False Consciousness: Why Most are not really Conscious

[Arising_uk]

...
Brain research is a perfect example of the value of interference. Scientists have made thousands of interesting observations about the nature of consciousness, but still cannot explain the case of Phineas Gage. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phineas_Gage...

Not sure what is it you wish explained?

[Felasco]

Greylorn,

1. Observation is good.

Philosophy uses observation as a means to the end of theories and conclusions.

What Baba Bozo sometimes calls "aPhilosophy" (see ancient threads under username Typist) reverses the equation, and uses theories and conclusions as a means to the end of observation.

If philosophy was an object, aphilosophy would be the empty space surrounding and defining the object. The empty space is the silent but essential partner, just as the spaces between my words create those words.

Draw a circle on a piece of paper, and label the circle philosophy. This is the realm you explore as a scientist, the realm where observation is a means to the end of conclusions.

Baba Bozo is exploring outside the circle, in the realm where conclusions are a means to the end of observation.

Point being, I'm trying to put our exchanges in to a context.

Baba Bozo is only a jerk most of the time, and if you should wish to explore your better angels here, I will attempt the same.

[uwot]

Studying thought itself is like studying the water which all the ocean creatures swim in and are largely made of.

I'm really struggling with this metaphor, Baba Bozo.

Ok, sorry about that, explain why please..

It's the bits of fish that aren't made of water. You have introduced water as a metaphor for a medium I see no evidence for; people think; it doesn't follow that there is something independent of their thinking.

Might it not be easier to describe thoughts as waves on the ocean?

That could be interesting. Tell us why this occurs to you.

Hard to say. Without exhausting all the possibilities, it may be because there is a pervasive substance we think of as thought, which because of its divisive nature causes different people to have different ideas. Alternatively, the sometimes coherent sequence of experiences that from time to time includes a sensation of what is most easily described as me, being subject to inexorable laws of the universe, just happened to stumble that way. I have no idea why I think what I think, but I have no experience of a thought which wasn't about something, even if that something is thought.
I can understand that thought might be a field or fluid like substance and that specific experiences might be disturbances in that medium, but where'd the fish come from? That's too far out, man.

[SpheresOfBalance]

This is an essay of some sort about the idea of "false consciousness" (a Marxian term used in Marxist dialecticism) and how and why the masses are not really conscious of there own selves, and are just merely "drones" (defined here as simply followers, and not thinkers). Consciousness here is to be fully aware of things,
No such animal.

and in Philosophical terms, for me, is to be aware of things within Ethics, Pragmatics, Metaphysics, Morality, Causation; to be aware of the surroundings and the environment of that where you are at.
And you are free to do so.

The opposite of that would obviously be none of those things, so here's why most people are not really conscious.

1. They are merely indoctrinated into a specific religion, or indoctrinated into the governmental institutions, such as public schools.
Not necessarily so.

They are not told to critically think: to ask questions that may challenge teachers, principals, parents, or whatever adult that guides one in their life.
Don't know of many high-schoolers capable of doing so, hey, isn't that reserved for college!

Because they were not versed in any logical system, they are bound to simply believing things without any thought, which cuts them off from seeking Truth. Many of them are sucked into mainstream culture: the entertainment, music, foods, fashion styles that represent nothing more than a simple commodity, as Capitalism (in a profit and corporate driven sense) reduces value to the fixed quantities of capital.
Your values are peeking through, as if you are the designer of ones life other than your own.

2. They are not learned in actual Ethics and Morality, or Logic (all in Practical terms), outside of what they're told within institutions (education, religion), to learn to actually know why things in society are wrong. The collective examples are: consumerism, wealth, economic growth, war, etc.
Again your values are showing, a matter of perspective, don't you think?

3. Even the people who do know (the majority, in fact now days, have varying degrees of mistrust in government and society) are not grounded in Logic to actually discern what is fact from fiction without any emotional bias attached to the thinking. So they are still herds, and they still do not question things as they are stuck in their ideological paradigms.
Ever heard of disinformation? As are you!

