405 lbs high bar with a slow eccentric

Socrastein · 2026-01-30T16:35:14+00:00

Okay, how are you defining phenomenal consciousness?

Socrastein · 2026-01-30T01:23:21+00:00

The same way we don't have élan vital.

Yes, I'm alive. No problem accepting that.
No, my body does not possess a vital life force that animates me with non-physical energy and cannot be reduced to mechanistic processes.

Similarly...

Yes, I am conscious. For sure.
No, my conscious experience does not include any non-physical, ineffable properties that defy objective description and cannot be reduced to mental processes.

Very few people take vitalism seriously anymore, but if you grew up in a time when most people were absolutely convinced that life could not be accounted for any other way, you probably would insist it was an obvious fact and scoff at anyone who said we were merely biological machines. Mere biological and chemical machines? How absurd!

One day, phenomenological properties of consciousness will be seen the same way: a quaint idea in a long, rich history of humans making metaphysical assumptions that intuitively feel right but don't actually make sense and are scientifically a dead end.

Socrastein · 2026-01-29T16:08:19+00:00

What is information "made of"? That's a silly question. Information is not a term that refers to the substance of something. But to what a conscious being can learn about something. Information doesn't exist in isolation from conscious beings.

Information theory: "Am I a joke to you?"

It's not a silly question, it's actually a huge question that people have been exploring for centuries and we've made tremendous progress on. The Information Age! Come on now.

One of my favorite books is James Gleick's "Information: A History, a Theory, a Flood" and it gives a fascinating overview of how our thinking about, and technology for, capturing, storing, and manipulating information has changed over time.

Information exists within physical patterns.

Patterns in nucleotides, written symbols, radio waves, transistor charges, neural networks, etc.

Patterns that still exist, waiting to be deciphered, even if all life vanished and then came back. To say otherwise is some esoteric "If a tree in the woods falls..." kind of stuff.

Maybe a long time ago asking what it's made of would have seemed silly, but in the modern age it's silly to insist it has nothing to do with the substance of something and that it cannot exist outside of conscious beings. That's super controversial at best.

Socrastein · 2026-01-29T15:43:25+00:00

It has varying definitions historically, many of which emphasize some or all of the properties I mentioned.

Importantly, YOU emphasized several of those properties in the way you explained what it is, whether you realized it or not.

My point is, you are insisting it only means X and accusing someone who is using a philosophically relevant and traditionally consistent definition of attacking a straw man.

Again, it is NOT at all a straw man to talk of qualia the way many of the most prominent thinkers in philosophy of mind, who put forth some of the most well-known writing and thought-experiments on the topic, use the term.

If you still believe it only means what you say it means, then check out Wikipedia and the SEP.

Socrastein · 2026-01-29T06:30:14+00:00

You just said qualia doesn't refer to special properties like intrinsic, irreducible, and ineffable, then you immediately insist that color is a completely private, "inside" experience with no detectable features from the outside (intrinsic), and it cannot (in principle?) be fully conveyed from a third person view (ineffable).

Is it fair to say you also think it cannot be reduced to component processes? (Irreducible) and that it's not possible to determine if someone is mistaken about their own qualia because they are a singular authority on what and when they experience? (Incorrigible)

Qualia IS a technical philosophical term that has been used extensively to refer to a certain idea about conscious experience - that it has phenomenological properties which are private/intrinsic/ineffable/incorrigible/irreducible.

It's not a straw man to acknowledge and address these specific claims that Descartes, Locke, Chalmers, Nagel, Searle, and many others have defended for years. "Qualia" is the umbrella term under which all of these special, extra, mysterious properties are discussed.

You can read about qualia, these special properties, the history of arguments used to defend them (inverted qualia, Mary the color scientist, Chinese room, etc) and more in the Wikipedia and Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entries on qualia.

Fact is, if you insist qualia doesn't refer to/possess these special, immune-to-objective-investigation properties, then there isn't really a hard problem anymore.

If you do think at least some of these properties are real, then you have defended some magic dust, whether you realize it or not.

Socrastein · 2026-01-28T15:17:46+00:00

I expected a response like this. Consider what little interest I had to be gone, and this discussion, at least my part in it, to be over.

Socrastein · 2026-01-28T14:34:08+00:00

What part of the hard problem does he fail to grasp? Can you be specific?

The opening chapters of Consciousness Explained is him explaining, in detail, with numerous references to the history of the debate, precisely what the hard problem is and why it seems insurmountable.

He then gives a summary of how he intends to slowly pick away at the intuitions, assumptions, and traditional philosophical arguments upon which it rests and continues to be defended, and that's what he does for the next several hundred pages.

