The reason we can't know what its like to experience it, is we have no way of knowing what a 'thing' experiences without being 'that thing'. — Philosophim

The answer is simple. We are not the particles. We don't know how to have the experience of those particles without being those particles. — Philosophim

It's not a matter of not being able to experience what someone/thing else experiences. The puzzle is why anything has any subjective experience at all. That's the Hard Problem of Consciousness. Why does the physical activity of moving ions, signals moving through neurons, neurotransmitters jumping the gap between neurons, and any and all other physical activity, have a subjective experience?

I have interest in knowing reality.
Answering the after death stuff, at any case the concept self is pretty much attached to the concept of the actual body, therefore I do not think memories or anything related with my actual life would survive. What I think is perdurable is the mind as the 'tool'
Coming back I exposed how we can have actually non-physical thoughts and asked you why they are formed in a physical determinant brain

It's not a matter of not being able to experience what someone/thing else experiences. The puzzle is why anything has any subjective experience at all. — Patterner

A point Quine gets into, the concept of shared stimulation is odd, because as Quine states, there is no homology of nerve endings shared between us, we could see the same thing and be stimulated in vastly different ways.

Causation requires an understanding of consistent and repeatable logical states. — Philosophim

There is no logical reason why there may not be two substances (Substance Dualism).

In terms of Property Dualism you seem okay with this as you say it makes sense to demarcate between a slap in the face and the desire to slap someone in the face as two different states.

The question is then what makes a Mental State different to a Physical State?
If you say nothing and also say that they are different in terms of Properties only we enter into the issue of Supervenience.

It would then follow that you are saying mental states supervene over phsyical states, meaning if the physical state changes so to must the mental state, but not vice versa.

It then follows that these mental states (you refer to as physical) have no causal effect. So now we have a physical state (neural state of mentality) that is non-causal.

Is there something else you were trying to get at? I feel like there is and I'm missing it. — Philosophim

Get it now?

And focus on the above well-known argument is that if we assume a different kind of something then we are met with a problem of not being able to understand Causation as we have one unknown entity interacting with another without knowing anything about its basic workings.

To jump into highly speculative territory the mental stuff could be atemporal and therefore to talk of 'causation' would make little to no sense.

It's not a matter of not being able to experience what someone/thing else experiences. The puzzle is why anything has any subjective experience at all. — Patterner

The only reason why we don't understand that is because we can't know what its like to subjectively experience as that thing. If we had that, we could attempt to figure it out. The scientific knowledge you are positing would need to be an objective analysis of a personal subjective experience. We can't create that objective knowledge without being able to have that personal subjective experience as reference.

To be clear, a person could answer this for themselves. We can stimulate a particular area of the brain and a person states, "I see green." But this is not objective. We have to trust the person is accurately conveying what they are 'seeing'. We could go to another person, stimulate the same neuron set, and they also say, "I see green." Except that we don't actually know if the green the first experiences is the green the second experiences. What are the experienced dimensions? Are there accompanying feelings or othere sensations? The variables are massive. This is why we do color blind tests with objective and measurable tests. We don't actually know what the person sees when they're color blind. But we do know color blind people can't discern differences between colored objects like the rest of us by their behavior.

Does any of this imply in any way that consciousness is not your brain? Not in the slightest. Just go read a bit of modern day neuroscience. To conclude that the brain is not the source of consciousness is a purely imaginative proposal that has no evidence of its actual existence. Just because we can't know what its like to experience their subjective version of 'green' doesn't mean that changes in consciousness and subjective experience are reported when manipulating the brain opposed to other areas of the body, or even outside of the body.

Why does the physical activity of moving ions, signals moving through neurons, neurotransmitters jumping the gap between neurons, and any and all other physical activity, have a subjective experience? — Patterner

Why does hydrogen and two oxygen in combination at a certain temperature become a water? This question applies to the entirety of existence. Why is a rock hard? Why from carbon can we construct graphite and all living things? Why do electrons bond, or even exist at all? Why is there anything?

That question does not deny what is, it merely asks "Why is". And 'why is', is a fantastic philosophical question, and may not have an answer.

What I think is perdurable is the mind as the 'tool' — Danileo

What did you mean by perdurable?

Coming back I exposed how we can have actually non-physical thoughts and asked you why they are formed in a physical determinant brain — Danileo

No I haven't seen an indicator that thoughts are necessarily non-physical. Why is water wet? Go ahead, touch some. Why does it flow like that? Why do some thing burn? Why is fire even real? Why is there anything at all? The question of, "Why does this exist?" is a question that we ask of everything and science cannot truly answer. That's a separate philosophical question. But it is not unique to consciousness, it applies to every single thing that you likely take for granted.

Let me ask you another question. If I said, "I can't understand why water is wet, therefore it must not be physical," is that a viable argument against the wetness of water being physical?" Of course not. What actual fact has lead you to believe that the mind is not physical? Not a, "I don't get it, its not like other matter." That's not an argument. I mean a real clash with the laws of physical reality, a clear contradiction between what matter and energy of the brain do and the outcomes of it? Why is it so difficult for you to simply think that subjective experience is the same as the 'wetness' of water?

