1. Cooperation: individuals sharing a resource
2. Competition: individuals fighting over a resource — TheMadFool

What happens when the individuals you are competing with are a resource themselves? Altruism.

Therefore, it must be physical, not informational, and can only be reproduced with the right mechanical process. — hypericin

I don't know what this means. Present physical states are informative of prior physical states. I don't see how you can have something that is physical that is also absent information. The only process that is needed for information to be present is the process of causation.

Against the AI symbol processing story, Searle points out that a computer might simulate the weather, but simulated weather will never make you wet. Likewise, a simulated carburettor will never drive a car. Simulations have no real effects on the world.

And so it is with the brain and its neurons. It may look like a computational pattern at one level. But that pattern spinning can't be divorced from the environment that is being regulated in realtime. Like the weather or a carburettor, the neural collective is actually pushing and shoving against the real world.

That then is the semantics that breathes life into the syntax. And that is also the semantics that is missing if a brain, a carburettor or the weather is reduced to a mere syntactical simulation. — apokrisis

I don't really understand what you're going on about here. Making the claim that simulations have no real effects on the world when all you have to do is look at all of the imaginary ideas and their outcomes in the world, is absurd. Just look at all the Mickey Mouse memorabilia, cartoons, theme parks, etc. Isnt the memorabilia a physical simulation of the non-physical idea of Mickey Mouse, or is it vice versa?

Think about how simulated crashes with real cars, crash test dummies, and a simulated driving environment has an effect on insurance rates when it comes covering certain cars with insurance and providing consumers with crash test ratings.

I've set up virtual machines, which are software simulations of computer hardware, for companies and their business functions on these simulated computers.

Isn't every event in the world a simulation of other similar events? Every event isnt exactly the same as every other, all events are unique, but they can be similar or dissimilar, and how good of a simulation it is depends on how similar the (simulated) event is to the event being simulated. We use events (simulations) to make predictions about similar events.

A simulated carburettor isn't meant to drive a real car. It is meant to design a real car. Try designing a car well without using simulations/predictions. Weather simulations aren't meant to make you wet. They are meant to inform you of causal relationships between existing atmospheric conditions and subsequent atmospheric conditions that have an impact on a meteorologist's weather predictions. Try predicting the weather without using weather simulations. Our knowledge is just as much part of the world and simulations have a drastic impact on our understandings, knowledge and behaviors in the world.

I don't see how semantics could ever be divorced from the syntax and vice versa, or how you could have one without the other. Semantics is just as important of a rule as the syntax. Effects mean their causes and causes mean their effects, so the semantics is there in every causal process. The rules of which causes leads to which effects and vice versa, would be the syntax - the temporal and spatial order of which effects are about which causes. If some system is following all of the rules, then how can you say that they don't understand the semantics? Defining variables in a computer program is equivalent to establishing semantic relationships that are then applied to some logical function.

I think you're getting things back to front. The room is set up to replicate the way a computer works, the kinds of rules it works with. It's not trying to replicate the way humans work, the kinds of rules we use to understand language. So Searle is showing why a digital computer can't understand language. — Daemon

But that was my point... that there are only one set of rules for understanding Chinese, and both humans and computers would use the same rules for understanding Chinese. I don't see a difference between how computers work and how humans work. We both have sensory inputs and we process those inputs to produce outputs based on logical rules.

Not only are we not acknowledging that the room does not contain instructions for understanding Chinese, but we are also ignoring the fact that the instructions are in a language that the man in the room does understand. So the question is how did the man in the room come to understand the language the instructions are written in?

Searle argues that the thought experiment underscores the fact that computers merely use syntactic rules to manipulate symbol strings, but have no understanding of meaning or semantics. — SEP article

The problem with the "Chinese" room is that the rules in the room are not for understanding Chinese. Those are not the same rules that Chinese people learned or use to understand Chinese. So Searle is making a category error in labeling it a "Chinese Room".

The question isn't whether a computer can understand Chinese by using those rules. It is whether anything, or anyone, can understand Chinese by using those rules. If nothing can understand Chinese using the rules in the room, then those are not the rules for understanding Chinese.

