Isn't "experiencing experience" just consciousness of self--the "I" watching itself do things? I observe myself sitting at a table, coffee to the right, screen to the front, reading your question. Earlier I experienced the experience of making the coffee.

Consciousness of self happens to us, whether it has any use or not. We do not make it happen, and we are not responsible for it, and we didn't have use in mind. Be that as it may, being able to experience experience, being conscious of what is happening to us and what we are doing, is the means by which we guide further experiences, and is one of the keys to the difference between ourselves and other animals.

Maybe other animals have some limited self-consciousness, but "it is thought by some people" that they don't have a lot, if they have any. Personally, I think some animals have at least a glimmer of self-consciousness. For instance, some animals (like elephants) pass the "self - mirror test". (An elephant is familiarized with its image in a mirror; later, a mark is applied to its forehead. Will the elephant notice the mark when it next looks into the mirror? Yes. Most animals don't.)

I think you have a false premise.
There is no dichotomy between experience and experiencing experience.
We experience; that is enough.
If by experience experience, you really meanreflecting on memories then you have something. So an experience remembered, "re-lived" though with the partiality of narrative limits, then that's your question. I think.

I am not sure if there is an "I". There could be only simple experience. There is still a problem even if I agree with your interpretation, that there is an "I". The "I" is simply the experiencer of what it is provided by brain whether what is provided by brain is perceived through sensory system or it is thoughts or feeling. Everything which "I" perceives is external to "I". Our brain in reality should simply feed "I" with what it perceives or process. The problem is how the brain could perceive "I" in order to feed "I" so "I" can watch "I" doing things.

You can of course reflect on your memory but you can even experience what you experience at instant you experience them. You just need to focally focus on your experience rather than content of your experience.

Just a small point on English... Don't forget to put the article "the" in front nouns, such as the brain, the product, the instant, the content... Now, I wish I could think of one simple rule that would cover all the possible placements of "the", "a", and "an" in front of nouns, but I can not.

Not supplying the article where it belongs usually doesn't change meaning a great deal, but it is slightly jarring to read text where "the", "a", and "an" are missing.

There is still a problem even if I agree with your interpretation, that there is an "I". — bahman

There is someone (you, bahman) who is speaking as an "I". If there is no "I" speaking as bahman, then who is speaking?

Our brain in reality should simply feed "I" with what it perceives or process. The problem is how the brain could perceive "I" in order to feed "I" so "I" can watch "I" doing things. — bahman

Right. This is complicated. We could, as the expression goes, "quickly get lost in the weeds" with this. But... There is the conscious mind and the unconscious mind. Both of them "are you" 100% but one function of the conscious mind is to project a person--"I"--to the rest of the world. The unconscious mind (not the Freudian unconscious, but the unconscious part of the brain that does the work) does not represent itself directly. It provides the "I" with a steady flow of organized data. The conscious mind doesn't see or hear "raw" sensory information, because it doesn't mean anything until it is processed by the hearing, vision, language, and memory centers, etc.

The problem in talking about "I" and "you" is that we just don't know where in the brain the "conscious representation of self" is located, or how it is created by the brain.

I think there should be first some definitions of the concept you've brought up! What is experience?
According to Britannica, "According to one modern version of the assumption, developed by the 17th-century philosopher René Descartes, all experience is subjective, an exclusively mental phenomenon that cannot provide evidence of the existence or the nature of the physical world, the “matter” of which is ultimately nothing more than changeless extension in motion."
One can deduce anything from what's going on around.
I somehow agree with Bitter Crank. Yes, it's like observing oneself from above. Imagine you are talking with someone, and at the same time your attention goes to a higher level in a way you can see yourself and the other person from another perspective, so that it may help you in the way you respond and react.
And experiencing something inevitably puts in data in our memory, so that we can analyze it and point out something useful for future.. One can simultaneously experience something and also analyze its data. it depend on where the attention is focused.

Just a small point on English... Don't forget to put the article "the" in front nouns, such as the brain, the product, the instant, the content... Now, I wish I could think of one simple rule that would cover all the possible placements of "the", "a", and "an" in front of nouns, but I can not. — Bitter Crank

Thanks for the correction.

Not supplying the article where it belongs usually doesn't change meaning a great deal, but it is slightly jarring to read text where "the", "a", and "an" are missing. — Bitter Crank

I am sorry for my bad English. I am just reflecting as I am writing. I don't have any article on this.

