{"id":3660,"date":"2013-08-29T08:23:48","date_gmt":"2013-08-29T13:23:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/?p=3660"},"modified":"2013-08-25T15:52:03","modified_gmt":"2013-08-25T20:52:03","slug":"consciousness-as-illusion-another-theory-another-yawn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/?p=3660","title":{"rendered":"Consciousness as Illusion — Another Theory, Another Yawn<\/font>"},"content":{"rendered":"

I just read another “theory of consciousness” article<\/a> attempting to use scientific logic to convince us that our conscious being is nothing more than an illusion. This one is by a Princeton U neuroscientist named Michael Graziano. He calls it the “attention schema<\/a>“, as it focuses on how we direct our attention and self-awareness. <\/p>\n

Dr. Graziano is a clever writer, but ultimately his article is just another attempt to demonstrate that science has it all down and physicalism is all there is. According to the good professor, consciousness isn’t different from anything else that science understands, such as transistors and catalysts and carbon cycles and superconductivity. Dr. Graziano seems to think that he has a powerful conceptual tool that makes consciousness fall into place. He co-opts and then debunks outer body experiences and rays coming out of the eyes and such — kind of a cheap shot, I’d say. The article mixes a bit of information theory and evolutionary process with the human brains’ ability to imagine and conceptualize things that don’t exist, along with the human need to form social structures. Knowing the usual “question of mind” philosophy quandaries, he also tries to defeat “epi-phenomenalism”<\/a> (or talk around it, in my opinion). <\/p>\n

In sum, Dr. G defines consciousness in a way that fits his pre-stated objectives. That’s groovy. But is what Professor Graziano conceptualizes as “consciousness” really what we experience as consciousness? Or is this just some more begging of the question of conscious experience? <\/p>\n

Well, once again . . . my response is “yawn”. Graziano is taking another unsuccessful shot at defusing a mystery that really upsets the world of science<\/a> and scientists. Why, you might ask, is an article like this even needed after all the works and public discussions over the past 25 years dismissing consciousness as nothing more than a process of bosons and fermions, such works hailing from “theory of mind” luminaries such as Daniel Dennett<\/a> and Susan Blackmore<\/a> and Nicholas Humphrey<\/a> and Ned Block<\/a> ? All of these learned folk agree that “it’s all a grand illusion”. If so, then why is an “attention schema” even needed?<\/p>\n

Still, Dr. G’s article got me thinking, so I wrote down some notes contra to his “schema” — i.e., how I would “explain” consciousness. Then I went back to my own “Consciousness, A Short Course<\/a>” on this website, and it turns out that my “Substance Dualism Interpretation” section<\/a>, written way back in 2008, is almost exactly in synch with what I just came up with!!! I had totally forgotten about this, I haven’t read in quite a while. So, great minds think alike !! And perhaps mediocre-if-overheated minds, like my own, also think alike over time. It’s nice to know that I’m consistent !! (Nonetheless, I did add some new thoughts, based on my updated reflections and some new research and constructive thinking on consciousness from the past 5 years, including Tononi’s “information integration” theory<\/a> of consciousness.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I just read another “theory of consciousness” article attempting to use scientific logic to convince us that our conscious being is nothing more than an illusion. This one is by a Princeton U neuroscientist named Michael Graziano. He calls it the “attention schema“, as it focuses on how we direct our attention and self-awareness. Dr. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,9],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3660"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3660"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3660\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3662,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3660\/revisions\/3662"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3660"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3660"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3660"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}