tar

bimbo36, Listen to Phi for All. He helped me stop, along with others on this board, back 3 or 4 years ago. And I am still not smoking. Not a one, since I stopped. It is like Phi says, board up that way of getting dopamine, and don't ever use it again. You don't HAVE to have a cigarette to feel good. There are many other ways to reward yourself, to feel good. Kiss a significant other, hug a child, laugh with your friends, watch a pretty sunset, look a lovely pictures on TV, draw one, make dinner for someone special...whatever. It is true, that nicotine receptors in the brain release dopamine, and this, along with other pleasure and contentment chemicals make you feel good, make you feel alive, make you feel like you are doing it right. So, like Phi says, just don't smoke any more. There are other ways to live, and be happy, feel good and successful, that are not expensive, stinky, harmful and annoying to others. Plenty of other ways. Not smoking does not mean you will never feel good again. It just means you will not feel good using that method. Just board up that way. Make smoking not an option. It worked for me. It might work for you. But like Phi says, you have to want to stop. If you have not decided to stop, and never smoke again, then you won't stop. Regards, TAR By the way, although vaping is less stinky and you ingest fewer harmful chemicals and tar, it is still expensive and still has nicotine. I would suggest getting unhooked on nicotine. If you taper off fine. If you just stop fine. It is a personal choice. But like Phi says, you are in charge. Take charge and do what you know is the best way to go for yourself and those around you. teach yourself to live without nicotine Then quitting is very easy. Just don't smoke.

Gee, I think the first level of thought, knowledge and memory, and the second level of awareness, feeling and emotion could be considered, in terms of evolution, as evolving together. That is, for purposes of tying the ideas to Freud's, and together with the actual physical neural correlates, I would say information, and where it is, would have to be traced and kept figuratively in mind, to see what aspects of each level have to coexist, and therefore probably emerge or evolve in some sort of lockstep or reciprocal fashion. Specifically I use the analogy of inside and outside, in terms of where the information is. When the form or pattern exists in the waking world in terms of being the moon or a tree or another human or a neural correlate that science can study, witness, record, test, measure and investigate then this is outside, objective reality. The thing we sense in the first place. Then, when it is internalized, through the senses, and perceived, and stored in the pathways of the brain, it becomes an internal analogy, and has to be now the "illusion" that Bennett talks about, or the shadow that Plato refers to in the allegory of the cave. So the thoughts we have are of the objective world, but they themselves are shadows on the wall, so confusion comes when we talk of the tree, as to whether we are talking of the tree or we are talking about and saying something about the shadow. Then the knowledge runs into the same literal/figurative identification issue when we talk of the stars. Are we talking about what we see, or what we "know" must be there, out in space. "Is" the star shining in our sky now or is it shining in a manner we will not see for 3 years or 10,000 years depending on its distance? And the memory, is of, as you say, not only the thought, but the external object you sensed. These things, in the first level I think are probably binary in the sense that we think in opposites, up and down, left and right, back and forward, and we increment our grain size in discrete lumps. Like in powers of ten for instance. We count in whole numbers. But to get to this binary first level, we need first the analogue input. We might have a particular amount of pixels with which to work in terms of the cones at the back of our eye, but we can move our eye and use the analog level of chemical activation coming off a particular cone, in conjunction with that coming off a neighbor, together with the impression we get as our eyes scan, together with memories of, and expectation, and pattern completion and other activities in the brain, to form a coherent image of the world that corresponds to the input from all our senses, AND with our memory and knowledge and thoughts. These things are all accomplished using the awareness, the emotion the feeling, that we are calling the second level. This level could be considered the analog level, for two reasons. One, the various chemicals involved in the motivation, activation, pleasure system causing our awareness of and interaction with the world, cascade and operate in a nonbinary, accumulating fashion, and two, what we internalize is an analog of the actual world, which is arguably smooth like a sinewave, and not made up of square waves. Regards, TAR

