But why that special designation of "conscious"? Couldn't I just say: "My body has nerves."

What is our motive behind creating the superfluous "conscious" label? — Bird-Up

I agree with that. The idea of the "hard problem" just makes a fetish out of consciousness.

Do you not have the experience of being stuck with yourself? Your life and your death are yours alone, no matter who grieves or not after your end. The singularity of your experience is that nobody else will witness it as you do.

Is that not a phenomenon that should be looked into?

Consciousness is just... awareness. — Jackson

It would work just as well to call it the hard problem of awareness.

we could be deceived that our conscious experience is more than just electrical signals bouncing around in our heads: "Whatever this sensation of consciousness is that I'm experiencing, it is something more!" — Bird-Up

This sounds like Dennett’s ‘explanation’ of consciousness. But while it can be said that consciousness is a graded phenomenon of organismic complexity, if we were to assume that it is nothing but an arrangement of physical
processes, we run the risk not simply of missing something more that is unique to consciousness , as if there is some inner , ineffable substance in the world called subjective experience to be laid alongside physical objects. What we risk missing is a dimension of what we call material or empirical reality that subjective experience
is trying to cue us into. Put differently, what we call subjective, phenomenal or inner isn’t another entity in the world to be added to physical things , it is the condition of possibility of notions like physicality, materiality , objectivity. The latter is what we end up with when we conventionally strip away what makes any concept of the object coherent.

I meant we could be deceived that our conscious experience is more than just electrical signals bouncing around in our heads: "Whatever this sensation of consciousness is that I'm experiencing, it is something more!" — Bird-Up

But that is the question the hard problem shines a light on - how does electrical signals bounding around in our heads deceive our heads? In essence the brain is fooling itself into believing that it is not a brain. Why would it do that? What evolutionary problem would that solve (ie why would such a thing evolve in the first place)?

The idea of the "hard problem" just makes a fetish out of consciousness. — Jackson

Wrong. The hard problem exposes the fetish of physicalists with their naive realism and dualists with their inability to explain how two opposing substances can interact.

The hard problem is resolved by a monistic view that information or process is fundamental - not matter and/or mind.

Wrong. The hard problem exposes the fetish of physicalists with their naive realism and dualists with their inability to explain how two opposing substances can interact. — Harry Hindu

I am correct. Good day!

I am correct. — Jackson

Saying so doesn't make it so. Do better.

The hard problem is resolved by a monistic view that information or process is fundamental - not matter and/or mind. — Harry Hindu

This does not explain why information-processing organic matter has feelings and information-processing inorganic matter does not.

But that is the question the hard problem shines a light on - how does electrical signals bounding around in our heads deceive our heads? In essence the brain is fooling itself into believing that it is not a brain. Why would it do that? What evolutionary problem would that solve (ie why would such a thing evolve in the first place)? — Harry Hindu

I would argue that the experience of consciousness does solve a practical problem. But it's mostly about making the brain more efficient, not about giving the brain an entirely new ability. I think that is why people find it confusing; it seems like a whole lot of work just to make the brain faster. Using conscious experience is like chalking the end of a pool stick; you could still hit the ball without it.

If your conscious brain making decisions is like walking the paths of a park, then conscious experience would be like looking at a map of the park. You could discover all the paths eventually if you walk around long enough, but the process goes a whole lot faster when you are using the map to make decisions. Some would also be quick to point out the deceitful nature of your strategy: "You fool, that is just a piece of paper with lines drawn on it; it is not actually the park!"

But does that mean it isn't useful?

Instead of trying to imagine why the human brain is using consciousness, it might be easier to imagine how difficult it would be without conscious experience.

This does not explain why information-processing organic matter has feelings and information-processing inorganic matter does not. — SolarWind

Information-processing is taking certain inputs, manipulating them in some way based on the instructions of some program to produce certain outputs. What follows is that the types of inputs and the type of program can produce different outputs. Think of organic matter and inorganic matter as different systems, or instructions in a program, that take in different inputs and produce different outputs. So it stands to reason that one will produce outputs that the other does not.

Rocks do not have the same inputs and the same instructions as an organisms does, so how it reacts to temperature changes will be different than an organism.

