What occurs to me, reading that article, is that what his model is describing is ego, the self's idea of itself. — Wayfarer

It’s about phenomenal consciousness - which includes that of which we are consciously aware - so I think this is about right.

I don't think it addresses the aspect of the hard problem concerned with what it means to be. — Wayfarer

How do you view the hard problem as concerned with “what it means to be”?

He does say: “With this marvelous new phenomenon at the core of your being, you’ll start to matter to yourself in a new and deeper way. You’ll come to believe, as never before, in your own singular significance.”

I wanted to say the same thing with “unique” as he is with “singular significance” though I take it as a fantasy created by our desire rather than a given state. I think I’ve made that as clear as I can. — Antony Nickles

The rest of the quote counters your claims:

You’ll come to believe, as never before, in your own singular significance. What’s more, it will not just be you. For you’ll soon realise that other members of your species possess conscious selves like yours.

This does not reflect a desire for uniqueness.

You could flip this perspective, you know. You're saying that, because we can't define the physical, due to the ambiguous wave-particle nature of matter and the other paradoxes of qm, that it could or must be the case that, if everything exists is physical then the physical must also include the mental. But what if we acknowledged that nothing is completely or only physical, on the grounds that what is physical can never be completely defined, and that what we experience as physical is instead the attribute of a class of cognitive experiences? — Wayfarer

It's a terminological choice, more than substantive one, though there is some substance. The qm phenomena are curious and interesting, but an extremely miniscule part of what I take the physical to be. In this sense I'd want to say that experience is the most fundamental physical fact we are acquainted with, I choose "physical" because I want to emphasize the world out there, which I think exists without me.

We could say that everything is an idea (or experience) or something mental. That's fine, so long as an idea has bearer which is not an idea.

With mental... It's hard. I don't want to say that say, what we call "Mars" is constituted (made of) something mental, I don't think it is. But I grant that whatever we know about Mars comes through experience.

How do you view the hard problem as concerned with “what it means to be”? — Luke

As the crux of the issue. Seems to me that Humphries addresses one aspect of the problem - what is the evolutionary rationale for this capacity? Why are humans and other higher animals aware of themselves? It's like 'yes, I can see how the mind produces reflexive awareness of its own inner states'. He talks about the internal systems that allow that, and how it enriches the state of experience, but the rationale for it is evolutionary - how this contributes to our adaptive ability. That's why, I presume, Daniel Dennett posted it, as it dovetails nicely with his evolutionary philosophy, But it doesn't come to terms with the issue of what it means to be - the kind of concerns that animate phenomenology and existentialism. It's a different kind of 'why' - there's an instrumental 'why', and an existential 'why', if you like. I think Humphries addresses the first, but not the second. (Some discussion of this in the comments on the Aeon article, I note.)

I don't want to say that say, what we call "Mars" is constituted (made of) something mental, I don't think it is. But I grant that whatever we know about Mars comes through experience. — Manuel

You're not alone. Albert Einstein was walking with his friend Abraham Pais one afternoon, when he suddenly stopped and said 'Does the moon cease to exist when nobody's looking at it?' He was asking exactly the same question. I won't address it here though as it's a derailer.

The rest of the quote counters your claims:

You’ll come to believe, as never before, in your own singular significance. What’s more, it will not just be you. For you’ll soon realise that other members of your species possess conscious selves like yours.

This does not reflect a desire for uniqueness. — Luke

The implication of the sentence is that you also (along with me) will be unique, and I will respect that more: “You’ll come to believe… in your own singular significance. What’s more, it will not just be you [that you will come to believe is singularly significant]. For you’ll soon realize that other[ s are singularly significant too]. (Emphasis and paraphrasing mine.]

You're not alone. Albert Einstein was walking with his friend Abraham Pais one afternoon, when he suddenly stopped and said 'Does the moon cease to exist when nobody's looking at it?' He was asking exactly the same question. I won't address it here though as it's a derailer. — Wayfarer

Well, one could say that the moon being mental is surely a very hard problem. :joke:

Seriously though, I hope I won't forget it but, if the issue arises in some thread, let's bring this up to see how this could be tackled, it's quite a provocative idea.

