Keith Frankish: What is Descartes' Prison? Illusionism as Intuition Pumps for Consciousness Theories

[@drtevinnaidu]

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[@clashmanthethird]

Escape Descartes' Prison sounds like a Choose Your Own Adventure book I would've read as a kid.

[@margrietoregan828]

1:20:46 his work he mentioned Shoemaker Shoemaker seems to go along with the natural but treacherous assumption that 1:20:52 reactive dispositions must involve the person reacting to a qual presented 1:20:58 somehow to the reactor and causing by its presentation the reaction the given 1:21:05 is then taken for instance here's how pain works the pain networks produce 1:21:11 somewhere Central the awfulness quy which is then the very property to which 1:21:16 one again one who who's reacting here um reacts with a bance my view and this is 1:21:22 the this is the the Copurnican cernic shift my view is that this confuses cause and effect 1:21:29 that was my word Copurnican (cosmic ?) shift my view is that this confuses cause and effect it 1:21:35 is the reactions that compose the introspect property and it is through 1:21:42 reacting that one identifies or recognizes the property now I think if 1:21:22 the this is the the cernic shift my view is that this confuses cause and effect 1:21:29 that was my word cernic shift my view is that this confuses cause and effect it 1:21:35 is the reactions that compose the introspect property and it is through 1:21:42 reacting that one identifies or recognizes the property now I think if1:21:48 you dwell on that sufficiently and um Trace out it 1:21:55 consequences fully then I think you've pretty much got an answer to what I call the illusion problem and you've got a 1:22:01 theory of Consciousness that is at least a good placeholder until we get uh until 1:22:06 we get empirical work that um that really Maps out the territory properly for us I see now why reactivity schema1:22:43 have a model of it so the brain creates a model of its own monitors its own attentional processes and creates a model of them but the model doesn't need 1:22:51 to represent all the detail in fact it would not be very useful for control purposes if it if it did so the brain 1:22:57 creates a schematic simplified model of attention I can't exactly how 1:23:03 characterizes it but it's it models it almost like a an energy that flows out of the eyes and attaches to things and 1:23:09 tracks them and that itself can magically capture information and uh 1:23:15 produce uh effects um uh on the rest of the the Mind models it in that

[@SandipChitale]

25:12 As I have said to Keith and Dan - illusion-ism has a brand problem. IMO the illusion-ism can be split into two parts - 1. Abstraction-ism 2. theory of the mechanism of consciousness instead of the theory of consciousness. And BTW there are perfectly well established monikers for this i.e. physicalism (To be clear, I do understand what Keith means by illusion-ism as I have taken time to think about it and understand the essence of it). Let me explain... The first problem with illusion-ism (when it purports to be the theory of consciousness) is that people understand it to be saying that the conscious experience they had - eating a sweet mango - they did not really have it - it was just an illusion. This is something almost no once can accept and should not accept. To be fair that is not what illusion-ism is claiming, but that is what people hear it as. Yes it is unfair, but if one has to explain and clarify more then you have already lost half the battle. Again, yes, it is unfair. This is what I mean by brand problem. This is what brings me to abstraction-ism. Let me explain... When the brain receives an external sensory input (in the raw form) it converts it into a internal representation (let us call this subsystem S1). For example the electro-chemical signals coming over the optic nerve are converted into the image like representation inside the brain. Then the experiential subsystem (let us call this subsystem S2) converts adds semantics to the image representation, consults the memory and classifies it and extracts the salience of it to the organism. For example a picture of a face, a 3D stone sculpture of a face, 3d lifelike rubber/wax mask mass, real face of a stranger, a real face of a loved one. That is face is face of a "loved" one is an abstraction. Each of these are contextual abstraction. Similarly, a sensory input from asthmatic lungs is not experienced as actual constriction of lungs and trachea, but at the highest level of the experience of suffocation. The person may call it a suffocation because of asthma attach, drowning, or simple a claustrophobic small room. Thus in this case suffocation is an abstraction. This kind of high level abstraction is what Dan called the Icons (abstractions) of the User Interface that the brains creates to avoid the sensory overload which will bog down the organism and in the real world prevent the survival. In real world the survival decisions have to be made in real time and a sensory overload will simply make it impossible for the organism to make a decision in time. This is what I call abstraction-ism. The subsystems discussed above S1 and S2 are not unidirectional. Sometimes, S2 forces the output of S1. This happens in the case of dreams. The mechanism that produce the experiences in the dreams do in fact create those experiences, but force the imagery in absence of the activation of S1. When one dreams of skiing on the slopes of alps, it is obvious that it is an illusion and the actual sensory, tactile and optical input from the skies and the eyes was absent and yet the experience or internal perception was real. In this case we will have no problem calling that experience as illusion. I guess in some sense illusion is almost a distant synonym of the word dream. Similarly under the influence of drugs like LSD and DMT people report bizarre experiences, which if they are honest will admit that they were illusions. And why they will do that? For example, in case of the skiing on Alps example if they fell and broke their legs in the dream, they will find that their leg is not actually broken after they wake up. Also not that even in the awake state due to some damage to the brain or some pathology of the brain there is disconnection between S1 and S2. For example a person is able to see a face but not recognize that the face of a loved once. Similarly schizophrenics sometimes hallucinate and hear voices. But the key point is that both subsystems - S1 and S2 are part of the brain. The second part - which is about explaining what causes consciousness - the mechanism of consciousness - calling the theory of the mechanism of consciousness as illusion-ism is in some sense redundant - in the sense that there is a perfectly well understood provisional moniker for it - physicalism. (I call it provisional because physics is not a finished project and thus physicalism is a open ended concept). By physicalism what we really mean is non-dualism or non-supernaturalism. In other words the idea that mechanism by which phenomenon we call consciousness arise can be understood fully. The marketing brand problem with illusion-ism is similar to the brand problem with "de-fund the police" - when the real intent was "reform the police to be just and fair and only do legally allowed actions". In terms of where we are with the full understanding of how the conscious and self awareness is generated by the brain, I give analogy. For sickeness: - in the past we thought that the sickness is caused by spells, curses and wrath of gods. (stage 1 - supernatural phase) - later we thought sickness is caused by the contact with a sick person (leprosy etc) (stage 2 - social phase) - later we knew that the sickness is caused by microbes (stage 3 - biological phase) - now we know the molecular basis is the infectious deceases and not only that we can develop solutions i.e. vaccines (stage 4 - chemical phase) - This is a chemical phase and ultimately it can be understood in terms of physics In terms of understanding of consciousness we past stage 3 for sure but some somewhere between stage 3 and stage 4. The advent of LLMs and Rule based AIs may give us insight in a alternate system. Similar things happened with understand of life and we went thru these phases including Elan Vital.

