Mind to Mind: Mr. Dennett & Mr. Gautama Exchange Ideas

[LWSleeth]

NOTE: The main body of this thread, though written as a fantasy, prepares for an earnest question posed at the end of the thread.


Good day ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Mind to Mind! Sit back and enjoy as we utilize Time-Zip® technology to facilitate another mental time travel adventure. Today it’s to be an “idea exchange” between a famous person of the past and a modern thinker. We are pleased to announce that for this exchange, the mind of the Buddha has been time-zipped here for a brief chat with the highly-regarded philosopher Daniel Dennett. We have convinced the Buddha to participate in this exchange from a philosophical perspective (although he insists he is not a philosopher). In the spirit of treating both as philosophers, from here on “the Buddha” will be referred to by his actual last name, Mr. Gautama, just as we will do with Mr. Dennett.

Mr. Dennett and Mr. Gautama were chosen for this idea exchange because there seems to be remarkable agreement between Mr. Dennett’s functional model of consciousness and Mr. Gautama’s model that relies on “aggregates,” and yet they disagree about the overall nature of consciousness. The intention, then, is to see if how they differ yields any new insights about knowing and consciousness. For this exchange, Mind to Mind has selected LW Sleeth to act as Moderator (though not without considerable trepidation).

(Mind to Mind disclaimer: As readers undoubtedly know, the Time-Zip® process only brings an individual’s mind from the past, and then represents his physical presence in our studio with a hologram; Mr. Dennett is represented holographically here as well, projected from his office at Tufts University. Time-Zip® is still a shaky process, with quantum irregularities interrupting connections to the past, so please bear with us through any technical difficulties we encounter. Also, for the sake of promoting objectivity we feel obligated to disclose that although the Moderator has assured us he is not Buddhist, nor involved in any other religion, he does admit to favoring Mr. Gautama’s point of view over Mr. Dennett’s.)

Moderator: Welcome gentlemen.

Mr. Dennett: Thank you.

Mr. Gautama: [nods head smiling].

Moderator: I am an admirer of both of your understandings about the nature of consciousness, but as my employer Mind to Mind revealed, I do lean philosophically towards Mr. Gautama’s model.

Mr. Dennett: That’s too bad because I am right [laughs].

Moderator: You have to admit the physicalistic model of consciousness, as I’ll call it, so well represented by you Mr. Dennett, seems to stir resistance and passionate disagreement from many thinkers who wonder if something more basic is at the foundation of human conscious existence -- from now on I’ll take the liberty of referring to such thinkers as foundationalists.

Mr. Dennett: Well, the physicalistic side has its objections to foundationalist concepts too, such as that they are not measurable, observable by the senses, translatable into “practical” applications, and, at their worst, can become wildly idealistic imaginings that are not grounded by experience and reason.

Mr. Gautama: [slowly nods head in agreement].

Moderator: Good points, and Mr. Gautama seems to agree. There are plenty of us, and I’ll include myself with the foundationalists, who do not dispute the powerful role physiology plays in human awareness. The main objection seems to be that the all-physicalistic model is incomplete. Thus we come to why we’ve asked the two of you specifically to participate in this idea exchange: Mr. Gautama’s model of consciousness includes an aspect Mr. Dennett’s model does not. The “extra” of Mr. Gautama’s model suggests that behind the operations of human awareness is something more basic or foundational.

Mr. Dennett: hruuuump [has stern look on face].

Mr. Gautama: [smiles serenely, eyes sparkling].

Moderator: Although Mr. Dennett’s and Mr. Gautama’s ideas are too complex to detail properly here, I’ve asked each to briefly summarize the aspect of their model we are going to compare and contrast. Mr. Dennett, why don’t you start.