Simulations have no real effects on the world. — apokrisis

Predictions are simulations in your head, and predictions have causal power. We all run simulations of other minds in our minds as we attempt to determine the reasoning behind some behaviour.

Well, what use is it in day-to-day life? Isaac, Banno et al would argue that there isn't a meaningful separate phenomenal experience, i.e. it isn't useful at all even if it exists. The transformations and augmentations of raw sensory input with memory, motivation, etc., are sufficient to account for consciousness. And I agree to an extent. In my view, when we talk about qualia, we're talking about these transformations and augmentations, at least as available to access consciousness (which is all we can report on). The usefulness might be summed up as: it is quicker and easier to work with 'lion' than it is to work with an unadorned granular image. — Kenosha Kid

None of this explains why have a different experience of my raw sensory input with memory, motivation, etc. than you have of my raw sensory input with memory, motivation. From my view, I don't experience neurons. I experience colors, shapes and sounds of the world. From your view, you experience neurons in the format of colors and shapes. How can on one end you point to a visual of neurons, while I point to an experience of a sound.

I could point to blind-sight patients as evidence that phenomenal experience is necessary. Blind-sight patients don't behave, or think like normal humans. They don't have the level of detail about their environment that normal people do. Their different behavior is the result of their phenomenal experience, or the lack of one, compared to those that have it. In other words, p-zombies would behave differently than normal humans, and would therefore be distinguishable from human beings.

That's probably not one thing. I've touched on an example from Kahneman's work earlier. There are decisions we make that are not consciously made, that is we are not conscious of making them in the way we do, but rather, once those decisions are made unconsciously, they are presented to consciousness as if for ratification in such a way that we'll swear blind we did make them consciously. (NB: Kahneman doesn't speak in terms of unconscious and conscious decision making but in terms of System 1 (fast, e.g. pattern-matching) and System 2 (slow, algorithmic). But the implication is there.) Consciously we can change our minds, i.e. System 2 will come up with a different answer. — Kenosha Kid

This assumes that consciousness only exists in one part of the brain. How do you know that there are not other consciousnesses in other parts of the brain making those decisions?

You say that "we" are not conscious of our decision, then how can we associate the decision with "we"? Who made the decision? Is the "you" morally culpable for those decisions? Why present anything to consciousness, if not for ratification - meaning that consciousness would be part of the whole decision-making process. If you asked another person for advice, have you made the decision yet?

I am saying that this dualism is always actually a dichotomy, and thus something intrinsically relational.

Hotter is only ever relative to colder. And vice versa. But then a world constructed within that contrast makes possible the new thing of having some particular position on that spectrum of possibilities. You can be a body in an environment where you have this Goldilocks three choices about the temperature you prefer — apokrisis

There is no decision being made as we always goes with "just right". Hot and cold are merely informing you that you are no longer in a state of homeostasis, or a state of "just right".

Hot and cold are not relative to each other. They are temperatures relative to the temperature of another body that is neither hot nor cold. A body that has a different temperature will associate different things as hot and cold. If the sun could experience temperature, it would consider lava cold. Is lava hot or cold, or is it simply neither and everything just has a certain amount of kinetic energy?

The question is why is there both types of descriptors for temperature - subjectivity of hot and cold, and the objectivity of kinetic energy?

The division - the epistemic cut - lies in the fact that life and mind are how we describe systems organised by symbols. They have a coding machinery like genes, neurons or word that can store memories and so impose a self-centred structure of habits on their environments.

It is pretty easy to recognise that difference between an organism and its backdrop inorganic environment surely? — apokrisis

Effects are about their causes independent of any mind. A mind is not needed to establish that relationship. It is already there. A mind is just another effect of causes, and a cause for many effects. Minds simply focus on the causal relationships that are useful and ignore the rest. That doesn't mean that causal relationships don't exist except when accessed by some mind. Cause and effect is part of everything, including life and non-life. Again, we're merely talking about degrees of complexity of some causal system.

The relationship between tree rings and the age of a tree isn't in some mind. It is in the causal process of how the tree grows throughout the year, and that relationship exists independent of some mind attending to it.

