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They aren't nebulous. "Consciousness" means "an existing stream of experiences". "Free will" means "a feeling that one could've made a different choice" (the me

They aren't nebulous. "Consciousness" means "an existing stream of experiences". "Free will" means "a feeling that one could've made a different choice" (the metaphysical status of the claim still unknown), and "qualia" means "specific characteristics of experiences that one can attend to". One need not "insist" on anything to believe they are unique characteristics of our identity.

vidarh 3y ago
None of your definitions are less nebulous than the terms you defined.
- TaupeRanger 3y ago
  Yes they are - they are AS non-nebulous as you can possibly get - totally black and white obvious. "Is there a stream of experiences?" is very straightforward, black and white. It's what you have when you're awake, and what you lose when you're in dreamless sleep. Not nebulous in any way. "Can you pay attention to this part of your experience?" is a very black-and-white, non-nebulous question with an easy yes or no answer. Not sure what you're reading into this.
  - jacobr1 3y ago
    No, it is unclear because this definition insufficiently distinguishes a cluster of related, and ill-defined concepts. Consider a video camera. It seems like it is a consuming a "stream of experiences". But most people wouldn't consider it it conscious. Why not under your definition? It works when on, and is stops when turned off. Black and white. But clearly we are missing some nuance in the details. Maybe we also require some interpretation of the experiences? I can spin a convolutional neural net that identify objects within a video: interpretation. Does that make it conscious? No? Then we need something else to define it. Maybe response to stimuli? We can program machines for that, but then also things like fire respond to environment interactions too. And so on. It really isn't black and white after all.
  - vidarh 3y ago
    What is an experience? What does "pay attention" mean?
    - ChainOfFools 3y ago
      Dualism, or at any rate the version of it that can be described as operating on the (possibly unconscious) assumption that a world "outside" of this world exists, is the secret ingredient at work here, smuggled in along with the kinds of notions expressed by the person you're replying to. We just can't seem to fully disentangle very old deep-seated animist instincts, even sophisticated formulations of them, like the soul or consciousness, from our reasoning and descriptions of dynamic systems. I'm not sure this is a bad thing even though I recognize that it is a crutch. completely materialist interpretation of phenomena would probably lead us to the realization that we are not alive at all, and that what I call "my life" is just a kind of curling strand of causality frozen in the Parmenides block universe. I've come to suspect that a habit of using the passive voice when discussing these phenomna contributes immensely to their ongoing currency. Steering away from this by asking questions like, "_who_ or _what_ is attending to/experiencing the stream?" may be a useful way to ground these statements in material terms.
      - vidarh 3y ago
        I see dualism vs. consciousness as separate. Dualism is often used as an explanation for how (real, not compatibilist) free will can exist in an otherwise materialist world, but it'd still require the "outside" to be "magic" in the sense that it'd require a class of logic that is neither deterministic, nor random, nor just any form of combination of the two (e.g. not stochastic). Consciousness, on the other hand, boils down to what gives rise to the sensation of self-awareness, and what that sensation actually is, and it's not a given that requires any form of dualism (or that any form of dualism would solve the question at all) or that a strict materialist world can't involve self awareness. For what we know, self-awareness could be a property of matter itself, and the only thing different between "conscious" and "non-conscious" is getting to a level of sufficient reasoning-ability to actually be able to express it.
    - TaupeRanger 3y ago
tshaddox 3y ago
> "Consciousness" means "an existing stream of experiences". Those seem equally nebulous. > "Free will" means "a feeling that one could've made a different choice" That doesn't seem like the ordinary definition of the term, either in philosophy or in everyday usage. I would think most people would define "having free will" as not just feeling that one could have made a different choice, but rather it actually being physically possible for a different choice to have been made. > "qualia" means "specific characteristics of experiences that one can attend to" I think those are also equally nebulous. > One need not "insist" on anything to believe they are unique characteristics of our identity. The insistence is necessary, and invariably comes up. As soon as I say to someone "given your definitions of these concepts, I don't think they exist" they will say "well, I've started with the foregone conclusion that I cannot deny the existence of these things, so either you're plainly wrong, or we need to tweak our definitions and understanding of these things."
- TaupeRanger 3y ago
  > Those seem equally nebulous. They aren't. It's literally happening right now as you read this - a stream of experiences is present. If that is the case, YES it is consciousness, if nothing is happening, NO it is not consciousness. Black and white - literally as non-nebulous as you can get.

vidarh 3y ago

None of your definitions are less nebulous than the terms you defined.

