My Theory of Everything, Expressed in Layman's Terms

[The Grey Man]

Karl Popper and the Friesian Trilemma

Karl Popper, for those of you who are unfamiliar with him, is one of the most prominent philosophers of the 20th century and the most important commentator on the scientific method since Bacon. His chief epistemological work, The Logic of Scientific Discovery, defended a thesis that is now taken for granted by empirical researchers of all kinds: that scientific experiments are conducted with the aim, not of verifying theories, but of falsifying them; and that, therefore, a scientific theory is, perforce, one that makes at least one statement that could hypothetically be proven false by a suitable test.

For example, if all ravens hitherto observed were black and I made the claim that “some ravens are black,” my theory would be unscientific because it doesn’t make any testable predictions, but merely takes stock of what has already been observed. If, on the other hand, I claimed that “all ravens are black,” my theory would be scientific, and not because it can be proven right—indeed, it can’t possibly be proven right because, no matter how many black ravens we find, there remains a possibility that somewhere, somewhen, there is a white raven, or a blue one, or purple, and so on. A scientific theory, then, is one that can be revised on the grounds of falsifying observations.

Observations: if scientific theories are houses built with a view to future renovation, then these are the bedrock upon which the whole edifice of science rests. Just as no house can stand whose foundations are not supported by firm ground, so no scientific theory is justified if it is not based on experience, and this invites a question that Popper’s falsificationist doctrine cannot answer: How can scientific theories be based on experience? Objects of observation are material—ravens, rocks, houses, etc. are all particular pieces of matter individuated by their unique locations, shapes, and sensible qualities—whereas theories are purely formal combinations of symbols, so how can the former be the basis of the latter? How can real things ground ideas?

Popper recalls that the post-Kantian philosopher Jakob Fries asked this question long before he did:

The problem of the basis of experience has troubled few thinkers so deeply as Fries. He taught that, if the statements of science are not to be accepted dogmatically, we must be able to justify them. If we demand justification by reasoned argument, in the logical sense, then we are committed to the view that statements can be justified only by statements. The demand that all statements be logically justified (described by Fries as a ‘predilection for proofs’) it is therefore bound to lead to an infinite regress. Now, if we wish to avoid the danger of dogmatism as well as an infinite regress, then it seems as if we could only have recourse to psychologism, i.e., the doctrine that statements can be justified not only by statements but also by perceptual experience. Faced with this trilemma—dogmatism vs. infinite regress vs. psychologism—Fries, and with him almost all epistemologists who wished to account for our empirical knowledge, opted for psychologism. In sense-experience, he taught, we have ‘immediate knowledge’: by this immediate knowledge, we may justify our ‘mediate knowledge’—knowledge expressed in the symbolism of some language. And this mediate knowledge includes, of course, the statements of science.

In other words, if our scientific theories are to be established on firm ground, we must find a solution to the Friesian trilemma, which is the choice between:

1. the uncritical acceptance of certain statements as if they were mathematical axioms;
2. the doomed attempt to justify our statements by other statements ad infinitum; or
3. the uncritical acceptance of certain statements because “I’m pretty sure they’re true.”

Popper’s solution, ostensibly, is to miraculously choose all three options, and none of them!

The basic statements at which we stop, which we decide to accept as satisfactory, and as sufficiently tested, have admitted the character of dogmas, but only in so far as we may desist from justifying them by further arguments (or by further tests). But this kind of dogmatism is innocuous since, should the need arise, these statements can easily be tested further. I admit that this too makes the chain of deduction in principle infinite. But this kind of ‘infinite regress’ is also innocuous since in our theory there is no question of trying to prove any statements by means of it. And finally, as to psychologism: I admit, again, that the decision to accept a basic statement, and to be satisfied with it, is causally connected with our experiences—especially with out perceptual experiences. But we do not attempt to justify basic statements by these experiences. Experiences can motivate a decision, and hence an acceptance or a rejection of a statement, but a basic statement cannot be justified by them—no more than by thumping the table.

I say “ostensibly” because Popper has clearly chosen Friesian psychologism, albeit with a difference: whereas Fries taught that scientific theories are grounded in observation qua observation, Popper says that they are grounded in observation qua object of observation. In other words, Fries’s psychologism is introverted and Popper’s is extraverted—Popper is Fries turned inside-out. One says that scientific theories are creations of the mind, the other that they are products of the human brain…

…and both are right. By rejecting Fries’ introspective psychologism and replacing it with his own naturalistic psychologism, Popper has forgotten Kant’s inestimable distinction between the empirical character and the intelligible character of man. More precisely, he has forgotten that the naturalistic, or empirical, description of man does not contradict or compete with his description as he is in himself, but complements it. Like too many philosophers of the post-Enlightenment age, he has forgotten that he has, besides a body, a soul.

 

[Cognisant]

Read: Science is this <contrived strawman argument> therefore because <further reasoning based off the flawed initial premise> meaning science isn't "scientific" thus <inexplicable> souls!

You’re conflating science with logic to create a strawman.

Science is about proving/disproving theories in a practical sense but not in an axiomatic sense, we will never be able to conclusively prove that dinosaurs once existed or that they don’t continue to exist somewhere because there’s always a counter theory and proving a negative statement is axiomatically impossible (unless said negative statement is self-refuting). However practically speaking we can prove that dinosaurs did exist beyond all reasonable doubt because we have a proverbial mountain of evidence. We can also reasonably assume they no longer exist (for a given definition of dinosaur) due to a lack of evidence which given the breadth and scope of evidence we have for similar sized animals makes the absence of such evidence a form of evidence in of itself.

Now onto this extroverted/introverted qua nonsense there's lots of evidence that consciousness is embodied (that we are our brains) and basically none to the contrary. So either you're refuting consciousness is embodied based on nothing or you're calling the brain a soul, but it's still a brain, it's still just a complex blob of fatty meat, renaming it is just semantics.

 

[The Grey Man]

Science is about proving/disproving theories in a practical sense but not in an axiomatic sense, we will never be able to conclusively prove that dinosaurs once existed or that they don’t continue to exist somewhere because there’s always a counter theory and proving a negative statement is axiomatically impossible (unless said negative statement is self-refuting). However practically speaking we can prove that dinosaurs did exist beyond all reasonable doubt because we have a proverbial mountain of evidence. We can also reasonably assume they no longer exist (for a given definition of dinosaur) due to a lack of evidence which given the breadth and scope of evidence we have for similar sized animals makes the absence of such evidence a form of evidence in of itself.

This is precisely Popper’s (and Fries’s) point. Reasonable belief and reasonable doubt are not mathematical inferences, but psychological motives for denying and affirming the truth of statements. To say that we are reasonably convinced that dinosaurs roamed the Earth millions of years ago is to say that we feel confident in transitioning from the regressive to the foundationalist method of testing the theory, in moving on to the falsification of sub-theories that presuppose its truth, perhaps theories about particular species of dinosaur.

I have not constructed a strawman; I have merely described the scientific method as it is. This may be unacceptable to those who prefer to think that science is purely objective, but, as an enterprise of human beings, it cannot but be subjective as well.

Now onto this extroverted/introverted qua nonsense there's lots of evidence that consciousness is embodied (that we are our brains) and basically none to the contrary. So either you're refuting consciousness is embodied based on nothing or you're calling the brain a soul, but it's still a brain, it's still just a complex blob of fatty meat, renaming it is just semantics.

