Consciousness and the Representational Relation:
Why Experience Can’t Be Objectified
Thomas W. Clark, Institute for Behavioral Health, Schneider Institutes for Health Policy, Heller School for Social Policy and Management, Brandeis University
Keywords: consciousness, qualia, physicalism, representation, phenomenal experience, objectivity, content
Abstract
Let’s say you take a completely deterministic view of your personal development and current behavior. Looking back on a particular choice or action, you agree that it was the fully caused outcome of all the conditions in play, such that were we to replay the situation, all conditions set the same, the same outcome would have transpired. This means you couldn’t have done other than what you did in that situation.
It’s good to have a canonical, in-print version of Dan Dennett’s latest thinking on consciousness (chapter 14 of his latest book) to which those who’ve followed his work over the years can respond. He presents a physicalist case against qualia by considering the experience of an afterimage: red stripes generated by looking at a green and black striped image of an American flag. Here are some key features of his view:
Introduction
Conceptions of human flourishing vary, but there are requirements for well-being that nearly everyone would endorse: meeting basic physical and emotional needs, having opportunities for learning, mastery and self-expression, being a valued member of a secure community, and finding one’s place in the ultimate scheme of things. These domains of well-being reflect the complexity and variety of human motivations, not all of which, unfortunately, find fulfillment in every life.
Encountering Naturalism: A Worldview and Its Uses
Introduction and Overview
Most of us have a worldview – a set of beliefs about what exists, how reality is organized, and how we fit into it. Whether explicit or not, a worldview helps to shape our goals and actions; it’s an overarching cognitive framework that helps to make sense of things, practically, ethically and existentially.
O que é Naturalismo?
Autor: Tom Clark
Tradução: Iran Filho
Here are two good reads (links to PDFs below) illustrating the growing secular skepticism about free will, construed as the idea that human beings are causal exceptions to nature. Gradually, and I hope inexorably, the realization will take hold universally that there is a full causal story behind all behavior, even if we can't know all the details. This understanding will help generate compassion for the unlucky in life, reform our notions of credit and blame, and give us greater power and control as we seek solutions to the challenges ahead. Quoting Pearce:
Below are links to some recent papers that include research on attitudes and beliefs about free will, determinism, and moral responsibility (my thanks to the Garden of Forking Paths for listing these). Ideally, a large cross-sectional population survey on free will should be conducted to see how beliefs about it vary by demographics, economic strata, education, and religious affiliation.
