Musical tastes cluster, and there is quite a lot of statistically-observable agreement on what's good and bad musically, both synchronically and diachronically. Taste has an element of subjectivity, certainly, but it is not completely subjective across the board. But anyway, that's really a different sense of "subjectivity" from the one we're concerned with here, I think. — gurugeorge

I know that there is music other people like that I absolutely dislike and no amount of majority preference could convince me it was good or make me like it. Obviously majority held intuitions do not equal facts.

The only way we can have these differing experiences is due to subjectivity. The music is being experienced differently.

I am not saying different subjective experiences cannot be accounted for by differing brain patterns but that there is an experiencer being subject to experiences that he/she is reporting.

I don't see how something cannot be an experience. If we describe something it is because either we or somebone else experienced or perceived or imagined it.Things like colour, sound and pain have purely experiential qualities that aren't described in objective statements about brain processes.

And it is unclear how pain could exist without consciousness.

everyone also knows that the stick isn't bent — gurugeorge

The point is that the bent stick is not in the external "objective world" Just because people can agree on some subjective states does not make them less subjective.

I agree that it could be that everyone's visual system and or the nature of light causes the same experience. But It is due to language that we can talk about our mental states not due to them being publicly observable.

I think people take for granted how much information they receive from language. Guessing what someone is experiencing by brain scans is not the same as having direct access to their being.

I have a brother who has had aggressive MS for twenty years, he is paralysed, communicates by blinking, has had pneumonia at least 6 times and so on and I have no idea what it is like to be him. I don't speculate either because when you are caring for someone in that situation you have to ask them what they want and not impose your preconceptions on them.

I can publicly observe aspects of his illness but you could not really believe that is at equivalent to having the illness for twenty years.

The bent stick is a fairly trivial example of a basic illusion that illustrates a lack of direct access to the external world. It is easy for everyone to give a basic report on this illusion. It doesn't mean they have identical experiences of the phenomenology of the experience... but that the stick simply looks bent.

But having the same basic illusion does not amount to having public access to what it is like for someone quite different over a 20 year period.

based on the logical interactions of the program. — Harry Hindu

It seems that logic is in the human mind and they create structures in computers that behave based on the operation a human wants to achieve. The program has designed constraints to guide its capacities and to act in precise or algorithmic ways

I wouldn't make an analogy between humans and computers because the immense amount of design that goes into computers. If there is no design in making humans then we can't safely take for granted any of the aspects of human inventions that utilise this

There may be causal reason for behaviours and belief formation et al but I don't see how that explains the subjective perspective. For example it is possible that You and I are having a near identical experience of a tree. I don't think we are differentiated simply by possibly having a different combination of input.

Nevertheless I am not very knowledgeable about the concept of information in physics but if everything carries information in a sense of causal interaction and properties then it seems arbitrary that some information should become conscious.
So for examples all organisms receive input from and interact with their environments.

The scam, the trick we all fall for, is thinking that we are a conscious thing trapped inside our body peeping out at the world — gurugeorge

There is substantial evidence that consciousness is internal and subjective. Illusions are one example. How can you mispercieve the external world if you are are just having a brute direct experience of it.

The stick is not bent in the water the Muller-Lyer lines are not unequal length but they appear that way to someone.

Then there is the privacy or memory and pain. I have a lot of information only immediately accessible to me that I can choose to share via language and pain is not something we can share, it is our own and only our pain reactions are publicly observable.

Musical tastes differ as people have different reactions to and experiences of the same piece of music.

The 'I' is derivative of the 'We'. — Cavacava

I am not sure what you are referring to by the "I"

I am using to describe the subjective of experience. The person having experiences and not their self concept. There are numerous aspects to a persons identity and cognition etc but I am only referring to the need for a consciousness to have a subject to be the person having experiences.

I think when people discuss the self they are often discussing different things and the same happens with consciousness. I am using it in a technical sense of what constitutes an experience and a subject is required for an experience.