Consciousness is embodied and disembodied. Look around you—you are conscious of, besides your own body, a plethora of things: rocks, buildings, birds, trees, people, automobiles, clouds, the sun, the moon, distant stars—the list goes on. A glance out your window will suffice to refute the notion that consciousness does not extend beyond one’s own body. Now, you might say, Though I am conscious of many things outside my own body, it does not therefore follow that my consciousness is not a process taking place inside my body, and this is quite true, only I would add that since the very body which you think to contain your consciousness doubles as an object of that consciousness among many, so it is not at all clear what is inside what, or whether such a question even makes sense. I personally think that it does not.

 

[Cognisant]

You're downplaying the role of evidence and setting an unreasonably high bar for objectivity, it's the same old shit as always, ontological skepticism "you can't prove god doesn't exist".

Believe whatever you want, I can't stop you, but I will point out that your beliefs are without evidence and based solely upon your personal biases. In other words you don't believe you have a soul for any reason other than your desire for that belief to be true.

I'm not entirely without empathy, I understand comfort religion can provide and as much as I disagree with it I won't go out of my way to deprive people of that comfort. Where we have a problem is that you're proselytizing and worse doing so by sowing unreasonable skepticism and that I cannot allow to go unchallenged.

 

[The Grey Man]

I'm sowing no more skepticism than is required for the scientific method to function. Karl Popper, the man who pointed out the essential role that falsification plays in empirical science, was a materialist and an atheist, and my only disagreement with him that I've expressed in this thread is with his naturalization of Fries's psychologism, which to me seems unfounded. Am I to be branded a religious proselytizer merely because I reject the sort of materialism that asserts that consciousness is only an objective phenomenon?

My non-reductionist theory of consciousness is not an article of religious faith; it is a rational response to the fact that consciousness can be described either as a plurality of material objects (scientifically) or as the unity that combines them (introspectively), and both descriptions are right—you might say that they are complementary.

 

[Cognisant]

Am I to be branded a religious proselytizer merely because I reject the sort of materialism that asserts that consciousness is only an objective phenomenon?

Absolutely

Subjective: Relative to the observer.
Objective: Independent of the observer.

If we’re both looking at the same thing we should see the same thing, we might not because we’re viewing it from different angles and with different eyes (we each have our personal fallible subjective perspectives) but for the most part we should see the same thing because we’re looking at the same thing and that thing exists independent of us. Now you could say that thing exists objectively but I think that goes without saying, if it was a figment of my imagination you wouldn’t be able to see it without reading my mind nor I if it was in yours and if it is some sort of shared hallucination why is it so much more tangible and permanent than our thoughts and memories? Indeed if reality as we experience it is nothing more than a shared hallucination then what is reality and how are we able to experience this shared hallucination, in fact what are we, where are we, is there even a distinction between you and I or are we possibly just figments of someone else’s imagination?

Could it be that GASP what we see hear touch taste and smell is actually reality? That there isn’t some demiurge pulling the wool over our proverbial not-actually-real eyes, gee that’s so much simpler and straightforward you’d almost think that would be the given assumption unless there was evidence that suggested otherwise, which there isn’t. Now it could be that said demiurge is doing a really great job or it could be that some people want to believe nonsense and will go to any lengths up to and including denying that reality itself isn’t real so they can ignore any evidence contrary to their ridiculous beliefs.

Once again we’re back to ontological skepticism.

 

[Kakariki]

Subjective: Relative to the observer.
Objective: Independent of the observer.

These definitions make no sense with regards to the theory of relativity. Duration and length are variable among and dependent on observers. (A human, his passport says that he’s 1,80 m long, would have for an alien, moving from the perspective of this human with a speed of 2,50 ∙ 10^{Text}, a length of 1,00 m, and the alien would be right.) Objective means that several ways of description of a physical situation are equally valid. It says nothing about ‘independent of the observer’ because, that is useless for physics.

Your original elucidation of what the notion ‘objective’ entails would could make sense in a time of classical physics, but it no longer applies in a world where relatively is widely acknowledged. Check it again, from your definition of subjective it follows even that time is subjective! That’s not a scientific view. In his musings on ‘the concept of objectivity’, Henry Margenau says:

Objectivity becomes equivalent to invariance of physical laws, not physical phenomena or observations. A falling object may describe a parabola to an observer on a moving train, a straight line to an observer on the ground. These differences in appearance do not matter so long as the law of nature in its general form is the same for both observers.

 

[Cognisant]

You're using mathematically modelled physical laws to defend to defend the notion of subjective reality, think about that for a moment, take all the time you need.

Physics and philosophy are different fields and they might share some terminology and use that terminology in a similar manner but there is a difference.

In physics the "observer" isn't a person, it can be a person but it's important to understand it doesn't have to be, it can be a camera or any other kind of sensor, it doesn't need to have a mind. By contrast an observer in the philosophical sense is a mind, it's the person who does the observing, it cannot be a camera or some other sensor.

Two people in an art gallery looking at one of those funny sculptures that looks like a different thing depending upon what angle you look at it are seeing it subjectively in the physics sense. But in the philosophy it's not the perspective that's different it's the observer that's different, those two people could see the same thing from the same perspective and see something different because they're different which is absolutely not how physics works.

 

[Kakariki]

Your third paragraph is not incorrect. In physics, an observer is always a frame of reference but a frame of reference is indeed not always an observer with a ‘mind.’

But there was no reason to bring that up, because it doesn’t improve the definitions.

You're using mathematically modelled physical laws to defend to defend the notion of subjective reality.

You defend that time is subjective. That is what astonishes me. I hoped that you could be moved to retract your definitions (and even suggested a better definition by Margenau) which are:

Subjective: Relative to the observer.
Objective: Independent of the observer.

You really don’t retract them? If you agree with your own definitions, then time, which is relative to the frame of reference, and hence to the observer, is relative, so ‘subjective’ (In order to avoid the strawman again, I certainly reject that time or ‘reality’ are subjective. I hoped that this goes without saying.)

How hard is it so say: ‘Okay, I hadn’t put much thought in it, and Margenau seems to have put forward quite a good definition of objectivity.’ I can’t get my head around why once people have embraced a certain position, they defend it as if their whole honour depends on it, while it’s actually much better to adapt better positions and learn new things, as everyone does throughout life.

 

[Cognisant]

So you accept the objectivity of reality in the philosophical sense, which we agree allows for subjectivity in the physics sense?

Bear in mind I didn't bring physics into this so I will happily concede that you have successfully blindsided me with semantics that aren't really relevant to the topic of this thread.

I can’t get my head around why once people have embraced a certain position, they defend it as if their whole honour depends on it, while it’s actually much better to adapt better positions and learn new things, as everyone does throughout life.

Such devious rhetoric, right back at ya mate

 

[Kakariki]

You asked me a question, but you didn’t answer mine. :-(

So you accept the objectivity of reality in the philosophical sense, which we agree allows for subjectivity in the physics sense?

Yes.

 

[The Grey Man]

If we’re both looking at the same thing we should see the same thing, we might not because we’re viewing it from different angles and with different eyes (we each have our personal fallible subjective perspectives) but for the most part we should see the same thing because we’re looking at the same thing and that thing exists independent of us.

[...]

We were talking about experience and whether it was objective or subjective (or if the question even made sense); now you’re talking about empirical objects and whether they’re real or not. These are different questions.

My answer to the first question, as I said before, is that it doesn’t make sense. There is no empirical evidence that consciousness is embodied, nor is there any such evidence to the contrary, because all such evidence is immanent to consciousness. Looking for consciousness in the natural world as disclosed by consciousness is like looking for the pair of glasses through which one is already looking, the difference being that, in the case of consciousness, we are ourselves the metaphorical glasses that we are looking for.

As for the second question, I agree that empirical objects are real or, at least, empirically real, which is to say that whatever else they may be, they are objects of experience.

