Isn't this whole idea of "objective consciousness" misleading? Aren't you just describing the external observation of consciousness? — Pantagruel

Mislead is a pretty bold accusation. Please point out where and how I'm misleading the reader if you're going to do so.

However, in that case, your statement, that minds emerge from brains " Its just what is considered fact at this time" is really either tautological or out of scope of your assumption. — Pantagruel

I've already clarified that your statement taken out of context was a misread. If you would like to contribute, start from the OP and take the definitions as given there. Here is a relevant paragraph for you.

Why the need for the separation?

The simple answer is because a subjective experience cannot be observed by someone who is not that subject. We can infer and believe that another being experiences a subjective consciousness, but it is beyond our knowledge of experience. Yet objective consciousness is clearly within the realm of experienced knowledge. This lets us also apply consciousness beyond humanity. We can examine other animals for objective consciousness, as well as plants and perhaps even things we may not consider life. Objective consciousness doesn't have to know what its like to be the subject within that consciousness, or even if there's something that we as humans would recognize as a subject at all. — Philosophim

Microbial colonies exhibit an awareness of and adaptation to their environment (eg. The Global Brain by Howard Bloom). Which demonstrates the most fundamental aspects of consciousness, perception and action. So the requirement isn't so much a "brain" as some form of physical medium. Ascribing consciousness to a brain is just anthropocentric prejudice. In which case, there is literally no limit to what could potentially instantiate a consciousness — Pantagruel

Yes, you misunderstand. I've expressed in the OP that consciousness is not limited to humans, and have noted that consciousness could exist in plants, and even AI elsewhere. In long form conversations that take time to write out, its much easier to rely on the context of the conversation. In the full context of Bob's conversation, I think its clear we're talking about human minds and human brains.

The problem word loaded into the question is ‘should’. — I like sushi

That's why its a question. I say no based on the reason's given. What do you say?

When the term ‘gay’ because popular, it was seen by the general public as strictly a description of same-sex attraction and nothing else. When I recognized myself as gay, the term meant much more to me than this. It referred to my gender, not in the way you mean gender as an arbitrary whim or compulsion to exhibit some behavior disconnected from any larger pattern, but gender as a constellation of behaviors caused by an inborn perceptual setpoint. — Joshs

Which is fine. But this agrees with my point. Gender is subjective. Its your personal viewpoint of what it means to be gay. Objectively, all that it means to be gay is that you are sexually attracted to members of the same sex. Anything more varies from person to person.

But the reason that I introduced to you my notion of perceptual setpoint was not at all to assign and lock in place a certain set of concepts , a laundry list of specific behaviors that we must then force all of us into (masculinity means THIS set of traits and femininity mean THAT set of traits).
What I was trying to demonstrate was that gender, like many other personality traits or dispositions, is inborn and, while it evolves in its expression as we mature, has a relative stability over the course of our lives. — Joshs

Or it could be taken that you have set personality points, and you have ascribed those points to the fact you are gay. Which is fine as a personal assessment. But that's all it is, a personal, subjective interpretation. You agree with me a straight man who acts in all the stereotypical gay ways, but ultimately does not find other men attractive, is not objectively gay. That's my point about objective language within society versus gendered language for ourselves or groups that we place ourselves in. When we try to take our personal or particular culture of understanding the world and attempt to tell everyone its now an objective fact, we step on others subjectivity without an established objectivity underlying our insistence.

In addition, while no two people share the same gender, there are close overlaps among elements of the larger community which make it possible for individuals with a particular gender to recognize themselves in a subcommunity and as a result feel a closeness to other members of thar subcommunity on the basis of overlapping gender behavior that they don’t feel with those outside of that subcommunity. — Joshs

My sister does not like dolls. She dissects dead bodies for a living. She does not paint her nails, use make up, or wear dresses. She's very pretty. She is married and a mother of two children.

She has absolutely nothing in common with "feminine" women. She likes other women who are intelligent, hard working, and are interested in the same things she is. My sister if very much a woman, and does not consider at all that her life and what she's interested in makes her any less of a woman.

The reality is we like people who are interested in some common things we are. Then we make the mistake of attributing that to aspects about them that really have nothing to do with it. Perhaps we do it to make identity easier, as its the brains way of lazily organizing things. I'm sure there are plenty of gay people who you have no interest in being with, and have personalities and actions that greatly differ from your own.

