Consciousness; a radically new theory. Romansh? (Introduction)

by David Turell , Friday, June 26, 2015, 18:41 (3217 days ago) @ dhw

dhw: Agreed. Nobody can explain consciousness, thought etc. My question is: WHAT controls or appears to control these processes? If we subscribe to materialism, we shall have to say the brain controls or appears to control the brain. A dualist will have to say that his immaterial self controls or appears to control his immaterial self. In both cases, consciousness is an unsolved mystery, but without it we can't be “us”, so we can't say “we” use it or it uses “us”. Our consciousness, along with our subconscious and other attributes, IS “us”.-I am still a dualist. I control my brain and I control my consciousness. My consciousness is me.-> 
> dhw: The controversy over free will is not confined to Libet's experiments! Determinists will argue that all our decisions are predetermined by a sequence of causes and effects beyond our control. You don't even have to be a materialist to subscribe to this view. The counter-argument that I am offering is that even if the causes and effects are beyond our control, the product of those sequences is our individual identity, and so the decisions are still taken by “us”. You can therefore argue either way: the decisions are “ours” (free will) because all our attributes, including our consciousness, are our own, or the decisions are not “ours” (determinism) because our attributes etc. are not of our own making.-I won't argue either way. My attributes of my personality and consciousness are made up from my decisions in my history of my life. I am me, without question.