Genius Rules

[Dan Rowden]

My every waking moment is a lucid dream.

[clyde]

Dan; Very poetic. But one can differentiate between a lucid dream and waking moments.

[Dan Rowden]

Well, true, people are a whole lot saner in my dreams.

[Jason]

What if you're dyslexic?

Slipslopism. The belief that all life's problems can be solved with a hat and some SPF15+.

[Elizabeth Isabelle]

Kevin; I do understand the feeling. It seems natural for some (myself included) to sometimes feel that the universe is sustained by our awareness alone.

Things can certainly exist beyond my own consciousness, but only if there are other consciousnesses to support their existence. When I die and my own construction vanishes, the observable universe will live on in the minds of others.

???????????????????

These still look the same to me. David, would you please try to explain what the gap is that you perceive between what you are saying and what I am interpreting your understanding to be?

[David Quinn]

A solipsist believes that he is the only one who is conscious, that the whole world exists inside his mind. My view is that it is impossible for me to judge (in an absolute sense) whether or not I am the only one who is conscious, but I am willing to accept the empirical evidence of other people's consciousnesses at face value and assume their existence for practical purposes.

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[clyde]

What empirical evidence? There is, by your argument, no empirical evidence outside your consciousness. Your are trapped within your own mind.

[David Quinn]

David;

I was recently reminded of a period in my life when I practiced some simple techniques that lead to lucid dreaming (being conscious of dreaming). My experience was that 'dream people' give a semblance of being people, but when closely examined do NOT appear/behave as actual people; i.e., you can differentiate 'dream people' from actual people.

True, there are noticeable differences between dream people and actual people, but this doesn't negate the truth that the actual people we meet in our daily lives are constructs of our own consciousness. Even though wakeful life is superior to dreams in many ways, it is still a construct of consciousness nonetheless.

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[David Quinn]

DQ: A solipsist believes that he is the only one who is conscious, that the whole world exists inside his mind. My view is that it is impossible for me to judge (in an absolute sense) whether or not I am the only one who is conscious, but I am willing to accept the empirical evidence of other people's consciousnesses at face value and assume their existence for practical purposes.

Clyde: What empirical evidence? There is, by your argument, no empirical evidence outside your consciousness. Your are trapped within your own mind.

Yes, that is why it is impossible for me to judge. It is impossible for me to go beyond my own mind and peek at what lies beyond. But I can look at the empirical evidence presented to me within my own consciousness and infer that other people have their own consciousness as well. Beyond this tentative inference, there is nothing more I can do.

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[clyde]

David; Again, I ask you, what empirical evidence? If everything is within your consciousness, there is NO empirical evidence, so why do you even use the term?

[David Quinn]

Empirical evidence is what is perceived through the senses. What we experience as being perceived through the senses is a construct of our own consciousness.

This isn't just my view. It is standard scientific theory. The brain creates constructs out of the data it receives from the senses. We only ever experience the constructs.

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[Cory Duchesne]

Clyde, you might benefit from grazing over the following excerpt here. You might find the entire thread of use - The Causes of Consciousness

Here's a bit:


DQ: This isn't to say that consciousness is the sole creator of our experiences, but it is a necessary element to them. It is part of an array of necessary causes.

CD: And what are these causes! You see, whether you like it or not, the very way in which you are using your language implies an objective world.

DQ: I'm not denying there is reality beyond the mind. I'm only denying it has a form which resembles anything that we experience in our consciousness construct. It cannot have this form because the all-important ingredient of consciousness, which is integral to the world we experience, is absent beyond the mind.


And then later:


DQ: Also keep in mind that it is a non-empirical issue.

CD: I disagree - it's not soley an empirical issue. We are reasoning about the empirical. The empirical hinges on our reasoning about the non-empirical. The empirical is compelling us to justify it it via logic. So this is partly an empirical issue.

DQ: The fact that we can never empirically investigate what is beyond the mind means that the issue cannot be resolved by empirical means. We can only make logical deductions about it.

For example, we can deduce that the order and regularity that we experience in our world cannot be generated out of nothing whatsoever, that there is not absolutely nothing beyond the mind.