Your attraction or lack of attraction to a woman is based on her sex. I'm straight, and my same sex simply does not turn me on at all
— Philosophim

It ain’t that simple. Why and in what way the opposite turns you on is connected with your personal perceptual setpoint as well as cultural factors. — Joshs

So are you attracted to some women? You would objectively be considered bisexual then. Which is fine, sexuality is a spectrum. I'm on the far end of the spectrum as I have never found a member of my same sex sexually attractive. I have friends who are more fluid. The point is that the words gay, lesbian, bit, etc all mean objective things regardless of your subjective viewpoints or culture. We should not let subjective viewpoints or culture dictate objective viewpoints.

While I have many issues with the idea of allowing a biologically male body to compete among biological
female bodies, given the fact that you don’t appear to have a concept of psychological gender, I suspect this may limit your engagement on this issue. — Joshs

To clarify, of course you have a psychological gender. That's what gender is, a subjective viewpoint of how you think a sex should act, feel, etc. But a subjective viewpoint does not override objective definitions that apply universally regardless of your gender.

Good discussion btw! I appreciate your candidness and openness. I do feel we have each expressed our viewpoints at this juncture. So at this point lets see if we can wrap it. Should gender override objective sex division in society? Should a straight man be able to identify as gay even if they could never be attracted to another man? Should a man who wears a dress suddenly be recognized in society as a woman? Should be sister be labeled a man because she doesn't identify with what some people in America think a woman should be like?

I thought you were arguing that minds emerge from brains? Am I misunderstanding you? Or you are saying that the objective vs. subjective consciousness distinction is the out of scope of that claim? — Bob Ross

I'm not really arguing for it. Its just what is considered fact at this time. If you want to prove that minds do not come from the brain feel free, but you'll need to challenge modern day neuroscience, psychology, and medicine.

As for the hard problem, I still think you misunderstand it. " Explaining why consciousness occurs at all can be contrasted with so-called “easy problems” of consciousness: the problems of explaining the function, dynamics, and structure of consciousness. These features can be explained using the usual methods of science. But that leaves the question of why there is something it is like for the subject when these functions, dynamics, and structures are present. This is the hard problem." -Internet Encyclopedia of philosophy
https://iep.utm.edu/hard-problem-of-conciousness/#:~:text=The%20hard%20problem%20of%20consciousness%20is%20the%20problem%20of%20explaining,directly%20appear%20to%20the%20subject.

The hard problem even admits that consciousness is explained through the brain. The question is how does consciousness explicitly form from that process, and can we scientifically demonstrate what it is like to be that conscious being. Essentially consciousness is personal to the brain, it is not something we can observe from the outside.

"This indicates that a physical explanation of consciousness is fundamentally incomplete: it leaves out what it is like to be the subject, for the subject. There seems to be an unbridgeable explanatory gap between the physical world and consciousness. All these factors make the hard problem hard."

My solution to this is to just simply note that referring to the experience of the conscious subject itself is "subjective consciousness". Knowing what it is like to be the subject of any one conscious being besides ourselves is currently impossible.

I don’t know why you would say that it is given: that sounds awfully dogmatic. I figured you would have a proof for it, are you saying you just assume that is the case? Am I understanding you correctly? — Bob Ross

The only people questioning that mind comes from the brain are philosophers. To my knowledge, every other factual aspect of the world knows that the mind comes from the brain. The hard problem does Mind coming from the brain is like oxygen theory, while the idea it does not is like phlogiston theory. Oxygen theory does not have to prove itself, phlogiston theory does at this point in time. I am open to hearing arguments that the mind does not come from the brain, but I don't feel the need to prove the scientific default. The discussion I'm trying to hold is more equivalent to the science of launching a rocket. Having to pivot to prove that mind comes from the brain is like then debating that fuel and oxygen is what causes the rocket combustion instead of phlogiston leakage.

It may be a large enough subject to address elsewhere. I can hop back into your original thread when it dies down if you would like! But feel free to prove here first that the mind does not come from the brain and lets see where that takes us.

Likewise, whether the brain produces consciousness is widely recognized as a matter of philosophy of mind which is metaphysics and not science. Yes, most scientists are physicalists, but that isn’t a scientific consensus—that’s scientists having a consensus. — Bob Ross

While this is an interesting thought, is this something you can demonstrate? How do you explain modern day neuroscience? Medical Psychiatry? Brain surgery?

