The Symposium

Dcleve

14:57

@MatthewChristopherBartsh -- I agree with you that illusionism is an interesting concept, and it is of great interest to explore. I have read many of the illusionist authors, and have several commentaries, and suggestions for you. First, to get some useful commentary from here, do a search on the main posting page on illusionism, delusionism, Dennett and Frankish. You will find lots of questions and answers. These may lead you to interesting perspectives and tangents.

Second, I can offer these commentaries on Dennett: philosophy.stackexchange.com/questions/61897/… and philosophy.stackexchange.com/questions/90470/…

Third, I can also offer this commentary on Blackmore's explanation of Dennett's thinking: amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/R1C1TJFIWBZ8ZQ/… Blackmore is straightforward where Dennett is obscure, and she makes explicit that she is arguing for delusionism because all physicalist explanations for consciousness fail.

Finally, I can strongly endorse Eagleman's Incognito. He spells out the "illusion" evidence, that we are mistaken about our consciousness, but does not leap beyond the data to assert we are not conscious. Instead, he basically ENDORSES that our unconscious creates a "grand illusion" of a Cartesian theater for our conscious mind. We think we have a cartesian theater, because our brain creates this stage, and fills it with qualia. So -- is the theater an illusion? I think clearly no.

Matthew Christopher Bartsh

20:19

@Dcleve Thanks for all those leads. I wonder whether Dennett is successful in s spite of being obscure, or because of it?

He also is pleasant to listen to, and to read, despite being obscure, which is no mean feat, I suppose.

I'll give you some more feedback when I've looked a bit more deeply into those leads. Thanks again.

Ameet Sharma

20:55

@MatthewChristopherBartsh, @AmeetSharma "Ok, we doubt first person experience... so why don't they doubt science?" I guess science is done by a community in the final analysis. Only what everyone in the community can reliably detect is said to be real.

This does not make sense to me Matthew. If I doubt my first person experience... then why wouldn't I doubt the voices that I'm hearing, or the words that I'm reading... everything that tells me that there is a community out there? Everything coming into my mind is in doubt... including all ideas of other people, external world and community.…

"@AmeetSharma "Ok, we doubt first person experience... so why don't they doubt science?" I guess science is done by a community in the final analysis. Only what everyone in the community can reliably detect is said to be real."

How do you find out about anything out there including communities without first-person experience? I'm lost.

Dcleve

@MatthewChristopherBartsh -- Aside, and a bit about me. As a dualist critic of physicalism, i find myself surprisingly in partial sync with the illusionist reasoning, at least partway thru their project. I consider the empirical testing of consciousness theories to be outstanding work, that Dennett and Blackmore champion.

I also agree that there are major aspects of our consciousness that we are mistaken about, AND that both retro-fill-i, and multiple drafts, as well as a divided consciousness, are clearly part of how we operate. I incorporate all of these into my dualist thinking.

Ameet Sharma

@ARaybould, "I have no intention of advocating for illusionism, but I will give its proponents (most of whom have a doctorate and an academic position in a relevant field) the courtesy of assuming, so long as the assumption can be maintained, that they don't hold views that are utterly and obviously nonsensical - even when they say something which seems to be just that!"

Well... for how long do we go on like this. I've been listening to Dennett for years... keep giving him the benefit of the doubt... thinking "he can't really be saying that"... but then he repeats exactly "that" which is t…

Dcleve

Note I redically disagree with you on not using the first person. 99.9% of al that we know, and our daily empiricism, is from purely first person processes.

You could never get out of bed in the morning without reaching dozens of first person empirical conclusions.

Ameet Sharma

@AmeetSharma I think it's very natural to equate a life force with a soul. Life force, soul, qualia, they are very similar.

Please answer this... if phenomenal consciousness does not exist, then how do you know "anything" ? What you hear, see, understand... all starts with first-person experience, which Frankish is saying does not exist! So any science or any knowledge is impossible.

I read the paper in the journal... but according to Frankish "phenomenal consciousness" does not exist. So if he's right... then I'm completely wrong about my experience... I don't know that I'm even having a…

Dcleve

21:14

@AmeetSharma Dennett at least is a pragmatist, I don't know about Frankish, nor how either of them deal with the failings of foundationalism. BUT -- pragmatism gives an out to the problem that none of our ideas can escape the justification failings of the Munchausen Trilemma.