The same way that any unique array of information is about some unique states-of-affairs. A subject emerges from the kind of, and how the, information is presented. Your information entails your location in space-time and your history - which is unique and relative to every one else's. Your unique array of information is what it is like to be you — Harry Hindu

Information is a problematic notion. You are invoking the notion of mental representation it seems. This kind of information requires a preexisting subject.

For example if you cannot read Chinese the symbols mean nothing to you and don't convey any information. I don't think reproducing is the same as information so that if a gene preserves the pattern of biochemical activity that produces body parts it is just a mechanical procedure. But our kind of knowledge is mental representation.

When you say "information presented" who is the information presented to? Also I don't think we know where we are in space apart from relative to what is around us and things are relative to where we are conscious of being.
So for example we are assuming we are all humans on earth but we are not imagining being another organism light years away with different senses and cognitive abilities.

So even the general human perspective is not objective in the sense we are based in from just one location in the universe with a particular array of cognitive and perceptual apparatus molding our intuitions.

Personal consciousness is literally the only access we have to reality (or our awareness of a reality).

It is hard to imagine describing something with no observer describing from their perspective.What features would exist when you strip away perspective and qualia? Would objects exist or just strange quantum fluctuations of matter?

This why I have strong sense of self and solipsistic senses because I realise everything I believe or perceive is being channeled through me.

I am an antinatalist and I think one reason fro reaching that conclusion is realising the vividness and centrality of another persons experiences so they are not just a statistic or object to be manipulated.

So if people say why am I me I think they are referring not a just a technical or vague concept of body but to this all encompassing vivid personal location of perceiving reality through your own eyes (consciousness).

The issue for me is how to inhabit that very specific personal subjective portal to reality being subject to experiences.

Another consciousness issue is "What is consciousness a property of?"

Consciousness is not property described by other fields such as the study of electricity and magnetism or the study of cells or neurotransmitters/biochemistry.

So either we need a new theory in these fields or a new property or paradigm postulated. If neurons can create consciousness and subjectivity we need a convincing causal/emergent theory of that. (A theory that makes predictions I imagine)

But whatever theory of emergence is posited will that amount to an explanation for subjectivity which is more than merely a third person correlation?

The infant child does not identify itself apart from its parents until it becomes self aware of itself as an independent agent — Cavacava

When I am around young children and babies I see no evidence that they are relying on me for a sense of identity or perception or volition.

I don't see how one can prove claims about babies mental states because they cannot speak and so it is all an interpretation which has been challenged. All sorts of attitudes have been attributed to babies including extreme egotism which I find disturbing.

I think we usual can trace our own consciousness back to our most early memories before that we have amnesia. I cannot trace my consciousness back to any one emergent moment.

Nevertheless at whatever stage personal consciousness emerges it is private and subjective and everything you experience is channelled through yourself. You do learn things from other (bad things) and that can damage your identity or shape parts of it. But that is not the same as creating ones subjectivity.

I think some peoples lack of strong personal identity is due to over conformity and a lack of personal reflection. I am well aware of this having grown up in a religious cult.

But that doesn't mitigate against the effectiveness of science in its domain of application. — Wayfarer

Is science describing world with or without consciousness in it.

I feel like facts are undermined until we can locate consciousness and know how we are accessing reality and how veridical our perceptions.

I am not saying facts don't exist just that lack of explanation for consciousness leads to scepticism like solipsism or elaborate consciousness derived paradigms like panpsychism or idealism. Indeed some physicist have been and are supporters of idealism.

I find consciousness of non humans puzzling because I think consciousness requires a self/subject to be subject to experience but can't imagine an animals self. (Partly because they lack language I suppose)

The main thing I am looking at here though is the subjective perspective and the location of that.

You could say the brain is the source of subjectivity but the brain it self is an objectively/collectively observable thing where as things like sensations and thought aren't (other than indirectly)

There is nothing that could have been somebody else until being born in this specific body. — noAxioms

Before you are born is the period I am referring to. If I start to exist there is the question of how I start to exist as that person.

Bodily there is a continuum because I can trace my genetic lineage causally, but not for my mind. At some stage you emerge into consciousness of being you and I don't think it has anything to do with linguistics.

There are ways for a materialistic/physical dualism for example a disc can be put into different machines or maybe there will be brain transplants or implanted memories.