[clyde]

Cory; Thank you for posting those excerpts. Those quotes seem somewhat more balanced than the posts Q has made here. Here is has written,

We only ever experience the constructs.

So, even though he talks of "brain" and "senses", he only 'knows' of those as "constructs" of his own consciousness.

[David Quinn]

Indeed.

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[Elizabeth Isabelle]

Clyde,

How would you know anything if your brain didn't construct a representation of what your senses perceived?

[clyde]

Elizabeth; Your question, in fact any question, requires words and conceptualization, and my understanding your question and my answer require words and conceptualization. Your specific question asked about "knowing", and knowing, as used in the intellectual sense (after all, there is the Bibical 'knowing' and there are other meanings of "knowing") requires conceptualization. So, for those reasons, I agree that there is no knowing without conceptualization.

But there are other forms of awareness that do not involve conceptualization. Even simple life forms are sensitive to their immediate environment and more complex life forms have additional forms of awareness; and these life forms lack the ability to conceptualize. Human beings have additional capabilities (e.g. - the ability to conceptualize and self-awareness), not less. David seems to deny the ability to be aware without conceptualization when he writes, "We only ever experience the constructs."

[Elizabeth Isabelle]

Personally, I would not classify that as awareness, but I think I can see the angle you are arguing from. "Awareness" in the Totality sense of the word.

[clyde]

: )

[David Quinn]

Elizabeth; Your question, in fact any question, requires words and conceptualization, and my understanding your question and my answer require words and conceptualization. Your specific question asked about "knowing", and knowing, as used in the intellectual sense (after all, there is the Bibical 'knowing' and there are other meanings of "knowing") requires conceptualization. So, for those reasons, I agree that there is no knowing without conceptualization.

But there are other forms of awareness that do not involve conceptualization. Even simple life forms are sensitive to their immediate environment and more complex life forms have additional forms of awareness; and these life forms lack the ability to conceptualize. Human beings have additional capabilities (e.g. - the ability to conceptualize and self-awareness), not less. David seems to deny the ability to be aware without conceptualization when he writes, "We only ever experience the constructs."

Anything that we consciously experience - whether it be a physical chair, another person, a mystical experience, a thought, a feeling, etc - is a construction whipped up by the brain. Concepts are just one example of what the brain is able to construct.

As for simple life-forms responding to their immediate environment, we can't really call their responses "awareness" or "knowing", just as we can't say that a thermometer detecting changes in temperature is aware or knowing. In these instances, simple cause and effect processes are in play.

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[clyde]

As for simple life-forms responding to their immediate environment, we can't really call their responses "awareness" or "knowing", just as we can't say that a thermometer detecting changes in temperature is aware or knowing. In these instances, simple cause and effect processes are in play.
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David; Are you positing that your consciousness is NOT a result of cause and effect?!

[Shahrazad]

David,

As for simple life-forms responding to their immediate environment, we can't really call their responses "awareness" or "knowing", just as we can't say that a thermometer detecting changes in temperature is aware or knowing.

Just so you know, academic philosopher David Chalmers makes an argument in favor of thermostat consciousness.

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[David Quinn]

As for simple life-forms responding to their immediate environment, we can't really call their responses "awareness" or "knowing", just as we can't say that a thermometer detecting changes in temperature is aware or knowing. In these instances, simple cause and effect processes are in play.
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David; Are you positing that your consciousness is NOT a result of cause and effect?!

No, Clyde, I am not.

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[David Quinn]

David,

As for simple life-forms responding to their immediate environment, we can't really call their responses "awareness" or "knowing", just as we can't say that a thermometer detecting changes in temperature is aware or knowing.

Just so you know, academic philosopher David Chalmers makes an argument in favor of thermostat consciousness.

And does so by redefining the word "consciousness" to mean any causal process?

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[Shahrazad]

Not exactly.

[clyde]

As for simple life-forms responding to their immediate environment, we can't really call their responses "awareness" or "knowing", just as we can't say that a thermometer detecting changes in temperature is aware or knowing. In these instances, simple cause and effect processes are in play.
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David; Are you positing that your consciousness is NOT a result of cause and effect?!

No, Clyde, I am not.

OK, so what is your argument then with calling such responsiveness "awareness"?