Pragmatism says -- "so what?. I can take these UNCERTIAN foundations, or this UNjustified consilience, and find that it gives me a very useful working model that lets me live life successfully. Incoherence and lack of justificaiton are just part of the human experience, and we need to live with it ..."

If their foundaqtion is unjustified and incoherent ... well ... welcome to philosophy!

Matthew Christopher Bartsh

@AmeetSharma Data needs to be explained by science, and so people's claims to be conscious (which do seem to be sincere, including my own as I attempt to remember what I said in the past before I knew about eliminative materialism and illusionism) need to be explained. Claims in the form of speech and writing are objective, scientifically observable facts, but qualia, subjective consiousness, and so on are not. So there is no need to explain the latter. All that a scientific theory needs to

explain, or at least not conflict with, is the data (if you agree with Popper that the essence of science is a falsiable theory that in the best case scenario persists a long time through many (failed) bona fide, vigorous, attempts to falsify it (prove that it predicts experimental results incorrectly, which would prove the theory to be wrong).

Dcleve

@MatthewChristopherBartsh -- as Ameet has been saying, there is NO KNOWLEDGE IN THE UNIVERSE which is objective. All our knowledge is subjective. For some small fraction of it, we can develop an intersubjective consensus, but that is the closest we can get to "objective".

As you lay claim to Popper, he is not in agreement with you. He argued my point at length over decades, as he considered the behaviorists to be engaged in a denial of basic facts about our universe.

Matthew Christopher Bartsh

21:29

@AmeetSharma A scientific theory does not need to explain why other theories exist, or say what they do, or even why they are wrong. Nor do they need to explain why God said something to one person alone. Alleged subjective experiences are just that, allegations, and therefore theories it a sense, if not scientific. They, one could say, not even wrong, because they are not falsifiable.

Dcleve

Eventually, philosophy abandoned behaviorism as clearly wrong, and the 40 or so years of behaviorist dominance of Anglo-American philosophy is treated as a best-forgotten embarrassment. Dennett's effort to revive behaviorism, is the actually the major problem that most philosophers have with him.

Matthew Christopher Bartsh

@AmeetSharma Having said that, illusionism does explain people's utterances, where they report "qualia" and so on. That's where the name "illusionism" comes from. Not in detail, but in general terms.

Ameet Sharma

@MatthewChristopherBartsh, "Claims in the form of speech and writing are objective, scientifically observable facts, but qualia, subjective consiousness, and so on are not."

How do you learn about any of this... forms of speech... writing etc. It is all through first-person experience isn't it? Don't you use your senses, "seeing", "hearing", "smelling", "tasting", "touching", "thinking" to find out about these things? Do you find out about them in some other manner other than first person experience?

Matthew Christopher Bartsh

@AmeetSharma Illusionism says that, as usual, we are totally wrong in our intuitive guesses. Just as we were wrong about the sun, about an immaterial soul, and a life force that the diffence between living and nonliving matter, and about "God".

Ameet Sharma

Matthew, please answer... how do you find out about anything if not from first person experience? How do you find out about scientific data if not from first person experience?

Matthew Christopher Bartsh

21:37

@AmeetSharma In addition, Dennett has shown that our claims to be experiencing what he calls a Cartesian Theater conflict with experiments that show we don't notice big changes like a table disappearing from plain view, or changing color from white to dark brown.

@AmeetSharma Look at all the things we have wrong about. It would be breaking the pattern if we were not wrong about qualia.

Ameet Sharma

You're not answering my question Matthew.

Matthew Christopher Bartsh

@AmeetSharma You find out from scientific papers.

Ameet Sharma

So you "read" scientific papers? You use your "senses" ?

Visual sense?

How do you know scientific papers even exist?

Matthew Christopher Bartsh

@AmeetSharma Not necessarily. If I was a robot or AI lacking senses, then no.

Ameet Sharma

I'm not asking about robot or AI... how do you know scientific papers exist?

