Showing posts with label consciousness. Show all posts
Showing posts with label consciousness. Show all posts

Monday, November 1, 2010

Consciousness, and Intentionality

All references indicate a problem of semantics with the word "intentionality", but consciousness must be consciousness of something. There are two stages of "intentionality": that which occurs at birth, and that which comes after consciousness of being conscious.
 
"But here [in the semantics] the difficulty lies partly in the fact that the relevant use of cognate terms is simply not that found in common speech (as when we speak of doing something ‘intentionally’)." http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/consci…

This problem in semantics is better explained this way: "Every intentional state is mental, but not every conscious mental state is intentional. For example, one may have feelings of anxiety that do not have any intentional content.
http://science.jrank.org/pages/9796/Inte…

"Philosopher Franz Brentano has suggested intentionality or aboutness (that consciousness is about something). However, within the philosophy of mind there is no consensus on whether intentionality is a requirement for consciousness."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consciousne…


That "consciousness is about something" can be explained if you consider that any 'intentionality' (of any semantic persuasion) absolutely requires consciousness---after we become conscious of it:


"Concepts and, therefore, language are primarily a tool of cognition—not of communication, as is usually assumed. Communication is merely the consequence, not the cause nor the primary purpose of concept-formation—a crucial consequence, of invaluable importance to men, but still only a consequence. Cognition precedes communication............."

Ayn Rand  http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/langua…

Cognition precedes intentionality, because without consciousness one cannot have any intentions, no matter which semantic definition you use. 
 The question seems to be this:
Does some 'intention' of mind cause consciousness? 
But it can only be answered by acknowledging that the brain is hard-wired at birth to 'intentionally' seek objects of cognition, just as the lungs are hard-wired to seek oxygen and the liver is hard-wired to strain the blood stream.

But there is the matter of retaining intentionality after one become conscious of being conscious. Drugs and alcohol are only two of the means people use to try to eliminate their own intentionality.


But it still comes down to which semantic definition you use. "...within the philosophy of mind there is no consensus on whether intentionality is a requirement for consciousness." I think we can see that at birth there can be no intention that requires a reasoned purpose for it, but only one that is hard-wired. Because "Concepts and, therefore, language are primarily a tool of cognition—", it is at that point that it would seem we can choose to maintain our individual, purposeful "intentionality" or let it go.



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Thursday, June 4, 2009

What is "Time Travel"?

Husserl wrote "The Phenomenology of Internal Time Consciousness." One thing it demonstrates clearly is that "time" is a phenomenon of consciousness, not of of physics.

The physics in it is the consciousness of movement, and then of difference in the lengths of those phenomenons, such as a star moving across the sky versus a caterpillar walking up a tree.

Since "time" is a phenomenon of consciousness, it cannot be manipulated outside of consciousness, in the empirical world.

However, we know that the pictures taken by the Hubble Telescope are of events that happened millions or billions of year ago. So if we were able to invent a means of transportation that would get us to one of those events in a second, would that be considered time travel? Nothing would have changed in the universe except your placement in it; yet you would instantly be at an even which in your original placement had already passed a long time ago.

But transportation to a place in the universe where something happened in a different "time" when compared to the relationship of Earth to "place X" is not the same as travelling back to yesterday.

If travelling back to yesterday becomes possible, then once again it is merely moving your own physical and mental existence from one place to another. What makes yesterday on earth different from what is photographed by the Hubble? Nothing at all, except the Hubble cannot see that close up.

So if you can go in the blink of an eye to what the Hubble sees, yet you have merely moved materially through a long distance of space, then why is that different from moving materially back to yesterday?And if that becomes possible, is it possible to move materially to an unknown place when that "place" (tomorrow) has not yet happened?

We could conceivably create a transportation device that would move us materially across the universe faster than the speed of light. To return to yesterday, we would have to invent a "Hubble" that can see yesterday on Earth by the same means. It would simply be a "closeup" shot.

But how are we to see tomorrow?Such a form of travel, to what Hubble sees, is not time travel, because time is a phenomenon of consciousness, not of physics.



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The Free Assemblage of Metaphysical Naturalists LLC.
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,
The Academy of Metaphysical Naturalism Blogger ©,
Academy of Metaphysical Naturalism Blogger Extra ©, and


are the educational arms of the LLC and are:

© 2008-2009 by Curtis Edward Clark and Naturalist Academy Publishing tm
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