[@SandipChitale]

Out of the so-called four horsemen ( 19:24 ), Christopher Hitchins was aggressively and polemically against religion, but the others were mild mannered. It says more about the conditioning of society through history that frowns upon questioning of religious beliefs and faith. Sociologically, it is obviously understandable. The religious were powerful and had power over societies mental realm, but even more so, they were adjacent to the military and governing powers that had power over the physical realm. And the reason why the religious tried to and were adjacent to the powerful - Kinds and Queens is because they knew that even though they talked an excellent game about afterlife - heaven and hell, to really really control the populations they needed the mechanisms to control the physical, real before life. Think about it - if the fear of gods and hell (or equivalent) in afterlife was sufficient, why would the religions had sought patronage from the kinds and queens and their armies. And do not get me wrong. The Kings and Queens also benefited from the magical powers of religious punishments (for infinity in hell) and assurances of afterlife. Heck most of the art and science was done in the religious context (Galileo and even Issac Newton) patronized by the religious that were adjacent to the kings and queens. In the prehistoric times the religions and rulers were one and the same. Heck even today the some kings and queens are considered religious leaders as well (King or Queen of England is head of the church). Of course, religions evolved and became powerful and therefore on the way picked up the carrots and sticks. So there are some obvious benefits built into the religions. In absence of secular law they did provide ethical structures for the stability of the society. Religions also provided family or community outside the blood family. Some rogue rules that did not make sense but were beneficial to the powerful had to be justified using the supernatural threats that were beyond proof so to speak. That is why the notion of belief and faith were developed. Faith is basically belief without insisting on evidence. I am partly summarizing what the attitude Dan had towards religion. And many times you hear the good people who follow religions say with a straight face and very cool demeanor that a person who does not follow their gods will go to hell (a place with fire for infinite time), just because they do not follow that persons religion. And they call others militant? Really?

[@TheWorldTeacher]

@@SandipChitale Hitch detested THEISM, rather than RELIGION.

[@SandipChitale]

@@TheWorldTeacher Huh? God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything by Book by Christopher Hitchens

[@margrietoregan828]

1:18:19 say uh uh visual certain wavelength of light impact on the uh on the retina and that 1:18:26 triggers all sorts of perceptual processes and then we then we think this is building up and building up and the more and more processing more more 1:18:32 integration of different features that have been detected and so on and some point it enters 1:18:38 Consciousness and as as down put many theor of Consciousness just stop there 1:18:43 they say what's enter conscious right well but then as Stan puts it what happens next 1:18:51 what's what's the upshot of this entering consciousness and if nothing happens then there was no 1:18:57 point in it entering Consciousness in fact you if if if there's no Downstream effect of it entering Consciousness then 1:19:02 it might as well not have entered Consciousness because it it doesn't affect how you react in any way then what was the point of it I mean it's 1:19:09 just like some epip phenomenon I suppose now his thought is when you start tracing out what happens after that all 1:19:16 the effects that the stimulus has the downstream effects that's where all the 1:19:22 action is because even if the thing had definitively enter the bit of the content had definitively entered 1:19:28 Consciousness it was it would still have to have all those down Downstream effects for it to mean anything if it 1:19:33 have any psychological significance so the real impact of the stimulus the real sense that it matters 1:19:40 to me is due to those Downstream effects so you can just cut out the bit about it 1:19:45 entering Consciousness that's not doing anything even if it did it would still have to be processed Downstream for it 1:19:50 matter to me that's where the actual um clout of conscious experience is so

