Since it seems like you are much more interested in point scoring than in understanding, I'm inclined to drop the discussion. However, if you want to present, what you believe to be a sound argument for your interpretation, I might be enticed to discuss it further. — wonderer1

All you've done in this discussion is accuse me of misreading the article, based on the scantest of evidence, even though you only skimmed and did not bother to read it fully yourself. Despite not reading the entire article, you believed that you would have a "more relevantly informed perspective" based on your self-proclaimed "mutant super power" intuitions.

It's not a matter of point scoring; you've simply been unwilling and unable to support your baseless accusation regarding my reading of the content of the article. Therefore, I'm not interested in discussing it with you further.

I wish you would have saved me the time by dismissing my claim of "mutant super powers" and just moving on, but... — wonderer1

Nobody is forcing you to reply.

You think that your ability to guess about the parts that you didn't even bother to read is better than my actual reading of the article?
— Luke

I would put it more like, I thought the probability was high that I was bringing a much more relevantly informed perspective to reading the article than you did. — wonderer1

Okay, but bringing a more informed perspective to reading the article requires actually reading the article.

Furthermore, my understanding of the sort of information processing that neural networks are good at, leads me to understand the importance of testing my intuitions. So I saw questioning your interpretation of the article as a good test of my intuitions which were based on merely skimming the article. — wonderer1

You tested them; it seems they failed.

Yeah, I've read the article now, and I still don't have the foggiest idea why you think Humphrey was suggesting what you think he was. — wonderer1

Then I don't understand how you are reading the sections I quoted for you recently, or the article as a whole. What would you say is the main point(s) of the article?

Whether I subconsciously picked up on it during my initial skim I have no idea, but when I read it through today I noted that Humphrey puts scare quotes around self when he first uses the phrase the self. That leads me to believe that Humphrey was only using the word self as a matter of convenience in conveying his idea to a lay audience, and also seems to me like a point against your interpretation. — wonderer1

If this is the basis for your argument against my reading - or for your reading - then you're putting a hell of a lot of weight on it. Since you have provided almost nothing else to support your "intuitions" against my reading, I think you may have missed the forest for this twig.

I think that what most people mean by "the self" includes not just qualia, but that which acts on the basis of qualia as well, and at the very least. That which acts on the basis of qualia is not itself qualia. — wonderer1

How does this relate to the article? How is it relevant?

I think the authors would likely agree with the statement that, "If there were no qualia there likely would be no self.", but that is a different statement.
— wonderer1

Firstly, that isn't a quote from the article. Secondly, how does your statement "if there were no qualia there likely would be no self" not imply that "qualia constitute the self"? I might be wrong about it, but it seems to me to be strongly implied by the article.
— Luke

1. I didn't suggest it was a quote from the article. — wonderer1

I know you didn't suggest it was a quote from the article; I was merely pointing out that it wasn't a quote from the article. I don't necessarily think the author would disagree with your statement, either, but I think your argument might be stronger if you used evidence from the article - the author's own words - instead of a statement you think the author might agree with.

2. I've explained that I think the 'self' is more than qualia, and I think the functionality of the self would be likely to break down without qualia to sustain its functionality. Not immediately, but given time. — wonderer1

Those are your opinions about the self. You seem to simply assume, without evidence, that the article agrees with your view of the self. But it remains to be shown that my reading is incorrect, and you have done very little to demonstrate that. Your intuition is not evidence.

You might consider that my reading of the article is correct and that you actually disagree with the article itself (including its view of 'the self').

If you haven't read the full article, then how are you in a position to question my reading of it?
—Luke

I don't suppose you'd accept, "Through the use of mutant superpowers."? — wonderer1

Have you read the full article yet? If so, explain why you believe the article does not indicate or imply that "qualia constitute the self". If you have not bothered to read the full article, I see no reason to respond to you further.

