When you knock a dominoe over, it has no-way of perceiving that it is being pushed. The gravity which effects it, is never self-represented abstractly. In this case, the end-product is a simple ramification of the physical world, akin to how binary machines represent and manipulate information at the hardware level. Neither process is aware of the 'illusions', which manifest as a result of the physical events which surround them.
@metaphysicsaddict a if one knows color is an" illusion" that does not exist outside of our mind,then you would have to have existed outside if your five senses, at some point,to attain that knowledge. So my question to you is have you existed in such a state(be careful how you answer).
Saying "scientists looking at consciousness should admit what they don't know" is the same fundamental problem as religion. I'm sorry, but science has facts that refute your theory. This is similar to pointing out contradictions and historical inaccuracies in the Bible- it is a fact that the Bible is wrong multiple times. There might be something there, but there might also be a magic teapot orbiting the sun. Or unicorns. Or bigfoot. Or wireless wire.
@7j8i9m To what facts do you refer? I can't help but think that one of the reasons the problem of consciousness is so stalemated is that so many people insist on dismissing it as just some artifact of pre-scientific thought rather than actually engaging with it.
"Consciousness is an illusion" is NOT self-refuting. When you say "I think therefore I am" you think you've discovered some cool conscious fact. It's more like, if Commander Data on Star Trek says "I think therefore I am" we laugh and say he's a computer. When a human does it, scientists can point to a brain scan showing all the systems that led to that thought well before it happened, and people say "oh well that's different he's not a computer". Wanting is not truth. People are computers.
I work on AI research, and to me the whole debate is nonsense. And i think the last question pointed that out, the "hard" alternative actually doesnt yield any pragmatical fruits.
For me the consciousness problem is just getting out of the equivalent "the world is formed of air, water, fire",i.e. the problem is overanalysed and overcharged with buzzwords that we dont even know if they have any relation with the problem.
Hell yeah Ned, fuck Dennett. I'm sure theres gonna be some materialist, whos been sucking off that Santa Claus lookin motherfucka, who will reply to this
Yes, as consciousness shuts down part of the brain follows.
"Objectively its atoms, energy or as Schopenhauer liked to say will."
How do you get from atoms and energy to will?
Because Dennet cannot find a way to explain how a bunch of neurons firing could be red (not represent red, but be red), he simply claims that "consciousness is an illusion". It's a cowardly way to avoid a problem that he has no idea how to deal with.
The statement "consciousness is an illusion" is a nonsense statement. It is using words that we understand in a legal syntax, but beyond that the whole is meaningless. You can say the the experience of red is an illusion in the same way and it will be a nonsense statement in the same way.
It really doesn't matter.Sleep consciousness shuts down,when death comes why should that be any different? It is another ceasing of brain activity just as sleep is.A person cannot exactly experience unconsciousness only deduce they have been after sleep once that person awakes. I don't quite buy what he is saying,Yes "people" are "conscious" but its far from being anything like a soul.If its not an illusion then what is it?Objectively its atoms, energy or as Schopenhauer liked to say will.
thats good video, this guy is wiser than those people who bluntly say "consciousness is an illusion" u gotto be an idiot to not see the problem of 'why and how do we get to experience, what is an experience, etc' it is even difficult to articulate the question
I cannot believe how such an intelligent guy does not see how he is fooling himself. He strawman's the position of "consciousness is an illusion", instead of correctly stating that the position is that there is no mystical or meta-physical force behind consicousness, it's just another function of the brain itself. He then cites experiments which completely refute his position. What does he want to say, that some parts of our brains have a mystical property called consciousness and others not?
Taken literally, "consciousness is an illusion" is self-refuting. To say that consciousness is an illusion is to say that people are deluded when they think they're conscious. But delusions pre-suppose consciousness. You can't delude a rock (unless the rock is conscious). Of course, what people often (though not always) mean by "consciousness is an illusion" is that consciousness is completely reducible to (and dependent upon) the brain. If that's the idea, then people should just be explicit.
@MetaphysicsAddict To me, the problem seems to be that people are confusing "illusion" with "delusion". They aren't the same thing. A delusion is a belief without a basis in reality. An illusion is a distorted perception of a real thing. I fully believe that consciousness is an illusion in the second sense.
@zhimbo Thanks for making that distinction. I'm still perplexed though, and I hope you can add further clarity. If consciousness is a "distorted perception", then *whose* perception is being distorted? Perceptions, like beliefs, presuppose consciousness, so my initial point is the same. E.g. a rock doesn't experience distorted perceptions about anything because rocks don't have perceptions. They don't have perceptions because they're not conscious. So will you please add a bit more? Peace
@MetaphysicsAddict Very well put. I would add that one may hold the position - like me - that consciousness while is completely dependent on the brain, it is not completely reducible to its functions. Just as a a software application relates to the hardware in a PC, the software needs all the hardware stuff as a substrate, an enabling mechanism, but what happens inside the software is determined by the programming language which categorically belongs into an entirely different system.
