Maybe you’re familiar with the phenomenon of “waking up”. Do you agree that this is a real thing? If so, does it not imply that it once happened to you for the first time?
Right, people wake up and go to sleep. Waking can be relatively quicker or slower depending on the manner of awakening, but… I’m not sure what you think this establishes.
In any case, a sleeping person is not straightforwardly ‘unconscious’ - their mind hasn’t “disappeared” it’s just doing something very different from what it’s doing when it’s awake. A better example would be someone ‘coming round’ from a spell of unconsciousness, and here I think you’ll find that people remember it being a gradual process.
Your whole line of attack here is odd: all that matters for the wider debate is whether or not there are any smooth, gradual processes between consciousness and unconsciousness, not whether or not there also exist rapid-ish transitions between the two.
What do you think you are doing when you use mentalistic language, then? Do you think it bears no relationship to reality?
There are plenty of instances where language is used in a way where its vagueness cannot possibly be eliminated, and yet manages to be meaningful. E.g. “The Battle Of Britain was won primarily because the Luftwaffe switched the focus of their efforts from knocking out the RAF to bombing major cities.” (N.B. I’m not claiming this is true (though it may be) simply that it “bears some relationship to reality”.)
Your whole line of attack here is odd: all that matters for the wider debate is whether or not there are any smooth, gradual processes between consciousness and unconsciousness, not whether or not there also exist rapid-ish transitions between the two.
I am objecting, first of all, to your assertion that the idea that a fetus might “‘switch on’ like a light” at some point in its development is “ridiculous”. Waking up was supposed to be an example of a rapid change, as well as something real and distinctive which must happen for a first time in the life of an organism. But I can make this counterargument even just from the physiological perspective. Sharp transitions do occur in embryonic development, e.g. when the morphogenetic motion of tissues and cavities produces a topological change in the organism. If we are going to associate the presence of a mind, or the presence of a capacity for consciousness, with the existence of a particular functional organization in the brain, how can there not be a first moment when that organization exists? It could consist in something as simple as the first synaptic coupling of two previously separate neural systems. Before the first synapses joining them, certain computations were not possible; after the synapses had formed, they were possible.
As for the significance of “smooth, gradual” transitions between consciousness and unconsciousness, I will revert to that principle which you expressed thus:
“Whatever the true nature of subjective experience, the facts about it must be determinate”
Among the facts about subjective experience are its relationship to “non-subjective” states or forms of existence. Those facts must also be determinate. The transition from consciousness to non-consciousness, if it is a continuum, cannot only be a continuum on the physical/physiological side. It must also be a continuum on the subjective side, even though one end of the continuum is absence of subjectivity. When you say there can be material systems for which there is no fact about its being conscious—it’s not conscious, it’s not not-conscious—you are being just as illogical as the people who believe in “the particle without a definite position”.
I ask myself why you would even think like this. Why wouldn’t you suppose instead that folk psychology can be conceptually refined to the point of being exactly correct? Why the willingness to throw it away, in favor of nothing?
Right, people wake up and go to sleep. Waking can be relatively quicker or slower depending on the manner of awakening, but… I’m not sure what you think this establishes.
In any case, a sleeping person is not straightforwardly ‘unconscious’ - their mind hasn’t “disappeared” it’s just doing something very different from what it’s doing when it’s awake. A better example would be someone ‘coming round’ from a spell of unconsciousness, and here I think you’ll find that people remember it being a gradual process.
Your whole line of attack here is odd: all that matters for the wider debate is whether or not there are any smooth, gradual processes between consciousness and unconsciousness, not whether or not there also exist rapid-ish transitions between the two.
There are plenty of instances where language is used in a way where its vagueness cannot possibly be eliminated, and yet manages to be meaningful. E.g. “The Battle Of Britain was won primarily because the Luftwaffe switched the focus of their efforts from knocking out the RAF to bombing major cities.” (N.B. I’m not claiming this is true (though it may be) simply that it “bears some relationship to reality”.)
I am objecting, first of all, to your assertion that the idea that a fetus might “‘switch on’ like a light” at some point in its development is “ridiculous”. Waking up was supposed to be an example of a rapid change, as well as something real and distinctive which must happen for a first time in the life of an organism. But I can make this counterargument even just from the physiological perspective. Sharp transitions do occur in embryonic development, e.g. when the morphogenetic motion of tissues and cavities produces a topological change in the organism. If we are going to associate the presence of a mind, or the presence of a capacity for consciousness, with the existence of a particular functional organization in the brain, how can there not be a first moment when that organization exists? It could consist in something as simple as the first synaptic coupling of two previously separate neural systems. Before the first synapses joining them, certain computations were not possible; after the synapses had formed, they were possible.
As for the significance of “smooth, gradual” transitions between consciousness and unconsciousness, I will revert to that principle which you expressed thus:
“Whatever the true nature of subjective experience, the facts about it must be determinate”
Among the facts about subjective experience are its relationship to “non-subjective” states or forms of existence. Those facts must also be determinate. The transition from consciousness to non-consciousness, if it is a continuum, cannot only be a continuum on the physical/physiological side. It must also be a continuum on the subjective side, even though one end of the continuum is absence of subjectivity. When you say there can be material systems for which there is no fact about its being conscious—it’s not conscious, it’s not not-conscious—you are being just as illogical as the people who believe in “the particle without a definite position”.
I ask myself why you would even think like this. Why wouldn’t you suppose instead that folk psychology can be conceptually refined to the point of being exactly correct? Why the willingness to throw it away, in favor of nothing?