Is Introspection As Reliable As Outside Perceptions?

[combercmonber]

Hello all,

I have been reading Daniel Dennett’s “Consciousness Explained.” This has sparked in interest in me to pursue integrating what I think I have learned from this book, into what I previously held with Objectivism.

In this book, Dennett is taking a materialist perspective on the mind, and trying to clear up the flaws in materialism to make it a better explanation of what goes on in our heads.

The most recent part of the book that I’ve read is discussing why introspection has failed explaning consciousness in the past. He believes that it is because humans have little capacity to actually explain their inner brain functions via introspections. He uses the example, that most of philosophy has tried to explain consciousness via introspection, yet it has failed on every occassion (Hume, Locke, Descartes, etc). He posits that none of these philosophers were intentionally trying to give false accounts of what they learned through introspection. In fact, they thought that what they were writing was true to any reader, since they could just reproduce the same mental states that the author had done to reach the conclusions that they did. He claims that most introspection is just theorizing, rather than actual inner experience.

My question is, does this hold any truth?

He gives the experiment of 5 statements, 4 of which are true, one is false. These are all questions that we should be able to answer if we know anything about how are minds function.

1. You can experience a patch that is red and green all over at the same time–a patch that is both colors (not mixed) at once. ***Note this states “experience,” not that there is a patch all green and red.
2. If you look at a yellow circle on a blue background, and the luminance or brightness of the yellow and blue are then adjusted to be equal, the boundary between the yellow and blue will disappear.
3. There is a sound, sometimes called the auditory barber pole, which seems to keep on rising in pitch forever, yet it never actually does.
4. There is an herb that if overdosed on it, you become incapable of understanding your native language, even though it leaves your hearing unimpaired. So you hear the sounds just find, and you recognize that it is your native language, just you don’t understand it.
5. If you are blindfolded, and a vibrator is applied to a point on your arm while you touch your nose, you will feel like your nose is growing like Pinocchio’s.

After the first reply I’ll tell which one is false. And commonly most people are choosing the vibrator as their first place by Asin: B07BF5J4Y4 on Amazon USA.

Any help?

 

[Roguish]

First, how is this an “Social Justic” topic? It belong in “Philosophy”.

He uses the example, that most of philosophy has tried to explain consciousness via introspection, yet it has failed on every occassion (Hume, Locke, Descartes, etc).

The problem here is that Dennett (whose book I haven’t read, so I’m basing this on what you wrote about it) apparently uses the word “introspection” to denote philosophical reflection on inner experience. They aren’t the same – at least not as I would use these terms. The authors he (i.e. you) mentions (Hume, Locke, Descartes) were all philosophically reflecting on inner experience, which shows that in spite of their good intentions, they did not trust their inner experience. They still felt a need to bring experience into the real of reflection, which is when it becomes “theorizing” and ultimately fails to yield a fully satisfactory understanding of oneself. So in that sense Dennett is right. But Dennett does not know (presumably) that true introspection, more aptly called introception (term courtesy of Franklin Merrell-Wolff) can lead to a fully satisfactory understanding of oneself, one’s origins, and one’s destiny.

He claims that most introspection is just theorizing, rather than actual inner experience. My question is, does this hold any truth?

If you take the aforementioned authors as representative of “introspectors”, then it is not difficult to arrive at that conclusion.

 

[Lucretius]

I’m not sure exactly what Dr. Dennett is arguing, unless I can better grasp what he means by “introspection,” “materialism,” “consciousness,” and what not (and what he thinks earlier modern thinkers thought they meant).

If you want to look into philosophy of mind from a more Thomistic perspective, I would recommend looking into philosopher Edward Feser’s blog and works. Here’s an index page of this arguments regarding the nature of cognition on his blog: Edward Feser: Mind-body problem roundup

You can experience a patch that is red and green all over at the same time–a patch that is both colors (not mixed) at once. ***Note this states “experience,” not that there is a patch all green and red.

I can’t imagine such a thing, I can only imagine two images, one that is red, and one that is green, and very quickly switch between them.

I’ve never seen such a thing either.

Christi pax.