@eydos I'm not sure there is a difference between software and hardware. You will need to explain what the difference is otherwise the analogy doesn't work.
@scribb7 The difference is manifold. Their intrinsic, specific mechanisms differ: one is essentially a physical construct utilizing the language of physics, the other is a logical construct, mobilized by its own systemic set of rules. The hardware (brain) is raw "muscle" while the software (thoughts, consciousness) in this analogy could be the "will". The main difference is that their operating languages in their category are not interchangeable.
@eydos An electric signal in the hardware is a potentiality, it does not determine the specific content of a software. The actual software uses a set of rules and signs that are outside its physical correlate (C++, etc) To actualize itself, the software needs the physical platform, but its bona fide operations are determined within its own inner language and set of rules. Consciousness is alike, it develops within the rules of a language different than that of the neurons.
@scribb7 Representation implies that there is an interpretor for whom the representation can represent what is presented. It already includes a distance from that which is represented, it implies the perspective of the onlooker.
I argue that what actually emerges from the brain as thought or conscious experience are NEW and quasi independent properties of that physical construct as a whole, irreducible to its parts, taking on a life of their own, creating a system on yet a higher level.
@eydos I guess I would say that a computer is a logical construct created out of transistors(electronic switches/amplifiers) and electrical signals. I think this eliminates the idea that the logical construct of a computer supervenes the physical components. If you create logical pathways using transistors than the electrical signal is controlled by those pathways and not by logical rules that supervene them. If that makes sense.
@scribb7 Many instructions within the running software comes not from the construct of transistors/switches/amplifiers, but from the programming language itself in the case of computer softwares. The analogy is not congruent however with the brain/consciousness relationship though.
The basic idea that seems to elude your attention is that when many parts unite into a system, the system itself will have properties that supervenes all the properties of the parts.
@eydos The laws of chemistry builds onto the laws of physics, the laws of biology builds onto the laws of chemistry and physics. In reductionist terms biology can be explained by knowing the chemistry and the physics behind it, yet when the basic laws of chemistry unite into the complex system of the biological, a new ontological level occurs which establishes new laws, the specific functions of living organisms, which are fully in the realm of chemistry, yet as a system more than that.
@MetaphysicsAddict Block, if I remember correctly, is an epiphenomenalist, rather than a churchland level eliminativist. I'd love to see their response to that objection.
@MetaphysicsAddict Exactly what I was about to post. Well, almost. If "self" is an "illusion" as he claims, how is there even a one that experiences the "illusion"? If there was no "self," no "illusion."
@MetaphysicsAddict Honestly, "consciousness is an illusion" should be wiped philosophy and everything thing else. Instead, they should stick to teaching about how there is a brain state in regards to consciousness. Basically, eliminative materialism itself should not be preached because while dreams, thoughts and such may have specific brain states, they are NOT the same as the brain states.
@MetaphysicsAddict I think you're equivocating by using a different sense of consciousness. Block is concerned with phenomenal consciousness—the "what it's like" of seeing red or feeling hungry, ie. qualia. The reason you can't delude a rock is because it can't hold false beliefs, because it doesn't posses intelligence—not because it doesn't experience consciousness. We can conceive of a philosophical zombie which believes things (false or not) without experiencing qualia of that sort.
@MetaphysicsAddict I'm not an expert on philosophy. However, let me try this argument. Saying that "delusions pre-suppose consciousness" pre-supposes that you already know what consciousness is. But since nobody knows what consciousness is (because that's what this discussion is about), you really don't know that delusions involve consciousness.
@MetaphysicsAddict No, you're misunderstanding this in a very big way. Saying "conciousness is an illusion" isn't to say it doesn't exist, but merely that it's not what it seems to be - somewhat like a visual illusion, or a mirage.
@MetaphysicsAddict I don't think that's true. If people meant it in the first sense it would amount to holding the opinion that they don't exist (in the sense that consiousness doesn't exist). What anybody can mean is that the 'I' is an illusion, that their consciousness has no control over their thought process. That is the only defensible point of view. Btw, why be explicit if the alternative is self-refuting?
@MetaphysicsAddict I think what he is getting at is eliminative materialism, and the fact that consciousness is the result of the physical structure of the brain, and the interconnections between the neurons. This theory essentially dispels the notion that consciousness results from having a soul or a seperate non physical mind.
@MetaphysicsAddict No, illusion is NOT the same as delusion. The color pink is an illusion, it doesn't exist in reality, only in human minds (and maybe some animals, but NOT all). The appears of an optical ILLUSION (fixed lines appearing to move) is not a delusion - it is a sensory experience but not founded IN reality.
Consciousness exists in the mind, but it doesn't work how it APPEARS to - thus an illusion.
@SirDarkStar But how do we percieve these illusions of love, hate, jealousy, heat, cold. Just because it's an illusion, doesn't mean that we are at a loss to explain it.
