Consciousness; a radically new theory. Romansh? (Introduction)

by dhw, Wednesday, July 01, 2015, 17:18 (3193 days ago) @ romansh

dhw: The attribution of consciousness to inanimate objects is misleading, ...-ROMANSH: I think the attribution of consciousness to a sloppy mass of carbohydrates, proteins and electrolytes is also misleading. This I think is the whole point of Susan Blackmore questioning her own consciousness. 
Everything has consciousness and nothing is conscious are two sides of the same coin.
If we don't believe in a dualistic mind, then we have to accept that what we perceive as conscious is actually a historical account, whether the history be measured in seconds or picoseconds.-You will have to forgive my denseness, but I find all this confusing. Firstly, I don't know whether consciousness is independent of the body (dualism) or is engendered by the ”sloppy mass” (materialism), but whichever it may be, I don't understand what you mean by materialistic consciousness being a “historical account”. Our awareness of external phenomena and of ourselves may be linked to transient experiences, but that does not make it unreal. Secondly, this post harks back to panpsychism, but I don't know of any panpsychists who would attribute the same degree of awareness to a rock as to humans, so I'm afraid I have no idea either what you mean by “everything has consciousness and nothing is conscious are two sides of the same coin”. Perhaps I can pin you down to more accessible terminology. Do you believe that you are aware of phenomena both outside and inside yourself? Do you believe that there may be different degrees of such awareness in other organisms?


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