Dave, just to clarify and be clear, when I say CTD, I am referring to the ‘
totality’ of all the individual sequential processes/events involved in the ‘conscious realization’ of an event happening in reality. This begins with
Transmission Delays from an object/event/happening in reality to a corresponding bodily reaction (aka “experience”), and then to
Translation Delays which convert these bodily reactions (experiences) into usable signals that the brain can understand, and then finally to
Recognition Delay, which is the time it takes to match these signal patterns to corresponding memory patterns so as to “know” what one experiences. If there are other processes that you know of, involved in getting from this point A to this point B, then the CTD value would increase accordingly.
Quick Definitions:Experiences -- are non-conscious ‘bodily reactions’.
Consciousness -- is the ‘recognition’ of (bodily) experiences, made possible by memory; aka “conscious experiences”.
Recognition -- is the bodily experience that converts (non-conscious) experiences into conscious experiences; consciousness; recognition is our means of “knowing”.
Note: Virtually every entity in this universe seemingly experience bodily reactions (including billiard balls!), and subsequently auto-reacts accordingly. But not every entity can “know” (recognize) they experience. The ones that “know” are the ones that are considered “conscious” subjects.
Dave_C wrote:RJG wrote:If CTD (of ‘any’ amount) exists, then “conscious causation” does not.
I disagree the conclusion follows the observation.
Hopefully one of my statements below will help change your “disagreeing” to “agreeing” to the impossibility of “conscious causation”.
1- If CTD exists, then consciousness FOLLOWS X. If Conscious Causation exists, then consciousness must PRECEDE X. One is not possible if the other is true. These are mutually exclusive.
2- If CTD exists, then ‘everything’ one is conscious of, has ALREADY HAPPENED. If it has already happened, then it has already
been caused. If it has already been caused, then it is too late to ‘cause’ it.
3- If CTD exists, then EVERYTHING one is conscious of, has already happened. If 'everything’ means ‘everything’, then there is ‘nothing’ left to cause.
4- If CTD exists, then consciousness is an after-’effect’. Effects are experiences, not causers.
5- Causation can NEVER be experienced. If it were, it would be an ‘experience’.
It is not ever possible to experience a non-experience. Knowing (consciously experiencing) true ‘causation’ is impossible. Conscious entities can only experience ‘experiences’, not causers. Causation is only presumed to exist.
6- Conscious beings (entities) are ‘experiential’ beings, and thereby
have no means to ‘cause’ anything.
”Conscious causation” itself, is not logically possible.Dave_C wrote:Epiphenomenalism is a problem (logical dilemma) we have to address.
Stanford U of Phil calls this "self-stultification". The key here is the concept that epiphenomenalism requires the phenomena in question to be acausal.
Not so. Consciousness is just another bodily experience. It is the experience of ‘recognition’, made possible by memory. The brain/memory interaction activity (firing synapses?) responsible for the experience of ‘recognition’ is likewise responsible for ‘consciousness’. Recognition is the body’s means of converting non-conscious bodily experiences, into ‘conscious experiences’; “consciousness”.
It is recognition that brings “life” to consciousness.
Dave_C wrote:The most powerful reason for rejecting epiphenomenalism is the view that it is incompatible with knowledge of our own minds — and thus, incompatible with knowing that epiphenomenalism is true.
... (i) knowledge of one's mental events requires that these events cause one's knowledge…
Knowing my thoughts does 'not' mean that my thoughts caused my knowing. My “knowing” was caused by ‘recognition’ (of past memories/experiences).
Also, the ‘experiencing’ of mental events (e.g. thoughts) is one thing, and the ‘content’ of these thoughts are another. Knowledge is contained in the ‘content’ of the thought, not in the ‘experiencing’ of the thought.
Dave_C wrote:So, either we cannot know our own mental events…
False. We can know (recognize, be conscious of) our own mental events, but not until AFTER they exist/happen.
Dave_C wrote:...or our knowledge of them cannot be what is causing the plainly physical event of our saying something about our mental events.