There is someone (you, bahman) who is speaking as an "I". If there is no "I" speaking as bahman, then who is speaking? — Bitter Crank

The only thing which I can certainly say that experience exists. The "I" is construct of the brain activities so it doesn't have any essence but it can be experienced.

Right. This is complicated. We could, as the expression goes, "quickly get lost in the weeds" with this. But... There is the conscious mind and the unconscious mind. Both of them "are you" 100% but one function of the conscious mind is to project a person--"I"--to the rest of the world. The unconscious mind (not the Freudian unconscious, but the unconscious part of the brain that does the work) does not represent itself directly. It provides the "I" with a steady flow of organized data. The conscious mind doesn't see or hear "raw" sensory information, because it doesn't mean anything until it is processed by the hearing, vision, language, and memory centers, etc.

The problem in talking about "I" and "you" is that we just don't know where in the brain the "conscious representation of self" is located, or how it is created by the brain. — Bitter Crank

Well, are you a dualist or monist/materialist?

The problem that I mentioned in OP is related to materialism. The experience is byproduct of brain activity in this system. It seems absurd to me that we can experience experience. Its function also is not clear to me. At the end we are just sorting and processing data. That as you mentioned is duty of subconscious mind. What does conscious mind useful except projecting a person to the rest of the world?

Later, I mentioned the problem related to dualism when you have an "I" as separate substance.

I think there should be first some definitions of the concept you've brought up! What is experience?
According to Britannica, "According to one modern version of the assumption, developed by the 17th-century philosopher René Descartes, all experience is subjective, an exclusively mental phenomenon that cannot provide evidence of the existence or the nature of the physical world, the “matter” of which is ultimately nothing more than changeless extension in motion." — phrzn

This is dualist picture when there is a separate substance--"I"--which is experiencer. In another picture, experience create by the brain activity is the only thing which is real. Experience is the first thing which attaches us to the reality. I can doubt "I" and say that it is byproduct of brain activity. But I cannot doubt experience.

One can deduce anything from what's going on around.
I somehow agree with Bitter Crank. Yes, it's like observing oneself from above. Imagine you are talking with someone, and at the same time your attention goes to a higher level in a way you can see yourself and the other person from another perspective, so that it may help you in the way you respond and react.
And experiencing something inevitably puts in data in our memory, so that we can analyze it and point out something useful for future.. One can simultaneously experience something and also analyze its data. it depend on where the attention is focused. — phrzn

I agree with what you stated. My question is however is that what is the use of experiencing "I" in materialism.

Experience, memory, data and the whole idea of oneself all are the same. Experience exists for you as far as your brain processes the information and keeps the necessary parts in short-term or long-term memory due to its practicality!
About materialism, I don't specifically believe in it, actually!

This is dualist picture when there is a separate substance--"I"--which is experiencer. In another picture, experience create by the brain activity is the only thing which is real. Experience is the first thing which attaches us to the reality. I can doubt "I" and say that it is byproduct of brain activity. But I cannot doubt experience. — bahman

Experience requires a division between what is self and what is world. To know where the world and its recalcitrant nature starts, the brain has to know where the body and its intentionality leaves off. So to experience the world requires the equally primary experience of the self.

My favourite example is chewing your dinner. Somehow you have to be very sure which bit is your tongue, lips and cheek, which bit is the grisly steak, as your teeth chomp away with savage abandon.

But as has been said, you seem to be talking more about self-consciousness rather than just conscious awareness.

All animals have a sense of self as part of their states of experience. In seeing the world, they see it from their own point of view - the view that includes themselves in the sense of an embodied intentionality that contrast with a world of external material possibilities.

But self-consciousness is a linguistically-structured and culturally-evolved learnt skill. It is not biological but social. We humans learn to objectify our being so as to be psychologically self-regulating. So the reason we are self-conscious is that society needs us to have that habit of attending introspectively - to be policing our own behaviour as socially-constrained creatures.

Biologically there is every reason to make a psychological self~world experiential distinction, but no particular way that this experiencing could be experienced as experiencing. Animals lack the meta-structure that language can provide.

Socially, you can't be a proper human unless you have mastered self-regulation through language. Objectifying your own psychological being is the central skill required to be part of a social order.

If experience is product of brain activity then how possibly we can experience experience? — bahman

You need to elaborate on this. What does experience being a product of brain activity make it hard to understand how we can be aware of our experiences?

What is the use of experiencing of experience? — bahman

Because we can talk about what we experience.

Maybe other animals have some limited self-consciousness, but "it is thought by some people" that they don't have a lot, if they have any. Personally, I think some animals have at least a glimmer of self-consciousness. For instance, some animals (like elephants) pass the "self - mirror test". (An elephant is familiarized with its image in a mirror; later, a mark is applied to its forehead. Will the elephant notice the mark when it next looks into the mirror? Yes. Most animals don't.) — Bitter Crank

The mirror test tests self-recognition, not consciousness, and even that based solely on the visuality. A robot has been built that passed it, even.

I doubt we can simultaneously be aware of, as well as aware of our awareness of, anything. I seem to be able to switch instantaneously from one to the other, but not to hold both together.

"You can do as you will but you cannot will as you will", Schopenhauer

You cannot experience what you experience. This is getting silly.

The mirror test tests self-recognition, not consciousness, and even that based solely on the visuality. A robot has been built that passed it, even. — BlueBanana

Could the elephant succeed in the self-recognition test, if it had no self-consciousness?

Regarding the test-passing robot... Who and how was it programmed?

The mirror test tests self-recognition, not consciousness, and even that based solely on the visuality. — BlueBanana

It is correct to make the distinction between self-recognition and what we really mean by self-conscious.

It is quite natural for big brained social animals - like chimps, elephants and dolphins - to have a sense of self that goes beyond just a perception of their bodies and intentionality in contrast to the world about them. They are also aware of this difference in terms of their social world too. They are aware of being surrounded by individuals who are also loci of intentionality that must be factored into the equation.

Indeed, the primary reason for having metabolically-costly big brains is to underwrite these kinds of complex social computations.

So the mirror test is a test of an animal's ability to see the world in terms of the presence of other minds - other social actors. And then to recognise an image in the mirror is that of themselves - their own embodied presence.

But self-consciousness goes way beyond this in being a linguistic structuring of the whole of the mind. Language use underwrites a narrative or autobiographical approach to memory. It allows "voluntary recall" of our past history as a self. The animal brain can only apply past experience to the present moment. So recognising - making sense of the flow of the present - is the biological-level ability. Recollection is the learnt language-based skill that only humans properly have, and the one that culture cultivates so as to ensure we "never forget ourselves" in polite company. :)

Could the elephant succeed in the self-recognition test, if it had no self-consciousness? — Bitter Crank

Considering the philosophical zombies, why not?

Experience, memory, data and the whole idea of oneself all are the same. — phrzn

Are you saying that these are all physical state resulted from neurons activity? I would agree with you in this sense otherwise you need to be more specific about what do you mean with same.

Experience exists for you as far as your brain processes the information and keeps the necessary parts in short-term or long-term memory due to its practicality! — phrzn

No. I think experience exists when conscious mind gets involved.

About materialism, I don't specifically believe in it, actually! — phrzn

I have problems with dualism as well as materialism but I am inclined more toward materialism because it makes more sense.

Experience requires a division between what is self and what is world. To know where the world and its recalcitrant nature starts, the brain has to know where the body and its intentionality leaves off. So to experience the world requires the equally primary experience of the self.

My favourite example is chewing your dinner. Somehow you have to be very sure which bit is your tongue, lips and cheek, which bit is the grisly steak, as your teeth chomp away with savage abandon.

But as has been said, you seem to be talking more about self-consciousness rather than just conscious awareness.

All animals have a sense of self as part of their states of experience. In seeing the world, they see it from their own point of view - the view that includes themselves in the sense of an embodied intentionality that contrast with a world of external material possibilities.

But self-consciousness is a linguistically-structured and culturally-evolved learnt skill. It is not biological but social. We humans learn to objectify our being so as to be psychologically self-regulating. So the reason we are self-conscious is that society needs us to have that habit of attending introspectively - to be policing our own behaviour as socially-constrained creatures.

Biologically there is every reason to make a psychological self~world experiential distinction, but no particular way that this experiencing could be experienced as experiencing. Animals lack the meta-structure that language can provide.

Socially, you can't be a proper human unless you have mastered self-regulation through language. Objectifying your own psychological being is the central skill required to be part of a social order. — apokrisis

I like this and I agree with it.

You need to elaborate on this. What does experience being a product of brain activity make it hard to understand how we can be aware of our experiences? — Purple Pond

This is hard to formulate verbally but I give it a shoot. The experience is a brain state. Brain can experience things/physicals and each experience related to a brain state. It seems absurd to me that brain can be aware of its internal states, experience, because a state is not physical but rather the result of physical activity.

Because we can talk about what we experience. — Purple Pond

And what is the practical use of this?

I doubt we can simultaneously be aware of, as well as aware of our awareness of, anything. I seem to be able to switch instantaneously from one to the other, but not to hold both together. — Janus

That is true. We need to switch.

"You can do as you will but you cannot will as you will", Schopenhauer

You cannot experience what you experience. This is getting silly. — charleton

So you disagree that you can experience experience? Are you aware of being able that can experience?

Are you saying that these are all physical state resulted from neurons activity? I would agree with you in this sense otherwise you need to be more specific about what do you mean with same.

Yes, somehow. I do still think that there are unknown parts we have no idea...

No. I think experience exists when conscious mind gets involved.

I don't actually see any difference between what we both said! Yep, it's conscious, selective and subjective process.

It seems absurd to me that brain can be aware of its internal states, experience, because a state is not physical but rather the result of physical activity. — bahman

Are you sure that experiences can't be physical. Many physical things are the result of physical activity. For example, the rotation of a fan blade produces something physical - wind.

And what is the practical use of this? — bahman

Are you kidding me? How often did you tell someone "you've got to try this, it feels amazing"?

Are you sure that experiences can't be physical. Many physical things are the result of physical activity. For example, the rotation of a fan blade produces something physical - wind. — Purple Pond

We have physical and each physical system is in a state. Physical state is different from physical. A state simply states what is the response of a system to a stimuli. Iron for example is physical but its solidity is a state. We experience physical and our content of our experience in most case reflect the state of physical. Experience is a physical state so it cannot be experienced within materialism.

Are you kidding me? How often did you tell someone "you got to try this, it felt amazing"? — Purple Pond

The thing which feels amazing must have a good functioning in your body. The question is why it should come with an experience? Why things doesn't go in dark? This is hard problem of consciousness as far as I understand.

Experience is a physical state so it cannot be experienced within materialism. — bahman

When I think of physical states I think of how matter is arranged such solid, liquid, and gas. I find it hard to conceptualize experience (i.e brain states) being a physical state, but then again I'm no brain scientist.

The thing which feels amazing must have a good functioning in your body. The question is why it should come with an experience? Why things doesn't go in dark? This is hard problem of consciousness as far as I understand. — bahman

If everything goes in the dark then it would be impossible to communicate what is happening. We (humans) are a social species and we need experience in order to communicate what happens.

I am sure that we can agree on the fact that we can experience experience. I have two questions here: (1) If experience is product of brain activity then how possibly we can experience experience? and (2) What is the use of experiencing of experience?

I'd say self aware, but experience itself, I think is of the inside or of the outside, there is always a distance between us and what we are experiencing on the outside, but no such distance appears on the inside. The differential is the body, whose position is kinda like a vague limit, it works.

The ego is not one "I", it is many. The unity of the ego is tied up in the specificity of the body to a large extent, and as it changes we change, what comprises our understanding of ourselves changes, over time.

Experience is a physical state so it cannot be experienced within materialism.
— bahman
When I think of physical states I think of how matter is arranged such solid, liquid, and gas. I find it hard to conceptualize experience (i.e brain states) being a physical state, but then again I'm no brain scientist. — Purple Pond

Brain is physical therefore brain state is physical state.

The thing which feels amazing must have a good functioning in your body. The question is why it should come with an experience? Why things doesn't go in dark? This is hard problem of consciousness as far as I understand.
— bahman
If everything goes in the dark then it would be impossible to communicate what is happening. We (humans) are a social species and we need experience in order to communicate what happens. — Purple Pond

That as I mentioned is related to hard problem of consciousness. It is not clear to philosopher that why we need consciousness in order to communicate for example.

Brain is physical therefore brain state is physical state. — bahman

What kind of physical state is? It's not solid, nor liquid, nor gas.

That as I mentioned is related to hard problem of consciousness. It is not clear to philosopher that why we need consciousness in order to communicate for example. — bahman

I don't agree that the so called "hard problem" is harder than the "easy problem". I believe that they are the same problem.

How is consciousness different than awareness? It's hard to imagine how we can communicate properly if we aren't aware of what's going on.