A holistic or triadic paradigm now explains life. And it is easy to see that it also explains mind, as semiosis already grants life an intentionality and "awareness" at the cellular level ... the subject of the cited paper here. — apokrisis

But the boundary between life and non-life gets blurry. After all, life is just a more complex relationship than non-life, so it stands to reason that non-life would have very rudimentary, the most basic, the most fundamental relationships that life has, not that it doesn't have it at all. What that thing is is information. Effects are informative of their causes and vice versa. A relationship is informative of its constituents and vice versa. Information is the relationship between cause and effect and it exists in everything that is a causal relation, like scribbles on a screen and the intent that caused them to be on the screen and the information molecules have about their atoms.

states of consciousness are just brain states — Kenosha Kid

The hard problem is asking why are there both conscious states and brain states.

People seem to be forgetting that we only know of brain states via conscious states - meaning that our knowledge of brain states takes the form of conscious visual sensory data, like "shivering brains" and such.

From where you stand, you experience brain states when looking at my conscious states. From where I stand, I only experience conscious states, not brain states. I don't experience my conscious states like you experience my conscious states. If this is the case, then how do we know that we are talking about the same thing. If we are talking about the same thing, then why does it appear so different from where we stand? We don't seem to have this sort of problem when talking about apples, tables and chairs. The differences that are there are the result of our our different positions in space-time relative to what it is that we are perceiving. Does the same hold true for consciousness - that the difference is just in our different locations relative to what it is that we are talking about?

What is relevant to this thread is the point I have already tied to make. Yes, there is a dualism at the heart of everything in some strong sense. — apokrisis

What does this really mean? It seems to me that you can always simplify dualism into monism. Dualism is just another way of saying that everything is a relationship. The problem is that there are many relationships between more than two things. Not to mention that dualism seems to be a false dichotomy derived from the idea that the singular "I" itself possesses qualities that are on a level between everything else. The world is only hot or cold relative to your own body temperature, large or small relative to your own size, etc. In other words, these sensations are relationships between the state of your body and the state of the environment. I think this is more or less something that you might agree with and maybe any disagreement we might have will be semantics, but then that just means that the real difference between dualism and monism is just semantics.

The accuracy likely is affected, but for one thing it avoids going down wrong paths when looking for or describing something. The way people often talk about human reason and it's role, for instance, seems very wrong to me. There was a famous experiment a while ago that showed that neurological behaviour associated with motor responses fired before correlated decision-making processes in the prefrontal cortex. The subjects remember, from their limited but direct phenomenal experience, deciding to act, then acting, when in fact the action appeared to be unconsciously chosen and only consciously ratified -- or rationalised -- after the act. The narrative based on the first person viewpoint is wrong, and this is exceedingly common it seems.

This reminds me very much of Daniel Kahneman's System 1 / System 2 model of the brain and his tests of it. Problems that appear amenable to pattern-matching (the thing that makes it easier to add 5 or 9 to things than 7 or 8) but that pattern-matching would lead to the wrong answer for follow a similar pattern. Human subjects swear blind they worked out the answer, when in fact they seem to be *receiving* an answer and ratifying it. Badly. That is, System 2 (the so-called rational, algorithmic part of the brain associated with conscious decision-making) receives a putative answer from System 1 (the dumb but hard-working pattern-matching part of the brain that acts without conscious input).

There are all sorts of psychological effects that follow from these sorts of behaviours, some good, some terrible, and those effects can be exploited. It's beneficial to know how your mind operates, what mistakes it makes. For instance, the above suggests to me that the conscious mind is not adept at discerning "We should do this, right?" from "We did this FYI." Besides that, it's just interesting. — Kenosha Kid

This begs the question then, what use is personal phenomenal experience in an evolutionary "survival of the genes" sense? This seems more like evidence of a Cartesian theatre where the phenomenal experience is just along for the show - that there is no top-down, or fault-tolerant, processing.

That could mean different things. For one, it could be that consciousness is simply a mental model of attention. See the Attention-schema theory of consciousness:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attention_schema_theory

What would it look like for someone to change their mind? And what about those instinctive urges that only seem to be inhibited by conscious effort? It seems like consciousness really evolved to inhibit certain instinctual behaviors within social environments. It also seems important when learning new skills. After the skill is acquired you don't have to focus conscious effort in performing it - like walking and riding a bike.