Think of the conscious mind as one layer of fault-tolerance where the information that appears in consciousness (like feeling hot or cold) is then used to fine-tune behaviors, especially fine-tuning instinctive behaviors in social environments. Sensory information passes through different layers of processing in the brain and the conscious part is just on of those layers.

Instead of trying to imagine why the human brain is using consciousness, it might be easier to imagine how difficult it would be without conscious experience. — Bird-Up

I can imagine. We can also observe blind-sight patients and understand that while they may be able to navigate around objects they cannot see, then cannot describe the object in any detail. So if consciousness provides more detailed information about the world.

I would argue that the experience of consciousness does solve a practical problem. But it's mostly about making the brain more efficient, not about giving the brain an entirely new ability. I think that is why people find it confusing; it seems like a whole lot of work just to make the brain faster. Using conscious experience is like chalking the end of a pool stick; you could still hit the ball without it. — Bird-Up

This still doesn't explain how a brain can create an experience of not being a brain. It doesn't get at the problem of explaining why I experience my mental processes differently than how I experience everyone else's.

If your conscious brain making decisions is like walking the paths of a park, then conscious experience would be like looking at a map of the park. You could discover all the paths eventually if you walk around long enough, but the process goes a whole lot faster when you are using the map to make decisions. Some would also be quick to point out the deceitful nature of your strategy: "You fool, that is just a piece of paper with lines drawn on it; it is not actually the park!" — Bird-Up

Right, so how do we know that the brains that we associate with other people's mental processes aren't just part of the map and not actually reality? How is it that the mind that I experience as my own is the illusion but the brains that appear in my mind (like when I look at your brain scan while you are inside an MRI) when looking at your mental processes isn't an illusion? Neurologists seem to think that they have direct access to the park when observing the brains of others - as if they don't have a map at all - but see the world as it truly is with brains in skulls.

Sensory information passes through different layers of processing in the brain and the conscious part is just on of those layers. — Harry Hindu

But nowadays artificial neural networks do the same. Can a feeling also develop on the layers of an artificial neural network?

panpsychism — schopenhauer1

The scream of pain when slapped across the face is simply an extension of the sound the slap itself makes when the open hand connects with the cheek! :snicker:

How is it that the mind that I experience as my own is the illusion but the brains that appear in my mind (like when I look at your brain scan while you are inside an MRI) when looking at your mental processes isn't an illusion? — Harry Hindu

I would say that both objective and subjective experiences are an authentic version of reality. One is an accurate assessment of what it looks like from outside the head, and one is an accurate assessment of what it looks like from inside the head.

Using your analogy, I would say that your conscious experience does show up on the MRI that the technician is looking at. Current medical technology is crude, low-resolution stuff. But imagine a snapshot of the brain that did capture everything. Every electrical signal jumping across each neuron.

It is like the relationship between a program and its code. Nothing will happen until you start running the code. And the entirety of the program is expressed somewhere in the code (physical brain). At the same time, the experience of interacting with the program (conscious experience) is not described directly anywhere in the code. The code never mentions "yellow", but it does say: red intensity is 255, green intensity is 255, and blue intensity is 0. Could you imagine such instructions leading anywhere else but "yellow"? "Yellow" is clearly nowhere to be found, and "yellow" is also undoubtedly the only possible result.

I think it is an error in logic to attempt to unify subjective experience with the objective world. Yes, all the underpinnings of conscious experience can be found there, but the objective account itself will not directly show you subjective experience. Two different views of the same object can both be 100% correct.

It doesn't get at the problem of explaining why I experience my mental processes differently than how I experience everyone else's. — Harry Hindu

I think you could experience someone else's consciousness (in the future) if you were methodical enough. But then you would also believe yourself to be that person, based on the memories you are experiencing. You would forget that you ever had a previous identity.

So maybe the greatest hurdle of conscious experience is finding a reliable way to prove your existence to someone else. But you are already thinking-therefore-you-are-ing on your own. If only someone else knew.

But nowadays artificial neural networks do the same. Can a feeling also develop on the layers of an artificial neural network? — SolarWind

I don't see why not. Feelings are just information, and information takes the form of the relationship between cause and effect. As such feelings are the effect of prior causes and the cause of subsequent effects, like your behavior that results from your feelings. One might define feelings as any information that is processed within a neural network. "Artificial" and "natural" are useless terms here.