Gees, Was reading a little on DNA. I know you are not interested in the inner workings of the DNA process, but I think within the "magic" of DNA, there are some basic ideas or principles or universal wants, needs, proclivities, or possibilities, that when put together in the right order and orientation, can cause complex entities to emerge and persist. Particularly I am thinking of the copying process. The double helix gets unzipped by some chemical and this creates a replication site, like a Y where the phosphate-sugar backbone is split leaving open binding spots on each side of the now split ladder. A binds with T and C binds with G so everywhere a G is hanging out unbound a free G floating around jumps on board and vice versa, and when a A is open a T binds and when a T is open an A binds, the phosphate-sugar backbone seals along and you wind up, when the whole chain is unzipped and matched, with two of a pattern that before was only one. The exact process we are talking about, in terms of maintaining and passing on one's pattern. It makes a certain amount of sense to further consider that if this arrangement, this particular order of pairs would result in being able to produce or copy certain proteins that would help the collection exist longer in the world, by means of somehow gathering or marshalling more building blocks...then that particular arrangement would survive and other arrangements might not. Of course, since there is no plan, or foreknowledge of what arrangement is the best, it is always a matter of, if something about the arrangement allows it to continue, then the whole chain will be copied and survive, whether or not it has coding or non coding segments, or areas that don't on their own "work" with any purpose. The thing itself is not conscious of its purpose, but the fact that it works, allows it to survive. It fits, because its existence came about because it fits. Seems like a non explanation and some sort of double talk, but I think it goes to what the self is, and it goes to what survival is, and it lays the ground work for self awareness to evolve. Regards, TAR

The TED talk got a little political and diverged from talking about DNA to talking about stem cell research and computer economies so it did not go where I thought it should have gone. Still interesting in considering how our DNA is central to life and consciousness, and the thought is still related to the thread topic.

Gee', Since we can rely neither on our own intelligence nor God's to "drive" or motivate evolution, there must be "something" about universal stuff, that promotes, or allows for patterns to repeat themselves, and workable patterns to stick around for a longer period of time, than unworkable patterns. That is planets "want" to go around the Sun, electrons "want" to fall to a lower energy level and release a photon, water wants to run downhill and gas molecules want as much space as they can get, and thusly fill their container. I am wondering what "wants" on a chemical, physical, basic electromagnetic level, result in life and consciousness. How does a Redbud know to bloom in the spring? Without God, without any human executive order, not accidentally, but purposefully, in the same manner, every spring, on every Redbud tree, on most hillsides in certain areas of West Virginia. Evolution must be very complex and interrelated. Layer built on layer. One organism, conditioning the world for the next to do its thing. Consciousness could not have evolved without utilizing the "wants" built into the place. The temperature, the pressure, the chemicals present on the Earth, were requirements for whatever happened on Earth, to have happened. Regards, TAR The one common thread I see in all Earthbound life, is DNA. So should we be looking at DNA to see some analogy to consciousness? Something that DNA "wants" to do, seems to underpin the whole operation of life and consciousness. And DNA is the primary unique species specific thing that either maintains itself or passes. The pattern itself. Just found this. Am watching a fascinating TED talk (25 minutes) at the end. http://www.collective-evolution.com/2015/03/21/how-dna-consciousness-operate-according-to-law/

