Philosophical musings on Quanta & Qualia; Materialism & Spiritualism; Science & Religion; Pragmatism & Idealism, etc.
Post 112. December 1, 2020
Is Consciousness An Illusion?
Is Science Theory-
Since Nagel is not a proponent of reductive materialistic Behaviorism, he offers this forward-
Personally, I think modern Science, and its associated Philosophies, is in a transition phase, from its no-
End of Post 112
See no
Mind
Feel no Consciousness
Hear no
Nonsense
What is it like to be a bat?
___Thomas Nagel
14. Theory Blinded :
“Daniel Kahneman in his brilliant book defines “theory induced blindness” as the phenomena which occurs when we trust a theory so much that we search for reasoning to reinforce it even when a specific situation arises that our model doesn't suit well, when we can't think about other options, it becomes inconceivable that the model is incorrect or not suitable in a given context.”
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/theory-
Is Consciousness
an Illusion?
Dennett’s paradoxical
position on
Consciousness
Thomas Nagel
Philosopher of Law, Politics
and Ethics
“Materialism remains a
widespread view, but science does not progress by tailoring the data to fit a prevailing theory.”
— CONSCIOUSNESS —
The Enformationism theory implies that the universe may be permeated by generic information that takes many forms, one of which is Consciousness. But while that sounds like Panpsychism, I don’t think atoms know what’s going on in any sense remotely like human consciousness. But there is another way to look at the universal mind.
At its root, Awareness may be essentially a positive or negative mathematical Ratio between a stable state (rest), and a dynamic state (motion). All things tend toward the rest state, but are deflected away by the original impulse (momentum) of the Big Bang, or by collisions with other moving or static things.
From that abstract perspective, Consciousness is merely a complex form of basic information (energy) exchange. It manifests on the human scale as Attraction or Aversion. The Ancient Greeks called it “Love” or “Desire”. And scientists call it “Force” or “Energy”. As an attractive force we call it Gravity or Magnetism.
So, consciousness and awareness emerge from fundamental interactions of physics, which cause things to “perceive” other things, and to react : like a billiard ball at rest, that responds to the energy of a moving ball, by aversion. Or like a magnet, it responds to other magnets depending on the polarization, by moving away or pulling together.
For humans awareness is intimately related to self-