@zadeh79 illusion here means 'not what it appears to be' (I see others have pointed this out as well). I really cannot explain fully in a youtube comment. But I'll give you some ideas to research.
One thing brains do is perform bayesian inference functions, it also learns, and calculates predictions based on those inferences.
Do you understand how fairly simply chemistry can function as a sensor - or perform calculations?
@SirDarkStar I have a basic understanding of how nerve cells can respond to changes in heat, and how 'cones and rods' in the eye can respond differently to the various wavelengths and intensities of light. I also have a basic overview of information processing (Short term-Working Memory, long term potentiation). Yet none of these understandings can explain perception.
If you want to know Consciousness is a illusion or not, then ask Eastern Philosophers. Western notion is treating Consciousness like a turing machine and calling it as illusion(calling it internal to brain). Consciousness is far beyond science, it is unsolvable problem in science. I bet 100 years from Now , we will not know how to describe consciouness of an ant.
@pingala10 I agree with you. The problem is that the universe is multifaceted. Western philosophers get confused bc/ they are always trying to collapse everything into one facet. Although the experience of RED is causally linked to the objective, any attempt to explain RED or any other subjective experience in purely objective terms is ultimately futile. We can agree on symbols for RED that have infused meaning but this is the limit and the symbol is never the thing it describes.
@madscirat you are right regarding language being not the real description of objects, Thought perception uses inference to link words and objects.The word RED is understood by negating green,purple etc. In Case of Consciousness it is beyond Perception. Dennett wrongly attributes perception of senses and thoughts somehow(he don't know how) simulates Consciousness .
@CathySander Assume a thought experiment where Tushita is a Neurologist with no sense of sweetness , she asks me to taste sugar and starts making my neuron observations and says Neuron X1,X2 has a voltage of 2mv and Y1 has 3mv and concludes this means iam experiencing sweetness and asks me how it tastes , i say it feels like Happy. She imagines this in her thoughts but nothing will come close to experience i had of sweetness. It means any abstraction of experience is incomplete.
@pingala10: To be honest, you're just repeating the Mary argument, in a different way. I think the 'problem' is more to do with our expectations of how mysterious consciousness is. People love mysteries, and the last thing they want is someone busting the mystery.
@CathySander The problem here is people think experience and abstractions are part of the same puzzle. Experience is manifestation of universe itself, abstractions add meaning to experience logically. Experience is not a illusion but abstrations are because they themselves have not substance. It is mystical as universe itself is, All our science did is it made universe more mystical with all probabilistic and n dimentional models of universe.
@pingala10: Science exists, precisely because of our limitations. I grant that experiences are real, in a way like tables and chairs. It's that we sometimes mistake the map [the abstraction] from the territory [the world which we actually live in]. This is why I am skeptical about philosophy's ability to resolve these problems...as these people commit this mistake. The world is primary to our existence, not symbols.
The last remark of prof Black is a bit disrespectful towards Dennett and the like.
To say that it is lack of understanding that make these sientists state that consiousnes is an illusion; it might even be a projection of prof Black´s own lack of understanding what it is that Dennett means wtih his statement that consiousnes is an illusion, haha!
@ihatekhomeini To me personally, Dan Dennett makes the most sense about this subject. And I don't care too much that he's not an expert in neuroscience, but "merely" in philosophy. After all, I wouldn't trust anyone who claimed, for example, that only a professional politician was to be trusted on politics, as those I would trust rather the least. That's a bad example, I know, but I'm sure science has been politicized to some extent at least, and the last arbiter to forming my own opinion...
@tpsisokayiguess ...should IMO be my own reasoning and perhaps even intuition... maybe partly the sub-conscious? Ofcourse I don't know too much about the subject and I'm ignorant about it, perhaps, whatever. In any case...
As repeated in this vid, D.D., I guess, would say that the subconscious is merely the part of our brain activity that we don't particularily experience in any given moment. And that consciousness, to say it bluntly, I think, is just the most dominant current brain function...
@tpsisokayiguess I think many sociologists proved how science also is politisized, or at least a product of our current culture. But I don't think anything can replace it, because everything else is also politisized and a part of our culture. Science to me seems to be the least affected.
for mental states, i don't think it's plausible to repudiate them or make an ontological reduction. but to avoid casual overdetermination as such, it may be acceptible to make a casual reduction nonetheless...
We don't even know which problems are 'easy' and 'hard' concerning consciousness, so how can Chalmers say in advance what are so, anyway? That's jumping to conclusions before we do any research.
Is consciousness an illusion? I find this to be a non-issue. We just have to be less ambitious in understanding it. Start from the bottom-up [like perception, embodiment of action and evolutionary biology], not from the top-down [speculating on things like qualia].
I think the question of how to tell if someone else is conscious is a very interesting question. If we want to talk about what it is, we should be able to identify it.
