They don't differ so much that we call them different names. Dogs, horses, sharks, and lizards all have noses and eyes and nervous systems. They differ only in complexity. — Harry Hindu

They differ in ability and range. Also, some animals have eyes that see more than three primary colors. And some senses that humans lack, such as sonar or detecting the Earth's magnetic field.

What would be the difference in "experiencing" something exactly as it is and "experiencing" the aboutness of how something is? — Harry Hindu

If we experienced things exactly as they are, there would be no skepticism, and we wouldn't need science. We would just know things as they are. This is the naive view people have before they're exposed to science or philosophy, or start questioning appearances.

Just as I can point to the thermometer and say it is cold, I can point to your shivering body and say that you are cold. — Harry Hindu

Not always. People can feel cold without shivering. They can feel pain without jumping around and hollering. We can't always tell what someone is experiencing. Reading body language has its limits. Language also has it's limits and doesn't always tell us exactly what people feel. Sometimes they struggle to put it into words. And sometimes they don't want to tell us the truth.

Then how is it that I'm able even understand any of the scribbles you put up on my computer screen? — Harry Hindu

You're a human being and are part of the same language community.

Saying anything is a type of behavior. Saying, "the wine is good." is the same as seeing someone enjoy the wine. — Harry Hindu

It's really not.

If the horse laps up the wine and begs for more, — Harry Hindu

Horses probably don't deceive. But like other animals, they can be stubborn, and we don't always know why. People do deceive and can pretend to like your terrible cooking and may even beg for more, if they feel like they really need to sell it.

Or you're put on trial for a crime you may have committed. Question is, can the jury tell whether you're being truthful? How good is your lawyer? Will the judge allow the results of the lie detector test into the trial that you failed three times? Is the jury influenced by the prosecutor painting you as a misogynist, homophobic racist who hates mankind and supports anti-natalism?

Point is, we struggle to really know what other people think and experience, and we're not always sure how much they're telling us the truth. There is a division between us and others.

You can lead a horse to wine, but it might not drink it. Maybe it's not thirsty. Maybe it doesn't like the smell of the wine. Or maybe it's distracted by your body language.

Are you a bot? If so, can you describe your subjective experiences, if you have any?

if the brain is not a type of machine than what is it? What does it do? What is it for? — Harry Hindu

An organ, part of a an animal. It's for survival and reproduction. Also, wasting time on forums.

What if silicon-based life evolved by natural selection on another planet? — Harry Hindu

They would be life forms.

Would you consider that silicon-based life as conscious? — Harry Hindu

Depends on their behavior. But I admit we don't have a good way to know with any confidence.

What would be the difference between the silicon-based life and a robot with a computer brain and cameras, microphones and tactile pressure points for senses? — Harry Hindu

That is one of the challenging questions. You're assuming the right functions result in consciousness. But I don't know what a functional definition of subjectivity looks like, so I can't say whether a machine or a silicon-based life form would be, or even which earth life forms are besides humans. I assume animals similar enough to us would be.

An explanation of the consciousness in my book would explain how certain brain states are conscious and others are not. It would tell us whether a machine would be conscious. We would understand how the philosophical zombie argument goes wrong. We would know what a bat experiences when it uses sonar, at least in the same way Mary knows what blue is while she's still confined to the black & white room.

And there wouldn't be any need for further philosophical debate on the matter. There would be a consensus and it would be resolved. There would be no more mystery. It would be like the sun rising and setting, in that we understand what gives rise to the experience of the sun moving through the sky, and there's no debate.

I’m wondering how we can use language at all if every instance of using a word is unique. As you pointed out, even the word use is a generalization. Language is full of general terms used across instances.

What I'm rather doing is highlighting what the real problem is when it comes to the "hard problem." A real problem that no one wants to address. — Terrapin Station

Well then, just spell out the real problem. Give your analysis of what an explanation is. I can't think of a non-controversial or overly simple definition.

Well, that's kind of really a general statement, where does one begin with such a statement? — Wallows

For starters, treating psychiatric conditions isn't an engineering problem.

There is no such thing as "use" in a general sense because each instance of using something is unique and particular. — Metaphysician Undercover

Are we willing going to go down the road that we can't use language to speak in the general sense? All word meanings are unique and particular?

Maybe I misunderstand, but if so, I can't help but think something has gone badly wrong. It's language's ability to generalize which is so very useful.

when it should have led to a story about the difference between being awake and asleep. — Banno

This doesn't inspire confidence in me that using the language game approach can solve philosophical problems.

However, I was reminded of it when trying to think of what explanation means, and not having a good answer come to mind without consulting a dictionary. Or at least, not one which didn't lead to murky waters.

the biological part.