Mr. Dennett: Thank you. I tend to be long-winded, so I brought along a well-written excerpt from a George Johnson review of my book, “Consciousness Explained.”
Mr. Johnson writes, “. . . who, or what, is reading . . . neurological archives? The self? The ego? The soul? For want of a theory of consciousness, it is easy to fall back on the image of a little person -- a homunculus, the philosophers call it -- who sits in the cranial control room monitoring a console of gauges and pulling the right strings. But then, of course, we're stuck with explaining the inner workings of this engineer-marionette. Does it too have a little creature inside it? If so, we fall into an infinite regress, with homunculi embedded in homunculi like an image ricocheting between mirrors. . . .
As Mr. Dennett explained . . . the reason we get the regress is that at each level we are assuming a single homunculus with powers and abilities equal to those of its host. Suppose instead that there are in the brain a horde of very stupid homunculi, each utterly dependent on the others. Make the homunculi stupid enough and it's easy to imagine that each can be replaced by a machine -- a circuit made of neurons. But from the collective behavior of all these neurological devices, consciousness emerges -- a qualitative leap no more magical than the one that occurs when wetness arises from the jostling of hydrogen and oxygen atoms. . . .
To avoid the problem of infinite regress, he [Mr. Dennett] hypothesizes that this master controller is not a fully cognizant marionette but a ‘virtual machine,’ created on the fly from temporary coalitions of stupid homunculi. It is because of this mental software, he proposes, that we can not only think but reflect on our own thinking, as we engage in the step-by-step deliberations that occupy us when we are most aware of the plodding of our minds.”

Moderator: It seems a conclusion we must take from your ideas Mr. Dennett is that there is no original, abiding “self” of consciousness. What we interpret as a singular self is in actuality the result of contributions from several sources. Extended concentration on tasks and repeated patterns give the illusion of a singular self, but really the self is “created on the fly.”

Mr. Dennett: In essence, I wouldn’t disagree with your characterization.

Moderator: I explained your model in those terms in order to suggest that Mr. Gautama might agree yours is a pretty good model of how the human mind arises through the functions of the brain.

Mr. Gautama: As best I understand his model, yes I agree.

Moderator: Mr. Gautama, I have enjoyed many of your ideas, such as those recorded in discourses where you’ve declared there is no permanent “self.” You have explained the unique self we believe ourselves to be is in fact a collection of traits you called the aggregates, and all together these yield an acquired self. Would please share with us how you have spoken about this subject.

Mr. Gautama: I taught my students that one does not regard the material shape as being the self or the self as being material shape. Nor does one regard emotion, perception, the impulses, or intellect in any of these ways. One comprehends of each that it is impermanent. As one of my students explained, “For just as for an assemblage of parts the term ‘chariot’ is employed, so when the aggregates are present, the expression ‘living being’ is employed.”

Moderator: Mr. Dennett, do you find the similarities between your two models interesting?

Mr. Dennett: Indeed. I’d go so far to grant that the major differences between my functionalist model and Mr. Gautama’s more generalized explanation is undoubtedly due to the advantages I’ve had from access to details provided by the years of neurological research.
However, don’t get me wrong I also know I’m being set up for what’s “erroneous” about my model.

Moderator: Maybe a little, but not exactly Mr. Dennett.

Mr. Gautama: [smiles]

Moderator: Anyway, so much for the similarities between the models. What is significantly different? If you don’t mind Mr. Dennett, I’d like to start with a quote from a short article you wrote where you said, “Your stream of consciousness is replete with an apparently unending supply of associations. As each fleeting occupant of the position of greatest influence gives way to its successors, any attempt to halt this helter-skelter parade and monitor the details of the associations only generates a further flood of evanescent states, and so on.”

Mr. Dennett: Yes, and your point is . . .

Moderator: Well, you seem to see consciousness as the busy-ness of the mind, along with the brain functionality which establishes it.

Mr. Dennett: More or less, yes. As I said in an interview where I critiqued Chalmers’ qualia nonsense, “What impresses me about my own consciousness, as I know it so intimately, is my delight in some features and dismay over others, my distraction and concentration, my unnamable sinking feelings of foreboding and my blithe disregard of some perceptual details, my obsessions and oversights, my ability to conjure up fantasies, my inability to hold more than a few items in consciousness at a time, my ability to be moved to tears by a vivid recollection of the death of a loved one, my inability to catch myself in the act of framing the words I sometimes say to myself, and so forth.”