There is no logical reason why there may not be two substances (Substance Dualism). — I like sushi

Actually, there is. We have to be careful to not confuse 'plausible' with logical reason that it exists. First, there needs to be an indication of something occurring that is in conflict with the idea of one substance. There is nothing conflicting with the proposal that the brain is the source of consciousness and that subjective experience is a physical experience of the brain.

Second, there needs to be some evidence of this supposed second substance, and a working idea of how it is different and works. People didn't understand that rain was a simple cycle of physical law. Since they didn't understand it, they proposed an indefinable non-falsifiable proposal, "God did it". We are no different from the unenlightened before us in our strategies and approaches to things we don't fully understand. The only argument for consciousness being separate from the brain as another substance is purely, "We don't understand exactly why." That's not a viable argument.

Logically, there really is no good reason to think there are two substances in the brain. Objective consciousness reflects physical brain state changes, and people usually report that they had no subjective experiences beyond dreams when this unconscious behavior is recorded. It is at best a fun, IF, and I'll happily play along there. Anything more is outside the realm of IF, and has no validity in modern day.

In terms of Property Dualism you seem okay with this as you say it makes sense to demarcate between a slap in the face and the desire to slap someone in the face as two different states. — I like sushi

To make sure there is no misunderstanding if by property dualism you mean, "Classifications and grouping an underlying identity into subidentities," yes. If you mean, "Actual classification of two entirely different comprised substances that can objectively be identified as separate," no. Both the desire and the action to slap someone in the face are physical. But it makes sense to demarcate the type of physical action into words to convey quick communication. We are constantly trying to shorten what we need to say to convey an idea, and one does not have to go through the atomic method each time they want to explain that a pencil uses graphite.

It would then follow that you are saying mental states supervene over phsyical states, meaning if the physical state changes so to must the mental state, but not vice versa. — I like sushi

No, they're both physical states. So they can affect each other. There is no logical reason they wouldn't. Now IF they are two substances, who knows? Maybe its only the mental substance affecting the physical, and its a meat puppet being strung along from something we don't fully understand. Maybe the physical has a one way influence on the mental instead. We don't know. We wouldn't be able to tell because we don't even know how these two substances would interact. We need more.

It then follows that these mental states (you refer to as physical) have no causal effect. So now we have a physical state (neural state of mentality) that is non-causal. — I like sushi

No, I don't think that's the way it works. Physical interactions always affect what is being interacted with. What you are describing could only happen if the 'mental' was a substance that violated basic physical law. Fortunately there are many cases of 'mental' imagery and subjective experiences affecting the physical body, once again lending credence to thoughts being physical, and not some other substance with completely different rules.

I mean is perdurable because I think time is a product of the mind, therefore our brain is what gives life to time. Is the notion of time what persist.

It's true that I can not exactly tell why a brain can not produce non-physical thoughts, or why would it do that. But my point is that they do exist. And that is a difference from for example exaplaing wetness of water because wetness follow some physical basic notions.

However I agree that my arguments are not a strict proof. But claiming the opposite is also not clear as a cristal.

@Patterner I’d like to respond to your thoughtful posts on panpsychism, particularly the idea that consciousness is latent in all matter, and to clarify where I think this position runs into difficulty.

You quoted Brian Greene:

And within that mathematical description, affirmed by decades of data from particle colliders and powerful telescopes, there is nothing that even hints at the inner experiences those particles somehow generate. How can a collection of mindless, thoughtless, emotionless particles come together and yield inner sensations of color or sound, of elation or wonder, of confusion or surprise? — Patterner

This is the crux of the so-called "hard problem": how consciousness could possibly emerge from wholly non-conscious components. But note the implicit assumption — that a configuration of matter and forces gives rise to inner experience. What if this assumption is itself misguided?

This assumption reflects the standard materialist framework, in which physical entities and causal interactions are ontologically primary, and organic life and consciousness are emergent or derivative phenomena — i.e., products of physical complexity.

Panpsychism doesn’t abandon this framework but tries to accommodate consciousness within it by attributing some form of proto-consciousness to matter itself. This leads to the position Strawson articulates:

Naturalism states that everything that concretely exists is entirely natural; nothing supernatural or otherwise non-natural exists. Given that we know that conscious experience exists, we must as naturalists suppose that it’s wholly natural. And given that we’re specifically materialist or physicalist naturalists (as almost all naturalists are), we must take it that conscious experience is wholly material or physical. — Galen Strawson

But this, as Joshs points out in another thread, is a kind of conceptual sleight-of-hand:

Strawson is among many within the analytic community who have been unable to make the leap to a post-Nietzschean way of construing objectivity, causality and subjectivity. They don’t see that the problem is their reliance on an inadequate formulation of the physical, and an inadequate biological model. As a result, Strawson finds subjective experience to be so qualitatively alien with respect to his understanding of the non-experientially physical that he has no choice but to create a new category of the physical to make room for it. — Joshs

In other words, instead of questioning the conceptual framework that makes consciousness seem alien to materialism, Strawson redefines matter to include it — which looks suspiciously like moving the goalposts. That's the sleight-of-hand that panpychism tries to get away with.

