Of those list positions Searle would probably be the closest. Thought Dennett is close too, if you pay attention not what he’s talking about rather than dismissing his thought as brute reductionism (which various interested parties tend to do, unfortunately).

The major aspect people have to get right is treating consciousness as a state of the world. Substance dualism and its spawn (including forms of reductionism )undermine our understanding of consciousness by denying it place in the world.

“The Hard Problem” is the idea it doesn’t make sense for consciousness to exist. Under it no description is good enough because consciousness is not seen to be a state of the world which is caused or causes other states of the world. Rather, it is thought to be of a separate realm which has nothing to do with what’s going on in the world. In understanding consciousness,the chief hurdle to overcome is thinking it of as something other than state of the world we may (and frequently do) know.

I’d go as far as to say it requires direct realism to understand. Since experiences don’t have a empirical manifestation per se (observed states are only correlated to know states of conscious rather than being them), we can only rely on brute presentation within experience. If I am to know the person that’s sitting in front of me is conscious, I cannot to so through the body alone. Action of their body(gestures, language) might indicate they are having experiences, by it takes my knowledge of their existing consciousness to consider that. Without that brute awareness that consciousness exists, I would just see a body moving; philosophical zombies all over again.

I must have direct knowledge of existing experiences within my experience.

Dennett does use the word "illusion" when he describes consciousness. If illusion, then that is all you can say about consciousness.

I think Greg Koukl gets it right...

Koukl points out that in order to recognize something as an illusion, two things are required: (1) the presence of a conscious observer who is capable of perception, and (2) the ability to distinguish between what is real and what is illusion.

If there were no conscious observers who can perceive, then it is impossible to know there is an illusion because the non-conscious do not perceive or know anything. So if consciousness was not real there would be no way to perceive that consciousness was just an illusion. If consciousness is required to perceive an illusion, then consciousness cannot itself be an illusion. Similarly, one would have to be able to perceive both the real world and the illusory world in order to know there is a distinction between the two, and to subsequently identify the illusory world as illusory. If all one perceived was the illusion, they would not be able to recognize it as such.

duplicate post.

I know... but he also insists people have experiences. The "illusion" he's talking about is really the notion of consciousness in a separate realm, rather than denying experiences are real. Dennett is trying to point out what stinks so bad about our approach consciousness.

He just doesn't quite have the words to clearly state what he's going for, particularly with respect to the substance dualists who are only interested in reading "illusion" and forming the conclusion anything he says about consciousness must therefore be wrong.

It seems to me that what many (including Dennett and Searle) may be trying to express is the reality that our consciousness is evidentially generated by a physical brain, and that out physical brain is not perfect, so neither is the consciousness it generates. It can be fooled. So, we are using a flawed tool to examine our own flawed tool and the (apparent?) reality that our flawed tool allows us to perceive, contemplate and describe.

I can state all the above without resorting to the use of the word "illusion"... Why can't Dennett?

That's actually a pretty good description the mistake everyone is making.

If we know about consciousness, then our tool is not flawed, at least for this instance. We know, perfectly, that the experiences of ourselves and others exists. Rather than being flawed and fooled, we are perfect and know.

We do not have flawed tools insofar as this context goes. Just becasue we can be fooled doesn't mean we are. And for anything we know, by definition, we are not fooled.

I think that is the point that Searle is making. We do know. If we know anything about consciousness, then we know that it is real. So "illusion" is absolutely the wrong word to use when describing it.

Indeed... but Dennett clearly isn't just doing that, for he also talks about the presence of our experiences. "Illusion" is clearly trying to get at something else than just the existence of experiences. So is Dennett just talking about the existence of our experiences? Clearly not. Rather, he is talking about how we understand our experiences, what we think about consciousness more so than the experiences themselves. If the "illusion" is not our experiences but what we frequently think of them (that they exist outside of the world), then Dennett's position makes more sense, compliments Searle's and is correct-- that experiences exist outside the world is an "illusion," a case where we've been fooled by our own system of understanding.

I think your question and then the options you present as answers are incongruous. Based on the latter, you seem to be asking what causes or gives rise to conscious, rather than for a description of it.

My answer as for why there is consciousness is that it is due to brain activity, just as digestion is due to intestinal activity. This is to give an empirical explanation, which we are perfectly obliged to do, but it is also one-sided and incomplete, since all objects, including brains, depend upon a knowing subject and its a priori forms of understanding.

I suppose I could change the wording slightly, but regardless, the question is about the nature of consciousness and whether or not any description or theory is better than others.

