Hard problem of consciousness is hard because...

3017amen

Great questions. One thought is if metaphysical abstracts (mathematics) exist independently, and their existence is both physical and non-physical (consciousness) it's entirely possible that the idea of unicorn's could exist in another realm or reality.

By the sheer fact that consciousness cannot be explained, and metaphysical abstracts exist, that logically leaves the door open for (absurd) possibilities...

Similarly; qualia, sentience, and 1st person experience goes beyond Subjectivity (subjective truth's) in trying to understand their nature. Other than relegating them to metaphysical phenomena, we have nothing to describe them.

And so I am thinking that leaves the door open for all sorts of odd or absurd notions existing in another reality.

Maybe another take away viz mathematcal abstracts or metaphysical phenomena is the question of what does it mean to exist (?).

Gnomon

You're trying to come up with an explanation of foundational principles. I don't think you realise quite how big an undertaking that is. The 'first principle' or 'ground of being' or 'source of what is' can't be so easily depicted in a new catch-phrase like 'enformationism'. — Wayfarer

Ha! I am acutely aware of how big an undertaking it is to flip my own understanding of reality upside down. Enformationism began as a flash of insight --- that immaterial Information is the foundation of reality --- and I have been trying to test that hypothesis, skeptically, for the last ten years. I have almost convinced myself, but I find it's difficult to convince others, if they don't have the same intuition that "reality is not what it seems".

I have mentioned the recent book by quantum scientist Carlo Rovelli, primarily because of its title : Reality Is Not What It Seems. But his explanation is mostly about the paradox of Quantum Gravity. I'm currently reading a book by cognitive scientist Donald Hoffman, The Case Against Reality, which is closer to the concerns of this thread : Consciousness and Perception. His explanation argues that our perception evolved to be Pragmatic (what works) instead of Veridical (truth).

All mammals, including humans, are Pragmatic Materialists by nature, because it is adaptive to assume that what you see is what's really out there. But humans are also capable of looking beneath the superfical surfaces to the underlying "foundational principles". Yet, what we have found there is the weird world of Quantum Physics, where the foundation of reality can be described, not in terms of macro-level space-time properties, but only in terms of arcane quantum mathematics, and of Unicorn metaphors for individual Particles that behave like holistic Waves. Counter-intuitively, "Wavicles" seem to be both particles and waves. Hence, Reality has been de-materialized by our extended technological senses. But most of us still act as-if what we perceive via unaided sense is what's really out there, despite the current consensus of Science that it ain't so.

Although Quantum theory has turned Classical Materialistic Physics inside-out, it is now grudgingly accepted by most scientists. So, I have tried to develop a worldview that can reconcile the reports of our Physical senses with the revelations of our technology, and our logical/mathematical inferences about the Quantum Metaphysical foundations of Reality. I call that compromise conciliation the BothAnd Principle. :cool:

BothAnd Principle : "Conceptually, the BothAnd principle is similar to Einstein's theory of Relativity, in that what you see ─ what’s true for you ─ depends on your perspective, and your frame of reference; for example, subjective or objective, religious or scientific, reductive or holistic, pragmatic or romantic, conservative or liberal, earthbound or cosmic. Ultimate or absolute reality (ideality) doesn't change, but your conception of reality does. Opposing views are not right or wrong, but more or less accurate for a particular purpose."

Mww

I think the dichotomy rears its head when we try to reconcile a priori truth's with a posteriori truth's. Meaning the fact that a priori/mathematical truth's describe the physical universe (a posteriori/cause and effect) so effectively, remains an unsolved mystery of sorts. — 3017amen

Yes, but it doesn’t have to. A priori truths are proved by pure logic (transcendental logic from one methodology), but a posteriori truths are proved from observations. It is an a posteriori truth that an object impresses my hand by its matter; it’s an a priori truth that to be an object it must have matter. If the a priori truth doesn’t hold, we are inclined to say the a posteriori truth cannot hold either. But this is not necessarily the case, for there may be some other reason of which I have no knowledge, that causes objects to impress my hand. But it is altogether impossible for logical truths to be false, because if they are, I can’t even justify any of my thoughts at all, including the very truths I thought logical. If A does not equal A, I am well and truly screwed!!!! Not to mention, now that Voyager has traversed to actual deep space and is still working, the principle of universality, itself an a priori truth we predicated to applied mathematical logic, yet always requires empirical proofs, gains credence.