Neurology is nothing more than behaviorism. It basically claims that there's nothing going on in the human brain except what is scientifically observable. This is a philosophy for robots, not people.
@renumeratedfrog : You are right. We are "conscious" robots... to me, if it happens in the brain, it's ultimately physical, observable, no matter how inscrutable at the moment. I don't have an answer - not by a long shot - and I may be wrong, but I don't expect philosophy to truly and satisfactorily answer our questions about the subject. Would you, by any chance, have any readings you'd recommend?
@bersa888 I also agree with you. If philosophy would have found the answers it should have by know made some claims that would be satisfactory in light of its history. The most interesting discoveries about the mind have happened in observing the brain, but it isn't just neurobiologists and psychologists who do those kind of observations. There are many philosophers of the mind who do observations on the brain, and do what is called experimental philosophy, and also linguists.
@renumeratedfrog Well, it might be true though. What more can there be than what happens inside the human brain? I think that we have to accept things for what they are, and in some years when we have a clearer perspective on the brain we might figure out why things are the way they are.
@bersa888 wow thats not true- plato and aristotle thought our brains were just blobs of goo. . . truly trained? I would say that neurologists, unless 'truly' trained in philosophy, are of no help either.
@TheBigThoughful : I had forgotten about this video and my comment(s)... anyhow, I still remain convinced that the truly satisfying answer(s) will come from true investigative science, not philosophy. At least, that's what's happened so far with science and progress
@bersa888 Science, whilst massively important, relies too much on common sense, the obvious. Common sense dissolves the deeper you go, the more theoretical, the more counterintuitive, the more philosophical. Consciousness or rather the perceiver-perceived relation isn't essential, yet is invested in for social/evolutionary reasons
Mr. Block was quite lucky to have learned under Hilary Putnam.
SubstancePrime 1 month ago
When you knock a dominoe over, it has no-way of perceiving that it is being pushed. The gravity which effects it, is never self-represented abstractly. In this case, the end-product is a simple ramification of the physical world, akin to how binary machines represent and manipulate information at the hardware level. Neither process is aware of the 'illusions', which manifest as a result of the physical events which surround them.
zadeh79 2 months ago
@metaphysicsaddict a if one knows color is an" illusion" that does not exist outside of our mind,then you would have to have existed outside if your five senses, at some point,to attain that knowledge. So my question to you is have you existed in such a state(be careful how you answer).
DeandresPerez1991 3 months ago
Saying "scientists looking at consciousness should admit what they don't know" is the same fundamental problem as religion. I'm sorry, but science has facts that refute your theory. This is similar to pointing out contradictions and historical inaccuracies in the Bible- it is a fact that the Bible is wrong multiple times. There might be something there, but there might also be a magic teapot orbiting the sun. Or unicorns. Or bigfoot. Or wireless wire.
7j8i9m 4 months ago
@7j8i9m To what facts do you refer? I can't help but think that one of the reasons the problem of consciousness is so stalemated is that so many people insist on dismissing it as just some artifact of pre-scientific thought rather than actually engaging with it.
jlke45 4 months ago
@7j8i9m: If you believe you have facts that prove your case then bring on the facts, otherwise, you're not changing any minds.
AnduinX 4 months ago
"Consciousness is an illusion" is NOT self-refuting. When you say "I think therefore I am" you think you've discovered some cool conscious fact. It's more like, if Commander Data on Star Trek says "I think therefore I am" we laugh and say he's a computer. When a human does it, scientists can point to a brain scan showing all the systems that led to that thought well before it happened, and people say "oh well that's different he's not a computer". Wanting is not truth. People are computers.
7j8i9m 4 months ago
i think therefor i am.
MrDubfiendHD 6 months ago
I work on AI research, and to me the whole debate is nonsense. And i think the last question pointed that out, the "hard" alternative actually doesnt yield any pragmatical fruits.
For me the consciousness problem is just getting out of the equivalent "the world is formed of air, water, fire",i.e. the problem is overanalysed and overcharged with buzzwords that we dont even know if they have any relation with the problem.
DemokritosAbdera 8 months ago
The point being that people are deluded when they think the subject/object division is pre-given.
blastpeed 9 months ago
Hell yeah Ned, fuck Dennett. I'm sure theres gonna be some materialist, whos been sucking off that Santa Claus lookin motherfucka, who will reply to this
mach1man22 9 months ago
Hell yeah Ned, fuck Dennett. I'm sure theres gonna be some materialist whos been sucking his cock that will reply to this..
mach1man22 9 months ago
"Sleep consciousness shuts down"
Yes, as consciousness shuts down part of the brain follows.
"Objectively its atoms, energy or as Schopenhauer liked to say will."
How do you get from atoms and energy to will?