The implication of the sentence is that you also (along with me) will be unique, and I will respect that more: “You’ll come to believe… in your own singular significance. What’s more, it will not just be you [that you will come to believe is singularly significant]. For you’ll soon realize that other[ s are singularly significant too]. (Emphasis and paraphrasing mine.] — Antony Nickles

The quote says “you’ll soon realise that other members of your species possess conscious selves like yours.” You are resorting to cherry picking and omitting parts of the quote to try and contort it to fit your argument regarding a desire for uniqueness.

But it doesn't come to terms with the issue of what it means to be - the kind of concerns that animate phenomenology and existentialism. It's a different kind of 'why' - there's an instrumental 'why', and an existential 'why', if you like. I think Humphries addresses the first, but not the second. — Wayfarer

How is this related to the hard problem of consciousness?

I think it's essential to it.

As I said in my first comment, the question 'why are we subjects of experience?' is a strange question. It's tantamount to asking 'why do we exist?' The question is asked, 'why did consciousness evolve?' Humphrey quotes another philosopher to that effect:

As far as anybody knows, anything that our conscious minds can do they could do just as well if they weren’t conscious.

For some reason, this strikes me as manifestly absurd. Even very simple critters are conscious - obviously not rationally self-aware and self-conscious - but some level of consciousness is required for them to react to stimuli and survive, to maintain themselves in existence. It's what differentiates organisms from minerals. So the statement is completely self contradictory - 'a conscious mind could do what it does, even without the attribute that makes it "a conscious mind" '. And I don't know that the phenomenon of blindsight is a persuasive argument for that.

But if you phrase the question 'why do I exist?', it is a much more open-ended question than the question of why the brain is configured in such a way as to give rise to the sense of self. The way the question is addressed by Humphrey is from an objective point of view - how to provide a plausible account for the fact that humans and other higher animals have a sense of self, given evolutionary biology and neurology (which, surprise!, is because it provides an incentive to continue existing - which is, after all, the only answer evolutionary biology can give, as continuing to exist is the definition of what constitutes a living species.) But is that all there is to the question of the nature of conscious existence?

David Chalmers discusses Humphrey's earlier work in his book The Conscious Mind: In Search of a Fundamental Theory, saying that it fails to address the hard problem of consciousness, suggesting that Humphrey's approach is reductionist and that it relies too heavily on the assumption that consciousness is a mere byproduct of brain function (in other words, assuming what it needs to prove, or begging the question.)

I know that my objection is easily dismissed. The reductionist approach dismisses the whole idea of there being such a problem in the first place! But the question remains whether reductionism has addressed it or whether it's not really seeing it in the first place. (A different kind of blindsight, maybe.)

[quo

Our commonsense notions lead us astray in regard to the nature of the world. That something can be at the same time a particle and a wave in superposition is a fact about the world, it doesn't make sense to us, too bad, it's what we have. — Manuel

The reason why it "doesn't make sense" is not that it is counterintuitive, or contrary to commonsense notions, the reason is that it is logically incoherent, as I explained.

No, by physicalism I mean everything in the world is physical stuff - of the nature of the physical - this means that experience is a wholly physical phenomenon. But if it is true that experience is physical, and history is physical and everything that exists is physical, then clearly the physical goes way beyond what we usually attach to the meaning of the word. — Manuel

Until you define what you mean by "physical" this talk is rather pointless. And, as I explained last post, any attempt to describe the whole world as one kind of stuff will inevitably result in incoherent and contradictory descriptions when you start to apply your definitions in practice. To you, this might appear to be a very miniscule part of reality which gets rendered as incoherent, but that's just an indication that you have a very narrow mind, and the miniscule part you get a glimpse of is just the boundaries which confine that narrow mind. In reality, what is on the other side of that boundary is a whole lot more vast than what fits inside your concept of "physical".