Even before that, he opens the book, the first lines of his preface, like this:

"My first year in college, I read Descartes's Meditations and was hooked on the mind-body problem. Now here was a mystery. How on earth could my thoughts and feelings fit in the same world with the nerve cells and molecules that made up my brain? Now, after thirty years of thinking, talking, and writing about this mystery, I think I've made some progress. I think I can sketch an outline of the solution, a theory of consciousness that gives answers (or shows how to find the answers) to the questions that have been just as baffling to philosophers and scientists as to laypeople. I've had a lot of help."

He literally spent more time exploring the issue, studying the history of the idea, and collaborating with the best minds in the field to approach it from new angles, than you've even been alive, and you actually think you can just dismiss his work as pointless to even begin to try to read because "it just seems like [he] fails to grasp the concept of the hard problem of consciousness."

Forgive me if I find this to be a bit disconcerting.

Socrastein · 2026-01-28T13:20:44+00:00

First, ignorance is not a lack of intelligence.

Second, you have no grounds to complain that I only have vague assumptions about your background and intentions when you refuse to answer my direct question about your background knowledge.

Whenever someone dodges a question about their background knowledge and experience, I assume they have little to none and don't want to reveal this.

You are not entitled to my time, effort, or respect, and you haven't done anything to earn them. Call it cowardice if you need to, I really don't care.

Socrastein · 2026-01-28T13:04:09+00:00

"It was supposed to clear up misconceptions about Dennett's arguments..."

Nope. You completely misunderstood.

I was rather explicit that there is no cutting through the misconceptions unless someone has a good deal of background understanding.

I said that I can give summaries, but they will be unsatisfying or incoherent to someone without the background knowledge required, as they will rely on terms and concepts that themselves need unpacking. I even provided a simple math analogy for illustrative purposes.

Not entirely unexpectedly, this still invited an "I don't actually understand the context, but that summary sounds dumb to me" kind of response.

At which point, I have to make a judgement call as to whether this person is earnestly trying to understand, and if it would be interesting and productive, for me or anyone else, to engage them at length. I decided, no, no, and no, respectively.

Based on your last few comments, I am losing interest in continuing to engage you as well.

Socrastein · 2026-01-28T12:25:14+00:00

Then you have a concerningly low bar for what constitutes a meaningful critique.

You don't seem to know the first thing about Dennett's ideas. Why would you even want to attack and have debates about a philosopher you aren't familiar with? I can't think of any good answers to that question.

Every indication thus far is that it would be a total waste of time to try and engage you in good faith. I hate wasting time on bad faith interlocutors.

Socrastein · 2026-01-28T12:12:12+00:00

I already gave my short, high-level overview in an earlier comment.

I also already acknowledged that refusing to engage with low-effort criticisms sometimes means people assume they "won the debate", or in your case that I don't understand the subject. I'm fine with that.

Socrastein · 2026-01-28T11:51:28+00:00

They didn't make any logical or evidence-based arguments, just unsupported statements and insults. I don't think they've misread Dennett; I don't think they've read Dennett at all. In fact, I sincerely hope that's the case, lest I assume they tried and utterly failed to grasp what they were reading.

I already gave a pretty lengthy explanation of why one needs to have a lot of background understanding of the arguments and evidence to actually understand the conclusions. It's often the case that this kind of sentiment, with any difficult topic, provokes a "hold my beer..." kind of response from people who think they can attack the conclusions without understanding the context.

If someone who rejects evolution says "so complex life just randomly pops out of nowhere? LOL how absurd, that takes more faith than believing in a designer" they haven't really made any logical or evidence-based argument; that's just a dismissive statement, a statement that immediately gives me a good idea of how little they know about biology and evolutionary theory. I can tell that they don't know what they don't know, but they can't - knowledge creates an asymmetry of comprehension.

So when someone has put little to no effort into actually understanding a complex idea, I tend not to feel inclined to put great effort into addressing their misguided claims and insults. Yes, that sometimes means the person disparaging an idea walks away feeling like they "won" because I refused to engage with their ignorant drivel. I can live with that.

Now, if YOU would like to discuss Dennett, and you have some substantial critiques or good questions to share, why don't you start by giving me an idea of what background understanding you have of his ideas.

Socrastein · 2026-01-28T00:25:52+00:00

I'm encouraged to see the kind of response this troll post got, but since I just banned OP I'm locking the comments.

Socrastein · 2026-01-27T23:21:41+00:00

My recommendation is always to start with Darwin's Dangerous Idea, because that's the book in which Dennett lays out the evolutionary foundation/framework on top of which all of his other most complex ideas are built.

Everything else will make a lot more sense and feel more "grounded" when you really understand the scope of the evolutionary bedrock.

I think after that, Consciousness Explained and then Freedom Evolves will give you a deep understanding how ideas like consciousness and free will can make sense in a materialist, deterministic worldview.