I would say that both objective and subjective experiences are an authentic version of reality. One is an accurate assessment of what it looks like from outside the head, and one is an accurate assessment of what it looks like from inside the head. — Bird-Up

I don't know what a view from outside of a head would look like. It's an impossibility. Third-person views are simulated first-person views.

Using your analogy, I would say that your conscious experience does show up on the MRI that the technician is looking at. Current medical technology is crude, low-resolution stuff. But imagine a snapshot of the brain that did capture everything. Every electrical signal jumping across each neuron. — Bird-Up

But that is what I'm getting at - why does someone else's conscious experience appear as a brain, but my own conscious experience does not include a brain, or neurons, or electrical signals. My conscious experience is composed of shapes, colors, sounds, feelings, visual, auditory and tactile depth, etc. of which my view of other people's brains and their neurons are composed of. I don't experience my own consciousness as a brain with electrical signals. That is only how I experience other people's conscious experience, and only via my own conscious experience, hence defining my own conscious experience as an illusion just relegates my view of other people's conscious experiences as brains to an illusion as well.

It is like the relationship between a program and its code. Nothing will happen until you start running the code. And the entirety of the program is expressed somewhere in the code (physical brain). At the same time, the experience of interacting with the program (conscious experience) is not described directly anywhere in the code. The code never mentions "yellow", but it does say: red intensity is 255, green intensity is 255, and blue intensity is 0. Could you imagine such instructions leading anywhere else but "yellow"? "Yellow" is clearly nowhere to be found, and "yellow" is also undoubtedly the only possible result. — Bird-Up

This just expands on the problem I mentioned above. Naive realism suggests that we see the world as it truly is - as if we are merely looking through the windows of our eyes. Science has suggested otherwise - that we don't see the world as it truly is. So what does that say about how we see brains and computers? If we posit the world being composed of information rather than static objects, then we resolve the problem of dualism and the static objects become mental models of what the world is really like, not the way the world actually is. The world is more like our minds, but that is not to say that mind is fundamental. Mind is just a particular type of arrangement of information.

Our minds operate at a certain frequency relative to the frequency of change of other processes we might observe. Our mental state can have an effect on the speed at which our minds process information about other processes and the relative change, or frequency, between the mind and other processes can skew the appearance of the other processes making slow processes appear as static objects while faster processes appear as actual processes or as a blur of change. Think of the difference between how see view water in all of its states - solid, liquid and gas with each being composed of slow vs fast moving molecules relative to the speed at which our minds process the information.

I think it is an error in logic to attempt to unify subjective experience with the objective world. Yes, all the underpinnings of conscious experience can be found there, but the objective account itself will not directly show you subjective experience. Two different views of the same object can both be 100% correct. — Bird-Up

I'm not sure if this makes sense. I can have a view of your body and it's behavior and deduce that you have experiences that are the causes of your behavior. But can I view my own view? Does that make sense? It might if we think of our view like the camera-monitor system where the camera represent the focus of attention in the mind while the monitor represents the information the camera (attention) is focused on. When the camera is looking outwards, focusing the mind's attention on the world, what appears on the monitor is a representation of the world relative to the camera's eye. When the camera turns itself to look at the monitor, it creates a visual feedback loop - like the kind that occurs when you "observe" your own mind. With our attention, we can create an informational feedback loop of thinking about thinking, knowing that we know, being aware of awareness, etc.

I don't know what a view from outside of a head would look like. It's an impossibility. Third-person views are simulated first-person views. — Harry Hindu

"Simulated first-person views" sounds like a valid definition of the objective world. I've always thought of objectivity as an abstract model that we use to understand the world. Whatever the case, I'm just saying that two languages can describe the same thing; even if they use a different vocabulary. Subjectivity is the first language. Objectivity is another language.

My conscious experience is composed of shapes, colors, sounds, feelings, visual, auditory and tactile depth, etc. — Harry Hindu

The physical brain has developed an awareness-center so that it can obtain decision-making functionality. The shapes, color, sounds, etc would be the "summary" or "map" that our subconscious brain presents us with for the purpose of deciding. The "summary"/"map" is a secondary creation that does not represent the whole of the human brain with complete accuracy. The "summary"/"map" part is you.

