--- In [email protected], "authfriend" <authfriend@...> wrote: > > --- In [email protected], "Xenophaneros Anartaxius" <anartaxius@> > wrote: > (snip) > > Now if we suppose this is what happens, and the 'rich inner > > life' of experience goes by the wayside, what does this mean > > in terms of the hard problem? > > Nothing, because it doesn't "go by the wayside"--it can't, > or you'd be a zombie. Your "rich inner life" may well > become *poverty-stricken*, but it doesn't disappear. So > the "hard problem" doesn't go away either. > > (snip) > > If I understand [Dennett's] view, then it is impossible to > > discover there is such a thing as consciousness objectively. > > Subjectively, it is an illusion created by the mind's > > interpretation of experience. > > For there to be an illusion, there has to be something > being deceived by it, so you can't dispense with > consciousness (or the hard problem) that way either. >
Judy, this last sentence made me think (and forgive me if you all already went over this, I am only now tuning in to a long running discussion). Isn't it possible that the brain is like a machine, and so the illusion is merely deceiving a sensory machine, not a consciousness. It could be that it is the sense of conscious I-ness that is the deception, the illusion. Underneath that, there is functioning but not an I or a witness or Consciousness to be deceived. So it is the illusion itself that deceives itself, in a way. Once that goes, there is nothing to be deceived.
