Consciousness is an invention, neither a hard neither an easy problem, never an illusion #5/#5

in #consciousness7 years ago

Conclusion

All allegedly empirical research on the brain shown every sign of being a dead end and ii) will be the case, will be the case that, as today’s neuroscientists suppose, if consciousness is a neural process that is inside the head and separate from the physical world it perceives, any question it’s a non-starter.
Nagels (1974) argument may be summarized as follow. First premise: it is impossible to known what it is like to have the sensations that another creature has unless one is capable of taking the point of view of that creature. Second premise: it is possible to know all of the physical facts about a creature without taking the point of viewof that creature. Conclusion: there is an obstacle to providing a physicalist reduction of sensations that may turn out to be insuperable. There is here, between the first and second premises, a fallacy of equivocation (Hill 1991, pp. 89-90). The expression "know how" in first premise is far from the "know that" (the "concept of") of the second premise (if I am going to strengthen the Nagels argument of "know what it is like to be a bat" and to recognize the key role played here by "know how"). The logical role of "know" is not the same in both first and second premises: in the first is idiomatic but in the second is attitudinal.
When we say that "x known what is like to be S ", we are, at least in part, to say that x had an experience that is characteristically accompanied by being S, we are not saying that x know that S (that x has the concept of S). For example, there are not pains without feelings but there are pains without the concept of them.
I conclude that a physicalist reduction of sensations may turn out to be superable and iv) will be the case, will be the case that phenomenological characteristics of co-occurring brain activity with consciousness mental states are in the outer world, are not separate from the physical world you perceive, it is the world. Phenomenological characteristics of co-occurring brain activity with consciousness mental states and things out there are one and the same.

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