From: Michael Roy Ames (michaelroyames@yahoo.com)
Date: Tue Mar 30 2004 - 13:33:17 MST
Paul,
Your reply does not address the issue. It is all very well to suggest
reading Chalmers, but if one doesn't buy his view of "conscious experience
as an entity" then it does not forward the discussion.
It seems to me that Chalmers and those who follow in the same line of
thinking have changed the definition of 'the hard problem' into a something
else, perhaps in order to preserve the 'mystery' of the self. Those that
hold to the reductionist viewpoint (me included) consider such a change in
definition to be unhelpful. Chalmer's ideas are interesting, but they seem
to ask and answer a different question. Can you see how the question is
different? And can you tell us why the change is needed?
Yours in friendship,
Michael Roy Ames
----- Original Message -----
From: "Paul Hughes" <psiphius@yahoo.com>
To: <sl4@sl4.org>
Sent: Tuesday, March 30, 2004 10:36
Subject: Re: On the subjective experience of consciousness
--- Jef Allbright <jef@jefallbright.net> wrote:
> The core of the "hard problem" of consciousness is
> that it includes the
> built-in assumption that there is someone doing the
> experiencing.
> Someone who is somehow separate from the process and
> who can report
> objectively on the experience.
Actually this is mistaken. This is not the assumption
of the hard problem, as those who think about it know
that the "self" is mutable and transcendable. The
so-called "ego" is a fiction, entirely the fabrication
of arbitrary neural imprints. Anyone who has done a
sufficient amount of psychedelics also knows of the
fragility, the illusion of a coherent "self". This
mutability, IS part of the easy problem of
consciousness.
IMHO, this continues to be your mistake. All manner
of brain change, describing the function and innner
perception of experience falls under this easy
problem.
The hard problem is why is their an inner experience
at all. For some this is obvious, for those that it
is not, I suggest reading Chalmers (again if
necessary) to really understand what the hard problem
is.
Paul
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