No I'm not talking about the content of language. I'm speaking about the structure of language.
Fiction still uses nouns, verbs, adjectives, grammar and syntax. Read what I said more carefully — Benj96

Could you clarify the point of these remarks in relation to the section you quoted? I don't follow how your references to the structure of language relate to my questions about the self.

Language reflects the 4 dimensions we exist in. — Benj96

Have you read any fiction? Language need not "reflect the 4 dimensions we exist in". Neither is language limited to that function alone. Language can have other uses besides those you mentioned.

My questions - in the section that you quoted - were about the self. I don't see how your post addresses that (assuming that you intended to).

I just skimmed through parts of it. It was interesting, but to be honest, I asked my question because based on what I did read I thought it unlikely that the authors suggested the notion that "qualia constitute the self". — wonderer1

If you haven't read the full article, then how are you in a position to question my reading of it? You think that your ability to guess about the parts that you didn't even bother to read is better than my actual reading of the article? If you think it's unlikely for the authors to suggest that "qualia constitute the self" then read the bloody article and find out. Have you read it all yet?

However, I'm still not seeing why you think the author suggested that "qualia constitute the self". — wonderer1

Explain why you think "qualia constitute the self" is not implied by the article:

Then, imagine if you were to lack qualia of any kind at all, and to find that none of your sensory experience was owned by you? I’m sure your self would disappear. — the article

I think the authors would likely agree with the statement that, "If there were no qualia there likely would be no self.", but that is a different statement. — wonderer1

Firstly, that isn't a quote from the article. Secondly, how does your statement "if there were no qualia there likely would be no self" not imply that "qualia constitute the self"? I might be wrong about it, but it seems to me to be strongly implied by the article.

Yes, I know I did not support my answer to Chalmer's question. I thought I made it obvious that I recognized that. I only have so much time to participate in these discussions, so I suggested an 'in a nutshell' answer. — wonderer1

Oh sorry, I didn't realise you were busy.

BTW, Do you think Chalmers is an evolution skeptic? — wonderer1

I don't consider myself a Chalmers expert by any stretch, but from what I've read, no, I don't think Chalmers would be sceptical about evolution.

However, what I found most fascinating is the idea that qualia constitute the self, rather than being something perceived by the self.
— Luke

I haven't read through the full thread, so forgive me if you have already done so, but could you point out a specific passage from the article that you interpreted as promoting such a view? — wonderer1

Have you read the article? It's not long.

But we still have to address the crucial question: Why? Whatever could have been the biological advantage to our ancestors, and still to us today, of having conscious experience dressed up in this wonderful – and, some philosophers would say, quite unnecessarily exotic – fashion? To quote Fodor again:

Consciousness … seems to be among the chronically unemployed … As far as anybody knows, anything that our conscious minds can do they could do just as well if they weren’t conscious. Why, then, did God bother to make consciousness? What on earth could he have had in mind?

I can’t answer for God. But in answering for natural selection, I think we can and should let first-person intuition be our guide. So, ask yourself: what would be missing from your life if you lacked phenomenal consciousness? If you had blindsight, blind-touch, blind-hearing, blind-everything? Pace Fodor, I’m sure there’s an obvious answer, and it’s the one we touched on when discussing blindsight. It’s that what would be missing would be nothing less than you, your conscious self.

One of the most striking facts about human patients with blindsight is that they don’t take ownership of their capacity to see. Lacking visual qualia – the ‘somethingness’ of seeing – they believe that visual perception has nothing to do with them. Then, imagine if you were to lack qualia of any kind at all, and to find that none of your sensory experience was owned by you? I’m sure your self would disappear. — the article

I don't see why it would be unreasonable to answer Chalmers with, "That's just the way evolution went." — wonderer1

"That's just the way evolution went" does not explain the "adaptive end", the evolutionary purpose, or the biological advantage of the development of phenomenal consciousness. In other words, it does not answer the hard problem of why we have phenomenal consciousness. "Evolution did it" is about as explanatory as "God did it".

This model works well if we assume that the self is no more than the combined constitution of sensations and/or perceptions, but I’m left wondering if there may be more to the self than that. In particular, where does language and one’s internal monologue - one’s thoughts - fit in to this model?

Are one’s thoughts on the same constitutive footing as one’s qualia in terms of their sense of self or are one’s thoughts a step removed or a step “higher” than one’s qualia? Would I still have a sense of self without any qualia but with my thoughts? And is the role played by my thoughts any more important to, or constitutive of, my sense of self than the the role played by my qualia?

I never understood why there would need to be an homunculus in order for there to be an "inner show". Phenomenologically speaking there certainly seems to be an inner show when I close my eyes, and neuroscience seems to tell us that the "outer show" we see with open eyes is really an inner show. — Janus

I understand, and I'm not sure if I'm completely in agreement with Dennett's views. However, the article helped me to understand - as I stated in the OP - "the idea that qualia constitute the self, rather than being something perceived by the self." I think this helps to explicate the idea of the homunculus.

On the homunculus view, there is an "inner self" that has a perspective on the sensory information of colours, sounds, tastes, smells, etc. that are located inside the body. On the non-homunculus, non-"inner self" view, the perspective locates the sensory information of colours, sounds, tastes, smells, etc. in the world instead of inside the body. I take the latter to be a more sensible view.

In the latter case, the body is the self; in the former case, there's a smaller (homunculus) self located inside the (body) self, a step removed.

Some claim that we are in fact in such a situation, that we don't really experience anything at all but just have the illusion that we do.
— Janus

Who make this claim?
— Luke

I think Dennett claims something along these lines; that experience and consciousness are either epiphenoma or a kind of illusion. — Janus

I may be wrong, but I believe that even illusionists like Keith Frankish do not claim "that we don't really experience anything at all". I believe they make the more modest claim that qualia do not have the properties of privacy, ineffability, etc. that Dennett mentions in Quining Qualia, or that we should not be misled into the misconception that phenonenal consciousness implies the homunculus view of an "inner show" or Cartesian theatre.

Good point. I guess there would have to be some advantage to having some bodily states be conscious. We may not be able to answer that question, though. — Janus

The article linked in the OP proposes an answer to that question.

We can conceive of it for sure. But that isn't to say the conception reflects the true state (ie accuracy). The conception is instead very much shy of the actual state. — Benj96

How do you know that what I imagine "a state with no consciousness" to be like would be "very much shy of the actual state"?

Surely you can imagine a state with no consciousness, at least in other people and objects, and perhaps even a state of the universe at a particular time.
— Luke

I can imagine it yes (construct a basic simulation or imagine it, make an analogy), I cannot however experience it. Conscious beings cannot "experience unconsciousness" as it is the lack of experience. — Benj96

In your previous post, you seemed to be arguing that "a state with no consciousness" was inconceivable (i.e. unimaginable). I disagreed with that. However, now you are saying: that "a state with no consciousness" is not able to be (consciously) experienced. I don't disagree with that, as I stated in my last response.

So, the question could become: 'could all human activities, the whole of civilization and its products have been produced 'blind' so to speak'? Shakespeare would have been a p-zombie just like everyone else; he would have written his plays without being aware that he did so, and the actors would have performed them without being aware of doing so, and the audiences would have attended, without knowing they did, and without experiencing anything at all. — Janus

I don't think the question should be why all human activities - including those of recent history - were not produced blind. However, it can reasonably be asked why phenomenal experience developed in the first place. I don't believe that anyone actually is a p-zombie, but I can conceive of such a thing. You might be able to imagine - as the article suggests - that some present-day animals do blindly react to their environments without any self-awareness.

Some claim that we are in fact in such a situation, that we don't really experience anything at all but just have the illusion that we do. — Janus

Who make this claim?

But, I haven't addressed your question about why some physical states are conscious and others not. This could be taken in two ways; you might be understood to be asking it of all physical states whatever or just referring to the bodily physical states of humans and other organisms. Assuming the latter, then I would say it is because so much awareness would be too confusing. — Janus

This addresses the question of why some bodily states are not conscious, but it does not address the question of why some bodily states are conscious.

If you were asking it of the former, then I would in turn ask whether we know that all physical states are not conscious to some minimal degree. If they were then this would be the panpsychist or panexperientialist answer to the "hard" question as to how 'brute' matter could by virtue of mere configuration and complexity, become conscious. — Janus

I'm aware this is one possible explanation, but I'm not a pansychist.

Right, and as I said if there were no experiential dimension there would be nothing else either, so putting the question as to why there is experience is really equivalent to putting the question as to why there is anything at all, or why there is something rather than nothing. — Janus

The question "why does phenomenal experience exist" may seem analogous to the question "why does anything exist". I agree that the question can be viewed in this way. I still tend to view it this way myself occasionally. But I believe that the hard problem can be expressed in a way that distinguishes these two seemingly identical questions.

As defined by the IEP article, "the hard problem of consciousness is the problem of explaining why any physical state is conscious rather than nonconscious. It is the problem of explaining why there is “something it is like” for a subject in conscious experience, why conscious mental states “light up” and directly appear to the subject."

Expressed in this way, it could be viewed as a question that is not solely about the existence of conscious experience, but about why some physical states are conscious and others are not.

How can one that conceives, truly conceive of a state of non-conceivability (ie. a state with no consciousness). — Benj96

I thought we were on the same side. Were you unable to conceive of a state with no consciousness in your examples of dreamless sleep, coma and meditation? One needn't conceive of one's own unconsciousness in order to conceive of unconsciousness; one can imagine other people being unconsciousness. And I think many would agree that rocks and other inanimate objects are also in a "state with no consciousness". Regardless, I believe that one can conceive of one's own unconsciousness; such as before they were born or after they die. Moreover, if a state with no consciousness could not be conceived, then how could you or I understand what the phrase "state with no consciousness" means? It's not a logical contradiction like a square circle. Surely you can imagine a state with no consciousness, at least in other people and objects, and perhaps even a state of the universe at a particular time.

You may be able to conceive of a time before conceptions (consciousness and it's thoughts/concepts) but it would be a very inaccurate and biased one. — Benj96

Whether or not it would be an inaccurate or biased conception, you've acknowledged here that it is conceivable.

Consciousness cannot know the lack of it. Again, as "knowing" is a process of the conscious. — Benj96

Sure, I can't experience being unconscious while I'm conscious, or know "what it's like" in this sense, but that's a different story to whether I can merely conceive of myself being unconcious; to merely imagine it.

So what is your definition of unconsciousness? — sime

A dictionary definition would suffice.

Is it a pure postulate, or something that reduces to empirical criteria? — sime

I don't believe that we know the meanings of any words based solely on observation or experience; there is always some rationality or reasoning associated with knowing the meaning or use of a word. So...both.

Dreamless sleep. A time in ones being, where there was no awareness of such. But one wakes up, and continues to experience, despite the lost time.

Perhaps the same in a coma. I'm less sure of that as I have had Dreamless sleep but never been in a coma. — Benj96

More simply, I can conceive of a point in time before there was any life or conscious beings in the universe.

For phenomenologists who consider first-personal phenomenological criteria to be the very essence of meaning, the question is circular and makes no sense from their perspective. Which is what i was getting at above. — sime

Perhaps the hard problem is inconceivable for phenomenolgists, but I'm not a phenomenologist.

By definition, there does not exist empirical criteria for asserting self-unconsciousness in the present. So the proposition "I am presently unconscious" is presumably meaningless when taken in the fullest possible sense. — sime

Granting this, how does it imply that the hard problem is inconceivable?

Consider what it would mean to say that there is no experiential dimension. Unless that possibility is conceivable, then the hard problem isn't conceivable. — sime

Why not?

Can you really conceive an absence of experience? — sime

Yes.

If it were all just physical information processing and there were no experiential dimension, then there would be no one to find anything, nothing to be found, and indeed, no physicalists or physicalism, either. — Janus

If there were no experiential dimension then there would be no hard problem, but since there is, there is.

If you disagree that the article proposes a solution to the hard problem, then what would you say the article is about? — Luke

A rehash of what's already been written about phenomenal experience in philosophy, except with fancy words and invention or creative license, which unfortunately is unwarranted since he was actually talking about biological and physiological activities. We have scientific records, no need to invent things. — L'éléphant

Which is it? Is it a rehash of what's already been written about phenomenal experience in philosophy or is he actually talking about biological and physiological activities?

Here again are passages lifted from the article -- passages are in quote marks: (I suppose I have to work harder because I'm in the minority of disagreeing with his "solution")

Let’s imagine, however, that as the animal’s life becomes more complex, it reaches a stage where it would benefit from retaining some kind of ‘mental record’ of what’s affecting it: a representation of the stimulus that can serve as a basis for planning and decision-making.

A mental record, in other words, a temporal perception, which has already been written about a thousand times by the likes of Descartes, Hume, A. Shimony, etc. — L'éléphant

Please cite references to their work that addresses the hard problem of consciousness regarding how or why qualia could have evolved, or why we have any phenomenal experiences at all.

I believe the upshot – in the line of animals that led to humans and others that experience things as we do – has been the creation of a very special kind of attractor, which the subject reads as a sensation with the unaccountable feel of phenomenal qualia.

What are these attractors? He explains it in this passage:

And, I suggest, this development is game-changing. Crucially, it means the activity can be drawn out in time, so as to create the ‘thick moment’ of sensation (see Figure 2c above). But, more than that, the activity can be channelled and stabilised, so as to create a mathematically complex attractor state – a dynamic pattern of activity that recreates itself.

It means retrieving the information from memory. — L'éléphant

Is that all it means?

You have not specified where you disagree with the article. I take it you disagree that the author is proposing a theory of the evolution of phenomenal experience which would help to resolve the hard problem of consciousness? However, this disagreement is already addressed by what you've quoted above, which indicates the author has a theory regarding "the creation of a very special kind of attractor, which the subject reads as a sensation with the unaccountable feel of phenomenal qualia." That is the topic of the article. You may have missed the fact that the author proposes a theory regarding the evolution of phenomenal consciousness.

Here is a snippet from the article's introduction:

Why do visual sensations, as experienced in normal vision, have the mysterious feel they do? Why is there any such thing as what philosophers call ‘phenomenal experience’ or qualia – our subjective, personal sense of interacting with stimuli arriving via our sense organs? Not only in the case of vision, but across all sense modalities: the redness of red; the saltiness of salt; the paininess of pain – what does this extra dimension of experience amount to? What’s it for? [....]

Sensation, let’s be clear, has a different function from perception. Both are forms of mental representation: ideas generated by the brain. But they represent – they are about – very different kinds of things. Perception – which is still partly intact in blindsight – is about ‘what’s happening out there in the external world’: the apple is red; the rock is hard; the bird is singing. By contrast, sensation is more personal, it’s about ‘what’s happening to me and how I as a subject evaluate it’: the pain is in my toe and horrible; the sweet taste is on my tongue and sickly; the red light is before my eyes and stirs me up.

It’s as if, in having sensations, we’re both registering the objective fact of stimulation and expressing our personal bodily opinion about it. But where do those extra qualitative dimensions come from? What can make the subjective present created by sensations seem so rich and deep, as if we’re living in thick time? [....]

In attempting to answer these questions, we’re up against the so-called ‘hard problem of consciousness’: how a physical brain could underwrite the extra-physical properties of phenomenal experience. [....]

I believe sensations originated as an active behavioural response to sensory stimulation: something the animal did about the stimulus rather than something it felt about it. — Nicholas Humphrey

What discussion title would you have used instead? — Luke

"Nicholas Humphrey's Seeing and Somethingness -- His Personal Account of What Goes On In Our Brain If or When We Have Sensations For Those Who Have Not Studied Or Read Or Understood Neuroscience". — L'éléphant

It's a bit wordy. Also, it isn't the topic of the article. The article proposes a theory of the evolution of qualia, about how and why qualia evolved.

Have they agreed? Sorry if I missed a post here that agreed that the article proposes a solution. — L'éléphant

If you disagree that the article proposes a solution to the hard problem, then what would you say the article is about? What discussion title would you have used instead?

...using the title "A potential solution to the hard problem" is itself biased already because, without first allowing the thread responses to express their criticisms to the points discussed in the article, saying it ahead of time is leading. — L'éléphant

...the "proposed solution" that the article offers... — L'éléphant

Do you doubt that the article offers a proposed solution to the hard problem? Have I created bias by announcing that that's what the article is about? I don't see how the title prevents anyone from expressing their criticism to the points discussed in the article. Furthermore, I doubt that anyone would honestly disagree that the article proposes a solution to the hard problem.

?

If you think I’ve got it wrong, what do you think he is saying?

“You’ll come to believe, as never before, in your own singular significance. What’s more, it will not just be you. For you’ll soon realise that other members of your species possess conscious selves like yours.”

And when I say that, I’m not asking what you take from it, but to answer the open questions, such as: what do I believe? and how is it the same thing as before, only now more? What is it that could be mine, but yet also something others can have (“my own”)? And what will “not just be you”? That which I believe in? That I will not just believe in something that is mine, I will believe in something that is theirs? If so, what and how do I and they possess it? How is mine mine and theirs theirs but they are alike? How is theirs “like” mine? — Antony Nickles

He is talking about the evolution of phenomenal consciousness - when it first appeared on the scene. Upon its inception you'll come to believe in your own singular significance because you are now phenomenally conscious; you now have personhood. This is not born of some fantasy or desire for individuality, or of wanting your individual pains and colours to be unique, but merely finding that you have them for the first time. Furthermore, "it will not just be you" who finds you are now phenomenally conscious, but "you'll soon realise that other members of your species possess conscious selves like yours."

The preceding paragraph in the article may help to put it in perspective:

So, think back to the transformation that must have taken place when your ancestors first woke up to the experience of sensations imbued with qualia, and – out of nothing – the phenomenal self appeared. Of course, it won’t have happened overnight. But nor need it have been a gradual process either. For the fact is that complex patterns of activity in feedback loops are liable to undergo sudden stepwise changes; attractors have an all-or-nothing character. I believe the reorganisation of the brain circuits responsible for generating phenomenal experience, once started, could have come to fruition quite quickly, perhaps within a few hundred generations.

Whenever it happened, it’s bound to have been a psychological and social watershed. With this marvellous new phenomenon at the core of your being, you’ll start to matter to yourself in a new and deeper way. You’ll come to believe, as never before, in your own singular significance. What’s more, it will not just be you. For you’ll soon realise that other members of your species possess conscious selves like yours. You’ll be led to respect their individual worth as well.

As I said in my first comment, the question 'why are we subjects of experience?' is a strange question. It's tantamount to asking 'why do we exist?' The question is asked, 'why did consciousness evolve?' — Wayfarer

For some folks, perhaps, but it is a question which I believe was originally directed at physicalists. How and why we have phenomenal experiences might be considered a challenging question for those who assume that everything is physical, or that the mental and the physical, or the brain and the mind, are identical (and only physical).