Moderator: I am interested in “what impresses” you about consciousness. That’s because of how it seems to contrast with something Mr. Gautama’s values.
For example, an incident taken from Mr. Gautama’s famous discourse “States of Consciousness” records a man named Potthapada who was philosophizing in a boisterous way to a crowd of wandering mendicants in a park. When Potthapada saw Mr. Gautama, his attitude changed and he said, “Let’s be quiet gentlemen, don’t make a noise. That ascetic Gautama is coming, and he likes quiet and speaks in praise of quiet. If he sees us quiet, he might visit us.”
Is it true Mr. Gautama, that you value quiet?

Mr. Gautama: Yes it is.

Moderator: But if consciousness is dependent on activity as Mr. Dennett suggests, how can one experience quiet?

Mr. Gautama: Things are not precisely as Mr. Dennett suggests. There is that aspect which moves, changes, and is defined by being active, just as he says. I’ve said that aspect is born, made, becoming, and compounded – it is acquired. But there is another plane Mr. Dennett apparently doesn’t know about, where there is neither extension nor motion, no coming or going or remaining or deceasing or uprising.

Mr. Dennett: Sounds impossible to make sense of. How can one prove it exists?

Mr. Gautama: [sits quietly looking incredibly serene, his mind in perfect stillness, his eyes sparkling blissfully]

Mr. Dennett: Impressive Mr. Gautama, but it is not proof.

Mr. Gautama: It is the only proof possible -- experience it for yourself, then you will know.

Mr. Dennett: I can assure you Mr. Gautama I have more or less quiet moments, but it is impossible to stop the mind.

Mr. Gautama: The way you are looking at it, you are correct. You are thinking of stopping the moving aspect with the moving aspect itself. True, that cannot be done. But because there already exists an unmoving foundation that is unborn, not become, not made, and uncompounded . . . an escape can be shown for the moving (the born, become, made, and compounded). So this “escape” I refer to is not achieved by stopping the mind with the mind, but rather it is achieved by joining with a foundation that is already perfectly still.

Mr. Dennett: And how does one realize that escape?

Mr. Gautama: A series of steps, practiced over time. First, one practices quiet until one’s awareness unmistakably feels the presence of what lies behind all the operations of consciousness. Next the objective becomes to practice feeling that background so it grows to be more and more noticeable. As the background becomes more noticeable, one understands it is far more powerful than the aspect of oneself contemplating it. With continued practice, one realizes the background is actually the foundation out of which “self,” the contemplator, has arisen.

Mr. Dennett: A paradox Mr. Gautama?

Mr. Gautama: Not a paradox really, but it is often a dilemma for the person who wants to maintain self more than he wants to know his foundation.

Mr. Dennett: Why should that be a dilemma?

Mr. Gautama: Because yet one more step is possible and necessary, a step which can be difficult to take. If one is skilled enough and trusts the foundation enough to let go, surrender, relax, yield to that foundation, it will absorb one back into it and all the movement which one believes defines consciousness (and self) ceases. It is difficult because the loss of self into the foundation appears to put an end to the individual. Yet in that moment, and ONLY in that moment, does one know for certain one’s origin. That union of “self” with the foundational plane is what many have called samadhi.

Mr. Dennett: This contradicts all my years of thought and study, and so makes little sense to me. As I once wrote about how I see it, coalitions of themes and projects may succeed in dominating “attention” for some useful and highly productive period of time, fending off would-be digressions for quite a while, and creating the sense of an abiding self or ego taking charge of the whole operation. And so on. That I say, Mr. Gautama, is what you interpret as a “foundation.”

Moderator: Surely you aren’t questioning Mr. Gautama’s honesty?

Mr. Dennett: Not at all, I am questioning his interpretation. The problem with the foundational concept is similar to the concept of qualia: we arrive in mysteryland. As I’ve written before, if you define qualia as intrinsic properties of experiences considered in isolation from all their causes and effects, logically independent of all dispositional properties, then they are logically guaranteed to elude all broad functional analysis–but it’s an empty victory, since there is no reason to believe such properties exist.

