Is Language Useless in Philosophical Discussions?

[Fliption]

If you understood that, you should be able to see what's wrong with the "what it feels like" argument. The reason we know we are conscious is not because we "feel" anything, it's simply because we notice that our appearnce and behaviour is very similar to other people who claim to be conscious, just like women know they are women because they notice their similarity to other people known as "women". Subjective experience has nothing to do with it.

It appears to me that you are trapped in a box and can't get out. You're turning everything into a semantic game. Who cares what it feels like to be a "woman"? That's just an arbitrary distinction with a word assigned to it. It doesn't have anything to do with consciousness. Consciousness is "what it's like to be". Not be "something", necessarily. Just "to be".

 

[confutatis]

It appears to me that you are trapped in a box and can't get out. You're turning everything into a semantic game.

My goodness, that's the point! We are all trapped in a box called "the subjective world" and everything anyone says IS a semantic game. The only alternative to communication is reading people's minds. I cannot do that.

Consciousness is "what it's like to be". Not be "something", necessarily. Just "to be".

So, are you?

 

[Canute]

We don't have more answers than Plato, but we do have a lot more questions. That was my point. Philosophy gives us something to talk about. Without philosophy we could not have cocktail parties. Or this forum, for that matter.

Very true. However think we should take this as a sign that our phiolosophising has gone wrong somewhere.

That can't possibly be an agreed definition of consciousness because I don't agree with it :)

No you're right. Not everyone agrees. However this is the common definition within consciousness studies, after a well known papar by Thomas Nagel which asked what it would be like to be a bat. It isn't a scientific definition of course, but it's the only one on which there is any concensus.

If you understood that, you should be able to see what's wrong with the "what it feels like" argument. The reason we know we are conscious is not because we "feel" anything, it's simply because we notice that our appearnce and behaviour is very similar to other people who claim to be conscious, just like women know they are women because they notice their similarity to other people known as "women". Subjective experience has nothing to do with it.

No offense (really) these are difficult issues. However this is nonsense. If we do not feel anything we are not conscious. How you can say that subjective experience has nothing to do with consciousness defeats me completely. There is no answer to it.

Also every shred of evidence suggests that what it is like to be a woman is unlike what it is like to be a man, thank goodness. Imagine feeling like you can't park.

 

[hypnagogue]

I was actually wondering about that this morning. According to that line of thinking, there must be something that "it is like" to be a woman which only women know, right? After all, you have to be a woman to know what it is like to be a woman.

'What it is like to be' refers to one's direct subjective experience. It does not follow from this that any linguistic dividing line we can come up with entails a totally unique and unknowable set of subjective experiences. For instance, the totality of what it is like to be me is certainly distinct from the totality of what it is like to be you. However, this does not imply that there is no overlap. If we were to look upon the same sunset from the same vantage point, our subjective experiences would still not be identical, but to a large extent they would contain the same phenomenological content-- assuming that your 'red' is the same as my 'red,' and so on.

There is certainly something it is like to be a normally functioning human woman, but it is a further, non-trivial question whether or not it is possible in principle for a man to have a good grasp of this 'what it is like-ness.' The question to ask is, to what extent do the typical subjective experiences of a man overlap with that of a woman? Although differences undoubtedly exist, there is also undoubtedly a great deal of overlap. For a man to have no comprehension of what it is like to be a woman, there would have to be some sort of subjective experience that woman encounter for which a man has no adequate analog in his own repertoire of subjective experience. This may or may not be the case, but we certainly can't assume as you have that it must be the case.

For instance, a man does not undergo menstruation, but a typical man probably experiences cramps at some point in his life, and probably experiences some form of mood swing as well. While still not identical in every detail to the woman's experience, the man can probably imagine a reasonable facsimile of a menstruating woman's experience by way of comparison to his own past experiences. (This claim would be bolstered considerably if the typical woman claims that subjective feeling of menstrual cramps is not qualitatively different in a fundamental way from the feeling of 'normal' cramps, and so on.) Contrast this with a blind man, who will never even be able to construct a reasonable facsimile of what it is like to experience visual consciousness, since he has no adequate experiential analogs through which to attain an understanding.

Can someone have the appearance of a woman and "feel like" a man? And here's where the nonsense becomes clear, at least for me.

We can guess at the answer using a linguistic interchange between men and women on their subjective experiences, but we cannot be sure. So in some respect it may be a nonsensical question to ask, but the nonsense belongs to the way the question has been framed, not to the underlying concept of 'what it is like.'

If "looking like a woman" and "feeling like a woman" are exactly the same thing, then no one who "looks like a woman" could possibly "feel like" anything except a woman.

I honestly don't know what justification you have for tying together appearances and subjective experience in this way. You'd be better served to talk about neurobiology. If there were some neural correlates of consciousness that were scientifically shown to correspond to 'feeling like a woman,' and if your JS character was then shown to possesses these neural correlates, then we would have a high degree of confidence that his claim is justified.

Of course, the problem here is that 'feeling like a woman,' if there truly is such a thing, would probably be exceedingly subtle, vague, and complex. It is not nearly so easy to pick out such a thing as it is to pick out, say, visually 'feeling' redness.

His claim is bogus, he's a man, period.

There seems to be some confusion here. JS is obviously a man, since manhood is defined physiologically. That does not preclude him from feeling like a woman, just like an adult is not precluded from the possibility of feeling like a child under the proper circumstances.

The reason we know we are conscious is not because we "feel" anything, it's simply because we notice that our appearnce and behaviour is very similar to other people who claim to be conscious, just like women know they are women because they notice their similarity to other people known as "women". Subjective experience has nothing to do with it.

Subjective experience has everything to do with it. You are speaking of a mechanism by which one concludes that other people possesses the same type of subjective experiences that one encounters directly. One does not need this process to know one's own subjective experience-- obviously not, since the only way one can observe the appearance and behavior of others in the first place is through the medium of their own subjective experience.

 

[Les Sleeth]

If you understood that, you should be able to see what's wrong with the "what it feels like" argument. The reason we know we are conscious is not because we "feel" anything, it's simply because we notice that our appearnce and behaviour is very similar to other people who claim to be conscious, just like women know they are women because they notice their similarity to other people known as "women". Subjective experience has nothing to do with it.

I am becoming infatuated with your vision for humanity. Music without feeling, relationships without feeling, life without feeling . . . very efficient. I just hope that what creates everything from dull pianists to mass murderers isn't the lack of feeling.