The deeper problem, I would argue, is the assumption that only objective knowledge — that is, publicly measurable, intersubjectively verifiable data — qualifies as real knowledge. But consciousness is not something that shows up in that framework. It doesn’t appear as a quantity in equations or an observable in experiments. Its existence is given only in the first-person mode, and this makes it invisible to objectification (the rationale behind 'eliminative materialism').

Hence the various contortions in contemporary philosophy of mind — from eliminativism and behaviourism to panpsychism — all share a desire to naturalise consciousness, but without challenging the presuppositions of naturalism itself.

To make a broader point: maybe it’s not that consciousness needs to be shoehorned into a redefined "physical," but that our concept of the physical itself — inherited from early modern science — is too narrow to account for the kind of being that consciousness represents. And we're still labouring in the shadow of the cartesian division between mind and matter. If that's so, then rather than grafting mental properties onto matter, perhaps we should revisit the metaphysical assumptions that led us to this impasse in the first place.

But this kind of “revisiting” isn’t just a terminological matter. It calls for a deeper philosophical reorientation — a kind of conversion, a 'meta-noia'. It means stepping outside, or seeing through, the objectivist framework that assumes reality is fundamentally mind-independent, and instead recognising that our very notions of “reality,” “existence,” and “nature” are themselves shaped by our modes of access to them. Consciousness isn’t simply another puzzle to be inserted into a pre-existing picture of the world; its existence requires us to reconsider what it means to be at all.

Phenomenology has seen this from the outset, as made clear in this snippet:

In contrast to the outlook of naturalism, Husserl believed all knowledge, all science, all rationality depended on conscious acts, acts which cannot be properly understood from within the natural outlook at all. Consciousness should not be viewed naturalistically as part of the world at all, since consciousness is precisely the reason why there was a world there for us in the first place. For Husserl it is not that consciousness creates the world in any ontological sense—this would be a subjective idealism, itself a consequence of a certain naturalising tendency whereby consciousness is cause and the world its effect—but rather that the world is opened up, made meaningful, or disclosed through consciousness. The world is inconceivable apart from consciousness. — Routledge Introduction to Phenomenology, ed. Dermot Moran, p144

The question isn’t merely how does consciousness arise from matter? but what kind of understanding allows us to see consciousness as a problem in the first place? And from there, we might begin to entertain a radically different vision: not of matter with consciousness as a puzzling add-on, but of a world already shaped by and through the possibility of experience.

Why does hydrogen and two oxygen in combination at a certain temperature become a water? This question applies to the entirety of existence. Why is a rock hard? Why from carbon can we construct graphite and all living things? — Philosophim

We can answer these questions. We can explain these things, at least in terms of properties of particles. Negatively charged electrons, electron shells, positively charged protons, etc. Because of all that, atoms are formed, molecules are formed, graphite is formed... We can't explain how/why electrons have negative charge, protons have positive charge, electron shells have the specific numbers of atoms they have... But we can explain down to that level.

Here I just posted an incredible description of party of what's going on in our cells, on the molecular level, the explains how we are powered. Beyond fascination, and detailed description of what happens.

We cannot do any of that with consciousness. Nobody has any idea how it can come about from the properties of particles. There's nothing. What does it have to do with mass, charge, the nuclear forces, gravity, or any other physical thing that can be named? There aren't even guesses. Nobody can make any connection.

No, they're both physical states. So they can affect each other. There is no logical reason they wouldn't. Now IF they are two substances, who knows? Maybe its only the mental substance affecting the physical, and its a meat puppet being strung along from something we don't fully understand. Maybe the physical has a one way influence on the mental instead. We don't know. We wouldn't be able to tell because we don't even know how these two substances would interact. We need more. — Philosophim

No. I meant them as both Physical the naming can change to suit you if you wish though. So Physical States supervene on Brain States (or whatever you want). Property Dualism is not Substance Dualism. Here we are talking about Property Dualism only. The Substance for thinking (Mental State) about slapping someone in the face and slapping (Physical State) someone in the face work in the same Physical Substance.

No, I don't think that's the way it works. Physical interactions always affect what is being interacted with. — Philosophim

Well this is the philosophical argument that shows this contradiction. The only way out of this is to deny that there is anything special about consciousness and mental states compared to other phenomena. It is to deny the Hard Problem as an illusion (like Dennett).

Now this is cleared up, the point I am making may possibly get around taking some kind of Eliminative argument to avoid this contradiction (Possibly). So put aside any disagreement with substance dualism and put some thought into what this could mean for the problem at large in terms of different types of causality or the absense of causality. How does this strengthen or weaken more physicalist positions?How does this reframe the problem?

We cannot do any of that with consciousness. Nobody has any idea how it can come about from the properties of particles. There's nothing. What does it have to do with mass, charge, the nuclear forces, gravity, or any other physical thing that can be named? There aren't even guesses. Nobody can make any connection. — Patterner

You have to be very careful here. We have tons of information about the brain and objective consciousness. We can clearly see brain states influencing behaviors and responses from individuals that demonstrate altered brain states alter the person's subjective experience. Let me give you an analogy.

