[ExI] The alleged existence of consciousness

[Stefano Vaj]

On 16 February 2010 02:36, Gordon Swobe <gts_2000 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> To deny the existence of consciousness one must deny one's own awareness of one's own experience. Some muddled thinkers try to do this. I find it hard to take them seriously.

OK, this is your mantra. But the argument that since nobody denies the
existence of, say, "entrepreneurial spirit", or the "spirit of the old
days", we have to infer that spirits fluctuate around us is not very
compelling.

Consciousness is a perfectly useful concept to describe the set of
phenomena leading us to conclude, e.g., that the perpetrator had not
actually knocked unconscious when the crime was committed. Its
"entification" is however a Platonic petition of principle, similar to
that maintaining that "Evil exists" in the sense of of a horned
monster living very deeply underground. Entia non sunt multiplicanda
sine necessitate.

-- 
Stefano Vaj