Re: Is consciousness real?

From: Marchal <marchal.domain.name.hidden>
Date: Sun Jan 21 07:51:34 2001

Jamikes wrote:
> ...
>They all make a living on ["consciousness"]. And:
>Poor old Descartes (I esteem his genius to
>the highest level) would have
>made quite different conclusions had he had a
>freshman's cours of the
>2000/2001 schoolyear in physiology and
>biology. (Pineal gland?)

Either he would have remain sort of idol-deistic and then
he would have substitute pineal gland by microtubul ...
Or he would have follow its mechanist path, and ...
... would be sort of many-worlder :-)

Now that I know that you belief in experiences
like suffering, I know you belief in consciousness
which I take minimaly as what is common in all
experiences like suffering, enjoying, fearing,
flying, ...

What is called today "the problem of consciousness" is
just a renaming of Descartes' "mind-body problem".
I am not sanguin about the word "consciousness", nor
on any words ...

The mind-body problem is a very concrete one. I mean,
with the developpement of technology, you can
imagine some doctor proposing you an artificial digital brain.
You can forget the word "consciousness" or even "mind".
But your life, in the most intime way you can apprehend it,
could depend on answering OK, or NOT OK, to the doctor.

We cannot know the answer but we can reason from
hypothesis and world conceptions.

Bruno
Received on Sun Jan 21 2001 - 07:51:34 PST