Because Dennet cannot find a way to explain how a bunch of neurons firing could be red (not represent red, but be red), he simply claims that "consciousness is an illusion". It's a cowardly way to avoid a problem that he has no idea how to deal with.
vsaluki 9 months ago 3
The statement "consciousness is an illusion" is a nonsense statement. It is using words that we understand in a legal syntax, but beyond that the whole is meaningless. You can say the the experience of red is an illusion in the same way and it will be a nonsense statement in the same way.
vsaluki 9 months ago
It really doesn't matter.Sleep consciousness shuts down,when death comes why should that be any different? It is another ceasing of brain activity just as sleep is.A person cannot exactly experience unconsciousness only deduce they have been after sleep once that person awakes. I don't quite buy what he is saying,Yes "people" are "conscious" but its far from being anything like a soul.If its not an illusion then what is it?Objectively its atoms, energy or as Schopenhauer liked to say will.
codester1111 9 months ago
lol how can I have the illusion of counsciousness without consciousness ?.... LOL
mindtoonz262 10 months ago
This guy's a bozo full of pseudo-knowledge. There is no diferentiation between "types" of consciousness.
amazinero 11 months ago
thats good video, this guy is wiser than those people who bluntly say "consciousness is an illusion" u gotto be an idiot to not see the problem of 'why and how do we get to experience, what is an experience, etc' it is even difficult to articulate the question
Zee96969696 11 months ago
I know, this whole debate seems stupid, lets all get back to lab and talk about cells and systems.
WHOPULLEDMYFINGER 1 year ago
I don't know why he didn't just say that the idea of illusion presupposes a conscious observer, and be done with it...
eulercircles 1 year ago
Why doesn't he interview Jerry Fodor on this topic? Fodor is more articulate and clear on these issues.
xpressivist 1 year ago
I cannot believe how such an intelligent guy does not see how he is fooling himself. He strawman's the position of "consciousness is an illusion", instead of correctly stating that the position is that there is no mystical or meta-physical force behind consicousness, it's just another function of the brain itself. He then cites experiments which completely refute his position. What does he want to say, that some parts of our brains have a mystical property called consciousness and others not?
TheNameIsUnimportant 1 year ago
Once a system gains a conditioned sense of self it becomes conscious...think about it.
I am conscious of the rain...
I am conscious of my body...
There has to be a subject for consciousness to take place, otherwise these statements would be declarations.
there is rain...
there is body...
It is only when logical mechanics gets trapped around the concept of self that the infinite confusion loop is created, otherwise known as life.
dcraven016465 1 year ago
In the words of Jaron Lanier - you can't wake up someone who is pretending to be asleep.
ScaleBerb 1 year ago
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scribb7 1 year ago
Wow! Block looks like Hans Eysenck!
TripleEvent 1 year ago
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scribb7 1 year ago
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scribb7 1 year ago
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scribb7 1 year ago
perhaps those people who say that consciousness is an illusion are philosophical zombies. hehe
RickGrear 1 year ago 16
Taken literally, "consciousness is an illusion" is self-refuting. To say that consciousness is an illusion is to say that people are deluded when they think they're conscious. But delusions pre-suppose consciousness. You can't delude a rock (unless the rock is conscious). Of course, what people often (though not always) mean by "consciousness is an illusion" is that consciousness is completely reducible to (and dependent upon) the brain. If that's the idea, then people should just be explicit.
MetaphysicsAddict 1 year ago 34
@MetaphysicsAddict To me, the problem seems to be that people are confusing "illusion" with "delusion". They aren't the same thing. A delusion is a belief without a basis in reality. An illusion is a distorted perception of a real thing. I fully believe that consciousness is an illusion in the second sense.
zhimbo 1 year ago
@zhimbo Thanks for making that distinction. I'm still perplexed though, and I hope you can add further clarity. If consciousness is a "distorted perception", then *whose* perception is being distorted? Perceptions, like beliefs, presuppose consciousness, so my initial point is the same. E.g. a rock doesn't experience distorted perceptions about anything because rocks don't have perceptions. They don't have perceptions because they're not conscious. So will you please add a bit more? Peace
MetaphysicsAddict 1 year ago
@MetaphysicsAddict Very well put. I would add that one may hold the position - like me - that consciousness while is completely dependent on the brain, it is not completely reducible to its functions. Just as a a software application relates to the hardware in a PC, the software needs all the hardware stuff as a substrate, an enabling mechanism, but what happens inside the software is determined by the programming language which categorically belongs into an entirely different system.
eydos 1 year ago
@eydos I'm not sure there is a difference between software and hardware. You will need to explain what the difference is otherwise the analogy doesn't work.
scribb7 1 year ago
@scribb7 The difference is manifold. Their intrinsic, specific mechanisms differ: one is essentially a physical construct utilizing the language of physics, the other is a logical construct, mobilized by its own systemic set of rules. The hardware (brain) is raw "muscle" while the software (thoughts, consciousness) in this analogy could be the "will". The main difference is that their operating languages in their category are not interchangeable.
eydos 1 year ago
@eydos An electric signal in the hardware is a potentiality, it does not determine the specific content of a software. The actual software uses a set of rules and signs that are outside its physical correlate (C++, etc) To actualize itself, the software needs the physical platform, but its bona fide operations are determined within its own inner language and set of rules. Consciousness is alike, it develops within the rules of a language different than that of the neurons.
eydos 1 year ago
@eydos Can't rules and signs as you put it, be represented by physical constructs?.
scribb7 1 year ago
@scribb7 Representation implies that there is an interpretor for whom the representation can represent what is presented. It already includes a distance from that which is represented, it implies the perspective of the onlooker.