Now, I suspect that this answer won’t satisfy you because you believe (if I have understood you correctly) that empirical objects have, besides an empirical reality, an extra-empirical reality—that they are, besides objects of experience, objects in themselves that may be perceived by us, but do not depend upon us, just as the rock (the real object par excellence) does not depend upon the hand that grasps it. Furthermore, you believe that, just as the rock can be picked up, manipulated, and thrown by anybody, so can an object in itself be perceived by many different people in many different ways and yet remain the same thing.

Such epistemological realism is indispensable to practical life, which requires us to assume that we are all interacting with and talking about the same things. The objects in themselves are the theoretical glue that combines everyone’s private experiences into a publically experienced intersubjective world. However, notwithstanding the immeasurable practical utility of this theory of a public world, it remains a theory; moreover, it remains a theory that is insusceptible to falsification. The empirical conjunction of the rock and the hand that grounds our judgment of the former’s independence of the latter is an experiment that cannot be repeated with experience itself and its objects in general—when we are ourselves the glasses through which we view the world, there is no taking them off! This is why I refuse to choose realism over idealism, though I believe that they are compatible, even complementary.

 

[Pizzabeak]

The brain is a receiver system that picks up its consciousness from transmitted signals in space. Atoms aren’t the underlying material of reality if there is one, we just call it the quantum foam in the vacuum of space. Kant required things to exist in and of itself, a Ding an sich. His ideas are false if you’re an idealist. What we get from atoms colliding in space is matter, the electron is defined and can exist. On the other hand things exist as forms so that reality can be experienced, put there by a someone. There are still rules and limits to it, though. It means nothing if people are given the chance the become consciously awoken, so to speak.

 

[The Grey Man]

The brain is a receiver system that picks up its consciousness from transmitted signals in space. Atoms aren’t the underlying material of reality if there is one, we just call it the quantum foam in the vacuum of space. Kant required things to exist in and of itself, a Ding an sich. His ideas are false if you’re an idealist. What we get from atoms colliding in space is matter, the electron is defined and can exist. On the other hand things exist as forms so that reality can be experienced, put there by a someone. There are still rules and limits to it, though. It means nothing if people are given the chance the become consciously awoken, so to speak.

Yes, Kant was, notwithstanding his transcendental (or critical) idealism, a realist. He thought we only knew appearances, phenomena, but he also thought that there was something appearing, a thing in itself, though we can't say anything about it except it is such that it thus appears to us when the mind receives transmissions, as it were, from the senses. This such that may not seem like much in the way of a foundation of metaphysical knowledge, but it's enough for the scientific method to function, because all it has to do is make testable predictions about what appears by generalizing particular events into laws. And this is where Popper's falsificationism comes in—we will never know how right we are about the thing in itself, but we can at least assure ourselves that we have become less wrong over the years, based on our progressive technological achievement. We don't need to know what the thing in itself is really like (if, again, the question even makes sense) to make a vaccine, or a nuclear power plant, or a space shuttle. Science can get on just fine without metaphysics, though things are a little trickier with moral philosophy...

 

[Black Rose]

We store directional signal channels in the wires of neurons. This happens when dendrites grow to make paths for the signals. Growth/decay follows a trajectory of reinforcement. The brain rearranges the wires to match the outside world. Whatever is reinforced from the outside the brain will become. Like the internet, only is what we reinforce it to be. The brain has had a long time to evolve adaptation to reinforcement. But it includes all of our perceptions.

So the information is just wired up channels. As signals travel down them they reinforce new channels, new wires to be wired up. Fire together wire together with the old saying goes. In other words reinforcement. Directing where signals go along new paths. And only because of the mechanism for wiring up the network we are intelligent. A babies brain is randomly networked. A university professor or artist have an organized network.

The brain reorganizes to become more structured. But it is no more solid than a dish of oatmeal. What matters is the organization. The brain could be any material as long as it is organized. No matter how ephemeral or solid. The brain changes materials all the time. But keeps is organization. That is a key philosophical base to why we exist. Why we are conscious. And why the consciousness of things like a rock may depend on their organization.

If consciousness has to do with organization many possibilities open up. For example, our perception has a resolution smaller than the neurons in our head. Why? What if the resolution could be higher or lower from ints organization. What does it mean for organized paths?

 

[Cognisant]

You really don’t retract them?

As I've explained I'm talking philosophy not refuting general relativity.
____

There’s plenty of evidence for embodied consciousness, if nothing else it’s telling that any discussion of intelligence or consciousness tends to revolve around the brain as if that might have something to do with it.

If consciousness wasn’t embodied how is it that various intoxicants are able to induce altered states of consciousness, are you to suggest that not only is the brain a transmitter/receiver of information that whatever it’s transmitting to can be affected to a state of intoxication by the information it receives? Indeed how is it that brain damage such as dementia affects the mind if the mind isn’t located in the brain, if the brain was merely an interface through which the mind controls the body wouldn’t brain damage be more like paraplegia or locked-in syndrome, a severed connection, as opposed to the impaired mental faculties that are so clearly exhibited?

When doing brain surgery neurosurgeons have used electrodes to stimulate neural tissue causing a range of unbidden thoughts and feelings in the conscious patient (I believe they do this to differentiate cancerous from non-cancerous tissue) if you won’t accept that as evidence for embodied consciousness then what evidence will you accept?

People can suffer memory loss from head injuries, does that not prove that memories are stored in the brain, if they were stored “in the cloud” that memory loss wouldn’t occur.

I think I’ve made my point that there’s overwhelming evidence for embodied consciousness and by contrast for disembodied consciousness (antenna theory) there’s nothing, absolutely nothing, indeed the theory is entirely superfluous it’s a solution to a problem that doesn’t exist because there’s no evidence that contradicts embodied consciousness theory.

So why are we even talking about it? As I wrote earlier you can’t prove a negative because there’s always a counter argument, it may not be sensible but it’s always possible. I cannot prove there isn’t a unicorn in the room with me right now, I look around and I can’t see one but maybe it’s too small to see or its invisible, maybe I’m looking right at it but I can’t comprehend it for some reason. Disembodied consciousness is a theoretical unicorn, I may not be able axiomatically prove it wrong but I shouldn’t have to because without a shred of evidence it’s as ridiculous as any other unicorn theory.

And (paraphrasing) “oh embodied consciousness is just a theory”, it’s a substantiated theory as opposed to your unsubstantiated theory, they’re not equivalent, stop resorting to ontological skepticism to justify otherwise unjustifiable wishful thinking.

 

[Black Rose]

@Cognisant

I think you may be taking for granted the unity of experience we from the brain. Even though the mind is organized a certain way does not me the brain is the same form of organization. And short of absolute permanent death being possible we cannot say what effect dissolvement will have short of being another form of organization. As long as there is a chance of organization then we cannot say consciousness is lost but simply took on a different form when the body is gone. So death in that instance is not permanent or at least less possible than before. It simply took on a different organization.

When the brain is gone I am organized differently and not completely gone. That might make sense or not. I think it does from the other forms consciousness takes on. Especially unity when the brain, in fact, is not unified spacially or temporally as we experience it.

What makes our experience of reality organized differently from the brains organization is what I am getting at. We simply do not know the difference between fullness vs emptiness and their interconnections.

 

[Cognisant]

We're robots made of meat, not magic.

You die and you're dead, that's it, it's really that simple, but people find ways to make it complicated because the unadorned truth is too confronting.

 

[The Grey Man]

My description of as a receiver of transmissions from the senses was not meant to serve as an alternative to your materialistic explanation of consciousness, but to illustrate the Kantian notion that the mind contributes the formal aspect of consciousness whereas sensibility provides the material. It was probably similar considerations that led medieval philosophers to think of the soul as feminine. Creation was said to be ex nihilo, out of the "nothing" that is colourless, tasteless, empty space (cf. "form is emptiness, emptiness is form"). Eckhart's conception of the soul as the virgin womb that conceives the son of God is a direct ancestor of the "windowless monad" described by Leibniz, who in turn influenced Kant. But I digress.