Really? So if you lost a finger you're not you anymore? Which part of the body exactly carries this "I"? How much of a body can you lose or replace to still be the same "I"? Whatever "I" remains after all is replaced or changed, that is "the experiencer". — khaled

The last part doesn't make any sense. If all is replaced, then how can there be anything that remains?

If I lost a finger, I would still be the same I, that just lost a finger. Things change and remain the same, or else "change" wouldn't make any sense as change is what some thing does.

Are you saying that the only thing that you do is experience? You don't run, jump, laugh, talk, etc.? When your body commits an immoral act, are you at fault or is your body at fault?

Well at least we've established that there is an event. I thought you were one of those people who pretend that the scribble refers to nothing. But I still think "what is this event" is akin to asking "what is shape", It's one of those things you can't simplify further. Why don't you take a crack at it because I can't do it. — khaled

What is shape? Information.

What is this event of shapes, colors, sounds, smells and feelings? Information processing.

What are all events? Information. Process. Relationships. Take your pick. They all seem to apply. These are the terms I like to use.

It's just that when I'm talking definitions with someone I get really nitpicky about words. "experiencing eggs in the fridge" is sort of vague because it can either mean simply seeing eggs in the fridge or somehow literally "Knowing beyond all doubt that there are in fact eggs in the fridge". I just wanted to be specific that we're talking about seeing things here. — khaled

True. That is why I don't really care much for using the term, "experience". I was only using it because that is the scribble that you know to refer to the event we are talking about. I have learned that, in order to communicate, you have to use words that your audience understands, not necessarily the words you would use, because it is the thing that we are talking about that is important, not the scribbles that we use.

That's true. Which is one reason why people can be mistaken. But if your argument against the idea that we are not conscious of the causes of our consciousness is going to rely on a general doubt about the veracity of anything we experience, you really do have a contradiction on your hands. After all, I'm only rendering knowledge of the causes of our experience indirect. You're questioning the reliability of experience itself, which is going much further (too far imo) down the road. The reliability of experience has nothing to do with my earlier comment; it is the total absence of experience of certain events that underlies my comment. — Kenosha Kid

That all depends on what you mean by "conscious", "experience" and "knowledge". If the accuracy of our knowledge is not affected by how direct or indirect the knowledge is, then what is the point of using those terms? I'm only questioning the reliability of the experience by taking what you have said and running with it. If you don't mean to say that the accuracy of our knowledge is affected by the indirect nature of it, then what are you actually saying when you say that our knowledge is "indirect"?

This is circular.
— Harry Hindu

Of course it is. As is every definition ever (at least of these basic concepts)... — khaled

That's part of the problem - in thinking of these concepts in this way.

What is an experiencer?
— Harry Hindu

No, because I thought that
— Harry Hindu

Whatever "I" is referring to here. — khaled

For me, "I" refers to my body as a whole. I can think just as I can run, jump, dance and talk. The question is, why is thinking special, in that it is in a separate category (mental) than all of the other things that I do (physical)? And if they are separate categories, then how do my thoughts cause me to run, jump, dance and talk, and vice versa?

Telling me that it's an "experience" just tells me what scribble I can use to refer to this event, but what is this event?
— Harry Hindu

Oh so you understand what it means now all of a sudden? Yes, it is probably that event you had in mind while writing this (in a literal and metaphorical sense).

A sensible question. But consider this: maybe the reason we use that scribble only and we do not have accurate language to describe what is happening is because we don't know what is happening. — khaled

Uh... well, yeah. That was the point of my question.

Not at all, I wouldn't say it is unimportant, I would say we can't know the answers to these questions. Because this isn't an event we can detect. Show me the "consciousness-o-meter" and then we might be able to answer these questions, or show me how to make one. — khaled

Well, you know that you are conscious. So you tell me the meter that you used to determine that you are conscious. Your meter seems to simply be how many human beings in your immediate environment use a particular scribble to refer to the event.

Sure you do, you wrote that "experience" is a scribble that refers to an event. — khaled

:roll: I was asking what the event is, not what the scribble is. And in asking what the event is, I'm NOT asking what scribble most English speakers use to point to it (unless you're saying that consciousness is a word?). I'm asking about those relationships I spoke about earlier.

