A. Wolf wrote:
>> "..*some subjective experience of personhood or* "being" *that we all
>> share*,
>> and each of us presumably experiences *something* like that."
>>
>> I emphasize the 'something': who knows if we experience (share?) the same
>> feeling? The words we use to describe it are not more relevant than
>> describing 'red'.
>>
>
> Yes, absolutely. Hence the use of the word "presumably". The fact that
> people seem to share an experience we can't directly measure is interesting.
> The evidence of mankind's obsession with the experience of consciousness
> comes from the amount of philosophical discussion (like this) that exists in
> literature, both scientific and recreational.
>
>
>> Experience is an undefined mental marvel and conscious?
>>
>
> What I'm referring to is the fact that so many people believe in a "soul",
> that we experience consciousness in a way where we feel like we are the
> author of our own destiny, that we experience life as though we are
> travelling through time and making decisions. The idea of "me" has a static
> implication that persists throughout our lives even as we grow and evolve.
> It serves both social and self-preservationist functions, certainly, but the
> phenomenon also causes a lot of discussion. Something about these
> experiences is remarkable enough that mankind has authored a great deal of
> text on it, and it forms the foundation of much of our mythology and
> understanding of self.
>
> So the conscious experience I'm referring to is the commonality of the
> experience of self-awareness as reported (orally and in writing) by human
> beings...in particular the fact that most people are fully convinced that
> their experiences are unique and an accurate reflection of the nature of
> time, that they must either persist forever in some ephemeral form or else
> the Universe ceases to be from their point of view when they die, those
> sorts of things.
>
>
>> A 'computer' (what kind of? the embryonic simpleton of a pre-programed
>> digital machine
>> as we know it?) to "...spit out a bunch of
>> symbols related to the experience" of self- awareness itself." - ???
>>
>
> What I meant here is this:
>
> It's not necessarily surprising that people would write a lot of things
> about the soul, even if the soul does not exist in the same sense we
> experience it. It's quite possible, scientifically speaking, that the
> behavior of "write and talk a great deal about the experience of 'being' and
> how magical it is" is a natural consequence of any self-aware system. A
> common marker of self-awareness might be illogically rejecting the truth of
> one's own automation.
>
> Anna
>
Interesting point.
Consider a state of science (scientist behaviour) where
a) consciousness = the ultimate source of final clinching scientific
evidence = measurement
and
b) science tries to use (a) to explain consciousness and fails
constantly (2000+ years)
then
c) still fails to let consciousness be evidence of whatever it is that
actually generates it
(c) is a kind of denial of the form you identify.
Therefore you have proved that scientists are self-aware (= conscious)
i.e. only people able to make this kind of self-referential mistake
(demonstrating this kind of illogical rejection of a self-referential
claim) can be conscious.
An ability to deny self-awareness as a marker of self awareness. You can
use this as a logical bootstrap to sort things out.
I like it!
cheers
colin hales
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Received on Sun Dec 14 2008 - 22:15:18 PST