I argue that what actually emerges from the brain as thought or conscious experience are NEW and quasi independent properties of that physical construct as a whole, irreducible to its parts, taking on a life of their own, creating a system on yet a higher level.
eydos 1 year ago
@eydos I guess I would say that a computer is a logical construct created out of transistors(electronic switches/amplifiers) and electrical signals. I think this eliminates the idea that the logical construct of a computer supervenes the physical components. If you create logical pathways using transistors than the electrical signal is controlled by those pathways and not by logical rules that supervene them. If that makes sense.
scribb7 1 year ago
@scribb7 Many instructions within the running software comes not from the construct of transistors/switches/amplifiers, but from the programming language itself in the case of computer softwares. The analogy is not congruent however with the brain/consciousness relationship though.
The basic idea that seems to elude your attention is that when many parts unite into a system, the system itself will have properties that supervenes all the properties of the parts.
eydos 1 year ago
@eydos The laws of chemistry builds onto the laws of physics, the laws of biology builds onto the laws of chemistry and physics. In reductionist terms biology can be explained by knowing the chemistry and the physics behind it, yet when the basic laws of chemistry unite into the complex system of the biological, a new ontological level occurs which establishes new laws, the specific functions of living organisms, which are fully in the realm of chemistry, yet as a system more than that.
eydos 1 year ago
@eydos So some logical constructs or computer instructions are in the form of transistor circuits and some are not, is that what you're saying?
scribb7 1 year ago
@scribb7 Yes in case of computers that applies.
eydos 1 year ago
@MetaphysicsAddict Block, if I remember correctly, is an epiphenomenalist, rather than a churchland level eliminativist. I'd love to see their response to that objection.
GammelAske 1 year ago
@MetaphysicsAddict Exactly what I was about to post. Well, almost. If "self" is an "illusion" as he claims, how is there even a one that experiences the "illusion"? If there was no "self," no "illusion."
metaldude82 9 months ago
@MetaphysicsAddict Honestly, "consciousness is an illusion" should be wiped philosophy and everything thing else. Instead, they should stick to teaching about how there is a brain state in regards to consciousness. Basically, eliminative materialism itself should not be preached because while dreams, thoughts and such may have specific brain states, they are NOT the same as the brain states.
metaldude82 9 months ago
@MetaphysicsAddict I think you're equivocating by using a different sense of consciousness. Block is concerned with phenomenal consciousness—the "what it's like" of seeing red or feeling hungry, ie. qualia. The reason you can't delude a rock is because it can't hold false beliefs, because it doesn't posses intelligence—not because it doesn't experience consciousness. We can conceive of a philosophical zombie which believes things (false or not) without experiencing qualia of that sort.
gyd67ckn 8 months ago
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ivandgonzalez 7 months ago
@MetaphysicsAddict I'm not an expert on philosophy. However, let me try this argument. Saying that "delusions pre-suppose consciousness" pre-supposes that you already know what consciousness is. But since nobody knows what consciousness is (because that's what this discussion is about), you really don't know that delusions involve consciousness.
ivandgonzalez 7 months ago
@MetaphysicsAddict No, you're misunderstanding this in a very big way. Saying "conciousness is an illusion" isn't to say it doesn't exist, but merely that it's not what it seems to be - somewhat like a visual illusion, or a mirage.
Task5003 6 months ago
@MetaphysicsAddict I don't think that's true. If people meant it in the first sense it would amount to holding the opinion that they don't exist (in the sense that consiousness doesn't exist). What anybody can mean is that the 'I' is an illusion, that their consciousness has no control over their thought process. That is the only defensible point of view. Btw, why be explicit if the alternative is self-refuting?
thafrenchman 6 months ago
@MetaphysicsAddict You're good..
OMGITSDRJESUS 4 months ago
@MetaphysicsAddict I think what he is getting at is eliminative materialism, and the fact that consciousness is the result of the physical structure of the brain, and the interconnections between the neurons. This theory essentially dispels the notion that consciousness results from having a soul or a seperate non physical mind.
CronosXIIII 3 months ago
@MetaphysicsAddict No, illusion is NOT the same as delusion. The color pink is an illusion, it doesn't exist in reality, only in human minds (and maybe some animals, but NOT all). The appears of an optical ILLUSION (fixed lines appearing to move) is not a delusion - it is a sensory experience but not founded IN reality.
