The Problem of Consciousness

Can you reiterate? I don't understand.

I thought intersubjectivity was a phenomenological concept which suggested that your "subjective" experience of an object or thing was like that of other "subjective" experiences (other people experiencing). For instance, if most people agreed on the ontological properties of a chair, we could say there is intersubjectivity regarding the chair. The meaning of a word could be another example. Is this not correct?

But can they only make predictions? Can they give information about a person's current mental state, which can be corroborated by that person? And if so, to what level of detail?

There may be a correlation but the correlation is induced by series of questions and answers between the subject and object, in which the two attempt to find some agreeable grammar to describe the image, feeling, emotion or whatever consciousness is experiencing. During this exchange:

1) Everything is approximate

2) The questioner is affect the responses of the subject being questioned, thereby affecting the consciousness of the subject. It becomes an entangled mess, as the subject attempts to related the nature of his/her consciousness.

For all practical purposes, there is only one person who can understand one's own consciousness, and that is the subject. Everything else then becomes a matter of crude translation based upon how it is being communicated or transmitted.

Rich

... yep, that's another way to describe it ... but since de Silentio is studying Husserl, I decided to use the jargon of phenomenology and phrase the description in terms of the first-person experience of intersubjectivity (i.e., what it's like to experience another experiencing subject) ... (sorry for the confusion!) ...

... neuro-phenomenologists are attempting to take it down to the level of detail of the individual subject via phenomenological methods ... e.g., "The subjects are asked to provide a description of their own experience using open-question format, and thus without the imposition of pre-determined theoretical categories. They are trained to gain intimacy with their own experience in the domain of investigation. The descriptive categories are intersubjectively and scientifically validated and used to interpret results that correlate with objective measurements of behavior and brain activity." (Gallagher and Zahavi, "The Phenomenological Mind") ... that is, rather than forcing each subject to conform to some "objective" ontology of experience, a uniquely personal ontology of experience is uncovered for each subject prior to any trials ...

By this you mean, for example, I myself experiencing another subject (person) experiencing the chair (or anything else)?

That's actually an interesting thought I've never really delved into. I guess that book you just suggested in your last post would be a good place for me to develop this idea?

... actually, if you're relatively new to the jargon and concepts of phenomenology ("time consciousness" stands out as a brain-twister), Sokolowski's "Introduction to Phenomenology" is a decent follow-up to the brief outlines you'll find on the web ... Gallagher and Zahavi's "The Phenomenological Mind" is more about applying phenomenology and its methods in the philosophy and science of mind ...

I didn't think my above comment would ignite so much controversy; let me explain exactly what I meant. First, I placed no restrictions on what topics could be discussed or what sorts of could be arguments presented in this thread, so long as they pertained to the 'problem of consciousness,' which is of course a vaguely defined and potentially enormous subject. My only request was that the term 'consciousness' itself be used and understood as defined in my first post. The above comment was directed at anyone who I felt was willing to accept and consider only empiric evidence, primarily from neuroscience, in the course of debating 'the problem of consciousness,' and who (most importantly) did not seem to be concerned with any sort of justification for preferring that sort of evidence. If only arguments based on empiric evidence are acceptable, and the question is more or less 'what sort of problem is consciousness,' then the question has already been answered. In other words, those who would consider only the empiric arguments, and who criticized all other sorts of arguments only because they lacked empiric evidence, had already decided that consciousness was a problem for science, to the exclusion of other perspectives.




Some people might respond with 'a circus elephant.' That I would call what you're holding an apple proves only that you and I are more similar to one another structurally than either of us are to the weird fellow who calls it a circus elephant.