I think I’ve made my point that there’s overwhelming evidence for embodied consciousness and by contrast for disembodied consciousness (antenna theory) there’s nothing, absolutely nothing, indeed the theory is entirely superfluous it’s a solution to a problem that doesn’t exist because there’s no evidence that contradicts embodied consciousness theory.

There is no evidence that contradicts embodied consciousness theory because embodied consciousness theory is untestable; embodied consciousness theory is untestable because consciousness is that by means of which testing is possible. The conjunction of one phenomenon with another (e.g. the prodding of a certain region of my brain with the appearance of bright spots before me) can be used to ground specific predictions about what will happen in the future, but it cannot be used to explain phenomena in general, why anything appears at all.

An ophthalmologist who thinks that he understands vision because he has dissected an eye and mapped its entire structure believes himself to be a logical Münchhausen, who can lift his own concrete experience up by its abstracted ponytail, and the same is true of the cognitive scientist who thinks that he understands consciousness. There is no seeing sight and no experiencing experience. There is no vantage point from which to observe ourselves.

And (paraphrasing) “oh embodied consciousness is just a theory”, it’s a substantiated theory as opposed to your unsubstantiated theory, they’re not equivalent, stop resorting to ontological skepticism to justify otherwise unjustifiable wishful thinking.

I am not skeptical of the claim that the mind is an epiphenomenon of the body—I deny it unequivocally. I pointed out that the public world is a theory to show that the unity of experience and the plurality of its objects are heterogeneous. This same heterogeneity, which makes the "theoretical glue" of public objects (essentially "counter-unities" that bridge different experiences) indispensable to practical life (which requires us to assume that we all interacting with the same things), is the ground of my non-reductionism.

 

[Black Rose]

what was magic about what I said? What I said was philosophical and we do not know the answer to death anyway.

 

[lightfire]

He means when you die you're dead, it's the end. Which is true.

 

[Black Rose]

but calling unity as magic, such condescending.
why not have unity after death, is possible?

 

[Cognisant]

but calling unity as magic, such condescending.
why not have unity after death, is possible?

Natural selection favors self interested individuals, self interest necessitates a concept of self that is a distinction between self and not-self, my point is you are no more or less part of this universe whether you're alive or dead the boundary only exists within your mind. The only difference is when you're dead your mind can't have that contrived boundary because you have not mind, you're just dead.

My description of as a receiver of transmissions from the senses was not meant to serve as an alternative to your materialistic explanation of consciousness, but to illustrate the Kantian notion that the mind contributes the formal aspect of consciousness whereas sensibility provides the material. It was probably similar considerations that led medieval philosophers to think of the soul as feminine. Creation was said to be ex nihilo, out of the "nothing" that is colourless, tasteless, empty space (cf. "form is emptiness, emptiness is form"). Eckhart's conception of the soul as the virgin womb that conceives the son of God is a direct ancestor of the "windowless monad" described by Leibniz, who in turn influenced Kant. But I digress.

Stop trying to obfuscate things, I'm not going to buy into your nonsense.

There is no evidence that contradicts embodied consciousness theory because embodied consciousness theory is untestable; embodied consciousness theory is untestable because consciousness is that by means of which testing is possible.

I can put electrodes in your brain and make you think/feel things without your consent, that seems like a valid test to me.

The conjunction of one phenomenon with another (e.g. the prodding of a certain region of my brain with the appearance of bright spots before me) can be used to ground specific predictions about what will happen in the future, but it cannot be used to explain phenomena in general, why anything appears at all.

Again this is just ontological skepticism, if you really think it's impossible to really know anything why do you keep asserting your nonsense, isn't that hypocritical?

Knowledge based on experimentation may not be axiomatically perfect but it's undeniably better than your half-baked wishful thinking.

An ophthalmologist who thinks that he understands vision because he has dissected an eye and mapped its entire structure believes himself to be a logical Münchhausen, who can lift his own concrete experience up by its abstracted ponytail, and the same is true of the cognitive scientist who thinks that he understands consciousness. There is no seeing sight and no experiencing experience. There is no vantage point from which to observe ourselves.

So? I may not be able to see through your eyes but if I understand how the lens and the rod/cone cells in your retina work I can accurately predict what you see when you look at something, granted I'm not seeing it through your subjective mind's eye but why does that matter? I don't need your qualia for anything nor does your qualia prove anything, it's completely irrelevant to anyone but you.

I am not skeptical of the claim that the mind is an epiphenomenon of the body—I deny it unequivocally. I pointed out that the public world is a theory to show that the unity of experience and the plurality of its objects are heterogeneous. This same heterogeneity, which makes the "theoretical glue" of public objects (essentially "counter-unities" that bridge different experiences) indispensable to practical life (which requires us to assume that we all interacting with the same things), is the ground of my non-reductionism.

You're going to have to unpack that for me because it made zero sense. I sort of get what AK's talking about regarding "unity" in contrast to the sense of self as something apart from the universe around it (which it isn't) but in your case I have no idea.

 

[Black Rose]

Everything we know of is a set of boundaries in the brain. Interior and exterior. But what happens to the final boundary upon death. If no distinction can be made to contrast the final boundary do we become nothing or do we grow new boundaries offshoot the last one. Think of it that all boundaries must culminate into a last barrier. When you are one with the universe or whatnot. The point is: what is the last barrier connected to (the universe perhaps), and where do new barriers come from extending if possible from the final barrier.

Just asking a speculative question here.

 

[Cognisant]

Not a literal boundary, a conceptual boundary.

Consider the Ship of Theseus being rebuilt piece by piece, eventually there isn't any pieces left that came with the original ship, is it the same ship or is it a new ship? This apparent paradox isn't actually a paradox at all but rather an artifact of the contrived nature of identity. Things don't have inherent identities we just assign identities to them like giving a name to a child that name is only that child's name because everyone agrees it is.

Your mental boundry between yourself and the rest of the universe is your contrived distinction between what is a part of you and what is a part of your environment, it has no relevance to the actual nature of your existence, it's just a concept in your head.

 

[The Grey Man]

Stop trying to obfuscate things, I'm not going to buy into your nonsense.

It was a digression and I identified it as such. I wasn't trying to sell you anything. These arguments ad hominem are becoming tiresome.

You're going to have to unpack that for me because it made zero sense. I sort of get what AK's talking about regarding "unity" in contrast to the sense of self as something apart from the universe around it (which it isn't) but in your case I have no idea.

Your consciousness gives unity to the plurality of things of which you are conscious; realistic thinking generalizes this relation to notional objects in themselves that give unity to a plurality of empirical objects. For example, if you and I view a modern sculpture from different angles, we will see different objects; it is thought that makes the jump from these two empirical objects to the single object in itself of which they are sides.

If it still doesn't make sense, don't worry about it. The only reason I brought up the theory of public objects was to show that it was a theory based on experience, so it can't be used to explain experience on pain of circular reasoning.

So? I may not be able to see through your eyes but if I understand how the lens and the rod/cone cells in your retina work I can accurately predict what you see when you look at something, granted I'm not seeing it through your subjective mind's eye but why does that matter? I don't need your qualia for anything nor does your qualia prove anything, it's completely irrelevant to anyone but you.

It seems like we agree that subjective sensations can be predicted based on dynamic perceptions of one's own body. I just think that reducing all sensation, all experience to an object of said experience (i.e., the body) is question-begging, hence my original disagreement with Popper.