[@margrietoregan828]

1:19:57 forget about that so where does Consciousness come in well Consciousness is our sense of all those Downstream 1:20:02 effect of what the stimulus is doing how it's uh I like to say I like I got loads 1:20:09 of metaphor I keep trying them out like um it's like the vibration that occurs in in a bell when you strike it the 1:20:15 certain complex pattern of or the pattern of ripples that happen when you throw some sand into a into a pool of 1:20:22 still pool of water that's the conscious or the effects let me just read a bit

[@rbudhai]

👍

[@drtevinnaidu]

🙏🏽

[@F1ct10n17]

In bible fiction, i will put scientist as the fallen angels.

[@F1ct10n17]

One thing I realized, you are all animals on my book and no humanity just cycle of life. (Reduce,reuse, recycle)

[@dadsonworldwide3238]

The messured solution that's flipped against the grain problems is everywhere in everything unavoidable precision instrument body 1 on environment 2 hiesenbergs approach photon 3. Anymore or less deformity or concaved whataboutism or nilhisms. No matter what ,where when why Newton wasn't lieing it all fell out in the laps you knew on smallest scales it would be a 2nd entangled key & anchored found. You can play musical chairs of super position to talk wholistic universe into any of the 3 eqaul measure categories but in all accounts it's over we re rain out of context greek characteristic and the eastern attributes but lost In translation plurism it failed again . Reason Is perception management mind dope legitimately argue over the slightest variations whataboutism nilhisms . Subjective is not idealistic and is every bit as real as anything physicalism . Anyone that actually thinks differently is the problem. Richard finneman ask the specific question of what Is order of magnitude scaled epochs it allows 1 specific prediction of merited this happened before that only. For y axis duslistic brains prenticious clocklike views of broken order triangulated with z/x merger you get a wholistic thermodynamical systems feedback loop of measure in history nature universe. We know the perfect alignment longitude latitude oreintation and direction on earth as it is above.

[@Nword3390]

Ffs. Even if consciousness or qualia is "not what we think it is" the fact of the matter is that it is here and you have no explanation of why it 'appears' the way it is. Needlessly complicating things lost in your own abstractions

[@ALavin-en1kr]

I was interested until I saw D. Dennett, then no reason to listen to this I already know what the spin will be. An atheist is as qualified to explain Consciousness (which had been defined down the ages as God); as a toddler is qualified to explain Descartes. First, cognitively, or intuitively know the nature of reality: Consciousness; Mind; Electricities; Electromagnetism and Magnetism (atheists know a little about the elements; nothing else) so I won’t include them. Knowing all of that you can attempt to explain consciousness (the hard problem) which, as it is not elemental and preceded quantum events, cannot be explained; just experienced. Experienced as all it is as All present; All knowing; All powerful. It has been defined already and any atheistic attempt to be reductive with it will end up in the dust where materialism belongs. Just stick to what you know a little about: matter. Stay away from Consciousness; the hard problem, and Mind; maybe you can study the Mind; it is elemental and emerges with quantum events. Stay with the elements otherwise you are encroaching in territory you know nothing about, and making fools of yourselves. Don’t attempt to be reductive with consciousness or attempt to explain it away through eliminative materialism or as an illusion. If you are incapable of knowing admit it and focus on the elemental which you can objectively study and attempt to understand. Consciousness is off limits to atheistic definitions and reductive nonsense. This is not science; it is scientism at its worst

[@jps0117]

If anyone is biased and closed to exploration, it's you.

[@TheWorldTeacher]

Electricities? You mean the electric utility company in Huntersville, North Carolina?

[@ALavin-en1kr]

@@TheWorldTeacher Two electricities have been discovered so far. The environmental one and the bodily one; there was a big dispute back in time on whether the bodily one existed; it does. There are five elements; five senses, and only two electricities discovered so far. Figure it out.

[@TheWorldTeacher]

@@ALavin-en1kr, in your own words, define “ELECTRICITIES”. ☝️🤔☝️

[@ALavin-en1kr]

@@TheWorldTeacher We know there are two; the environmental one and the entity or bodily one. The bodily one was denied back in time but it was found to exist. There are five senses and five elements so there is the possibility that there are other forms of electricity; not discovered yet.