 

[confutatis]

I am becoming infatuated with your vision for humanity. Music without feeling, relationships without feeling, life without feeling . . . very efficient. I just hope that what creates everything from dull pianists to mass murderers isn't the lack of feeling.

My piano playing is rather dull, and I killed four people yesterday. Are you happy to hear that?

Now if you'd excuse me, I have to think about a reply to hypnagogue's thoughtful post.

 

[confutatis]

For a man to have no comprehension of what it is like to be a woman, there would have to be some sort of subjective experience that woman encounter for which a man has no adequate analog in his own repertoire of subjective experience. This may or may not be the case, but we certainly can't assume as you have that it must be the case.

That is way beside my point. All I said was that we can assume for sure that if there is something about yourself which you think only you have, then you have no word for it. As a consequence, everything you talk about, absolutely everything, must consist of concepts that are shared. Applied to my example, all that is possible for women to talk about themselves are those things that are common to all people who are defined as women.

You seem to be getting the wrong impression that language controls what you are. I never said that. All I said was that language controls what you think you are. You must agree with me that there's far more to you than what you think you are.

For instance, a man does not undergo menstruation, but a typical man probably experiences cramps at some point in his life, and probably experiences some form of mood swing as well. While still not identical in every detail to the woman's experience, the man can probably imagine a reasonable facsimile of a menstruating woman's experience by way of comparison to his own past experiences.

Men have noses and women also have noses. Whatever it is that men share with women, I can assure you it is not part of what makes women "women", if you think of "women" as oppose to "men".

Contrast this with a blind man, who will never even be able to construct a reasonable facsimile of what it is like to experience visual consciousness, since he has no adequate experiential analogs through which to attain an understanding.

Listen to yourself! Are you able to construct a reasonable facsimile of what it is like to experience visual consciousness? Are you saying a blind man cannot know he is blind? It seems so, as one needs to understand what vision is before one knows one doesn't have it.

I honestly don't know what justification you have for tying together appearances and subjective experience in this way.

I'm not "tying together appearances and subjective experience". Read my post. I said "subjective experience has nothing to do with it".

You'd be better served to talk about neurobiology. If there were some neural correlates of consciousness that were scientifically shown to correspond to 'feeling like a woman,' and if your JS character was then shown to possesses these neural correlates, then we would have a high degree of confidence that his claim is justified.

If I could get you to understand the point I'm trying to make, you would see that this idea of "neural correlates" those materialists love to talk about is nonsense. But we have to save that discussion for a later time.

There seems to be some confusion here. JS is obviously a man, since manhood is defined physiologically. That does not preclude him from feeling like a woman

No, it does not. That's not what I said. What I said is that if JS does feel like a woman, he has absolutely no way to know it.

just like an adult is not precluded from the possibility of feeling like a child under the proper circumstances.

That's not a correct analogy. Adults know how it feels to be a child. It's perfectly correct for an adult to say "I'm feeling like a child today". I certainly feel like a child when I'm completely free of worries and just enjoying myself. But the reverse is not true; no child can claim to feel like an adult because a child doesn't know how an adult feels. As a child I often felt adult-like feelings, but I never thought of them as "adult-like feelings" until I grew up and learned what an "adult-like feeling" is.

Do you understand what I'm trying to say?

Subjective experience has everything to do with it. You are speaking of a mechanism by which one concludes that other people possesses the same type of subjective experiences that one encounters directly. One does not need this process to know one's own subjective experience

That's not what I said. What I said is that you need this "process" in order to describe you own subjective experience in linguistic terms, to others and even to yourself.

For instane, I have never felt "enlightened". Maybe I did a few moments in my life, I have recollections of experiences which I could not understand at the time they happened. So those experiences happened, I'm not questioning that. But I don't think I can call those experiences "enlightenment", because I don't know what "enlightenment" means.

Now you tell me: how do I know if I ever experienced "enlightenment"? Is it enough for me to look at people who did? Certainly not, as according to them you can't tell the difference from the outside. Is it enough for me to listen to people explaining what "enlightenment" is? Again not, for they all tell me that "enlightenment" can't be explained. Now that leads me to conclude, from my perspective, that "enlightenment" can't be experienced, and that people who claim to have experienced it don't know what they are talking about.

Please don't get me wrong about that. The fact that you don't know what you are talking about doesn't diminish it. I certainly feel profound love for many things, but I don't know what "love" is. I know what loving behaviour is, but "love" completely eludes me. When I use the word "love", it's always in a poetical way. I'm quite OK with the fact that I don't know what "love" is, for the thing I feel when I use the word is far more important, far more meaningful than any word can possibly convey.

 

[Fliption]

Please don't get me wrong about that. The fact that you don't know what you are talking about doesn't diminish it. I certainly feel profound love for many things, but I don't know what "love" is. I know what loving behaviour is, but "love" completely eludes me. When I use the word "love", it's always in a poetical way. I'm quite OK with the fact that I don't know what "love" is, for the thing I feel when I use the word is far more important, far more meaningful than any word can possibly convey.

Confutatis, not only do I understand what you're saying here, I can agree with it too. But what you're describing is no different than the situation with color that everyone here has already acknowledged. None of us know whether our experience of "blueness" is really the same. But you have to be careful when you make statements like "You have no idea what blue is." As you did with enlightenment. You can experience anything. You just can't know whether what you're experiencing would be considered the same thing by another. This doesn't mean that the subjective experience cannot exists.

And while I understand your point in the last post, it is not at all what was being said earlier. Earlier, the view was that experience cannot exists without some conceptual understanding. This is what I've disagreed with from the start. I'm still not sure how to relate this latest view with those "the physical world is just a blur until you learn some words" posts.

 

[zk4586]

The real issue that divides us is this: Is subjective experience important?

Some of us say yes, some of us say no.

We should just agree to disagree.

 

[Fliption]

The real issue that divides us is this: Is subjective experience important?

Some of us say yes, some of us say no.

We should just agree to disagree.

Important for what?

 

[zk4586]

Important for what?

I give up.

 

[Fliption]

I give up.

Generally when you say something is unimportant, you are referring to something as it relates to something else or to some goal/objective. For example, if you need an automobile to get you from point A to point B, then it isn't important what color the automobile is. You are claiming subjective experience isn't important. It isn't important for what? I don't understand the context of this statement.

 

[zk4586]

Generally when you say something is unimportant, you are referring to something as it relates to something else or to some goal/objective. For example, if you need an automobile to get you from point A to point B, then it isn't important what color the automobile is.

Try telling that to my girlfriend.

