3 ms·

Obligatory mention of the novel Blindsight by Peter Watts: https://rifters.com/real/Blindsight.htm https://rifters.com/real/Blindsight.htm Personally I have ye

by taneq 3y ago

Obligatory mention of the novel Blindsight by Peter Watts: https://rifters.com/real/Blindsight.htm https://rifters.com/real/Blindsight.htm Personally I have yet to see any compelling evidence that 'conscious experience' as some privileged special thing actually exists at all.

mistermann 3y ago
Fitting, imho: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streetlight_effect https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streetlight_effect
crazygringo 3y ago
It's not just you personally, there is no evidence. And yet literally everything we know as human beings, we acquire through conscious experience. Conscious experience is the bedrock upon which we build all our sophisticated ideas of reality and, eventually, science. The very concept of "evidence" is nothing but a conscious idea. You don't need evidence of conscious experience, because conscious experience precedes the very concept of evidence. It's one of the great paradoxes of philosophy, and specifically metaphysics. Which nobody has solved yet. How do we reconcile the truth of idealism on the one hand -- that all we can ever be 100% sure of existing are our conscious ideas (both awake and while dreaming at night) -- with the empirical truth of realism on the other hand -- that there is a scientifically consistent "reality" out there which our ideas attempt to map onto and correlate with?
- 2snakes 3y ago
  "Yes, it is true, as Albert Einstein said, you can live your life as if everything is a miracle, or as if everything is ordinary. It is also true, as Niels Bohr said, that the opposite of an ordinary truth is a falsity, but the opposite of a profound truth may also be another profound truth! Now, recall that in Hamlet, William Shakespeare said: “There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.” From these three quotes from three famously wise people, I have to conclude that I may choose to experience reality as very common and ordinary, or as divinely miraculous, and this choice can yield one of two profoundly different results: either the experience of misery and boredom, or joy and ecstasy!" -ER Close
anon291 3y ago
And yet if consciousness doesn't exist than why are all the automatons searching for it
- h0l0cube 3y ago
  It’s the human equivalent of rolling wooden balls or something

by taneq 3y ago

mistermann 3y ago

Fitting, imho: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streetlight_effect https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streetlight_effect

crazygringo 3y ago

It's not just you personally, there is no evidence. And yet literally everything we know as human beings, we acquire through conscious experience. Conscious experience is the bedrock upon which we build all our sophisticated ideas of reality and, eventually, science. The very concept of "evidence" is nothing but a conscious idea. You don't need evidence of conscious experience, because conscious experience precedes the very concept of evidence. It's one of the great paradoxes of philosophy, and specifically metaphysics. Which nobody has solved yet. How do we reconcile the truth of idealism on the one hand -- that all we can ever be 100% sure of existing are our conscious ideas (both awake and while dreaming at night) -- with the empirical truth of realism on the other hand -- that there is a scientifically consistent "reality" out there which our ideas attempt to map onto and correlate with?

2snakes 3y ago
"Yes, it is true, as Albert Einstein said, you can live your life as if everything is a miracle, or as if everything is ordinary. It is also true, as Niels Bohr said, that the opposite of an ordinary truth is a falsity, but the opposite of a profound truth may also be another profound truth! Now, recall that in Hamlet, William Shakespeare said: “There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.” From these three quotes from three famously wise people, I have to conclude that I may choose to experience reality as very common and ordinary, or as divinely miraculous, and this choice can yield one of two profoundly different results: either the experience of misery and boredom, or joy and ecstasy!" -ER Close

anon291 3y ago

And yet if consciousness doesn't exist than why are all the automatons searching for it

h0l0cube 3y ago
It’s the human equivalent of rolling wooden balls or something