I think even Chalmers would agree that there is some correlation between what the physical brain is doing and consciousness. If I understand him correctly, he's saying that the brain deals with behaviors, and our subjective feeling of consciousness is a result of the fact that consciousness is a fundamental property, and that everything is conscious. I don't quite understand, if panpsychism, how it is that I subjectively feel pain when my physical nervous system is agitated. Or why I sense my consciousness as if I am a body, and why the consciousness of other objects nearby aren't apparent. (like Searle says, if panpsychism, then a "smear" of consciousness seems likely- what I experience is very distinct).

Indeed... but Dennett clearly isn't just doing that, for he also talks about the presence of our experiences. — TheWillowOfDarkness

One might say that experiences are the content of consciousness. One might then continue that one can (or even that one necessarily must) experience consciousness. But this experience, being purportedly an experience of the container, is not the container but the contents, by previous stipulation. Which makes it an illusion.

I disagree with your summation of substance dualism as "there are souls," because that suggests it's a theological position. It strikes me that you've jettisoned the classical Cartesian position so that you could move on to the more modern views. My thought is that substance dualism and it's newer offspring property dualism largely collapse into the same thing under analysis and no real headway has been made by Chalmers or Searle in their new classification system. They've just rearranged the furniture.

Substance dualism hold there are: 1. Physical things and 2. Mental Things. Property dualism holds there is one thing 1. Physical things, but it has two properties A. Physical properties and 2. Mental properties. So, property dualism begs the same question as substance dualism, which is what is this magical substance that contains mental properties? A property dualist simply declares that physical substance has mental properties, which means we have no idea what a physical substance is. It apparently has properties that can't be measured or observed. How does that help us any? Why not just say there are two types of substances?

We know we can have physical objects that don't have mental properties (like rocks and the like). Why then can't we have physical objects that have only mental properties? How would that particular physical object be any different than a Cartesian mind?

I'm to take it then from Chalmers that we a nebulous monistic universal substance that we call Physical Substance and sometimes it thinks and sometimes it just sits at the bottom of a stream.

My point to all this is that Western Philosophy hasn't moved an inch since Descartes. That's not an indictment. That's just an acknowledgment that he got it right. I do thank Chalmers for writing his fascinating book, though, and I do think Searle remains the clearest and most convincing of the modern day philosophers. I also think that Dennett is a waste of time, highly overrated, and has little significant to say.

Hanover, are you suggesting that Searle is a property dualist, even though that position is one he specifically denies and argues against the idea?

Your post posted 2 minutes after mine, so I'm first saying that you read quickly.

I'm saying that the distinction between property and substance dualism is a distinction without a difference. He's not addressed any important problem by redefining physical substance to include non-physical properties.

Searle does sound to me like he is promoting property dualism (or maybe even pluralism - maybe there are other properties beside physical and mental?) when he argues that mental properties are real. It's like he wants to accept a consciousness that is totally dependent on a physical brain (so not panpsychism) and that mental properties are real (not illusory, not reducible, not epiphenomenal).

I believe that Descartes did believe in God and souls. So, his was basically a theological position, wasn't it? Although he did use a reasonable scientific approach.

I'm not aware of any description of substance dualism that wouldn't also include souls.

It seems we all feel like dualism is the case. We feel like a mind in a body. So, the simplest solution would be one that included that reality.

I disagree with your summation of substance dualism as "there are souls," because that suggests it's a theological position. It strikes me that you've jettisoned the classical Cartesian position so that you could move on to the more modern views. My thought is that substance dualism and it's newer offspring property dualism largely collapse into the same thing under analysis and no real headway has been made by Chalmers or Searle in their new classification system. They've just rearranged the furniture. — Hanover

Here, here! This is a theme I was trying to convey in the other philosophy forums.

Can you describe substance dualism in a way that doesn't include a soul? Descartes definitely had that belief, didn't he?

I definitely see a distinction between panpsycism and the possibility that souls exist.

This last year reading Davidson's essay 'mental events' about inter alia his 'anomalous monism' has made me think about these questions differently. I don't mean that I agree with Davidson but at least he addresses the barrier: there is something about 'mental' and 'physical' explanations that we sometimes rather casually intermingle, but they don't fit together, and it may be there are parallel (but not item-for-item parallel) explanations under different descriptions, the mental and the physical.

For me Dennett's stuff about multiple drafts etc. is a bold try at redescribing what goes on in our heads, but I hate talk of 'illusion' in the way he does.