Seeing is a type of experience. However "seeing eggs" =/= "experiencing eggs in the fridge" (whatever that means). You experience a certain image, of there being eggs in a fridge. I don't understant what "experiencing eggs in the fridge" means. That image may or may not reflect reality. — khaled

:roll:
Sheesh! First you say, "Seeing is a type of experience", and then seem confused about what it means to experience eggs in the fridge! Think, my man! Think!

If seeing is a type of experience, then what other types are there? There would be hearing, smelling tasting, and feeling experiences to name a few. The cool thing about consciousness is that all of these types of experiences can occur together, in the same moment, in the same mental space. I hear you where I see you and feel you. It is a type of fault tolerance for the information about some object's location relative to the body, and a means of confirming what the other senses are telling you - like whether or not those are real or fake eggs in the fridge. In other words, you experienced [real] eggs in the fridge because you saw them, felt them, smelled them and tasted them.

But they are different. Again, I said quite the opposite. — Kenosha Kid

How do you know? Isn't what you said prior to your present experience of what you said? Can't you only infer what you previously said since it happened prior to your present statement of what you previously said?

Precisely because you seem confused by it. — Kenosha Kid

If confusing me is your intent, then you have succeeded.

No. You decided to define it as "isn't water". I decided to include water. Anyways I won't bother with this pointless line anymore. — khaled

No, I didn't. Go back and read what I said. I said that it is a relationship between water and something else. It's not my fault that you aren't paying attention.

I don't "experience eggs in the fridge". That's word salad no offence. I see eggs in the fridge. I cannot be wrong that I am seeing eggs in the fridge (Assuming I'm not blind of course). But I can be wrong about whether or not there are eggs in the fridge (could have been an elaborately placed cutout so as to make it seem like there are eggs there). — khaled

Sure. Let's just say "experiences" then. Do you get what that means? — khaled

No, because I thought that seeing is a type of experience, but you are saying that it isn't. Care to clarify?

How do you know that you are experiencing something? — Harry Hindu

Because there is an experiencer (me) who is aware (conscious) of these experiences. And that is the definition of "having an experience" — khaled

This is circular. What is an experiencer? Are you referring to a homunculus?
Also, you previously said this:

Saying "aware that you are conscious" is like saying "wet water" — khaled

...but now you are saying that you can be aware (conscious) of experiences. How is an experience different from awareness/consciousness?

Your question implies that it is possible to have an experience but think you're not having an experience. Can you give an example of that? — khaled

"Experience" is just a word. You've been trained to refer to this event as an "experience". But what is it that we are referring to really? Telling me that it's an "experience" just tells me what scribble I can use to refer to this event, but what is this event? Is it the only event (solipsism)? Is it an event among many others (realism)? If the latter, how does this event relate to, and interact with, the other events? You might say that all this is unimportant and that we can use a computer without knowing how it works, but you still have to know what a computer is to use it. The amount of detail that you know about the computer is relative to what you want to do with it, and I troubleshoot them so I know more than just how to use them. That is the level of detail I want when it comes to "experiences" and "consciousness" because then we can learn how to fix them and maybe even improve them.

No, you might infer it. I do not imply it. By explicitly stating that we don't, there is no implication that we do. "My name begins with J and is not John" does not imply "My name is John and is not John." — Kenosha Kid

That wasn't the type of argument I was making. If your "indirect" description of events that cause experiences is no different than a "direct" description then what is the point of even using the terms "direct" and "indirect" when it comes to awareness/knowledge of some event preceding the experience?

All direct experience is of phenomena. — Kenosha Kid

What is an indirect experience of phenomena? If there is no such thing, then why use the term, "direct" in the first place? All experience is of phenomena. Then I would ask, Is there anything else, other than experience, that can be of phenomena? For instance, could effects be of their causes?

By all means, point out where I suggested that I have direct awareness of, say, stabilising my field of view or whiteshifting the colours I see. — Kenosha Kid

You imply that you have "direct" awareness by describing these facts. What is missing from your explanation of the facts of the causes of our experiences? My point was that "direct" and "indirect" are meaningless if you are still able to know the facts, which you just reported, unless you are saying that you don't know what you are talking about.