 

[JansenDowel]

For example, if all ravens hitherto observed were black and I made the claim that “some ravens are black,” my theory would be unscientific because it doesn’t make any testable predictions, but merely takes stock of what has already been observed. If, on the other hand, I claimed that “all ravens are black,” my theory would be scientific, and not because it can be proven right—indeed, it can’t possibly be proven right because, no matter how many black ravens we find, there remains a possibility that somewhere, somewhen, there is a white raven, or a blue one, or purple, and so on. A scientific theory, then, is one that can be revised on the grounds of falsifying observations.

This is not a theory, according to Popper. Theories solve problems by explaining them. This theory of yours is not actually a theory because it breaks 3 major rules in the Popperian rule book.

1. There is no problem that is solved by stating 'all ravens are black'. No controversy that is resolved by saying it.
2. It is not explanation. Theories answer 'why' questions in the form of a 'because' answer.
3. This theory does not explain why we should believe that 'all ravens are black.'.

Again, I am going by Poppers rule book. These are not rules I have made up.

Observations: if scientific theories are houses built with a view to future renovation, then these are the bedrock upon which the whole edifice of science rests. Just as no house can stand whose foundations are not supported by firm ground, so no scientific theory is justified if it is not based on experience, and this invites a question that Popper’s falsificationist doctrine cannot answer: How can scientific theories be based on experience?

Actually, he did answer this question. His answer is that theories are not 'based' on observations. The foundation of science is not observation. In fact, scientific theories have no foundations at all. The idea that our explanations requires foundations to rest upon is a myth.

Remember, Poppers thing is conjecture and refutation. He believes true knowledge about reality is discovered through a process of creative conjecture and criticism. But humans are fallible, so no matter how much hypothesizing and criticizing that is done, we can never be certain that our knowledge is absolutely true. There is no such thing as certainty. And thus there can be no foundations.

 

[rlnb]

There is no evidence that contradicts embodied consciousness theory because embodied consciousness theory is untestable; embodied consciousness theory is untestable because consciousness is that by means of which testing is possible.

+1 on this. People often forget that by consciousness what is being talked about is the 'I' or the subject who experiences. And there is only one 'I' , not many 'I''s in many bodies.

 

[JansenDowel]

There is no evidence that contradicts embodied consciousness theory because embodied consciousness theory is untestable; embodied consciousness theory is untestable because consciousness is that by means of which testing is possible.

+1 on this. People often forget that by consciousness what is being talked about is the 'I' or the subject who experiences. And there is only one 'I' , not many 'I''s in many bodies.

Theories about consciousness can be testable though.. Or am I missing the point?

 

[rlnb]

Consciousness or 'I' is the knower and cannot be know/tested through perception or any other means. This explains in detail:

 

[The Grey Man]

This is not a theory, according to Popper. Theories solve problems by explaining them. This theory of yours is not actually a theory because it breaks 3 major rules in the Popperian rule book.

1. There is no problem that is solved by stating 'all ravens are black'. No controversy that is resolved by saying it.
2. It is not explanation. Theories answer 'why' questions in the form of a 'because' answer.
3. This theory does not explain why we should believe that 'all ravens are black.'.

Again, I am going by Poppers rule book. These are not rules I have made up.

All of these are methodological rules, which are subordinate to the criterion of falsifiability in Popper's system. The theory remains a theory because it is a universal statement about ravens from which falsifiable statements about particular ravens may be deducted. It may not be a particularly useful or enlightening theory, but it is theory nonetheless.

Remember, Poppers thing is conjecture and refutation. He believes true knowledge about reality is discovered through a process of creative conjecture and criticism. But humans are fallible, so no matter how much hypothesizing and criticizing that is done, we can never be certain that our knowledge is absolutely true. There is no such thing as certainty. And thus there can be no foundations.

Popper wanted to have his psychologistic cake and eat it too. As shown above, his solution to the Friesian trilemma was to choose all three: dogmatism, infinite regress, and psychologism. It is true that we accept some statements (dogmatism) and we continue to test others (regress), and whether we accept or continue to test any one of these statements is decided by our psychological makeup (psychologism)—and what Popper should have concluded from this is that psychological motivations are what drive the whole enterprise, and that perceptual experience is of critical importance, since it is by means of perceptual experience that falsification is possible. Experience cannot, strictly speaking, justify any statement—but it is to experience that the statements of science refer.

 

[DoIMustHaveAnUsername?]

+1 on this. People often forget that by consciousness what is being talked about is the 'I' or the subject who experiences. And there is only one 'I' , not many 'I''s in many bodies.

There is no subject who experience besides the experience itself.

[1] If a subject directly experiences the experience in front of it, it is redundant, because we are agreeing that the experience is already present, therefore by definition it is already being experienced.

[2] If a subject cannot experience non-experiential\appearing stuff - because they are non-experiential. At best a subject may transformer non-experiential stuffs and represent it in phenomenal world as experience - then this subject is more of a transformer rather than an experiencer.

One may also ask, by what means, can a subject experience an experience.
Does the subject watches the 'experience' happening on a 'screen', then who experiences the 'experience' of the 'experience' --- it just calls for an endless regression.
Or does the subject retrieves information from the experience and be influenced by it, but that is not exactly 'experiencing' phenomenally.

At its best, the subject is a sort of ground of experience - the aspect of phenomenality-witnessing that is immanent in every conscious experience.

But even then there is no clear evidence of unity of 'I'. In fact, there may be multiple in a single body, even for those without disorders. There may be different local regions of consciousness, each having some form of unity. And consciousness may appear and disappear without anyone nothing (an eternity can be passed in between a flicker of consciousness, without noticing anything) - memory and some cognitive post-processing can maintain a sense of continuity regardless. There may be thousands of deaths in a single body in a single lifetime, for all we know.

While there are some convincing arguments in favor of diachronic and synchronic unity in a more metaphysical level - they are, IMO, hard to pull for anything beyond supporting the local unity of a slightly thick slice of temporal moment.

 

[The Grey Man]

If the "I" is the experience itself, than the body is the "I" seen from the outside, as it were, as a finite object of experience definitively bounded by other objects (or what is the same, enclosed by a skin). The body is thus the objectification of the "I" for itself. The habits of the specimen and its coordinated responses to external stimuli are the objectifications of the same diachronic and synchronic unity of experience that make the observation of the specimen as an object among objects possible. This observation of the body, however, is not identical to knowledge of the "I." Perhaps the most important difference between the body and the "I" is that the former has definite boundaries, a skin, whereas the latter does not. One can no more see what lies above, behind, or beside that "slice of time" which one is than one can find out what lies beyond the horizon by running past it. We are, in this sense, infinite; we do not share space with each other as our bodies do.

This, I believe, is what rlnb meant when he said that there is only one "I," though I could be wrong.

 

[The Grey Man]

The Christian-Platonic conclusion from this, of course, is that we are all inwardly the same, emanations of the same God, though outwardly different. I feel immense sympathy for Thomas Browne, who not only stressed the primacy of immediate "ocular Observation" in science, as Goethe and Fries would later, but also epitomized that recognition of the same timeless spirit in all things which is the essence of true monotheism.

 

[The Grey Man]

How can I contain You?

 

[DoIMustHaveAnUsername?]

I wouldn't call it necessarily infinite but unbounded, but ironically by virtue of our own limitations - our inability to be aware of the boundaries. Wittgenstein put it pretty well near the end of Tractatus. It is analogous to vision - which is again a strong, perhaps one of the strongest, aspect of consciousness (unless you are blind) - we don't see the definitie boundaries of our visual field, but that doesn't mean the our vision is unbonded, rather than we can't see the boundaries themselves. To see the boundaries we have to somehow transcend the boundaries be aware of both outside and inside the boundaries, but we are bounded within the boundaries. Thus ironically, our boundedness gives the appearance of unboundedness. Though, to be honest, I don't claim to know anything about the true capacities of mind. The body as it appears is just a virtual bounded representation within phenomenality.