"Materialism is the view that every real, concrete2 phenomenon3 in the universe is physical. It’s a view about the actual universe, and for the purposes of this paper I am going to assume that it is true.

2. By ‘concrete’ I simply mean ‘not abstract’. It’s natural to think that any really existing thing is
ipso facto concrete, non-abstract, in which case ‘concrete’ is redundant, but some philosophers like to say that numbers (for example) are real things—objects that really exist, but are abstract.

3. I use ‘phenomenon’ as a completely general word for any sort of existent, a word that carries no implication as to ontological category (the trouble with the general word ‘entity’ is that it is now standardly understood to refer specifically to things or substances). Note that someone who agrees that physical phenomena are all there are, but finds no logical incoherence in the idea that physical things could be put together in such a way as to give rise to non-physical things, can define materialism as the view that every real, concrete phenomenon that there is or could be in the universe is physical."

I don't understand why you point to my alleged narrow-mindedness, though it could well be the case.

As for the supposed contradiction you raise, I take it to be part of our cognitive constitution. We understand the manifest image (as per Sellars term) and we understand a bit of the scientific image.

We are so constituted that we grasp the two aspects of the world, which are actually different views of the same phenomenon, one being more reflexive and careful (science).

It could easily be the case that some intelligent alien species would see how photons get colours as they are processed in the brain, or they could intuitively understand how gravity or qm works. That's not us.

You have the prerogative to reject this as silly or nonsense. But I personally try to be charitable for a bit, but, we need not be, of course.

The quote says “you’ll soon realise that other members of your species possess conscious selves like yours.” You are resorting to cherry picking and omitting parts of the quote to try and contort it to fit your argument regarding a desire for uniqueness. — Luke

Well, if you don’t think writing can be paraphrased and drawn out at all it’s gonna be tough to do philosophy. If you think I’ve got it wrong, what do you think he is saying?

“You’ll come to believe, as never before, in your own singular significance. What’s more, it will not just be you. For you’ll soon realise that other members of your species possess conscious selves like yours.”

And when I say that, I’m not asking what you take from it, but to answer the open questions, such as: what do I believe? and how is it the same thing as before, only now more? What is it that could be mine, but yet also something others can have (“my own”)? And what will “not just be you”? That which I believe in? That I will not just believe in something that is mine, I will believe in something that is theirs? If so, what and how do I and they possess it? How is mine mine and theirs theirs but they are alike? How is theirs “like” mine?

"Materialism is the view that every real, concrete2 phenomenon3 in the universe is physical. It’s a view about the actual universe, and for the purposes of this paper I am going to assume that it is true.

2. By ‘concrete’ I simply mean ‘not abstract’. It’s natural to think that any really existing thing is
ipso facto concrete, non-abstract, in which case ‘concrete’ is redundant, but some philosophers like to say that numbers (for example) are real things—objects that really exist, but are abstract. — Manuel

How do you account for the reality of abstractions? You say that every real concrete phenomenon is physical. Then you say that "concrete" means "not abstract". So you allow for a category of 'real not concrete', or 'real abstract', as something distinct from 'real concrete'. By your words, abstract things are not concrete, therefore not physical, yet they are real things which you talk about. And, by your words, these abstractions cannot be part of the universe. So where are they?

I don't understand why you point to my alleged narrow-mindedness, though it could well be the case. — Manuel

I point to your effort to restrict your "universe" to exclude abstractions as a narrow-mindedness, because you seem to recognize the reality of abstractions yet you want to force them out of your "universe" through this exclusion, as if abstractions are somehow unreal. When a large part of what is present to your mind is abstractions, yet you want to force these abstractions out of your mind as something unreal, this can be called a narrowing of your mind, an effort to deny the reality of a large part of what is present to your mind.

As for the supposed contradiction you raise, I take it to be part of our cognitive constitution. We understand the manifest image (as per Sellars term) and we understand a bit of the scientific image.

