The Logical Implication of CTD

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Count Lucanor
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Re: The Logical Implication of CTD

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RJG wrote: March 3rd, 2021, 10:27 pm
RJG wrote:Consciousness itself can only logically be another bodily experience. This is not to say that we can be conscious of consciousness, as that would be logically impossible. More particularly, consciousness is the singular bodily experience of recognition, made possible by memory. For it is recognition that converts a non-conscious bodily experience into a conscious experience, that we then call “consciousness”.
Count Lucanor wrote:Then these statements turn out to be false:

RJG wrote: Therefore, this "something" and the "consciousness" (of this something) are TWO different (but related) things, ...agreed? One is an experience (v) and the other is the content (n) of that experience. Be careful not to conflate one as the other. There is 'X', and then there is the 'consciousness-of-X'. Two different animals!
Why would these statements be false?

We can't logically be conscious of consciousness anymore than we can see our seeing, or smell our smelling. We can only be conscious of bodily experiences (but not every bodily experience!). There are lots of reactions (bodily experiences) going on in our bodies, most of which we are not conscious of.
If consciousness is a bodily experience, and this bodily experience is conscious of bodily experiences, then it could be conscious of itself. How could then it be at the same time "a different animal" than the bodily experiences it is conscious of. If you say bodily experiences can be the "content" of other bodily experiences, it is exactly as saying we can be conscious of our consciousness.
RJG wrote: March 3rd, 2021, 10:27 pm
Count Lucanor wrote:Actually, we have no more justification in the intuitive sensation of our own bodies as real worldly objects than in the sensation of an "outside" world.
If I understand you correctly, then I don't disagree. We have no way of experientially knowing if our physical bodies match what we see in the mirror, anymore than we know what the "outside world" looks like.
Actually, we do have a way, and it is precisely human experience that allows us to know how the world is, including our own bodies. It may not be direct, immediate knowledge grasped by the senses as first intuitions, but conscious reasoning easily leads us to obtain trustworthy knowledge.
RJG wrote: March 3rd, 2021, 10:27 pm But we have no "rational" or "objective" evidence that our eyes, ears, nose and body (and "outside world") are anything like we think it is.
Of course we have.
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Re: The Logical Implication of CTD

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RJG wrote:We can't logically be conscious of consciousness anymore than we can see our seeing, or smell our smelling. We can only be conscious of bodily experiences (but not every bodily experience!). There are lots of reactions (bodily experiences) going on in our bodies, most of which we are not conscious of.
Count Lucanor wrote:If consciousness is a bodily experience, and this bodily experience is conscious of bodily experiences, then it could be conscious of itself.
Not so. X<X is logically impossible. It is logically impossible for consciousness to be conscious of itself. X can experience many things, but never itself [X]. -- Try it yourself: Pick up a stone. Tap it on any object you wish. Now make it tap itself, …it can’t be done!

A touching finger can touch many things, but never itself.
Consciousness can be conscious of many things, but never itself.

X<X is logically impossible.
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Re: The Logical Implication of CTD

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RJG wrote: March 5th, 2021, 10:26 am
Not so. X<X is logically impossible. It is logically impossible for consciousness to be conscious of itself.
That's why your previous statements, as I quoted, had to be false. You cannot have it both ways. If consciousness is a bodily experience that can have as its content bodily experiences, why would it be blocked from having itself as its content.
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Re: The Logical Implication of CTD

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Count Lucanor wrote:If consciousness is a bodily experience that can have as its content bodily experiences, why would it be blocked from having itself as its content.
It is "blocked" because X<X is logically impossible. X cannot step outside itself to see itself (experience itself). Experiencing is a one-way (receiving) event; not a two-way event. Logic prevents a stone from tapping 'itself'. And logic prevents consciousness from "having itself as its content".

This is why notions such as "self-awareness" are logically impossible. The self cannot be in two places at one time; it cannot be on both ends of the event; can't be both the observer and the observed (...it can't logically observe itself). A stone cannot be both the tapper and the tapped (...it can't logically tap itself).

************
Consciousness is the singular bodily experience of recognition, made possible by memory. For it is recognition that converts a non-conscious bodily experience into a 'conscious' experience, that we then call “consciousness”.
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Re: The Logical Implication of CTD

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RJG wrote: March 6th, 2021, 10:22 am
Count Lucanor wrote:If consciousness is a bodily experience that can have as its content bodily experiences, why would it be blocked from having itself as its content.
It is "blocked" because X<X is logically impossible.
That is circular reasoning: "X<X is blocked because X<X is logically blocked."
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Re: The Logical Implication of CTD

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"It" refers to "consciousness" not to "X<X".

Consciousness cannot be conscious of consciousness because X<X is logically impossible.
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Re: The Logical Implication of CTD

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Tons of stuff I disagree with in that, including your opening paragraph (your comment about the "ultimate goal in philosophical debate and discussion"), but the most important thing I disagree with is this:

There's no time delay in your conscious experience qua your conscious experience. In other words, you say, " Instantaneous detection/sensing etc. is not logically (nor scientifically) possible. This includes human conscious experiencing (sensing, detecting, translating, and the interpreting involved in the conscious recognition of sensory and neural activity). A time delay is an unavoidable fact."

There's no time-delay in your conscious experiencing as your conscious experiencing, because we're talking about an identity there.
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Re: The Logical Implication of CTD

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RJG wrote: March 7th, 2021, 9:25 am "It" refers to "consciousness" not to "X<X".