Firstly, yes it absolutely is disputed: not every scientist is a physicalist. Secondly, science doesn’t tell us whether the brain produces consciousness. — Bob Ross

First, like you noted, just because you're an atheist scientist, it doesn't mean that science concludes atheism. What is the currently agreed upon consensus in science? Finding a few here and there who disagree is easy to find; 1-10 dentists don't believe that brushing your teeth helps prevent tooth decay for example.

Second, the easy problem confirms that yes, science knows that the brain produces consciousness. Please find me a reputable neuroscience paper that shows that the brain most certainly does not produce consciousness, and then also provides evidence of what is.

Here are a few interesting videos to check out. This is from 11 years ago:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6FsH7RK1S2E

This is from five years ago:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ecvv-EvOj8M (Start at 6:00)

Finally, just as an aside, how do you explain the mind seeing? The eyes connect through the optic nerve straight to your brain. It has no where else to go.

Consciousness : qualitative experience.
Qualia: instances of qualitative experience (e.g., seeing a car, feeling a pillow, tasting an apple, etc.).
Meta-consciousness: self-knowledge: ability to acquire knowledge of one’s consciousness (e.g., I not only taste the apple, but I am aware of my tasting of the apple: I can gain knowledge of my own qualitative experience). — Bob Ross

This would seem to me that meta-consciousness is "qualitative experience of qualitative experience". In which case, is this a useful term? At the least, I don't see how it counters my point about Blindsight. The person does not have any qualia, or consciousness, of seeing what is in front of their eyes.

Lets bring it out of blindsight for a minute. Right now are you conscious of everything your senses are processing right now? Aren't there smells, sounds, and even sights in the corner of your eyes, that you are not conscious of? Isn't it the attention to these, the conscious experience of them, that is qualia? I suppose I'm looking for a separation between the meaning of qualia and perception or senses. Generally I've understood qualia to be that conscious experience of sensations or perceptions, not the mere flooding of light or sound into one's body.

Back to blindsight, it seems much like the inability to give a conscious focus to what one is perceiving. Which seems to me to be something that the person does not subjectively experience, even though the objective observation of their actions implies that they do. Here they are accurately assessing where something is, actively looking at it, then claiming they do not see it. Can you explain how your definitions counter this?

I do believe that qualia requires consciousness, but you refer to things that aren’t qualitatively experiencing as conscious; so under your terms, yes, I do think you are arguing that there could be a being which doesn’t have qualitative experience (or at least we don’t know if they do) but yet we can decipher that they are observing, identifying, and acting upon their environment (which meets your definition of consciousness). — Bob Ross

Let me clarify what I'm stating. Qualia is the subjective experience of the thing which is observed to be objectively conscious. Qualia is not necessary for us to conclude something is objectively conscious. The reason for this, is we cannot objectively assess qualia. We cannot prove what a conscious being is experiencing, or not experiencing at a subjective level. Therefore we do not consider it objectively, but can only consider it from their subjective viewpoint.

Blindsight is a clear example that a person can have an objective consciousness about something, but not have any subjective consciousness, or personal experience of seeing the object needed to make the correct conscious decision.

This is getting too long, and I think the above has addressed most of your points. One more!

I don’t claim that there is something else besides mind, some other third substance, that producing mind but, rather, that mind is fundamental. Mind is affecting mind: ontologically there are ideas in a mind. — Bob Ross

How is this any different from magic then Bob? Even if you could get such a model to work, which I don't want to go into all the potential problems at this time, what would you hope to get out of it? How would this be useful to humanity?

Thank you again Bob for your clear and deep thoughts on the subject!

No more use have I for 'schools of philosophy' - Some philosophers had some good ideas; some philosophers seem to have had mostly crappy ideas; some had a mix of good and bad ideas; nearly all - in my unapologetic, unhumble estimation - blew a lot of hot air into the spaces between ideas, to inflate their opinions into systems of thought. — Vera Mont

Wise words.

I read through the article and, long story short, I do not think that the author provided a resolution (nor a partial resolution nor a method to providing a resolution) to the hard problem of consciousness — Bob Ross

My intention was not to address the hard problem of consciousness. From the argument I've presented, you can see there is no hard problem to address.

Of course, a person who lacks the ability to associate their qualia with themselves is going to say that they aren’t seeing anything when, in fact, they obviously are. This is no different than people who lose all sense of self: they don’t thereby lose their qualitative experience but, rather, their ability to identify it as theirs. — Bob Ross

Isn't this then an example of an objectively conscious being that lacks subjective consciousness? This is actually a limited example of a P-zombie.

