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MazeHatter comments on Can science come to understand consciousness? A problem of philosophical zombies (Yes, I know, P-zombies again.) - Less Wrong Discussion
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Comments (41)
Given the rich history of cultures we have to draw on, I think it should be unsurprising that we have more words to use than actual concepts to apply them to (especially in nebulous topics like consciousness).
Let me switch gears and use another example. Reality, World, Being, Existence, Nature, Universe, Cosmos, ect. Aren't these all basically referring to the same thing?
I'm suggesting that perhaps a big problem with a scientific theory of consciousness in the current landscape is various vague terms for a single concept.
With that in mind, I humbly suggest that "mind", "consciousness", "experience", "qualia" and similar terms are redundant. What they all refer to is "subjective".
Consciousness, as far as I can tell, and someone feel free to kindly correct me if I'm wrong, is just a fancy word for the subjective part of reality.
So, with that in mind, what precisely are our expectations for a scientific theory of consciousness?
Are we literally trying to develop an objective description of subjectivity?
If not, how is what we are trying to do different?
If so, while it seems impossible at first, there may be options.
http://lesswrong.com/lw/nw/fallacies_of_compression/
to start.
I think I'm trying to point at a different issue altogether. The great Rationalists of history (Leibniz, Spinoza, Descartes) all left maps, with their own idiosyncracies. The ancient East left a variety of different maps. The Greeks left a few different versions too.
Our current map, seems to have redundant features. For example. Is there a significant difference between mind and consciousness? Hypothetically, if we came to fully understood mind, what would be left to know about consciousness?
I'm not sure what you mean by "mind" or "consciousness." I usually think of a mind as the content of a consciousness. I don't know yet if that is an artificial distinction.
Couldn't one equally suggest that consciousness is content of a mind?
I could be missing something, but I guess the approach I'm saying is identify certain concepts and then label them.
And so far, I haven't seen much in the way of a standard distinction between consciousness and mind and experience and qualia and phenomenal reality, ect.
You have a point.
"Minds are made of thoughts."
Is that a coherent thing to say?
Does having a thought make something a mind?
Or does having a mind make something think?
I think the most honest thing to say is that as of right now, there isn't a material, or spatial, or temporal description of how these things are related. Which comes first temporally, which is larger spatially, which is more complex materially. None of those questions have answers.
I think we can say with a pretty straight face that we all have subjective experiences. How that involves minds creating consciousness or consciousness creating minds is something of which I'm skeptical.