Philosophical musings on Quanta & Qualia;  Materialism & Spiritualism; Science & Religion; Pragmatism & Idealism, etc.

   Post 112.  December 1, 2020

  Is Consciousness An Illusion?

   Is Intuition a Delusion?  

 One pertinent form of Information is Language. And Nagel points-out one of its strangest features : “Language permits us to transcend space and time by communicating about what is not present  . . .”  In so doing, human language allows us to “see” things that are not real, which in some contexts would be called “illusions”. So, how could practical mechanical evolution produce such an apparently unfit talent? Imagination, unfet-tered by physical limits, is not very useful for reproduction of genetic material. Instead, its power is limited to propagation of memetic ideas, which are infamous for their contradictory variations. And yet, “Language also enables us to turn our attention to our own thoughts and develop them deliberately in the kind of top-down creativity characteristic of science, art, technology, and institutional design”. So, it seems that human language is responsible for the rapid dissemination of Culture, and for the inevitable conflicts within and between cultures. For example, Marx’s theory of Communism promised the illusion of a “workers paradise”, but soon descended into an abyss of old-fashioned partisan politics.

 What we normally call “Mind” is, in Dennett’s theory, merely shadows in a reversal of Plato’s Cave11. As Nagel puts it : “This brings us to the question of consciousness, on which Dennett holds a distinctive and openly paradoxical position . . . . Dennett holds that consciousness is not part of reality in the way the brain is.” Nagel finds this inversion of intuition to incongruous because, “as Descartes famously observed, the reality of my own consciousness is the one thing I cannot be deluded about”. Ironically, “the way Dennett avoids this apparent contradiction takes us to the heart of his position, which is to deny the authority of the first-person perspective”. So, if we can’t believe our own minds, how can be be sure of anything? Of course, scientists are wary of Intuition, because it is knowledge that typically bypasses both Empirical Observation and Deductive Reasoning. Yet, ancient philosophers claimed to know Necessary or Universal Truths and Moral Principles by logical-but-intuitive inference. Which is what empiricists might call “Faith”. Ironically, many, if not most, scientific discoveries begin with an intuitive insight12. So, the best approach might be to use Reagan’s position on nuclear disarmament : “trust but verify”. Intuition plus Skepticism.

Nagel summarizes Dennett’s thesis : “the reality is that the representations that underlie human behavior are found in neural structures of which we know very little”. Which he attempts to deconstruct : “If I understand him, this requires us to interpret ourselves behavioristically13: when it seems to me that I have a subjective conscious experience, that experience is just a belief”. Then, he offers this criticism : “Dennett asks us to turn our backs on what is glaringly obvious—that in consciousness we are immediately aware of real subjective experiences of color, flavor, sound, touch, etc. that cannot be fully described in neural terms even though they have a neural cause”. Hence, Nagel denies the philosophy of Materialism that underlies Dennett’s scientific & reductive analysis of the immaterial phenomenon of Consciousness.

                      Post 112 continued . . . click Next

Intuition
or
Delusion
?

11. Plato’s Cave :
https://faculty.washington.edu/smcohen/320/cave.htm

12. Einstein’s Intuition :
http://www.bu.edu/cphs/files/2015/04/2006_Einstein_s_Intuition.pdf

13. Behaviorism :
   The “radical” doctrine of B.F. Skinner :  “Psychology is the science of behavior. Psychology is not the science of the inner mind – as something other or different from behavior.”
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/behaviorism/

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.”

Intuition

Einstein’s