We are so constituted that we grasp the two aspects of the world, which are actually different views of the same phenomenon, one being more reflexive and careful (science).

It could easily be the case that some intelligent alien species would see how photons get colours as they are processed in the brain, or they could intuitively understand how gravity or qm works. That's not us. — Manuel

I don't understand why this would require an alien. if we can see, as I point out, that our representation is incoherent due to a contradictory nature, then we could simply accept that this is a poor representation, and look for the true representation. There is no need to invoke an alien to do this for us.

But look, you claim two different views of the same thing. How would two different views of one thing be possible in a universe which only consists of one thing? Isn't it necessary to assume something which serves to separate one view from another view. Suppose the universe is all one substance, all matter as you claim, such that the observers, the observed, and everything else is simply matter. What would distinguish one view from another view, making this a real distinction. Furthermore, how could there even be something called a view, because all that matter would block any possibility of a view.

As I said in my first comment, the question 'why are we subjects of experience?' is a strange question. It's tantamount to asking 'why do we exist?' The question is asked, 'why did consciousness evolve?' — Wayfarer

For some folks, perhaps, but it is a question which I believe was originally directed at physicalists. How and why we have phenomenal experiences might be considered a challenging question for those who assume that everything is physical, or that the mental and the physical, or the brain and the mind, are identical (and only physical).

So the statement is completely self contradictory - 'a conscious mind could do what it does, even without the attribute that makes it "a conscious mind" '. And I don't know that the phenomenon of blindsight is a persuasive argument for that. — Wayfarer

As the article puts it, blindsight is "visual perception in the absence of any felt visual sensations." For those that view the world in physical terms only, it should not be surprising for everything to function as it would whether or not phenomenal consciousness was associated with brain function; after all, phenomenal consciousness is (somehow) physical too. The condition of blindsight goes some way towards supporting this physicalist view, since it is visual perception without the qualia of seeing. As quoted in the OP, Chalmers' puts the question to physicalists: "Why doesn't all this information-processing go on "in the dark", free of any inner feel?" If it's all just physical information processing - as the physicalists insist - and there is no mental "stuff" that is categorically different from the physical "stuff", then the physicalists should find that people would behave the same way even if they were not phenomenally conscious. So, how and why are we phenomenally conscious, dear physicalists?

I hope this helps to shed some light on the hard problem (and that I haven't gotten it terribly wrong).

I don't think it's quite the same as asking why we exist. However, it's unsurprising that the "why" question would have some sort of evolutionary answer.

If you think I’ve got it wrong, what do you think he is saying?

“You’ll come to believe, as never before, in your own singular significance. What’s more, it will not just be you. For you’ll soon realise that other members of your species possess conscious selves like yours.”

And when I say that, I’m not asking what you take from it, but to answer the open questions, such as: what do I believe? and how is it the same thing as before, only now more? What is it that could be mine, but yet also something others can have (“my own”)? And what will “not just be you”? That which I believe in? That I will not just believe in something that is mine, I will believe in something that is theirs? If so, what and how do I and they possess it? How is mine mine and theirs theirs but they are alike? How is theirs “like” mine? — Antony Nickles

He is talking about the evolution of phenomenal consciousness - when it first appeared on the scene. Upon its inception you'll come to believe in your own singular significance because you are now phenomenally conscious; you now have personhood. This is not born of some fantasy or desire for individuality, or of wanting your individual pains and colours to be unique, but merely finding that you have them for the first time. Furthermore, "it will not just be you" who finds you are now phenomenally conscious, but "you'll soon realise that other members of your species possess conscious selves like yours."

The preceding paragraph in the article may help to put it in perspective:

So, think back to the transformation that must have taken place when your ancestors first woke up to the experience of sensations imbued with qualia, and – out of nothing – the phenomenal self appeared. Of course, it won’t have happened overnight. But nor need it have been a gradual process either. For the fact is that complex patterns of activity in feedback loops are liable to undergo sudden stepwise changes; attractors have an all-or-nothing character. I believe the reorganisation of the brain circuits responsible for generating phenomenal experience, once started, could have come to fruition quite quickly, perhaps within a few hundred generations.

