I meant that it is absurd to claim that people may be automatons in order to avoid admitting that their behavior reflects awareness.
Quote:The main point is, is that observed behavior is 'not' the observation of awareness. ...
You are actually asserting that third person observations of a person in the act of walking down the street is third person observation of awareness.
Utterly Absurd.
[sigh] I did not say that we could observe awareness by watching someone walk down the street. But we CAN observe awareness by observing how they respond to questions and novel situations.
Quote:Quote: Yes, we've already agreed that we cannot experience someone else's consciousness,
No, of course not. In order to
experience someone else's consciousness, we would have to have a telepathic connection to their mind. But we can
observe their consciousness by measuring their brain's responses to stimuli and by noting their behavior.
Quote:Quote:but so what? We can measure the physiological changes in the brain in someone who we "observe" to be conscious, and compare it to our own personal experience of conscious self.
This one issue is whether or not consciousness can be observed. It is not about suppositions of what may produce it.
What's wrong with figuring out what produces the consciousness that many of us do indeed observe?
Quote:Dualism doesn't hold any promises.
Then of what use is it?
Quote:Something you fail to grasp is all knowledge is mental.
Depends on how you define the words. Computers can acquire, store and act on "knowledge" but have no mental concepts of anything.
Consciousness came from evolution of our brains, which is where it resides and has no reason to go anywhere else (especially after death).
Why should "I" be limited to one state that would encompass wakefulness, various sleep stages, meditation, psychosis, drug-induced hallucinations, coma, and everything else? "I" am not always "myself."
*****
There is not much point rehashing the whole subject-object thing, so let's just agree to disagree.
Quote:You are wrong, we do not 'know' if consciousness requires brains
.
You may not "know" but my level of knowledge on the subject seems to be a bit more extensive. You don't necessarily need a brain, but at a minimum consciousness requires organized patterns of matter/energy and a way to manipulate them with self-awareness. There must be a source of input, a data storage system, time sense, imaging system (does not have to be visual), a way to process data and evaluate decisions. Unless you believe in magic.
Quote: Your "no-self" is actually the proto-self produced by the brainstem nuclei in conjunction with the hypothalmus and somatosensory cortices. That's where the buck stops, or more correctly where it starts. One of the basic flaws in your argument is that assumption that every observer needs to be observed.
Quote:If you are the observer and this observer that you are cannot observer itself then youyou do not exist as anything observable.
If knowledge comes about through an I observing, and this I cannot observe the I that the I is, then this I has no knowledge of the I that this I is.
twyvel, this is BS, pure and simple. Of course I can observe myself, others can observe me, and I can observe others and apply that knowledge to my own experience. Have you ever heard the expression "know thyself"? "I" exist as surely as love.
Quote:Quote: Perhaps you could explain to us how, if All is One, "we" got separated into contradictory schools of thought regarding reality?
Illusions.
So who created the illusions, and why?
Quote:That consciousness cannot be observed is one of the biggest problems there is.
Observing it is not the problem. Explaining it is.
Quote:Quote:Exactly what "consequences" might prevent us from believing as you do?
Nondualism.
Or giving up your dualism, and 'you" know what that means?
No-self.
Why do you think that would be a problem for us?
)