You are claiming subjective experience isn't important. It isn't important for what? I don't understand the context of this statement.

Essentially, unimportant when it comes to understanding (or constructing a theory of) consciousness. Isn't that what we've been arguing about for seven pages worth of posts now?

 

[confutatis]

Confutatis, not only do I understand what you're saying here, I can agree with it too. But what you're describing is no different than the situation with color that everyone here has already acknowledged. None of us know whether our experience of "blueness" is really the same. But you have to be careful when you make statements like "You have no idea what blue is."

But I made no such statement. Of course a lot of people have a pretty good idea what blue is. I'm fully aware of why I'm not being understood, but I don't know how to explain it. I'll try once more.

Imagine a word, any word. Let's choose 'cat'. So there is the word 'cat', which is made of the letters 'c', 'a', 't', and there is something which the word is supposed to invoke in your mind when it's being used. Now how do you call that something which the word 'cat' invokes in your mind when you read or hear it? I bet you call it... 'cat'!

Now leave aside the fact that you know there's a difference between 'cat' and 'cat', and think of how nonsensical it seems to say that 'cat' and 'cat' are not the same thing. It is nonsense, but you have to understand why I'm saying it's nonsense. The fact of the matter is that human beings have an awesome ability: we have the ability to understand nonsense. And that is nothing short of a miracle.

People who claim computers will one day be conscious don't understand that fact; they don't understand that it's impossible to build a machine that makes sense of nonsense, a machine that doesn't do what it would be logical for it to do.

You can experience anything. You just can't know whether what you're experiencing would be considered the same thing by another.

Exactly. But if you don't know if your experience would be considered the same thing by another, then you don't know what you're experiencing. No man is an island, knowledge does not belong to an individual alone but to the whole human race. Knowledge can be shared, subjective experience cannot.

From that perspective, it's clear to me you can't know if you ever experienced blue if you don't know what the word 'blue' means. But what does 'blue' really mean? What if what I see as 'blue' is what the rest of the world sees as 'yellow'? Clearly I have no way to know if I ever experienced 'blue', yet that fact doesn't prevent me from talking about 'blue'. And that means whatever it is that I mean when I talk about 'blue', it can't possibly be my subjective experience of it.

At this point I know why you still don't understand the argument, so let me introduce you another question: do you think I'm conscious? I hope you do. Why is that? Is it because you think I know, for instance, what the subjective experience of 'blue' is? I clearly don't, I just stated that. The reason you think I'm conscious is far more trivial: I talk as if I'm conscious. So your subjective knowledge of my subjective consciousness is all based on my ability to talk in a particular way. From your perspective, whether I have subjective experiences or not is completely beside the point, so long as I act as if I do.

This doesn't mean that the subjective experience cannot exist.

I hope I was able to show that whether subjective experience exists or not is completely irrelevant to understand consciousness. That's what I'm trying to say.

And while I understand your point in the last post, it is not at all what was being said earlier. Earlier, the view was that experience cannot exists without some conceptual understanding. This is what I've disagreed with from the start. I'm still not sure how to relate this latest view with those "the physical world is just a blur until you learn some words" posts.

I'm talking nonsense, which is a good sign I'm conscious. Since you're conscious too, you can make sense of the nonsense. All you have to do is try, but don't try too hard if it's not worth it.

 

[Fliption]

Try telling that to my girlfriend.

Ok, give me her number and I'll give it a try.

Essentially, unimportant when it comes to understanding (or constructing a theory of) consciousness. Isn't that what we've been arguing about for seven pages worth of posts now?

Sorry I made you restate it. I just want to be clear. What you're saying clearly depends on how you define consciousness. If you define it the way it is defined in philosophical discussions, then obviously what you're saying isn't true.

 

[Fliption]

But I made no such statement. Of course a lot of people have a pretty good idea what blue is. I'm fully aware of why I'm not being understood, but I don't know how to explain it. I'll try once more.

But you did make this statement. You said...

"But I don't think I can call those experiences "enlightenment", because I don't know what "enlightenment" means."

This is the exact same situation with color and not knowing what blue is. As a matter of fact, you say the very same thing about "blue" later in this last post.

I have to admit, I've read this last post of yours at least 5 times and some sentences more than than that. And I still don't have a clue what you're talking about. It seems as if you really think you have a legitimate view so I am trying very hard to understand it. I thought I had it but now I'm not so sure.

Imagine a word, any word. Let's choose 'cat'. So there is the word 'cat', which is made of the letters 'c', 'a', 't', and there is something which the word is supposed to invoke in your mind when it's being used. Now how do you call that something which the word 'cat' invokes in your mind when you read or hear it? I bet you call it... 'cat'!

Now leave aside the fact that you know there's a difference between 'cat' and 'cat', and think of how nonsensical it seems to say that 'cat' and 'cat' are not the same thing. It is nonsense, but you have to understand why I'm saying it's nonsense. The fact of the matter is that human beings have an awesome ability: we have the ability to understand nonsense. And that is nothing short of a miracle.

This cat example did nothing to help. I still don't have a clue what your point is.

People who claim computers will one day be conscious don't understand that fact; they don't understand that it's impossible to build a machine that makes sense of nonsense, a machine that doesn't do what it would be logical for it to do.

If I had to bet money on it, I bet money you're right about computers in general but that doesn't help me understand you're reasoning. I don't understand any of this "nonsense" stuff.

Exactly. But if you don't know if your experience would be considered the same thing by another, then you don't know what you're experiencing. No man is an island, knowledge does not belong to an individual alone but to the whole human race. Knowledge can be shared, subjective experience cannot.

Now here, you are acknowleding what I said as if I understood you. And you say "then you don't know what you're experiencing". But I say to this "who cares?" You seem to be defining "knowledge" as something that I can effectively communicate. And since I can't communicate subjective experiences then it has nothing to do with knowledge. Who cares if I know what to call something and communicate it to others? All that matters is that I experience it and I can distinguish that experience from other experiences. Knowledge can belong to an individual.

From that perspective, it's clear to me you can't know if you ever experienced blue if you don't know what the word 'blue' means. But what does 'blue' really mean? What if what I see as 'blue' is what the rest of the world sees as 'yellow'? Clearly I have no way to know if I ever experienced 'blue', yet that fact doesn't prevent me from talking about 'blue'.

All of this is true, but none of it precludes me from subjectively experiencing color.

And that means whatever it is that I mean when I talk about 'blue', it can't possibly be my subjective experience of it.

