or the behaviour of others plus their consciousness in order to get started towards a general conclusion.
jkg20 14-Nov-07, 00:41	Scepticism about other minds Hi ribbleton - so what about Wittgensteins 'private language' argument, which might be summarised as so (at least under one interpretation). 1. Coherent use of language requires a person to be able to distinguish between thinking that they are right about the meaning of terms, and their actually being right about the meaning. 2. If I were the only conscious being, I could get no epistemological hold on the distinction between actually being right and merely thinking that I am right about meanings of terms. 3. Nonetheless I do speak a language coherently. 4. Consequently, I must be able to make a distinction between being right and thinking that I am right (from 1 and 3). 5. So the universe cannot be a solipsistic one (from 4 and 2). So, there are other conscious beings. It's a consistent argument, but is it sound (enough to defeat other-minds scepticism)?
rilke 14-Nov-07, 05:47	Consciousness Great Hindu thinkers believed the Consciousness is the center and the origen of all things. This Consciousness is an energy that comes from within.We have that spark as human beings; but it takes a personal journey to find this mystery of ourselves.
ribbleton 14-Nov-07, 07:05	Deleted by ribbleton on 14-Nov-07, 07:06.
ukip 14-Nov-07, 07:29	More Consciousness I believe some eastern mystics think we must disabuse ourselves of the notion we're continuing persons and accept our personhood disintegrates into a congeries of time-slice entities (like a shoal of fish swimming around in a coral reef) in a sort of universal consciousness soup. As a Westerner I like the idea of myself as a continuing person & am reluctant to jump into the soup. Freewill would have to disappear into the soup, too. And even the notion of ordinary numerical identity through time may become meaningless. I'm putting this badly I know, but one thing I do know - I don't like it!
ribbleton 14-Nov-07, 08:02	I and my. Cartesian theory of a subject in the sense of a simple indivisible mental substance whose identity over time is primitive and irreducible. It is trivially true that when I use the words ‘my’ and ‘I’ am assuming a distinction from myself and others. But if my ‘I’ is basic in what way can it be different from other minds ‘I’ (accepting the above formulation) as theirs would be basic and unaccountable for as derivative from varying circumstances. This given is by the Cartesian method that in deriving ‘I’ no reference to the external world can be assumed. As far as I can see there is no way back to the real world from my ‘I’ and all other people’s ‘I’ would be identical with ‘mine’. A logical impossibility.
ribbleton 14-Nov-07, 12:07	Deleted by ribbleton on 14-Nov-07, 12:15.
ribbleton 14-Nov-07, 12:15	'congeries of time-slice entities' The idea that the human self 'is not all or nothing' contrary to the edicts of Christan theology were not expounded in the most influential form by shadowy Eastern mystics but by some of the greatest and most profound Western Philosophers. Note here is David Hume's view where he clearly indicates that the human self in a human life is a series of distinct selves rather than one continuous indivisible self or soul. Man is "a bundle or collection of different perceptions" "the true idea of the human mind, is to consider it as a system of different perceptions or different existences, which are linked together by the relation of cause and effect, and mutually produce, destroy, influence, and modify each other.'' Locke thought that we have, and can have, no knowledge of the substantial nature of the self. If it were true that we are an 'all or nothing self' then at age fourteen I would have not inhaled that dubious cigarette because this would have had to be the same self that had an eye on being President of the United States!
ribbleton 14-Nov-07, 14:19	Description of Guilt By Association and wishful thinking In answer to a contribution by Rilke Biggie commits in my view two very standard logical errors. He implies (1)that if a certain view of personal identity is 'Eastern' it can't be true and (2) that if we did accept that view certain consequences would follow i.e no free will etc. The two acts of fallacious reasoning are thus 'guilt by association' and 'guilt by appeal to consequences' which are detailed below Guilt by Association is a fallacy in which a person rejects a claim simply because it is pointed out that people ´he dislikes accept the claim. This sort of "reasoning" has the following form: It is pointed out that people person A does not like accept claim P. Therefore P is false It is clear that sort of "reasoning" is fallacious. For example the following is obviously a case of poor "reasoning": "You think that 1+1=2. But, Adolf Hitler, Charles Manson, Joseph Stalin, and Ted Bundy all believed that 1+1=2. So, you shouldn't believe it." Includes: Wishful Thinking Description of Appeal to Consequences of a Belief The Appeal to the Consequences of a Belief is a fallacy that comes in the following patterns: X is true because if people did not accept X as being true then there would be negative consequences. X is false because if people did not accept X as being false, then there would be negative consequences. X is true because accepting that X is true has positive consequences. X is false because accepting that X is false has positive consequences.
jkg20 16-Nov-07, 02:45	Be fair to biggie, ribbleton ...he didn't actually say anything much more than he didn't like the idea that there is no single subject of experience persisting through time. I don't think he was presenting an argument against that position, so much as expressing disbelief/disapproval - and he seems to be the kind of reasonable person that would accept that this doesn't mean that it cannot be true. In any case, he has a point that it is somewhat counter-intuitive to reject the idea of personal identity through time as consisting in the continuing existence of one thing through that time. However, before you jump to any rash interpretations of that remark, it doesn't mean I think that our intuitions are right. As you know yourself, since you seem to have read Parfit, and I assume also Bernard Williams's papers that influenced him, our intuitions about personal identity can be pulled in conflicting directions, so are probably not our best guide to the truth in this matter anyway. Incidently, as an anecodote, I once had as a tutor a man who believed that reflecting on the kind of thought experiments used by western philosphers such as Parfit/Williams etc to discuss personal identity forced us logically to accept that in fact there is necessarily only one self (qua subject of experience).
ribbleton 16-Nov-07, 05:38	Deleted by ribbleton on 19-Nov-07, 13:04.
ribbleton 16-Nov-07, 11:06	Deleted by ribbleton on 19-Nov-07, 13:03.
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