I want to ask you what you mean by qualia Bob. Qualia to my knowledge, is almost always identified as the experience one has. Qualia is seeing the color green as only you see it. If someone was not conscious of seeing the color green, most would not mark that as qualia. If you believe qualia does not require consciousness, then what is special about the word qualia at all? At that point, a p-zombie has qualia, they are just not conscious of it. And if that is the case, then my point that subjective consciousness can be separated from objective consciousness stands does it not?

I heard a fascinating story of a woman who suffered from complete loss of self; and during childbirth, she kept frantically asking “who’s having the child?”. Does the fact that she can’t associate herself with her own childbirth prove (or even suggest) that she isn’t giving birth to a child? Of course not! — Bob Ross

No, but how is that relevant? I'm not claiming that you need subjective consciousness for someone to claim you have objective consciousness. This example once again supports the division I'm noting.

Thirdly, throughout the article the author, despite recognizing their work as pertaining to the hard problem, didn’t give any solution to it other than vague notions of evolutionary processes: — Bob Ross

Again, I'm not interested in the hard problem, just objective and subjective consciousness.

Although, I'm once again surprised to hear from you that you don't believe qualia comes from brain states. That's the assumed knowledge of science, psychology, and medicine. Its nothing I have to prove, its a given Bob. Can you prove that qualia does not come from brain states? As I mentioned in your last OP, it is not in dispute by anyone within these fields that the mind comes from your brain. I feel analyzing this will assist in the objective subjective separation of consciousness.

Do I know the exact qualia of someone else getting blacked out? No. But I know my own.

I agree, but I want to clarify some things. Firstly, I don’t see how you can prove that a being is having qualitative experience (under your view)--not just how they are experiencing it themselves. — Bob Ross

We can't under my view. We can believe them. We can observe the objective conscious actions they take and assume they must be experiencing qualia. But no, we can't prove. It is always at best an inductive reason, never deduced knowledge.

Another important clarification I think we need is that knowing that something affects something else does not entail, in itself, that it causes it. — Bob Ross

To clarify, we can't say its the entire cause. When something affects another, that result of that affectation is part of the chain of causality.

You can certainly prove that quantitative processes affect qualia, but not that the former produces the latter: these are two different claims. — Bob Ross

Agreed. But we can certainly say that it has an influence in producing mind, therefore is part of the cause of qualia. To claim that there is something else besides brain states would require an example of something besides a brain state affecting qualia. Do you have an example? For example, if I drop a penny, it falls because of gravity. But the penny wobbles in a state that we cannot attribute to gravity alone. Air resistance also affects the fall of the penny. Thus the speed of something dropping is determined not only by gravity, but by any resistance against gravity as well. In what way does the brain have a qualitative state that cannot be explained by the brain alone? Do you have any example of something else besides the brain which would affect the mind?

We know by abductive argumentation: I have evidence of my qualia, and, on the other “side” of it, I am a physical organism which operates the exact same (just with more superior functionality) to a dog—so the best explanation is that the dog is also qualitatively experiencing. — Bob Ross

Yes, this is an induction. This is something we cannot deduce, or actually know. That is why such discussions would be under subjective consciousness, while objective consciousness would not concern itself with something that does not have objective certainty.

For instance, does being schizophrenic mean you have to speak in word salad, or be a catatonic, or have paranoid delusions? Of course not. Does this mean that schizophrenia is purely a social construct, that each behavior associated with it is unique to an individual and there is no common explanatory brain process to tie together the constellation of potential behaviors connected with it, that there is no community of schizophrenics with an overlap of behaviors? — Joshs

Your analogy does not match. You can be schizophrenic and you can be gay. These are objective medical identifiers. Now, if I believe that a gay person should act a particular way that has nothing to do with the definition of being gay, that's gender based on my culture. If I believe a schizophrenic should act a different way that has nothing to do with the definition of being shizophrenic, that's comparable to gender.

For example, "If you're gay, you should like Lady Ga Ga." "If you're shizophrenic, you should be violent and dangerous." Someone then comes along to a gay person who does not like Lady Ga Ga and states, "I guess you're not gay." Someone comes along to a shizophrenic person who isn't violent or dangerous and says, "I guess you're not shizophrenic".

