Why materialistic theories of consciousness (the “science of consciousness”) are quackery
Bertrand Russell said that there are two forms of knowledge
example: you know who Obamn is, he is the US president.
a) Knowledge by descriptions (objective knowledge)
example: you know who Obamn is, he is the US president.
b) Knowledge by acquaintanxce (subjective knowledge)
example: you know who Obama is for you have met him.
Consciousness is the perceptions of the first person singular (type b),
and so is subjective (experiential or type b), while materialist theories of mind
do not include the first person singular, so are third person singular or objective (can only
describe experiences) and so are of type a) and can only talk about consciousness in
descriptive terms. This is not consciousness itself.
So any forum calling itslef the “Science of Consciousness” held biennially
at the Universioty of Arizona is fraudulent since there cannot be any science
of consciousness. For science is an objective, not subjective.
In my opinion only the philosopher Leibniz has given us a subjective theory of mind.
plato.stanford.edu/entries/leibniz-mind/
Such an opinion is captured by another philosopher, Kierkegaard,
in one of his works. works, “Concluding Unscientific Postscript to Philosophical Fragmnents” :
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concluding … _Fragments
The scientist/philosopher Michael Polanyi also touched on this,
calling it “perswonal knowledge”
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Polanyi
Dr. Roger B Clough NIST (ret.) [1/1/2000]
See my Leibniz site at
independent.academia.edu/RogerClough