Consciousness exists in the mind, but it doesn't work how it APPEARS to - thus an illusion.
SirDarkStar 3 months ago
@SirDarkStar But how do we percieve these illusions of love, hate, jealousy, heat, cold. Just because it's an illusion, doesn't mean that we are at a loss to explain it.
zadeh79 3 months ago
@zadeh79 illusion here means 'not what it appears to be' (I see others have pointed this out as well). I really cannot explain fully in a youtube comment. But I'll give you some ideas to research.
One thing brains do is perform bayesian inference functions, it also learns, and calculates predictions based on those inferences.
Do you understand how fairly simply chemistry can function as a sensor - or perform calculations?
SirDarkStar 3 months ago
@SirDarkStar I have a basic understanding of how nerve cells can respond to changes in heat, and how 'cones and rods' in the eye can respond differently to the various wavelengths and intensities of light. I also have a basic overview of information processing (Short term-Working Memory, long term potentiation). Yet none of these understandings can explain perception.
zadeh79 2 months ago
@MetaphysicsAddict I agree. I don't think anyone would really say that consciousness is a real "illusion" in the usual sense of the word.
with9isavailable 1 month ago
I'd love to hear Dennett's response to the blind sight problem. Anyone know if or how he's addressed this?
lifeofbob 1 year ago
It isn't what you think it is.
bongcouver 1 year ago
LennyBound has there ever been an interview with Thomas metzinger on this show?
Jacko38 1 year ago
@Jacko38 I wish.
If you go to the "Closer to Truth" website there is a section that lists all of the participants and links to their interviews. Hope that helps. :-)
LennyBound 1 year ago
@LennyBound It appears that he has never given an interview with them, thanks anyway
Jacko38 1 year ago
@LennyBound I don't suppose you've ever run across anything on Kripke?
Last I checked there was exactly one video of him on Youtube, it's actually audio only and you can't hear a damn word he says.
polymath7 1 year ago
If you want to know Consciousness is a illusion or not, then ask Eastern Philosophers. Western notion is treating Consciousness like a turing machine and calling it as illusion(calling it internal to brain). Consciousness is far beyond science, it is unsolvable problem in science. I bet 100 years from Now , we will not know how to describe consciouness of an ant.
pingala10 1 year ago
@pingala10 I agree with you. The problem is that the universe is multifaceted. Western philosophers get confused bc/ they are always trying to collapse everything into one facet. Although the experience of RED is causally linked to the objective, any attempt to explain RED or any other subjective experience in purely objective terms is ultimately futile. We can agree on symbols for RED that have infused meaning but this is the limit and the symbol is never the thing it describes.
madscirat 1 year ago
@madscirat you are right regarding language being not the real description of objects, Thought perception uses inference to link words and objects.The word RED is understood by negating green,purple etc. In Case of Consciousness it is beyond Perception. Dennett wrongly attributes perception of senses and thoughts somehow(he don't know how) simulates Consciousness .
pingala10 1 year ago
@pingala10: We don't know yet, so how do you know that we won't be able to understand consciousness in 100 year's time?
CathySander 1 year ago
@CathySander Assume a thought experiment where Tushita is a Neurologist with no sense of sweetness , she asks me to taste sugar and starts making my neuron observations and says Neuron X1,X2 has a voltage of 2mv and Y1 has 3mv and concludes this means iam experiencing sweetness and asks me how it tastes , i say it feels like Happy. She imagines this in her thoughts but nothing will come close to experience i had of sweetness. It means any abstraction of experience is incomplete.
pingala10 1 year ago
@pingala10: To be honest, you're just repeating the Mary argument, in a different way. I think the 'problem' is more to do with our expectations of how mysterious consciousness is. People love mysteries, and the last thing they want is someone busting the mystery.
CathySander 1 year ago
@CathySander The problem here is people think experience and abstractions are part of the same puzzle. Experience is manifestation of universe itself, abstractions add meaning to experience logically. Experience is not a illusion but abstrations are because they themselves have not substance. It is mystical as universe itself is, All our science did is it made universe more mystical with all probabilistic and n dimentional models of universe.
pingala10 1 year ago
@pingala10: Science exists, precisely because of our limitations. I grant that experiences are real, in a way like tables and chairs. It's that we sometimes mistake the map [the abstraction] from the territory [the world which we actually live in]. This is why I am skeptical about philosophy's ability to resolve these problems...as these people commit this mistake. The world is primary to our existence, not symbols.
CathySander 1 year ago
I didnt really understand what he was saying, but I didnt like it.
jamescat1 1 year ago
The last remark of prof Black is a bit disrespectful towards Dennett and the like.
To say that it is lack of understanding that make these sientists state that consiousnes is an illusion; it might even be a projection of prof Black´s own lack of understanding what it is that Dennett means wtih his statement that consiousnes is an illusion, haha!
TossThatCoin 1 year ago
Those guys are obviously subconsciously afraid of their job in light that consciousness is an illusion when defined as some mystical force.