Moderator: Mr. Dennett, it seems you saying that for something to be true, it must be accessible to broad functional analysis. Mr. Gautama has pointed out that the “reason to believe such properties exist” is from developing direct experiential skills which take place from within consciousness itself. In such a case, wouldn’t the reason for your mysteryland likely be due to trying to directly experience the foundation of consciousness from the outside?

Mr. Dennett: I say there is no other way to know things.

Moderator: Do you agree Mr. Gautama?

Mr. Gautama: It is not possible that I could agree after attaining a pure experience of what you call the foundation, after spending the rest of my life teaching thousands of others how to attain that, and after seeing so many of the devoted attain it. Can I deny what I have attained, successfully taught and witnessed?

Moderator: But then Mr. Gautama, how would you account for the differences between your model of consciousness and Mr. Dennett’s?

Mr. Gautama: There is only one way to account for it. My model reflects what I know; Mr. Dennett’s model reflects both what he knows and what he doesn’t know about consciousness.

Mr. Dennett: What I “know” Mr. Gautama is (as I have written) that whether people realize it or not, it is precisely the "remarkable functions associated with" consciousness that drive them to wonder about how consciousness could possibly reside in a brain. In fact, if you carefully dissociate all these remarkable functions from consciousness -- in your own, first-person case -- there is nothing left for you to wonder about.

Mr. Gautama: [smiles serenely] I would respectfully submit to you, Mr. Dennett, that you haven’t the slightest idea what would happen if one were to “dissociate all these remarkable functions from consciousness.” Speaking from experience I can say I do know, and quite intimately.

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZAAAAAAAAAAPPPPPPPPPPPP

Mr. Dennett: What was that????

Moderator: Ah yes, quantum fluctuations have disrupted our time-zip. I am afraid we’ve lost Mr. Gautama. However, I do think Mr. Gautama explained what is missing from your model quite well, don’t you Mr. Dennett?

Mr. Dennett: Nothing he said convinced me anything is missing from my model!

Moderator: Well, I think he gave us a possible reason for the completeness of your model, Mr. Dennett. Would you be willing to answer a question I have for you to see if I am correct?

Mr. Dennett: We are wasting time, I’ve got papers to grade.

BLIPPPPPPPP

Moderator: Mr. Dennett? Mr. Dennett? Mr. Dennett? Gee, he disconnected. I guess I upset him. Well, I wonder if anyone else would be willing to answer the question I was about to propose. It was:

If, as Mr. Dennett suggests, the “busy-ness” of brain functionality is what creates consciousness, then shouldn’t we expect the reduction of busy-ness to result in the loss of consciousness? And if one could manage to stop mentality altogether for a time, shouldn’t we expect a person to become unconscious?

Yet, if we study the entire history of conscious development, there are numerous reports, some well-documented, of individuals successful at stilling the mind; and these individuals rather than being remembered as unconscious, are instead studied, contemplated, and revered as some of the planet’s wisest of all humans.


Is there any possible way Mr. Dennett’s model could be correct if the mind actually can be fully quieted?

[Dave Allen]

Some people - Freud springs to mind as an obvious example - think that the conscious mind is less active than the unconscious or subconscious. Could Daniel Dennet still be right if someone can calm their conscious mind - their subconscious mind must still be at work.

Have any CAT scans been taken of meditators, I wonder?

Nice script, by the way. I wonder if radio would be interested?

[Satan]

Originally Posted by LWSleeth

Is there any possible way Mr. Dennett’s model could be correct if the mind actually can be fully quieted?

If you could fully quiet your mind, you would no longer be conscious.

[LWSleeth]

Well, let me make it clear what I mean by "quieting the mind" before we get into a debate about it. It is specifically to quiet that activity Dennett claims is key to the rise of our sense of being individually conscious. As I quoted him, “Your stream of consciousness is replete with an apparently unending supply of associations. As each fleeting occupant of the position of greatest influence gives way to its successors, any attempt to halt this helter-skelter parade and monitor the details of the associations only generates a further flood of evanescent states, and so on.”