Consciousness cannot be conscious of consciousness because X<X is logically impossible.
According to you: consciousness is a bodily experience. According to you: bodily experiences can be the content of consciousness. Therefore, following you, conscious experience can be the content of consciousness. It would make sense that my body is aware that I'm touching my right leg, not just that there's a leg, but that it belongs to the body that is being conscious. Either this or consciousness of consciousness is impossible, you cannot have it both ways.
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Re: The Logical Implication of CTD

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RJG wrote: March 6th, 2021, 10:22 am This is why notions such as "self-awareness" are logically impossible.
Say what? If you're reaching a conclusion that self-awareness is logically impossible, then that's a sure sign that you've gone wrong somewhere in your analysis, haha.
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Re: The Logical Implication of CTD

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RJG wrote:This is why notions such as "self-awareness" are logically impossible.
Terrapin Station wrote:If you're reaching a conclusion that self-awareness is logically impossible, then that's a sure sign that you've gone wrong somewhere in your analysis
X<X is logically impossible. A self can't logically experience itself anymore than a stone can tap itself.

Terrapin Station wrote:In other words, you say, " Instantaneous detection/sensing etc. is not logically (nor scientifically) possible. This includes human conscious experiencing (sensing, detecting, translating, and the interpreting involved in the conscious recognition of sensory and neural activity). A time delay is an unavoidable fact."

There's no time-delay in your conscious experiencing as your conscious experiencing, because we're talking about an identity there.
The time delay is between a bodily reaction/experience and the consciousness-of-said bodily reaction. Science tells us this time delay is 200 to 500 milliseconds (or more).
Last edited by RJG on March 7th, 2021, 10:40 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: The Logical Implication of CTD

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Count Lucanor wrote:According to you: consciousness is a bodily experience.
Yes. Consciousness is the singular bodily experience of recognition, made possible by memory. For it is recognition that converts a non-conscious bodily experience into a 'conscious' experience, that we then call “consciousness”.

Count Lucanor wrote:According to you: bodily experiences can be the content of consciousness.
Yes. We can 'recognize' some of our bodily experiences (bodily reactions), but not 'all' our bodily experiences.

Count Lucanor wrote:Therefore, following you, conscious experience can be the content of consciousness.
No. Being conscious of 'some' of our bodily experiences does not mean we are conscious of 'all' our bodily experiences. Consciousness cannot logically be conscious of itself. X<X is logically impossible.
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Re: The Logical Implication of CTD

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RJG wrote: March 7th, 2021, 8:52 pm X<X is logically impossible. A self can't logically experience itself anymore than a stone can tap itself.
So where I'd say you're going wrong here is that you're positing a self as something different than experience, where there needs to be a relation between the two.
The time delay is between a bodily reaction/experience and the consciousness-of-said bodily reaction. Science tells us this time delay is 200 to 500 milliseconds (or more).
Consciousness IS a bodily reaction/experience.

And even if you didn't think this, there would be no scientific evidence of consciousness being different than the experience in question in order to empirically establish a time delay.
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Re: The Logical Implication of CTD

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RJG wrote:Consciousness is the singular bodily experience of recognition, made possible by memory. For it is recognition that converts a non-conscious bodily experience into a 'conscious' experience, that we then call “consciousness”.
Terrapin Station wrote:Consciousness IS a bodily reaction/experience.
Bingo!

When we experience consciousness (i.e. when we are conscious), we are conscious of 'something', not 'nothing'. This 'something' is a physical bodily reaction/experience. It is the X that we are conscious of.

There is "X" and there is the "consciousness-of-X"; TWO different animals. One precedes the other by the CTD value.
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Re: The Logical Implication of CTD

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RJG wrote: March 8th, 2021, 1:09 pm
RJG wrote:Consciousness is the singular bodily experience of recognition, made possible by memory. For it is recognition that converts a non-conscious bodily experience into a 'conscious' experience, that we then call “consciousness”.
Terrapin Station wrote:Consciousness IS a bodily reaction/experience.
Bingo!

When we experience consciousness (i.e. when we are conscious), we are conscious of 'something', not 'nothing'. This 'something' is a physical bodily reaction/experience. It is the X that we are conscious of.

There is "X" and there is the "consciousness-of-X"; TWO different animals. One precedes the other by the CTD value.
Okay, first, you're ignoring that consciousness isn't something different than the experience in question.
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Re: The Logical Implication of CTD

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RJG wrote: March 7th, 2021, 9:56 pm
Count Lucanor wrote:According to you: consciousness is a bodily experience.
Yes. Consciousness is the singular bodily experience of recognition, made possible by memory.
The use of the word "recognition" here is quite problematic. To recognize literally means to cognize again, but it is precisely cognition that had to be described, and describing a concept in term of itself is mere going around in circles.
RJG wrote: March 7th, 2021, 9:56 pmFor it is recognition that converts a non-conscious bodily experience into a 'conscious' experience, that we then call “consciousness”.
The use of the word "conversion" here is quite problematic, too. What is exactly to "convert" an experience? What is the substance of the conversion? In any case, if consciousness is the bodily experience that does the trick, how is it that it ends up being the result of the trick? You're just going around in circles.
RJG wrote: March 7th, 2021, 9:56 pm
Count Lucanor wrote:According to you: bodily experiences can be the content of consciousness.
Yes. We can 'recognize' some of our bodily experiences (bodily reactions), but not 'all' our bodily experiences.
That's an assertion, but what will be the empirical or logical support of that assertion. It cannot be that "it's not logical", you have to prove that it is not logical.
RJG wrote: March 7th, 2021, 9:56 pm
Count Lucanor wrote:Therefore, following you, conscious experience can be the content of consciousness.
No. Being conscious of 'some' of our bodily experiences does not mean we are conscious of 'all' our bodily experiences. Consciousness cannot logically be conscious of itself. X<X is logically impossible.
My body can "self-touch". According to you that would be a logical impossibility, but it is not.
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