As Descartes pointed out, who would be doing the "you" part, then? The doubter cannot doubt his own existence. — Olivier5

:up: Although I'm a bit more modest than Descartes; I would say we know that thinking (and feeling and awareness) are going on; the self is a more problematic proposition. But the devil is in the details (of definition) as to what the self is thought to be.

Thanks for the heads up

I gather from

people lacking a basic concept of what, in part, they are. — bert1

that the issue is about the self? I haven't been following this discussion.

I'm acutely aware this sounds like the tailors in the emperor's new clothes. — bert1

With the self in the place of the fine garment of nothing. Pretty much.

Anomalous Monism — Isaac

Sounds about right, and for want of a better term.

What is generally disagreeable hereabouts is the thinking that begins with subject or introspection or private sensations.

What is generally disagreeable hereabouts is the thinking that begins with subject or introspection or private sensations. — Banno

Yes, the machine men do seem to find that disagreeable, and that should not be surprising.

Have you a point?

Already made, but apparently not recognized.

All this to say it's high time neuroscience takes thinking as seriously as musicologists take music. No musicologist worth the name would use orchestra heat scans to explore Mozart. — Olivier5

That seems like a good analogy.

Some of us "don't have the concept" of what?

Some of us "don't have the concept" of what?

Now, when you reflect on your own mental events, you're not doing so real time, you're doing so milliseconds (sometimes more) after they happened. So you, in reflection, are just like the third party looking at a P-zombie. You don't know for sure what just happened and could be wrong about it. You tell a story. — Isaac

:fire: :up:

↪bert1 Some of us "don't have the concept" of what? — 180 Proof

ELSIE: What?
BRIAN: Hmm?
ELSIE: don't have the concept of what?
BRIAN: Oh, nothing.
EDDIE: Ahh.
ELSIE: Hey! What were you going to say?
BRIAN: Nothing
ARTHUR and FRANK: Yes, you were.
ELSIE: Yes. You were going to say something.
BRIAN: No, I wasn't. I'd finished.
ELSIE: Oh, no you weren't.
ARTHUR: Oh, come on. Tell us before you go.
BRIAN: I wasn't going to say anything. I'd finished.
ELSIE: No, you hadn't.
BLIND MAN: What won't he tell?
EDDIE: He won't say.
BLIND MAN: Is it a secret?
BRIAN: No.
BLIND MAN: Is it?
EDDIE: Must be. Otherwise, he'd tell us.
ARTHUR: Oh, tell us the secret.
BRIAN: Leave me alone.
YOUTH: What is this secret?
GIRL: Is it the secret of eternal life?
EDDIE: He won't say!
ARTHUR: Well, of course not. If I knew the secret of eternal life, I wouldn't say.
YOUTH: No.
BRIAN: Leave me alone.

Yes, we are very good at lying to ourselves. — Olivier5

:up: (i.e. metacognitive confabulists!)

You tell a story — 180 Proof

All discourse is just stories; so what? You have your story and I mine, correctness doesn't enter into it; it's a matter of presuppositions, preferences and prejudices, not correctness.

Edit: this is meant for @Isaac

that the issue is about the self? I — Banno

It's about David Chalmer's 1996 essay, Facing Up to the Hard Problem of Consciousness (which, by the way, made him a famous philosopher with academic tenure, no mean feat) - although you'd never know that from reading most of the contributions (with notable exceptions.) Actually rather a good collection of Chalmer's essays including this one here https://consc.net/consciousness/

All this to say it's high time neuroscience takes thinking as seriously as musicologists take music. No musicologist worth the name would use orchestra heat scans to explore Mozart. — Olivier5

:chin: :smirk:

It would be possible to describe everything scientifically, but it would make no sense; it would be without meaning, as if you described a Beethoven symphony as a variation of wave pressure. — Albert Einstein

that the issue is about the self? — Banno

No, phenomenal consciousness. The subject of the thread.

Thanks. A topic fraught with ambiguity. Folk say there is something it is like to be conscious, but usually can't tell us what. After all, it's not hard to tell someone who is conscious from someone who is not. But folk suppose there to be something more...

...phenomenal consciousness... — bert1

What's that , then? Responding to phenomena? A thermostat can do that.

Is this the concept you say I don't have? But here I am, responding to your phenomenal post.

At a quick glance, I'd say involving phenomenology with consciousness was a step up the garden path. But what would I know.

Here's the article:
https://personal.lse.ac.uk/ROBERT49/teaching/ph103/pdf/chalmers1995.pdf

Should we examine it in detail?

Somehow we almost always seems to arrive back at qualia. I don't really have a dog in this fight but I also think it is not so easy to determine the answer. Humans are susceptible to illusions and personal biases. I know I am.

What would you need in order to see justification for an idea like qualia or an idea there there is something to experience consciousness/metacognition? What is missing in the discussion?

Qualia are fine, until folk say absurd things about them. Red and smooth and sour and so on - all good. But then folk will claim that they are private, ineffable, and it all loses coherence.

And of course being conscious is different to being unconscious.

:clap: :sweat:

And of course being conscious is different to being unconscious. — Banno

I've been both and I can attest to this.

It seems an increasingly common rhetorical strategy hereabouts.

See

I can attest to this. — Tom Storm

While conscious, yes, but curiously, not while you are unconscious. Doubtless there are those hereabouts who will claim that this inability renders your corroboration valueless.

You don't know for sure what just happened and could be wrong about it. You tell a story. — Isaac

You obviously have no idea what you are talking about, but blather on regardless...

Should we examine it in detail? — Banno

I’ve been attempting that, but the thread keeps being diverted into various tangents (including by me I will admit).

I haven't understood the double-aspect theory of information, despite it's apparent similarity to Midgley's account.

The article might need its own thread, to keep it on topic.

I think this post and this post of mine basically cover it. Sime's comments in this thread are also on target (here and here).

The plain text version of the original paper is here.

Why this topic still generates so much discussion is beyond me. The long and short is that David Chalmers has made a career out of stating, and Daniel Dennett denying, the obvious fact that first-person consciousness cannot be captured by third-person science. I think you can argue for a general resemblance between Chalmer's argument and the earlier Cogito arguments of both Descartes and Augustine.

... the obvious fact that first-person consciousness cannot be captured by third-person science — Wayfarer

... which is only a "problem" for philosophers and not for neuroscientists.

They don't see it, because it's in their blind spot.

Thanks for mentioning dual aspect theory. I've never run across the term before. I looked it up and am trying to understand it. I'm okay with it up until the part that the underlying reality is neither mental or physical. That just leaves me hanging...so what is it? Can anyone familiar with it give a little insight?

It's looks like a theory that's been around since 1902 but I missed it and haven't seen it before on this forum.

That damn "blindspot" (abductive reasoning) must be why they also don't see "unicorns" or "pixies". :smirk: