Phenomenal consciousness is seen as one of the top unsolved problems in science. Nothing we can—or, arguably, even could—observe about the arrangement of atoms constituting the brain allows us to deduce what it feels like to smell an orange, fall in love, or have a belly ache. Remarkably, the intractability of the problem has led some to even claim that consciousness doesn’t exist at all: Daniel Dennett and his followers famously argue that it is an illusion, whereas neuroscientist Michael Graziano proclaims that “consciousness doesn’t happen. It is a mistaken construct.” Really?
The Mysterious Disappearance of Consciousness
What makes materialists deny the undeniable?
9th January 2020
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David Griffin 24 June 2024
Suppose that consciousness was not an illusion. Can we make any claims about the first person experience that's involved?
Karl Smith 28 May 2023
“Properties of experiences themselves cannot be illusory in the sense described, but they can be illusory in a very similar one. When illusionists say that phenomenal properties are illusory, they mean that we have introspective representations like those that we would have if our experiences had phenomenal properties. And we can have such representations even if our experiences don’t have phenomenal properties. Of course, this assumes that the representations themselves don’t have phenomenal properties. But, as I noted, representations needn’t possess the properties they represent.”
What I take this to mean is that we experience seeing a red apple as if somehow the redness and apple-ness were transmitted from the object itself into the mind. So that in the mind there is a "phenomenal red apple" that's like a model of the real red apple in the world. This is akin to the impression that I think many laymen would have. And, the illusionists are trying to destroy this impression.
It seems that they started out trying to prove that there was no "little red apple" in the mind, before quite grasping that the larger issue is that there is no big red apple in reality and that this has created a kind of mishmash because they don't know where to say the red apple is, except to explain that it's not in the world or in the brain. It's thus illusory. Which makes sort of a sense, you see.
Of course, the issue is that the red apple presences nonetheless, and what that's all about is the "hard problem" Not how do we get the red apple from the world to the mind, but how do we get the red apple at all.
Karl Smith 28 May 2023
"This is the basis of Frankish's claim that experiences are illusions: they are misportrayals of what they represent, misrepresentations of material brain states. That’s why—the argument goes—a belly ache feels nothing like networks of firing neurons inside our head, even though the latter is supposedly what the ache actually is."
I prefer to interrogate this along a different route. Suppose that a belly ache felt exactly like the networks of firing neurons inside our head. What would that be like? That is suppose that consciousness was non-illusory can we say something about the first person experience involved? I confess I can't imagine how.
Robert James 2 18 August 2021
It’s almost as if they know that the days of philosophy in terms of meta-this-and-that babble are numbered, and they’re desperately trying to cling to these terms and ideas they hold so dear, lest their world views be shattered.
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Robert James 2 2 August 2021
The intractability of the problem has led some to even claim that consciousness doesn’t exist at all.
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Robert James 2 2 August 2021
The intractability of the problem has led some to even claim that consciousness doesn’t exist at all.
Regards,
<a href="https://www.kitchenremodelhawaii.com/">Kitchen Remodel Hawaii</a>
Madison Wilson 30 July 2021
If thinking has nothing to do with consciousness then we maybe have no consciousness. But if the later is required for reasoning and thinking, then it's strange to consider it's non existence. Call us today
Misty Floyd 14 July 2021
I hear of a dov being helped more with consciousness then humans just all this energy thats goes into helping a dog be conscious is taking away alot of consciousness in general trying to make an animal smarter then a human people should really be ashamed https://cardeacabinets.com/
William Braddell 20 January 2020
Excuse the typos in my debunking of Logan Leatherman's comment, this site could really do with an edit function for comments.
William Braddell 20 January 2020
"Considering that modern cognitive neuroscience has essentially affirmed that the mind, in all its mysterious complexity, is contingent upon the material brain, I find it odd that philosophers such as this author here crow so vehemently against materialism. It’s almost as if they know that the days of philosophy in terms of meta-this-and-that babble are numbered, and they’re desperately trying to cling to these terms and ideas they hold so dear, lest their world views be shattered. Without an actual sound foundation, all armchair philosophy like this is just conjecture, which is why William James famously said, "There is only one thing a philosopher can be counted upon to do, and that is to contradict other philosophers.”
Aside from the delightful irony of you citing William James when he vehmently disagreed with your view on the brain as producer of conscious, what I suspect you are referring to when you make this claim that neuroscience have proven materialism true is that really that it has shown a strong correlation between mental states and brain states. This doesn't prove that the brain is the producer of consciousness, merely a filter for it and the fact that materialists don't realize that non-materialists have had models for reconciling this for decades proves how ignorant they are on the subject:
https://www.newdualism.org/papers/C.Carter/Carter-Does-consciousness.htm
Aside from that, we have decades of positive replications in the realm of parapsychology and hundreds if not thousands of NDE reports with corraborated verdical content to show that the materialist paradigm is false. In reality, the exact opposite of what you claim is true, it isn't the view of the fundamental nature of consciousness itself that is on it's last legs, it's materialism that is dying a steady death.
Jon Walker 18 January 2020
It's all unconscious. Consciousness does not exist unless it brakes through the walls of unconsciousness. But is it brain required for the unconscious processes? If you have no brain, can you have awareness? Can we know without brain? Is it materialism a precondition to knowing? What is knowing and how do we define it? Do feeling counts as knowing? What is it's relationship with thinking? Where does the "Eureka" moment come from when a new knowledge/insight is suddenly realised? Do we need to be aware and conscious to have those moments or they just appear out of thin air, unintentionally?
If thinking has nothing to do with consciousness then we maybe have no consciousness. But if the later is required for reasoning and thinking, then it's strange to consider it's non existance. Just some thoughts!!!!
Alazae Dickson 18 January 2020
I hear of a dov being helped more with consciousness then humans just all this energy thats goes into helping a dog be conscious is taking away alot of consciousness in general trying to make an animal smarter then a human people should really be ashamed
Jeff Wunder 16 January 2020
That's what happens when you trust science above all else. If consciousness can't be scientifically observed, even in principle, it can't be real. It must be an illusion. So none of this is actually happening, and you are deluded. But one wonders how consciousness can be an illusion when its contents -- such as science and logic -- are not
Logan Leatherman 16 January 2020
Considering that modern cognitive neuroscience has essentially affirmed that the mind, in all its mysterious complexity, is contingent upon the material brain, I find it odd that philosophers such as this author here crow so vehemently against materialism. It’s almost as if they know that the days of philosophy in terms of meta-this-and-that babble are numbered, and they’re desperately trying to cling to these terms and ideas they hold so dear, lest their world views be shattered. Without an actual sound foundation, all armchair philosophy like this is just conjecture, which is why William James famously said,
“There is only one thing a philosopher can be counted upon to do, and that is to contradict other philosophers.”
Brian Jones 1 16 January 2020
Oddly enough, it was Dennett himself that coined the term "Cartesian materialism". (Or was it "materialist dualism"? Something like that.) I distinctly remember serious neuroscientists like Baars tying themselves in their own knots in order to avoid the withering stare of old Krampus.
Descartes liked his hierarchies just fine. We, on the other hand, have become uncomfortable with them (heh, I wonder why). It's either face the reality or spend our time desperately denying it in a constantly accelerating death spiral.
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