Remember, I'm not saying that 'what we intersubjectively perceive as sound waves' isn't there. I'm saying that that 'what' cannot be conceived or spoken of except in anthropogenic terms. When I speak the phrase 'sound waves' or think of the word and experience a mental image, I am not experiencing something which exists objectively, i.e. external to experience. If 'sound waves' existed in the external world, it wouldn't be the external world any longer; external means external to experience. So while there is presumably something 'between us' so to speak, something in the external world, which is allowing us ot communicate, it cannot by definition be 'sound waves,' as sound waves is a concept in the experienced world, yours and mine. And our concepts of them probably differ slightly. Just as our conceptions of apple differ slightly, because we are very similar, but slightly different things you and I.



We have agreed to accept the assumption that there exists an external world. The problem is that it is impossible for us to conceive of something which does not have properties derived from experience (shape e.g.). So we have no answer to the question, 'what is the nature of a thing in the external world, such as you or I? I assert that you and I (as things in the external world) are more similar to each other than to other things, and thus we live in similar phenomenological worlds. But by what criteria can I say that we are similar? We can only compare things in terms of their phenomenological properties (e.g, shape), and things in the external world have no such properties. Therefore, when I say that you and I are similar, relative other things, I am making an assumption: like we did in saying that an external world exists in the first place. That's unsatisfying, but anything else wouldn't be true. It's nothing more than an assumption based on what we might call 'common sense': like that which compels us to believe (in absence of proof) in the external world.

So again, to reiterate, it's not that you and I don't have structures, aren't existent things in the external world. We assume we do and are. We simply cannot conceive of the nature of these things, just as we cannot conceive of the nature of the thing in the external world to which we attach the concept 'sound wave.' And furthermore, it isn't an absence of knowledge or technology which prevents us from understanding the nature of things in the external world. If by 'nature' we mean properties like a chair or tree has, then indeed these things have no nature; they are by definition not defined by experience-derived concepts and terms. So we can't speak of a specific structure that is common to you or I, with reference to any properties derived from experience, but we can still assume that we have the same nature, or structure, or whatever other general term you want to use.




What does it mean to observe an experience? For example, Bob may have the experience of dancing, while Molly has the experience of observing Bob dancing. Molly is not observing the experience which is that which Bob has while dancing. These are two separate 1st person experiences.



That proposition is faulty. You can demonstrate that you are conscious (i.e. independent of my phenomenological world) to whom? To me? No. If not to me, then indeed you have not disproved the solipsist proposition. Furthermore, people need to understand that solipsism doesn't necessarily mean that a person believes there is nothing external to their experiences. I certainly don't believe that. I for one consistently refer to some sort of solipsist logic not to prove that everything is a part of my consciousness with no independent life, but rather as part of this or that logical investigation, to analyze the nature of consciousness. By analogy, I can study Greek mythology in order to better understand the mind of man, but I don't have to believe in it. The solipsist proposition is a tool only (for me anyway) and shouldn't be rejected out of hand just because it's so unnatural and contrary to common sense; and as I said, it cannot be disproved.




I would agree. I chose this definition precisely because it makes no distinction whatsoever between 'real' or 'imaginary' experiences, nor between present experiences and memories; in short, because it makes no reference to any fixed external standard of any kind.



Why the division into content and act? Yes, indeed, once you divide the two then they are inseparable, but why divide at all? Nietzsche would offer the analogous error of dividing force from objects in physics, or cause from effect. There is only action, or becoming, or whatever you like to call it; it is singular. The division is only necessary in order to be able to think and speak about the singular action. In order to understand, describe, explain, etc. it is necessary to divide the monism into parts, in terms of which the whole can then be understood, described, explained, etc. But the divisions are arbitrary.



Doesn't your explanation of 'the relationship between consciousness and the real world' make just that assumption? Simply by referring to the 'real world?'




I should have used the term 'sensation' in place of 'sense,' as I meant to refer to what you might call the content of sensing, not the act itself without content. But, again, I recognize no distinction between an act of sensing and that content which is sensed. Do we experience such a distinction? Is not my act of sensing always exactly the same as the content of that act? When have I sensed without sensing something, or experienced a sensation without having sensed it? As you say, never, the content and the act are inseparable. I would argue further that they are one and the same.

Thanks for your response