jeeprs
Hi all - from what I understand of Daniel Dennett's philosophy he wishes to provide a completely empirical account of the nature of consciousness.
It seems to me that such an attempt is doomed from the outset by two insuperable obstacles:
1. The apodictic nature of subjectivity - the nature of conscousnees is irreducably subjective, as is evidenced by the subjective nature of pain. If I was to attach a large serrated alligator clip to the sensitive body parts of an experimental subject, they would squirm and whimper and show signs of distress until it were removed. Now the symptoms - squiming and whimpering - may be possible to describe in objective terms. But the cause of these behaviours is irreducibly subjective. Pain cannot satisfactorily described in an objective sense, because it is something that can only be felt subjectively.
2. The foundations of reason are not empirically verifiable. Dennett may say that only phenomena which can be objectively verified are real. However the nature of reason and of mathematical logic is innate to the human intelligence. Attempts to demonstrate the empirical or observable foundations of mathematical logic have always failed. The same can be said for the scientific method. We know that it works, pragmatically, but there is really no understanding of why the universe is lawful. We cannot come up with a 'meta-explanation' of the lawful behaviour of the universe - at least, not without a metaphysics. Science cannot explain itself. It works, but the way it works and why it works is not in itself within the realm of scientific discovery.
It seems to me that such an attempt is doomed from the outset by two insuperable obstacles:
1. The apodictic nature of subjectivity - the nature of conscousnees is irreducably subjective, as is evidenced by the subjective nature of pain. If I was to attach a large serrated alligator clip to the sensitive body parts of an experimental subject, they would squirm and whimper and show signs of distress until it were removed. Now the symptoms - squiming and whimpering - may be possible to describe in objective terms. But the cause of these behaviours is irreducibly subjective. Pain cannot satisfactorily described in an objective sense, because it is something that can only be felt subjectively.
2. The foundations of reason are not empirically verifiable. Dennett may say that only phenomena which can be objectively verified are real. However the nature of reason and of mathematical logic is innate to the human intelligence. Attempts to demonstrate the empirical or observable foundations of mathematical logic have always failed. The same can be said for the scientific method. We know that it works, pragmatically, but there is really no understanding of why the universe is lawful. We cannot come up with a 'meta-explanation' of the lawful behaviour of the universe - at least, not without a metaphysics. Science cannot explain itself. It works, but the way it works and why it works is not in itself within the realm of scientific discovery.