RCSaunders wrote: ↑Wed May 13, 2020 2:24 pm
It is not just the field of vision but the whole field of consciousness that is, "one." We are conscious of everything in the visual field as well as everything we are hearing, feeling, smelling, and tasting simultaneously as one continuous field of consciousness. So I would agree that consciousness is one single thing, if that is near your point. [I also think this disproves the physicalist view of consciousness.]
Yes, I agree with what you said (the only prerequisite being that consciousness is not a thing)
RCSaunders wrote: ↑Wed May 13, 2020 2:24 pm
I not only see, but can also simultaneously feel, things and see my fingers feeling them. I do not have to conceptually identify any of those things to have that conscious experience. It is not some, "conceptual overlay," that separates those experiences.
This is a bit more tricky... ok... let me try to explain what I have found:
We have learned to connect sensations (e.g. visual patterns combined with certain sensations of touch) in a way that it seems to be the case that "My fingers feel XYZ" - while in reality, there is only a non-localised sensation that really has nothing to do with the concept "my fingers".
If you close your eyes and focus your attention on your hands, you will - after only a few seconds, maybe half a minute - lose all sense of this sensation coming from a specific location. This happens because the brain/thought normally constructs "locality" by switching between impressions (this happens very fast, but, if you remain highly alert, you can observe it).
Example: You look at your hand and then you feel a sensation - this switch between visual and touch creates relative distance.
Or you feel a sensation in your hand and then you feel a sensation in your head (a common location is exactly between the eyes) and this switch between two physical sensations again creates the impression of relative distance.
The sensation itself cannot, ever, inform about location - it simply doesn't contain the information. It's just like in geometry, it requires a certain "fixed" reference point to tell the distance to something else (and, in our case, in direct experience, this reference point is actually
never directly experienced, it is
always fabricated by a extremely efficient, mental process - e.g. location "between the eyes" as fixed point of reference)
Have you ever heard about the rubber hand illusion? Its quite interesting (and funny) - shows how interconnected our senses are and how easily information is constructed (just like location/distance is constructed):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sxwn1w7MJvk
RCSaunders wrote: ↑Wed May 13, 2020 2:24 pm
What you have said so far raises a question that needs to be answered. If there are different conscious experiences in the field of consciousness, such as different colors, shapes, sounds, feelings, smells, and tastes, what makes them different. Why should there be any differences? Are they causeless phantoms without explanation?
I have no idea...
RCSaunders wrote: ↑Wed May 13, 2020 2:24 pm
The explanation of why there are different perceptual experiences is that consciousness is consciousness of something, and that something is existence, and all our different conscious experiences are our consciousness of the differences in the existents that are that existence.
Yes, that is an explanation - one that most people subscribe to - unfortunately it doesn't match with direct experience... and this is "slightly annoying"
What actually matches is that there is no "consciousness of existence", but only consciousness - or only existence/reality - as much as it sounds logical to the mind, but an honest, proper investigation of direct experience simply doesn't support the idea of a separate, conscious me versus a physically existent universe out there...