Gary McGrawApr 19, 2024
We just lost another great light of rationalism. Dan Dennett helped get me started in philosophy of mind way back in the late '80s. Dan was right about lots of things. https://dailynous.com/2024/04/19/daniel-dennett-death-1942-2024/
Daniel Dennett (1942-2024) - Daily Nous

Daniel Dennett, professor emeritus of philosophy at Tufts University, well-known for his work in philosophy of mind and a wide range of other philosophical areas, has died. Professor Dennett wrote extensively about issues related to philosophy of mind and cognitive science, especially consciousness. He is also recognized as having made significant contributions to the concept

Daily Nous - news for & about the philosophy profession
Show threadDolf van der Haven 🐘🐓Apr 19, 2024
@cigitalgem He had odd ideas about consciousness, though.
Show threadGary McGrawApr 19, 2024
@dvdhaven yeah. So does Dave (chalmers). I'm surrounded by people who don't understand consciousness. Lol.
Show threadPatrick GillamApr 19, 2024

@cigitalgem @dvdhaven

As I understand what I’ve seen called The Hard Problem, it falls into two camps: One says consciousness is an epiphenomenon of neural activity, and the other says consciousness is the transcendent substrate of creation. Is that a fair way to describe it?

Show threadDolf van der Haven 🐘🐓
@patrickgillam @cigitalgem The "easy" problem is to determine how consciousness arises from physical structures in the brain (assuming it does). The "hard" problem is to determine how this in turn gives rise to subjective awareness.
Apr 19, 2024 at 7:37pmWeb
Show threadMarc LepageApr 19, 2024
@dvdhaven @patrickgillam @cigitalgem I'm only 2/3 through The Conscious Mind, but my take on Chalmers' Hard Problem is that nothing we explain about how consciousness arises from physical matter (which presumably can be done, and is therefore the Easy Problem) explains *why* we should have conscious experience at all. Why not an Occam-approved world populated by Philosophical Zombies (who act in every way as if they have conscious experience, but don't)?
Show threadGary McGrawApr 20, 2024
@mlepage @dvdhaven @patrickgillam as such a zombie, I think you are on to something.
Show threadsofia ☮️🏴Apr 21, 2024

@dvdhaven why di you think awareness is "harder" than consciousness? it seems to me like if they aren't synonymous, awarenesses seem to be parts of consciousness. like your conscious experience consists (probably among other things) of awareness of various things, stimulated though sense data.

and of course the sense data is highly subjective…

@patrickgillam @cigitalgem

Show threadDolf van der Haven 🐘🐓Apr 22, 2024
@sofia @patrickgillam @cigitalgem It's not about awareness vs. consciousness, but as follows:
- Easy problem: how does consciousness originate from physical structures? This leads to a possibility to determine if a person is conscious.
- Hard problem: how does this consciousness lead to subjective experience? This is the "awareness" I meant and is not something you can externally determine, only the person himself can indicate if he has subjective experience.
Show threadsofia ☮️🏴Apr 22, 2024

@dvdhaven well, it's about modelling the outside world and self into a format that can be auctioned on by the mind. usually we can just ask people if they are conscious, and they won't respond if they don't 🤷.

and it seems pretty clear that you can feed subjective data into a consciousness to get subjective experience. what else could it lead to, if it's not ignored? that even works if you hook up novel senses, we aren't evolved to have, like with compass bracelets.

@patrickgillam @cigitalgem