- #106
Fliption
- 1,081
- 1
confutatis said: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.
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 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.
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.
Last edited: