tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3736365491401043672.post1094190379903700166..comments2024-01-16T09:31:45.073-04:00Comments on Anderson Brown's Philosophy Blog: Turning the Inverted Spectrum on its HeadAnderson Brownhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18358008464457746997noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3736365491401043672.post-72811568405311863912011-04-22T04:07:25.381-04:002011-04-22T04:07:25.381-04:00I am so glad to have come across your blog - it...I am so glad to have come across your blog - it's elucidating a number of points that come up in discussions with my partner.<br /><br />I'm particularly interested in qualia, consciousness and altered states, and my 'lens' is that of Zen Buddhism. (I'm a layperson/writer.)<br /><br />Because of this, I'd like to query your sentences copied below, on the grounds that in the altered state necessary for eg fire walking, or some kinds of shamanic practice, or deep meditation there seems to be evidence to suggest that in fact we can choose whether or not to be in relationship with pain; to that extent I'd query your statement that it's automatically/inherently a constituent of consiousness rather than an 'object of our attention':<br /><br />'But it is incoherent to say that to be conscious of pain, say, is to form a representation of pain or to be in a relationship to pain. In its phenomenal sense the word “consciousness” just refers to the sum of phenomenal experience: pain is a constituent of consciousness, not one of its objects. I may be intentionally conscious of pain at some higher level of psychological organization (one that can be picked out with operational criteria), but it makes no sense to say that I have to form a representation of pain or be in a relationship to pain to have an experience of pain.'<br /><br />RoselleAnonymoushttp://roselle-angwin.blogspot.comnoreply@blogger.com