This is the exact comparison with sex and gender. To be gay, you must be a male who finds other men sexually attractive. That's it. Whether you like Lady Ga Ga or not is irrelevant. Whether someone believes that to be gay, you must like Lady Ga Ga or not is irrelevant. People's beliefs in how you should act, dress, etc as a gay man do not alter the fact you are a gay man.

Same with sex. It does not matter if you dress or act like someone believes a woman should dress and act. They are still a woman, or not a woman, based on their sex.

What you are advocating for is that someone's stereotypes, be it racism, sexism, classism, etc, should be the sole decider of one's objective identification. That is ludicrous. Its wrong and evil. As a gay person who I'm sure has experienced such discrimination, I'm sure you would agree with me.

Many gay men have a perceptual setpoint somewhere between the aggressive masculine and the gradual feminine. This means they don’t crave softness and yieldingness from their sexual partner because they already posses these traits themselves. As a result, many gay sexual relationships are based more on a kind of ‘twinning’ than a yin and yang. What attracts each sexually is the mix of masculine and feminine in the other. Many gay men will tell you they are repulsed by the thought of playing the role of decisive commanding male to a soft yielding female. — Joshs

Again, this is sexist. Plenty of men do not want to be a decisive commanding male to a soft yielding female. Your attraction or lack of attraction to a woman is based on her sex. I'm straight, and my same sex simply does not turn me on at all. Doesn't matter about the behavior. If you are gay without being bi, behavior isn't going to matter either.

Physical differences between men and women fail utterly and completely as an explanation of a pattern of dominance of men over women repeated around the globe for millennia. It is the difference in perceptual setpoint between the masculine and the feminine brain that explains this behavior. — Joshs

You're going to need to counter my points to demonstrate they "fail utterly and completely". Men in general are overall stronger than women and are not burdoned by the inconvenience of reproduction near to the level of women. Most of the world for most of humanity did not have effective birth control, sterile birthing areas, formula, of modern mentrual management. To just dismiss them without demonstrating why they could not have an impact is wrong.

"Perceptual setpoint" is just a sexist generality as to how a man or woman should act. If you could show that only biological men or only biological women exist certain behaviors, then you could note these are tied directly to sex. The fact that many of your behaviors are widely shared among straight men negates this idea that your thought process is somehow more feminine because of sex differences. Straight and gay men can feel and act in the same way in many ways, but cultural differences often times prevent or encourage certain behaviors within particular societies.

No logically sustainable argument has been made been at this point that gender should override division which has been done by sex. Its been an interesting aside, but I would like to refocus the point back on this topic. Lets take a perfectly normal XY man who wants to dress up like a woman and play sports competitively with them for fame, glory, and money, and give me a valid reason why they should be able to based on acting like what they believe a woman should act like.

A terrible story Michael. But unless it applies somehow to the OP, I don't see the point in putting it here.

In the way I am defining gender in terms of an inborn perceptual-affective style, this pattern is not simply binary (what sex are they), but a spectrum that goes from hyper masculinity to hyper femininity. — Joshs

Then you agree with me. Gender is a social construct. It doesn't have a set objective pattern and can vary wildly between cultures.

... like throwing like a girl...My brother’s nickname for me was ‘fairy’, and this was before he had a concept of homosexuality. — Joshs

Right, so you behaved in ways that are stereotypically associated with women in American culture. What about the straight boys who also throw like girls? Or adult men who do, but don't dare show it to anyone over fear of being mocked? Finally, does being gay mean you have to throw like a girl? Of course not. There are plenty of gay people who don't act stereotypically gay as well.

The question then comes in the form of freedom as well. Many straight men might feel like acting a particular way that others would view as feminine, but refuse to out of fear of judgement. Being gay may help free you from this restriction, because you're already challenging the social structure as it is, and a large part of "male" culture is about fear of being seen as a woman.

But honestly, that last paragraph is just musing and nothing substantial. The point related to the OP is that despite these behavior differences, all are men by sex. Behavior, or expected behavior that does not change you from one sex to the other. You are a gay or a straight man. You could have a gay or straight gender, but again, these are cultural stereotypes and expectations of how gay or straight men should act. As such, gender should not be considered in places in which people are divided by sex.

And how on earth would you explain thousand of years of discriminatory behavior towards women on the part of men if not by reference to robust inborn behavioral differences that become culturally stereotyped? — Joshs

Oh, stereotypes definitely do not form in a vacuum. Lets just look at the thousands of years there wasn't any birth control or modern medicine. Men never had to menstruate or give birth. As such, they had to do the harder physical jobs that took them away from the house. Can you imagine being a judge for a small community when there was likely only one judgeship available, and it was a woman who had to excuse herself every month to avoid bleeding in public? Or being pregnant nine months or more out of the year?

