Logical consistency

I've explained the "illusion" several times in this week's show thread. I'm guessing you may have me on ignore.
If you think 'someone' is being 'fooled' you are trying to force something immaterial into a physical model.

Fwiw, I don't think you can escape some sort of 'illusion" whichever consciousness model you want to put your coin on.
Problem is ... if we negate our primary and most direct experience of being we might as well throw away everything else, including the notion of the "consciousness = illusion" theory.
That's the most fundamental experience we can have. Everything else doesn't even come close.

All of the correlations we make through theories, logic, experiments, ... are a much weaker experiences than the "cogito ergo sum". We can invent all sorts of strict scientific methodologies to discover the outside world, striving to remove all possible sources of errors and trying to replicate innumerable amount of times... it will always be a much more indirect and error-prone experience than the direct sense of being.

From there we start investigating the outside world and we may or may not fool ourselves. If you negate the starting point the whole castle crumbles.

I think it should be recognized that the self projecting in the outside world and conjecturing it's own non-existence seems like a pathological mental contortion. Or more likely the echo of primordial ego-driven fears.

Maybe this is why meditative practices usually lead to a very different realization of the self and its place in the world.
 
I've explained the "illusion" several times in this week's show thread. I'm guessing you may have me on ignore.
If you think 'someone' is being 'fooled' you are trying to force something immaterial into a physical model.

Fwiw, I don't think you can escape some sort of 'illusion" whichever consciousness model you want to put your coin on.
I don't have you on ignore, but like most people I can't read everything on this forum. If you like to give me a link to your explanation we can discuss it.

David
 
I've explained the "illusion" several times in this week's show thread. I'm guessing you may have me on ignore.
If you think 'someone' is being 'fooled' you are trying to force something immaterial into a physical model.

Fwiw, I don't think you can escape some sort of 'illusion" whichever consciousness model you want to put your coin on.

No, not on ignore, I just don't agree with you. I think that is your interpretation, and obviously it being a silly theory is mine.

We can just agree to disagree.:)
 
The essence of this piece is that she willfully misunderstands and misrepresents what science says about both evolution and consciousness.
She ignores completely the difference between what we think to know as individuals, and what we have learned through the collective effort of science.

Can you be specific. The article discusses a number of logically false ideas, which one do you want to discuss?

I do not think for a second there is any wilful misunderstanding going on here - though religious apologists in general do sometimes do this.

David
 
Well surely an illusion can only operate on a conscious entity!

David
An illusion could also work on an entity that feels like it's conscious. ;)

Beyond that... if you're going to come out with statements like that you need to be very clear that you are referring to your (personal) definition of "conscious" (see bish's point above).
 
An illusion could also work on an entity that feels like it's conscious. ;)

Beyond that... if you're going to come out with statements like that you need to be very clear that you are referring to your (personal) definition of "conscious" (see bish's point above).

You know. I feel like this whole thing (and I mean WHOLE thing) is just arguing about meanings. Sometimes it feels like that.
 
You know. I feel like this whole thing (and I mean WHOLE thing) is just arguing about meanings. Sometimes it feels like that.
Well let's bring things down to earth - perhaps it would be better to say that when Daniel Dennett said "consciousness is just an illusion", he was simply talking bullshit!

I mean, I don't quite know what you mean by "The Whole Thing", but from my perspective, you have people who continue to come out with non-explanations of consciousness, and yes they play with words and definitions.

We can't talk about free will any more because these people, who claim to understand consciousness split the concept into several types and then endlessly argue about which type one is talking about.

They come up with utterly daft statements like "Consciousness is an illusion", or "We are all biological robots" (remember Alex didn't invent that phrase, Dawkins did) and expect us to understand them in some vague metaphorical sense.

Since when was scientific discourse supposed to be conducted using vague metaphorical utterances?

David
 
Last edited:
Well let's bring things down to earth - perhaps it would be better to say that when Daniel Dennett said "consciousness is just an illusion", he was simply talking bullshit!

David

Yes. It would seem that way if you had a strong attachment to a different idea of what "consciousness" was... I suspect a more open minded, imaginative approach may help?
 
Yes. It would seem that way if you had a strong attachment to a different idea of what "consciousness" was... I suspect a more open minded, imaginative approach may help?
Well go on - tell us what you think the expression means, given that you actually have to be conscious to at least some degree in order to be fooled by an illusion.

David
 
Well surely an illusion can only operate on a conscious entity!

David
Not if that conscious entity is part of the 'illusion'( Not the word i want to use, but i guess we are stuck with it now).
The illusion is not played out to an homunculus that lives under your skull. The illusion is a scene were the main actor is created just as much as the rest of its elements.

