{"id":12653,"date":"2009-05-05T19:49:42","date_gmt":"2009-05-05T19:49:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2009\/05\/05\/the-value-of-consciousness\/"},"modified":"2009-05-05T19:49:42","modified_gmt":"2009-05-05T19:49:42","slug":"the-value-of-consciousness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2009\/05\/05\/the-value-of-consciousness\/","title":{"rendered":"The Value of Consciousness"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you are ever in Flagstaff, Arizona in search of a coffee house, I recommend <\/font>Macy's<\/font><\/a>.  I met up with Peter Lupu there on Saturday and an excellent discussion ensued fueled in part by by my triple espresso con panna and his triple latte.  We discussed consciousness, its existence, meaning, and value.<\/font><\/p>\n

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We agreed that consciousness exists, that it cannot be intelligibly viewed as an illusion.  We also agreed that it cannot be reduced to the physical.  Thus we agreed that it can neither be eliminated nor identified with the physical.  We also seemed to agree that identifications collapse into eliminations.  And of course we also agreed that consciousness as we normally experience it<\/em> is tied to a physical substratum.  Our main disagreement concerned the nature of the tie.  Peter thinks of consciousness as necessarily tied to its physical substratum so that a particular synchronic and diachronic unity of consciousness cannot exist apart from a living brain\/body.  If I understood Peter, his view is that consciousness and self-consciousness are emergent from matter but not reducible to it.  So his position could be called nonreductive physicalism.  The most interesting way to develop this would be in terms of the view that consciousness is not an emergent property<\/em> but an emergent substance<\/em>.  Thus a person's consciousness would be a genuine individual unity with irreducible causal powers, but one which somehow emerges from its material base while remaining necessarily tied to it for its continuing existence.  By contrast, I take seriously the possibility of a particular unity of consciousness existing apart from a material substratum.  This possibility could be cashed out it dualist terms or in idealist terms.  Either way, the necessary<\/em> ontological dependence of mind on matter is denied.  <\/font><\/p>\n

Our discussion then took an axiological turn:  what is the value<\/em> of consciousness, especially if it serves no evolutionary purpose?  (We seem to have agreed that it does not serve such a purpose, that human animals like us could have evolved without ever becoming conscious, self-conscious, and morally sensitive.) I took Peter to be proposing something like the following axiological thesis about consciousness:<\/font><\/p>\n

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ATC. Even if consciousness does not have a higher origin — does not bespeak a spiritual nature in us capable of surviving the destruction of the physical vehicle — but is emergent from and dependent necessarily upon matter, it is good<\/strong> that conscious beings exist even with all t<\/span>he evils that consciousness brings in its train such as pain, meaninglessness, alienation, misunderstanding, ignorance, hatred, fear, horror, unresolved questions, etc.<\/font><\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

To focus the issue, consider two possible worlds which are alike except for the following difference.    In W1, consciousness arises as a fluke of evolution.  Unities of consciousness are emergent entities but dependent on matter for their existence and so all of them are slated for destruction.  There is no redemption for the billions upon billions of those who have suffered and suffered meaninglessly.  There is no final solution, no answer, no exit except annihilation.  In W2, consciousness never emerges.  The universe remains 'dark.'  There are human animals but they are (philosophical) zombies.  Now which world do you prefer if you are forced to choose between the two? Which world should<\/em> you prefer?  Assuming that W1 is actual, would it have been better if W2 had been actual?  <\/font><\/p>\n

I prefer W2 over W1. Peter prefers W1 over W2.  Furthermore, Peter firmly believes that W1 is actual, whereas  for me it is an open question whether W1 is actual.  So for me there is hope: the hope that consciousness has a higher origin and that its continued existence (and equally important) its transfiguration or transformation is possible. For Peter there can be no such hope.  But he feels he needs no such hope to live well here and now.  I say he doesn't really appreciate how horrible conscious life is, when we judge it objectively, and not just in terms of our privileged instances of it.  So from my point of view, he is involved in a subtle self-deception: he evades the true nature of our predicament.  Of course, he can easily turn the tables on me.  But I'll let him do that.<\/font><\/p>\n

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<\/font> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you are ever in Flagstaff, Arizona in search of a coffee house, I recommend Macy's.  I met up with Peter Lupu there on Saturday and an excellent discussion ensued fueled in part by by my triple espresso con panna and his triple latte.  We discussed consciousness, its existence, meaning, and value.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12653","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mind"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12653","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12653"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12653\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12653"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12653"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12653"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}