So to eliminate the dichotomy, we limit a posteriori to the material and use empirical proofs, which turn out to be contingent, we limit a priori to the rational and use logical proofs, which turn out to be necessary. And we are certainly justified in doing this, because we can think things that don’t exist in the world, and there are things in the world we have not thought.

But I agree it is a mystery why our thinking is sustained by the world, how the world is so well explained by us. On the other hand, we are explaining the world to ourselves, using our own human apparatus, so....what else should we expect? Funny thing though, used to be if we didn’t know which path a particle takes, we are authorized to say it took all possible paths simultaneously (Feynman, 1948), and if we don’t know where a particle is until it is measured, then we are authorized to say it is no where, from which follows the logical assumption the measure is the causality (Heisenberg, 1927) YIKES!!!! Reason run amok, or, the way things really are? Mystery, indeed.
(Keyword....used to be)

Gnomon

I'm out of here. — Zelebg

Before you go :

"This is your last chance. After this, there is no turning back. You take the blue pill --- the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill --- you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit-hole goes."
Morpheus, The Matrix :wink:

Mww

So at least one abstract, mathematical object is definitely real: the concrete, physical world. If that's the case, then like with modal realism, which addresses why the actual world exists instead of some other possible world by assuming all possible worlds exist and "the actual" world is just the one we're in, likewise we can dissolve a lot of philosophical questions about why the concrete world follows the mathematical laws that it does by assuming that all mathematical structures exists, and "the concrete" world is just the mathematical structure of which we're a part. — Pfhorrest

Lot of stuff in there, all predicated on the possibility of a 1:1 representation/existence correspondence. Disregarding the logical impossibility of perfect replication still leaves us with a hyper-reality, where the mathematical structure and the concrete structure are the same thing, so how would we know we’ve even cognized ourselves as belonging to one or the other?

If we can’t tell the difference, we’re losing nothing by leaving ourselves with the duality we already acknowledge, rather than assume a fringe duality only a few can wrap their heads around.

Just a thought.........

Pfhorrest

Italics added - so, this is a metaphor. And, no computers are spontaneously occurring, they are built by human agents to perform a function. — Wayfarer

It is a metaphor yes, but you'll note right after where you ended that quote of me, I said "but there is no hardware running the program, the software is the primary level of reality.".

So the notion of the universe being a program irresistibly suggests a programmer. — Wayfarer

Not so, if you read through the rest of the worldview I described. A program is a bit of math. All bits of math exist, abstractly; every program that could ever be written already exists "in Plato's heaven", just like every number that could ever be thought up. One such program is indistinguishable from and so identical to our physical universe, and that just is the concrete world: concrete only because it's the one we're a part of. If there are intelligent substructures within other abstract objects, then to them those are concrete too.

...signals being communicated between those functional objects are thus the fundamental ontological stuff of reality... — Pfhorrest

Not really. 'Ontology' is about 'types or modes of being'. And this doesn't say anything about ontology, or how 'those signals' come to be, other than today's universal assumption that it relies on an ability that 'must have evolved'. — Wayfarer

You get that I'm talking about fundamental physics and not living things here, right? I'm talking about things like two electrons repelling each other by exchanging a photon, like in a Feynman diagram. That photon passed between them is the kind of signal I'm talking about. Evolution is inapplicable at that level; I'm definitely not saying that electrons evolved interaction with the electromagnetic field because it was advantageous to their survival or anything like that.

Pfhorrest

Lot of stuff in there, all predicated on the possibility of a 1:1 representation/existence correspondence. Disregarding the logical impossibility of perfect replication — Mww

I'm not talking about it being possible for us here in this universe to actually come up with a perfect mathematical replica of the entire universe, just pointing out that the way we ordinarily talk about mathematical objects, two structures that are indistinguishable other than that we call them by different names are the same structure, so whatever the perfect mathematical description of our concrete world would be (even if we can never pin down what it is), that is identical to the concrete world. Not only in that sense, but in the sense that such a perfect model of this world would contain within it models of you and me having this conversation, so there's no way of telling whether we're in "this real world" or "that model of it", again leaving us with indistinguishable things that we may as well consider identical for all practical purposes.

still leaves us with a hyper-reality, where the mathematical structure and the concrete structure are the same thing, so how would we know we’ve even cognized ourselves as belonging to one or the other?

