Atla wrote: ↑Sat Dec 23, 2017 3:58 pm
I think you missed the point, they are different because different parts of your brain/mind look different on the inside. Or do you not know that when you think about the physical, experience the physical, you still see a part of your head on the inside?
I'm afraid I do not understand what you are saying here.
Me: But the flash of green and the molecules are not the same thing; one sort of description excludes the other.
They are referring to the same thing. Why couldn't something have two kinds of descriptions?
It can. That is the problem of consciousness; we can describe consciousness in two ways, around physical objects like brains, or around subjective experiences. But the problem is that (a) neither description is complete and (b) neither is compatible with the other.
Me: If we describe things in terms as molecules, then experiences like colour have no place in that system.
That's again dualistic circular reasoning. You may have two ways of thinking but it is also possible to only have one. It takes a few years though.
I would disagree. The point about scientific descriptions is that they are purely objective. They do not deny the subjective but they do not describe it. If you believe you can combine the two you are doing bad science.
Of course there is a sharp difference, but the whole topic isn't about human consciousness, it's about consciousness in general. You are in a topic about the hard problem of consciousness.
What leads you to believe that an object like a rock is conscious? How would we tell if it was conscious or not? Unless we can know what that claim of 'consciousness' means, then the claim is meaningless.
Imo there is no point in even going into that debate, one can arrive at the realization that there are no separate things directly or scientifically or psychologically etc. How could you even experience anything more than one particle at a time if things were seperate.
I am not sure what you are getting at here.
Me: In that case you cannot make claims about the nature of 'reality'. If you describe something then you must necessarily be outside it, such that you can say 'this is a true description' or 'that is a false description'.
That's again dualistic circular reasoning, reality has no outside. You make false assumptions and then from there you expect the impossible from me.
Well, you are claiming to know something of the nature of 'reality'. I am asking how you know. You say '
one can arrive at the realization', but that sounds like some sort of religious or spiritual revelation. If that is the case, fine. But then it isn't the result of 'logical' reasoning.
I don't understand the question. Of course all concepts are made up, all dualities are made up. But we have to communicate somehow. So everything is "real".
If '
everything is "real" then the description 'real' is meaningless. The word 'real' can only have a meaning if some things are not-real.
Me: Some aspects of my consciousness are forced upon me. Also, there is certainly the appearance that consciousness ceases with death, which suggests that it can be destroyed irrespective of the wishes of the person who has that consciousness.
Nothing is "destroyed". And consciousness itself is not yours. You are just another experience. Of course the individual experience falls apart thogh. From the outside you can see that after death, a human head stop working in the biological sense and falls apart.
So, do I gather your understanding of 'consciousness' is of something that exists in its own right, separately from 'individual consciousnesses'? One type of consciousness is the property of individuals but not the other.
Again, I would like to know how you know this, but leaving that aside I note that we have yet another dualism; the '
consciousness of the individual' and '
consciousness itself'.
In this dualism 'consciousness itself' appears to be a metaphysical construct, indeed the language is somewhat mystical.
Again I can't make sense of this. Why SHOULD there be one thing that's homogeneous and one that's not? Homogeneous - not homogeneous is another human-made duality.
You have confused what I am saying. I am pointing out that even if we say there is only one thing; 'consciousness', that would not solve the problem. It would not solve the problem because then we would have to explain why consciousness was not all alike; why some experiences are forced upon me.
That is the duality that needs explaining. One explanation why this might be the case is that I am sometimes interacting with a material world, outside of my consciousness. OK. We don't have to accept that explanation, but we will need
some explanation. It is no good just saying the duality isn't there. If you compare the experiences of
imagining you are jumping out of a high window and
actually jumping out of one, you will find that, whether you want it or not, the second will be accompanied by some quite different sensations to the first.
You assume two things and then discard things that don't take into account two things, that's the dualistic circular reasoning.
I am not assuming anything; I'm simply pointing out what the problem is. I understand you believe you have an answer, but I honestly do not understand what it is. I am not sure whether it is some metaphysical construct, that needs to be grasped through a form of vision, or whether it is philosophic in the sense usually understood in the west.