4. Much of their thinking, in terms of thinking ideally, is not realistic and centered around the real world. They tend to be irrational with their solutions, and tend to be irrational in activism. For instance, they yell very radical things without any foundational explanation for it, which causes disruption and alienation between people and individuals or activist groups (a "them" against "all" scenario). This is typical activism within whatever ideology is used, and this is mentioned because people use emotions instead of developing clear thinking capabilities.
Do you mean, every man for himself, living off the land, one against the world?


So summarizing all of these four points, it is a case that people are not wholly conscious of there own selves; that they hold a "false consciousness", or something that is not realistic and not well thought of to the point of being confirmed or denied as being true. They are rebels without a clue of what they are doing, and they are sowing their seeds of destruction by not searching and developing mental clarity.

Of course, your belief from your value pulpit. Some might prefer to involve themselves in, what some might think, are meaningless ventures, to pass the time attempting to elude death, where another does the same thing, but instead by weaving a standardized version of life on planet earth, that he holds others accountable to. Either way, they're both going to die, so who really cares how they attempt to side step the issue, I mean they can both equally feel comfortable in their attempt, however it really doesn't matter, does it?

[Felasco]

You have introduced water as a metaphor for a medium I see no evidence for;

Do you deny the physical existence of some sort of chemo/electrical activity in the brain which could be labeled thought?

Perhaps electricity would be a better metaphor than water, perhaps medium is not quite the right word. I'm happy to admit the metaphor I've offered is just a metaphor, and not a scientific description.

My point is only that thought exists as part of the physical world, and as such it has properties. Whatever those properties might be, they would have an influence on anything made of thought.

As example, our bodies are made largely of water, and thus we are squishy and soft etc. If our body was made mostly of concrete, we'd be entirely different.

All philosophies are made of thought, and thus all philosophies inherent the properties of thought, just as all creatures made mostly of water inherent the properties of water, even though they may come in many different sizes, forms and shapes etc.

Point being, to the degree we understand the properties of thought itself, we learn something about all philosophies.

This is a different way to study philosophy. We set aside a debate between this idea and that idea, and study what all ideas have in common. A shift of focus from the content of thought, to the nature of thought.

people think; it doesn't follow that there is something independent of their thinking.

There is something independent of the content of a particular thought. As example, let's pretend that we'd established that thought is green in color, that is one of thought's properties.

The color of thought would be independent of my opinion of Plato's philosophy. Our opinions on Plato might vary widely, but all our opinions would be green, as they are all made of thought.

[Bill Wiltrack]

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Thank you! Thank you for posting this.


It is not so important the content of one's thoughts but the recognition of thought as a function.



As an observable function.





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[uwot]

Do you deny the physical existence of some sort of chemo/electrical activity in the brain which could be labeled thought?

Philosophically, there is a difference between the brain activity that is associated with thought and the sensations we experience. As Greylorn has pointed out, it has long been understood that electricity plays a major role in brain states that induce thought processes, but the electro-chemical brain states that we can examine with scientific instruments are not the consciousness that we can only access by talking about it. I can tell you all about what I am thinking, but I cannot tell you what the actual physical processes in my head are. I think you need to be clear which you are talking about at any given moment.

Perhaps electricity would be a better metaphor than water, perhaps medium is not quite the right word. I'm happy to admit the metaphor I've offered is just a metaphor, and not a scientific description.

My point is only that thought exists as part of the physical world, and as such it has properties.

I think that is almost certainly true. The thing is, people are doing research on what physical processes are involved with what experience. But while philosophy of mind is not my strong suit, I know next to nothing about neurobiology and I couldn't tell you what the latest research has found. What I do know is that the long haired Australian hippy philosopher of mind David Chalmers has, as I have mentioned already, distinguished between brain activity and our conscious sensations, calling the latter 'the hard problem'; as if working out brain activity wasn't hard enough. The brain activity certainly has properties, as you suggest, but it is not clear that altering those properties will have a reliable effect on anything but gross mental states.

Whatever those properties might be, they would have an influence on anything made of thought.

They would certainly have an influence on the brain states. Whether they would therefore have a consistent influence on mental states, what one perceives or thinks, is a more complicated issue. How and what one thinks is almost certainly a product not only of the raw electro-chemical activity, but the neural connections ones brain has made; roughly speaking, what state will lead to what connections and hence what later state.