Whenever it happened, it’s bound to have been a psychological and social watershed. With this marvellous new phenomenon at the core of your being, you’ll start to matter to yourself in a new and deeper way. You’ll come to believe, as never before, in your own singular significance. What’s more, it will not just be you. For you’ll soon realise that other members of your species possess conscious selves like yours. You’ll be led to respect their individual worth as well.

However, what I found most fascinating is the idea that qualia constitute the self, rather than being something perceived by the self.

As the article notes in relation to blindsight patients who function as sighted despite lacking visual qualia, "they don’t take ownership of their capacity to see. Lacking visual qualia – the ‘somethingness’ of seeing – they believe that visual perception has nothing to do with them." Extend this lack of ownership via lack of qualia to all qualia and the self itself disappears. — Luke

Am I right to interpret the article to suggest that we essentially dream ourselves into sentience? That the sum of our sensory inputs is formed into a collage that is us?

In that case, it somewhat confirms concepts I already had, intuitively, about consciousness.

I've had the idea that we essentially dream ourself conscious through a constant feedback loop, not only within the brain as we can read about in the article, but that we constantly get a feed from our surroundings that has its properties constant. We see a table and that table will not change its objective physical properties, form, color, smell, and taste, so the stream of input constantly generates a verification of our inputs to our dream state experience.

This is why our dreams act in such abstract and surreal ways, because the stream of verification is lacking. The feedback loop is only the previous feed of sensory information being looped within our minds and never verified by a solid objective reality. So it shifts in all forms, shapes, colors, smells, tastes, and touch.

It is also why when we take psychedelics, our mind process reality like a dream. Because our sensory inputs start to have interferences in both what they signal to the brain and how the brain loops that information, we start to instead dream in an awake state.

It can also explain how and why we change our personality depending on sensory input. When someone has chronic pains they might act with anger in everyday situations and they might even justify it as being part of their persona.

All of this is a side note to the article, but it verifies some ideas about why we experience dreams and psychedelics the way we do and how they affect our sense of self.

He is talking about the evolution of phenomenal consciousness - when it first appeared on the scene. — Luke

When did it first appear?

He is talking about the evolution of phenomenal consciousness - when it first appeared on the scene. Upon its inception you'll come to believe in your own singular significance because you are now phenomenally conscious; you now have personhood. This is not born of some fantasy or desire for individuality, or of wanting your individual pains and colours to be unique, but merely finding that you have them for the first time. — Luke

No.

?

...using the title "A potential solution to the hard problem" is itself biased already because, without first allowing the thread responses to express their criticisms to the points discussed in the article, saying it ahead of time is leading. — L'éléphant

...the "proposed solution" that the article offers... — L'éléphant

Do you doubt that the article offers a proposed solution to the hard problem? Have I created bias by announcing that that's what the article is about? I don't see how the title prevents anyone from expressing their criticism to the points discussed in the article. Furthermore, I doubt that anyone would honestly disagree that the article proposes a solution to the hard problem.

why we experience qualia at all. — Luke

Consciousness is a characteristic of life. All living organisms are conscious. All of them have qualia, i.e. subjective, conscious experience.
(Panpsychism believes that the whole Universe is conscious. But let not this bother us! :smile:)

Things get hard though if we go a few steps further and ask, "Why is there life?" and then "Why is there consciousness at all?" ...

? — Luke

That's a mislabeled response from me. When I said "no", I meant that you are correct in your explanation of the article, but I disagree with the article.

Do you doubt that the article offers a proposed solution to the hard problem? Have I created bias by announcing that that's what the article is about? — Luke

Yes, I doubt it, and yes you did.

Furthermore, I doubt that anyone would honestly disagree that the article proposes a solution to the hard problem. — Luke

Have they agreed? Sorry if I missed a post here that agreed that the article proposes a solution. I read some who praised the article as a good article or exciting.

