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Yes, consciousness requires some embedding in time (duration). It requires a capacity of recursion. Hofstadter’s stance loop is a temporal process. There is no

Yes, consciousness requires some embedding in time (duration). It requires a capacity of recursion. Hofstadter’s stance loop is a temporal process. There is no atemporal “frozen” state we can call consciousness. It is dynamic. That is what bothers me about the Chalmer’s piece. There are not three states of a thermostat’s “What’s it like”. He is showboating his writting chops and parroting Nagel’s dualism.

vidarh 2y ago
> There is no atemporal “frozen” state we can call consciousness. It is dynamic. That is a huge assumption we just have no way of knowing. For starters, we don't know whether we are in an atemporal "frozen" state or not.
- robwwilliams 2y ago
  It is a highly pragmatic assumption like absolutely everything else, even cogito ergo sum. Tell me what is not an assumption and then maybe we can talk. My take: Epistemology is metaphysical bs, and “truth” is a convention we agree to within communities of speakers.
  - vidarh 2y ago
    As an axiom for discussing our observable world, sure, it's pragmatic. But it remains an assumption. I wouldn't dream of suggesting cogito ergo sum isn't an assumption. On the contrary, it's a very shaky assumption. The passage of time is a more reasonable one, but it's still one we have no evidence for. It's reasonable to assume, and so allow us to talk about the passage of time even though we have no conclusive evidence for it, but that does not make it reasonable to claim conscioussness requires a dynamic system, because we don't know and can't know, only act as if it does.
sdwr 2y ago
Thank you for bringing some sense into the conversation. Panpsychic "everything is alive" is better than "nothing else is conscious because I'm not them", but only by one degree. > Where does it hurt? Pokes leg, ow Pokes arm, ow Pokes stomach, ow > Everywhere! > I think you sprained your finger
bglazer 2y ago
What do you mean by dualism? From the article, emphasis mine: "But we should not be looking for a homunculus in physical systems to serve as a subject. *The subject is the whole system*, or better, is associated with the system in the way that a subject is associated with a brain." Is this dualism because it retains the idea of the subject at all? But Chalmers states "the subject is the system", and so seems to reject the notion of mind/body duality. I haven't read about this in much depth, so I don't have a very sophisticated understanding here.

vidarh 2y ago

> There is no atemporal “frozen” state we can call consciousness. It is dynamic. That is a huge assumption we just have no way of knowing. For starters, we don't know whether we are in an atemporal "frozen" state or not.

robwwilliams 2y ago
It is a highly pragmatic assumption like absolutely everything else, even cogito ergo sum. Tell me what is not an assumption and then maybe we can talk. My take: Epistemology is metaphysical bs, and “truth” is a convention we agree to within communities of speakers.
- vidarh 2y ago
  As an axiom for discussing our observable world, sure, it's pragmatic. But it remains an assumption. I wouldn't dream of suggesting cogito ergo sum isn't an assumption. On the contrary, it's a very shaky assumption. The passage of time is a more reasonable one, but it's still one we have no evidence for. It's reasonable to assume, and so allow us to talk about the passage of time even though we have no conclusive evidence for it, but that does not make it reasonable to claim conscioussness requires a dynamic system, because we don't know and can't know, only act as if it does.

sdwr 2y ago

Thank you for bringing some sense into the conversation. Panpsychic "everything is alive" is better than "nothing else is conscious because I'm not them", but only by one degree. > Where does it hurt? Pokes leg, ow Pokes arm, ow Pokes stomach, ow > Everywhere! > I think you sprained your finger

bglazer 2y ago

What do you mean by dualism? From the article, emphasis mine: "But we should not be looking for a homunculus in physical systems to serve as a subject. *The subject is the whole system*, or better, is associated with the system in the way that a subject is associated with a brain." Is this dualism because it retains the idea of the subject at all? But Chalmers states "the subject is the system", and so seems to reject the notion of mind/body duality. I haven't read about this in much depth, so I don't have a very sophisticated understanding here.