The very real physical differences between the sexes meant certain outcomes for societal organization, and thus expectations, were more likely to happen. Most of the world lived in what we would consider abject poverty today. It was about surviving, and so you did what was best suited for yourself for you and family to survive.

So I'm not saying stereotypes don't exist, or that people don't innately want to dress, do, or act a particular way. But what I'm saying is that none of that does not violate the objectivity of sex, nor should gender override societal divisions by sex, when they are divided by sex and not gender.

Consciousness is simply a bad word as it has come to build in a set of wrong beliefs about the architecture of mind. — apokrisis

I wouldn't say its a bad word, its just a misapplied word. Consciousness is at its core, built on the subjective sense of self. When people ask, "What is consciousness", I think they're really asking how we have a sense of self, what is it, and how it fits into the larger understanding of the brain.

quote="Janus;813294"]I would say that subjective consciousness may not be what we naively or intuitively think it is, and that. maybe (I'd have to think further on this) there is no substantive distinction between objective and subjective consciousness, but that the distinction is an artefact of our dualistic mode of thinking.[/quote]

We agree that there is no substantive difference between the objective and subjective. They are merely different aspects of the same reality. The objective is the reality of another beings consciousness that we can objectively know. The subjective is the reality of the conscious thing from its perspective that no one else can know. One does not negate the other.

I'm wondering if our experience of perception of the spectrum is different from the electric eye's. — Patterner

Its interesting isn't it? We don't even have to go to the electric eye, we can go to a fly's eyes. Flies have numerous eyes without pupils. This allows them to see the world in a near 360 viewpoint. Birds have eyes on the side of their head and cannot see directly in front of them because of it. How do they process that way of sight? What would it be like to experience that? From a physical standpoint, the experience is most certainly different from ours.

I don't think it's merely a matter of semantics. I'm not claiming that you can see the world from my perspective. I'm saying that we don't experience our subjectivity; rather 'subjectivity' is how seeing the world from a perspective is defined, so subjectivity is thought post hoc, not experienced. Thinking that subjectivity is experienced is a kind of reification, and I think the same goes for qualia. This reification of the self as substantive entity is the source of much confusion, Descartes being a notable example. — Janus

I think this is ok. How would you apply this in relation to the OP's point?

Does the electric eye that distinguishes frequencies of the spectrum that we perceive with our eyes have the same subjective experience of colors that we have? Does it have a different subjective experience of colors than we have? Is light hitting its sensor, and its circuits distinguishing one frequency from another, a subjective experience? — Patterner

The point is we cannot know what it experiences. However, I should make something implicit explicit now. When I speak of the ability to identify this includes the capability to create identity. An electric eye that records and shunts light off to pre-programmed areas isn't conscious. An eye which can observe, then create identify within what it observes (this combination of beams of light represents something new , like a cloud) would be conscious. Of course, conscious of only that.

But beliefs about something are not objective, therefore they do not belong in objective analysis or discussion

Beliefs are behavioral attitudes towards things which are objective and, as such, absolutely pertain to objective inquiry. I don’t think you can name a single field of study which isn’t predicated on beliefs—not even science. — Bob Ross

Let me clarify. Its not that we cannot start with beliefs. But beliefs must become hypotheses and be tested. Everything has a cause is known, because anytime we've tried to prove something doesn't have a cause, we fail. Its plausible that one day we will encounter something that doesn't have a prior cause, but it is currently something that we have never encountered before, so its not in the realm of possibility.

This isn’t true: you can’t account for qualia, which you do know exists because you have it, by looking at the quantitative processes of the brain. We can account for a camera simply by its quantitative processes and parts that produce those quantified measurements. I don’t see any contradiction here. — Bob Ross

I can account for that. But only me. In brain surgery they keep you conscious. They'll stimulate certain portions of your brain and ask you to respond. In this case, they'll ask you what you're feeling, or your qualia. Now can the surgeon know what its like when you say, "I'm thinking of a tree"? Of course not. There's no way to objectively measure that you are seeing a tree, or what that tree looks like exactly. They have to believe that you're giving them a close enough picture to what you're experiencing. But if they stimulate that brain state, they can cause you to think and feel things that you had no intent of thinking or feeling.