One small point from the op, I wasn't clear why it holds that 'if panpsychism there would be no way to know where my consciousness starts and another begins'. The pan-ness doesn't require us to be part of a universal consciousness. (I'm not a pan psychist but...)

Anyone read 'How forests talk'? That's an interesting zone that I don't finally buy into, but seems an interesting ecological way of looking at these things, but I've only read reviews of the book so far.

I just can't make panpsychism "work". The way Chalmers describes it, everything is conscious, even electrons. Those small conscious things combine to create a subjective experience. How? Maybe the simple explanation is, because they're all touching each other in my body? But, what about when I touch a table? And again, why do I feel the subjective experience of pain when my physical nervous system is stimulated? How is the physical and the mental interrelated?

I can dismiss property dualism, or at least panpsychism because it seems that if panpsychism there would be no way to know where my consciousness starts and another begins, but what I experience is that I'm a being in a body. And there is still all the issues common to substance dualism (for example, how do tiny conscious things interact with physical brain?) — anonymous66

Externalism brah. The mind isn't an isolated specimen.

Thanks, darth, I hadn't encountered that concept before.

If you want to say that consciousness is generated by the "physical brain" then how is that not an example of the "naive realism" you have rejected as being "demonstrably false"?

I think that the whole subject is being approached from the wrong direction. I think that the metaphysical question that must be first answered is 'what is intelligence?'. Isn't the Chinese room partially representative of how the brain actually functions by using a constant set of automatic mind states?

If I learn about 3 types of rock, I can pass myself off as a geologist, three types of birds etc
If learn three concepts of philosophy of mind in depth, and talk about them, you would automatically assume that I am intelligent, at least in that subject; where as all I have done is memorized a lot of syntax without any full semantic understanding of the concepts of which I would be talking about.


Is it not also possible that most inter personal communication and indeed most 'mind function' are 'automatic responses' carried out without true thought in a Chinese room style?

Many of us go through life in this state, faking it, living the illusion according to oriental philosophies and religions.


Could it not be that if you get enough layers of multiple syntax simultaneously then the semantics are 'created' from the syntax?

If intelligence were that simple to replicate, AI wouldn't be nearly as limited as it is, especially with regard to the Turing test. As it stands, I think we'd all be able to separate the bots from real people in a matter of minutes regardless of how much intelligence had been programmed into the bot.

I got you fam. (Y)

If you want to say that consciousness is generated by the "physical brain" then how is that not an example of the "naive realism" you have rejected as being "demonstrably false"? — John

I'm not aware of any other way to view consciousness. The evidence suggests that when the physical brain is changed or damaged, then there are changes in consciousness. There is no evidence of any consciousness without a physical brain.

And the reality is that different beings sense the world in different ways, depending on their sense organs. So, perhaps there is a "real reality", but whose version should we accept as "real"? The only way we can comprehend our universe is through our sense organs, and we know they are not giving us an objective picture, and that we are susceptible to illusions.

Is it even possible to imagine what the universe would look like from the point of view of an observer without sense organs?

I do believe there is a physical reality out there, I just don't trust that my sense organs are giving me an accurate picture of it. I think the evidence suggests rather that our sense organs are such that they give us the ability to see the world in a way that is beneficial for the survival of our species, not a completely accurate one.

Here's a link to a book on externalism, or the extended mind, btw: http://www.imd.inder.cu/adjuntos/article/604/The%20Extended%20Mind.pdf

I think that the metaphysical question that must be first answered is 'what is intelligence?' — James

The etymology of 'intelligence' is interesting: actually comes from 'inter-legere', 'to read between' or 'to choose or pick out'. There is also a Buddhist definition which is parallel, meaning 'the ability to make distinctions'.

But the nature of intelligence and that of consciousness are surely different questions, as there are conscious organisms that are unintelligent.

The evidence suggests that when the physical brain is changed or damaged, then there are changes in consciousness. — Anonymous66

But that works both ways! Damaged brains can be healed because the mind seems to work out ways to re-route its activities - even to the extent of re-purposing parts of the brain that are usually associated with one function, to another function, in the event of damage to the original functionality. Those are amongst the findings of neuro-plasticity.

I think the evidence suggests rather that our sense organs are such that they give us the ability to see the world in a way that is beneficial for the survival of our species, not a completely accurate one. — Anonymous66

But reason surely owes its power to its independence, and nothing else. If you say that reason is an adaptive organ, then how can you present any argument? You're just another type of organism, making another type of noise. :)

Can "consciousness" even be described by the conscious entity? How do we exteriorize ourselves to our own consciousness so that we can observe it, and still be conscious?