Area54, I am sorry about your unhappy weeks, but your lack of clarity as to what is being discussed is not automatically shared by all in the discussion. We each have separate questions and problems with various aspects of the discussion and the complexity of the interaction of these ideas is exactly why I attend these threads. To learn something, to share insights, to figure out what must be true and what can not be true. I would have to add, that my understanding of ideas includes a certain understanding of the MO that various posters come to the discussion exuding. (theory of mind) There are other, unsettled issues that we each have, other needs we have to complete a thought, or further prove a pet idea, or share a favorite insight or ability or piece of knowledge. But, to my pet idea of dopamine being one of the mechanisms at the base of consciousness and evolution, it is important to a society, a collection of humans, a hive, a school of fish, or a giant Oak, to have some communication, and agreement between the parts. That is, we like, as humans to get it right, to be in agreement on an idea, to hold workable, fitting ideas in our heads, of how the rest of the place is operating. That is, we feel good when we are right, correct, get the joke, solve the problem. So dopamine must be a part of our evolution, in the sense that we needed a "reason" to live, to maintain our body/brain/heart group on a day to day basis, and to "want" to have children and see them thrive. We have to get some pleasure out of seeing other people live, be happy, succeed, so we can make the right moves to sustain their lives, along with our own. So mechanisms of societal consciousness, like you wanting to cut to the chase and harness the energy and ideas of the group in a focused fashion, are mechanisms that evolved in us, and must have neural correlates. That is, it makes you feel good, if I am a better writer and Gees gets to the point, and your summation is correct, because then we all have a workable, agreed on idea in our heads, and then can together take the next step toward understanding our world, and how to continue doing whatever it is we do, when we live as conscious humans. It follows that things like mirror neurons, and Saxe's junction, and iNow's brain stem base, and my dopamine, and Freud's ego, superego and id, each play a role, in the interconnected interplay between a conscious human and her society. We feel good when we have a good discussion Back to a point that I think we still have the need for further discussion on. Gee, in her OP, and later, suggested that all people did not feel consciousness was a "thing" in and of itself, in the way that life is a thing. These various positions one can take regarding consciousness, are not complexities to my mind, but rather the thread question. For instance, did human consciousness exist before the first word was spoken and understood, or did the communication define the emergence of human consciousness? Regards, TAR

Area54. You have the highest horse. And you are missing the point. In a discussion such as this, the answer is not already existent. That is the point of the discussion. Regards, TAR Socratic method, also known as maieutics, method of elenchus, elenctic method, or Socratic debate, is named after the classical Greek philosopher Socrates. Elenchus is a form of cooperative argumentative dialogue between individuals, based on asking and answering questions to stimulate critical thinking and to draw out ideas and underlying presumptions. Area54, You want Gee to give you the answer. I want to, together, arrive at it. TAR

No, I don't want the last word, I want to take the discussion in this direction. https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2016/06/how-consciousness-evolved/485558/

Evolution is generally considered not guided, but by the ability of a new arrangement of an organism to survive better than competing organisms. Not guided by anything purposefully done by the organism. That is human consciousness cannot guide the evolution of human consciousness. Humans were not made in God's image, so a human consciousness does not control the universe, nor set the rules for evolution. You can no more "make" human consciousness, than you can build a living tree from carbon dioxide, water and some trace elements. You need something pretty much like a tree, or a sprig from a tree or something, to make the tree out of. You need soil and air and sunlight and such. In the same way, consciousness can not create consciousness from the ground up. You can explain how it happened from the ground up, but you need the whole world to evolve along with it, to explain it.

iNow, Well yes and no. Yes it can't be that consciousness and communication come linked at the hip. But the idea is that communication, getting some form from here, over to there, is central to our sensing and remembering of the world, and thusly is a piece of our consciousness. Regards, TAR

iNow, probably neither, but the idea I am trying to work with, is that the components of consciousness must be natural, unmagical, and most importantly NOT guided by a human consciousness. That is, there is no such thing as artificial intelligence, because if it worked, and it was actual, it would be real intelligence. Regards, TAR