He even basically admitted he only wanted a nobel prize...
tpsisokayiguess 1 year ago
@tpsisokayiguess if consciousnes is an illusion can there be a subcounscious.
ihatekhomeini 1 year ago
@ihatekhomeini To me personally, Dan Dennett makes the most sense about this subject. And I don't care too much that he's not an expert in neuroscience, but "merely" in philosophy. After all, I wouldn't trust anyone who claimed, for example, that only a professional politician was to be trusted on politics, as those I would trust rather the least. That's a bad example, I know, but I'm sure science has been politicized to some extent at least, and the last arbiter to forming my own opinion...
tpsisokayiguess 1 year ago
@tpsisokayiguess ...should IMO be my own reasoning and perhaps even intuition... maybe partly the sub-conscious? Ofcourse I don't know too much about the subject and I'm ignorant about it, perhaps, whatever. In any case...
As repeated in this vid, D.D., I guess, would say that the subconscious is merely the part of our brain activity that we don't particularily experience in any given moment. And that consciousness, to say it bluntly, I think, is just the most dominant current brain function...
tpsisokayiguess 1 year ago
@tpsisokayiguess ...in some sense at least.
The main point is only that we ought not ascribe any mystical, inexplicable, aspect to... well... anything, for that matter. Yea...
tpsisokayiguess 1 year ago
@tpsisokayiguess I think many sociologists proved how science also is politisized, or at least a product of our current culture. But I don't think anything can replace it, because everything else is also politisized and a part of our culture. Science to me seems to be the least affected.
ihatekhomeini 1 year ago
for mental states, i don't think it's plausible to repudiate them or make an ontological reduction. but to avoid casual overdetermination as such, it may be acceptible to make a casual reduction nonetheless...
soultorment27 1 year ago
@soultorment27 cool words- good philosophy is written in the language of a 3 year old.
TheBigThoughful 1 year ago
We don't even know which problems are 'easy' and 'hard' concerning consciousness, so how can Chalmers say in advance what are so, anyway? That's jumping to conclusions before we do any research.
Is consciousness an illusion? I find this to be a non-issue. We just have to be less ambitious in understanding it. Start from the bottom-up [like perception, embodiment of action and evolutionary biology], not from the top-down [speculating on things like qualia].
CathySander 1 year ago
I think the question of how to tell if someone else is conscious is a very interesting question. If we want to talk about what it is, we should be able to identify it.
ManicEightBall 1 year ago
Philosophers, unless truly trained in neurology, are of no help to this...
bersa888 1 year ago
@bersa888
Neurology is nothing more than behaviorism. It basically claims that there's nothing going on in the human brain except what is scientifically observable. This is a philosophy for robots, not people.
renumeratedfrog 1 year ago
@renumeratedfrog
I disagree. People are robots. Tell me, what kind of observation are you looking for that is better than a "scientific" one.
GnomesAmok 1 year ago
@renumeratedfrog
So what exactly does "philosophy for people" look like? Regarding consciousness as an impenetrable mystery?
sammcalpine 1 year ago
@renumeratedfrog : You are right. We are "conscious" robots... to me, if it happens in the brain, it's ultimately physical, observable, no matter how inscrutable at the moment. I don't have an answer - not by a long shot - and I may be wrong, but I don't expect philosophy to truly and satisfactorily answer our questions about the subject. Would you, by any chance, have any readings you'd recommend?
bersa888 1 year ago
@bersa888 I also agree with you. If philosophy would have found the answers it should have by know made some claims that would be satisfactory in light of its history. The most interesting discoveries about the mind have happened in observing the brain, but it isn't just neurobiologists and psychologists who do those kind of observations. There are many philosophers of the mind who do observations on the brain, and do what is called experimental philosophy, and also linguists.
ihatekhomeini 1 year ago
@renumeratedfrog Well, it might be true though. What more can there be than what happens inside the human brain? I think that we have to accept things for what they are, and in some years when we have a clearer perspective on the brain we might figure out why things are the way they are.
ihatekhomeini 1 year ago
@bersa888 wow thats not true- plato and aristotle thought our brains were just blobs of goo. . . truly trained? I would say that neurologists, unless 'truly' trained in philosophy, are of no help either.
TheBigThoughful 1 year ago
@TheBigThoughful : I had forgotten about this video and my comment(s)... anyhow, I still remain convinced that the truly satisfying answer(s) will come from true investigative science, not philosophy. At least, that's what's happened so far with science and progress
bersa888 1 year ago
@bersa888 Science, whilst massively important, relies too much on common sense, the obvious. Common sense dissolves the deeper you go, the more theoretical, the more counterintuitive, the more philosophical. Consciousness or rather the perceiver-perceived relation isn't essential, yet is invested in for social/evolutionary reasons
blastpeed 1 year ago
@blastpeed : Great point :-)
bersa888 1 year ago