We have a box, When we shake it, something rumbles inside. Can shake the box and see bumps on the outside wall, but we can't get into the box. In every way, the thing inside of the box indicates its a physical thing. Can we suddenly claim it isn't? Its not inductively reasonable to.

What do I mean by this? The close inductive reason is to things we know, the more likelihood its going to be correct. Before we landed on the moon we didn't know exactly what would happen. We had theories. And all of those theories were based on things we knew from what we could glean. There was an imagined state that when we landed, aliens would emerge from under the rocks. But that's pretty far from what we know, so was likely an unreasonable induction to make.

Back to the box. If everything about the thing inside of the box indicates its physical, what's more reasonble to induce? That the thing inside of the box is physical, or that it is some hitherto unknown substance that defies all of our notions of physics? Its the former.

The only, the ONLY thing preventing us from being able to fully understand consciousness is the fact that we don't know what its like to have the subjective experience of another thing besides ourselves. Its the thing in the box that we cannot open. But if we're logical and test everything around that we can know about and discover it continuously implies that what's inside the box is physical...its more reasonable to believe its physical.

Now this is cleared up, the point I am making may possibly get around taking some kind of Eliminative argument to avoid this contradiction (Possibly). So put aside any disagreement with substance dualism and put some thought into what this could mean for the problem at large in terms of different types of causality or the absense of causality. How does this strengthen or weaken more physicalist positions?How does this reframe the problem? — I like sushi

I wasn't quite clear on what you wanted, so I'll state what I thought you said.

We've seen the results from property dualism, now you want to imagine IF substance dualism exists. I already mentioned that there is absolutely nothing we could glean about causality because we don't know what the properties of something non-physical would be. Would it appear to interrupt physical causality? is it the same? We don't know.

So, lets break down further what you said. Lets first start with an absense of causality. If there is no causality between two substances, they don't have any identifiable interaction. Causality is simply that a prior state necessarily leads to another state. Causality can even be handled inductively with probability. Once we know limits and can measure several limited outcomes, we can at least find a limit and start giving the odds for a particular outcome. No causality at all would eliminate all of that. If the mental affected the physical and vice versa, it would be so random we wouldn't be able to verify whether one actually impacted the other, or it was just a random circumstance that the mental appeared to impact or be impacted, but actually wasn't. If my paper on the logical necessity of a first cause, you can see the logic of true randomness. So no causality leaves us with no objective outcomes and we would never now how the two substances interacted, if ever, at all.

Ok, so that leaves us with 'a different kind of causality'. I have no idea what that would mean. We have regular causality and probability to handle uncertain causality. What else is there? It seems we only have the options of strict causality, probable causality, and no causality. Was I in the general ballpark of what you wanted to think about?

And focus on the above well-known argument is that if we assume a different kind of something then we are met with a problem of not being able to understand Causation as we have one unknown entity interacting with another without knowing anything about its basic workings.

Not necessarily, as I suggested, experiential worlds are and can only be this way. The different kind of something, (if it’s there) uses the experiential world as a vehicle. Utilises the structure for some reason.

To jump into highly speculative territory the mental stuff could be atemporal and therefore to talk of 'causation' would make little to no sense.

The other stuff could be atemporal* and as you say talk of causation (as we see it) would make little sense. Unless we posit a demiurge training baby demiurges through the experiential worlds. As I suggested in my first post.

* I had a lucid dream in which I experienced time atemporally. Laid out like a series of rooms viewed from above, the past on the left and the future on the right.

Certainly. How I define non-physical is, 'That which is not comprised of something physical.' For me there is a strange notion in science that has not been answered yet. It very well could be that this is an opportunity for something non-physical, but then again it can also be a placeholder until we figure out more.

For me it is 'attraction'. And I don't mean the love kind. Weak force, strong force, gravity...there is something so counter to the idea of what is physical in this. Let me explain.

As far as I can see, you are talking about how gravity works. Well Einstein gave an explanation, that in the fabric of spacetime there is an effect like a gradient between masses drawing them together. Yes there may be something immaterial about that, but the theory doesn’t suggest it.

Another is an uncaused reality, and this one I'm much more certain on. This is mostly attributed to a god, but I mean the reality that the universe ultimately, must be uncaused.

I understand your thought process here, but I fall in behind Bob Ross and Timothy on that discussion. Although personally I would say how we and the universe came into existence is a deep mystery and it’s pointless trying to work it out until someone (who knows) comes along to tell us how it works.

We've seen the results from property dualism, now you want to imagine IF substance dualism exists. I already mentioned that there is absolutely nothing we could glean about causality because we don't know what the properties of something non-physical would be. Would it appear to interrupt physical causality? is it the same? We don't know. — Philosophim

This is the problem for Substance Dualism. As I also demonstrated the same kind of disjoint appears for Property Dualism where we hold to physical reductionism without the need for another 'Substance'.