As example, our bodies are made largely of water, and thus we are squishy and soft etc. If our body was made mostly of concrete, we'd be entirely different.

All philosophies are made of thought, and thus all philosophies inherent the properties of thought, just as all creatures made mostly of water inherent the properties of water, even though they may come in many different sizes, forms and shapes etc.

What do you think we can learn about animals that we can learn by studying the properties of water?

Point being, to the degree we understand the properties of thought itself, we learn something about all philosophies.

This is a different way to study philosophy. We set aside a debate between this idea and that idea, and study what all ideas have in common. A shift of focus from the content of thought, to the nature of thought.

This is a division of philosophy of mind, Baba Bozo, people do examine thought in that way. The study of the electro-chemical activity inside brains is part of neuroscience; there is a lot of it going on.

people think; it doesn't follow that there is something independent of their thinking.

There is something independent of the content of a particular thought. As example, let's pretend that we'd established that thought is green in color, that is one of thought's properties.

The color of thought would be independent of my opinion of Plato's philosophy. Our opinions on Plato might vary widely, but all our opinions would be green, as they are all made of thought.

I don't follow. What more is there to say about green other than it is green?

[uwot]

Thank you! Thank you for posting this.


It is not so important the content of one's thoughts but the recognition of thought as a function.



As an observable function.

You cannot observe another persons thoughts, even the most sophisticated brain scanners in the world can only observe brain activity, at least to my knowledge. If you wish to know someone else's thoughts, there is as yet no option but to ask them.

[Felasco]

I can tell you all about what I am thinking, but I cannot tell you what the actual physical processes in my head are.

Understood, I'm not a neuro scientist either. Hmm, I think I'm confusing things by referencing the physical reality of thought, and have introduced an unnecessary distracting side trail, my bad.

Being a neuro scientist isn't necessary for our purposes, as we can observe thought directly ourselves. People have been doing this for thousands of years before the emergence of science.

As example, we can observe that language is a key expression of thought. We can observe that nouns are a building block of language. We can observe that the function of a noun is to divide. The centrality of the noun in human thought provides an insight in to the nature of thought.

None of this requires an understanding of the physical mechanism of thought.

I don't understand how cars work either, but that doesn't stop me from observing cars in action and developing some understandings about the nature of cars.

[Arising_uk]

As example, we can observe that language is a key expression of thought. We can observe that nouns are a building block of language. We can observe that the function of a noun is to divide. The centrality of the noun in human thought provides an insight in to the nature of thought. ...

How so? In essence thought is memory and its objects are the representations from the senses separated from the original stimulus, so thought consists of images, smells, 'feelings', tastes and sounds. Language is interesting as it allows one to use sound to think to oneself and communicate with others of course.

The function of a noun is to name objects and things and the insight it provides is that our senses perceive us as a body in an external world of objects and things. Your squirrel can't name its tree but it can certainly notice it.

[Ginkgo]

I can tell you all about what I am thinking, but I cannot tell you what the actual physical processes in my head are.

Understood, I'm not a neuro scientist either. Hmm, I think I'm confusing things by referencing the physical reality of thought, and have introduced an unnecessary distracting side trail, my bad.

Being a neuro scientist isn't necessary for our purposes, as we can observe thought directly ourselves. People have been doing this for thousands of years before the emergence of science.

As example, we can observe that language is a key expression of thought. We can observe that nouns are a building block of language. We can observe that the function of a noun is to divide. The centrality of the noun in human thought provides an insight in to the nature of thought.

None of this requires an understanding of the physical mechanism of thought.

I don't understand how cars work either, but that doesn't stop me from observing cars in action and developing some understandings about the nature of cars.

Yes, but the sticking point is that when we attempt to observe the neural activity of a person's brain we can never observe anything that corresponds to a thought. If a person were were to tell you they were thinking about a red triangle we can never anything in the brain that resembles a red triangle. The neurons don't form a triangle shape and there is nothing red about the chemical transference.

When it comes to the brain there is nothing in modern science at the moment that can establish a one to one correspondence we can observe. We can of course observe such a correspondence when it comes to examining the internal working of a motorcar

[Felasco]

The function of a noun is to name objects and things...