And this sentence doesn't make sense to me. Whenever I talk about blue it means exactly my subjective experience of it. Someone listening to my words and not relating those words to the same experience is irrelevant.

At this point I know why you still don't understand the argument, so let me introduce you another question: do you think I'm conscious? I hope you do. Why is that? Is it because you think I know, for instance, what the subjective experience of 'blue' is? I clearly don't, I just stated that. The reason you think I'm conscious is far more trivial: I talk as if I'm conscious. So your subjective knowledge of my subjective consciousness is all based on my ability to talk in a particular way. From your perspective, whether I have subjective experiences or not is completely beside the point, so long as I act as if I do.

Again, this analogy doesn't help. I don't understand how it relates to what you're saying.

I hope I was able to show that whether subjective experience exists or not is completely irrelevant to understand consciousness. That's what I'm trying to say.

Then you aren't defining consciousness the way many people involved in this discussion do. Consciousness is subjective experience. If you leave that out then you aren't understanding consciousness.

I'm talking nonsense, which is a good sign I'm conscious. Since you're conscious too, you can make sense of the nonsense. All you have to do is try, but don't try too hard if it's not worth it.

Don't understand any of this "nonsense" stuff. I don't even know why you think it is nonsense. You just said it was. You didn't really explain why.

 

[hypnagogue]

That is way beside my point. All I said was that we can assume for sure that if there is something about yourself which you think only you have, then you have no word for it. As a consequence, everything you talk about, absolutely everything, must consist of concepts that are shared.

Let me get your position straight before I share my view of it. You seem to be advocating the position that words, as shared concepts, must necessarily address the same referrents, and therefore the idea that the same word (eg, green) can refer to two different things (eg, this color[/color] as experienced by A and that color[/color] as experienced by B) is nonsense. Therefore, 'green' cannot possibly refer to a subjective experience of this color or that color, but must refer to something else which is shown to be a common, consistent referrent across different people. Correct?

Men have noses and women also have noses. Whatever it is that men share with women, I can assure you it is not part of what makes women "women", if you think of "women" as oppose to "men".

Womanhood vis a vis manhood is defined on an objective, physiological level, and therefore need not have any direct ties with subjective experience. In particular, the fact that women demonstrably have a different physiology than men does not in itself imply that women subjectively experience something which men cannot experience even in principle.

Listen to yourself! Are you able to construct a reasonable facsimile of what it is like to experience visual consciousness? Are you saying a blind man cannot know he is blind? It seems so, as one needs to understand what vision is before one knows one doesn't have it.

I don't have to construct a reasonable facsimile of visual consciousness to try to understand what it is like to experience it, since I already experience it directly.

A man blind from birth can know he is blind in an abstract sense, in virtue of what is communicated to him by other people, but he cannot know precisely what it is that he is lacking that constitutes this blindness. He could probably construct a nice analogy for himself, however, by imagining that a man deaf from birth faces a similar sort of predicament.

No, it does not. That's not what I said. What I said is that if JS does feel like a woman, he has absolutely no way to know it.

And I would agree with you. But we must be careful here. What JS cannot know is if what he thinks of as 'feeling like a woman' is the same sort of experience that other women call 'feeling like a woman.' This does not imply that JS does not have or cannot know that feeling that he describes as 'feeling like a woman.' He has perfect knowledge of the feeling as it exists in himself; what he cannot know is if others feel the same sort of thing when they use the same language. The problem is of one of other minds, and it does not apply to JS's own mind.

That's not a correct analogy. Adults know how it feels to be a child. It's perfectly correct for an adult to say "I'm feeling like a child today". I certainly feel like a child when I'm completely free of worries and just enjoying myself. But the reverse is not true; no child can claim to feel like an adult because a child doesn't know how an adult feels. As a child I often felt adult-like feelings, but I never thought of them as "adult-like feelings" until I grew up and learned what an "adult-like feeling" is.

Do you understand what I'm trying to say?

Yes, and I agree, at least with this little piece of text taken on its own. I find some of your other claims dubious though.

That's not what I said. What I said is that you need this "process" in order to describe you own subjective experience in linguistic terms, to others and even to yourself.

That's fine, but again, what that implies is not knowing if one's own subjective experience is shared by others. It does not raise any doubt as to the existence or nature of one's subjective experience, taken on its own terms.

For instane, I have never felt "enlightened". Maybe I did a few moments in my life, I have recollections of experiences which I could not understand at the time they happened. So those experiences happened, I'm not questioning that. But I don't think I can call those experiences "enlightenment", because I don't know what "enlightenment" means.

Now you tell me: how do I know if I ever experienced "enlightenment"? Is it enough for me to look at people who did? Certainly not, as according to them you can't tell the difference from the outside. Is it enough for me to listen to people explaining what "enlightenment" is? Again not, for they all tell me that "enlightenment" can't be explained. Now that leads me to conclude, from my perspective, that "enlightenment" can't be experienced, and that people who claim to have experienced it don't know what they are talking about.

I think you are confusing linguistic representations of phenomena with the phenomena themselves.

Say for argument's sake that Harry was the first guy to ever experience a peculiar set of feelings, and that Harry decided to call this set of feelings 'enlightenment.' How can others be sure that they are experiencing the same set of feelings that Harry was when they are tempted to describe their experience as 'enlightened'? Well, they can't be sure. But this epistemic doubt in the linguistic labeling of their experience is not relevant to their ability to actually have this experience. It could be the case Jane experiences the same thing as Harry, but doubts that this is so, or that John is convinced that he has experienced the same thing as Harry when in fact he hasn't.

 

[hypnagogue]

Essentially, [subjective experience is] unimportant when it comes to understanding (or constructing a theory of) consciousness. Isn't that what we've been arguing about for seven pages worth of posts now?

What is there left to understand after ignoring subjective experience? Unconscious mental processes. So you are a proponent of a theory of consciousness that describes unconscious mental processes. Sounds good.

I honestly don't see how you could hold this position. To understand consciousness, we need to understand subjective experience; not to mention that in order to come to a full understanding of reality (something that could reasonably called a 'theory of everything'), we need to understand subjective experience.

 

[confutatis]

But you did make this statement. You said...

"But I don't think I can call those experiences "enlightenment", because I don't know what "enlightenment" means."

This is the exact same situation with color and not knowing what blue is.

Not for me. I have an experience I can correlate with 'blue', even though I have no way to know the kind of experience they correlate with 'blue'. But in the case of 'enlightenment', I have no experience that I can correlate with the word, for the simple reason that I don't know what the word means.

