Truly, What Is Consciousness?

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Gertie
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Re: Truly, What Is Consciousness?

Post by Gertie »

Taminen

So we look at the evidence. And we see that subjective experience in critters like ourselves manifests as a unified field of consciousness, with a sense of self moving through space and time with a specific point of view. And that the experiential states correlate to neural states, and neurons are linked to our integrated sensory organs, motor functions, organs and so on. So it appears that consciousness manifests in discrete physical units (individual bodies) and is experienced in a way which correlates as discrete physical units (individual selves).
But why is it you that is organism A? And why are you not organism B? Or why are you there at all, why do you exist in the world of A and B? The world may need organisms A and B to be what it is, but it does not need you. You need the world, to be there, to exist. And 'you' means 'I'.

Someone may say that this is just playing with words, but it is not. The validity and adequacy of the materialistic interpretation of consciousness depends on these questions, and on understanding the meaning of these questions.

Good questions, and because we don't understand consciousness we don't have complete settled answers. But we can look at the evidence. Here's how I see it -

We have a story about the origins of the universe based on the evidence, which strongly suggests the universe existed before conscious creatures existed. Every piece of evidence suggests this. Before that is a blank.

Then we have the story of life emerging, and consciousness eventually and gradually emerging via evolution. So lets imagine that first creature which had some sort of subjective experience. Perhaps its autonomic reflex systems 'felt' vibrations, or 'saw' a change in light, which caused its reflex motor systems to skitter away from danger, something like that. It's hard to imagine such a creature had a sense of itself as an 'I' in any way we'd recognise. Do you believe the universe sprang into existence fully formed in that moment? Background radiation, fossils and all? Or did it ping into existence with monkeys, neanderthals or humans, or just you? Or are there as many universes as there are 'I's?

Well back to the evidence. Creatures evolved with increasingly complex neuronal systems giving rise to a variety of experiential states. Sight, sound, hunger, lust, etc, all evolutionarily useful properties, all correlated with with distinguishable body-unit systems, but becoming integrated in a central location in the body-unit brain. So that neurons in one system can 'spark' not only the associated useful motor responses, but neurons in connected systems. And eventually we have sophisticated and incredibly complex humans, who we know do have a unified sense of self, see ourselves as individual 'I's. Who have systems like memory, the ability to imagine scenarios and plan, reason, reflect and self-reflect, etc - what we call higher cognitive functions.

All separate but integrated systems, evolved for utility, located in discrete body-units (a human being). To help each body-unit remember where the fruit tree was, plan a hunt predicting the prey's responses and appropriate counter-measures, working out how to build a shelter, reading other humans as independent minds and predicting their behaviours, remembering who is a reciprocating cooperative ally and who is untrustworthy, etc. To survive and reproduce.

Now imagine trying to do those useful things if all your sensory perceptions, sensations, memories, imaginings, etc were flashing through your mind in a cacophanous jumble as neurons sparked each other. Perhaps like how it feels to be a newborn baby whose neural networks are largely unformed. It would be a useless kaleidoscope of confusion. So my belief is that alongside the evolution of these useful systems is the evolution of neural mechanisms which filter, focus and cohere these separate but integrated systems, and there is some evidence of this. So highly complex creatures like us can make sense of what they mean, create useful models of the world and ourselves which we can use to navigate towards goals. Resulting in this sense of a unified self with a unified field of consciousness located in space and time with a specific point of view. An 'I'.


There is no mini-me homunculus located in the brain watching it all play out on a screen and directing the action, it doesn't work that way. Never-the-less brains create a sense of a coherent 'I' which is located in this body, and a coherent model of the world 'out there' which follows predictable patterns which I can tell coherent stories about. That's how these complex systems evolved to work together in an evolutionarily useful way, imo. 'I's evolved based on evolutionary utility. That's my lay interpretation of the evidence, and I'd be surprised if something like that doesn't turn out to be the case as we learn more. We don't need to go the transcendental route to explain 'I's, if we follow the evidence.

Does something like that make sense to you?

If so, it takes the mystery a step back, to something more fundamental than the existence of I-Subjects doesn't it? Or the existence of the Big Bang? To areas we really can't claim any knowledge imo, like why is there something rather than nothing, why is that something 'stuff' and 'experiencing'?

The basic axiom of existence is this: If I cease to exist for good, also the world ceases to exist for good, and even so that it has never existed. This is self-evident for me, in the spirit of Descartes.

However, it is clear and obvious for everybody that my death does not mean the end of the world.