My statement was that abstraction from subjective experience is a necessary part of understanding subjective experience because the causes of subjective experience are not part of subjective experience. For instance, I am not aware of turning the retinal image upside down; I am only aware of the transformed image (which is why I am happy to talk about qualia at all). The fact that I can be extremely confident that this transformation occurs does not rely on subjective experience, or divine revelation for that matter, but on scientific progress and study. It might yet transpire that science and books and research journals are a conspiracy to mislead us or some such, but I'm happy that that's a vanishingly small likelihood. — Kenosha Kid

If you aren't aware of the cause, then how can you even say anything about it? What is missing from your report of the state-of-affairs that precede our experience of something? How would someone who has direct awareness of these states-of-affairs describe them compared to someone who has indirect awareness of those same states-of-affairs? If they both say the same things, then what is the difference between indirect and direct awareness? If the person that had direct awareness says something different, then does that not mean that you don't know what you are talking about because you are only aware indirectly?

I know that I am experiencing something. I later call this ability to experience something "consciousness". — khaled

How do you know that you are experiencing something?

No because I cannot be wrong about the fact that I'm experiencing something. — khaled

You cannot be wrong that eggs are in the fridge if you experience them in the fridge? If your aren't wrong that you have experiences and you have experiences of eggs in the fridge, then how can you say that you can be wrong about eggs in the fridge, but not about having experience of eggs in the fridge?

Or I could define "wet" as "in contact with water" in whichcase water would be wet unless it is just one molecule. Again, this is pointless. — khaled

Exactly. You need something else that isn't water to be in contact with water. Contact is a type of relationship between water and something else. You haven't said anything different than what I just said.

What sounds redundant? — khaled

First-person experiences. If all experiences are first person then it is redundant to even use first person as a qualifier to describe experiences.

I was not doing some reductio ad absurdum here. I was implying that this point of contention is useless. No one cares whether or not water is wet and it doesn't help in whatever discussion you decide to have about water. In the same way I don't think "are you aware of being conscious" is important. — khaled

Then how do you know that you are conscious? Its important to know how you know that you are conscious, or any other fact for that matter. Do you know that there are eggs in the fridge in the same way that you know that you are conscious?

Water isn't wet. Wet is a relationship between water and something else. An object that is not water is wet when water interacts with it.

is just a different location of the first person experience.
— Harry Hindu

Oh so you understand what it means now all of a sudden? You just used it to form a correct sentence. Congratulations! — khaled

No. I was simply reiterating your explanation and showing you how your distinction between first and third person is nonsensical. So, no. I still don't know what you mean by first person experience. It sounds redundant.

Not necessarily — bongo fury

What else could it be? Where does the observation of shivering brains reside? In what form does the knowledge that brains shiver take if not a visual of a shivering brain?

Surely, anyone with sufficient flair for metaphor who had experienced shivering, e.g. with cold, could apply the term appropriately to sound events just as well as to illumination events? — bongo fury

Using metaphors is part what it means to be poetic.
Does my brain shiver when its cold, or is it my body that shivers?

Saying "aware that you are conscious" is like saying "wet water" — khaled

I don't think so. Can you report anything that you aren't aware of, like being conscious? By what means do you know things, like that an apple is on the table and that you are conscious?

Can't remember a point where I possessed no knowledge so I can't tell you if you need to know things to be conscious. — khaled

Do you know anything when not conscious?

Zero person doesn't make sense. Second person also doesn't make sense in this context. Third person is your view of something from a distance. First person is the view from my perspective. I'm just saying the same things over and over again because this definition cannot be simplified. Maybe check what the difference is between "first person shooter" and "third person rpg" — khaled

third person and first person seem to be the same thing as "from a distance" is just a different location of the first person experience.

You're saying the same things over and over because you seem to be unwilling to even try to make any sense and be consistent.

I propose "shivering qualia". This is a harder problem, because one cannot just quine the shivering away. Actually, I kind of like the term "shivering" now. — Marchesk

"Shivering" is itself a particular type of qualia. "Shivering" is a term that only an entity with visual experiences could use in the appropriate way.

