Rex Allen wrote: > A further thought: > > On Thu, Jul 30, 2009 at 4:34 PM, David Nyman<david.ny...@gmail.com> wrote: >> Of course a computational narrative may turn out >> not to be the way to go, but I strongly suspect that we still await a >> revolution in - well not physics, but..what? being-science? (gawd) - >> that will be in a primary sense generative of persons prior to the >> generation of appearances. IOW, there probably has to be some sort of >> fundamentally implicate-explicate-superexplicate thingamijig going on >> out there - er, I mean in here. > > So if you describe a process that generates persons, how will you > explain the existence of the generating process? > > So if something produces consciousness, what produces the producer? > > So yes, I've no doubt that one can "explain" consciousness by pointing > to some more fundamental process that you infer from the contents of > our conscious experience. > > But since this more fundamental substrate in turn requires an > explanation, your net explanatory gain is ZERO. > > The only thing we have direct access to is our conscious experience. > Trying to explain the existence of this conscious experience in terms > of what is experienced inevitably leads to vicious circularity.
If you explain the existence of a pain in your tooth by a cavity the experience may lead to a dentist - and less pain in your experience. > > So one arbitrary solution is to cut the circle at some preferred point > and declare what's found at that point to be "fundamental" and > everything else flows from it. > > To me a better solution is to start at the start, and just accept that > consciousness exists first, uncaused and fundamental. The contents of > our conscious experiences exist second, and derivatively. I'm actually in favor of circular explanations. I think circular explanations can be virtuous as well as vicious. Brent > > Where and how do these secondary things exist? In the same place and > in the same way that the things that we perceive in our dreams exist. > > > > --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
