Posted by Noctillucent on June 21, 19101 at 23:13:34:
In Reply to: Re: Consciousness IS the brain? posted by John Tchoe on June 21, 19101 at 13:39:37:
[I]I think what is ill-defined here is consciousness. We all know what the brain is, and what is not the brain.[/I]
I would argue otherwise. I definitely know what consciousness is. I AM conscious, so I cannot be mistaken as to its reality. Consciousness is simply what it’s experienced to be. A thought consists of its thinking, a feeling of its being felt, and a perception of its being perceived. Obviously there cannot be an un-thought thought, an un-felt feeling, or an un-perceived perception, anymore than there can exist an un-A A. Such is not logically possible.
It’s physical objects I have trouble with. Not only do I not know ‘where’ they are, I don’t even know ‘what’ they are. Unless physical things take the form of an idea or percept, I can know nothing of them. And ideas and percepts are not physical things. Physical objects, then, would appear to be nothing more than negations – an unpicturable darkness - and nothing real can consist of a negation. In any case, physical things themselves explain nothing, which would be the only reason for positing their existence in the first place. Only ideas have the power to explain, and no idea is a physical thing.
[I]Another person's consciousness is like a black hole, which cannot be directly perceived, only inferred by its effects.[/I]
True.
[I]Well, obviously we cannot use the terms "brain" and "consciousness" interchangeably. If I said that consciousness IS the brain, what I was trying to get across was my opposition to the Platonic notion of concepts having existence separate and independent from physical instances. The physical location of a concept, if you will, lies within an individual brain, and the sum of a particular brain's concepts is consciousness.[/I]
Why can’t consciousness exist apart from matter? If the physical world suddenly vanished, and all else remained the same, would you know of it? Could you know of it? It’s an intelligible idea, which is all that’s required for its possibility.
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