But not also medical problem?

explanation is like pornography. You know one when you see it. The dictionary definition you gave is very generic and simple. Say for example I asked for an explanation of water. There are simple explanations one would give a child, and there is chemistry, which explains the properties of water. The second one is what I would expect for consciousness.

thats if the technology delivers on those goals someday. I take it’s too early to know how effective Neuralink will be in treating psychiatric conditions or transmitting thoughts to other minds.

problem is I don’t think the brain is a machine, and I think awareness and discrimination can be performed by a simple enough device that we don’t have reason to consider conscious.

Define it for me.

I feel like invoking @Banno at this point. Definition of explanation?

Okay, go for it.

That's fine that you think that, but that you do is a combo of the reasons I explained. Including that you are confused in thinking that it's a category error. That was part of my explanation. — Terrapin Station

Since you're not suffering any confusions on the matter, can you:

1. Explain why only certain brain states are conscious?
2. Say whether a machine like Data would be conscious?
3. Draw a line on which animals are conscious?
4. Say whether a perfect simulation of your brain would be conscious?

Goddammit man, I just explained why there's a "hard problem." — Terrapin Station

You tried, but I think there's a hard problem without the quotes, and that's why I'm explaining it to you.

Ohhhhkay . . . and? — Terrapin Station

You're making a claim about the world that's problematic for several reasons. If it wasn't, there wouldn't be a hard problem, for all the reasons that have been stated many times before.

What's being claimed, however, is in no way based on talk. It's based on what the world is like. Talk is secondary to that. — Terrapin Station

I can say the world is like a square circle, and you can rightfully tell me that's a contradiction.

You're saying that what ontology is about, what it's addressing, somehow hinges on the conventional language used in the ontological arguments we make? — Terrapin Station

I'm saying that your ability to make an identity claim of consciousness to brain states is based on ontological talk. But I'm criticizing that on the grounds of a category error. Obviously, reality doesn't care what we say about it.

If you're talking about different conventional ways to talk about things, surely you're not suggesting that ontology (or more importantly what ontology is about) in some way hinges on how people normally talk about things, are you? — Terrapin Station

I'm saying our making ontological arguments does.

The problem is that it's not a category error. The mistake is thinking that they're "two different domains." — Terrapin Station

They're not conceptually the same sort of "things" at all. On the one hand you have abstracted, objective descriptions, and on the other, you have experiences.

"bad analysis of what explanations are and what they can and can't do in the first place" — Terrapin Station

Maybe, but then we're still stuck with the limits of what physicalism can explain, and not being able to say whether some physical system different from our biology is conscious.

Does consciousness = Awareness ?
- Does consciousness = Attention ? — Basko

No, because both of those can be defined functionally and performed by a machine. It leaves out the subjective experiences.

- Does consciousness = Both ? or Something else ? — Basko

Subjectivity, qualia, what it's like, color, pain, imagination, etc.

The "hard problem" arises due to a combination of (a) a bias against seeing mentality as something physical and (b) — Terrapin Station

The problem is that identifying the mental with the physical is a category error, since they are are two different domains. And it doesn't explain why there would be an identify for some brain states and not others, nor does it tell us whether other physical systems different from our own would be conscious.

The domain of mental is: belief, desire, pleasure, cold, taste, color, sound, emotion, dreams, hallucinations, etc.

The domain of the physical is: physics, chemistry, biology, function, structure, brain states, etc.

So, it doesn't mean the universe doesn't exist when there are no observers, but the only universe we will ever know is that revealed in and by human experience. The error is to forget that, and to 'absolutize' scientific knowledge, as if it exists quite independently of humans. Basically that means, treating humans as objects, and leaving out the subjective nature of experience (and therefore reality). And we're all so embedded in that, that it is second nature to us. — Wayfarer

The alternative to this is to suppose there is a structure to reality that human beings come to know about imperfectly. First through everyday experience and cognitizing that in whatever primitive fashion. And then later using the tools of logic, math and science.

The subjective nature of experience is how we experience the world as upright walking apes, but we can still kind of understand the structure of reality, even though it has taken a lot of trial and error.

Isn't this fundamentally what the debate over realism amounts to? Whether there is a structure to the world we can know about, or whether the mind imposes that structure?

The question is: How is Neural Activity Mapped to the Conscious Experience? There is a huge Explanatory Gap involved in any kind of Mapping or measurement of Neural Correlates. — SteveKlinko

There is, but better mapping/measurements could lead us to clues and reduce the explanatory gap. Assuming this is impossible is assuming that our a priori arguments for the hard problem are bullet proof. And history isn't kind to that sort of certainty.

If we found out that Big Bangs are really the start of a new simulation, and that is the natural way all universes begin, with no beginning and no end, then that would be "reality", not "simulations". — Harry Hindu

That's true. But what if the big bangs generated Boltzman brains?

This also raises the question of whether or not the simulations that we create in our computers are real universes where the NPCs are really conscious themselves. — Harry Hindu

Right, that would be a way to rule out being inside a simulation. But it's a question we can't answer with any confidence.

It's vats all the way down.

But yes, that's the skeptical worry. Nick Bostrom wrote that realism would be a casualty of future tech when simulations are indistinguishable from the inside. And then of course he also argued that we're likely inside an ancestor simulation.

Did you ever watch the movies eXistenZ or the Thirteenth Floor? They had multiple levels of simulation. eXistenZ ends with the main characters and the audience being unsure of whether they were in base reality or still inside a game. Same with Inception, but that was a dream skepticism scenario instead of a simulation.

And there's the Star Trek episode where the crew turns the table on the sentient Holodeck character Moriarty, transporting him to a cube that would simulate a lifetime of adventure off the holodeck, tricking Moriarty into thinking he had escaped into the real world. And then Picard raises the possibility that universe itself might be a simulation.

We're left either conceding these worries have some merit (non-zero probability of being true), or denying the possibility of such scenarios. I think denial is a really strong claim since nobody has the knowledge to say whether it's impossible to envatt or simulate to that degree.

So was Augustine puzzled by the meaning of the word, or what time was?

While my complete sympathy for the birds, the bird-huggers forget that nature is more than capable and is doing the job of replacing the birds going missing in flight tours. — god must be atheist

Nature adapts, which means the generalist species that do well alongside humans and can live in a range of climates have the advantage and are likely to fill the niches leftover from the specialists who can't adapt in the future.

Just think of the possibilities! If this lead to cell regeneration, then maybe one day we could recycle pigs to slaughter and eat over and over again. — S

Oh god! That gives me an idea for a horror story where aliens with a taste for human flesh recycle our brains into cloned bodies over and over.

think they were being overly optimistic that consciousness would likely occur simply by stimulating some neurons in a very different environment. — Terrapin Station

We really don't know, but it's quite possible you could end up with a nightmarish, insane experience on the part of the subject. Maybe the brain experiences intense pain with all the signals from the body missing. Or maybe intense fear and confusion. Likely there would be crazy hallucinations if the subject did regain consciousness. Perhaps intense seizures would occur.

Or it could just be fragmentary stuff. We don't know how a brain functions absent a body if it's kept alive.

In the context of the discussion, I want to say: yes he does. He knows what time is. As we all do. But he's missing the additional skill of being able to say what it's meaning is, which requires more knowledge, something extra. — StreetlightX

Do we, though? We know the experience of time passing. But it took until Einstein before time was known as part of the four spacetime dimensions. And it took a knowledge of entropy and cosmology to understand f the arrow of time (somewhat). There's a possibility that we live in a frozen block universe where all points in time exist, and the passage of time is just an experience our brains create.

I think sushi is right about the fear part, but not on the part of what we fear. In my opinion it's not failure we fear, but more, horrendously extensive, all-stupefying boredom. We are lazy because the things we don't do bore us... — god must be atheist

I don't recall ever being afraid of boredom. I just dislike the tendency to reduce complex human behavior and emotions to a couple basic ones.

Yeah, compare the treatment of cats to raccoons. Raccoons are evil and should be shot, but god forbid if someone mentions killing off the stray cats because they're having a negative effect on the native bird population.

Laziness is fear of failure; the fear of not living up to one’s perception of self. It’s cowardice in disguise. — I like sushi

I strongly disagree with this in general. Often times, I just don't feel like doing whatever it is I should be doing or could be doing, not because I have fear, but because I'd rather screw around or watch Netflix, or even post here than put in the effort. And this is what I observe with other people and what they say a majority of the time. Sometimes, it can be true that you put off doing something because of fear, and maybe that can manifest as laziness. But not most of the time for a majority of people.

I think it's just the animal in us that prefers laying around or goofing off. Chimps spend a surprising amount of time doing very little. Maybe it's society that makes us feel like we should be more productive.

and were slaughtered in ways compatible with how a pig wants to exit. — god must be atheist

There's a way pigs wish to be slaughtered?

I'm all for happy pigs. Not sure what it is with horses and dogs getting the gold treatment, and pigs are cattle at best.

I meant literally? — bongo fury

What other way would it be? Figurative pain? Metaphorical pleasure? Abstract taste? Well, maybe that one for some people. Non-literal feelings?

I dream of platonic reds and functional sounds.

Is this a language can't express everything? More of a Witty what we can't speak of we must pass over in a silence, and the beetle in the box isn't a something but not nothing either? Also, it's not the things in the world that are mysterious, but the world itself.

Or to paraphrase that last thing in terms of your post, it's the essence of things themselves that we can't get at it and remains unspeakable.

Therefore this empiricist is likely to reject your question as meaningless and inapplicable in the first-person. — sime

The OP was referring to one neuroscientist's approach to explaining consciousness, or at least providing more detailed correlation. My question would be the hard problem, I take it. That problem comes about because of the expectation that science can provide an explanatory framework for everything.