iNow, No need to jump to conclusions or engage in sarcasm or hyperbole. Gee has already expressed her opinion that all life is conscious. To various levels or in various ways. And yes sunlight hitting a rock is communication. If the rock warms up from the engagement it holds heat, or remembers the encounter. That night it releases the heat back into the air and thusly announces itself to the air around it and the infrared energy released reaches space if it passes by all molecules. In the case of life, it seems the pattern of behavior developed, and the structure and connections of the organelles, are in tune with the cycles of the Earth, in such a way as to continue to exist. Continue to pass on a workable pattern. This is the "self", I imagine is the thing that is passed on to the next generation, and the thing that is maintained, throughout the lifetime of this individual. I believe it is common knowledge, that all life is connected in an ecosystem. We as humans care about our environment for instance, because we know we would die without it working like it does. We are conscious of the place, and care about it possibly more than a bear. The bear is very conscious of the place as well and knows were the fruit trees and the good garbage bins are on his miles long daily route. But there is something a little different about our consciousness than the bear. Just some little something or group of somethings that had to have evolved in us, that gave us a leg up on the bear. Use of tools? Opposable thumbs? Language? Math? The ability to take analogies? The ability to pretend, rehearse, deceive? Something, or some group of things that happened in our evolutionary path, that did not emerge during the bear's evolution. Something, related to our consciousness that is like a bear's, but with a twist, an other little aspect that allows for humans to be conscious of the things that a human is conscious of that a bear is not. Regards, TAR Area54, Yes I like interpretation. Especially because it has "inter" in it. Regards, TAR

iNow, How can you say the two were just as manufactured. The coffee cup was really there, outside my skull, the colored fringes existed only in my skull. Regards, TAR I saw the coffee cup. I manufactured the fringes. I used the same equipment and neurons and brain parts to do both, but one was using real information and the other was making something up.

iNow, Well I can agree with the fact that all three are sense experiences, in the way that our consciousness is aware of each, but the character is the important part that make the one the sensing of outside reality, the second the sensing of remembered and reconfigured internal impressions, and the third, the illusion group, the sensing of something that is erroneous and not present in the outside world, but seems or looks like it is. The best example I have of this, by means of personal experience, is having a visual migraine one day at work were there was colored fringes around various things I was looking at, that were absolutely no different from the things I knew were actually there, in terms of the reality of their presence. That is, my brain was informing me of the presence of the color fringes in exactly the same manner that my brain informs me of the sight of a teacup. The fringes were really there, I was really seeing them, like my Dad is really seeing various animals in the trees in front of the house across the street from his bedbound position. Yet I "knew" the fringes were manufactured, and I knew the coffee cup was real. This ability to tell the difference between real and imagined, is an important distinction, and is evidence that the two are different things. The character difference puts the two sensed things in their own category of things. In my estimation. Regards, TAR Try this experiment. My dad says that the brain does not like to not be activated. That is, if you look at a white wall for several minutes...after about 40 seconds or so you will start seeing motion and colors and such. This is partially due to the rods and cones in your eye fatiguing since white is activating all three color cones and the various cones are running low at random times on the chemicals it needs to send a message along the optic nerve...but the main cause is that the brain is basically looking for something to notice. If you try this, and see various shapes and colors moving about, you will not think there are actually various shapes and colored beings crawling around on your wall. You will know it is an illusion. The white wall, on the other hand you will know is not an illusion. This is also why I am not too worried about my dad seeing items across the street that are not there. He is an intelligent guy, and has been unable to get up out of bed for several months, looking out the same window at the same trees and house and roof and horizon every day.

