The nature of subjective experience is unavailable to reason

[knock]

It was as I was coming up on Methoxetamine that I produced this argument; the argument destroys the notion that the nature of subjective experience - consciousness, awareness - is amenable to scientific inquiry. It goes beyond that, it establishes that no human understanding can ever be achieved of the nature of conscious subjective experience, precisely because it is subjective and therefore cannot be modelled and so cannot be understood.

Scientific research is a process which allows us to maintain a model of the world. This is fundamental to science - it is all about the model. Subjectivity is the real thing. Subjective awareness CANNOT be modelled because a model by definition is a representation of a thing and not the thing itself! Consciousness and subjectivity are inseparable.

By its very nature subjective consciousness is outside the bounds of scientific investigation!

In summary:

Science aims to model the world and does so very happily.

A model is a representation.

Subjective experience is by definition the experience of being the original thing and not some representation of it.

So subjective experience - consciousness - is not representable, not amenable to modelling and therefore not available to scientific inquiry.


Furthermore
The job is done; I have shown that science cannot help us understand subjective consciousness, and in fact if we consider the brain as an organ which itself models the world to achieve understanding of it, then we must give up all hope: our subjective experience will never be understood by any human means as all understanding is merely modelling.

Models, symbols and representations are equivalent concepts; they are also the only tool we have for understanding the world around us - they are the building blocks of knowledge and reason. But a model cannot be made of a subjective experience, as the act of modelling intrinsically destroys the original subjectivity. An analysis via a representation intrinsically denies the possibility of comprehending the original subjectivity.

I have never heard this line of argument before, but presumably I am not the first. I am probably delusional through the use of dissociatives but it seems like a rather elegant line of thought.

Please forgive me if I am a rambling, drooling lunatic.

 

[sssssssssss]

maybe humans are a model of the universe and everything in it
maybe since the world is made up of atoms, then the 'dimension' below us a silimar universe within an atom

maybe the universe created us in 'its image' to discover its own existence
because if we discover our existence then we know the existence ofthe universe
big bang is kind of like conception

the universe is personification is us.

if thats the case then we would need to find model for humans.
or maybe this is all just running in circles

and if thats the case that we see the universe the way we see ourselves then i cant imagine how an 'alien' of some sort would project the universe
since im different than you as well, then i may see the universe slightly differnt than you do, but well never know just like a color blind person doesnt know they are colorblind until you tell them they are.

i recently have been thinking that all the sciences are slowly merging together to all mean the same thing. and focusing is beginning to be one of the most important comon factors in everything... if you cant focus you cant learn, you can focus in so deep that you find a universe within an atom, if you focus out far enough you see the universe were making up, our eyes perceive by focusing. you must focus on christs love to go to heaven and not get distracted by evil

but what is distracting us?

lol 'originally posted by me'
thought that ws funny when i ready for some reason

 

[knock]

This refutation of the possibility of understanding "subjective experience" is the culmination of years of ruminations for me; in a way it's an anti-climax because the result seems so obvious. I have had arguments with people who claim that "this is all there is" as they sweep their arm across my field of vision. My interpretation of their stance is:

- everything is mundane
- there is nothing "supernatural"
- we are simply physical beings, we are born we live then we die and it's over
- it's all chemicals

Of course these ideas raise more questions than they answer. There is no obvious meaning for the words "mundane", "physical", "chemical" but the subtext always seems to be "don't get excited, it's just atoms bumping about obeying physical laws. There is no afterlife, you are made of atoms and when they go you go. Everything can and will be understood through science eventually". Sometimes it's hard to tell if that interpretation is more or less my own projection - there is always a communication barrier between people, who knows what the other person is *really* saying or *really* believes.

Putting to one side the question of the other's true position, I have increasingly found myself opposed to the "everything is mundane" viewpoint, but at a bit of a loss to argue effectively against it. I have typically argued that consciousness can't be reduced to mathematical equations or physical laws, but I've never had a solid logical refutation in my armament. I am very pleased now to have an argument which seems so solid. It also means I can move my ruminations on to something new! It's been years! And for me it's a bit of a turnstone; do I focus my thinking on "mundane" things as that's "all there is", or may I consider the "supernatural" as it's obviously more exciting!

And now I have a proof of the existence of supernatural artefacts. According to science, nature is the realm of things science can tackle. Now I have something I can point to and say "science cannot tackle this, here is the logical proof of that, and so the supernatural is most certainly a valid realm of investigation. Science and reason are not the tools for the job".

It feels like I just got my license to be a loony.

Ssssssssssss: to your wacky ideas; have you looked at Yoism?

 

[sssssssssss]

thanks, but i dunno how i feel about from my initial view.
ill keep lookking into it though.

 

[rickolasnice]

Subjective experience is only 1 definition of consciousness..

