I am not sure what you mean. We do not see consciousness in a brain yet we know we are conscious. — Andrew4Handel

That certainly has nothing to do with what you just quoted from me above it, does it? Was I even specifically talking about consciousness there? You brought up a broader idea. I was commenting on that. Follow the conversation if you're going to participate in it.

You are always present in your experiences. — Andrew4Handel

Confusing how experience works with what's experienced.

The third person is a Literary device. — Andrew4Handel

I'm guessing, by the way, that you just now looked up the first person/third person distinction on Wikipedia.

The issue is not about whether something is physical or not but about whether (A) can be detached from (B.) — Andrew4Handel

No properties can be detached from the material stuff/relations/processes in question. That was the point. Properties are simply identical to some particular material stuff/relations/processes.

Observing someone or something is always first person. — Andrew4Handel

Wow. No. Didn't they teach you this distinction in school? First person is when you are the thing in question. Third person is when it's something other than yourself.

I find it quite easy to imagine consciousness to be separate from the body based on preexistent phenomena.

For example it could be like CD which you can slot into different computers. Your mind could inhabit different bodies. — Andrew4Handel

CDs aren't different than the physical item that you slot into your computer. So you're confusing yourself by not having that part clear.

If someone is having a dream I cannot observe that. — Andrew4Handel

You're confusing observing something first-person with observing it third-person. Which is why I just pointed out the distinction. We observe someone having a dream with neuroimaging equipment, via their behavior, etc.

Victim to one of the classic blunders. — Shamshir

That blunder being?

You can't observe someone else's consciousness. — Andrew4Handel

You observe it from a third-person perspective, exactly as you observe every single other thing in the world that's not yourself.

And philosophy helps with this how ? — Amity

It's the whole nut of what philosophy is. What were you thinking philosophy is?

So, what kind of knowledge are you looking to increase, and to what end ? — Amity

I'm curious about what the world is like factually.

That's just the thing--in your hypothetical, it doesn't matter really. You're not using any part of "you" to make the decision, you're just acting. — NKBJ

??

Say that you think, "I'm going to either listen to Led Zeppelin III or Yes' Relayer." You decide to choose which one by whim. You have to do something to do that. You have to make the effort to choose one by whim. It's your doing. You're in control of it, because it's an action that you take.

The point is that I'm looking at philosophy to try to "improve myself." In my view philosophy has nothing whatsoever to do with that . . . at least not aside from increasing knowledge.

We're going around in circles. I simply don't see how you could call something that's a random whim under your control. But I guess we'll have to agree to disagree. — NKBJ

Whose or "what's" whim is it? Who or what is doing something by whim?

If you're just doing it by whim or randomly, I don't see how you can call it "controlled" by anyone. — NKBJ

It's controlled by you, since you're choosing it by whim.

On what basis are you causing it? I mean, why are you choosing A over B? — NKBJ

Depends on the scenario. It's not as if it's just one way that we choose things, and sometimes we basically do it by whim or "randomly."

How do you know this? — Andrew4Handel

Just the same way we know any and everything we know. Based on observation of the world.

why would not "consciously perceiving and feeling" once again arise? — Inyenzi

It's going to rise again, but it's not going to have anything to do with you as a person. You as a person cease to exist at death.

Why are pre-birth and post-death non-being differing in their 'results'? — Inyenzi

They don't in the sense that you don't exist at either point.

Why are we treating pre-birth non-consciousness as non-eternal, — Inyenzi

You don't have pre-birth non-consciousness. You don't exist at that point. You're not something that can have or fail to have any properties at that point.

There is an everyday view of suffering and pleasure that sees suffering as being positively negative, — Inyenzi

Positively negative?

Does this model dress in a similar way at the beach/when swimming because she chooses to? That's all we need to know.

I can see questioning it if the model doesn't dress in a similar manner out of choice. In that case we'd question why the SI team made her dress this way, given the complex history of this type of outfit and the historical reasons why many women may have been essentially forced to dress in a similar manner.

The only "improvement" I expect from any philosophy is a more accurate view of what's the case.

You're causing it ultimately, yes, where that's not deterministic.

The notion of any post death existence is generally scoffed at by Western materialist types, but is it really so absurd? — Inyenzi

Yes. ;-)

You don't exist as a person, as something conscious, etc. prior to conception, by the way.

There is the checkered shirt, that is a physical thing. Then there is the pattern which the colours are said to be in, — Metaphysician Undercover

The pattern is simply the arrangement of colored threads as they comprise the shirt, the relations of them to each other.