As long as you do not understand that, you will never be able to see a naturalist viewpoint as internally consistent.
I am not suggesting you have to agree, we know the naturalist viewpoint is not consistent with your viewpoint.
But if you want to point out internal inconsistencies to another viewpoint, you can not do this by inserting elements from your own viewpoint.
 
Can you be specific. The article discusses a number of logically false ideas, which one do you want to discuss?

I do not think for a second there is any wilful misunderstanding going on here - though religious apologists in general do sometimes do this.

David

I don't think we have to discuss the specifics very much if the premise of the argument is simply wrong.
Her argument roughly goes: Human minds evolve for survival rather than truth, evolutionary theory is a product of human mind, therefore we can not trust evolutionary theory to be truthful.

As said before, in this she completely ignores the collective effort of science.
An effort that, through empiricism, reshaped our simple cavemen heuristics into a set of theories that are in constant flux.

This effort does not claim to hold the ultimate truth, a form of truth the fundamentalist christian view does claim to hold. However, it has discovered truths that always will have to be incorporated in, and explained by, future incarnations of this set of theories.

Are you now claiming that ignoring the difference between the less correct individual knowledge, and the complete body of collective knowledge that is science, is not willful ignorance?

If you agree that the premise of Pearcey's argument is fatally flawed, we can discuss the reasons why. But since she makes such a ridiculous, almost childish, argument, discussing the specifics without that agreement would be admitting there is something to defend here.
 
I don't think we have to discuss the specifics very much if the premise of the argument is simply wrong.
Her argument roughly goes: Human minds evolve for survival rather than truth, evolutionary theory is a product of human mind, therefore we can not trust evolutionary theory to be truthful.

As said before, in this she completely ignores the collective effort of science.
An effort that, through empiricism, reshaped our simple cavemen heuristics into a set of theories that are in constant flux.
It was and is a collective effort by humans - evolved for the savannah! What justification is there that we can collectively make up for the limitations that imposes, and discern the truth?

I am not knocking (most of) science, but pointing out that our extraordinary mental abilities are just assumed to come from evolution, yet we rely on them to invent theories such as natural selection! There is a circularity there, whether you like it or not.
This effort does not claim to hold the ultimate truth, a form of truth the fundamentalist christian view does claim to hold. However, it has discovered truths that always will have to be incorporated in, and explained by, future incarnations of this set of theories.
It is very good at discovering truths that actually produce gadgets, it is probably less good at discerning other truths. Even though the author of that piece is Christian (I assume), I am not - I am very wary of ultimate truths - religious ones and scientific ones.
Are you now claiming that ignoring the difference between the less correct individual knowledge, and the complete body of collective knowledge that is science, is not willful ignorance?
It is a difference of opinion. Some areas of knowledge are obviously much more secure than others. Maths is obviously most secure, followed by aspects of science that can be fully tested in a laboratory. Rather less tested, are subjects like evolution and cosmology, because we can't tweak something and run the experiment again!
If you agree that the premise of Pearcey's argument is fatally flawed, we can discuss the reasons why.

You mean that if I agree that she is wrong, and by extension that I am wrong for bringing her ideas to people's attention, then you will discuss it!

I guess that must make some sort of sense:)

David
 
Not if that conscious entity is part of the 'illusion'( Not the word i want to use, but i guess we are stuck with it now).

OK so Daniel Dennett seems to consider that consciousness is explained - since he wrote a book with that title - so presumably you can explain how consciousness can be an illusion.

I mean if someone explains that a mirage in a desert is an illusion, I can understand that because it is explained by the refraction of light - actually it isn't really an illusion because you are seeing something that does exist, but not in the place you see it. Optical illusions are real enough and the explanation lies inside the brain or the mind - and we are consciously aware of the effect. An optical illusion can't work if we aren't conscious to appreciate it - so how can consciousness actually be an illusion?

David
 
We can't talk about free will any more because these people, who claim to understand consciousness split the concept into several types and then endlessly argue about which type one is talking about.
You can't possibly be serious that the blame for multiple kinds of free will belongs to "people who claim to understand consciousness."

They come up with utterly daft statements like "Consciousness is an illusion" ...
You don't think that possibly you're misinterpreting Dennett here?

~~ Paul
 
You can't possibly be serious that the blame for multiple kinds of free will belongs to "people who claim to understand consciousness."
I might well :)
You don't think that possibly you're misinterpreting Dennett here?

~~ Paul
Well if he had written a book of poetry, then I'd consider that quite likely - I mean a statement like "God is love" is up for any number of meanings, but DD is a scientist, supposedly trying to explain something to us!

David
 
Back
Top