Homunculus or emergence behind your person?

originally posted by: Itisnowagain
a reply to: Cwantas

Will you ever see what is seeing these words?

What?

a reply to: Cwantas

You can see what is appearing as your surroundings.......but will you ever be able to see what is seeing the surroundings?

a reply to: Consumer

If there is no one behind the mask (person) then who can have freewill?

To be or not to be? Is that the question?

a reply to: Consumer

Dennet was mentioned in a Jim Newman talk on yt ......if you like Dennet you might want to have a listen to Jim.

Have you heard the term non duality before?

a reply to: Consumer

What is consciousness? Does it reside somewhere in your mind or somewhere else? Is it an entity, emergent or something else? Is your reasoning personally thought out or are you merely a Dennet fan?

I’ve conflated your first two posts in order to highlight a certain discrepancy. Though you mention consciousness in the first post, you seem to be asking about free will (‘free choice’, as you put it). Your second post, made in reply to TerryMcGuire, explicitly admits the existence of consciousness and asks what it is.

There’s no denying that the two subjects are related. Consciousness would seem a necessary precondition for free will to exist. But is it, really? Might it not be possible, depending on how you define your terms, for you to exert free choice unconsciously? Based on personal observation I believe it is, but I have never thought the question all the way through. It would be interesting to debate it with someone else and see where one ended up. Frankly, I’m more interested in that than in discussing the modalities of consciousness, a rather outworn topic.

Your second post is an articulation of what is infamously known as the Hard Problem. It has bedevilled thinkers since the days of Anaxagoras -- at least -- and we are no nearer a reliable answer in our day than they were in his.

There is, of course, plenty of evidence from research to show that we begin to act on our decisions before we are conscious of them. This does suggest to us that consciousness is not only an emergent phenomenon (emergent from brute matter, that is), but an epiphenomenon. Indeed, some of Dennett’s camp-followers portray it as a kind of post hoc home movie that has no material effect on external reality. Dennett’s own interpretation is more nuanced.

The epiphenomenon need not even bear any true relation to the material world. As Descartes pointed out, the consistency of manifestations in the physical universe, the fact that a square always has four sides or that heavy objects always fall to the ground, is no guarantee of the truth of these manifestations or the validity of the universal laws they are purported to illustrate. The whole show could be an illusion created by some malevolent but invisible power while reality, as in the Matrix films, remains something utterly different from what we perceive it to be. There is, in fact, some convincing theoretical work in evolutionary biology, based on Bayesian statistical analysis, which seems to demonstrate that sensory systems are very unlikely to evolve to give an accurate account of the physical environment; far more likely, they will evolve to provide good-enough approximations of reality, depending on the needs of the organism. This helps explain why bats, cats, naked mole rats and duckbill platypuses all live in apparently different ‘worlds’.

But while these research-based ideas suggest that consciousness is just a passenger aboard the Reality Express, our own experience as passengers (that is, as consciousnesses, disembodied or otherwise) argues strongly against that conclusion. It is a matter of common knowledge that one often makes a decision, acts on it and sees the consequences of one’s action fall out just as predicted. We experience ourselves as free and willing agents, and the universe fosters the perception by acting just as we expect it to. Quantum and chaotic processes provide the wiggle room for us to act at least partially untrammelled by physical determinism; the future of the Universe was not specified in such detail at the Big Bang.

Finally, there are metaphysical and moral questions that a purely materialist approach to understanding the world cannot and should not address. Scientific materialists (I am one to all practical intents) like to dismiss these questions as illegitimate or pretend they don’t exist, but they will keep popping up in spite of our diligent efforts at whack-a-mole...

My own position is that there are aspects of the Hard Problem that will remain forever beyond the reach of empirical investigation. We shall never be able to say with scientific authority what consciousness is. Sadly, that is the only kind of authority I am willing to countenance; magic, religion and metaphysics are just fascinating bunkum to me. Unfortunately, their irrelevance does not guarantee the nonexistence of free will, non-emergent and indeed eternal, disembodied consciousnesses, or even God Herself. Descartes’s argument works for metaphysical as well as physical logic.

originally posted by: Consumer
The age old question as to the idea of free choice. Let’s hear it. What’s your view on consciousness and why? Is your reasoning personally thought out or are you merely a Dennet fan?

It's a signal or vibration we're all tuned into on various levels, the higher the level the higher consciousness.