However, even if I entertain the hypothetical for a moment, I'm not sure how it answers my concern that being uncaused, this conception of "freewill" is actually not under our control, and as such may be "free" but has nothing to do with "will." It seems that it would lead to the idea that, whether the odds are 50/50 or 99/1, there is an uncontrollable "force" (I can't come up with a better word. Maybe you have suggestions?) that is directing my actions apart from what I may actually want or think is wise. — NKBJ

If you can bias the odds, you're controlling them, and as we make a decision, we'd push the bias to 100% (at the point of decision).

There are always so many problems to address in these long posts . . . so just one thing at a time.

Judith Langlois, an American scientist, ran an experiment that showed that people cross-culturally will all regard a face with a certain set of proportions as being beautiful. — Ilya B Shambat

This fact would in no way contradict that beauty is a matter of taste or that it's in "the eye of the beholder."

So the point I was making immediately above is that you read my initial comment to be about possibility rather than what's contingently the case.

I not sure I understand what you mean. — Devans99

There's a difference between "it's not possible for there to be any x" and "there happen to be no x (but it's not impossible)"

If we judge what is possible — Devans99

First, this is such a basic thing to get wrong.

If we say, "There is no such thing as x," are we saying, "X is impossible"?

Proof please... — Devans99

You've got to be joking.

"Geordie Rose, Founder of D-Wave (recent clients are Google and NASA) believes that the power of quantum computing is that we can `exploit parallel universes’..." — Michelle71

No such thing as "parallel universes" except for SciFi (which too many scientists unfortunately like to engage in as if it's science). So that's not going to work.

So, you were punished how exactly? — I like sushi

Either grounded, some other privileges taken away, and/or I'd have to do some extra chores or something like that.

Are you saying you never felt a threat of being slapped? — I like sushi

Yes. Never felt a threat of my folks physically hurting me. They rather helped me avoid feeling physically threatened, including that they encouraged my interest in martial arts.

0 for me, too.

Which would mean we certainly don't exist. — Shamshir

Because?

Because I'm not sure I follow what you even mean by it, how you think it would work, or that it's relevant. But if you elucidate more clearly what it is, I will do my best to address it. — NKBJ

Well, we don't know exactly how it would work, but we can describe what it would be. It's simply that there's not an equiprobable chance of each option occurring. Some options would occur more frequently than others. This isn't just hypothetical, by the way. We believe that it's the case with quantum phenomena, for example. Not every option is equiprobable.

So the idea is that there might be some way to bias probabilities willfully (where we don't know the exact mechanism for this yet), and that could happen dynamically, too. This biasing would be control over the decision.

I do. For the same reason that the end of a movie exists before it is reached. — Shamshir

The end of a movie only exists in the sense that it's encoded on a disc, or printed on film, etc. Believing that future inventions exist already is, well, I'll refrain from applying an adjective to it. ;-)

But I am a part of everything.

You're not in a vacuum isolated from other things. If that's what you're getting at there. What that has to do with anything we're talking about, well, who knows.

So if everything exists at all times, — Shamshir

Which it certainly does not.

The terms arise because people want to answer questions such as "just what are minds, anyway?" Some people think the answer to that is that minds are just brains in particular states. Some people don't at all agree with that. They believe that minds are a very different sort of thing.

The distinction also arises in positing things like gods, souls, etc.

Why are you not addressing the biasing idea?

But considering 'you' are just the frame or composition of different things, you do exist prior to transmutation - even if in a state of void. — Shamshir

No, you don't. You don't exist until a particular structure/process of materials does.

then every instance of 'you' is 'you' in part, whereas there is a whole 'you' that twists into these instances. — Shamshir

You're not identical from moment to moment. There's no overarching identical thing.

In any event, you do not exist as such until a certain structure/process of materials does.

It's just like the fact that a car doesn't exist until the raw materials are put together in a particular manner. Surely you do not believe that every future invention exists already?

You're saying that there's no state of being prior to conception. — Shamshir

No state of being re you as you, correct. That doesn't mean no state of being of anything. The stuff that becomes you when it's in the right structure, undergoing the right processes, exists.

But we'd be creating something, by changing its state of being, wouldn't we? — Shamshir

When we create or transmute things, yes. Again, the idea isn't that something is coming from nothing in this scenario. It's that something is coming from something. It's just the case that prior to that point, there's no "you" to speak of.