Therefore, it is necessary that I, as a manifestation of subjectivity, as an individual subject of some kind, must be in the world as long as the world exists, and that means for ever, because there is no such thing as nonexistence. This is what I mean by the universal and fundamental character of the subject-object relation, and the postulate that the subject is the precondition of all being.
Isn't the problem with this that there is more than one Subject?

You could postulate the world exists only in relation to you if there was only one subject, you, because you couldn't know otherwise. But if you accept that other Subjects exist <Gertie waves!> with Subject-Object relationships with the world, then the world doesn't only exist in relationship to you, perhaps as a hallucination or illusion. It must exist independently of you. And independently of each other subject too. No? Which is also what all the evidence suggests, once you accept that the world you perceive is real and you can roughly know things about it.
Tamminen
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Re: Truly, What Is Consciousness?

Post by Tamminen »

Gertie wrote:We have a story about the origins of the universe based on the evidence, which strongly suggests the universe existed before conscious creatures existed. Every piece of evidence suggests this. Before that is a blank.
As I have said, I mean by the universe the whole space-time be it finite or infinite, with its present, past and future seen from the spatio-temporal location on which we are at the moment.
Gertie wrote:Does something like that make sense to you?
Yes it makes sense, but the problem is not how consciousness develops during evolution, it surely takes place the way you describe, but does the universe taken as a whole need the being of the subject for it to meaningfully say that it exists. To remind you, look at the second quotation. The first and second paragraphs are, in my opinion, both true and obvious, but they are incompatible. They are like a thesis and an antithesis that need a synthesis. And the third paragraph gives the synthesis. See also the quotations from Wittgenstein to understand what I mean by the subject.
Gertie wrote:Isn't the problem with this that there is more than one Subject?
Yes, you got the point. It is just for that reason I have taken the concept of transcendental subject to my conceptual repertoire. By it I mean the ontological I, which is the eternal viewpoint to the world and adopts all the different ways of being in the world we call individual subjects. This demands further elaboration, and I have done that a bit elsewhere on this forum. To get a picture of my thoughts, I suggest that you read these posts on Epistemology and Metaphysics:

Post #2 on "Could separateness and death be illusions?"
Post #96 on "Is conscoiusness fundamental?"
Post #654 on "What happens to us when we die?"
Topic "Who are the Others?"
and topic "What does it mean to be in the world?" on this subforum.

Let me quote myself here:
Why do we need the concept of the transcendental subject? This is a good question, and the answer is connected with the most difficult existential questions we meet: death and the being of others. So what I understand by the transcendental subject is not so much a matter of epistemological issues but our deepest ontological and existential problems.
The materialistic interpretation of consciousness does not, in my opinion, answer those questions in a satisfactory way.
Gertie
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Re: Truly, What Is Consciousness?

Post by Gertie »

Taminen

I don't see a need for a synthesis because I think your thesis-antithesis formulation isn't solid, it's muddying ontology with epistemology, and I think there is a justifiable distinction between the two.

I gave you an evidence based explanation of how as far as we know stuff existed before experiencing subjects, and how a sense of 'I' evolved over time later. Which you agreed with. An explanation which acknowledges a distinction between existing and being experienced by a Subject.

So what the evidence we have suggests is that Subjects (creatures with an experiential sense of self and not-self, subject and object) aren't a necessary condition for the existence of the universe, only knowledge/experiencing of its existence. Of the universe's existence being 'meaningful' if you like - which I'd agree with.

Therefore there's no reason to think your transcendental ontological 'Meta-I' is a necessary condition for the universe to exist. That just doesn't seem to be how it works, based on what evidence we do have. The reality of the meaning which subjects are making of the existence of the universe is that it exists regardless of whether it's known about/experienced/meaningful.

(Maybe it only exists in a certain form which is the type of representation our systems create, our internal models. But once you accept these are models/representations of 'something', you've accepted that 'something' we call the universe and experience a particular way exists).

So to sum up as clearly as I can, your claim that some Meta-I is needed for the universe to initially exist because when I or all other Subjects die it would otherwise disappear isn't supported, cos the evidence says it was there before Subjects came into existence. Therefore the principle of Subjects being a necessary condition for universes to exist isn't evidence based, and you can't use it as a fundamental principle to say the universe could only begin to exist because some Meta-Subject existed to experience it.

Might be true, but it's just speculation, not evidence-based or logic imo.
Tamminen
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Re: Truly, What Is Consciousness?