So the statement is completely self contradictory - 'a conscious mind could do what it does, even without the attribute that makes it "a conscious mind" '. And I don't know that the phenomenon of blindsight is a persuasive argument for that. — Wayfarer

As the article puts it, blindsight is "visual perception in the absence of any felt visual sensations." For those that view the world in physical terms only, it should not be surprising for everything to function as it would whether or not phenomenal consciousness was associated with brain function; after all, phenomenal consciousness is (somehow) physical too. The condition of blindsight goes some way towards supporting this physicalist view, since it is visual perception without the qualia of seeing. As quoted in the OP, Chalmers' puts the question to physicalists: "Why doesn't all this information-processing go on "in the dark", free of any inner feel?" If it's all just physical information processing - as the physicalists insist - and there is no mental "stuff" that is categorically different from the physical "stuff", then the physicalists should find that people would behave the same way even if they were not phenomenally conscious. So, how and why are we phenomenally conscious, dear physicalists?

I hope this helps to shed some light on the hard problem (and that I haven't gotten it terribly wrong).

I don't think it's quite the same as asking why we exist. However, it's unsurprising that the "why" question would have some sort of evolutionary answer.

But it doesn't come to terms with the issue of what it means to be - the kind of concerns that animate phenomenology and existentialism. It's a different kind of 'why' - there's an instrumental 'why', and an existential 'why', if you like. I think Humphries addresses the first, but not the second. — Wayfarer

How is this related to the hard problem of consciousness?

The implication of the sentence is that you also (along with me) will be unique, and I will respect that more: “You’ll come to believe… in your own singular significance. What’s more, it will not just be you [that you will come to believe is singularly significant]. For you’ll soon realize that other[ s are singularly significant too]. (Emphasis and paraphrasing mine.] — Antony Nickles

The quote says “you’ll soon realise that other members of your species possess conscious selves like yours.” You are resorting to cherry picking and omitting parts of the quote to try and contort it to fit your argument regarding a desire for uniqueness.

He does say: “With this marvelous new phenomenon at the core of your being, you’ll start to matter to yourself in a new and deeper way. You’ll come to believe, as never before, in your own singular significance.”

I wanted to say the same thing with “unique” as he is with “singular significance” though I take it as a fantasy created by our desire rather than a given state. I think I’ve made that as clear as I can. — Antony Nickles

The rest of the quote counters your claims:

You’ll come to believe, as never before, in your own singular significance. What’s more, it will not just be you. For you’ll soon realise that other members of your species possess conscious selves like yours.

This does not reflect a desire for uniqueness.

What occurs to me, reading that article, is that what his model is describing is ego, the self's idea of itself. — Wayfarer

It’s about phenomenal consciousness - which includes that of which we are consciously aware - so I think this is about right.

I don't think it addresses the aspect of the hard problem concerned with what it means to be. — Wayfarer

How do you view the hard problem as concerned with “what it means to be”?

I’ll let it go after this because I agree my point is not a critique of the crux of the article (rather, I would say, of its premises). We are all aware (or unaware), sense the world (or are numb to it), feel anger and sadness (or repress it), but what I sense and feel is not unable to be possessed by others, for them to “have” them. We are interested, traumatized, exalted—me by one thing, you by something different, remembering different things, perhaps differently, but not always different.

But it is no mistake that the “sense of personhood” is a “sense”. We want the criteria for a self to be continuous, specific, knowable, so we take as evidence the one thing we feel we cannot not know, awareness of sensation—this self-evident pain I am pierced with, undeniably, unavoidably—and add to that our desire for uniqueness (and control) and you have the individual phenomenal self, backwards engineered from, coincidently, the criteria for truth that philosophy has desired from the beginning. — Antony Nickles

I don't see where you find that in the premises of the article, unless you are talking about the premises created within the history of philosophy that brought about the hard problem. The article itself seems to me to be suggesting the opposite view of that which you are attempting to impose upon it. The article does not mention anything about a "desire for uniqueness" of the individual phenomenal self. Instead, it suggests that the evolution of the phenomenal self may have been the genesis for social living and having empathy with others:

Whenever it happened, it’s bound to have been a psychological and social watershed. With this marvellous new phenomenon at the core of your being, you’ll start to matter to yourself in a new and deeper way. You’ll come to believe, as never before, in your own singular significance. What’s more, it will not just be you. For you’ll soon realise that other members of your species possess conscious selves like yours. You’ll be led to respect their individual worth as well.