So to be clear, I am not talking about the brain, since if it were wholly quiet we'd be dead.

But if, say, we are a point of consciousness temporarily occupying the central nervous system from a greater consciousness field (as an alternate possibility to the functionalist model), then just the task of retaining a consciousness in the body might entail brain wave activity; in other words, the presence of brain waves is not the "activity" I am talking about (nor apparently Dennett).

The activity I mean I listed in Dennett's other quote, ". . . my delight in some features and dismay over others, my distraction and concentration, my unnamable sinking feelings of foreboding and my blithe disregard of some perceptual details, my obsessions and oversights, my ability to conjure up fantasies, my inability to hold more than a few items in consciousness at a time, my ability to be moved to tears by a vivid recollection of the death of a loved one, my inability to catch myself in the act of framing the words I sometimes say to myself, and so forth.”

That seems to be the sort of activity Dennett claims is responsible for our more or less epiphenomenal sense there is a conscious observer.

Now, if we agree a mental stream of consciousness (and I'd include subconscious influences) is what we are talking about, then I know for a fact it is very possible to stop that entirely for extended periods of time, and when it is stopped one does not become less conscious.

If so, can Dennett's model possibly be correct?

---------- Post added at 02:14 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:05 PM ----------

Originally Posted by Dave Allen

Some people - Freud springs to mind as an obvious example - think that the conscious mind is less active than the unconscious or subconscious. Could Daniel Dennet still be right if someone can calm their conscious mind - their subconscious mind must still be at work.

I didn't address the sub/unconscious mind because it isn't what Dennett seems to be talking about. But those skilled in quieting the conscious mind find they are constantly uncovering layers of underlying subconscious influences which, as they are exposed to the light, are also gradually made still.

[KaseiJin]

Originally Posted by LWSleeth

So to be clear, I am not talking about the brain, since if it were wholly quiet we'd be dead.

If you are not talking about the brain, you cannot be talking about brain, and if you are not talking about brain, you cannot be talking about mind; period.

Therefore, what might you be trying to pinpoint? One cannot 'find,' thus come to an understanding of, anything, without mind, without brain; so ...?

[LWSleeth]

Originally Posted by KaseiJin

If you are not talking about the brain, you cannot be talking about brain, and if you are not talking about brain, you cannot be talking about mind; period.

Therefore, what might you be trying to pinpoint? One cannot 'find,' thus come to an understanding of, anything, without mind, without brain; so ...?

First of all, once again I think I better clarify to make sure we are discussing the same things.

There is a sense, when we are conscious, of being a unique observer of the information arriving in the mind (via senses and brain). Dennett claims there is no single observer, but rather only a constantly-changing "stance" toward what our mental activity is focusing on (a concept he terms heterophenomenology); this in turn creates the illusion of a unique observer, but which in reality is only reactively arising from the stance of our incessant mental activity. He also assumes (as you apparently do) the neuronal theory of consciousness, that the brain wholly produces all aspects of consciousness. He "dismisses" the hard problem of consciousness (e.g., qualia) and openly admits we really are "zombies" (as per Chalmers' argument).

Now, we can get into a long fight about every one of his assumptions, but that would take us off my point. I can and have argued extensively, for example, how mind can be both brain dependent in some ways, and brain independent in others (just as a radio signal is dependent on the mechanics of the radio to manifest somewhere, but still exists independently even if no radio is present to pick it up). We as consciousness (whatever it is) are residing in a CNS, so for now let's just say we are at least intertwined with neuronal states.

But the point I raised about Dennett's model isn't about whether or not consciousness is purely a neuronal product. Rather, I ask if his homunculus-eliminating idea holds water.

One simple way to define consciousness is "self aware knowing." In other words, we receive information, and another part of us knows we receive information. Things as dumb as Geiger counters and motion detectors receive information but are clueless they do; even computers, as clever as they may calculate, have no awareness they calculate.

What is that central awareness? As I said, Dennett claims it is more or less an illusion, and instead claims consciousness prepares a variety of takes on information we receive, and the optimal behavior or response wins out. Thus we assume an intentional stance toward whatever we are perceiving, and it the constancy of having a mental stance that gives us the sense of an internal observer.

Because this stance is rather automatically decided by all the thinking and sensory information in the mind, then, according to Dennett's model, it should mean that if the mind were to be quieted so that no thoughts and little and no sensory information were present, then that sense of the knower should cease.

As a meditator, and student of past great meditators, I can state with utter conviction that is very possible to still the mind (and you can do it in a sensory deprivation chamber too). In that experience, not only is a knower present, the experience of knowing (knowing one exists) is heightened. If so, how can that possibly be reconciled with Dennett's model?

[KaseiJin]

I appreciate your taking the time to spell out your position. As I see it, the kingpin of this will very much depend on the exact sense that the word mind will be. In the context of consciousness--a certain range of level in the continuum of conscious (which in turn is simply brain (uncountable noun) activity, period)--mind will surely refer to, as I always use it as, the accumulative result of mental activity.

Well, as you can see, that already kind makes it preclude anything but brain, and for that reason, we may have some difficulty in discussing before dealing with that. Setting whatever Dennett and Chalmer may have said aside, for the moment, and stepping into the more practical, 'real' world, we know that the concept of any homunculus is a 'fairy tale' one. We know that consciousness (see above) is due to neuronal activity. Therefore it only follows that Dennett's removal of any such 'fairy tale'-like concept holds water.

I can only guess as to why there would be any question regarding why any lack of sensory input, or states of syncro-firing in some loops due to internal commands (consciousnessly caused or not) would demand a lack of activity in other loops or pathways. We do know, on the other hand, that certain brain damage will lead to lack of self-knowledge. We do know that hemispheric separation will lead to two centers of operation on upper levels (although the 'interpretator' left dominate hemisphere so outpowers the silent right, that there is almost no notice of it, in most cases, without testing).

Therefore, as long as brain is alive, and is up and working across systems, maps, loops, pathways, and synapes (and I mean all cell types here, so some do not synapse) there will be consciousness. During slow wave sleep, that aspect of the organ is 'shut down' (so to speak), but the brain is still very much conscious in other systems (but sensory information is being shut out (erased is a good word)).

The brain is a whole, so that which is consciousness is as much an element of the living working neurons as that which never ever comes even near to consciousness. It's all brain, it's all living cellular material (with so many bio-molecular additives), and it is always projected as a singular (at a given moment, in by far most cases). What that means, therefore, is that mind is a projection of brain alone, which is the same as saying that mind is a projection of cellular material--trust me, if one prevents action potentials, there is no projection, no result (mind).

In a nutshell, then, I am arguing that there is fault in the premise upon which you appear to be working, and am making an effort to correct that firstly.

[LWSleeth]

Originally Posted by KaseiJin

As I see it, the kingpin of this will very much depend on the exact sense that the word mind will be . . . mind will surely refer to, as I always use it as, the accumulative result of mental activity.

Here we agree. What I refer to in Dennett’s model is the cumulative activity and effects of mental activity.

Originally Posted by KaseiJin

In the context of consciousness--a certain range of level in the continuum of conscious (which in turn is simply brain (uncountable noun) activity, period)

Here we don’t agree. As I said, I wanted to avoid a debate about the neuronal model, especially since I don’t believe the brain “creates” consciousness. I don’t know why you say “period” about this issue (you said that in your last post too), the neuronal model is hardly universally agreed upon.

Originally Posted by KaseiJin

Setting whatever Dennett and Chalmer may have said aside, for the moment . . .

Well, that’s going to be a problem because Dennett’s model is exactly what my thread and question is about.

Originally Posted by KaseiJin

. . . stepping into the more practical, 'real' world, we know that the concept of any homunculus is a 'fairy tale' one.

If you mean an actual little man sitting at our brain’s controls, of course that is silly. But that doesn’t mean there is not some central controlling aspect.

Originally Posted by KaseiJin

We know that consciousness (see above) is due to neuronal activity. Therefore it only follows that Dennett's removal of any such 'fairy tale'-like concept holds water.

But we don’t know that! Physicalists assume it a priori as they proceed with all their research, but a great many others dispute it. In other words, if you already believe the brain “creates” consciousness, and you already believe that the ability to affect conscious states by manipulating the brain proves the brain creates consciousness, then you might set up all your experiments to demonstrate how the brain affects conscious states.

A thousand experiments later of showing consciousness being affected by the brain and WALA . . . ou are telling the world the brain “creates” conscious . . . period! Of course, you’ve haven’t proven that the brain creates consciousness at all, only that consciousness is intertwined with the brain.

I purposely avoided this debate because it is so common at philosophy and science sites. I understand and have debated against the neuronal position many times. But this thread is asking another question.

However, before I try to explain my thread question once more, let me briefly relate how we can be so susceptible to brain states, yet not be “created” by the brain. I’ll start with an analogy.

If you take a neutral substance, say H20, and subject it to various temperature conditions, you can observe it as a solid, a liquid or a gas. Now, should we assume temperature creates H2O because H20 is so susceptible to temperature conditions? Similarly, consciousness might be a neutral entity, a sort of generally aware field permeating the universe, that is drawn into the CNS by human biology, and then the neuronal conditions of the brain affect it in various ways. In fact, many meditators report exactly that sort of experience (i.e., of joining a vast “field” of consciousness), and since this thread uses meditator’s claims to challenge Dennett’s model, their reports are relevant.

Originally Posted by KaseiJin

I can only guess as to why there would be any question regarding why any lack of sensory input, or states of syncro-firing in some loops due to internal commands (consciousnessly caused or not) would demand a lack of activity in other loops or pathways.

But I didn’t say that. I only mentioned lack of sensory input because that is an element of mentality, and I also acknowledged the brain might be active even if a person could stop thinking (as in meditation). Do you understand what I mean by “quieting the mind?”

Originally Posted by KaseiJin

In a nutshell, then, I am arguing that there is fault in the premise upon which you appear to be working, and am making an effort to correct that firstly.

Except you never did address my premise. Let me try once more.

Above you suggested, and I agreed, that “mind” is the cumulative activity and effects of mental activity. Dennett claims that our sense of being the central controller of conscious activity is actually the result of the brain assuming an “intentional stance” while we are mentally active. This core self, he claims, is only a sense or impression the intentional stance produces due to its constant presence during our constant mental activity. We, essentially, are zombies, completely subject to mechanistic forces which decide for us which of many options is finally decided upon.

I don’t disagree that the brain affects us in ways that are beyond our control (or so it seems), but I do dispute that my experience of being the central controller is the result of mental activity. Why? Well, this is the theme of this thread. I question it because I and many other devoted meditators can stop mental activity for periods of time (e.g. thinking, imagining, wanting, resisting, and other things we do with the mind).

Since it is all that mental activity which Dennett claims produces the sense of a central controller, then it should disappear if mentality ceases . . . it doesn’t. In fact, the sense of a center is extraordinarily heightened.

If my report is accurate (of what’s experienced when mentality is quieted), then is there any way Dennett’s model can possibly be correct?

[KaseiJin]

Thank you for taking the time to carefully detail some of the finer points, LWSleeth. I might make mention of the fact that my memory is yet fairly well sustained, and so it might be just the more efficient to respond to any points I have made without taking the time and effort to quote them, in most cases (and it may well make reading smoother). . . although, of course, that act is totally a personal choice.

It is true that you had kind of spelled out--regardless of its possibly being somewhat general--what you had meant by 'quieting the mind' in the first paragraph of your #4 post, above. As I have read that (along with other points that evidently have bearing on that), you are talking about working around neuronal clusters (loops, maps, pathways) by creating firing patterns similar to slow wave sleep for the most part. In other words, the effect is to shut out sensory input information, a degree of memory recall, self-talk, and much cortical to basal feedback systems from cognition of them.

My point of contention, however, is not actually looking at the question you claim to asking in this thread, because that question is clearly formulated on a basis of understanding, a premise, from which the question arises. I am, in effect, going under the level of the question, to that premise, and am pointing out that there is error there. Also, I am coming from the data base of the neurosciences from which even Dennett had been able to make any claims at all about consciousness--therefore I do not need to focus on anything beyond what can be learned from the varied fields of neuroscience themselves.

It is true that you had mentioned in passing (again in your #4 above) that you were not talking about the brain, when you had been talking about 'quieting the mind.' There will be those who are most informed in this field, those who are more informed, those who are somewhat informed, those who are less informed, and then least informed. For this very reason, there will naturally not be universal agreement; just as many will have opinons and ideas, and express or adhere to them in various ways to various degrees regardless of their actually not being well informed or not.

I had used the emotionally charged word 'period' to highlight the fact that evidence most clearly arrives at that understanding. Alive and properly functioning brain (I'm talking about tissue here--neurons, glia cells, and supporting cells, with all they include in their cytoplasma--as opposed to the organ which is the brain . . . a note to be kept in mind) is conscious material regardless. That is a fact.

The brain is a conscious organ (very much more so than that system which controls the stomach (which is sometimes called a brain in itself, but is more like a simple ganglion system)) and the accumulation of that activity results in a state called consciousness. All of the continuum that conscious is, is due to brain, therefore when a meditator screens out (not 'stop,'as you had worded it in #4, para. 6) sensory input and internal system activities so as to, in effect, 'de-cognize' for the most part (of course it's not total, otherwise there would be no memory encoding by the hippocampal formation, and no recall of emotional content while meditating) that meditator is not stopping any number of cells from living nor being active to some degree (depolarization may be very decrease in some number of cells in some of the maps), and is still very much that brain (organ).


Your explanation as to how you reason that 'we do not know that consciousness is due to neuronal activity' is lacking a review of the history of discovery which has led to that understanding, as well as the data which supports it. There is a very clear and exact reason why we do know that the heart (an organ) is not the center of intellect. There is a very clear and exact reason why we do know that the ventricals do not pump liquids to hydrolically move muscle. There is a clear and exact reason why we do know that the pinal gland is not some sort of valve through which some immaterial 'soul' interacts with the brain. It is not, as you may wish to appeal towards, a matter of suddenly having some a priori presupposition that mind is brain, but rather a matter of having come to understand that through scientific method over the course of time.

As I think I have mentioned above, the answer to the question you have clarified (#4, last line before automerge; #6, par. 4; #8, final line) is positive. Additionally, as best I can understand, the reason you question it is because of an error in the premise from which the emotion to question it has arisen.

Now while this particular thread alone, may not be the best one to continue any presentation that I may offer in support of the understanding, on, I will do so here and in other places as well.

[LWSleeth]

Originally Posted by KaseiJin

As I have read that (along with other points that evidently have bearing on that), you are talking about working around neuronal clusters (loops, maps, pathways) by creating firing patterns similar to slow wave sleep for the most part. In other words, the effect is to shut out sensory input information, a degree of memory recall, self-talk, and much cortical to basal feedback systems from cognition of them.

I am coming from the data base of the neurosciences from which even Dennett had been able to make any claims at all about consciousness--therefore I do not need to focus on anything beyond what can be learned from the varied fields of neuroscience themselves.

It seems you believe science can teach you all you need or want to know, while I believe there are other ways to learn and know. My thread topic and ending question are based on knowledge acquired through an epistemology different from what empirical science employs. It's not that I don't thoroughly grasp the neuronal model, or enjoy scientific discussions; but I also don't think science can reveal all of reality.

Now, if you don't care to contemplate outside of science, that's fine by me. However, I have made it abundantly clear that the way you are characterizing things (above) is not how I want to discuss it in this thread. Yet you seem determined to "dismiss" my concepts, and to then reframe my thread question into the context of your personal belief system. I therefore will withdraw from our discussion and thank you for your participation thus far.