This cat example did nothing to help. I still don't have a clue what your point is.

And I thought it was the best example I have come up with so far...

I don't understand any of this "nonsense" stuff.

Different people have different experiences, and as a consequence come to see things in different ways. I once came across a person who told me something like this (speaking of himself):

"Whenever I hear people talking, it seems to me most of what they talk about makes no sense; they speak in ambiguous terms, contradict themselves all the time, and apparently see nothing wrong with it. But when I try to talk to them that way, they complain to me that what I'm saying makes no sense! How can I possibly deal with a situation like that?"

This was of course not an ordinary guy, but by no means was he stupid or crazy. He was in fact quite intelligent, far above the average, with an awesome understanding of logic, mathematics, and physics.

Nevermind what I said about "nonsense", I was speaking in terms of what I learned from this person. I learned a lot, and I can't possibly explain all of it in a few posts.

Whenever I talk about blue it means exactly my subjective experience of it. Someone listening to my words and not relating those words to the same experience is irrelevant.

Sure, so why not take the next natural step and apply the same reasoning for 'consciousness'? Isn't 'consciousness' as subjective as 'blue'? Isn't it irrelevant what other people relate to when they hear you talk about it?

Think about that for a while.

Then you aren't defining consciousness the way many people involved in this discussion do. Consciousness is subjective experience. If you leave that out then you aren't understanding consciousness.

At a minimum, I think you should be able to see that even though you think of consciousness as something completely subjective, you also think other people are conscious the same way you are. Can you see the contradiction? If there's nothing to consciousness but subjective experience, then you can't tell whether other people are conscious or not. Since you know other people are conscious, then there must be more to consciousness than subjective experience.

If you understand that, then there's just one more step to see what ZK and I are saying. I'll save that for later.

 

[confutatis]

Let me get your position straight before I share my view of it. You seem to be advocating the position that words, as shared concepts, must necessarily address the same referrents, and therefore the idea that the same word (eg, green) can refer to two different things (eg, this color[/color] as experienced by A and that color[/color] as experienced by B) is nonsense. Therefore, 'green' cannot possibly refer to a subjective experience of this color or that color, but must refer to something else which is shown to be a common, consistent referrent across different people. Correct?

Almost. What I think is nonsense is the idea that you can understand consciousness to the point where you can discover that what A sees as this color[/color] is experienced by B as that color[/color]. Anyone pursuing to understand consciousness from that perspective is wasting his time.

All the same, it's not correct to say we don't understand consciousness at all. We do enough to come to a judgement of whether people are conscious or not. And that judgement, you must agree, is arrived at through observation of the physical world, not through magically peeking into their subjectivity.

So it's not only perfectly possible to understand consciousness from a purely objective standpoint, but we actually do it all the time. What you said above, I take it to mean we can't do what we've been doing quite successfully for quite some time.

I don't have to construct a reasonable facsimile of visual consciousness to try to understand what it is like to experience it, since I already experience it directly.

Sure, but do you really understand how it is you 'see' things? I for one don't.

A man blind from birth can know he is blind in an abstract sense, in virtue of what is communicated to him by other people, but he cannot know precisely what it is that he is lacking that constitutes this blindness. He could probably construct a nice analogy for himself, however, by imagining that a man deaf from birth faces a similar sort of predicament.

So how would a man unconscious from birth knows what he lacks? Can he construct a nice analogy to understand his predicament?

Notice you didn't know you could see until you learned what vision is. And you certainly don't learn what vision is by experiencing vision, you learn it by communicating with other people. Likewise, you can't know if you're conscious until you learn, from other people, what consciousness is. Which means all you know and understand about vision and consciousness is what you learn from other people. Subjective experience plays no role in gathering knowledge, just as knowledge plays no role in gathering facts about the world.

(I'll leave that last sentence unexplained)

I find some of your other claims dubious though.

I'm not preaching here, I'd like to hear different views and learn from them, but I can only take criticism from people with whom I share some common ground. Sleeth, for instance, does not understand my perspective, so even though I acknowledge his skepticism I can't possibly refute it until we learn more about each other.

That's fine, but again, what that implies is not knowing if one's own subjective experience is shared by others. It does not raise any doubt as to the existence or nature of one's subjective experience, taken on its own terms.

The doubts are not regarding the existence of subjective experience, but with claims made about it. You must agree with me that even something as subjective as "subjective experience" must have an objective counterpart, otherwise we would never know it exists for we would not be able to talk about it. The point that is difficult to get across is that when we talk about "subjective experience", we are actually talking about something quite objective. There's nothing subjective to "subjective experience" that can be talked about, the best we can do is discuss its objective aspects.

I can understand why someone would be tricked into thinking that "subjective experience" is not objective. Langauge is very deceptive in that sense, because it allows us to talk about the subjective in a purely objective way. But it's easy to become confused in the process, and I'm sure I'm not immune to confusion myself. All I know is that I'm less confused than I used to be before I understood some things, but I don't know if I'm less confused than you or anyone else.

I think you are confusing linguistic representations of phenomena with the phenomena themselves.

There you go :)

Say for argument's sake that Harry was the first guy to ever experience a peculiar set of feelings, and that Harry decided to call this set of feelings 'enlightenment.' How can others be sure that they are experiencing the same set of feelings that Harry was when they are tempted to describe their experience as 'enlightened'? Well, they can't be sure.

Actually, they can. We do that all the time. All Harry has to do is find physical correlates of 'enlightenment' in his body or his behaviour.

However, I dispute the notion that anyone can have a new experience and come up with a new word for our vocabulary. Experiences are not so neatly categorized; in a sense each experience is new and unique. We can only label experiences because we learn a way to ignore the differences between them. That subjective way of ignoring differences between experiences has an objective counterpart - it's called language.

Perhaps this would make sense, perhaps not: the reason language is important for experience is that without language you can't experience the same thing twice. Moreover, if you can't experience the same "thing" twice, then the only "thing" in your universe that you can possibly experience is a meaningless mess of something we don't have a word for.

What is there left to understand after ignoring subjective experience? Unconscious mental processes. So you are a proponent of a theory of consciousness that describes unconscious mental processes

What's unconscious about a smile?

 

[Canute]

Almost. What I think is nonsense is the idea that you can understand consciousness to the point where you can discover that what A sees as this color[/color] is experienced by B as that color[/color]. Anyone pursuing to understand consciousness from that perspective is wasting his time.

Half right - but colour blindness can be diagnosed.

