[Case, starting with a quote from "Introducing Consciousness"]:
> "The reason for starting with examples rather than definitions is that no
> objective, scientific explanation seems able to capture the essence of
> consciousness."
>
> As you once reminded me Ham, two things can not occupy the same
> space at the same time. One person can not have the same experience
> as another. We can not define the color green. It is a direct sense
> impression. It can be understood and described in various contexts
> and individuals can agree on what to call green and can communicate
> about green things but there is no reason to think that what I respond
> to as green is identical to the experience of another.
>
> Sensation is a private experience it can not be described because it
> can not be shared. It can be understood through examples and analogies
> but we do not share each other's direct experiences.
Yes, this describes the thoughts I had expressed about the proprietary
nature of awareness, although you didn't use the word "awareness". You also
didn't use the word "consciousness." Yet conscious awareness is what your
description presupposes. One does not experience "sensations" without being
consciously aware.
The remainder of your analysis deals with what I call the "circuitboard" of
consciousness -- an organic system comprised of nerve bundles and synapses,
gray matter, and electro-chemical activity. All the functions of this
system could conceivably be replicated by a complex machine with sensory
inputs as you describe them:
[Case]:
> And what are these sensations? They are input. As humans we have several
> input channels, light, sound, two sets of chemical receptors, and a
> network
> of nerves for sensing texture and motion. To interpret or make sense of an
> experience we must integrate sensations from these different channels into
> a
> whole. That is one of the functions of our brains. The various sets of
> nerve
> pathways in our bodies feed into separate portions of the brain. These all
> feed into the cortex where they are integrated. ...
The point you're missing is the sensible locus of these "qualia", without
which there is no cognizant sensibility. You don't want to acknowledge it
because it's subjective and can't be objectively defined. But at the same
time you can't ignore it because it's the seat of all awareness.
[Case]:
> This is the many becoming one. This is where differences are united.
I submit that the reverse is true. Proprietary awareness is where
difference begins. Pure sensibility is value-awareness; everything that
follows is relative and differentiated, including the sense receptors and
"integrative" neuro-cerebral channeling. You as an individual "self" are
differentiated from all other selves. The values you sense are relational.
The "many things" you intellectulize as the objects of your awareness are
each different. Even the 'moments in time' and the 'places in space' of
which you are aware are relative. Becoming aware is a differentiating
process resulting from the finite limitations of the brain. The
"integrated" sense data are selectively and incrementally filtered in the
process of cognition. The brain and nervous system reduce the whole of
essential value to the fractional appearance of finitude.
[Case]:
> The process of integrating the five senses with our memories involves
> making new associations and strengthening old ones. Memories grow
> stronger when stories are told and retold. The process of reflection
> on memory and making of plans involves slurring time. It is higher
> order of mental processing because it involves moving back and forth
> in time. This can be defined in terms of electrochemical activity in the
> nerves and chemical balances in the synapses. Searles says
> consciousness is a property of this activity in the same way that
> solidity is a property of atoms of iron.
Searles is an objectivist, as his attempt to define consciousness as a
"property" of electromechanical activity clearly shows. Solidity is an
intellectualized attribute of matter, not a primary essent. Physical
reality does not create the mind, it is objectivized by mental processing.
Time and space describe the finite limitations of cognizant awareness. The
"gaps" between all of these phenomena represent the nothingness that limits
human perception.
I leave you with a paragraph by Robert Lanza that should interest you. He's
vice president of research and scientific development at Advanced Cell
Technology and a professor at Wake Forest University School of Medicine. (I
plan to run more of his essay on my Values Page in a couple of weeks.)
"Without perception, there is in effect no reality. Nothing has existence
unless you, I, or some living creature perceives it, and how it is perceived
further influences that reality. Even time itself is not exempted from
biocentrism. Our sense of the forward motion of time is really the result
of an infinite number of decisions that only seem to be a smooth continuous
path. At each moment we are at the edge of a paradox known as The Arrow,
first described 2,500 years ago by the philosopher Zeno of Elea. Starting
logically with the premise that nothing can be in two places at once, he
reasoned that an arrow is only in one place during any given instance of its
flight. But if it is in only one place, it must be at rest. The arrow must
then be at rest at every moment of its flight. Logically, motion is
impossible. But is motion impossible? Or rather, is this analogy proof
that the forward motion of time is not a feature of the external world but a
projection of something within us? Time is not an absolute reality but an
aspect of our consciousness."
-- Lanza: "A New Theory of the Universe"
Essentially yours,
Ham
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