How do you know robots exist for that matter?

Matthew Christopher Bartsh

21:47

@AmeetSharma "I'm not asking about robot or AI..." How do you know I am an AI?

*not

Ha ha. Sorry about that. LOL.

Ameet Sharma

"In addition, Dennett has shown that our claims to be experiencing what he calls a Cartesian Theater conflict with experiments that show we don't notice big changes like a table disappearing from plain view, or changing color from white to dark brown"

But if phenomenal experience doesn't exist... then there was no experience of a table disappearing or anything let alone changing from white to brown... the above is meaningless. There was no phenomenal experience in the first place.

Dcleve

@MatthewChristopherBartsh -- the most blatant of the evidences that led to the abandonment of behaviorism, is the radical and obvious UTILITY of having a "theory of mind" about other agents. Animals, using theory of mind, could always outfox a behaviorist that limited themselves to "objective" external data.

Matthew Christopher Bartsh

@AmeetSharma The experiment shows that people take a remarkably long time to report that (they have noticed) a table in plain view is changing color, e.g. an average of about ten seconds. The data is what they were stimulated with and how they responded.

Ameet Sharma

"The experiment shows that people take a remarkably long time to report that (they have noticed) a table in plain view is changing color, e.g. an average of about ten seconds. The data is what they were stimulated with and how they responded."

Matthew Christopher Bartsh

@AmeetSharma Phenomenal consiousness is part of another theory. It's no problem for illusionism if it doesn't exist. In fact, illusionism says it doesn't exist.

Dcleve

21:58

@MatthewChristopherBartsh -- I repeat my question how you et up in the morning. I know how I do it. I do first person empiricism. This body feels like mine, and yes it moves when I will it. From my memory, those feel like covers over me, and yes they toss aside like covers. That full feeling in my gut is from my memory a full bladder, etc, etc. How can you do any of this, if nobody else is there?

Ameet Sharma

Matthew, how do you know scientific papers exist?

How do you know Dennett exists?

How do you know anything? I'm utterly lost. You seem to be learning scientific data without "seeing", "hearing", "smelling" or even "thinking"... so how do you find out about any of this?

You talk about "experiments"... but I don't see how you know experiments exist

or even if the world exists. Somehow you find out about this without first-person experience. Till you explain that, I can't follow what you're saying.

Matthew Christopher Bartsh

@Dcleve " I know how I do it. I do first person empiricism. This body feels like mine, and yes it moves when I will it." It move when you will it, you say, but that's not what science says.

@Dcleve Science says people say they will their arms to move and that the arms then move. Science has never detected anyone's "will". So how do you "know" how you do it? From introspection?

Dcleve

@AmeetSharma -- the delusionist model is that we do processing like an unconscious computer, then create a self-delusion of qualia after the fact. Therefore, one can "learn" the way an optical sensor scanning "learns" then processes the pixel data it inputs. Dennett thinks there is nobody home in either a human OR a machine.

@MatthewChristopherBartsh Yes, consciousness is a key part of our basic data about the world, including our willing. And no, science does not say "we do not will movement". Instead, every one of us observes this reality every moment of every day. It takes an ideology to brainwash someone into denying something so clearly true.

Ameet Sharma

"@AmeetSharma -- the delusionist model is that we do processing like an unconscious computer, then create a self-delusion of qualia after the fact. Therefore, one can "learn" the way an optical sensor scanning "learns" then processes the pixel data it inputs. Dennett thinks there is nobody home in either a human OR a machine.
"

So do qualia exist or not according to Dennett? Where do we get our scientific data if not from our senses? I want to know how Dennett has his confidence in science if all first-person experience is illusory or even non-existent.

He doesn't seem to get science from first person experience because that is illusory or non-existent. So there's some other means by which he gets data?

How can information get to the brain if not via senses or thought?

Matthew Christopher Bartsh

In one of the books you recommended to me just now, according to Amazon it says "In this sparkling and provocative book, renowned neuroscientist David Eagleman navigates the depths of the subconscious brain to illuminate its surprising mysteries. Why can your foot move halfway to the brake pedal before you become consciously aware of danger ahead?" And yet "you" would feel like you willed your foot to move, very likely. Not that "feeling like" is detectable.