Consciousness is variously defined as subjective experience, awareness, the ability to experience "feeling", wakefulness, the understanding of the concept "self", or the executive control system of the mind.[1] It is an umbrella term that may refer to a variety of mental phenomena.

 

[Dedbeet]

"Reason" is itself subjectively experienced, as thoughts arise from moment to moment, is it not?

Seeing this clearly enough oughtta destroy the last remnants of any clinging to an objective world view . Leaving "the reader and their world" in perpetual solitary freefall.

 

[knock]

"Reason" is itself subjectively experienced, as thoughts arise from moment to moment, is it not?

Seeing this clearly enough oughtta destroy the last remnants of any clinging to an objective world view . Leaving "the reader and their world" in perpetual solitary freefall.

Reason is experienced subjectively but the processes involved in reason can be understood/modelled. Reason is symbol manipulation, something at which computers are highly adept. Thoughts are experienced as symbols - images, words, etc., but the fact that thoughts are subjectively experienced is not a significant part of reason. The fact that reason itself can be understood by reason itself, and modelled, is what allows us to create coherent systems of thought - like formal logic, mathematics, the scientific method, dialectics.

So no I don't consider the subjective aspect of reason specifically to be the canonical refutation of the view that "everything is comprehensible logically". However the fact that subjective experience exists at all and is, by definition, incomprehensible - that is the crux of the matter.

This line of argument opens wide the possibility that everything around us is conscious in the sense of having subjective experience - sentience. We have no way to distinguish between the sentient and the non-sentient other than faith and direct experience (I know am sentient and I believe you are too). It seems likely to me that everything in the universe is sentient, but it's just a possibility and we can never create a test of sentience.

 

[jessebl]

My question is why the heck people think they can know "this is all there is." We're cleverer than chimpanzees, but we know much, much less than we do not know. Science is always finding out it was wrong. (That's not a criticism; it's commendable, being truth-seeking rather than justification-for-entrenched-belief-seeking.) And it ain't going out of business anytime soon. We have no idea what preceded the Big Bang (a theory first put forward by a Catholic priest, btw); we don't really know what gravity is; string theory is looking like a wrong turn entirely; heck, we can't even smell what my dachshund smells; she smells that a squirrel scampered across a snowbank hours ago as plainly as I smell bacon burning in my studio's "kitchen." Our brains are almost certainly not capable of understanding a whole heck of a lot; why would they be? We're clever enough to be the dominant predator of our rough size and niche on our planet; that's it.

 

[B9]

(Consensus) that the reason is subjective seems reasonable enough to me to call it (reason)

 

[polymath]

Read David Chalmers' work on the "hard problem of conciousness". There the difficulty of approaching the nature of subjective experience objectively is discussed.

 

[Dedbeet]

Nonduality

Reason is experienced subjectively but the processes involved in reason can be understood/modelled.

Sure -- I'd never claim that reason is unreasonable within its realm.

Rather, I suggest that instead of reality being a subset of (defined by/based on) thought/mind -- thought/mind is a subset of (defined by/based on) reality.

"Business as usual" for humanity is living in/as the mind.

And the mind is the past (based on memory).

And the past doesn't actually exist -- by definition, it can never be present.

Reason is symbol manipulation, something at which computers are highly adept. Thoughts are experienced as symbols - images, words, etc., but the fact that thoughts are subjectively experienced is not a significant part of reason.

It is, however, a significant aspect of actuality (i.e. non-mental reality), because the mind's "life" is based on a firm belief that it is able to represent an actual, objective reality.

The fact that all thought one can ever actually think is really one's own (i.e. subjective, arising for oneself alone) is kinda significant, dontcha think?

If objectivity is subjectivity, the subject-object division is an illusion.

 

[sssssssssss]

so if thought/mind is a subset of reality are you saying that every element that exists in my thoughts is also an element that exists in reality?

i guess if you break up all the imaginary thoughts ive had, they break down into things ive experienced. I just combine them with each other to imagine possibilties that i have yet to experience.

If thats logically sound then for sure.

 

[Dedbeet]

so if thought/mind is a subset of reality are you saying that every element that exists in my thoughts is also an element that exists in reality?

No, I'm suggesting that every/any element existing in thought is *not* reality, but is at best "useful imagination".

Most people seem to base their lives and personal realities on thought/mind, i.e. are deeply invested in the mind and its contents, thus living in something of a dream world.

The reason it may not seem so is that "the mind" is not typically seen as "the mind" at all, it's seen as objective reality -- i.e. its contents are projected and externalized, and the fact that "this was just a thought/mental image that arose here" is transparently ignored/bypassed.

It boils down to taking imagination to be reality (actuality), and reality (actuality) to be imaginary -- in the sense of being ignored, minimalized and discounted as boring, useless, meaningless, pointless, empty, etc.

i guess if you break up all the imaginary thoughts ive had, they break down into things ive experienced.