About all of us being manifestation of the same spirit, I don't know if we have any reason to believe that. While all sentient beings may share the aspect of witnessing (which is often elevant to the level of something divine in many mystical tradition), I am not sure if it is simply qualitatively identical or also quantitatively. I don't find many resource distinguishing the two forms of identity and investigating why it's one not the other. While even in case of qualitative identity, one can say poetically, how we all are the (qualitatively) same spirit, but I don't see what point it ultimately serves. There may be some ways to argue for all of us being enamation of God through some metaphysicals of causality and such but that's a different game.

I am not entirely clear on either synchronic unity or diachronic unity.

For example, much of what we think is synchronously united, may actually be not. Consciousness latches from one object to another with an inconceivable rapidity. All the intricacies of the process requires advanced meditation and skill to untangle but even then phenomenologicaly, I don't know how much we can come to understand. What appears as simultanious existence of two objects may just be rapid switching of attention between the two objects. Time doesn't stand still, so it is difficult (perhaps, impossible) to separate synchronic unity from diachronic unity. So synchronic unity can be far more limited than we think. Some have argued that diachronic unity implies a sort of timeless consciousness - something that stand beyond time. The central point is the consciousness of change. No experience is still, even those that are seemingly unchanging. To be is to be-ing (present continuous). Therefore, diachronic unity cannot be merely a constuct out of rapidly changing 'atomic slices' of consciousness maintain by memory and other underlying cognitive process. Temporally non-extended moments of consciousness would be like no-consciousness at all, and there passing by would not create diachronic unity. Yet given that we can be aware of change at all seems to suggest as if we as the witnessing aspect of consciousness stand apart from the changing objects, that is, we as witness are timeless. The contents of consciousness changes. but supposedly the consciousness itself doesn't. Yet it's hard to know if that's exactly the case. It doesn't clearly make sense to say we are timeless, when we seem to be able to concieve ourself in time - the consciounsess as related to past objects is surely in a different state right now, even if merely by virtue of its changed contents.
While temporally non-extended atomic consciousness may not be possible, we may still have a series of temporally extended consciousness but extend only for a moment - and persisting only for that moment - only to be replaced by another - true local diachronic unity, but an illusory global diachronic unity maintained by memory, and cognitive tricks. But, I can barely grasp time and change. I have tried hard to meditate on them before, but I have fallen into destructive spiral recently; may be I will never find out.

 

[Pizzabeak]

Plato was an idealist. He did know what his Forms were. Good was his ultimate form and the Sun in Plato’s cave is an example of Good. We can only know good once we understand the Good, then we’ll be able to see real objects. The more acquainted you become with Beautiful, the better judge of Beauty you’ll be.

He said the human experience is a projection of the higher reality of Ideal Forms. Once someone is outside the cave they can see the realm of actual objects, so to speak. It’s a good metaphor for describing an overall abstract situation.

Similarly, the more DMT you smoke the more you understand and are experienced with consciousness - that’s just the way it is and it can go no other way. DMT is stronger than mushrooms and high dose mushrooms.

On the other hand Popper is known for his idea of refutations, arguing that scientific progress and discovery is advanced and made from the process of trial and error. That means wrong hypotheses are included, like knowing your history. From his point of view that means there are no “predictions” you can ultimately make, and no one is really the wiser for it because it’s all just correcting mistakes and inaccuracies in the end.

 

[The Grey Man]

@DoIMustHaveAnUsername? To say that my vision is not unbounded, but appears to be, or that the objects I see at present are not simultaneous, but appear to be, seems to me to be a distinction without a difference. Such distinctions may become meaningful by "vision," we understand the visible objectification of vision—i.e., a cognitive process in my body which is caused by the incidence of electromagnetic waves upon my eyes—in which case the boundedness of my vision can be demonstrated quite easily by, for example, asking me to read a sign taped to the back of my head without the assistance of mirrors; but it remains that that "boundedness" which is thereby demonstrated is an attribute of vision qua visible object, not of vision as such. The same is true, mutatis mutandis, of the objects of vision; cognitive science tells us that the brain constructs representations of objects based on numerous electromagnetic signals that the eyes collect by moving extremely quickly, but this does not change the fact that empirical objects appear simple and solid to us. If this appearance—this Newtonian world of solid extended, mobile objects like books and cars—is a trick of the brain, than "I" must be a trick as well, for, as you say, there is no subject of experience besides the experience itself. Now, I find myself constitutionally incapable of doubting the data imparted to me by experience, so I join G.E. Moore and the rest of the eternal community of philosophical realists in saying:

Here is one hand!

 

[DoIMustHaveAnUsername?]

The distinction is epistemology-phenomenology vs metaphysics.
To say experience appears to be simultaneious is an epistemic claim (how it appears), to say it IS simultaneious is a metaphysical claim (how it truly is in itself).

It may appear to an instantly created clone replacing the original person that the clone IS the original person due to inheriting the original's memory. But the metaphysicaly reality would be a matter of life-and-death - a person has been destroyed and replaced by someone else.

There are other differences - especially in regards to what can be induced.
To think of consciousness as somehow changeless-timeless standing apart from changing objects gives it a certain divine quality - it may even be induced that it is deathless. Whether those differences actually matter or not is a personal matter.

Empirical objects do not appear that solid or simple. They are constantly flickering - discontinuous and chatoic - starting for visual objects to auditory signals. "I" don't have to be a trick depending on what you mean by "I". There is phenomenal witnessing as I which can considered as a subject in a sense, wether persisting or not, wether one or numerous, there are organizing principles and processes that may be grouped into "I", or may be not.

Moore was making a metaphysical claim not a claim of 'appearances', to say here is one hand is to say that the hand exists in-itself (can be encountered in space):

To say that the soap bubble really exist, is to say it is logically independent of my perception of it. If I am perceiving a [non-hallucinatory real] soap bubble - it follows that the soap-bubble is logically independent of my perception i.e it exists external to all our minds!

 

[Black Rose]

My own experience tells me I am united in time and space. I always wake up in the same body. When others close their eyes mine are still open. I am not you, you are not me. I have a sense of time without disappearing. It is impossible to imagine not existing, I always have a reference point relative to where I am. I could be reduced to a singular point and still be me. I can attend to multiple perspectives at ones and still be me. When I look at the water bottle I see the whole thing no fragments. When I had a psychotic break where there were two fragments I still was aware of both of them. You cannot be aware of multiple things and not aware of them at the same time. The water bottle cannot be outside consciousness and inside consciousness at the same time.

Either you are in consciousness or you are outside of it.
There is a multiplicity of unities. Many consciousnesses many minds.

 

[The Grey Man]

The distinction is epistemology-phenomenology vs metaphysics.
To say experience appears to be simultaneious is an epistemic claim (how it appears), to say it IS simultaneious is a metaphysical claim (how it truly is in itself).

How could experience be other than what it appears to be? Is not what is experienced, by definition, apparent, or phenomenal? If I say that objects appear to be simultaneous, is this not another way of saying that I experience them as such?

Put another way, why distinguish at all between the appearance of experience of which I have direct knowledge and the occult, noumenal experience in itself? I thought experience was that alone which we knew in itself. Why do I need to resort to exotic metaphysical speculation to make even the most trivial claim about what I experience?

 

[DoIMustHaveAnUsername?]