Post by Tamminen »

Gertie wrote:...your claim that some Meta-I is needed for the universe to initially exist because when I or all other Subjects die it would otherwise disappear isn't supported, cos the evidence says it was there before Subjects came into existence.
That is not what I said, if you read carefully. My point is that the universe needs a reason of its being, and I have introduced the old Aristotelian concept of causa formalis, which I interpret as the transcendental subject which tends towards self-consciousness or transparency of being. This concept is something like the absolute spirit of Hegel, although I do not believe in spiritual substances. Causa formalis is in us.

I admit these questions are not easy and lead almost necessarily to misunderstandings.
Gertie
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Re: Truly, What Is Consciousness?

Post by Gertie »

Tamminen wrote:My point is that the universe needs a reason of its being, and I have introduced the old Aristotelian concept of causa formalis, which I interpret as the transcendental subject which tends towards self-consciousness or transparency of being. This concept is something like the absolute spirit of Hegel, although I do not believe in spiritual substances. Causa formalis is in us.
OK, lets try to get it clear then.

I've gone through your argument, and offered evidence based reasons why it doesn't logically lead to the the thesis vs anti-thesis formulation which is the basis for your synthesis resolution. You are not addressing that, but correcting my interpretation of your synthesis resolution, as follows -

That the universe requires a reason to exist.

That reason is - existence requires a tendency towards self-consciousness.

Am I understanding you correctly?
Tamminen
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Re: Truly, What Is Consciousness?

Post by Tamminen »

Gertie wrote:That the universe requires a reason to exist.

That reason is - existence requires a tendency towards self-consciousness.
Yes, that is what I suggested, of course that is only one way of putting it, and only one "hypothesis" of the meaning of the transcendental subject. The essential "property" of it is, however, that it is the necessary condition of all being, and that it is eternal, for that same reason.

-- Updated May 7th, 2017, 3:16 pm to add the following --
Tamminen wrote:The basic axiom of existence is this: If I cease to exist for good, also the world ceases to exist for good, and even so that it has never existed. This is self-evident for me, in the spirit of Descartes.

However, it is clear and obvious for everybody that my death does not mean the end of the world.

Therefore, it is necessary that I, as a manifestation of subjectivity, as an individual subject of some kind, must be in the world as long as the world exists, and that means for ever, because there is no such thing as nonexistence. This is what I mean by the universal and fundamental character of the subject-object relation, and the postulate that the subject is the precondition of all being. There are metaphysical consequences of this view, and I have written about them elsewhere on this forum, but they go beyond this topic.
So I presume that you can accept the antithesis but not the thesis. The thesis can also be expressed so that my nonexistence is absurd as such, it not only loses the world and time, but all logic as well. So it is reductio ad absurdum, and therefore cannot be accepted. But death is real, though, and that is the paradox.

-- Updated May 7th, 2017, 4:21 pm to add the following --
Gertie wrote:...it's muddying ontology with epistemology, and I think there is a justifiable distinction between the two.
You are right, and therefore I only speak about ontology. Epistemology is quite trivial in this case.
Gertie wrote:I gave you an evidence based explanation of how as far as we know stuff existed before experiencing subjects
Everybody knows that. But if, hypothetically, the universe would be born with a big bang for a subject, i.e. if the subject were the reason for its being, then it would be of no difference how long it would have taken for consciousness to appear. So time has nothing to do with this.

-- Updated May 8th, 2017, 4:31 am to add the following --

Just to make it still more clear what I mean by the transcendental subject:

I have said that it is 'a point of view to the world'. Now there are three parts in that expression:

1. a point
2. a view
3. the world

'A point' is the transcendental subject itself, an abstraction without independent being, the Wittgensteinian "limit of the world" or a point along which the world gets coordinated. It has no internal or external properties (although it must have some "metaphysical" properties to make it intelligible in the deepest sense, but that is another story).

'A view' is the way in which the subject is related to the world, and this is exactly what consciousness is. It has properties that are non-material, constituting a realm of its own, an ontological layer which is closest to us. Therefore it is also an independent research field, the field of phenomenology and psychology.

'The world' is what makes it possible for the transcendental subject to have a point of view, i.e. to be an individual subject or consciousness, i.e. to be at all, to exist. Our bodies belong to this material realm, being the "substrate" of consciousness (I am not sure if it is the right word). This is also the research field of so called proper sciences, as opposed to humanities.
The_architect
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Re: Truly, What Is Consciousness?