Cladking, The underlined portion smacks of original sin, or falling from grace, or the idea that once we knew the difference between good and evil, we were above and different from nature. I have always had a problem with understanding where we divide what we make and do from nature. Like when does something go from natural to man made. Easy to define in the sense of something that does not exist where man does not, and does exist where man does...but there is much that is slightly changed by man, that is produced mostly by nature. And man is 100% natural herself. So in the overall, it is difficult to consider that anything is "not natural". And in the flow of the thread, to where and when different aspects of our consciousness naturally developed, it is out of place or at least contrary the thread theme, to consider conscious "not in any way natural". It seems logically consistent to instead consider that consciousness must in every aspect be 100% natural...by definition, if one is to simultaneously reject any creator, or magic or illusion. Instead, I propose that at some point in our evolution we gained the ability to pretend, to practice, to forecast to imagine, and this was an important stage in our evolution, and the bedrock happening that allowed our divergence from relative lifeforms, in the sense that from this we developed language and symbolization and the like, one thing standing for another. Without this ability we could not make analogies or switch grain size, or imagine the galaxy like we were holding it in our hand. Regards, TAR Regards, TAR iNow, It is so simple and direct to me, that considering the way we have to be experiencing reality, it has to be by analogy, by bringing the outside world in, by sensing the feelings and timings of ones body, and brain, and the beating of ones heart. This is all actual stuff. There is nothing wrong or false and no trickery involved. The moon is real. It appears as a disc of light, variably lit during the month. to everybody on the planet. It pulls the ocean into tides, and one can go down to the beach and stand on dry sand in the same place that later will be waves in 3 feet of water when the part of the Earth that you are standing on turns to face the moon. What we are conscious of, is an important if not crucial aspect of consciousness. When the thing we experience is part of the waking world that peer reviewed investigation can verify, then the knowledge, or the experience or the perception of, is not illusory. It is actual. When the thing is not around for anybody else to test or see or any of its effects are not noticeable to where its existence can be implied, then the thing is part of someone's imagination, or is part of the "authored by" stuff that is in a person's head The crucial thing that happened in our evolution is when we had the ability to tell the difference between the three. That which exists and is verified by its being true in more than one way, by the coherence of more than one sense or by the verification of other conscious beings...like if you think you see a cat coming, and all the birds fly in the other direction. Secondly that which we remember of the world and manipulate and try and test in our heads without firing motor neurons, but which we know will be, or could be real, if we engage things right. And thirdly that which appears to be real, but we know is not. The three are different. And the ability to know the difference between a dream and a waking experience is crucial to our understanding of the world and our interaction with it. So the fact that both "things" happen in our head, is not grounds to put both things on the same footing, because we know the difference. One cannot explain human consciousness, without explaining the ability to tell the difference between what is real and what is imagined. It is central. And illusion, is something that Mohammed had in the cave. It was real to him but an Atheist like me, can tell that what he experienced in the cave was not of the stuff of peer reviewable reality. The angel Gabriel does not exist outside the cave, and Mohammed's mind, and the minds of those who believe Mohammed to be a prophet of Allah. There is again, for the fourth time, nothing wrong with us sensing the existence of the moon. There is on the other hand, something wrong with us seeing cats on the roof, where there are no cats. One is a sense experience, the other is an illusion. Regards, TAR

dimreepr, I was not arguing your point so much as pointing out, that our consciousness or awareness is not all encompassing and perfect, but neither is it an illusion, per iNow's claim. Maybe its a half full, half empty situation. I am claiming that our consciousness is half full. iNow is claiming it is half empty. My backup argument is that no matter half full or half empty it is better to have something in the glass. And no one can claim we are not having this conversation. Everyone here is aware of the internet and computers and English and characters on the screen, standing for ideas in each other's brain. It is actually working rather well and whatever tricks are involved in bringing the patterns to the screen, they are not illusions, but actual photons hitting the back of our eye that result in a coherent signal passed from my brain to yours. Regards, TAR as gee says "communication" well Area54 would argue that my signals are not coherent, but that is his/her opinion, and has nothing to do with the actual communication that has occurred between the minds of Gee and the rest of us that have participated in this thread

(we buy tuna sometimes from the bulk store, where it comes in plastic wrapped six packs, not in the shape of a tuna fish can, a can shape is the shape my mind was scanning for, looking for a match) Such is why we have such a thing as a double take. We see something unexpected and we look again to make sure we saw it right.