@Dcleve

Dcleve

22:11

@AmeetSharma -- Dennett considers our data processing to occur in our non-conscious wet processor of a brain. "We" process data, reach conclusions, and act on them, just like an advanced AI, with nobody home. then the first person experience is an after-the-fact delusion creted when our ations are written into long term memory. WHY this complex delusion is created -- his model is pretty vague about...

Qualia are part of the byproduct of that memory writing.

Matthew Christopher Bartsh

@Dcleve This book:

amazon.com/Incognito-Secret-Lives-David-Eagleman/dp/0307389928

"Incognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain Paperback – Illustrated, May 15, 2012 "

Dcleve

@MatthewChristopherBartsh -- Eagleman does not deny that we are conscious, he instead argues that our brins create a distorted story for our minds about what is happening, and what part our consciousness plays in what we do. That narration includes some backdating. Dennett's clam that everything is backdated is overextrapolation way beyond the data.

Ameet Sharma

"@AmeetSharma -- Dennett considers our data processing to occur in our non-conscious wet processor of a brain. "We" process data, reach conclusions, and act on them, just like an advanced AI, with nobody home. then the first person experience is an after-the-fact delusion creted when our ations are written into long term memory. WHY this complex delusion is created -- his model is pretty vague about..."

Then all this is a pointless exercise then. "Reasoning" as such doesn't exist... the senses don't even exist. Why is Dennett even talking about all this? Not because he "wants" to because t…

Dcleve

@AmeetSharma -- yes, your judgment of the value of reasoning in Dennett's model is correct, and Dennett knows this. THAT IS WHY HE DID NOT ARGUE FOR DELUSIONISM WITH REASONING!!!!! Instead, he presented a set of intuition pumps whose purpose was to get his readers to think in Delusionist terms. Read Blackmore's Very Short Introduction to get the reasoning for Delusioism.

Matthew Christopher Bartsh

@Dcleve " It takes an ideology to brainwash someone into denying something so clearly true. What ideology are you thinking of?

Dcleve

22:26

@AmeetSharma no, it is not ridiculas. It is instead an act of desperation. see this review of Blackmore: amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/R1C1TJFIWBZ8ZQ/…

@MatthewChristopherBartsh -- the ideology is reductive physicalism. Blackmore is explicit -- NO physicalist models can deal with the data of consciousness, therefore as a committed physicalist, she must deny the data.

@MatthewChristopherBartsh -- how do you get up in the morning? No 3rd person objective evidence exists to do that.

@AmeetSharma -- the correct response to delusionists is not" that's crazy" or variants of that argument, or "that's impossible" because what they are arguing for ISN'T impossible. The correct response is: "this is our basic data, and data is KING in science! On rare occasions, we DO sometimes throw out our data, but the burden of justificaiton for doing so is MASSIVE, and it is on you to meet that very high standard. "

"And that the data is embarrassing for your preferred ontological worldview, is NOT sufficient justification. Instead, if your ontology can't fit the data, so much the worse for your ontology."

Matthew Christopher Bartsh

23:16

@Dcleve "the ideology is reductive physicalism". Some seem to think reductive physicalism means reductionism. Would you agree?

@AmeetSharma "I honestly think this is just a major trolling or gaslighting done by philosophers like Dennett and Frankish. They've carved their own "niche". I don't think they believe any of this." That's the first time I've heard anyone say that.

@AmeetSharma "This is the most ridiculous idea ever imo." Galen Strawson said much the same thing in a well-known New York Times article that you can read for free online.

@Dcleve "Instead, he presented a set of intuition pumps whose purpose was to get his readers to think in Delusionist terms. I hadn't thought about that. When you put it that way, "intuition pumps" sound a bit like parables from the Bible.

@Dcleve "What if I am an AI and don't get up in the morning?"

@AmeetSharma You are not answering my question Ameet. How do you know I am not an AI?

Ameet Sharma

23:43

"@AmeetSharma You are not answering my question Ameet. How do you know I am not an AI?"

I don't know that. Are you an AI?

"that you can read for free online."

What's the point? First person experience does not exist.

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