Post by The_architect »

There is an on-going debate across a few fields between the guiding role of the brain: consciousness or mindfulness. The former suggests less personal control in a cognitive sense as actions, thoughts, even emotions, etc. are driven by neurons and transmitters. These functions make up the brain's particular given chemistry at a given moment, making the chemistry responsible for everything from running to depression. The supporters of consciousness don't believe mindfulness is capable to keep track of everything we do in just a few minutes when you consider physical, mental and emotional processes going on all at the same time. To me, the brain chemistry is key. I am of the belief that there are a multitude of brain chemistries (neurons, transmitters, synapses) that deliver a kind of "template" output of awareness that interacts with one's personality. If depression's perspective is from an unbalanced brain chemistry, it only shows it must be on a scale away from a balanced brain chemistry and not on a whole different rail. So, consciousness is greatly (80%) determined by the person's brain chemistry at the moment and means they have little personal credit for its high quality (if they're well balanced) or its misrepresentation (if they're unbalanced).

Consciousness is full alertness and awareness externally to an extent that no thoughts cross your mind. You are internalizing what you see, hear, etc. through your senses; through absorption and sense memory. It is kind of animalistic. It is kind of meditative. It is when you have total focus on the outside; the opposite of meditation. You can pick up smaller details, innuendoes, subtleties, slights. For example, at one job my husband was used as the "house cleaner". He'd walk through an office for 10 minutes then go outside and tell the boss who to fire. It was from his ability to turn off everything inside and soak up everything outside. You don't miss anything. In relation to above, a brain chemistry of perfect balance would have this type of consciousness only because it seems the most advantageous.
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Re: Truly, What Is Consciousness?

Post by Fooloso4 »

Tamminen:
As I have said before, there is no subject without the world, but where I differ from you is that there is no world without subject. But I do not differ from Wittgenstein …

See the above quotations. I really say, and it seems that also Wittgenstein says, that the world would cease to exist for good if I cease to exist for good.
On my reading Wittgenstein is not endorsing solipsism, he is correcting it.
What we cannot think, that we cannot think: we cannot therefore say what we cannot think. (5.61)

This remark provides a key to the question, to what extent solipsism is a truth. (5.62)
To what extent is solipsism true? How does the limits of what can be thought and said show this? Solipsism shows that we cannot step outside the limits of our language to think or say something true. That the world is my world means that I am limited with regard to what I can say and think about the world. When this is properly understood we can reconcile his comments about the world in Tractatus 1 with those of T 5.62 about my world.

As Wittgenstein “climbs the ladder” he moves from the world as the facts in logical space:
The facts in logical space are the world. (T 1.13)
To our representation of the world:
We make to ourselves pictures of facts. (2.1)
This is possible because the world and our representation share a logical form:
What every picture, of whatever form, must have in common with reality in order to be able to represent it at all -- rightly or falsely -- is the logical form, that is, the form of reality. (2.18)
A logical picture of the world is possible because the world and the picture have a common logical form. He calls this picture thought:
The logical picture of the facts is the thought. (3)
And says:
The proposition is a model of the reality as we think it is. (4.01)
This brings us to T5, where the discussion of solipsism and my world are introduced as a logical subsection:
Propositions are truth-functions of elementary propositions.(5)
On the one hand we have the facts of the world, the relationship between objects. On the other we have the representation of the world in thought. The question arises as to the relationship between subject and object:
At first sight it appears as if there were also a different way in which one proposition could occur in another.
Especially in certain propositional forms of psychology, like "A thinks, that p is the case", or "A thinks p", etc.
Here it appears superficially as if the proposition p stood to the object A in a kind of relation. (5.541)
But it is clear that "A believes that p", "A thinks p", "A says p", are of the form "`p' says p": and here we have no co-ordination of a fact and an object, but a co-ordination of facts by means of a co-ordination of their objects. (5.542)
A stands in relation to p as one fact to another. This explains why this statement is followed by the following sub-statement:
This shows that there is no such thing as the soul -- the subject, etc. -- as it is conceived in superficial psychology.
A composite soul would not be a soul any longer. (5.5421)
The denial of the subject must be kept in mind when he turns to solipsism. But first we must look a bit more closely at the logical relationship, the co-ordination of A and p.
Logic precedes every experience -- that something is so.
It is before the How, not before the What. (5.552)
Logic is the transcendental condition that makes possible A’s picture of p, that is, what he believes, thinks, and says about p.