There are two ways to look at this awareness-center in the brain:

• You could say that the awareness-center is obviously aware, in which case the awareness (conscious experience) is unremarkable and expected. From this viewpoint, the hard problem doesn't need to be asked.
• Or you could say that mere awareness doesn't constitute conscious experience. Following that viewpoint, conscious experience would be a side effect that mistakenly arises out of the awareness. In this case, we would be perceiving our consciousness to exist when it actually does not. Relative to the hard problem, you would say that our "in the dark" functionality only feels like it is illuminated.

Either way, conscious experience is the awareness-center doing its job.

I'm not sure if this makes sense. I can have a view of your body and it's behavior and deduce that you have experiences that are the causes of your behavior. But can I view my own view? Does that make sense? — Harry Hindu

I assume this was a rhetorical question, but I think "yes" is the answer. You can view your own view. Not with the default tools that mother nature provided, but I think it would be possible. Reminds me of a memorable scene from Westworld where a character views her own consciousness. Her reaction was disbelief paired with an overwhelming identity-crisis.

I'm just saying that two languages can describe the same thing; even if they use a different vocabulary. Subjectivity is the first language. Objectivity is another language. — Bird-Up

But we can speak objectively about subjective experiences. Is it not objectively true that you have subjective experiences, or that you feel a certain way, or that you perceive things a particular way? The problem with subjectivity is trying to determine what part of the experience is about the object perceived vs the object doing the perceiving.

The physical brain has developed an awareness-center so that it can obtain decision-making functionality. The shapes, color, sounds, etc would be the "summary" or "map" that our subconscious brain presents us with for the purpose of deciding. — Bird-Up

You still don't seem to be getting at what the point I'm trying to make. How does a "physical" brain create the feeling of visual depth perception? How do neurons generate the feeling of empty space between me and the other objects in my vicinity? The empty space is not made up of neurons. It is made up of information about location relative to my eyes.

You can view your own view. — Bird-Up

What about how I described it using the visual feedback created by a camera-monitor system? In effect, you are not viewing a view. You are simply turning your attention back on itself.

The thing that I find basically materialism is always in danger of doing is committing the homunculus fallacy.

The problem with subjectivity is trying to determine what part of the experience is about the object perceived vs the object doing the perceiving. — Harry Hindu

I'd say the human experience is 0% objective and 100% subjective. We are completely dependent on the information being supplied to us by our brain. That's why I consider objective reality to be an abstract idea. The best we can do, is to gain consensus about what is real by comparing our experience with others. But we can never truly prove that objective things actually exist. We strongly-suspect objectivity.

How does a "physical" brain create the feeling of visual depth perception? How do neurons generate the feeling of empty space between me and the other objects in my vicinity? The empty space is not made up of neurons. It is made up of information about location relative to my eyes. — Harry Hindu

The sensation of depth perception would be the "map" your brain has given you so that you can be aware of your position in 3D space and make split-second decisions related to that. It is not the neurons in your optic nerve, but it is the neurons in the conscious part of your brain. The information from your optic nerves has been compounded into a more-useful form of information that is intended to be used for navigating by your attention. You are the attention. You are the navigating being performed.

What is the roadblock you encounter with conscious experience? What is the exact point at which something leaves the domain of regular brain signals and enters the domain of something beyond that? What specific characteristic makes it too much to be regular brain activity?

The thing that I find basically materialism is always in danger of doing is committing the homunculus fallacy. — schopenhauer1

Fair enough. But which one of us is going down the rabbit-hole of the homunculus fallacy? Both of us?

Fair enough. But which one of us is going down the rabbit-hole of the homunculus fallacy? Both of us? — Bird-Up

How does a "physical" brain create the feeling of visual depth perception? How do neurons generate the feeling of empty space between me and the other objects in my vicinity? The empty space is not made up of neurons. It is made up of information about location relative to my eyes. — Harry Hindu

Something like this could be construed as a sort of homuncular fallacy. There is a sort of "magic" point (usually involving some kind of "integration") whereby things just "happen" and subjectivity (sometimes referred to the illusion of) becomes a thing. Or like here, if you just redefine it as "information", then somehow this confers powers of subjectivity. Information would then have to be explained for how it can "generate a feeling" of subjectivity.

e, if you just redefine it as "information", then somehow this confers powers of subjectivity. Information would then have to be explained for how it can "generate a feeling" of subjectivity. — schopenhauer1

What is subjectivity if not information about location relative to some other location - like your head?

