--- In [email protected], "authfriend" <authfriend@...> wrote: > --- In [email protected], "Richard J. Williams" <richard@> wrote: > > > > > 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. > > > > > > > Share: > > > > But my speculation is that it might have something to do > > > > with the vibratory nature of energy and matter, something > > > > yet to be understood by modern science. > > > > > > > > Though I think ancient rishis experienced it and wrote > > > > about it... > > > > > > authfriend: > > > Experienced what and wrote about what? Everybody with a > > > functioning mind experiences qualia, and loads of people, > > > philosophers and scientists, have written about them... > > > > > It looks like Share hit the nail on the head with this one: > > the whole TMer notion of cosmic consciousness is based on > > the vibratory nature of the qualia. > > Uh, no. Don't encourage her. She's confused enough already.
To go back to the original statement you made above 'there is *something it is like* to be you, to be me', etc., this, from Nagels paper, might have more than one interpretation depending on one's state of experience. Now for me, everything is like what it is like because it just is that way, without embellishment, but there is nothing like what it is to be me. There is a sense of personhood in that the eyes see from a particular point of reference, but it is very peculiar in that there is no sense that the vision of the eyes is something to do with an entity, a me. The sense of me is like a vacuum, it feels cored out. It is rather odd if the attention goes to looking for it. When you look for where and what the me is, what do you find? Do you find anything at all? And if a person is engaged in spiritual practices, does this 'me' maintain a constant identity as they progress? I think this question may have different answers for different people. Exactly what is a 'me'? How do you describe to someone else what a 'me' is. Does a plant have a 'me'. Does a squirrel have a 'me'?, does a bacterium have a 'me'? At what point in an evolutionary scale does a 'me' come to be and what are its properties? Are there any laws that apply to being a 'me' or a 'not-me'?