TaupeRanger 3y ago
Yes they are - they are AS non-nebulous as you can possibly get - totally black and white obvious. "Is there a stream of experiences?" is very straightforward, black and white. It's what you have when you're awake, and what you lose when you're in dreamless sleep. Not nebulous in any way. "Can you pay attention to this part of your experience?" is a very black-and-white, non-nebulous question with an easy yes or no answer. Not sure what you're reading into this.
- jacobr1 3y ago
  No, it is unclear because this definition insufficiently distinguishes a cluster of related, and ill-defined concepts. Consider a video camera. It seems like it is a consuming a "stream of experiences". But most people wouldn't consider it it conscious. Why not under your definition? It works when on, and is stops when turned off. Black and white. But clearly we are missing some nuance in the details. Maybe we also require some interpretation of the experiences? I can spin a convolutional neural net that identify objects within a video: interpretation. Does that make it conscious? No? Then we need something else to define it. Maybe response to stimuli? We can program machines for that, but then also things like fire respond to environment interactions too. And so on. It really isn't black and white after all.
- vidarh 3y ago
  What is an experience? What does "pay attention" mean?
  - ChainOfFools 3y ago
    Dualism, or at any rate the version of it that can be described as operating on the (possibly unconscious) assumption that a world "outside" of this world exists, is the secret ingredient at work here, smuggled in along with the kinds of notions expressed by the person you're replying to. We just can't seem to fully disentangle very old deep-seated animist instincts, even sophisticated formulations of them, like the soul or consciousness, from our reasoning and descriptions of dynamic systems. I'm not sure this is a bad thing even though I recognize that it is a crutch. completely materialist interpretation of phenomena would probably lead us to the realization that we are not alive at all, and that what I call "my life" is just a kind of curling strand of causality frozen in the Parmenides block universe. I've come to suspect that a habit of using the passive voice when discussing these phenomna contributes immensely to their ongoing currency. Steering away from this by asking questions like, "_who_ or _what_ is attending to/experiencing the stream?" may be a useful way to ground these statements in material terms.
    - vidarh 3y ago
      I see dualism vs. consciousness as separate. Dualism is often used as an explanation for how (real, not compatibilist) free will can exist in an otherwise materialist world, but it'd still require the "outside" to be "magic" in the sense that it'd require a class of logic that is neither deterministic, nor random, nor just any form of combination of the two (e.g. not stochastic). Consciousness, on the other hand, boils down to what gives rise to the sensation of self-awareness, and what that sensation actually is, and it's not a given that requires any form of dualism (or that any form of dualism would solve the question at all) or that a strict materialist world can't involve self awareness. For what we know, self-awareness could be a property of matter itself, and the only thing different between "conscious" and "non-conscious" is getting to a level of sufficient reasoning-ability to actually be able to express it.
  - TaupeRanger 3y ago

tshaddox 3y ago

> "Consciousness" means "an existing stream of experiences". Those seem equally nebulous. > "Free will" means "a feeling that one could've made a different choice" That doesn't seem like the ordinary definition of the term, either in philosophy or in everyday usage. I would think most people would define "having free will" as not just feeling that one could have made a different choice, but rather it actually being physically possible for a different choice to have been made. > "qualia" means "specific characteristics of experiences that one can attend to" I think those are also equally nebulous. > One need not "insist" on anything to believe they are unique characteristics of our identity. The insistence is necessary, and invariably comes up. As soon as I say to someone "given your definitions of these concepts, I don't think they exist" they will say "well, I've started with the foregone conclusion that I cannot deny the existence of these things, so either you're plainly wrong, or we need to tweak our definitions and understanding of these things."

TaupeRanger 3y ago
> Those seem equally nebulous. They aren't. It's literally happening right now as you read this - a stream of experiences is present. If that is the case, YES it is consciousness, if nothing is happening, NO it is not consciousness. Black and white - literally as non-nebulous as you can get.