I'd say the human experience is 0% objective and 100% subjective. We are completely dependent on the information being supplied to us by our brain. That's why I consider objective reality to be an abstract idea. The best we can do, is to gain consensus about what is real by comparing our experience with others. But we can never truly prove that objective things actually exist. We strongly-suspect objectivity. — Bird-Up

Youi just explained how the world is for "we", as in more than just you. You just explained a state of the world in objective terms. How could you ever know what it is like for others if you are stuck in your subjectivity?

Also, is your mind part of the world? Do you have direct access to your mind and can communicate to others the states of your mind? And is your description factual despite what others might believe? In describing the state of your conscious mind, you are describing an objective state-of-affairs of the world - no different than describing any other state-of-affairs. We are able to get at actual states-of-affairs in the world (objectivity) via our subjective information. We just have to separate the information about ourselves from the equation.

The sensation of depth perception would be the "map" your brain has given you so that you can be aware of your position in 3D space and make split-second decisions related to that. It is not the neurons in your optic nerve, but it is the neurons in the conscious part of your brain. The information from your optic nerves has been compounded into a more-useful form of information that is intended to be used for navigating by your attention. You are the attention. You are the navigating being performed. — Bird-Up

There you go again describing the world in an objective manner - as in the state-of-affairs that is the case not only for yourself, but for me and everyone else too. How did you come to acquire this objective information if not subjectively?

How do neurons create sensations in the first place? You keep talking about neurons and optic nerves, but you only experience those things in observing other people's mental states, not your own. Do you need to look at an MRI scan of your own brain to know your mental state? Why or why not?

What is subjectivity if not information about location relative to some other location - like your head? — Harry Hindu

This isn't answering the question:

Information would then have to be explained for how it can "generate a feeling" of subjectivity. — schopenhauer1

More precise how it can BE a feeling. Equivalent not just causation. How are sensations the same as their substrates.

Information would then have to be explained for how it can "generate a feeling" of subjectivity. — schopenhauer1

Information doesn't generate anything but more information via some process of causation. So the feeling is just information, as feelings inform you of something. The feeling is subjective because it's a relation between you and what the feeling is about. The feeling would be objective if it didn't include information about yourself in some way. Every feeling or sensation includes information about you and about what you are observing, which makes it subjective. This fits with how we define objective views as being a view from nowhere, or a view independent of some observer, or information independent or absent of information about the observer.

The sensation of depth perception would be the "map" your brain has given you so that you can be aware of your position in 3D space and make split-second decisions related to that. It is not the neurons in your optic nerve, but it is the neurons in the conscious part of your brain. The information from your optic nerves has been compounded into a more-useful form of information that is intended to be used for navigating by your attention. You are the attention. You are the navigating being performed. — Bird-Up

Then when you look at other people and see bodies and brains (via their MRI brain scan) then bodies and brains are part of the map, not the territory.

So the feeling is just information — Harry Hindu

I can only see where you are coming from if the subjectivity is inherent to all information and not just neural activity. If it is only confined to neural information than you have not answered anything but simply used different terms. So instead of neural activity, you said information, and like water into wine this terminological change is supposed to convey subjective experience. I don't buy it. But if you are saying ALL information is subjective, I can at least accept this as a sort of proto-panexperientialism. I don't necessarily agree with that either, but it would be more consistent.

The feeling would be objective if it didn't include information about yourself in some way. — Harry Hindu

You are unintentionally putting the "little man" (homunculus) back into the equation when you use "yourself" here as there is no "yourself" above and beyond the activity in question (information). There is still some Cartesian thinking here where there is "yourself" "feeling" something that IS the thing to be explained.

It looks like you have misunderstood most of the metaphors I threw out there. I was illustrating a different concept than the one you were thinking about. Probably my fault. It gets blocked up in my mouth. I don't say it no good.

How does one actually get the point across why this is not an acceptable answer as far as the hard problem is concerned? Can this be seen as answering it, or is it just inadvertently answering an easier problem? If so, how to explain how it isn't quite getting at the hard problem? — schopenhauer1

It does answer the question, by pointing out that the hard problem doesn't exist to begin with.

Do you believe that the hard problem does exist, and that it isn't being addressed properly?