--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "Susan" <wayback71@...> wrote: > > > > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "authfriend" <authfriend@> wrote: > > > > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "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.
This is WAAAAAAAY too convoluted for me to make any sense of it, Susan. When you end up describing a machine deceiving itself, I think you have to have taken a wrong turn somewhere. You'll need one helluva mighty Occam's razor to hack your way through that tangle. There really is no justification for thinking consciousness is an illusion unless (like Dennett) you're desperate to fit everything about human experience into a materialist box and find a way to deny the existence of the "hard problem." What the "hard problem" is *about* is something very simple, very immediate, very transparent--that there is *something it is like* to be you, to be me, to be Dennett. You may have to sit with that phrase for awhile before it makes sense; but once it does, a whole lotta crap just falls away.