Conceptually, the words "tree" and "soil" imply two different separate unique things. Tree goes in to this box, and soil goes in to that box. Conceptually, it's all very neat and tidy, like database software.

Functionally, in the real world, tree, soil, sun, rain, insects, gases etc are all properties of a single holistic system.This interwoven system extends to the edges of the known universe. As example, tree, soil, sun, rain, insects, and gases are literally made from elements created in supernova explosions many light years from Earth.

The hard boundaries between the apparently separate elements of tree, soil, sun, rain etc are largely inventions of the human mind.

Point being, the inherently divisive nature of thought, while being very useful, also introduces a form of distortion in to our observation.

This might be compared to a standard telescope, which is very useful for looking at things far away, but due to limitations of the equipment the standard telescope does not capture most of the electromagnetic spectrum, thus distorting the observation, providing a false view of reality.

An astronomer would consider it just common sense to understand the limitations of his tool and take those limitations in to account. There's really nothing esoteric about it.

[Arising_uk]

The function of a noun is to name objects and things...

Conceptually, the words "tree" and "soil" imply two different separate unique things. Tree goes in to this box, and soil goes in to that box. Conceptually, it's all very neat and tidy, like database software.

They imply the object one is referring to. There are many trees and all kinds of soil, so a noun need not be unique other than just uniquely referring to that object at that time. Thats their function, to name objects and things, no objects and things, no nouns.

Functionally, in the real world, tree, soil, sun, rain, insects, gases etc are all properties of a single holistic system.This interwoven system extends to the edges of the known universe. As example, tree, soil, sun, rain, insects, and gases are literally made from elements created in supernova explosions many light years from Earth.

Metaphysically this may be the case but functionally this holistic system is the result of the relations between objects and things.

The hard boundaries between the apparently separate elements of tree, soil, sun, rain etc are largely inventions of the human mind.

No, they are the result of whatever it is that makes-up an object or thing. Thats objects and things can be different to different things is due to the senses available to them but the object or thing is still just that. Hence your squirrel and you can both climb the same tree and if you didn't exist the squirrel would still be up it.

Point being, the inherently divisive nature of thought, while being very useful, also introduces a form of distortion in to our observation.

Depends, you'd have to show that we can think other than we do and Kant said not, but I accept that objects and things may not be what we think they are but they are still objects and things.

This might be compared to a standard telescope, which is very useful for looking at things far away, but due to limitations of the equipment the standard telescope does not capture most of the electromagnetic spectrum, thus distorting the observation, providing a false view of reality.

No, it just produces a view on reality, nothing false about it.

An astronomer would consider it just common sense to understand the limitations of his tool and take those limitations in to account. There's really nothing esoteric about it.

I agree and its been a conversation of philosophy for a long-time now. But you appear to be saying that the tool and the tool-user are separate things in this case and I think it probably not the case.

[uwot]

When it comes to the brain there is nothing in modern science at the moment that can establish a one to one correspondence we can observe. We can of course observe such a correspondence when it comes to examining the internal working of a motorcar

To be honest, I'm still not entirely certain what the best analogy is for what Baba Bozo is trying to say. Perhaps in a car the thing that equates to thought is movement. As you say, Ginkgo, we understand from experience the causal chain that starts with the workings of an internal combustion engine and ends with locomotion. Hume notwithstanding, I think Baba Bozo is anticipating a time when the mechanics of the brain are understood with equal clarity.

[Felasco]

No, they are the result of whatever it is that makes-up an object or thing.

In order for there to be something such as an "object" or a "thing" there have to be boundaries. Functionally, in the real world, boundaries are largely an illusion given the pervasive interconnectedness of all things.

This can be demonstrated in a compelling way with the simplest experiment. Please hold your breath for the next minute.

In thought, conceptually, it feels like Arising is a very discrete and separate thing with a hard black clear boundary line between Arising and non-Arising, but in the real world this is only true for a couple of minutes at best.

When does that next breath you take become you? We could reasonably draw the boundary between Arising and air in a number of places, which illustrates the essentially arbitrary invented nature of boundaries.