Tatjana: Where is self-consciousness located?
Dear Tatjana:
I really enjoyed you profoundly thoughtful post. However,
for an eliminativist like me self-consciousness is located in
the same place as *consciousness* - Nowhere - it
doesn't exist.
Tatjana: I think it is also in the mind.
Jud: It can't be - the *mind* doesn't exist either. Only thinking
brainmeat exists.
[see the powerful professorial Neuro-philosophical partnership of
Paul and Patricia S. Churchland, Department of Philosophy, University of
California.
Tatjana: Or is it in the brain?
Jud: Bingo! Yes.
But...
They seek it here, they seek it there,
Those Trannies* seek it everywhere.
Is it in heaven? Or is it
in hell?
That damned dualistic Pimpernel!
(*Trannies* diminutive of *transcendentalists.)
Tatjana: Or are brain and mind the same thing?
Jud: No - only the thinking meat we call the brain exists. *The useful
fictions *mind, consciousness, self, ego, id, psyche, nous, noesis, intellect*
and all the rest of the sad, inventive litany of mankind's self
delusional formative period, have now outlived their usefulness and are now
ready to be kicked away like Wittgenstein's ladder. A new descriptive
nomenclature needs to be created which addresses actual physical nominata
rather than the existing reificational ragbag, which points to wild physical
imaginings dredged from the past.
Tatjana: The old question of duality. Where does the dreaming happen -
brain or mind - and where the self-consciousness?
Jud:
*Dreaming* and *self-consciousness* doesn't happen anywhere.
Only the self-conscious dreamer exists.
Tatjana: And if it happens in the same location then maybe there are
more layers of the brain/mind consciousness, e. g. subconscious activities
like all the things that keep the body alive and well and are done without us
thinking about it like breathing and blood-pumping etc, in between conscious
activities like dreaming and fully (more or less) conscious activities like
thinking hard about philosophical problems. A lot of activities will probably
not fall exactly into any of those categories but somewhere in between and
there are probably more categories possible.
Jud: *Activities* do not exist anywhere [a mythic product of
primitive man.] Only that which is active exists.
i. e. *Fishing* does not exist. The fisherman exists, the water exists,
the riverine bank exists, the fish and the fisherman's rod and his line exist
- but the so-called *activity* of
*fishing* does not exist.
Tatjana:
3) The problem with science (at least with respect to the experiments
described below that try to find out what lucid dreaming is all about) is
-
in my opinion - that scientists start from the assumption either that brain
and mind are the same thing or that there is only brain and no mind
(which
leads to more or less the same result, i. e. investigate the brain functions
and you know all there is to know). But this assumption is still debated - at
least in philosophical circles. Therefore, how good a guide can science
be?
Jud: It is only debated in philosophical circles by those
people who have an ontological axe to grind - or those who have published
books and made speeches in the past and are too embarrassed to get up to
ontological speed and admit they were wrong about their
fantasies, etc.
No *dualist in the last three-thousand years has ever been able to
prove the existence of these mentalistic [mostly religiously inspired]
spectres and *things that never go bump in the night,* and they never
will. Thus does philosophy drag these dead ideas behind them like a
damp, discarded dressing-gown. ;-)
A SAS aircraft is warming-up on the tarmac at Cloud Cuckooland's
National Airport to waft any dualist up into the clouds and off to
Stockholm, Sweden where the patiently waiting Götes och Vendes Konung is
poised to pin a Nobel Medal on the chest of any transcendentalist who
proves otherwise. Yes, I know it is a disgraceful waste of aviation spirit and
a prime example of environmental pollution.
Just my tuppence-ha'penny worth. ;-)
All the best to you Tatjana.
I would be interested to hear what you or anybody else thinks of the
eliminativist approach?
Some stuff can be found here.
regards,
Jud Evans.
Personal
Website:
http://evans-experientialism.freewebspace.com/index.htm