(Jun 4, 2019 05:41 PM)C C Wrote: [ -> ]For possibly different reasons, an old-fashioned "direct realist" should probably agree with at least discarding the "external world" conception. That is, if there's no representation in the head or mind to begin with, then for them "external" should become an otiose adjective, a useless ornament to "world". But 21st-century and late 20th-century thinkers have turned what is meant by "representation" into such an obscured jumble that their distinction between "direct" and "indirect" is not so clear these days. "Representation" now might be purely referring to a semantic, conceptual, or language construct rather than a phenomenal simulation.
Would you go so far as to deem the semantic, conceptual construct as false? This would need some sort of adjustment in the language of how we describe consciousness wouldn't it?
(Jun 2, 2019 08:56 PM)Ostronomos Wrote: [ -> ] (Jun 1, 2019 09:31 PM)C C Wrote: [ -> ] (Jun 1, 2019 06:18 PM)Ostronomos Wrote: [ -> ]. . . This may or may not necessarily relate to solipsism, but it seems that in order to explain the emergence of consciousness as a phenomenon, universal consciousness must be posited.
Speaking of solipsism... Minimal as it is, solipsism still isn't devoid of metaphysical speculation since it posits some kind of "owner" for and "generator" of the stream of experiences, that seems to be prior in rank to or outside the phenomenal progression itself. Plus, if that owner/generator harbors a nomological system so powerful that it can output a "world-dream" as coherent as that (this oneirocosmos of ours), then why limit it to a single POV? It could just as much be broken into multiple streams distributed over countless sub-selves each with their own inter-coordinated POVs of the dream-world.
The point is, the no-no Pandora's box of engaging in speculation has already been opened by positing an owner at all, rather than leaving it at just a threadbare stream of experiences without a transcendent cause, author or origin. So once that's done, it's pure egotism on the part of the solipsist to contend that he/she is the only "inside the world-dream" avatar of such a provenance. The latter would already, again, be demonstrating unlimited creative power and inter-consistency via the very magnitude of its oneirocosmic simulation hanging together so well. Having a zillion varying avatars ... instead of only one ... isolated from each other in terms of local, immediate consciousness -- would be cheesecake.
I understand and agree that it would be pure egotism. But what ties together our relative perspectives to give rise to collective consciousness? We seem to believe that we are each distinct and localized. But that could be strictly due to an illusion that, if we were to enter a higher dimension, would see that we are merely sub-selves of an overall consciousness.
Would this venture strictly into metaphysical speculation territory?
Insight I believe can be gained in many ways.... the movie/TV series "Battle star Galactica is highly suggestive of collective consciousness as evolved in the cybernetic machine race called Cylons. To me this particular movie franchise is extraordinarily "telling" in regards to the issue of consciousness, collective and individual.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battlestar_Galactica