If we can’t tell the difference, we’re losing nothing by leaving ourselves with the duality we already acknowledge, rather than assume a duality we can’t prove. — Mww

I'm not positing a duality, but rather doing away with them entirely. I'm saying there is at the bottom one kind of thing, abstract mathematical objects, every possible one of them. We are a part of one of them, and that one we call the "concrete world". There is no question of whether we're in the mathematical structure or the concrete structure; the concrete structure is just whichever mathematical structure we're in. "Concrete" only means that we're in it.

Mww

↪Pfhorrest

Yeah, I get it. I read Tegmark, 2007, when it first came out, where he argues, “....that, with a sufficiently broad definition of mathematical structure, the former (ERH, external reality hypothesis, your concrete structure) implies the latter (MUH, mathematical reality hypothesis, your mathematical structure)...”

Sound right?

I’m not equipped to counter-argue the thesis, but it doesn’t float all that big a boat, seems to me. Little too far outside the box for my comfort zone.

Janus

Lot of stuff in there, all predicated on the possibility of a 1:1 representation/existence correspondence. Disregarding the logical impossibility of perfect replication still leaves us with a hyper-reality, where the mathematical structure and the concrete structure are the same thing, so how would we know we’ve even cognized ourselves as belonging to one or the other?

If we can’t tell the difference, we’re losing nothing by leaving ourselves with the duality we already acknowledge, rather than assume a duality we can’t prove. — Mww

I'd say we cannot prove anything at all, except in relative contexts. So, that leaves the question as to which duality is the more plausible or whether we even possess the means to assess the relative plausibility of the two dualities at all.

Mww

I'd say we cannot prove anything at all, except in relative contexts. — Janus

You’re correct, of course. (I fixed it)

We can’t actually prove anything, given the singular nature of our objective reality. I mean.....what do we compare it to? We can, as you say, compare and thus prove conditions within it, relative to each other, but nothing more than that.

I think it’s even more unrealistic to posit no duality at all. A human being has to operate from a duality in order to theorize he isn’t, using a logic that shows he’d be contradicting himself by trying.

Nothing against folks thinking far downstream, though.

Janus

↪Mww

Agreed, the human discursive understanding of human experience certainly seems ineluctably dualistic. When thinking metaphysically in terms of substance, though, I guess it's a question of what seems most plausible, monism, dualism or pluralism.

Since I'm basically a skeptic I'm not sure, but I think I would favour monism or pluralism over dualism, because the latter is too tidy a fit to human reason, and I think it behooves us to acknowledge that the map or model is not the territory, and allow for the mystic tides of unreason. But hell, the whole question about whether monism, dualism or pluralism is a better fit to "reality in itself" might just simply be an altogether incoherent one. :yikes:

And yet here we are regardless. :rofl:

Pfhorrest

Recognizing a question as incoherent is what I mean by dissolving it.

Gnomon

So the notion of the universe being a program irresistibly suggests a programmer. — Wayfarer

Apparently, for many scientists, that cause/effect inference from Program to Programmer is quite resistible --- if it is taken to imply a supernatural Creator. For example Max Tegmark and Seth Lloyd don't have much to say about the Programmer of their hypothetical universal computer. But I can't resist speculating about how the operating system for our universe came to be organized like an evolutionary program (Global Optimization algorithm) converting raw data (information) into more and more intellectually-powerful creatures (forms).

Of course, I must remain Agnostic about any specific characteristics of the implicit Coder, beyond what's logically necessary to produce such a marvelous "virtual machine" from scratch. Anything we might say about that intriguing possibility can only be in the form of familiar worldly metaphors. That's why I refer to the unknown programmer cryptically as "G*D" or "G?D". But you can insert whatever name you prefer into the blank.

Evolutionary Programming : http://www.cleveralgorithms.com/nature-inspired/evolution/evolutionary_programming.html

Gnomon

But hell, the whole question about whether monism, dualism or pluralism is a better fit to reality in itself might just simply be an altogether incoherent one. — Janus

That's why I resolve the inherent contradictions and paradoxes of Dualism vs Monism with the BothAnd Principle. The "correct" term depends on your perspective*1 : Physical Monism, Metaphysical Monism, or Physical/Metaphysical Dualism, or Information Monism : Spinoza's "Single Substance" is protean polymorphic Information.

Spinoza's Substance : "God is the only substance in the universe, and everything is a part of God. “Whatever is, is in God, and nothing can be or be conceived without God”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy_of_Baruch_Spinoza

*1 perspective

I'd say we cannot prove anything at all, except in relative contexts. — Janus

3017amen

A priori truths are proved by pure logic (transcendental logic from one methodology), but a posteriori truths are proved from observations — Mww

Agreed. That is why the ontological argument for God's existence doesn't provide for adequate meaning. The God of experience is simply that, an experience. But of course we're talking about Cosmology here... .

If the a priori truth doesn’t hold, we are inclined to say the a posteriori truth cannot hold eithe — Mww

Do you have an example of that? I actually tend to believe the opposite; we experience things first and then we try to figure them out. Barring some exceptions, examples include; running calculations subsequent to avoiding falling objects (as I've alluded), as well as running calculations to design a roof truss, and playing music first then figuring it out later through music theory and written notation.

If A does not equal A, I am well and truly screwed!!!! — Mww

I believe we are indeed screwed! Driving a vehicle daydreaming and thus having an accident suggest s I'm driving and not driving at the same time. Consciousness and subconsciousness breaks the rules of logic.

we limit a priori to the rational and use logical proofs, which turn out to be necessary. — Mww

I agree that there are metaphysical truths that are necessary. In consciousness examples would be our sense of wonder, intuition, love, sentience and other various forms of qualia.

In summary, a priori necessary truths are existential in that they just are without meaningful explanation. The dichotomy is unresolved. And that is because, in part, mathematical truths, while they describe the aforesaid physical conditions in the natural world, they cannot explain nature and account for existence ex-nihilo.

The closest we get to a posteriori truth 's in this context, is once again, the synthetic a priori; all events must have a cause.

What is the true nature of consciousness, could mathematcal (or metaphysical) abstracts help us (?).

Wayfarer

I said "but there is no hardware running the program, the software is the primary level of reality.". — Pfhorrest

But, as we agreed, if 'computing' is a metaphor, then what is the real-world analog for 'software', if not ideas? In which case, if you're saying that ideas constitute the primary level of reality, then we're in agreement.

Pfhorrest

↪Wayfarer

I did say you can think of them as Platonic Forms if you like, so yes “ideas” in that sense is more or less what I mean. (And also in a Berkeleyan radical empiricism sense, too, though differently). And this doesn’t run afoul of physicalism on my account because the concrete physical world just is one of those forms/ideas/mathematical structures, the one we are a part of, and any other structures are just as physical to anything that should happen to be a part of them.

Janus

↪Gnomon

As you say the "correct view" is perspective relative. That's all it can ever be: it cannot be absolute, because that would require, per impossible, absolute proof of both coherence and obtainment.

Janus

and any other structures are just as physical to anything that should happen to be a part of them. — Pfhorrest

I agree with this, physicality, just as is mentality, is inextricably context relative: the first to the context of perception and the second to the context of ideation, So, to talk about absolute physical or mental substances is to speak incoherently.

Mww

it behooves us to acknowledge that the map or model is not the territory — Janus

Yes indeed. Just as Kantian noumena requires a sense of intuition not belonging to us, so too does map/territory infinite accuracy require a comprehensibility that does not belong to us. Neither can be claimed as manifestly impossible; just impossible for us, because of intrinsic contradictions we can’t find our way around.
—————-

allow for the mystic tides of unreason. — Janus

Yeah, well, if you do that, you immediately acquiesce to a dualism. If you grant reason is un-mystic, yet allow for its complement, which is the natural condition of the human agency, then you are a dualist. But a dualist is a small kind of pluralist, so maybe you’re ok. But you still can’t be a monist and be human at the same time.

Beware the transcendental illusion!! Don’t let it come up and bite you in the hindquarters!! (Grin)

Mww

Driving a vehicle daydreaming and thus having an accident suggest s I'm driving and not driving at the same time. — 3017amen

Ahhh....really? So you intend a falsification of A = A, insofar as some occasions permit A = not-A? I submit that if you’re daydreaming you’re not driving. While you may be behind the wheel, which is merely a relative location, you’re not conditioning the act of driving with the attributes that qualify the act as such. To condition the relative position of behind the wheel with the attribute of daydreaming, you cannot be conditioning the relative position of behind the wheel with the attributes of driving.

What’s that sound??? Oh. That? That’s just Aristotle breathing a heavy sigh of......see? Tolja so. (Grin)
——————-

I agree that there are metaphysical truths that are necessary. In consciousness examples would be our sense of wonder, intuition, love, sentience and other various forms of qualia. — 3017amen

I’m not sure this isn’t a hidden rendition of the cum hoc ergo propter hoc, or questionable cause, irrationality. It would have to be the case that metaphysical truths of various demeanor are found in consciousness, when in (theoretical) fact, all that’s to be found in consciousness is the totality of intuitions, which are always given from phenomena alone. Our sense of wonder is conditioned by experience, but wonder itself is a feeling, thus not an empirical predicate, hence not found in consciousness. Rather, it is that which is loved, or is wondered about, or to which is directed our sentience, that occupies our conscious state. We never cognize feelings; we cognize that which causes feelings, and is therefore always antecedent to them.

Same with metaphysical truths, per se: the principles of them may be found in reason a priori, and the possible objects given from those principles may be exemplified by experience, but that is not sufficient in itself to allow truths of any kind to reside in consciousness. Truth is where cognition conforms to its object, and no cognition is possible that is not first a judgement. Therefore, it is the case that truth resides in judgement, and if there is such judgement we are then conscious of that which is cognized as true.
————————

The closest we get to a posteriori truth 's in this context, is once again, the synthetic a priori; all events must have a cause. — 3017amen

All judgements of experience, from which are derived a posteriori truths, are synthetic, yes, but not necessarily a priori. Synthetic a priori judgements, which we understand as principles in propositional form, such as “all events have a cause”, and that ubiquitous 2 + 2 = 4, always involve necessity, which cannot be a ground for empirical conditions, which are governed by the principle of induction.
(If it was necessary that a foundation be the cause of a building to be upright, we cannot explain why earthquakes topple buildings even when the foundation is unaffected. Upon reductive examination, it shall be found that the uprightness of the building is contingent on the forces acting on it, and if the forces are sufficient, and the building falls, necessary causality of the foundation is negated, and anything susceptible to negation cannot be necessary)
———————-

What is true nature of consciousness (?). — 3017amen

Why would it have one?

Don’t mind me......I ramble a lot. Sorry.

Zelebg

If we discover how to decode all of the brain signals, so we can extract qualia from it to read thoughts and watch dreams, for example, then we would have solved all and every mystery there is about consciousness. No? Then what more could you possibly want?

Gnomon

If discover how to decode all of the brain signals, so we can extract qualia from it to read thoughts and watch dreams, for example, then we would have solved all and every mystery there is about consciousness. No? Then what more could you possibly want? — Zelebg

Meaning.

It takes two informed parties to communicate in code. Both sender and receiver must understand the intended meaning of the symbols (signals) in order to encode and decode (interpret) them. Morse code is a conventional language of symbols that are meaningless in themselves. The audible or visual symbols (signals) are not the Information, but merely physical carriers of metaphysical Information in abstract bits and bytes. Meaning is in the Mind, not in the neurons (correlates of consciousness). Information causes meaning.

Neuroscientists have been able to decode brain signals (quanta) in a manner similar to the British breaking the Enigma code in WWII : by comparing overt behavior with meaningless symbols. Yet they are not tapping into subjective metaphysical consciousness, but only objective physical actions. The British were not reading the minds of the German high command; they were merely comparing code symbols with spying observations, in order to determine which symbols correspond with which ship maneuvers. That's a slow & crude method of communication compared to direct mind-reading. The use of a common language of conventional symbols is a much more effective way to "read" a mind. But it only reveals what the sender wants you to know, and your interpretation of the intent (qualia) could still be wrong.

"The process of encoding converts information from a source into symbols for communication or storage. Decoding is the reverse process, converting code symbols back into a form that the recipient understands,"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code

Correlation does not imply Causation : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Correlation_does_not_imply_causation

Zelebg

↪Gnomon

Information : Knowledge and the ability to know. Technically, it's the ratio of order to disorder, of positive to negative, of knowledge to ignorance. It's measured in degrees of uncertainty.

10 print "hello world!"
20 goto 10

In degrees of uncertainty, how much information is in this program?

Pfhorrest

↪Zelebg

I can’t answer that question myself, but Claude Shannon could, as could anyone who programs any kind of compression software that uses his theorems.

Janus

Yeah, well, if you do that, you immediately acquiesce to a dualism. If you grant reason is un-mystic, yet allow for its complement, which is the natural condition of the human agency, then you are a dualist. But a dualist is a small kind of pluralist, so maybe you’re ok. But you still can’t be a monist and be human at the same time.

Beware the transcendental illusion!! Don’t let it come up and bite you in the hindquarters!! — Mww

A dualism between rational thought and feeling? For me rational thought is not mystical in its deliberations and outcomes; they are paragons of determinacy. (Although rational thought may indeed be mystical in its origins; which is merely to say its origins are a mystery).

Also, I see the mystical as consisting in feeling, for the simple reason that the mystical cannot be determined by rational thought.

As to the transcendental (and the Cosmos itself), we can rationally determine our inability to rationally determine its nature, so for us it consists determinately merely in an unknowable "X", and beyond that indeterminately in a mere feeling of numinosity. Of course it is also true that this "mere feeling", along with a whole-hearted acknowledgement of our ignorance, may be profoundly transformative.

So, yes, we should indeed beware the transcendental illusion, that our propensity for reification so easily allows to become manifest in many forms of faux-determinate transcendence.

Gnomon

In degrees of uncertainty, how much information is in this program? — Zelebg

That depends on how many alternative interpretations are possible. As a computer algorithm, the Gaussian uncertainty is small. Which is appropriate for an artificial system with only two possible values :1s and 0s. But for often ambiguous human language, the Bayesian uncertainty is moderate, depending on the prior knowledge of the person trying to interpret the code. For an Amazonian tribesman, the coded information may be completely meaningless : it could mean anything or nothing. Why do you ask? :smile:

Zelebg

↪Gnomon

Why do you ask?

To see if you have a brain of a robot or a child.

That depends on how many alternative interpretations are possible.

No. There are no alternative interpretations. The meaning is defined by the precise, specific, and deterministic semantics of the language those sentences are constructed for. Unlike the meaning in your sentences that is defined only in your hallucinations.

As a computer algorithm, the Gaussian uncertainty is small.

The phrase "gaussian uncertainty" does not and can not exist in computer science. In the context of an algorithm it makes sense as much as "pornographic radiosity" or "gravitational luminosity".

You do not understand words. You're pulling random stuff from the internet to construct vague and ambiguous statements hoping there could be some meaning between the lines in the resulting word salad. What in the world did your brain tell you "gaussian uncertainty" means, can you define?

3017amen

So you intend a falsification of A = A, insofar as some occasions permit A = not-A? I submit that if you’re daydreaming you’re not driving — Mww

Mww, precisely! As far as our consciousness is concerned, we are not driving, which is why we have the potential to crash and kill ourselves.

Cognitive science says that our subconscious is driving. Hence, I'm driving and not driving at the same time. Therefore, consciousness is beyond our logical understanding.

Same with metaphysical truths, per se: the principles of them may be found in reason a priori, and the possible objects given from those principles may be exemplified by experience, but that is not sufficient in itself to allow truths of any kind to reside in consciousness. Truth is where cognition conforms to its object, and no cognition is possible that is not first a judgement. Therefore, it is the case that truth resides in judgement, and if there is such judgement we are then conscious of that which is cognized as true. — Mww

I'm saying two things: 1. forms of qualia are essentially Kantian innate noumena, that are fixed properties in consciousness a priori. (Or metaphysical phenomena/existential phenomena that just is, and cannot be explained.) They can be described, beyond ineffable phenomena, but their nature can't be explained, particularly in the context of xnihilo.

2: I believe you are essentially saying intellect precedes the (Metaphysical) Will. And I'm saying saying that the Will precedes intellect. In either case both are, insoluble. Yet another hard problem with consciousness.

Why would it have one? — Mww

Consciousness would have a nature to its existence. I use the word nature because it's mutually exclusive in our abilities to logicize its existence. The nature of our existence is unknown.

Zelebg

↪3017amen

Similarly; qualia, sentience, and 1st person experience goes beyond Subjectivity (subjective truth's) in trying to understand their nature. Other than relegating them to metaphysical phenomena, we have nothing to describe them.

And so I am thinking that leaves the door open for all sorts of odd or absurd notions existing in another reality.

We also do not know what gravity, or magnetic and electric fields really are, why they exist, and how can they do what they do. But we can measure them in the context of spatial geometry and dynamics, and that makes it meaningful to talk about them, those relations actually matter.

But what are you leaving the door open for, something that by definition is not measurable or testable in any way? Why, why even talk about it - is "not-measurable" not the same thing as "not-existent"?

Hard problem of consciousness is hard because...

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