All the same, it's not correct to say we don't understand consciousness at all. We do enough to come to a judgement of whether people are conscious or not. And that judgement, you must agree, is arrived at through observation of the physical world, not through magically peeking into their subjectivity.

Not right at all. There is no possible way of knowing whether someone else is conscious. We just assume it.

So it's not only perfectly possible to understand consciousness from a purely objective standpoint, but we actually do it all the time.

The 'other minds' problem cannot be solved. Therefore we cannot know if someone else is conscious. Therefore we cannot study experiences objectively. We have to rely on first-person reports, which originate in subjective experience. All these arguments were settled a long time ago.

So how would a man unconscious from birth knows what he lacks? Can he construct a nice analogy to understand his predicament?

Someone who is unconscious cannot know anything.

Notice you didn't know you could see until you learned what vision is. And you certainly don't learn what vision is by experiencing vision, you learn it by communicating with other people.

Oh c'mon, this is getting silly. It must be completely obvious to you that this cannot possibly be true.

Likewise, you can't know if you're conscious until you learn, from other people, what consciousness is.

LoL

Which means all you know and understand about vision and consciousness is what you learn from other people. Subjective experience plays no role in gathering knowledge, just as knowledge plays no role in gathering facts about the world.

Every philosopher who ever lived, as far as I'm aware, agrees that allknowledge derives ultimately from experience.

The doubts are not regarding the existence of subjective experience, but with claims made about it. You must agree with me that even something as subjective as "subjective experience" must have an objective counterpart, otherwise we would never know it exists for we would not be able to talk about it.

So when you are not talking you are unconscious I suppose. We talk about 'nothing', 'electrons', superstrings', 'pain', etc. None of these have 'objective counterparts'. These terms are all theoretical, theories of things and not things in themselves. Words point at things, they are not replacements for them.

The point that is difficult to get across is that when we talk about "subjective experience", we are actually talking about something quite objective.

We might as well scrub the term 'subjective' from the dictionary then.

There's nothing subjective to "subjective experience" that can be talked about, the best we can do is discuss its objective aspects.

No, the best we can do is assume that the other person feels 'pain' and 'heat' and 'colour' and so on and talk about it as best we can. How can we talk about rainbows? They don't exist outside of conscious experience.

I can understand why someone would be tricked into thinking that "subjective experience" is not objective.

So can I. It's probably because it isn't. I think you're just having us on. You can't really believe what you're saying. Why do you suppose that the term 'subjective experience' is used by people when they might as well say 'objective non-experience'.

Langauge is very deceptive in that sense, because it allows us to talk about the subjective in a purely objective way.

That's very true, and I would say it's the source of your confusion. Heidegger felt it was the problem at the root of western metaphysics.

But it's easy to become confused in the process, and I'm sure I'm not immune to confusion myself. All I know is that I'm less confused than I used to be before I understood some things, but I don't know if I'm less confused than you or anyone else.

If you do not have subjective experiences that are incommunicable to other people then you are not confused, you are just not a normal human being.

Actually, they can. We do that all the time. All Harry has to do is find physical correlates of 'enlightenment' in his body or his behaviour.

A correlate is a correlate, not the thing itself. This is why it's called a correlate.

However, I dispute the notion that anyone can have a new experience and come up with a new word for our vocabulary.

That's odd, I just had an experience that was truly uncespenarious.

Experiences are not so neatly categorized; in a sense each experience is new and unique. We can only label experiences because we learn a way to ignore the differences between them.

Agreed. Ignoring differences is what makes categorisation (of anything) possible.

Perhaps this would make sense, perhaps not: the reason language is important for experience is that without language you can't experience the same thing twice.

You cannot experience the same thing twice full stop. Some details will always be different, as you said above.

Moreover, if you can't experience the same "thing" twice, then the only "thing" in your universe that you can possibly experience is a meaningless mess of something we don't have a word for.

Yes. This is known as the 'incommenurability' of experiences. They cannot be communicated. Therefore a priori they cannot be caused by the means of communicating them.

 

[confutatis]

Half right - but colour blindness can be diagnosed.

That's only because there's something objective about color-blindness. If there weren't, you would never know such a thing as color-blindness existed. As far as I know, we know a person is color-blind by the way they talk, not by the way they experience the world. Color-blindness - the concept, not the experience - can only exist because we can talk about it.

Not right at all. There is no possible way of knowing whether someone else is conscious. We just assume it.

This is a misconception. Believe me, I used to think the same way myself.

Oh c'mon, this is getting silly. It must be completely obvious to you that this cannot possibly be true.

It's not silly, but I know why you think it is. You are looking at things from a certain perspective, I'm looking at the same things using a mirror. I know that what you see is the reverse of what I see, but I can also see things the way you see if I want it. You think I'm trying to convince you that the mirrored image is what matters, and you think you have to convince me to look at things directly rather than through the mirror. But that is not what I'm talking about. What I'm trying to explain is this: "look, you see things one way, and you think I see things the wrong way, but that is only because there is a mirror in the room". Ultimately I don't want you to understand what you think is my perspective, I want you to see the mirror. Then it will all make as much sense for you as it does for me, and it's not silly at all, it's quite interesting.

I say a word, and that word conjures up hundreds, perhaps thousands of ideas in my mind. I'm often tempted to think the word itself carries with it all the ideas it conjures in my mind, but when I seriously think about it I realize that is far from being the case. When the word leaves my mouth, or my keyboard, all that enormous wealth of ideas is gone and reduced to a small set of sounds or images.The ideas have to be reconstructed on the other side, on the mind of the person I'm talking to. I have no control over that process, the person will make of my words whatever it is that sounds more sensible to them. Some might interpret what I say as great wisdom, others may interpret it as silliness. I have no control over that process.

That's one side of the story, but there's another side we seldom look at: you can put yourself on the reverse side of the process; you can use a mirror to see something about yourself that is otherwise completely invisible to you. When I use that mirror, I can clearly see that what I have in mind when people say the things they say is not necessarily what they have in mind. I have to reconstruct the meaning of words and sentences just like everyone else, and the speaker's mind is not something I can use to do that job. Let's call that reconstruction process "language", for lack of a better word. It turns out then that all I know about the world and about other people are things that can be expressed through language. And that knowledge includes the knowledge that I am conscious!

Now some people will insist that what "consciousness" really is cannot be expressed through language. But if that were really the case, then it would be as impossible to know if I am conscious as they say it's impossible to know if other people are conscious, for the simple reason that I don't know what the word "conscious" really means.