The distinction is epistemology-phenomenology vs metaphysics.
To say experience appears to be simultaneious is an epistemic claim (how it appears), to say it IS simultaneious is a metaphysical claim (how it truly is in itself).

How could experience be other than what it appears to be? Is not what is experienced, by definition, apparent, or phenomenal? If I say that objects appear to be simultaneous, is this not another way of saying that I experience them as such?

Put another way, why distinguish at all between the appearance of experience of which I have direct knowledge and the occult, noumenal experience in itself? I thought experience was that alone which we knew in itself. Why do I need to resort to exotic metaphysical speculation to make even the most trivial claim about what I experience?

The surface experience is just what it appears to be, by definition. One doesn't have to resort to metaphysical speculations for that. I am not denying that consciousness have both synchronic and diachronic unity for normal people at the surface experiential level. But I am restricting the claim merely to that - the surface experiential level.


However what appears on the surface ('shallow phenomenology'), need not be what is happening. Some of the errors of surface experience may even be amended with experience itself, deep phenomenological investigation, or advanced meditation - without getting into occult noumeal experience. Surface experience can be coarse-grained, a trained meditator for example may be able to have a more fine-grained experience and see how some coarse-grained appearance can come to be - and even realize some misconceived appearances.

Take the classic Indian allegory as an example here.

You are in an anxious state, and suddenly in front of you, you see a snake - it 'appears' as a snake. But then when you look back more carefully, you find that it was a rope. It may not be the case that you hallucinated a snake in place of rope, but just that your mind hastily interpreted the rope signals and associated it withe snake-concept. There are also multiple cognitive illusions that shows this distinction of conceptual interpretation and experience - often with a better understanding the 'experience' can 'appear' differently (the 'illusion' disappears) but at the same time nothing appears differently - what chances is the conceptual associations, the interpretations. However, all exeperiences are inseparably tied to some conceptual framework - no 'given'. Thus while you see a red colored disappearing fast and another red colored dot appear fast a bit away, you may 'see' it as a single continuous moving red colored dot, and while you see two equal lines, you may 'see' one as shorter than the other.

Is consciousness truly appearing as synchronously united, or is that a conceptual fabrication (sure, even in that case it is appearing united at a surface level - through a lens of conceptual fabrications)?

Am I not allowed to point out that when a snake appears to someone, that the snake might potentially be a rope? Is that distinction unnecessary.

The key point separating it from extravagant metaphysical speculations, is that the other person may have a potential to amend his appearance through focus, reasoning, meditation - to come to see the rope as a rope, or to become more doubtful of certain appearances - even that it really 'appears' as how one 'think' it to appear.

 

[rlnb]

By unity of 'I' what I meant was :
'I' exist. 'I' know many other things exist through some means of knowledge (direct perception or inference).
For example, 'I' know my body exists as I can see it, feel it, move it etc.
'I' know that other bodies exist as I can see them.
'I' may also infer that there are other 'consciousness' associated with these other bodies, in the same way that 'I' am somehow associated with my body.
But the existence of these other 'consciousness' is not the same 'I' as their existence is inferred and not self evident. 'I' may also infer that there is a 'unified consciousness' that unifies all these other 'consciousness' and also the 'I' , but all such conclusions are inferences and can be arrived at through some means of knowledge by the 'I'.

The only thing whose existence is self-evident is the 'I' and because it is self-evident, it is certain. And in this sense, there is only one 'I'

 

[DoIMustHaveAnUsername?]

'I' may also infer that there is a 'unified consciousness' that unifies all these other 'consciousness' and also the 'I'

How would you infer that?

 

[DoIMustHaveAnUsername?]

My own experience tells me I am united in time and space. I always wake up in the same body. When others close their eyes mine are still open. I am not you, you are not me. I have a sense of time without disappearing. It is impossible to imagine not existing, I always have a reference point relative to where I am. I could be reduced to a singular point and still be me. I can attend to multiple perspectives at ones and still be me. When I look at the water bottle I see the whole thing no fragments. When I had a psychotic break where there were two fragments I still was aware of both of them. You cannot be aware of multiple things and not aware of them at the same time. The water bottle cannot be outside consciousness and inside consciousness at the same time.

Either you are in consciousness or you are outside of it.
There is a multiplicity of unities. Many consciousnesses many minds.

The distinction is epistemology-phenomenology vs metaphysics.
To say experience appears to be simultaneious is an epistemic claim (how it appears), to say it IS simultaneious is a metaphysical claim (how it truly is in itself).

How could experience be other than what it appears to be? Is not what is experienced, by definition, apparent, or phenomenal? If I say that objects appear to be simultaneous, is this not another way of saying that I experience them as such?

Put another way, why distinguish at all between the appearance of experience of which I have direct knowledge and the occult, noumenal experience in itself? I thought experience was that alone which we knew in itself. Why do I need to resort to exotic metaphysical speculation to make even the most trivial claim about what I experience?

Another point I can make is that not much data is actually registered from experience whether that's because phenomenological experience itself is much poorer than we ordinarily think, or that's because even if phenomenology is RICH, the cognition that registers aspects of it in immediate memory is comparatively poor (Ned Block).

There are many experiments in cognitive science, that demonstrates how poor we can be even in pointing out basic changes in our OWN experiencing - we don't even get to know what we experience that clearly (for eg. change blindness), and even if we do, we hardly retain a lot of it (there are experiments where bit by bit almost everything in the surrounding is changed, but the mind may not notice at all - limited working memory). But let's not get into that, consider basic experience of changing phenomena.

How clearly do we observe change. When you move your hand in front of you in rapid speed, do you really see the exact movement of the hand - from the very start of motion, to the end? Do we see the exact frames in between? For me I barely see anything - it's just like seeing a series of aftermirages of hands. The fact then is, we aren't conscious of much, or even if we are, they are ineffective, as in they are not registered in our cognition for long. Our overall experience of specious present is just 'rough patch' covering up breaks - just a coarse grained overview. As such what right do we have to assert about the 'fundamental' natures of appearance without the bare qualification to disentangle the experiences, pierce through the rising and passing of phenomena and everything? You will be just following what you are cognitiely predisposed to believe ('make appear as').

 

[rlnb]

'I' may also infer that there is a 'unified consciousness' that unifies all these other 'consciousness' and also the 'I'

How would you infer that?

I am not actually making that inference. Any such or other conclusions one may have are arrived at through some means of knowledge (perception, inference ,logic, belief etc). I am not interested in the validity of such claims.
The only thing that is self-existent and not known through any means of knowledge is the 'I'.

 

[Black Rose]

The fact is whether experience is fuzzy or disjointed it is still mine, not yours or anyone else thank you very much. That is what unity is in time and space. My experience is mine and it contains many items/attributes. I do not disappear and reappear into others experience. It is a mistake to think unity is an artifact of a broken system. I am me and that's final. I am a singular entity broken or not. Singular as in soul. The one and only.

 

[Black Rose]

There can be degrees of awareness but it remains singular.
no awareness, some awareness and hyper-awareness, all in a singular being.

 

[DoIMustHaveAnUsername?]

The fact is whether experience is fuzzy or disjointed it is still mine, not yours or anyone else thank you very much. That is what unity is in time and space. My experience is mine and it contains many items/attributes. I do not disappear and reappear into others experience. It is a mistake to think unity is an artifact of a broken system. I am me and that's final. I am a singular entity broken or not. Singular as in soul. The one and only.

What is this "I" and what kind of relationship does it have with exeprience?
There is the at least locally spatio-temporally united experience qua consciousness, but where is the "I" beyond it that 'possess' the consciousness?
If all that "I" means is the specific reflexivity of the specific manifestation of consciousness then it's trivial that it's 'yours' and not 'mine'; but that doesn't mean that "I" is even remotely persistent. That "I" can logically disappear, and another "I"-consciousness can appear without the new "I" noticing anything mistaking itself to be continuing as the same singular entity as a result of inheriting memories of the past self.