So if there was a physical dualistic separation of brain and mind then your mind could be uploaded to someone else body. Some theorist advocate mind uploads as a form of trans humanism reincarnation or longevity tool. So I don't think dualism is not hypothetically illogical or anti physicalist.

The point I making about location is that everything is filtered through your own perspective even if these perceptions are illusory or influenced by others. So for example you could be a depressed single African mother in 2090 thinking about The causes of WW2 or you could be someone in 1920 in France thinking about WW2. So the content of your thoughts can be similar while your identity is not.

I think there is distinction between consciousness and the contents of consciousness.

So no one raised you? You didn't learn how to be a person on your own, sure consciousness but you learnt how to be conscious by studying what others were doing, realizing that you are also an person — Cavacava

I have no idea how I became conscious and that is the mystery.

Are you saying we are unconscious until we interact with people?

Why am I me? Well, who else could I be? — noAxioms

You could not be anyone else now but you could have been someone else and been born in another body or era or gender.

I am one of 6 children I am conscious of being the fourth child but why not the first or sixth?

So instead, don't assume that there is an 'I' that got to be 'me', or got to be 'here', and the problem vanishes. — noAxioms

I think there for I am am. As soon as I experience I am aware that I am and can reflect on my own existence along with the content of a a thought or perception.

There is no way to talk about something without knowing that you or someone else was conscious of it or imagined it.

There is no realistic way of taking the "I" out of any theory because that raises the question of who is talking and what they are talking about.

If we speculate that something exists that is based on prior conspicuous experience. So if speculate about something underlying my experience such as quantum entities I am doing so to try and understand my current experiences.

I think most reasonable theorist who are not trying to fudge the issue of consciousness because of metaphysical ideology, accept there is a subjective experiencing perspective.

When I am deeply unconscious I have no awareness or concern about reality existing. It does not somehow objectively reveal it self in a scenario where there is no consciousness in the universe.

With Some things like sounds, thought, pain,colours and concepts it is unclear how they could exist in the absence of minds.

I have never known a problem in philosophy to vanish.

sure you are conscious but only because there are others that you have mimicked that's all. — Cavacava

Is this your actual theory of consciousness? I have not heard a theory of consciousness arising because of mimicry. I don't see how mimicry is a causal explanation for consciousness or the conscious experience.

The reason it is hard to imagine being a bat is because whatever experiences they may have are private and directly inaccessible. The issue here is how you become that entity experiencing what it is like to be you.

On the other aspect of the location issue... Imagine someone phoned you but you had no idea where they were phoning from and they were actually phoning from the other side of the world. This is an example of how you can communicate with someone and gather valuable information about them without being certain of their location.

Correlations of our mental life with brains states is based on verbal reports most often not on finding consciousness at a particular spot. Anyhow even if we explained how the brain produce experience that is a different issue to explaining the subject of experiences.

I don't understand the lack of study into subjectivity and location compared to qualia and neural correlates etc.

I don't know what you mean. You will have to explain more. If you mean our personality can be shaped by others that maybe true but that is not consciousness.

If I am conscious of the moon that does not need the presence of anyone else to happen and that is my only access to the moon or anyone else (personal consciousness).

Our belief in other peoples existence is based on person experience and could be fabricated and indeed when people communicate with us we interpret it. We can draw false conclusions about what they believe about us.

What is solipsistic to me is reflected in the main theories of perception which is that our own brain is responsible for constructing a mental reality for us.

How can we access other people or reality without personal consciousness? The reason solipsism exists an idea is because of this realisation about the deeply subjective nature of experience (along with the potential for skepticism about experiences)

I hate Trump. You love Trump — Bitter Crank

I neither hate nor love Trump. I suppose taking both extreme positions could lead to an impasse.

I have just found a nice quote from Derrida.

"A decision that did not go through the ordeal of the undecidable would not be a free decision, it would only be the programmable application or unfolding of a calculable process"

So I suppose an excessively deterministic attitude could lead to an impasse.

What do you mean by "resolved"? — tim wood

Find a solution for.