Edit:
Just in case I wasn't clear on my first response to the article, I deny that the article promises a solution, I deny that the article has provided an insight (this is important for me) -- what it provided is a caricature of how humans come to be aware of their senses and how it mischaracterized what it meant to philosophy when other philosophers say that our concept of plurality came first before our concept of "self".

Have they agreed? Sorry if I missed a post here that agreed that the article proposes a solution. — L'éléphant

If you disagree that the article proposes a solution to the hard problem, then what would you say the article is about? What discussion title would you have used instead?

If you disagree that the article proposes a solution to the hard problem, then what would you say the article is about? — Luke

A rehash of what's already been written about phenomenal experience in philosophy, except with fancy words and invention or creative license, which unfortunately is unwarranted since he was actually talking about biological and physiological activities. We have scientific records, no need to invent things.

Here again are passages lifted from the article -- passages are in quote marks: (I suppose I have to work harder because I'm in the minority of disagreeing with his "solution")

Let’s imagine, however, that as the animal’s life becomes more complex, it reaches a stage where it would benefit from retaining some kind of ‘mental record’ of what’s affecting it: a representation of the stimulus that can serve as a basis for planning and decision-making.

A mental record, in other words, a temporal perception, which has already been written about a thousand times by the likes of Descartes, Hume, A. Shimony, etc.

I believe the upshot – in the line of animals that led to humans and others that experience things as we do – has been the creation of a very special kind of attractor, which the subject reads as a sensation with the unaccountable feel of phenomenal qualia.

What are these attractors? He explains it in this passage:

And, I suggest, this development is game-changing. Crucially, it means the activity can be drawn out in time, so as to create the ‘thick moment’ of sensation (see Figure 2c above). But, more than that, the activity can be channelled and stabilised, so as to create a mathematically complex attractor state – a dynamic pattern of activity that recreates itself.

It means retrieving the information from memory. Mind you, bodily functions such as hunger is not memory based, nor the bowel movement ( I will explain it for those uninitiated, upon request).

What discussion title would you have used instead? — Luke

"Nicholas Humphrey's Seeing and Somethingness -- His Personal Account of What Goes On In Our Brain If or When We Have Sensations For Those Who Have Not Studied Or Read Or Understood Neuroscience".

Something.

If it's all just physical information processing - as the physicalists insist - and there is no mental "stuff" that is categorically different from the physical "stuff", then the physicalists should find that people would behave the same way even if they were not phenomenally conscious. So, how and why are we phenomenally conscious, dear physicalists? — Luke

If it were all just physical information processing and there were no experiential dimension, then there would be no one to find anything, nothing to be found, and indeed, no physicalists or physicalism, either.

It means retrieving the information from memory. Mind you, bodily functions such as hunger is not memory based, nor the bowel movement ( I will explain it for those uninitiated, upon request). — L'éléphant

Yes please.

If you disagree that the article proposes a solution to the hard problem, then what would you say the article is about? — Luke

A rehash of what's already been written about phenomenal experience in philosophy, except with fancy words and invention or creative license, which unfortunately is unwarranted since he was actually talking about biological and physiological activities. We have scientific records, no need to invent things. — L'éléphant

Which is it? Is it a rehash of what's already been written about phenomenal experience in philosophy or is he actually talking about biological and physiological activities?

Here again are passages lifted from the article -- passages are in quote marks: (I suppose I have to work harder because I'm in the minority of disagreeing with his "solution")

Let’s imagine, however, that as the animal’s life becomes more complex, it reaches a stage where it would benefit from retaining some kind of ‘mental record’ of what’s affecting it: a representation of the stimulus that can serve as a basis for planning and decision-making.

A mental record, in other words, a temporal perception, which has already been written about a thousand times by the likes of Descartes, Hume, A. Shimony, etc. — L'éléphant

Please cite references to their work that addresses the hard problem of consciousness regarding how or why qualia could have evolved, or why we have any phenomenal experiences at all.