Tell me, how do you know you are conscious? Forget about all those ideas and feelings the word "conscious" conjures in your mind when you think of it - I have no way to know if those ideas and feelings of yours are the same as mine. To put it another way, can you know if you are conscious according to everybody else's understanding of consciousness?

I think you're just having us on. You can't really believe what you're saying.

I'm sorry you feel that way, it was not my intention. I'm trying to see if I can get other people to contemplate things from an original, and just as valid perspective.

 

[Fliption]

Not for me. I have an experience I can correlate with 'blue', even though I have no way to know the kind of experience they correlate with 'blue'. But in the case of 'enlightenment', I have no experience that I can correlate with the word, for the simple reason that I don't know what the word means.

But you don't have an experience that correlates with blue. All you have is an object that someone else has told you is blue and you therefore assume that you are experiencing blue when you see the object. Enlightenment isn't much different. If you perform and practice all the functions of meditation then you can assume the distinctive feeling that arises is what others call "enlightenment" when they perform those same things. I don't see the difference at all. You have no more knowledge in one than you do in the other.

And I thought it was the best example I have come up with so far...

Just so you know how far off I am...I don't even see what the cat example has to do with the topic.

This was of course not an ordinary guy, but by no means was he stupid or crazy. He was in fact quite intelligent, far above the average, with an awesome understanding of logic, mathematics, and physics.

Maybe he was just socially disfunctional and ackward.

Sure, so why not take the next natural step and apply the same reasoning for 'consciousness'? Isn't 'consciousness' as subjective as 'blue'? Isn't it irrelevant what other people relate to when they hear you talk about it?

Think about that for a while.

Ok. I thought about it. So what?

At a minimum, I think you should be able to see that even though you think of consciousness as something completely subjective, you also think other people are conscious the same way you are. Can you see the contradiction? If there's nothing to consciousness but subjective experience, then you can't tell whether other people are conscious or not. Since you know other people are conscious, then there must be more to consciousness than subjective experience.

But I don't know that other people are conscious. This is a known philosophical issue called the other minds problem. I just assume you're conscious.

If you understand that, then there's just one more step to see what ZK and I are saying. I'll save that for later.

Not sure what this last step is but I'm not sure it matters because I don't believe I know anything about other people being conscious.

 

[Fliption]

After reading the last few response from you Confutatis, it seems where our views diverge are that you seem to think that we cannot "know" anything unless we have a word to assign to it. And I don't believe this to be the case at all.

From my perspective, this semantic web that you are tangling yourself up in is the type of thing that philosophers have to be very careful of doing. Many were unsuccessful. I remember going over the established criticisms of these semantic mistakes back when I studied different philosophers. Even in this forum I see it all the time. People fool themselves into thinking they have a legitmate view when all they really have is equivocation and circular definitions.

 

[Canute]

Confutatis - I'm carrying on only because you play the piano, which means you deserve the benefit of the doubt.

That's only because there's something objective about color-blindness. If there weren't, you would never know such a thing as color-blindness existed.

Absolutely right. However because other people talk about colour someone who is colour blind can know that they are not experiencing something that they are.

As far as I know, we know a person is color-blind by the way they talk, not by the way they experience the world. Color-blindness - the concept, not the experience - can only exist because we can talk about it.

So we can banish colour blindness to medical history by not talking about it? I think not. Some people do not experience all colours as 'normal'. Talking about it or not doesn't change a thing.

This is a misconception. Believe me, I used to think the same way myself.

Argh. Please read some philosophy. This is basic stuff.

It turns out then that all I know about the world and about other people are things that can be expressed through language. And that knowledge includes the knowledge that I am conscious!

You're lucky someone told you that you're conscious then, otherwise you would never have been able to enjoy music. Langauge let's you know that there is common term for consciousness. But consciousness is a term not a thing, the thing existed before there was a word for it, otherwise we wouldn't have a word for it, which must be obvious.

Now some people will insist that what "consciousness" really is cannot be expressed through language.

We can easily agree what consciousness is, in fact peple generally do (outside of internet fora anyway). What we cannot do is convey what it feels like to someone else, or vice versa.

But if that were really the case, then it would be as impossible to know if I am conscious as they say it's impossible to know if other people are conscious, for the simple reason that I don't know what the word "conscious" really means.

You are confusing 'consciousness', a generic term for 'what it is like' with things that are only contingent ststaes of it, like colour and so on. It is SELF-EVIDENT (sorry to raise my voice) to you that you are conscious, as it is to me, but I cannot prove it to someone else and neither can you. You seem to be confusing knowledge with proof. There are loads of things that we can know but cannot prove. Just as well since we cannot prove anything.

, how do you know you are conscious?

By noticing that I feel annoyed on being asked daft questions.

Forget about all those ideas and feelings the word "conscious" conjures in your mind when you think of it - I have no way to know if those ideas and feelings of yours are the same as mine. To put it another way, can you know if you are conscious according to everybody else's understanding of consciousness?

It doesn't matter how you feel or I feel, whether red is blue or pain is pleasure. If you feel anything at all then you are conscious. That's all there is to it. You don't even have to tell anybody.

I'm sorry you feel that way, it was not my intention. I'm trying to see if I can get other people to contemplate things from an original, and just as valid perspective.

I'm all for exploring different perspectives, but only valid ones. I'm going to try to make this my last post on this issue. You are in disagreement with everybody who has ever expressed an opinion on this issue.

 

[confutatis]

But you don't have an experience that correlates with blue. All you have is an object that someone else has told you is blue and you therefore assume that you are experiencing blue when you see the object. Enlightenment isn't much different. If you perform and practice all the functions of meditation then you can assume the distinctive feeling that arises is what others call "enlightenment" when they perform those same things. I don't see the difference at all. You have no more knowledge in one than you do in the other.

Good point. But can't we say the same thing about consciousness? That is, as individuals we have no more knowledge of what being conscious is, other than the fact that a conscious person talks and behaves in a certain way. Therefore, the knowledge that I am conscious derives from my observation that I talk and behave as if I'm conscious, therefore I must be. The problem of knowing if I'm conscious is exactly the same as the problem of knowing if I'm enlightened.

Just so you know how far off I am...I don't even see what the cat example has to do with the topic.

The point was that there is a high degree of isomorphism between reality and language, between 'cat' the animal and 'cat' the word. If there were not, the word would be useless. Likewise the word 'conscious' must have a counterpart in objective reality for it to have meaning.