True. The ‘knowing’ (recognition) of our mental events has no causative force upon our bodily actions.
We don’t know of our mental events (aka bodily reactions) until AFTER they exist/happen. And likewise, we don’t ‘know’ of our bodily actions (“the plainly physical event of our saying something”) until AFTER we ‘recognize’ our mouth opening and saying something.
Dave_C wrote:Thus, suppose S is an epiphenomenalist, and that S utters “I am in terrible pain.” S is committed to the view that the pain does not cause the utterance.
True. An epiphenomenalist would say it was ‘not’ the “knowing” of this pain that caused his utterance, it was an “urge” (a bodily reaction) in response to an underlying bodily reaction.
Dave_C wrote:But then, it seems, S would be making the same utterance whether or not a pain were occurring.
Why so? The ‘conscious recognition’ of pain, is just an ‘effect’; a symptom/indicator of a bodily reaction, not it’s ‘causer’!
Dave_C wrote:One way phenomenal consciousness might be causative is for it to 'program' our neurons to react in a certain way. There's a lot of support for this type of reasoning.
Interesting stuff, and I at one time believed this to be true, but now no longer. My new reasoning is 1) that there is never any “new” material gathered from consciousness, that could then be used to self-program ourselves (via in-situ programmer), and 2) since every conscious thought/experience consists of stuff that already exists in my memory/brain/body, then these are nothing more than ‘recordings of old material’ (past experiences), and finally 3) consciousness does not seemingly have an ‘output’ function, all conscious experiences are ‘inputs’ (effects), and are happenings TO me and not FROM me. No one can know my conscious experiences.
BadgerJelly wrote:I would also like to ask how I can think about next week? Am I merely "observing" my bodily processing imagining the future passively? Am I just some kind of inert/paralysed homunculi? If so then what are all these thoughts doing? Where have they come from? Where are they going? How is it I ask these questions making neurons fire and changing my future view of the world? What makes you think you can convince us if you know you cannot? Simply reverting to your assertion of sensible data taking time to process is not going to help your case.
First of all, we only know what we know, whatever we experience is what we experience. Experiencing is ‘passive’ and 'one-way'. This should be our default starting position of acceptance, for this is all we truly know with certainty. Claiming that we can cause/author/create/construct the very thoughts or experiences that we then experience, (when we cannot experience causation of any type), seems 'not' to be the correct starting point. This seems akin to claiming that ‘flying pigs’ exist, and stating this as our starting default position, and demanding others to prove it wrong.
BadgerJelly wrote:RJG wrote:I am merely logically asserting that two contradictory items cannot co-exist. “Conscious causation” is not possible if "CTD exists" (and vice versa). These are mutually exclusive.
Why are they mutually exclusive? Either you are saying consciousness is basically "steam venting into the void" or you're not. If not then you admit to some degree of conscious causality. The degree to which we consciously effect our future is the major question for me in this regard.
You are not explaining anything just guessing. You are not even backing up your claim with any kind of reasoning or evidence.
See my explanatory response to Dave C above.
bangstrom wrote:RJG wrote:So let me try to show the "obvious" from our own conscious perspective. For example, if CTD is 5 full seconds, then this means that the next 5 seconds of our life has already been determined; it has already happened (in reality; real-time), it just hasn't (consciously) 'played out' yet.
Everything that we are going to experience, (including our doing, saying, feeling, thinking, sensing) in the next (and continuing) 5 seconds, has already been set in motion, and has already 'played out' in reality. We can't "consciously do" or experience anything other than what our bodies have already done.
This is true for motion but not for feeling, thinking and sensing.
Not so. ALL conscious processes consume time. “Instantaneous” processes are not possible.
bangstrom wrote:If we have an extreme time delay of 5 seconds for a signal from the brain to effect a motor stimulus, we can’t change the next 5 seconds but a signal from our brain now can begin a motion at the start of second 6 so we can consciously control future events.
Not so. There is never a 6 second. A 5 second conscious time lag is ‘continuous’, and moves along with real-time, but only shifted 5 seconds. It is never possible to “catch up” to reality.