On Friday, 26 April 2019 21:06:11 UTC+3, Terren Suydam wrote: > > > But some consciousness is poison. I could die just by breathing too much > carbon monoxide. Funny thing about carbon monoxide is it has no qualia I > can detect. That's why I need a carbon monoxide detector in my house. >
I also need wings to fly if I am attacked by a predator. Only because something is good it doesn't mean that it is also possible. Evolution happens by bringing new qualia on top of pre-existing one, so it will be a little difficult to emerge full developed wings all of a sudden. > > How can something affect my consciousness if it has no qualia? > Because is not the qualia that you experience as such that has effects upon you, but what is behind. > > >> >>> How does one go from seeing black & white to color? How does a deaf >>> person begin to hear sound? The answer you provide must not invoke >>> anything that does not exist in your theory. If you're answer is "I don't >>> know" then I applaud your honesty, but you leave me no reason to accept >>> anything you've said. >>> >>> I already said that I don't know exactly how it happens. Probably there >> is no alternative: you either see colors or you die. And in one universe >> you will die, in another you will see colors and live and have offsprings. >> > > What's a universe? Why is there more than one? I'm pretty sure you would > say universes don't exist if I brought that up. > > A universe is a system of interacting consciousnesses. > >> >>> >>> Does your theory depend on the existence of other consciousnesses >>> besides your own? Does it fail if there are no other consciousnesses? >>> >>> My theory is more or less just a phenomenological description of my own >> consciousness. I don't think that "depends" is the proper word. It is in a >> way inherent in the theory that there are other consciousnesses. One reason >> is as I mentioned in some other post: the fact that we both hear and see is >> probably because we are a unification between a consciousness that only >> sees and another one that only hears. >> > > It's fair to say that no idealistic theory can completely avoid the charge > of solipsism. If you have to assume other consciousnesses, so be it. > > >> And this is also grounded in empirical studies in which certain brain >> regions are related to certain qualia and also in DID where the alters not >> only differ in their personalities, but you can even have alters that are >> blind for example, so in those alters the consciousness that sees is not >> unified with them. >> > > Grounded in empirical studies??? Why do *you* get to make reference to > empirical facts, but when the rest of us do, it's all "such and such > doesn't exist". > > Because the empirical studies that I'm quoting are about consciousness, not about non-existent material objects. > >> >>> What does "memories are true" mean? >>> >> >> Means that if I remember that I had a teddy bear when I was 7 years old, >> then it means that I really had it, and the world was not just created 1 >> second ago with all the memories implanted in my consciousness. >> > > But what if that teddy bear didn't exist, and your memory of it is a false > one? Memory is not infallible. > > I just have to take for granted that they are true. How do memories get implanted in your consciousness? Gentle reminder: > brains don't exist. > By providing a greater meaning towards which they contribute. > > >> >>> What does "reason is true" mean? >>> >>> It means that it makes sense what I'm thinking, and is not all just a >> delirium. >> > > I don't see how you can distinguish between delirium, and whatever the > alternative to delirium is, in your theory. The picture you're painting is > of a world of qualia, experienced by some uncountable number of interacting > consciousnesses, whose interactions form the basis of whatever patterns > exist in the qualia. It has no reality beyond itself, no grounding in any > principle or reason that I can see. It might as well all be a dream. > > Qualia are not necessarily random. They are selected by evolution to give consciousnesses meaningful information to help them survive. Of course, you have the dream states where things are pretty random, so all I can do is to assume that in the waking state things have a little more meaning. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