Many fall into the error of reframing Mental States as a kind Brain State but this still tells us nothing about the distinction of the experience of having a brain state, to a brain state causing another state (the Slap example).

For Supervenience -- focusing on the physical stuff of Brain States causing another State -- the problem is the distinction made for different States, with The Mental/Brain State (Idea to Slap) supervenes the Physical State (Motion of Hand to Slap). This means that one state changes the other but not vice versa.

So either the Brain State plays no causal role in this OR this is physical reductionism > Judging your words up to now.

Do you think there is a good reason to distinguish between me moving my hand and me thinking about moving my hand? If your answer is yes, then we have Property Dualism and it needs explaining.

From Libet's we can see examples where in physical causation someone believes they make a decisions at time B but an observer of their brain knows their decision at a prior time A. If we are looking at this form a phsyical reductionist perspective it looks a more like Epiphenomenalism is a reasonable explaination of such Mental States.

Ok, so that leaves us with 'a different kind of causality'. — Philosophim

Well, this is where the line of thinking takes us. We cannot say on the one hand Mental Acts are no different to Physical Acts (Causation with one Substance) AND also say that Physical States are indentical to Mental States because one supervenes on the other. There is a difference whether you frame this froma purely physicalist perspective or not.

This is the Hard Problem. My aim is to tryand clear up the language by focusing on the term Causal in order to divulge something that may strengthen the Phsyicalist position a little more and leave the Substance Dualist position more wanting in some ways.

As far as I can see, you are talking about how gravity works. Well Einstein gave an explanation, that in the fabric of spacetime there is an effect like a gradient between masses drawing them together. — Punshhh

Yes, its possibly physical. But this gradient is entirely theoretical, and to me, still has the 'pullling' problem that I spoke about. Appreciate your viewpoint on it.

I understand your thought process here, but I fall in behind Bob Ross and Timothy on that discussion. — Punshhh

More than fair. Bob Ross in particular really understood the issue well, and I can see his viewpoint.

Although personally I would say how we and the universe came into existence is a deep mystery and it’s pointless trying to work it out until someone (who knows) comes along to tell us how it works. — Punshhh

True. The attempt wasn't to show how, but establish what is most our most rational claim could be when we don't know. While I might be incorrect on the idea of an uncaused existence, at least you can see an example of something, the uncaused inception itself, as a clear example of something non-physical. Thanks for reading and I hope it was fun to think about.

For Supervenience -- focusing on the physical stuff of Brain States causing another State -- the problem is the distinction made for different States, with The Mental/Brain State (Idea to Slap) supervenes the Physical State (Motion of Hand to Slap). This means that one state changes the other but not vice versa. — I like sushi

I may not have communicated this clearly then. No, both states would affect each other. Let me be clear.

Lets say that to get vision A, we have two neurons set themselves into position 1. But then, we have neurons 3 and 4 looking at Vision A. The brain is making judgements about vision A. Now it may be that its simply looking at the state of position 1, but the vision impacts the brain as well. Only in the case of substance dualism is it possible that the vision of the brain does not impact the brain itself. All physical interactions affect one another.

So either the Brain State plays no causal role in this OR this is physical reductionism — I like sushi

I'm not a fan of 'reductionism' here, but that may be bias. The 'mental state' IS the physical process. Its not 'reduced' to a physical process. The subjective experience of 'state 1' is a physical thing with neurons actively analyzing the process and coming up with new thoughts.

Do you think there is a good reason to distinguish between me moving my hand and me thinking about moving my hand? If your answer is yes, then we have Property Dualism and it needs explaining. — I like sushi

Yes, but it doesn't require property dualism.

"State 1" is me envisioning a cat. Two other neurons analyze the message from state 1 and 'analyse it' State 2 for them is 'Continuing to think about the cat' and state 3 is "Stop thinking about the cat". So we can say that neurons 3 and 4 are analyzing the state message that's coming from neurons 1 and 2. We can come up with, the process of "the vision" and "analyzing the vision". Both are physical. The categorization is 'vision' vs 'thought about vision'. This doesn't deny that both are physical processes, but we can categorize them using different language to better understand what's going on besides "Physical thought processes another physical thought".

If we are looking at this form a phsyical reductionist perspective it looks a more like Epiphenomenalism is a reasonable explaination of such Mental States. — I like sushi

Epiphenominalism fails because it is impossible for one physical process to not impact another. Impossible.

Ok, so that leaves us with 'a different kind of causality'.
— Philosophim

Well, this is where the line of thinking takes us. — I like sushi

I hope clarifying my point means we don't have to go down this route. In fact, causality is so fully defined, I don't think there can be 'a different kind of causality', and any ideas that lead to this road should use that as an indicator that the line of thinking that lead there is a dead end.

We can clearly see brain states influencing behaviors and responses from individuals that demonstrate altered brain states alter the person's subjective experience. — Philosophim

The HPoC is explaining why the altered brain states alter the person's subjective experience. Why do brain states have subjective experience at all? There is no physicalist theory, or even a guess. As Hoffman and Greene said about the physical properties off the universe:
"is utterly different in nature than conscious experience".
"there is nothing that even hints at the inner experiences those particles somehow generate."
"seem completely disconnected from anything remotely like subjective experience."

That it happens in the physical brain is the answer to where it happens. The Hard Problem is how. If I rubbed two sticks together and a geyser of water shot out of it, you would ask how that happened. You would not be satisfied if I answered that it came from the wood. That's not an explanation. Neither is brain activity an answer to how subjective experience comes about.

Why do brain states have subjective experience at all? — Patterner

We might be going around a little, and that's fine. Its not been an unpleasant go-around, but we might be coming to an irreconcilable rift in the conversation.

My point is that question is not special. Its the same question you can ask of anything. Its not a question that can be answered by mechanics. "Why is water wet?" is not answered by the molecular structure of water. It answers the 'what', not 'why'. Why isn't H2O sandy for example? Why is it 'water' and not 'dirt'. Because that's how matter is when H2O happens in reality. Why? We don't know.

Why is it that atoms are two neutrons and protons with orbiting electrons? Why does an electron even exist? Why does gravity exist? Why does subjective experience exist? All are the same type of unanswerable question.

Hoffman and Greene said about the physical properties off the universe:
"is utterly different in nature than conscious experience". — Patterner

They simply don't understand the question they're asking then. Its the same question. Why is water wet when H2O happens? Because it does. Why is a brain conscious? Because it is. We can know the mechanics of H2O. We can know the mechanics of the brain that produce a person stating they have a subjective experience. But we can't know why.

Lets look at it another way. Lets say that there is a physical and a completely different substance called 'mental'. Why? We could even break it down and show the exact interactions that produce mental subjective experience. It still wouldn't answer why. Why does not change the fact of what is. And what is in consciousness is clear and undeniable. Matter and energy, when combined a certain way, at minimal with neuronal states, produce subjective experience. The only way we know this is because we ourselves have some version of subjective experience, and we assume by logical belief that everyone else does as well.

But I mean, its clear. You have subjective experience right? You're made of matter and energy. Everything about your consciousness is like the thing in the box I mentioned in a previous post. Its stuck in the box of your brain, and everything we do to it physically results in generally predictable physical outcomes. There is no actual indicator that your consciousness acts in any manner that is different from a physical process then the fact that you don't know 'why' neurons have subjective experience. The only rational conclusion is that consciousness is simply an expression of matter and energy, just like the wetness of water. It is in no way special or different. Just another form of the wonder of physical reality itself.

"there is nothing that even hints at the inner experiences those particles somehow generate." — Patterner

Here they're just wrong. Its us. We are physical things, we have subjective experience. Neuroscience has proven our physical brain are the source, physical manipulation of the brain changes subjective experience, therefore the most rational conclusion is simply that water is wet, and brains can have subjective experience.

"seem completely disconnected from anything remotely like subjective experience." — Patterner

And H2O seems completely disconnected from hydrogen alone or oxygen alone. Yet magically, actually magically, its wet. No need to posit something non-physical to explain this absolutely mind-blowing marvel. Its just one more aspect of physical reality.

If I rubbed two sticks together and a geyser of water shot out of it, you would ask how that happened. You would not be satisfied if I answered that it came from the wood — Patterner

I have never been satisifed with the answer as to why 'water is wet'. It makes no sense. Why does a thing called Oxygen even exist? Why are there electrons, protons, and neutrons? Why is there anything, and why is it 'x' instead of 'y'? There are no answers. Consciousness for me is just the same question wrapped up in different words Patterner. But I don't question that water is H2O because of the science, and I don't question that consciousness is a physical process of brains because of the science. Don't know if that explains my viewpoint, and I'll understand if you disagree. But the way I see the world, consciousness is absolutely nothing special. It all is.

The label not wanting to be owned here is Physical Eliminativism. @Philosophim does not believe there is a Hard Problem. Daniel Dennett is another example of this kind of thinking.

I suggest you use this term (Eliminativism) to describe your position in the future and perhaps look it up and address the arguments against it.

To be clear, there is no clear concensus on this. There is no proof of any of the positions put forward. We just do not know. Some appeal to different people depending mostly upon their intuitions (experience) not merely Evidence (that can be called 'mere' when we are doing philosophy).

Some people are unaware of physicalism for the same reason fish are unaware of water :lol:

The label not wanting to be owned here is Physical Eliminativism. — I like sushi

Ok, you need to present why you think that. I looked it up briefly and my points don't fit what you claim. Please point out why. I'm also a bit put aback by this. The only reason I could think you would attempt to link me to a philosophy that I hold no claim to is because you are unable to address the points I've directly presented.

Philosophim does not believe there is a Hard Problem. — I like sushi

Incorrect. We cannot know what its like to have the subjective experience of another individual, and while this is the case, the hard problem will be unsolvable.

↪Philosophim I suggest you use this term (Eliminativism) to describe your position in the future and perhaps look it up and address the arguments against it. — I like sushi

I suggest you not pull a fast one and try to label a poster as holding a position they clearly do not hold without explaining why. Further, I've been speaking with you specifically to your issues, I do not think you needed to tag other people in this thread. I've been very polite with you and thought we were having a nice conversation. Want to pull back a bit and keep talking with me on the issues I've noted and make sure you understand fully before hoisting a label that doesn't fit me?

Look at my points again and address them as is. Trying to tie me to something without a good reason and ignoring my points is a straw man tactic. Don't be like Wayfarer who acts childish when he realizes he's beat.

I suggest you not pull a fast one and try to label a poster as holding a position they clearly do not hold without explaining why. — Philosophim

Look it up. I am not stating you hold this rigidly (at least I hope not). The point is you need to understand the counter arguments involved.

I am not here to teach you the terminology involved. I have been helpful enough to demarcate your general thoughts into the appropriate area.

If you are just going to get all defensive because you do not understand the contradictions you are articulating -- even when pointed out multi times by myself and probably others too -- then please do leave the thread and start your own.

Some people are unaware of physicalism for the same reason fish are unaware of water.

Does a fish know what it’s like to be wet?

I suggest you not pull a fast one and try to label a poster as holding a position they clearly do not hold without explaining why.
— Philosophim

Look it up. I am not stating you hold this rigidly (at least I hope not). The point is you need to understand the counter arguments involved. — I like sushi

No, it is not my responsibility to hear a claim from you and do all the work. You provide a claim, you explain with evidence why that claim fits, and then I'll answer your point. You are begging the question by assuming its simply true without a reason.

If you are just going to get all defensive because you do not understand the contradictions you are articulating — I like sushi

It is your job to point out the contradictions in what I'm stating and demonstrate why. I see only accusation, no articulation why. "You're wrong because I say so," does not work.

please do leave the thread and start your own. — I like sushi

I asked you earlier if you would like me to leave the thread because I was worried I had derailed from your OP. You said it was fine. I have answered you specifically on all of your questions and tried to get back to the OP. Now suddenly you're using logical fallacies and saying I need to leave the thread when I'm on topic?

Let's be very clear, the first to use obvious logical fallacies like yourself and not recant or at least try to explain themselves when its pointed out, is the one admitting to the person they were speaking with that they made a point you couldn't counter. You misunderstand. This isn't me being defensive. This is me giving you one last out before I walk away from this discussion as the person with clearly the better points. I get to walk out with class, you don't as it is now.

You don't even have to keep going in the discussion with me. A simple, "Thanks for the discussion. You've made some good points, but I'm going to hold to my end. See you around." is all you have to do. I was holding some genuine respect for you. Should I continue to?

Should I continue to? — Philosophim

No. I think not.

It is your job to point out the contradictions in what I'm stating and demonstrate why. I see only accusation, no articulation why. "You're wrong because I say so," does not work. — Philosophim

The problem is I have articulated why twice.

If you hold to there being a difference between Properties of items under discussion AND hold that there is no Substance Dualism then it doe snot logically follow that you can have this both ways due to the condition of Supervenience -- if two causally related items are connected one supervenes the other. In this case the Physical of the Mental Property supervenes the Physical Property. Even if you frame both from a physicalist stance (it is all physical stuff) there is still the matter of Supervenience to explain. Herein lies the contradiction of which the only way out is to opt for a kind of Eliminativism -- the denial of any significant difference and to frame a thought as purely physical while intuitively appearing otherwise in terms of basic day-to-day causally subjective experience.

You cannot have your cake and eat it. EVERY position has this problem.

Do you understand now? This is the third time I have tried to articulate this better. It seems like you are reading what is written but not really READING it. Forget what you believe to be the case and pick out the problem of logical reasoning.

I am assuming you have not solved the Hard Problem ;) ?? Excuse me for being a tad impatient here. It is the nature of this kind of online discussion. All too often one can assume people understand X when they have never heard of X before > That is why I suggested looking at the terminology involved, just like throwing around terms like Neural Priming, Inhibition of Return, Top-Down or Bottom-Up, Libet's Experiment and such may not mean all that much to those with a passing interest mistaken as a full understanding.

To be fair it is quite a subtle problem and many people miss it.

@Philosophim Perhaps this will help show the difference?

If you hold an Eliminativist position then Supervenience is almost irrelevant. If you see no instance of one thing supervening another then you are holding an Eliminativist position. There is still an issue here regarding how we intuitively seem to experience one item (Mental Act) supervening another (Physical Act) regardless of there Substance.

This is not a term of insult it is just a fact of the philosophical terminology. Knowing your position helps people better understand what arguments therer are against it and for it.

Edit: I myself am more than a little sympathetic with the Eliminativist position!

Should I continue to?
— Philosophim

No. I think not. — I like sushi

Well too bad, I'm going to respect you still for making a good follow up post. :)

I think there might have been a misunderstanding between us. If you recall, you wanted me to explore an IF scenario, and perhaps between me saying, "Ok, lets assume X is true" and my own viewpoints, what was thinking in your scenario vs my viewpoints may have gotten mixed up.

So, supervenience. To my understanding of the word, it is a non-causal dependency relationship. I think you misunderstood, or I did not communicate clearly enough, what was supervenient. I did not mean to imply that mental properties were supervenient to the brain. I meant that mental properties were supervenient to physical properties. In other words, subjective experience is still a physical property at the end of the day, not a brand new separate substance of existence. I say this not because I don't think that there can't exist a non-physical substance, its that I see no evidence that it could be some type of non-physical substance. Its why I've been asking for people to define exactly what they mean by 'non-physical' and present an example of something 'non-physical' existing that wasn't merely a miscategorization of something physical.

To repeat, I don't say mental properties are supervenient on the brain, but physical processes of the brain. I don't think supervenience works very well in regards to the brain because as I noted, physical processes affect other physical processes. Meaning, that IF subjective experience is a physical process, it impacts other physical processes in the brain. We see this in studies as well. The placebo affect. Creating positive subjective experiences can affect the brain's objective state in a positive manner. Supervenience as a description here does not work because these are causal dependency relationships.

If you hold to there being a difference between Properties of items under discussion AND hold that there is no Substance Dualism then it does not logically follow that you can have this both ways due to the condition of Supervenience — I like sushi

As you can see, I hold no substance dualism, there can still be a difference between subjective experience and objective observation, but we do not have supervenience between the brain's objective actions and subjective physical experiences of the brain are two separate physical processes that affect each other.

The only reason why someone can even propose that the subjective experience of the brain is 'non-physical' as something plausible, is because we cannot objectively identify subjective experience. We cannot 'be' some other thing besides ourselves. Because we cannot currently do this (and maybe never will be able to), this results in the hard problem. How do we figure out the link between our objective knowledge of the brain and the subjective experience of that brain? Currently, we can't.

Even if you sat down and mapped out your specific brain to your subjective experiences, how do you mark that down objectively? "I see green. But you might also feel happy. And might also be thinking of what you're having for dinner." You can describe all of that, but how can anyone else objectively understand that? What do you mean, "You see green?" Is it the same green that I see. What are the dimensions of green. How do you chart mental space in dimensions? What is the experience of being happy for you vs any other person? How do I objectively write down and measure a 'feeling'? Where in your mental space are you seeing green vs thinking about what you're having for dinner tonight?

In other words, we have no objective means of describing and recording subjective experience. The subjective experience of one individual is only inferred by another, never objectively known. As such, we can't even correctly map our own personal subjective experience in a way that accurately captures our own subjective experience, let alone others. That is why its impossible to link the objective mind to subjective experience in specific detail. We lack the measuring tools, concepts, and capabilities to do so.

This has caused some to think, "Does that mean that subjective experience is something non-physical?" A great idea to explore. Whenever humanity is faced with limits, we can still use logic based on what we know to come to at least some reasonable conclusions. Quantum mechanics is completely based around this idea. It is currently impossible for us to measure a quantum state without our very measuring tools affecting the outcome of the quantum state. Despite this, we've made a logical scientific theory that is often used successfully in the real world.

The brain is the same thing. We can approach the brain and ask if subjective experience is non-physical. Of course, we first have to define what physical is, then define what non-physical would be. Then in tests, we would look for results that either fit in with physical results, or outside of expected results. What neuroscience and pharmacology have consistently resulted in over decades is that subjective experience is a physical process. It follows and behaves physical laws. Its tied to a physical location in space. Physical drugs and manipulation of the brain result in rather consistent outcomes like physical laws entail. Subjective experiences affect the brain just like causal interactions between physical things do.

For subjective experience, we would need examples of outcomes which are necessarily non-physical. Thoughts not tied to the brain for example. One way causality. Physical affects on the brain, the location of subjective experience, having consistently unpredictable outcomes on subjective experience.
That, to my knowledge, simply hasn't been the results we've seen. Time and time again, despite not being able to specifically record and detail subjective experience objectively, the outcomes in which subjective experience are broadly generated implies a physical reality, not some other non-physical substance.

So, this is why I'm not a physicalist. I do not assert that everything is physical. I simply assert that subjective experience can be reasonably concluded as physical because there is no indication of subjective experience being non-physical in decades of exploring the brain. Could it be that tomorrow we do find something non-physical about subjective experience? Sure, anything is possible. But asserting that subjective experience must be non-physical does not align with our current understanding of science. It is the far less reasonable conclusion to make, and to my understanding held together by a wish and a hope that our inability to objectively record subjective experience allows that something non-physical could be hiding there. The problem of course with dreams like this, is without any evidence its simply as likely to be physical. With the fact that there is a mountain of evidence that subjective experience is physical, and almost none that it is non-physical, the rational position is to assume at this point that subjective experience is physical.

What does that make me? Just a person who believes the most rational conclusion we can make with the current scientific evidence that we have now, is that subjective experience is physical. No claims in how exactly the brain maps to it. No claims that the hard problem doesn't exist. No claims that we can objectively map subjective experience down. Just noting that when we define physical vs non-physical and look at the tests over the years, the evidence for subjective experience being physical is overwhelming while the evidence for it being non-physical is almost null.