I believe the upshot – in the line of animals that led to humans and others that experience things as we do – has been the creation of a very special kind of attractor, which the subject reads as a sensation with the unaccountable feel of phenomenal qualia.

What are these attractors? He explains it in this passage:

And, I suggest, this development is game-changing. Crucially, it means the activity can be drawn out in time, so as to create the ‘thick moment’ of sensation (see Figure 2c above). But, more than that, the activity can be channelled and stabilised, so as to create a mathematically complex attractor state – a dynamic pattern of activity that recreates itself.

It means retrieving the information from memory. — L'éléphant

Is that all it means?

You have not specified where you disagree with the article. I take it you disagree that the author is proposing a theory of the evolution of phenomenal experience which would help to resolve the hard problem of consciousness? However, this disagreement is already addressed by what you've quoted above, which indicates the author has a theory regarding "the creation of a very special kind of attractor, which the subject reads as a sensation with the unaccountable feel of phenomenal qualia." That is the topic of the article. You may have missed the fact that the author proposes a theory regarding the evolution of phenomenal consciousness.

Here is a snippet from the article's introduction:

Why do visual sensations, as experienced in normal vision, have the mysterious feel they do? Why is there any such thing as what philosophers call ‘phenomenal experience’ or qualia – our subjective, personal sense of interacting with stimuli arriving via our sense organs? Not only in the case of vision, but across all sense modalities: the redness of red; the saltiness of salt; the paininess of pain – what does this extra dimension of experience amount to? What’s it for? [....]

Sensation, let’s be clear, has a different function from perception. Both are forms of mental representation: ideas generated by the brain. But they represent – they are about – very different kinds of things. Perception – which is still partly intact in blindsight – is about ‘what’s happening out there in the external world’: the apple is red; the rock is hard; the bird is singing. By contrast, sensation is more personal, it’s about ‘what’s happening to me and how I as a subject evaluate it’: the pain is in my toe and horrible; the sweet taste is on my tongue and sickly; the red light is before my eyes and stirs me up.

It’s as if, in having sensations, we’re both registering the objective fact of stimulation and expressing our personal bodily opinion about it. But where do those extra qualitative dimensions come from? What can make the subjective present created by sensations seem so rich and deep, as if we’re living in thick time? [....]

In attempting to answer these questions, we’re up against the so-called ‘hard problem of consciousness’: how a physical brain could underwrite the extra-physical properties of phenomenal experience. [....]

I believe sensations originated as an active behavioural response to sensory stimulation: something the animal did about the stimulus rather than something it felt about it. — Nicholas Humphrey

What discussion title would you have used instead? — Luke

"Nicholas Humphrey's Seeing and Somethingness -- His Personal Account of What Goes On In Our Brain If or When We Have Sensations For Those Who Have Not Studied Or Read Or Understood Neuroscience". — L'éléphant

It's a bit wordy. Also, it isn't the topic of the article. The article proposes a theory of the evolution of qualia, about how and why qualia evolved.

If it were all just physical information processing and there were no experiential dimension, then there would be no one to find anything, nothing to be found, and indeed, no physicalists or physicalism, either. — Janus

If there were no experiential dimension then there would be no hard problem, but since there is, there is.

If there were no experiential dimension then there would be no hard problem, but since there is, there is. — Luke

Consider what it would mean to say that there is no experiential dimension. Unless that possibility is conceivable, then the hard problem isn't conceivable. Can you really conceive an absence of experience?

Consider the empirical criteria we might use when we assert that a sleeping person is unconscious. Then consider the rational arguments the the sleeping person uses after waking up, when they infer on the basis of amnesia to have been unconscious during sleep.

Is our empirical criteria regarding the present unconsciousness of a sleeping person the same as, or even comparable to, the amnesia that the awoken person appeals to when inferring "self unconsciousness" in the past?

Consider what it would mean to say that there is no experiential dimension. Unless that possibility is conceivable, then the hard problem isn't conceivable. — sime

Why not?

Can you really conceive an absence of experience? — sime

Yes.