Consider the possibility that thinking about something is the same as imagining it, and that all thought is actually imagination -- including one's past experiences that one has "really experienced".

The usual separation into "purple elephants are imaginary" and "what I did yesterday is real", is utterly arbitrary and superficial. Anything one imagines (images mentally) is imagination.

Peace...

 

[sssssssssss]

so are you trying to say that thoughts/mind is in the empty space of the set reality?

thats pretty bold.
thoughts create emotions.

so would emotions be in the empty space as well?

you could also say
horse = {a}
horn = {b}
horse union horn = {a,b} = unicorn

horses and horns are both in reality and would therefore be in the powerset of reality.
unless youre saying that nothing is real in which reality would be in the empty space of the universal space

other than that, you would have to define what reality is.

and if youre saying that my thought of a horse is different than a real horse, then imagination and reality would be dijointed.
then you could also say that thoughts are waves and vibrations in your brain, which is physically real.

 

[Jabberwocky]

-By its very nature subjective consciousness is outside the bounds of scientific investigation!-

I think science often bites off more than it can chew for the moment, but declaring subjective human experiences off limits to science could be far more about one's personal aesthetics than about the capabilities of science.

Sometimes people say science and mean a reductionist approach.
Sometimes they mean a great many disciplines that use the scientific method.
Sometimes they mean empiricism as the only valid perspective.

I don't think subjective human experience is an area that is automatically invalid for scientific inquiry. I think its a tricky area. Many tests and results are likely going to be misleading or flawed. Many will take years or centuries to perfect. That is the way with many areas of study but even if nothing really substantive will emerge for generations it is still a worthy area to study.

I think you might fear mystery will be annihilated if we let science get under the hood. I tend not to have that fear because I tend to think mystery will be magnified.

 

[Dedbeet]

so are you trying to say that thoughts/mind is in the empty space of the set reality?

Thought/mind is "subjective" imagination -- and the reason I put "subjective" in quotes is that the division into subjective/objective is just as imaginary as the rest of it.

It's as simple as "seeing dream/imagination as dream/imagination" (thus disinvesting in it as significant, meaningful, important, critical, crucial, necessary, something to base one's life on, etc).

That's all -- that's literally the whole banana.

No need to bother with "finding reality" at all -- it never went anywhere.

 

[Dedbeet]

so are you trying to say that thoughts/mind is in the empty space of the set reality?

thats pretty bold.
thoughts create emotions.

True -- most emotions are based on taking thought's externalizations and internalizations as real.

so would emotions be in the empty space as well?

You could say that emotion equates to one's investment in thought, not to thought itself.

Thus, emotion "feels more real" than discursive thought because it's essentially nonverbal/nonconceptual investment in the reality of the verbal/conceptual/imaged.

and if youre saying that my thought of a horse is different than a real horse, then imagination and reality would be dijointed.

Imagination is entirely real as imagination, and entirely unreal as reality.

"The fact of a thought occurring" is real/actual. "The contents of a thought occurring" is imagination.

 

[qwe]

i think that some natural mechanism produces consciousness. i think that eventually, science will be at the point of studying this process (our science, or that of another species if we eliminate ourselves or an asteroid hits).

because of the nature of consciousness, i don't think any current model fits, and like enki said i think that the mystery will multiply because whatever is producing consciousness appears to be of a completely different sort of reality than what i can imagine... e.g. i don't buy "information naturally leads to qualia", ... why would it?

 

[knock]

@qwe and enki:

You've both disgreed with my conclusion but you haven't touched upon my argument.

How can we understand something which by definition cannot be modelled, cannot be meaningfully theorised about? As soon as you attempt to model subjective experience you lose the subjective aspect which is intrinsic to the phenomenon.

I'd go further and say we cannot even communicate about it in the most basic ways, for the same reasons. It is impossible for me to describe what it is like to experience a sound. I can compare it with other sounds in the hope that you have a similar basis for comparison in your own experiential arsenal but it is impossible to describe accurately the experience of a sound without such reference to other sounds.

Edit: @enki, I don't fear science, I am an avid follower of science and I am fascinated by how we can approach some idea of the truth. I am an admirer of the scientific method and its elegance. I can see how science can explain much of our existence, I am willing to suspend incredulity and accept things like black holes (where mass is compressed to a point and light cannot escape) and n-dimensional spaces. I am not afraid of understanding.

But it has always seemed to me that certain things are beyond its scope and the fact of my own subjective experience is the prime example of this.

 

[Jabberwocky]

I do believe subjective experience can be modeled. Modeled perfectly at this time no. Many science areas have multiple models in play because we just don't have the data or means of study down well enough to perfect a model that covers all the observations yet. I wouldn't give scientific models precedence over other model. My point is that subjective experience shouldn't be a an area science is excluded from studying or an area where science is taken as an absolute authority.