To quote a random internet stranger:

Personalism

According to the phenomenological tradition, experiences aren't impersonal. There is a for-me-ness in experiences. When one listens to music, it is not just an impersonal experience of music but the experience of "I" listening to music. Upon reflection, we can be meta-cognitive self-aware of us listening to music, but for the phenomenological tradition, even pre-relfective consciousness constitute self-awareness.

if this "I" listening to music is taken to be a truly subjective self, then there is a difference between my listening to the music and yours listening to the music even if the experience is the same - because one experience is MINE, and the other is YOURS. And this (our unique first personal experiences and perspectives) grounds the difference between our existences .

The reflexivity of conscious awareness, its ‘for-me-ness’ or ‘first-personal givenness’, is sometimes described as the quality of ownership or ‘mineness’.

If this is true that there is something it is like to be a subjective self - the subject of experience, then a person is not merely objective but it must also have a subjective component.

Then the person cannot be just defined by the objective descriptions of personal traits, bodily features, brain states but must also have a subjective -hidden- component.

In that case, it may also make sense to think "why am I me, not someone else?".

In this case, it may be coherent to wish to experience as being like, say, Derek Parfit. The world where YOU are Derek Parfit would then be different from the world where Derek Parfit is Derek Parfit. Because in this world, Derek Parfit is just Derek Parfit, but in that other speculative world, it is you - the subjective observer having your experiences would be having Derek Parfit's experiences instead. These will be different worlds.

Even if one doesn't identify with the five impermanent causally interconnected psycho-physical aggregates (form, sensations, apperception, empirical-consciousness, feelings), one can still identify with being 'this' particular point of view as belonging to 'me'. In the alternate world where YOU are Derek Parfit, it is YOU who will possess the point of view of Derek Parfit.

What grounds my existence and identity, or is most intimately me, is my first-person perspective.

Even if you suddenly transform into a bat - you would still be you - having the same 'I dimension' - the same first person perspective; simply having different experiential contents - aka experiential contents of being a bat.

Anti-Personalism

But this personalist notion is deeply incompatible with Buddhism as the author understands it. Buddhism doesn't reject reflexivity. Dignaga and Dhammakirti are quite explicit in affirming that awareness of everything is reflexive - that is, all awareness contains self-awareness. But self-awareness (self-giveness), is merely awareness of awareness - an impersonal property of the object presented as appearances in awareness. There need not be any subject or self existing who 'possess' or 'owns' this awareness. The reflexive awareness can just be impersonal property of impersonal mental states some aspect of which can be third personally available.

In this scenario, there is no difference in a world where 'you are Derek Parfit', and a world where 'Derek Parfit is Derek Parfit'. It fact, it makes no sense to even think of you having the experiences of Derek Parfit, if there is no you having experiences in the first place. If experiences are merely impersonal self-representations corresponding to objective psycho-physical features - there is no separable experiential-self as you who can experience as being Derek Parfit without simply becoming Derek Parfit himself.

So if you ever think in the line of "what if I lived as Stephen Hawkings?" you are presupposing yourself as a substantial first-personal-self - more than just the experiential contents you are having and can in-principle have experiences of being other persons while maintaining your identity of being the same first-personal-self.

From the account of anti-personalism, the idea of reincarnation also breaks apart. If you were Napolean in the past, there were no you as a first personal being having the experiences of being Napolean, but there were simply a stream of experiences and perceptions of being Napolean.

If you transform into a bat, you would simply cease to be what you were and be replaced by bat and its bat-experiences.

From the personalist account, the first-personal-perspective is a separable invariable dimension that defines you - the place where YOUR experiences happen. From the anti-personalist account, there IS no substantial persisting first-personal perspective beyond the contents of experiences. When the experiences change, so do the perspective. No 'you' owns the experiences. There is no 'my' or 'mine'. The point of view is just the point of view of a particular stream of experiences and is dependent on it (not standing separately).

"No more than the same dent might have been a dent in a different surface, the same first-person
perspective could not have been the perspective of a different conscious life. If this is
correct, then the perspectival self can be singled out objectively as the perspective of a
particular first-personal stream—as the point of view of this stream of consciousness,
the one associated with this body or brain."


What grounds the future experiences as 'mine' is not that they are 'mine' as in belonging to 'my' current perspective or me as a self, but simply the fact that it belongs to the same mental continuum or the same causal stream. What differentiates you and me, is simply that we are two different streams of consciousness. However, this difference is shallow unlike in the personalist account - where the difference is deep - demarcated by some unique subjective perspectives that could somehow persist and be the same perspective\point-of-view even while having different experiences.

On this account "I" is just like "now" and "here".


"Just as ‘now’ can be replaced by a tenseless referential expression, ‘I’ can be replaced by a third-
personal referential expression. For example, the tensed fact that music is now playing
can be redescribed as the tenseless fact that on the occasion of this writing music is
playing. In the same way, the first-personal fact that I am listening to music can be
redescribed as the third-personal fact that the person who is writing these words is
listening to music (and this fact, in turn, can be redescribed without even mentioning
a ‘person’ but rather a particular body and an associated series of interrelated mental and physical events)."

"The world in itself does not include me, no more than it includes mirages. It includes persons, and from the point of view of any one
of them, that person is me. This is not to say, of course, that I experience myself as
everyone. It is to say that what is taken to be uniquely my point of view is simply
and generically a point of view. There is nothing about the perspectivality of
conscious experience that serves to distinguish a conscious life as ‘mine’ in the
deep sense."

 

[The Grey Man]

Take the classic Indian allegory as an example here.

You are in an anxious state, and suddenly in front of you, you see a snake - it 'appears' as a snake. But then when you look back more carefully, you find that it was a rope. It may not be the case that you hallucinated a snake in place of rope, but just that your mind hastily interpreted the rope signals and associated it withe snake-concept. There are also multiple cognitive illusions that shows this distinction of conceptual interpretation and experience - often with a better understanding the 'experience' can 'appear' differently (the 'illusion' disappears) but at the same time nothing appears differently - what chances is the conceptual associations, the interpretations. However, all exeperiences are inseparably tied to some conceptual framework - no 'given'. Thus while you see a red colored disappearing fast and another red colored dot appear fast a bit away, you may 'see' it as a single continuous moving red colored dot, and while you see two equal lines, you may 'see' one as shorter than the other.

Is consciousness truly appearing as synchronously united, or is that a conceptual fabrication (sure, even in that case it is appearing united at a surface level - through a lens of conceptual fabrications)?

Am I not allowed to point out that when a snake appears to someone, that the snake might potentially be a rope? Is that distinction unnecessary.

The key point separating it from extravagant metaphysical speculations, is that the other person may have a potential to amend his appearance through focus, reasoning, meditation - to come to see the rope as a rope, or to become more doubtful of certain appearances - even that it really 'appears' as how one 'think' it to appear.

I don't think that the rope is actually a snake or vice versa. I think that what had appeared at first glance to be a snake assumed, upon closer inspection, the appearance of a rope. My perception of the snake-rope may have been enriched—perhaps I saw its braiding, felt its texture as I held it in my hands, and smelled its odour—but it was not corrected. Both the snake and the rope were veridical perceptions in the sense that both were actually present in experience. Similarly, if a red dot appears to be moving continuously, then what do I mean when I say that it is actually moving discretely between two locations? Or when I say that two lines only appear to be of unequal length? Appearances are precisely what these dots and lines are! Where is this reality of which empirical reality is an imperfect copy to be amended?