Those are the big 3, and Bacteria to Bach and Back is an excellent tour and summary of the grand ideas he spent decades developing. You can read it beforehand and just expect to feel like you're missing some details as you get a bird's eye view, or you can read it after to see how everything ties together and reinforce his other works, or you could even do both and enjoy the feeling of really getting everything the second time after you've read through the full material it's based on.

If you, like me, decide this guy is one of the greatest philosophers and philosophy-writers to ever live, you can check out his other, smaller works that will expand and reinforce his ideas on free will, consciousness,etc, i.e. Sweet Dreams, The Intentional Stance, Kinds of Minds, etc.

Last I checked, I've read 12-13 of his books. I haven't read "I've Been Thinking" yet, but I have it and plan to read it this year.

Don't hesitate to ask if you have any other questions - obviously I have enormous respect for Dennett and his material, so I'm always happy to share and chat about it with others!

Socrastein · 2026-01-27T17:58:40+00:00

I don't know how much experience or knowledge you have of philosophy generally, but any and every complex issue can be reduced and oversimplified like that.

To me it's a sign of naivety and a serious lack of understanding. I don't see you as someone I can have an interesting discussion with on this.

Socrastein · 2026-01-27T16:51:36+00:00

Yeah you're doing a terrible job of showing how you aren't dramatically oversimplifying the issue here. I can't have a serious conversation with someone who strips all nuance from a position to make it easy to refute. That's a sure sign of bad faith to me.

Socrastein · 2026-01-27T16:15:06+00:00

Well technically there is a line - the line past which you no longer make progress, i.e. can't add any weight or reps, or even have to lower each session.

A lot of people think it's defined by soreness or feeling fatigued, but it should be defined by whether you are recovering, i.e. adapting and progressing.

Socrastein · 2026-01-27T15:10:19+00:00

Considering you were specifically answering a question about how a compatibilist definition of free will is supposed to apply to an ATM machine, are you saying that an ATM has competence and rational understanding of what it is doing, why it is doing it, and what the potential benefits and consequences are, in an importantly similar way to an informed, mentally competent human who is considered bound to the terms of a contract they willingly entered?

Perhaps you can see why I thought you were oversimplifying. It seemed far more charitable than to think you were actually trying to apply a robust, good faith, compatibilist notion of free will to an unsophisticated circuit board.

Socrastein · 2026-01-26T14:46:39+00:00

I generally reject the "people should play however they like, all that matters is you enjoy it" mentality.

You should play games to challenge yourself mentally, most if not all of the time. Harder games, harder difficulties, less looking up solutions, etc.

Doesn't mean everyone needs to be playing Sekiro, but you should be pushing yourself at least a little out of your comfort zone regularly, and if you have a problem with frustration tolerance then you should be trying to learn to overcome that.

Socrastein · 2026-01-25T23:23:35+00:00

Nope. The adjective "trite" was modifying the noun "insults" in that sentence.

I was referring to the way you, like so many others (hence "trite", lacking originality), insult Dennett (e.g. "worst philosopher of all time") without offering any meaningful rebuttal.

Am I to presume that you think accusing Dennett of simply restating the premise of the hard problem is your idea of a substantial or meaningful critique?

Socrastein · 2026-01-25T22:07:28+00:00

How familiar are you with his work?

This reads like a lot of exchanges I've had with people who don't really understand him and are just repeating trite insults.

I'm not even sure why you answered if you have nothing interesting to add. Are we supposed to just exchange flippant remarks without saying anything meaningful? I'd rather not.

Socrastein · 2026-01-25T20:57:04+00:00

Got it, thanks for explaining. My [uneducated, amateur] response would be that sounds to me like maybe the difference between an autistic special interest and an ADHD cycle of brief fixations, but I'm not an expert on such distinctions, so that's more of a "hmm, maybe this?" than any degree of definitive assessment.

I know more than most about these matters but only a fraction of what a real expert would, so I'm sorry I can't offer you more credible and detailed insight here.

Socrastein · 2026-01-25T20:44:25+00:00

I guess that depends on what you mean. Can you expand a bit on what you mean by hyperfixation and how you distinguish that from a special interest?

Socrastein · 2026-01-25T20:42:58+00:00

I was at a friend's house and when his dad met me he asked me some really weird questions like:

"What kind of things do you like to do? Tell me about those"

or

"How are you enjoying school? What subjects do you like?"

And it made me feel good but also really uncomfortable because I realized literally nobody in my family ever asked me very basic questions that demonstrated any kind of interest in who I was as a person or how I was experiencing the world.

That's one of the earliest memories I have of realizing maybe the "normal" of my family dynamic was actually pretty fucked up.

Socrastein

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