Not at all iNow. Not at all. One we are "seeing" properly, in the best and only way we have of seeing. And the other, the mechanisms in the brain, responsible for telling us the difference between the coherent waking world, and that which we are adding, or authoring, as you say, are misfiring, or overfiring, or in some manner are NOT properly representing actual, coherent, waking world forms and patterns that exist for everybody, outside the brain. iNow, My "different" term for what a human is doing when they experience a roof across the street, with no cats on it, would be "seeing". If you want the term to include the reality of the experience, I would say perhaps "coherent representation". Getting further back to the topic, I think, somewhere along the line, in evolution, we had to be rewarded for getting it right. Thus my dopamine theory, that the dopamine made a person feel good about matching something properly, in terms of the inside model, and the outside world, and thus as our strategies and mechanisms improved to internalize the outside world correctly, we felt good about it, and did it again. Thus there was a marriage between getting it right and doing it again. Not only for an individual human, but the same tendencies and likes and dislikes were passed down in the genes to the next generation. My evidence that we want or need to be right, to be in agreement with the outside world, is the fact that you want to find a statement about perception and awareness that I can get onboard with that is consistent with your worldview. Having a consistent worldview is important...almost central to survival. The closer your model is to what actually is existent in the outside waking world...and within your brain in terms of models and ideas and theories and such...the better they all match, the better you feel and the better you will actually do in the survival game. Regards, TAR dimreepr, I saw the monkey and counted 17 passes between the whites. I was told however to pay attention to both the white passes and to look out for the monkey, so it seems to be an attention thing or a focus thing. It is obvious, with 8 billion people on a huge planet, that we are not going to be able to go without missing something. I have looked out in the garage, from the top of the steps, scanned each shelf for tuna fish and reported to my wife that I didn't see any out there, followed by her going out there and coming back with a can of tuna. Regards, TAR

"iNow, I don't disagree with that post at all. I have said the same. As I have often used the phrase "a workable analogue representation of the outside world, in the synapses and folds of the brain." Up to the second to last paragraph where you say this is not "seeing". It actually is seeing. That is how we see. When I look across the street and don't see cats on the roof, I can tell my dad is having a faulty representation of reality where the others in the room looking across and not seeing the cat can verify that there are indeed no visible cats on the roof, and the perception is in his mind. He "sees" the cats. We don't see the cats. We SEE there are no cats, he SEES there are cats. All of us are actually seeing the roof. The cats are an illusion. I get Plato's cave. I knew about it since college. I understand that what we think of as the world, has to be happening in our brain, has to be a shadow on the wall. But along with that comes the fact that there must be a fire burning shedding light on a something that is blocking that light causing a difference between how the wall "looks" where the firelight shines directly on the wall and how it "looks" where something is blocking, causing a shadow. We would not know my dad was having an hallucination, unless the rest of us were not having that hallucination. Regards, TAR And it is evolutionarily proper for us to be able to manufacture whole cats hiding in the forest based on shadow and form and movement, and a little glimpse of fur here and the shape of an ear there, and a tail there. It keeps us from getting eaten, so we can raise our kids.

iNow, Because we can be foo led, we can see mirages, we can have visual migraines and see everything with colored jagged lines around it. My dad can see animals and faces in the leaves of the tree across the street that he swears are there (when there are no cats on the roof across the street.) These are illusions. I have no problem with the word, when it is used to refer to things perceived, that are not there. But its meaning is that there is something false going on, and in this way it is negative and in contradiction to proper perception, which is not illusion. To call consciousness...proper consciousness, an illusion, a trick, a fooling of oneself, is goofy, patently false and without meaning for a human being that stakes his reality on his perception of the place. There is nobody here who has seen the moon, and thinks their eyes or brain or something is playing tricks on them. They have really seen the moon, and 7 billion or so other humans can verify. Normal human conscious awareness is not a trick, not an illusion, not a thing we have been doing in some substandard, improvable way. We have been doing it exactly right. And nobody you can show me has done it better than a human. Who or what is more conscious then Bennett or iNow, or CharonY, or Ghandi or Moses or Buddah or Mohammed, or Socrates or Einstein, or Hawkins, or Dr. Zucker or my Aunt Gloria ? They are all humans, and they are all much more than a collection of NAND gates. They are all conscious humans and you have no better examples of consciousness than them. Regards, TAR at least no better example that is not a human word instead? I earlier suggested that Bennett should coin a term that encapsulated the meaning of "a very good, workable analog simulation of the world" Of course he won't cause he has convinced himself that binary information covers it.

