Ian Wardell

Karma: 4

Ian Wardell 29 Aug 2022 13:30 UTC
3 points
−7
on: An Introduction to Current Theories of Consciousness
Right out of the gate I will reject dualism. Any phenomenon that defies physics needs extreme evidence which I simply don’t see.
It doesn’t need extreme evidence, just reason.
Physics exclusively deals with the quantifiable aspects of reality. However, there is more to consciousness than its quantifiable aspects. There is also raw feels, what it is like to experience green, pain, emotions and what have you.
This means that consciousness resides outside the ambit of physics. So it makes no sense to claim that consciousness defies physics.
And it’s ridiculous anyway because physics simply describes the patterns in our perceptual experiences, with those patterns being described by mathematics. How does the existence of the perceiver defy the patterns that he sees? It’s silly.

I gravitate towards something like Berkeley’s immaterialism rather than substance dualism, though.

Ian Wardell 11 Aug 2022 10:54 UTC
2 points
in reply to: Piecewise’s comment on: Zombies Redacted
@Piecewise You don’t appear to be discussing p-zombies at all
traumatic brain injury can alter every aspect of your personality, capacity to reason, and ability to perceive.
Significant damage to the lenses in one’s eyeglasses significantly impacts one’s ability to see. Doesn’t mean I can’t see perfectly when I whip them off.
And I have no idea why a disembodied consciousness would have no concept of self and no memories. Consciousness and memories are properties of the self. Our recollections are impeded due to the brain, that obviously doesn’t apply in a disembodied state.

Ian Wardell 11 Aug 2022 10:10 UTC
2 points
on: Zombies Redacted
I’m afraid none of this article is relevant. The whole point of the p-zombie argument is to refute materialism. Now, materialists are obliged to hold that the world is physically closed, meaning that everything that ever happens is purely due to chains of physical causes and effects.

So, are they saying that consciousness therefore doesn’t have any causal agency? That it is only the underlying correlated physical processes in the brain that have causal agency? No, because they claim that consciousness is the very same thing as the underlying physical processes.

Now, even if we accept this somehow makes sense i.e that consciousness is actually one and the very same thing as physical processes, the point here is that it remains the case that the interactions of molecules as mathematically described by the laws of physics are sufficient in and of themselves to account for all change in the world, including everything we human beings do, say and even think.

In other words, even if consciousness is identical to physical processes, we still only need appeal to physical processes to account for all change in the world, including everything we human beings do, say and even think. Any causal efficacy of consciousness is redundant. It is superfluous. We do not need this causal agency as well as physical causation. But, this being so, then a world of p-zombies is at least metaphysically possible.

Your arguments against p-zombies (which I’m sympathetic towards), cannot rescue materialism since your arguments appear to be directed against physical causal closure. But physical causal closure is precisely that which materialists cannot deny!