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God".

A word is a sound and a sound is a vibration.

a reply to: Consumer

My suspicion is that consciousness is what the line "made in the image of god" is referring too.

a reply to: Quadlink

"Hey, me too, too, too, too, too, too, too..."!

Damn Matri-, Matri-, Matrix!

originally posted by: Itisnowagain
a reply to: Cwantas

You can see what is appearing as your surroundings.......but will you ever be able to see what is seeing the surroundings?

The invisible spirit.

I think, therefore I am. You do what you want and I'll do what I want, as long as your actions do not conflict with anyone elses.

a reply to: Consumer

you mean Daniel Dennett? I don't know doesn't he deal more with memory than consciousness per se?
Aside from that we stumble upon the first issue in the discussion:
intelligence, awareness, memory, consciousness

Are they seperate things, interconnected, does one emerge from the other and how do we define the basic three (intelligence, awareness and memory) and what influence does it have on our view of consciousness?

what are your thoughts? Since this is a rather lazy OP, show me yours first

“We feel that our actions are voluntary when they follow a decision and involuntary when they happen without decision. But if a decision itself were voluntary every decision would have to be preceded by a decision to decide - An infinite regression which fortunately does not occur. Oddly enough, if we had to decide to decide, we would not be free to decide”[8] (Alan Watts, The Way of Zen)

😵‍💫

a reply to: primalfractal

What nonsense these Western wannabe Buddhists did babble. Any fool can see that every decision to decide is forced upon us. Decision is involuntary; it is what one decides that one may -- or may not -- have some control over.

a reply to: Astyanax

Decision is made in the brain and up to 6 seconds later (or more) ......you are aware of the choice.

Then there is a claim that says....... I chose.

Brain scanners can see your decisions before you make them.

Anyway....so what is this 'you' really?

There is a brilliant bbc documentary titled 'The Secret You' that can be found on Dailymotion.com.....it's a scientific exploration:

Professor Marcus du Sautoy goes in search of answers to one of science's greatest mysteries: how do we know who we are? While the thoughts that make us feel as though we know ourselves are easy to experience, they are notoriously difficult to explain. So, in order to find out where they come from, Marcus subjects himself to a series of probing experiments.

a reply to: Itisnowagain

That depends on how you see time. If time is a linear string on which the events hang on to one specific point, the *now* then yes it is problematic.

If you see time as force organizing *events* it makes totally sense that you and the situation you are in make the decision of what you will do ahead in time, sending it back to the *heavier* you bound in the now, drawing you towards the future events arising from the consequences of the decisions you make. You could be aware of that sometimes we 'feel' when something is in the 'air', right?
That's because of the fundamental interconnectedness of all things, mostly through the realm of potentials, time as organising force on the actual 'manifested' events trajectory...
but I mean of course you'd have to be able to recognize and experience more than just 'what is...now'
right?

I think the common view is that you push the events forward by making decisions, but I think that in reality your decision is you being drawn 'into your choice of the strongest potential'

a reply to: Peeple

If you don't watch the documentary you won't see Professor Marcus du Sautoy react to what is uncovered.

I saw the documentary 11 years ago when it was on tv....

Here is a direct link to the documentary:
www.dailymotion.com...

a reply to: Itisnowagain

I was responding to that:

Decision is made in the brain and up to 6 seconds later (or more) ......you are aware of the choice.

because I honestly couldn't care less who Marcus du Sautoy is



... to be fair I just googled and found this:

Life, they believe, is like a mathematical theorem made up of interconnected logical strands.

here
lol

a reply to: Peeple

And I really have no interest in conversing with you........

I could be very rude to you .....like you are to me......
.

a reply to: Itisnowagain

Anyway....so what is this 'you' really?

Nietzsche liked to ask the same question. 'What is this "I" that thinks?' he asked in dismissive reply to Descartes, pointing out that we don't choose to have a thought but that the thought chooses to appear, and thus concluding that Descartes's initial proposition is false.

I don't have an answer to that question, nor do I feel any consuming urge to know the answer. It's critically important in philosophy but of no help to me in my journey through life. I'm interested in philosophy, but it's the discussions that interest me not the conclusions. I'm not waiting up to see the Big Questions answered because I know that they cannot be. That is their nature.

a reply to: Astyanax

Amazingly everything.....including thought, is all happening spontaneously......no one is doing anything.


It's the mystery.