‘I feel, therefore I am.’ ‘You feel, therefore you are too.’

To cap this, you’ll soon discover that when, by a leap of imagination you put yourself in your fellow creature’s place, you can model, in your self, what they are feeling. In short, phenomenal consciousness will become your ticket to living in what I’ve called ‘the society of selves’.

One small step for the brain, one giant leap for the mind.

:up: Thanks for linking this. — Janus

:up: I thought it was worth sharing.

The stakes are certainly very high. As Descartes found, if we rely on anything else to build our sense of self, it can be taken away. Only if we “own” what is special about me (keep it inside) can I be ensured that my culture won’t minimize me, that others’ won’t define what is acceptable for me to be, that my actions won’t be judged to include implications I had not thought about, that I won’t just be identified by my suffering. — Antony Nickles

I believe this misses the main crux of the article. It is not about “building” a sense of self, but about having one; it is not about “owning” something special about me, but about having any sense of personhood at all. What I take to be the main crux of the article is that the combination of different qualia create a sense of personhood; create me, my conscious self.

The example of blindsight demonstrates one aspect of this; that, although the person functions as a sighted person, without the qualia of sight, it doesn’t feel to them that those sighted functions belong to them. It was instead just some qualia-less physical processing that the person was unaware of, like their liver function.

If the same applied to all qualia, then there would be no sense of personhood.

I’m saying that the assumption that we have “consciousness” is a misconception based on a desire to be certain that we matter. — Antony Nickles

It’s a misconception that we have consciousness? And no more than an assumption? You aren’t really aware of your feelings or sensations?

He feels he’s solved the skepticism of the foundational self (rewording Descartes) by implying that there is something special about my sensations (which are a given). It’s the point of the whole article. — Antony Nickles

That’s not what he’s doing, or at least not how I read it.

The section you quoted does not support your claim that the author’s goal is to “prove” that we each have an undeniable, given self. The fact that we have phenomenal consciousness is simply a given. That’s the hard problem: why do we have phenomenal consciousness (or qualia or feelings) if the brain could function without it? The author is offering a theory of the evolution and purpose of phenomenal consciousness/qualia; a theory of why it evolved.

Towards the end of the article he says that if it evolved the way he suggests, then it might account for empathy, social living, etc., but this is not the main point of the article.

Why are we using science to attempt to back up our “feeling” of having a “personal” sense? — Antony Nickles

Are we?

Why is the feeling “mysterious”? — Antony Nickles

Because the hard problem of consciousness is a mystery in need of an explanation.

Ah. It’s this “mattering” and “significance” that we wanted all along — Antony Nickles

No, it's an answer to the hard problem that we wanted all along.

He goes on to say that if it could be proved that we each have a given, undeniable “self”... — Antony Nickles

Where does he say this?

...that we would treat each other better, which implies we could wash our hands of having to see others as human — Antony Nickles

If we treated each other better, then "we could wash our hands of having to see others as human"??

Very interesting theory and simply explained. — Tom Storm

Yes, I agree.

Fantastic article! This is where philosophy gets exciting. — Philosophim

:smile:

If you haven't already read them, I recommend Peter Watt's first contact hard scifi novel Blindsight (2006) and R. Scott Bakker's hard scifi psychothriller Neuropath (2008) – both heavily influenced by neuroscientist-philosopher (& Buddhist) Thomas Metzinger's monumental work Being No One (2003). The Aeon article you've linked, Luke, summarizes many of the ideas Metzinger et al's had derived from their research. — 180 Proof

Thanks 180, I'll check them out. :up: