Robustness of a theory is subjective. It's robust enough for me. — Isaac
Consciousness does not yet need any mystical forces, there's no reason to believe it isn't just something brains do. — Isaac
definitely makes a difference in how you experience that process for it to be your brain undergoing it instead of someone else’s. — Pfhorrest
There are a number of speculations about how phenomenal consciousness works. Which one is your favorite? There used to be one about a central drawing board. Is that one still in play? — frank
think conscious experience is just the association of multiple parts of the brain with senate inputs. What it's like to see Red (not that I agree with the terminology of the question) is to have multiple areas of the brain interact in response to the stimuli. — Isaac
no amount of studying human sexuality in the third person can tell you what it’s like to have sex. — Pfhorrest
imagine redness from those memories. — Pfhorrest
Are you familiar with Chalmers' Hard Problem?
— frank
Yes. I don't agree it's remotely hard. — Isaac
When you imagine yourself running, you have memories of running or at least similar motor functions with which to generate that mental image. When you see someone in pain, you can sympathize because you have memories of your own pains. — Pfhorrest
The point is to highlight something that you can’t know just from observing other people. — Pfhorrest
Is there a sexness? Do I somehow have access to sexness because I've had sex? "What is it like" is an analogy disguised as an event. — fdrake
Well I agree that Mary could not know what it’s like to see color no matter how much other information she had. — Pfhorrest
Colour-blind synaesthetes have experiences of colour in response to other senses, — Isaac
Descriptions of what it's like are analogies. Could Mary understand any analogy with seeing red if she can't even see red? — Janus
It’s completely trivial and not worth the words we’ve all spent talking about it. — Pfhorrest
...know what it’s like to experience color. — Pfhorrest
t doesn’t sound like we disagree. — Pfhorrest
On the contrary! .. medicine has no power to solve the mental problems you have expressed, and philosophical errors are the only cause of them.I'm saying that maybe there's not a philosophical solution to that problem, maybe there's only a medical one. — Pfhorrest
See, I can pick the first thing you say and show you, the problem is a philosophical bind of non-sense, rooted in an unrealistic idealism. Medicine can't solve that problem. The solution only comes by understanding that the true reason that your "first-person experience" is not like a rock's "first-person experience", is not because of function, but life. That is why only philosophy can fix mental illness, and medication, as a pacifier and substitution, can be useful in buying valuable time for Him who does the healing work.functionality, which is what varies between me and rocks and clouds and so on. A rock may have a "first-person experience" — Pfhorrest
Arguing about panpsychism is really beyond the scope of this thread. — Pfhorrest
And those are still experiences of color, and if they had not had them, they would not know what it’s like to experience color. — Pfhorrest
I'm extremely suspicious that what goes on when we think about "what is it like to X" is that we aggregate over X experiences and form commonalities and analogies; and then we retroject the commonalities and analogies into the experience without giving a simultaneous account of how commonalities and analogies are always already embedded in first person experiences in the first place. — fdrake
I'm extremely suspicious that what goes on when we think about "what is it like to X" is that we aggregate over X experiences and form commonalities and analogies; and then we retroject the commonalities and analogies into the experience without giving a simultaneous account of how commonalities and analogies are always already embedded in first person experiences in the first place. — fdrake
Chalmers speculated at one point that Dennett might truly represent a different kind of consciousness, that he might be a sign that we're not all alike. — frank
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