Or sway the argument predominantly towards one side.

I have never seen one of those in the UK.

What is puzzling me about an impasse is why it can't intellectually be resolved.

Of course I think I am usually in the right and open minded.

Arguments can be resolved by force I suppose. I think that is the case with gay rights and abortion legislation. I think force might be better than an impasse. But by force I don't man violence but rather pushing your agenda towards being realised rather than continuing arguing and bickering.

I know this sounds extreme but I think arguing can just lead to apathy and fatalism.I think some people hide behind progress and force made on their behalf.

The point is I don't want to be governed by someone else's agenda that I disagree with.But resorting to non verbal action would only happen if it seemed like a necessity.

For example say people disagree on gods existence I don't think society should favour either position and focus on just one metaphysics or philosophy. I think society should be secular but in a pluralistic way where no one is imposed upon by another's dogmas and children have access to a wide palate of ideas.

I suppose evidence will eventually prove a point.

It seems to me if both sides were agnostic then they could agree on uncertainty but that is not usually how it goes. It seems like people enjoy dichotomies and taking sides.

I feel that I would change my mind if someone gave me a new persuasive argument. But I do feel that the opposing side of the argument sometimes does not accept how firm your own convictions are and really are just being dismissive.
Certain positions are more trendy or contemporary so that if you are not in a popular paradigm your are more easily dismissed

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One thing that might prove helpful to remember is that people generally don't know why they do things. — darthbarracuda

I am friendly towards the idea of unconscious/subconscious dynamics. But they are hard to tackle because they are not immediately knowable.
It could be a lengthy diversion from a debates propositions to explore how your temperament and or relationship with your father formed your ideological leanings.

I think questioning your own beliefs can lead to self-doubt but this self-doubt may be unwarranted if you have a really sound argument.

I think a good case here is homosexuality and the ex-gay movement.

I almost can't even find the words to describe it.

One of the main reasons I left Christianity as a teen was it's inexplicable hostility to homosexuality. Of course growing up gay in religious fundamentalist household can hardly be described as healthy.

I came to the quick realisation I could never change my sexuality and had no intention of masquerading as straight.
A lot of mainly Muslim countries actively try and purge their homosexual populations. So who is dysfunctional here?

Some times gay people seem to find trying to conform easiest. I really don't know how humans manage to survive their own dysfunction.

I suppose you could ask the individual what is paining them. Then you can look for common responses and see whether they suggest societal malfunction.

Now I think about it, it does seem hard to work out what might be causing mental pain, unless the person experiencing it thinks that they know (by introspection or something).

What exactly causes mental illness and mental distress is controversial it seems. It is easier or less controversial to blame smoking for causing cancer than to blame family or society for mental illness.

My overall suggestion is just that something must be wrong somewhere to cause mental distress. It seems like finding causes is being neglected with a focus on CBT and meditation style solutions which involve healing yourself and without necessarily referencing a cause and seem to put all the onus on the individual and not his or her environment.

You do hear said that the black sheep in a family maybe symptomatic of dysfunction in a family but this person is channelling it or displaying it whilst others are in denial.

Also saying something is 'wrong' is presuming metaphysics is it not? — Monitor

I don't mean wrong in the moral sense but wrong in terms of harm or malfunction. Any illness relies on a notion of malfunction it seems.

Killing the messenger can be catastrophic. — frank

I agree. What would you consider killing the messenger?

I would say something like excessive medication and self based therapy or marginalisation, or ostracising.

This has always been a suspicion for critics of psychiatry that it is enforcing norms etc.

People who have congenital pain defect or lose their ability to suffer pain suffer a lot of injuries. It is clear that we need physical pain for survival.

I think the "useless" pain is a problem with the pain system not with the efficacy of pain as a warning theory.

People do talk of conditions such as psychopathy as I suppose emotional disorders that lead people to harm others or be dysfunctional.Even congenital pain defect can affect empathy where someone cannot realise what pain they are causing others because they have no analogy to use.

Pain becomes more of a mystery than it already is when it serves no purpose other than to distress and demoralise us. the pain as a signal theory is popular as the primary functional account and evolutionary account of it. However chronic pain does undermine that view.