No, I'm saying that no one is conscious of the causes of our phenomena: we have no knowledge of objects that cause phenomena except indirectly through phenomena; we have no awareness of light lensing through the eyeball and being projected onto the retina; we have no consciousness of outline detection occurring, of images being turned upside down, of colour being whiteshifted, or any of the other processes of the brain that create qualia: the objects of experience and their properties. What we get is, if not an *end* result, a late iteration of a metaview of the data. That is immediacy of qualia. — Kenosha Kid

How can you not see the contradiction here? How can someone claim that we can't be aware of the causes while at the same time explaining the causes as if they had "direct" knowledge of the causes? :chin:

If you aren't aware of any of this then how is it that you are able to report it and explain it? "Indirect" and "direct" are meaningless terms if you are asserting facts about the world. The way you are asserting these things makes me think that you are perfectly aware of how your experiences are caused.. How did you come to know about these causes and report them if you dont have any awareness of them?

I can be unaware of my surroundings and still be conscious. And idk what informed has to do with it. — khaled

But you are aware that you are conscious and you being conscious is part of your surroundings, no? Informed, as in possessing knowledge. Are you conscious, or aware, of your knowledge?

as in only you have this view and no one else does?
— Harry Hindu

I don't know. Will get back to you after I become someone else and compare. — khaled

Then what did you mean by "first-person"? You still haven't clarified what that even means, or how ti compares to zero-person or second-person experiences.

No, "the subjective experience of thinking" is a poetical description of the thoughts, I say. — bongo fury

And the observation of brain shivers is the same thing - a poetical description of another's thoughts.

Then we're probably not talking about the same thing. Consciousness is more fundamental than "red" and "square". Without consciousness "red" and "600 nanometer electromagnetic wave" would be synonymous, but they're clearly not (or else we would need to teach children about electromagnetic waves before they understand what "red" means). I don't see consciousness as a complex entity at all.

I'm curious how you would define it now. — khaled

"Synonymous" isn't the word I would use. I would say that without consciousness, there would be no red - only 600 nanometer electromagnetic waves (and there is even question as to whether there is actually 600 nanometer EM waves, as 600 nanometers and waves are conscious constructs). Something cannot be synonymous with something else that doesn't exist.

I thought you were on the right track with "first person experience". It's just that this is the trope most people use, and I wanted you to try and paraphrase what it means to you. Are there other words that you might use, like "awareness", or "informed"? Does "first person" refer to the uniqueness of what you are aware of, or what you are informed of, as in only you have this view and no one else does?

All of these are questions you already know the answers to. By trying to ask for more and more precise definitions all you end up doing is muddying things that are perfectly clear. It's like if I asked you to define "Red" or "Run" how would you? These concepts are too basic so as to require much definition.

I made a topic about this years ago but basically I think there are some concepts that don't need definition only "assignment". An "assignment" is when you already know the meaning of a word but just need to assign a word to the already present meaning. These concepts include: Color, Space, Shape, Time, Consciousness and many others. You can't define "color" or "shape" or "consciousness" in simpler terms, all you can do is assign a word to a concept that you come pre equipped with. At least that's what it seems like to me. If you want to disagree then by all means try to define "Space" or "Shape" in simpler terms. — khaled

I understand what you mean. If you want to know what "red" means, I'd simply point to things that are red. But the same cannot be said about consciousness. Consciousness is not as simple as "red" and "square". Consciousness is a more complex entity that is composed of those things and much more. The goal for a proper definition and theory of consciousness would include how it interacts with, and relates to, the rest of the world, and defining it simply as a "first-person experience" just doesn't do that.

Good question. The answer presumably is "Because I am me and no on else is." — bert1

But that doesn't really answer the question. What is "you"? It goes back to my question before...Are "you" one neuron, a group of neurons, a brain, a body, or what? And what is it about you that provides you with different evidence of your consciousness than I have of your consciousness?

"theory of consciousness" is different from "definition of consciousness". I am bad at defining things but if I were to define consciousness it would be "Having a first person view" or something like that. I definitely have a first person view, but I can't tell if you do or not. I may not know what conditions produce consciousness as I defined it but I definitely know I have it. It's like how I can know that I am typing on a PC right now but not understand how a PC works or how the internet works. — khaled

The theory and the definition need to integrate well. You can't have a definition that contradicts the theory. And your definition has to make sense enough to be explainable in the first place.

