Thomas Nagel's "What is it like to be a Bat"

We don't experience it as a composite thing, which is why it might be an illusion.

Who is experiencing the illusion?

I just don't see where this line of thinking leads other than into an abyss of complete non-experience, non-reality.

Who is experiencing the illusion?

The same agent that is experiencing the experiences if they are, in fact, all-of-a-piece.

I just don't see where this line of thinking leads other than into an abyss of complete non-experience, non-reality.

It leads away from the possibly oversimplified notion that every one of our experiences are all-of-a-piece, which requires a library of millions of unitary experiences.

~~ Paul

I guess I'm not following.

Are the options here mutually exclusive?  Could there not be both puzzle pieces and the puzzle itself?

Asserting our perceptions to be illusions seems akin to denying our own existence.  Perhaps I'm missing the finer point here.

I guess I'm not following.

Are the options here mutually exclusive?  Could there not be both puzzle pieces and the puzzle itself?

Asserting our perceptions to be illusions seems akin to denying our own existence.  Perhaps I'm missing the finer point here.

I am not denying consciousness. I'm simply skeptical that an experience, say, of the redness of a tomato, is a unitary experience. I think it's probably built out of all kinds of sub-experiences that we don't experience individually. You can argue that the illusion still means that the experience is all-of-a-piece, but I think that then we may lose details that are important in understanding how consciousness works.

~~ Paul

I am not denying consciousness. I'm simply skeptical that an experience, say, of the redness of a tomato, is a unitary experience. I think it's probably built out of all kinds of sub-experiences that we don't experience individually. You can argue that the illusion still means that the experience is all-of-a-piece, but I think that then we may lose details that are important in understanding how consciousness works.

~~ Paul

What, exactly, do you mean by "sub-experience" and how does it differ from an experience? Is this an attempt to introduce reductionism into the subjective or is it another attempt to reduce the subjective to the objective?

I'm genuinely interested to see your description of a sub-experience of redness.

What, exactly, do you mean by "sub-experience" and how does it differ from an experience? Is this an attempt to introduce reductionism into the subjective or is it another attempt to reduce the subjective to the objective?

I'm genuinely interested to see your description of a sub-experience of redness.

Thinking about a tomato, I suspect that all the following sub-experiences come into play.

The color of tomatoes.
The color of tomato sauce.
The smell of tomato sauce.
The taste of tomato sauce.
The taste of caprese salad (at least in my case).
The mouth texture of raw tomatoes (which I don't like).
The flavor of a tomatillo (if known).
Etc.

What's interesting is that I don't necessarily experience a jigsaw puzzle of these sub-experiences. Instead, it feels rather unitary, at least at first. Then my mind may wander to some of the subcomponents.

Surely we agree that the high-level experience of a tomato reduces to various lower-level experiences. I'm not trying to reduce it all the way down. But to insist that it's a unitary experience is to insist that there exist a virtually infinite number of unitary experiences of tomatoes, since no two people have the same tomato-experience.

~~ Paul

Thinking about a tomato, I suspect that all the following sub-experiences come into play.

The color of tomatoes.
The color of tomato sauce.
The smell of tomato sauce.
The taste of tomato sauce.
The taste of caprese salad (at least in my case).
The mouth texture of raw tomatoes (which I don't like).
The flavor of a tomatillo (if known).
Etc.

What's interesting is that I don't necessarily experience a jigsaw puzzle of these sub-experiences. Instead, it feels rather unitary, at least at first. Then my mind may wander to some of the subcomponents.

Surely we agree that the high-level experience of a tomato reduces to various lower-level experiences. I'm not trying to reduce it all the way down. But to insist that it's a unitary experience is to insist that there exist a virtually infinite number of unitary experiences of tomatoes, since no two people have the same tomato-experience.

~~ Paul

What I don't see is how any one of those listed qualifies as a sub-experience and not an experience in itself. Why call them sub-experiences unless you call the original redness of the tomato another sub-experience which then seems to defeat your own argument. There is, in effect, no need for a sub category. They are all subjective experiences. That they each might inform another experience which is associated with tomatoes is beside the point, isn't it?

Thinking about a tomato, I suspect that all the following sub-experiences come into play.

The color of tomatoes.
The color of tomato sauce.
The smell of tomato sauce.
The taste of tomato sauce.
The taste of caprese salad (at least in my case).
The mouth texture of raw tomatoes (which I don't like).
The flavor of a tomatillo (if known).
Etc.

What's interesting is that I don't necessarily experience a jigsaw puzzle of these sub-experiences. Instead, it feels rather unitary, at least at first. Then my mind may wander to some of the subcomponents.

Surely we agree that the high-level experience of a tomato reduces to various lower-level experiences. I'm not trying to reduce it all the way down. But to insist that it's a unitary experience is to insist that there exist a virtually infinite number of unitary experiences of tomatoes, since no two people have the same tomato-experience.

~~ Paul

Sorry, this is pretty incoherent. I’m not really sure what your argument is here.

Using this "subcomponent" concept, how far down must we reduce before we lose the "illusion" moniker and have an actual conscious experience?

What I don't see is how any one of those listed qualifies as a sub-experience and not an experience in itself. Why call them sub-experiences unless you call the original redness of the tomato another sub-experience which then seems to defeat your own argument. There is, in effect, no need for a sub category. They are all subjective experiences. That they each might inform another experience which is associated with tomatoes is beside the point, isn't it?

Why is it beside the point? My experience of a tomato or, specifically, the redness of a tomato, feels like a unitary experience. My claim is that unitary experience is actually a conflation of other component experiences. I'm making this claim to suggest that the unity of experiences is an illusion. And that's because I'm skeptical of the claim of irreducibility of experience, which is often made to suggest that experience is a fundamental thing. Some form of experience may be fundamental, but I believe people are greatly oversimplifying.

~~ Paul