We can now turn to solipsism. The discussion begins:
The limits of my language mean the limits of my world. (5.6)

Logic fills the world: the limits of the world are also its limits.
We cannot therefore say in logic: This and this there is in the world, that there is not.
For that would apparently presuppose that we exclude certain possibilities, and this cannot be the case since otherwise logic must get outside the limits of the world: that is, if it could consider these limits from the other side also.
What we cannot think, that we cannot think: we cannot therefore say what we cannot think. (5.61)

This remark provides a key to the question, to what extent solipsism is a truth.
In fact what solipsism means, is quite correct, only it cannot be said, but it shows itself.
That the world is my world, shows itself in the fact that the limits of the language (the language which I understand) mean the limits of my world. (5.62)
To what extent is solipsism a truth? It is true to the extent that it shows that I cannot go beyond the limits of my language. I cannot step outside the logical picture of reality represented in thought. It is this truth, however, that makes further solipsistic claims false. Solipsists err in claiming that only my world is real or only my world exists. Such claims go beyond the limits of what I can say or what I can think.
The thinking, presenting subject; there is no such thing.(5.631)

The subject does not belong to the world but it is a limit of the world (5.632)

Where in the world is a metaphysical subject to be noted? (5.633)

Here we see that solipsism strictly carried out coincides with pure realism. The I in solipsism shrinks to an extensionless point and there remains the reality co-ordinated with it. (5.64)
How does solipsism coincide with pure realism? Reality, according to Wittgenstein, is determined by logical relationships, not by a thinking subject. Logic is primary. Logic precedes every experience. The philosophical subject is the locus of the logical representation of reality.The subject’s representation is a logical picture. The truth of that picture is determined by the facts, not by the subject.
There is therefore really a sense in which the philosophy we can talk of a non-psychological I.

The I occurs in philosophy through the fact that the "world is my world".

The philosophical I is not the man, not the human body or the human soul of which psychology treats, but the metaphysical subject, the limit -- not a part of the world.(5.641)
That the world is my world is not a remark about the facts or reality. The I does not exist in the world and so its existence or non-existence does not alter the facts of the world:
The existence and non-existence of atomic facts is the reality. (2.06)

(The existence of atomic facts we also call a positive fact, their non-existence a negative fact.)

Atomic facts are independent of one another. (2.061)

From the existence or non-existence of an atomic fact we cannot infer the existence or non-existence of another. (2.062)

The total reality is the world.(2:063)
That the world is my world does not mean that I create or cause or sustain the existence of the world. It does not mean that the facts and objects of the world will no longer exist when I die. It is not I who make the representation possible, but the logical structure that underlies the relationship between objects and language. I cannot think or say or represent the world in distinction from me as the locus of that representation. It is that representation that ceases to exist. It is my world that ceases to exist. But I cannot stand outside my world and claim that only it exists.

A logical picture of reality cannot include the non-existence of the objects of reality. There can be no logical picture that represents a logical space without the existence of atomic facts, no logical picture without any elements or objects, (2.1-2.141) No logical picture of nothing.

At 6.41 there is another step up the ladder - from the world of facts to the world to value:
The sense of the world must lie outside the world. In the world everything is as it is and happens as it does happen. In it there is no value -- and if there were, it would be of no value.

If there is a value which is of value, it must lie outside all happening and being-so. For all happening and being-so is accidental.

What makes it non-accidental cannot lie in the world, for otherwise this would again be accidental.

It must lie outside the world. (6.41)

Hence also there can be no ethical propositions.
Propositions cannot express anything higher. (6.42)

It is clear that ethics cannot be expressed.
Ethics is transcendental.
(Ethics and æthetics are one.) (6.421)


If good or bad willing changes the world, it can only change the limits of the world, not the facts; not the things that can be expressed in language.

In brief, the world must thereby become quite another, it must so to speak wax or wane as a whole.

The world of the happy is quite another than that of the unhappy. (6.43)

The world of the happy man and the world of the unhappy man are not two different factual worlds. They differ only with regard to the transcendental ethical subject, the philosophical or metaphysical I. They do not mark differences in the factual world but differences is my valuing the world.

As in death, too, the world does not change, but ceases. (6.431)

How can the world cease to exist and not change? What ceases to exist is my world. The end of my world is not the end of the world of objects and facts, it is not the end of the world, but the end of the world as it is for me. The end of my world is not something that occurs in the world. My death leaves the logical structure of the world and the objects and logical relationship between objects in the world unchanged. My death leaves unchanged the existence of others for whom the world is their world.
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Re: Truly, What Is Consciousness?

Post by Sy Borg »

I think I understand Tam's point. The universe1 did first start existing with its first perceptions of itself in the same way as we each first started to exist - in our own minds - with the advent of self-awareness. So, to the universe's perspective (or part thereof), it first started to exist when it first perceived itself.


1 The universe is so large and so unknown that it's perhaps more manageable and relatable to think in terms of the Earth or solar system. I only used "universe" to follow the conversation theme.
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Re: Truly, What Is Consciousness?

