Consciousness

[bill456]

Does consciousness need to be more fully described than it is now? Sure, and each year, that very thing happens. It is much more accurately described than it was 10, 25, and 50 years ago. There is no reason to believe, despite your opinion, that it will not continue to be more fully described.

From the above paragraph I can see that you do not understand the problem. Or maybe you agree with the Dennett way of understanding consciousness?

Once I realised that what I have been discussing has actually already been discussed in philosophy before, I found this wikipedia page which contains two important articles - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_problem_of_consciousness.

I would highly recommend anyone who is going to post to this thread to read the following two articles by two distinguished philosophers:

http://www.imprint.co.uk/chalmers.html- Here Chalmers is saying exactly what I have been saying except far more eloquently.
http://ase.tufts.edu/cogstud/papers/chalmers.htm- Here Dennett is refuting Chalmers.

I think Dennett’s views are nonsensical.

[McQ]

Does consciousness need to be more fully described than it is now? Sure, and each year, that very thing happens. It is much more accurately described than it was 10, 25, and 50 years ago. There is no reason to believe, despite your opinion, that it will not continue to be more fully described.

From the above paragraph I can see that you do not understand the problem. Or maybe you agree with the Dennett way of understanding consciousness?

Once I realised that what I have been discussing has actually already been discussed in philosophy before, I found this wikipedia page which contains two important articles - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_problem_of_consciousness.

I would highly recommend anyone who is going to post to this thread to read the following two articles by two distinguished philosophers:

http://www.imprint.co.uk/chalmers.html- Here Chalmers is saying exactly what I have been saying except far more eloquently.
http://ase.tufts.edu/cogstud/papers/chalmers.htm- Here Dennett is refuting Chalmers.

I think Dennett’s views are nonsensical.

I see, Bill. So if we don't agree with you, it is we who don't understand the problem, not you. Is that right? Nice. Well, you just let us know when we can crawl up out of our cribs to sit at your feet so you can explain this all to us.

Wow, what an ego you must have, man!

Somebody pass me the popcorn. I'm gonna sit back and watch the show now.

[bill456]

Bill, "Science" doesn't claim to fully explain or even fully (read, completely) "understand" anything. Not 100%.

I completely agree btw.

I think it is good that you are going to sit back and watch the show, but first, please read the articles I posted above and tell me whether you agree with Dennett or Chalmers.

[myleviathan]

"I am saying that there is something supernatural about it (consciousness) because science can never explain it."

I couldn't disagree with you more. From what I have read on your posts, it seems like you may be looking for an explanation that doesn't exist. If somebody wants an explanation, that's what religion offers. They fill in the gaps of "why" with all sorts of nonsense. But when we take a good hard, sober look at the facts, we'll never be able to answer the question "why". All we have are ideas that seem to explain the phenomena of consciousness as far as science can detect. The fact is our brains are made up of a few elements, the same that can be found throughout the universe. They are organized in such a way that we are able to sense some of our environment, enough at least for survival and a little extra. There is simply no reason to think there is anything supernatural about consciousness unless you're looking for that conclusion before you started.

[bill456]

But when we take a good hard, sober look at the facts, we'll never be able to answer the question "why".

I agree.

There is simply no reason to think there is anything supernatural about consciousness unless you're looking for that conclusion before you started.

As I've said before, by supernatural I mean something that may be natural but that our limited brains may not be able to distinguish from magic. So I think we are pretty much agreed on all points.

I think I am going to start a new thread specifically on Chalmers versus Dennett. I think that will be a more productive avenue for this to go down because this thread is bogged down in semantics. When I started this thread I didn't realise there was such an easy way to clarify the issues in the way that comparing Chalmers and Dennett does.

[bill456]

Ok, here's my new thread/poll. I've posted it under the Philosophy section which I think is more appropriate:

http://www.happyatheistforum.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=1263