iNow, They are not illusions. We can see the path to work, without even leaving the house. My point is they work, our consciousness works...it is not less than what we think of it, it is probably more. Regards, TAR

iNow, I am not sure where I have not answered your question...or maybe I don't know which question I have not answered. It seems to me you were asking me what made me think, or how could I know that Bennett was using the term illusion in a negative fashion. I have read pieces of work that have some of Bennett's language or references to Bennett, that seem to indicate that our consciousness is less than perfect. I just watched a short talk of his and he used terms like "fooling yourself" and spoke like we did not know ourselves as well as we thought we did, and that somehow the tests people have run proved that we do not have the command over our own mind that we think we have. I found the things he said, about not having any way of knowing if we rotated the left figure to match the right figure, or rotated the right to match the left, completely incorrect. I knew, because I mentally held the left figure stationary and section by section rotated the right to match...so any further statement, attempting to forward the idea that we don't know our own mind, is suspect to me. I have many of the same interests as Bennett. Linguistics, the meaning behind language, the way neurology has correlates to human thoughts and emotions, and some others, as you know from being on the same threads with me over the years. What I don't have in common with him is his interest in AI or his opinion that a machine can become conscious, because our brains are just so many little switches. Personally I think our brains are much much more than that, and what is more, what our brains hold is not merely of our own creation, but is primarily the patterns and arrangements of the outside world, analogs of, written automatically in the synapses and folds of our brain, and one very important aspect is the timing, the distance between different parts of our brain, that allows there to actually be a working model, of the outside, inside. Bennett thinks its all information in, information out. I think it is information in and then being aware of, in connection to, containing the information, and being able to operate within the information, as if you were operating in the actual world. Any one of us (not blind) can close our eyes and imagine the walk, or bike ride, or train ride, or bus ride, or car ride or whatever to work or school or to the grocery store. Even a blind person can rehearse the path through the furniture and doorways, to the bathroom. I do not agree with Bennett that nobody is the expert on consciousness that we think we are. I think we are absolutely experts. Regards, TAR

iNow, So why does Dennett not coin a term that suggests human consciousness is an effective and highly workable simulation of the world? Why does he not frame it in realistic, human terms? Does he imagine he has a better way to know the world? If human consciousness somehow falls short of the mark, what consciousness reaches the mark? Regards, TAR

The definition makes me think Dennett is talking about a defect. il·lu·sion [iˈlo͞oZHən] NOUN illusions (plural noun) a thing that is or is likely to be wrongly perceived or interpreted by the senses: "the illusion makes parallel lines seem to diverge by placing them on a zigzag-striped background" synonyms: mirage · hallucination · apparition · figment of the imagination · trick of the light · trompe l'oeil · deception · trick · smoke and mirrors · (magic) trick · conjuring trick · magic · conjuring · [more] sleight of hand · legerdemain a deceptive appearance or impression: "the illusion of family togetherness" · [more] "the tension between illusion and reality" synonyms: appearance · impression · semblance · misperception · false appearance · simulacrum a false idea or belief: "he had no illusions about the trouble she was in" synonyms: delusion · misapprehension · misconception · false impression · fantasy · fancy · dream · chimera · fool's paradise · self-deception · false consciousness

iNow, Who is pushing back? I am stating clearly my opinion that what we humans know of the world is not illusion. It is the actual world that we know. If Dennett needs to call our feelings of choice an illusion, fine, it has nothing to do with the fact that a bunch of humans stood together and witnessed the Milky Way, some nebulae, some colliding galaxies, at the same time, in the same way. No defects in the awareness of the place noted. Regards, TAR