You define consciousness as a "first person experience". But what does that really mean? What is an experience? What does it mean for an experience to be first person? Is there such a thing as second or third, or zero (views from nowhere) person experiences?

What term do you suggest? — bongo fury

A term that explains why from your vantage point it appears that my brain is shivering and from my vantage point it appears that the world is shivering colors and shapes and sounds, etc.

Because the causes of our human experience are not part of that experience — Kenosha Kid

Hmm. I wonder, if this were the case, how could we imagine anything at all. What causes one to experience unicorns and dragons?

And if this were the case then how can we ever say that our experience is about a non-experienced cause? Are you saying that we can only talk about our experiences and not about what caused them? How can we ever talk about things that are not part of the experience, like electrons being waves and how they move through holes?

Your questions are all good ones and need answers from the panpsychist. — bert1

The ultimate question that needs to be addressed by any "substantial" theory would be, "why is the evidence that I have for my consciousness different than the evidence others have for my consciousness?".

If panpsychists are anthropomorphic, everyone else is anthropocentric, or at least neurocentric. — bert1

No. There are other theories other than "everything is mental' and "everything is physical".

What does it even mean for an atom to have a mind and how does that contribute or integrate with a molecule's mind? Does an atom experience depth because most sensations (visual, auditory, tactile) have an element of depth, or distance relative to the sensory organ used to make an observation. How does an atom experience another atom? Does an atom possess knowledge (memory), or intent? What are the necessary components of mind some entity needs to posses to define it as having a mind?

That one day we may develop a "consciousness-o-meter" which measures consciousness the same way a thermormeter measures temperature. But we've slowly given up on that view, it seems that consciousness is not approachable by scientific method. Heck I can't tell if YOU'RE conscious, or if my couch is conscious, much less come up with a theory for consciousness. — khaled

Then how can you say the YOU are conscious if you can't tell if anyone else is conscious, and there is no theory of conscious?

Given what you said, it seems just as likely that consciousness is a myth kept alive by spiritualists and the religious.

But isn't our brain in our heads?
— Harry Hindu

It should be. — bongo fury

But how do you know that? Is knowing that your brain is in your head the same as your brain being in your head? Is there a stat of affairs where both are true - that there is a knowing your brain is in your head and a state where a brain is inside a physical head? If so, are the two states of affairs causally related in any way?

Emergence becomes tricky when moving from a third-person view of forces and matter to a first person perspective. Emergence can inadvertently become dualistic when trying to remain monistic. Panpsychism kind of says "fuck it" if we want to be monistic, ditch the emergence of mental events and keep it from the beginning. — schopenhauer1

I don't see the difference between the 3rd and first person perspective. Which part of some perspective is 3rd person vs first person? The information within any perspective is always from, or relative to, a particular point.

The problem is that panpsychism doesn't ditch emergence, rather it applies it by positing degrees of consciousness at varying levels of reality that equate to the same levels of emergence in the physical sense - i.e. neurons to brains, to bodies, to social structures.

Mind, with all of its intricate parts, cannot be fundamental. The parts, the sounds, colors, smells, sensations, urges, etc. would be more fundamental as mind is made up of, or emerges from, those things.

Information is what is fundamental and mind would is just a complex arrangement of information.

Actually, they see with their skin. They question is, how does what they see with their skin integrate with what they see with their eyes, smell with their nose, feel with their skin, taste with their tongue, hear with their ears, and the intent to tease out useful information from this sensory data, into a whole that we refer to as a conscious experience?

Does each of my eyes have a seperate conscious experience? What about the lenses in each eye, what about each cone and rod, etc.? Does the upper layers if consciousness emerge from the lower layers? How do the various layers integrate? What is a fundamental mental layer compared to a non-fundamental mental layer?

Why would by big toe be conscious when my brain is conscious of the state of my big toe? Is it my brain that is conscious or my neurons? Are you the consciousness of your whole brain or just one neuron? Panpsychism is just another type of anthropomorphic projection.