But the fact some pain physical serves a definite purpose (see congenital pain defect cases) means some mental pain most likely has a similar function.

One interesting claim is that mental health improved during world war two and it is suggested that the increase in community spirit and the feeling of having a greater purpose may have contributed.

In my own experience any big distraction helps me.

I don't remember saying all mental pain is always caused by society. What would make a stronger correlation is when there are high levels of mental distress and mental illness in a society.

But I don't see how societal dysfunction could be ruled out as a cause of mental health problems.

Many people have died from pollution which is a social problem. I don't see why mental health problems could not be caused from societal dysfunction in the same way or why the causes of mental health would always be internal.

Some pain does appear to serve no purpose like chronic pain but I don't see why all mental pain would fall into that category. But almost all pain is a sign of bodily dysfunction including brain wiring issues if there is no transparent injury, so I think mental distress and mental illness would be correlated with some form of dysfunction.

The hippo which killed the impala isn't motivated by hate, jealousy, greed or any of the ''bad'' intentions humans are capable of. — TheMadFool

Maybe these emotions are linked to advanced cognition?

I wouldn't describe that video as nature in harmony though. I think the reason we don't live in "harmony" with nature is because we live longer when we don't. Although to what extent we are part of nature is an issue.

I suppose my main moral intuition is that humans are irrational but I don't know what outcomes a purer rationality would lead to. (By rationality I mean applying logic and having sound reasons)

I think we would have to make a lot of sacrifices to live a more primitive life style which benefits our mental health but shorten our lives.

Look at the non-human world. Animals live in harmony with their environment. Every animal behavior is one of necessity. — TheMadFool

But that isn't true.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T2XnQ4HKSVc

The only reason I can think of to explain people having children is a fear of death.

It may seem like a form of immortality to people having children.

A desire to have sex is no reason to produce a child.

There are millions of academic studies. You have cited a few dozen.

No entity has rights. Rights are fantasies

However, lucky for us, that is not the scenario we have when talking about veganism. — NKBJ

But you are trying to impose a similar status on animals to humans. You do seem to have an inaccurate view of nature because you seem to be implying that it is a default utopia or something we can improve.

As I have pointed out with some evidence, starvation, disease and predation are the natural default and a death in the wild is not better than one elsewhere.

I don't think an animal becomes a person just by referring to it as thus. There is a clear distinction between our different comprehensions and capacities and our ability to be part of the same society.

I don't believe in rights either. I think rights are statements to justify attitudes and behaviour but they are not objectively existent. For example we don't have a right to life. Many children historically died in infancy and if cancer wants to kill you it won't respect you alleged right to life.

There are people who pamper their pets, clothe them and treat them like children. You can carry out a charade like this but then there is a limit to an animals ability and you would not elect them as a politician or want them to fly your plane. So yes, you can act a certain way towards an animal without it having the traits you want to attribute to it.

https://veganbiologist.com/2016/01/04/humans-are-not-herbivores/

Humans are clearly omnivores and you can happily make that claim just based on the evidence of what we are eating now.

There are also a couple of well crafted videos by sv3rige on YouTube with some evidence of chronic malnutrition in vegans. There is also lots of testimony to be found of ex vegans reporting chronic heath problems.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1HwBtRlyxPs

True enough. But how does that justify killing someone? — NKBJ

Why do you why do you say "someone"? Can we not stick to talk about killing animals for food?
There are lots of reason why we a won't kill a fellow human.

Personally I don't see why we have to justify anything. And to whom?

Being part of nature means that what we do is not unnatural. We can't do anything other than what nature allows. The notion we are being unreasonable seems to be a subjective value judgement. I think lots of things people do are unreasonable.

The justification for killing an animal is because you eat hungry and want to eat it. What justification due you have for asking people to live like herbivores?

The inevitability of death puts the whole process in perspective. Organisms try and stay alive but are doomed to become fertiliser. I think humans hypothetically have a lot of potential for however long they live and losing a human is a far greater loss than losing a cow. If Einstein and a cow were drowning I know who I would save first.