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I was pretty riled up too when I read the headline, but after reading the article, I think the interviewee actually has a much more benign view that it seems. H
by eigenspace 8y ago
I was pretty riled up too when I read the headline, but after reading the article, I think the interviewee actually has a much more benign view that it seems. He does not appear to deny the hard problem and indeed the domain of his claims appear to not even intersect with the hard problem in any real sense.
It appears to me (correct me if I'm wrong), that he is simply claiming that we believe we are having much more rich conscious experiences than we actually are, and that we are often mislead or mistaken about the character of our experience. As a meditator, I can corroborate these claims.
None of these claims deny the existence of subjective experience itself which is the basis of the hard problem. He's merely saying that our conscious experiences are much more disconnected, less informationally dense and less orderly than we believe.
- whatshisface 8y ago>He's merely saying that our conscious experiences are much more disconnected, less informationally dense and less orderly than we believe. If there was only one particle in the universe, it wouldn't have a height. I disagree that the average person has the capacity to be wrong about their consciousness, because without another one to compare it against they have no way to form opinions about it.
- eigenspace 8y agoA person can't be wrong that they have consciousness, but they can be mistaken about about the character of their conscious experiences. We tend to think that we have a very continuous constant stream of attention and thought but in reality if you learn to pay attention, you'll see that your mind is pretty erratic and experience is not at all like your memories tend to represent.
- whatshisface 8y agoI don't think most people have a belief about how continuous or erratic their consciousness is, because the only time words are used to describe things is when you are distinguishing between more than one thing.
- mehh 8y agoNicely put!
- eigenspace 8y agoThank you, you made me smile.