Post by Gertie »

Tamminen

That the universe requires a reason to exist.

That reason is - existence requires a tendency towards self-consciousness.
Yes, that is what I suggested, of course that is only one way of putting it, and only one "hypothesis" of the meaning of the transcendental subject. The essential "property" of it is, however, that it is the necessary condition of all being, and that it is eternal, for that same reason.

OK, so your claim is -

The reason the universe exists and is eternal is that it has an inherent tendency towards self-consciousness.

Well that's clearer now at least, so maybe it will be easier to see if your supporting argument leads to that logical conclusion. Because my immediate response is - how could you possibly know that?

So back to your supporting formulation which you say leads to this conclusion -
The basic axiom of existence is this: If I cease to exist for good, also the world ceases to exist for good, and even so that it has never existed. This is self-evident for me, in the spirit of Descartes.

However, it is clear and obvious for everybody that my death does not mean the end of the world.
The second part relies on accepting there is a universe and we can roughly know stuff about it - shared/objective knowledge like the Big Bang and Evolution. It posits an Objective Epistemology giving us Ontological Facts.

However the first premise relies on Subjective Knowledge being the determiner of everything that exists, so if you no longer experience the universe it can't exist independently of you.



I'd agree there's an apparent mis-match here, but to me the difficulty lies in the nature of the knowledge claims you can make using objective/shared criteria and personal/subjective criteria.

As I pointed out way back, all you can be certain of is the experiences themselves, not that they mean anything other than them exists. But once you do accept that a world 'out there' exists which your experience relates to, you can start to make shared/objective claims about it which other Subjects concur with. This is what your second premise relies on.

But your first premise says you can know the world 'out there' exists roughly as you experience it, without accepting what the experiencing of it tells you about that world (eg that consciousness emerged from interactions of stuff over time, that the universe existed before you were born and after you die).

The highlighted bit is where the problem lies with your formulation imo.

And a much simpler explanation of the apparent paradox you believe leads to your conclusion is that the nature of subjective experience is such that when I die everything ceases to exist for me, but I can have no knowledge of what happens to the world when I don't exist. The evidence suggests it continues.
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Re: Truly, What Is Consciousness?

Post by Tamminen »

Tamminen wrote:The basic axiom of existence is this: If I cease to exist for good, also the world ceases to exist for good, and even so that it has never existed. This is self-evident for me, in the spirit of Descartes.

However, it is clear and obvious for everybody that my death does not mean the end of the world.

Therefore, it is necessary that I, as a manifestation of subjectivity, as an individual subject of some kind, must be in the world as long as the world exists, and that means for ever, because there is no such thing as nonexistence. This is what I mean by the universal and fundamental character of the subject-object relation, and the postulate that the subject is the precondition of all being. There are metaphysical consequences of this view, and I have written about them elsewhere on this forum, but they go beyond this topic.
Tamminen wrote:So I presume that you can accept the antithesis but not the thesis. The thesis can also be expressed so that my nonexistence is absurd as such, it not only loses the world and time, but all logic as well. So it is reductio ad absurdum, and therefore cannot be accepted. But death is real, though, and that is the paradox.
In fact I accept your interpretation of Wittgenstein. As you see in the second paragraph, I do not really claim that my death means the end of the world. Who could claim that? But what I say in the first paragraph, and what I find as evident as the truth of the second paragraph, is just what Wittgenstein means by saying that my world ceases. If my world ceases, logic ceases as well (or do you disagree on this?), and my death becomes an absurdity. All the same, this is metaphysically incompatible with the obvious truth of the second paragraph, and therefore needs a metaphysical synthesis of those two obvious but incompatible truths. So this is metaphysics and goes beyond logic, which was the object of Wittgenstein's project.
Greta wrote:I think I understand Tam's point. The universe1 did first start existing with its first perceptions of itself in the same way as we each first started to exist - in our own minds - with the advent of self-awareness. So, to the universe's perspective (or part thereof), it first started to exist when it first perceived itself.
Something like that. But this is speculation and is not needed for the idea of transcendental subject.

-- Updated May 9th, 2017, 1:53 pm to add the following --
Gertie wrote:But your first premise says you can know the world 'out there' exists roughly as you experience it, without accepting what the experiencing of it tells you about that world
My experience tells me nothing when I am dead. My world ends, or ceases, as Wittgenstein says. And, of course, the world of facts does not end, but it is just that obvious truth that is metaphysically, not logically, incompatible with my first premise, because my death would be absurd if I were not eternal in the sense of being always there in one way or other, as some individual subject with its special kind of consciousness.The vanishing of my world for good would, from the existential point of view, be the total vanishing of the factual world as well, because there is no such thing as nonexistence, not even subjective nonexistence. But the world is there, it has not vanished anywhere. A paradox par excellence. And the solution by means of the concept of transcendental subject leads to a combination of solipsism and a modified transmigration theory. But that is metaphysics if anything.