This is a known philosophical issue called the other minds problem. I just assume you're conscious.

And then...

From my perspective, this semantic web that you are tangling yourself up in is the type of thing that philosophers have to be very careful of doing.

The problem here is that it's all semantics and nothing else. If the "other minds" problem were anything but a problem of semantics, then it could be solved with some observation of the world, which is not the case.

People fool themselves into thinking they have a legitmate view when all they really have is equivocation and circular definitions.

So do you know if the "other minds" problem comes from a legitimate view or is it the result of equivocations and circular definitions? How do you tell one kind of scenario from the other?

 

[confutatis]

Confutatis - I'm carrying on only because you play the piano, which means you deserve the benefit of the doubt.

I think we've covered as much as can be covered for now. It's been fun but I think it's time to change channels.

There are loads of things that we can know but cannot prove. Just as well since we cannot prove anything.

And since we cannot prove anything, "the problem of consciousness" is as impossible as any other. Nothing special about it.

You are in disagreement with everybody who has ever expressed an opinion on this issue.

I believe I'm in agreement with zk4586. It was he in fact who made me understand this. I was on your side before, but now I see where I was wrong. Which doesn't mean you're wrong, because for all I know you may be talking about something entirely different. You may be talking about blue[/color] while I'm talking about blue[/color], and we'll never understand why we can't agree.

Now let's talk about something else.

 

[hypnagogue]

I still find myself in disagreement with your position, though I am content to leave the main line of discussion alone for now. However I would like to remark on one outstanding claim you made in response to Canute:

Not right at all. There is no possible way of knowing whether someone else is conscious. We just assume it.

This is a misconception. Believe me, I used to think the same way myself.

If you truly have solved the problem of other minds, you should publish a paper right now, because you have made one of the momentous discoveries in the history of humanity. As it stands, though, I think your position here only serves to discredit the rest of your reasoning (assuming this statement is tied into your other positions on language and such). If someone on an internet forum has devised a new way of thinking about physics such that his theory unifies gravity and the other forces-- well, the burden of proof lays squarely on him and in all probability he is wrong. Likewise, if your position leads you to make a statement to the effect that you have solved the problem of other minds-- well, in all probability your position is wrong. This is not a trivial criterion. You have the entire history of philosophy going against you now.

 

[Fliption]

Good point. But can't we say the same thing about consciousness? That is, as individuals we have no more knowledge of what being conscious is, other than the fact that a conscious person talks and behaves in a certain way. Therefore, the knowledge that I am conscious derives from my observation that I talk and behave as if I'm conscious, therefore I must be. The problem of knowing if I'm conscious is exactly the same as the problem of knowing if I'm enlightened.

I don't think consciousness is the same thing. If you think it is then you can demonstrate it and I'll try to understand. But here's why I think it's different. The words "blue" and "enlightenment" are like this because they are assigned to subjective experiences. And since we cannot experience each other's subjective experiences then obviously there is a possibility that we aren't on the same page when we speak of blue and enlightenment. But consciousness is not assigned to a specific subjective experience. To be conscious is to have subjective experiences. It's not a question of a color gradient. It is yes or no. It is on or off. If there is anything I am certain of, it is that I have experiences. Of course, your view can simply continue to ask this "how do I know" question about every word I continue to use, picking apart the fact that I have to use language to communicate to you but the fact is I know I have something that I will never find an explanation for in the current scientific paradigm. Whether anyone else knows what it is or not isn't relevant.

Likewise the word 'conscious' must have a counterpart in objective reality for it to have meaning.

Perhaps the counterpart begins in the unquestionable assumption "something exists"? We know this is true. I also know that I am aware of this assumption. And I'm aware that I'm aware of this assumption leading to...self awareness. This is consciousness.

Of course you can continue your fun and ask me about the word "awareness". At some point, the game gets to be unreasonable and non-productive. The materialists started to ask the same sort of "dumb" questions in another thread and I eventaully left that one. Eventually it became obvious their agenda was dictating the dialogue and not their reasoning ability.

The problem here is that it's all semantics and nothing else. If the "other minds" problem were anything but a problem of semantics, then it could be solved with some observation of the world, which is not the case.

The only reason I can think of why you have this view is because you haven't defined the problem for yourself. There is nothing about your own existence that requires explanation to you. It sounds as if all problems have to be dictated to you by someone else. And of course you can always blame the language for those problems.

So do you know if the "other minds" problem comes from a legitimate view or is it the result of equivocations and circular definitions? How do you tell one kind of scenario from the other?

I can tell using logic. I don't believe all words carry the same problem as blue and enlightenment. And good arguments shouldn't be based on subjective statements. Here's a good example for you. A materialist claims that nothing non-material can exists. When asked what being material means he says "having the abilty to exists". You don't even have to know what the words mean to be able to build a logical construct of this view and see that it assumes it's conclusion and is circular. And believe it or not, this very example did and does happen in this forum.

 

[confutatis]

I still find myself in disagreement with your position, though I am content to leave the main line of discussion alone for now.

Well, I just want to drop the subject because I'm afraid of being misinterpreted as an arrogant fool insisting on the same idea over and over, completely deaf to criticism. But I'll be glad to repeat myself over and over until someone understands, if it's OK with everyone else.

If you truly have solved the problem of other minds, you should publish a paper right now, because you have made one of the momentous discoveries in the history of humanity.

No. If I were claiming to have solved the problem of other minds, this thread should be moved to... what's the name of that 'crackpot ideas' forum again?

What I'm saying is that the 'other minds' problem is unsolvable. And if it is unsolvable, let's not waste time trying to solve it. Furthermore, if the problem is unsolvable, that means nothing we can possibly know about anything depends on that problem being solved. So, besides being unsolvable, the problem is irrelevant to solving 'solvable' problems.

Is that really hard to understand? I'm afraid it is.

Let me show you an unsolvable problem. I will give you a fact and a problem:

fact: a + b = 5

problem: determine the values of 'a' and 'b'

You must agree with me that proposing a solution to such a problem is nonsense, right? There just aren't enough facts to solve it. Yet that doesn't prevent anyone from learning a lot more facts about 'a' and 'b' without ever knowing what their values are. For instance:

fact: a = 5 - b
fact: b = 5 - a
fact: a + b - 5 = 0
fact: (a + b)/5 = 1

And so on and on and on.

But please, don't try to relate that to anything I said about consciousness, unless the relationship becomes as clear to you as it is to me. All I expect is that you understand what makes a problem unsolvable, and what can be done about it.