Ted Honderich
ACTUAL
CONSCIOUSNESS: A LECTURE -- DATABASE, THEORY, PHYSICALITIES, CRITERIA
Lecture handout or Powerpoint.
NEED FOR AN ADEQUATE INITIAL
CLARIFICATION OF CONSCIOUSNESS Questions
re perceptual, cognitive, affective consciousness, and re all consciousness.
Common sense definition. Our holds on
our consciousnesses. Pessimisms of Chomsky, Nagel, Chalmers, McGinn.
Disagreement about consciousness owed to lack of adequate initial clarification
of subject?
5 LEADING IDEAS Qualia
-- a conflicted consensus; only part of consciousness, only qualities of. Something it's like for a thing to be that
thing -- circularity, want of reality. Subjectivity
-- metaphysical self, circularity, obscurity. Intentionality -- ambiguity etc re objects, only part of
consciousness. Phenomenality --
miscellany, obscurity, Block mongrel concept, Chalmers bundle. But real thoughts,
impulses in all 5 ideas despite no adequate initial clarification.
DATABASE Your being
conscious now in the primary ordinary or core sense is:
the
having of something, something being had,
hence
something being held, possessed or owned,
your
seeing, thinking, wanting in the ordinary active sense of the verbs,
the
experience in the sense of the experiencing
of something,
something
being in contact, met with, encountered, undergone,
awareness
of something,
something
being directly or immediately in touch,
something
being apparent,
something not
deduced, inferred, posited, constructed or otherwise got from something else,
something
somehow existing,,
something
being for something else,
something
being to something,
something
being in view, on view, in a point of view,
something
being open, provided, supplied,
something
to which there is some privileged access,
in
the case of perception, there being the world as it is for something,
what
at least involves an object or content,
an
object or content's coming to us, straight-off,
something
being given,
hence
something existing and known,
something
being present,
something
being presented,
something
being shown, revealed or manifest,
something
being transparent in the sense of being unconveyed by anything else,
something
clear straight-off,
something
being open,
something
being close,
an
occurrent or event, not a disposition to such events,
something
real,
something
being vividly naked,
something
being right there,
in
the case of perception, the openness of a world.
CONSCIOUSNESS AS SOMETHING BEING ACTUAL Figurative encapsulation of the database.
ABSTRACT FUNCTIONALISM =
DUALISM; VARIOUS OTHER UNIFORM THEORIES
CRITERIA OF AN ADEQUATE
THEORY/ANALYSIS OF CONSCIOUSNESS
answer
to What is actual?
answer
to Being actual is what?
the
reality of this consciousness
the
difference in kind of consciousness from all else
its
true subjectivity, including some credible or persuasive unity
its
three parts, sides or kinds of elements
naturalism
/ its being a natural fact
its
relations to behaviour and to a brain or other basis and also other relations
PHYSICALITY |
/
\
/
\
SUBJECTIVE
PHYSICALITY |
/ / \
/ /
\
|
OBJECTIVE
PHYSICAL WORLD |
SUBJECTIVE PHYSICAL WORLDS:
Perceptual Consciousness |
SUBJECTIVE PHYSICAL
REPRESENTATIONS: Cognitive and Affective
Consciousness |
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ITS PHYSICALITY |
THEIR PHYSICALITY |
THEIR PHYSICALITY |
1 |
in the inventory of science |
in the inventory of science |
in the inventory of science |
2 |
open to the scientific method |
open to the scientific method |
open to the scientific method |
3 |
in space and time |
in space and time |
in space and time |
4 |
in particular lawful connections |
in particular lawful connections |
in particular lawful connections |
5 |
in categorial lawful connections |
in categorial lawful connections, including
those with the objective physical world and conscious thing |
in categorial lawful connections, including
those with the objective physical world and conscious thing |
6 |
macroworld perception, microworld deduction |
constitutive of macroworld perception |
not perceived, but dependent on macroworld
perception |
7 |
more than one point of view with macroworld |
more than one point of view with perception |
no point of view |
8 |
different from different points of view |
different from different points of view |
no differences from points of view |
9 |
primary and secondary properties |
primary and secondary properties |
no primary and secondary properties |
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ITS OBJECTIVITY |
THEIR SUBJECTIVITY |
THEIR SUBJECTIVITY |
10 |
separate from consciousness |
not separate from consciousness |
not separate from consciousness |
11 |
public |
private |
private |
12 |
common access |
privileged access |
privileged access |
13 |
truth and logic, more subject to? |
truth and logic, less subject to? |
truth and logic, less subject to? |
14 |
open to the scientific method |
open to the scientific method despite doubt |
open to the scientific method despite doubt |
15 |
includes no self or unity or other such inner
fact of subjectivity inconsistent with the above properties of the objective physical world |
each subjective physical world is an element
in an individuality that is a unique and large unity of lawful and conceptual
dependencies including much else |
each representation is an element in an
individuality that is a unique and large unity of lawful and conceptual
dependencies including much else |
16 |
hesitation about whether objective
physicality includes consciousness |
no significant hesitation about taking the
above subjective physicality as being that of actual perceptual consciousness |
no significant hesitation about taking this
subjective physicality as being the nature of actual cognitive and affective
consciousness |
THE ACTUALISM THEORY OF CONSCIOUSNESS: CONCLUSIONS,
OBJECTIONS, SATISFACTION OF CRITERIA, RELATIONS, ETC Concordant differences of
subjective v. objective physicalities. Naive realism. Subjectivity &
individuality. Relations of consciousness. End to pessimisms, e.g. Chomsky
& physicality. No hard problem. Simple zombie objection & diabetes
illusion. Reassurance and prospect for Consciousness science. Freedom and responsibility.
Consensus question. Actual consciousness the right subject?