-- Updated May 9th, 2017, 2:42 pm to add the following --
Fooloso4 wrote:My death leaves unchanged the existence of others for whom the world is their world.
How can there be several metaphysical I's? Who are the others? If there were many I's in the sense Wittgenstein means, they would be entities in the world, or facts of the world, i.e. material subjects. They would not be "limits of the world".
Gertie
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Re: Truly, What Is Consciousness?

Post by Gertie »

Tamminen
Gertie wrote:
But your first premise says you can know the world 'out there' exists roughly as you experience it, without accepting what the experiencing of it tells you about that world
My experience tells me nothing when I am dead. My world ends, or ceases, as Wittgenstein says. And, of course, the world of facts does not end, but it is just that obvious truth that is metaphysically, not logically, incompatible with my first premise, because my death would be absurd if I were not eternal in the sense of being always there in one way or other, as some individual subject with its special kind of consciousness.The vanishing of my world for good would, from the existential point of view, be the total vanishing of the factual world as well, because there is no such thing as nonexistence, not even subjective nonexistence. But the world is there, it has not vanished anywhere. A paradox par excellence. And the solution by means of the concept of transcendental subject leads to a combination of solipsism and a modified transmigration theory. But that is metaphysics if anything.
Well, if you mean your non-existence is absurd in that it's meaningless, then yes, your non-existence has no meaning to you. But yanno, that's what the evidence suggests is the way things are. And just because a philosopher calls it 'absurd' doesn't mean that isn't the way things are. The evidence suggests that when you die you can't experience meaning. Same as when you're in a dreamless sleep. Same as before you were born. The evidence suggests meaning is a property of consciousness, which evolved, and if your material body doesn't have it, there's no evidence of some other transcendental 'you' somewhere out there to have it.

That's as far as we can tell from what we know now. But we don't necessarily know everything there is to know about the fundamental nature of the universe, or the relationship between stuff and experiential states. There are a whole lot of speculations, but we might not even be cognitively capable of getting our heads round the fundamental reality. So we're not in a position imo to make claims about how to reconcile the subjective nature of experiencing with objective facts about an objective reality 'out there', if it exists. We can just say, based on what we currently know, this is how things seem to be once you accept you can know anything except the experiencing itself.
Tamminen
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Re: Truly, What Is Consciousness?

Post by Tamminen »

Our way of thinking about death is in the end quite superficial, perhaps because we are unconsciously afraid of it. We think there is no problem in thinking that the world goes on after our death. From the death of others we see that it does go on. But we do not dare to imagine what our ceasing to exist means, and I mean ceasing for good. My nonexistence for good is absurd and therefore impossible. My existence is not dependent on time. I exist or I do not exist, independent on time, and the latter is unthinkable for me, and I argue that those for whom it is thinkable have not thought it over. But the consequences of all this are somewhat embarrassing, I admit.
Fooloso4
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Re: Truly, What Is Consciousness?

Post by Fooloso4 »

Tamminen:
But what I say in the first paragraph, and what I find as evident as the truth of the second paragraph, is just what Wittgenstein means by saying that my world ceases. If my world ceases, logic ceases as well (or do you disagree on this?) ...
I do not agree. Logic, according to Wittgenstein, is not dependent on a thinking subject. Logic is the scaffolding of the world:
What any picture, of whatever form, must have in common with reality,
in order to be able to depict it--correctly or incorrectly--in any way at
all, is logical form, i.e. the form of reality. 2.18

The propositions of logic describe the scaffolding of the world, or
rather they represent it. 6.124

This contains the decisive point. We have said that some
things are arbitrary in the symbols that we use and that some things are
not. In logic it is only the latter that express: but that means that logic
is not a field in which we express what we wish with the help of signs, but
rather one in which the nature of the absolutely necessary signs speaks for
Itself. 6.124

Logic is not a body of doctrine, but a mirror-image of the world.
Logic is transcendental.6.13

The logic of the world, which is shown in tautologies by the
propositions of logic, is shown in equations by mathematics. 6.22
Tamminen:
All the same, this is metaphysically incompatible with the obvious truth of the second paragraph, and therefore needs a metaphysical synthesis of those two obvious but incompatible truths. So this is metaphysics and goes beyond logic, which was the object of Wittgenstein's project.
If Wittgenstein did not hold that logic ceases with the death of my world, then he would not thereby hold my death absurd.
So this is metaphysics and goes beyond logic, which was the object of Wittgenstein's project.
The object of Wittgenstein’s project was to determine the limits of thought/language. From the preface:
Thus the aim of the book is to draw a limit to thought, or rather--not to
thought, but to the expression of thoughts: for in order to be able to draw
a limit to thought, we should have to find both sides of the limit
thinkable (i.e. we should have to be able to think what cannot be thought).


It will therefore only be in language that the limit can be drawn, and what
lies on the other side of the limit will simply be nonsense.
He is in no way advocating making metaphysical pronouncements that go beyond logic! There is nothing like your “metaphysical synthesis” going on with Wittgenstein. There is what can be said and what shows itself. Ethics, for example, cannot be said, but it shows itself as in his example of the happy man. Only what can be said or shown and what shows itself to be true can be accepted as true.
Fooloso4 wrote:My death leaves unchanged the existence of others for whom the world is their world.
How can there be several metaphysical I's? Who are the others? If there were many I's in the sense Wittgenstein means, they would be entities in the world, or facts of the world, i.e. material subjects. They would not be "limits of the world".
The metaphysical I is not a person or an entity. We cannot say that there is one or many. It denotes my relationship to the world as a whole. It is a relationship that all of us participate in uniquely. For each of us the world is my world. This marks a limit to what I can say. It shows itself in so far as my experience is uniquely mine. That experience is unchanged by what happens in the world. It is changed, to the extent that it is changed, by me. By my ethical stance toward the world. By how I regard it. By the value I bring to my experience that shapes my experience.
Tamminen
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Re: Truly, What Is Consciousness?

Post by Tamminen »

Fooloso4 wrote:I do not agree. Logic, according to Wittgenstein, is not dependent on a thinking subject. Logic is the scaffolding of the world:
All right, perhaps you are right, maybe I should not appeal to Wittgenstein so much. My point is that the ceasing of my world for good and with it the ceasing of logic and time for me is more serious to the world and our reality than most of us think. Therefore we need some metaphysics.
Fooloso4 wrote: If Wittgenstein did not hold that logic ceases with the death of my world, then he would not thereby hold my death absurd.
Fooloso4 wrote:He is in no way advocating making metaphysical pronouncements that go beyond logic! There is nothing like your “metaphysical synthesis” going on with Wittgenstein.
I did not say so. These are my thoughts. Wittgenstein was only a starting point for my thoughts, and I appreciate your expertise on his vews and corrections to my interpretations.
Fooloso4 wrote:The metaphysical I is not a person or an entity. We cannot say that there is one or many. It denotes my relationship to the world as a whole. It is a relationship that all of us participate in uniquely. For each of us the world is my world. This marks a limit to what I can say. It shows itself in so far as my experience is uniquely mine. That experience is unchanged by what happens in the world. It is changed, to the extent that it is changed, by me. By my ethical stance toward the world. By how I regard it. By the value I bring to my experience that shapes my experience.
I cannnot comment on this at the moment, I trust your interpretation, but it seems that he thinks consciousness (if that is the right word in this case) is independent from the world. In that case I cannot agree with him, but what would you say was his idea?

So much about Ludwig. Here are some of my own thoughts, wild and crazy. I bet you do not like them.


A metaphysical syllogism:

1. The basic insight of Descartes, that I am, should be modified so that my self-evident existence is not dependent on time. Time is a property of existence, existence is not a property of time, so that there would be times at which I exist and other times at which I do not exist. This leads to solipsism.

2. All experiences are my experiences, because that is the meaning and idea of experience. Experiencing means presence, i.e. that something is here and now. There cannot be experiences that I am not experiencing, have not experienced or shall not experience, i.e. absent experiences. However, there are others with their own experiences. This leads to transmigration.

3. Therefore a satisfactory metaphysical world view is a sophisticated combination of solipsism and a modified transmigration theory, both of which are widely abandoned by philosophers, but in this combination they become plausible and consistent, and this theory is, as far as I can see, a necessary consequence of the premises. But I am sure that both the premises and the consequence are seen as nonsense among most philosophers. However, this is how I see the reality we are sharing. My view is paradoxical, but I think only on the level of language, because language presupposes the others as given. Therefore what I have tried to do is in fact precisely what was the conclusion of Tractatus and what should not be done: to speak about the unspeakable. Another thing to be noticed is this: if you have really understood what I am trying to say, you should feel some embarrassment as soon as you realize what it really means if it is true. I myself feel embarrassment.
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