But lets go even simpler, alcohol or anesthesia. We know that when these chemicals enter your blood stream and hit your brain, your consciousness diminishes and can be blacked out entirely. Do I know the exact qualia of someone else getting blacked out? No. But I know my own.

If it is the case that we can use quantitative processes to change our own qualia, then the argument I made stands and you're still holding a contradiction.

Fair enough! Let me re-phrase it: it is important if you are claiming that there is a mind-independent world which has mind-independent brains that produce qualia. — Bob Ross

From my point of view there is a mind independent world, but I do not believe brains are fully independent from our minds. Our minds are a portion of our brain, and the part of the brain that is conscious.

The idea that a dog has qualia is logically consistent and concurs with reality; but yet you said we cannot ‘prove’ it: why? The belief that a dog has qualia is a reasonable, cogent, and evidence based claim which meets your definition of proof. — Bob Ross

Where is the evidence of qualia? If I operate on a dog and open up the brain, do I see the image and smell the smells the dog is experiencing? No. Thus we run into the philosophical zombie example.

"A philosophical zombie (or "p-zombie") is a being in a thought experiment in philosophy of mind that is physically identical to a normal person but does not have conscious experience.[1]

For example, if a philosophical zombie were poked with a sharp object, it would not feel any pain, but it would behave exactly the way any conscious human would."
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophical_zombie

Some debate has been done over the meaning of this, but I am keen to observe one fact we can all agree on: No one can prove that a philosophical zombie can't exist. In fact, there's evidence for it in a well diagnosed issue with some animals: Blindsight.

I'm citing Luke's post here which then sights a post on Blindsight. I think its a fascinating read. https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/14286/a-potential-solution-to-the-hard-problem/p1

Here's an excerpt:
"In the blind area, DB himself maintained that he had no visual awareness. Nonetheless, Weiskrantz asked him to guess the location and shape of an object that lay in this area. To everyone’s surprise, he consistently guessed correctly. To DB himself, his success in guessing seemed quite unreasonable. So far as he was concerned, he wasn’t the source of his perceptual judgments, his sight had nothing to do with him. Weiskrantz named this capacity ‘blindsight’: visual perception in the absence of any felt visual sensations."
https://aeon.co/essays/how-blindsight-answers-the-hard-problem-of-consciousness

So here we have a being that is objectively conscious, but does not have subjective qualia to experience the location and shape he's obviously observing and identifying. We could say, "Well maybe he's lying." That's true, perhaps he's a very convincing liar. We can't know, because we can't experience consciousness from that person's subjective viewpoint. We can't prove that they have it, and we can't prove that they don't have it.

Now I do want to throw a caveat out there. It is not that we cannot come to a cogent set of beliefs that work consistently well enough for communication or evaluation in tandem with objective assessment. But it is only that, cogent beliefs. I can objectively state that when anesthesia is applied to a person, they black out. But I cannot objectively state what is it like for that person to black out.

That subjective experience is what they have, which is undeniable.

Under your view, how is this undeniable? I thought you are claiming that we can’t know. — Bob Ross

My apologies, that was me being unclear. My own subjective experience is what I have, and is undeniable. Whether a something beyond myself does, or does not have a subjective experience is undeniable from its own viewpoint. What is a belief and not knowledge, is that I can claim what that subjective experience from the view point of that being is like, or even that it has, or does not have any all.

Although you are correct that “I like the color blue” is subjective, it doesn’t follow that no one can invalidate that claim. If it turns out, unbeknownst to you, that you don’t like the color blue, then your proclamation of “I like the color blue” is in fact false. A proposition being subjective just means that the truthity is indexical (i.e., relative to the subject at hand), not that the subject is 100% correct pertaining thereto. — Bob Ross

Agreed! What we can claim though is that when you claimed that you liked the color blue, you saw the color blue and you identified it as a color you liked at that moment. Its not whether something is a fact which is qualia, it is the experience of observing and identifying. Whether that is correct, or incorrect does not deny the subjective experience of that action itself.

Fantastic viewpoints as always Bob!

Further to that would be to say that the subject does not experience subjectivity or being a subject. — Janus

What if I said that the viewpoint of the subject is thought, not experienced? The subject perceives (experiences) things from some perspective (viewpoint) but does not experience the viewpoint itself. Further to that would be to say that the subject does not experience subjectivity or being a subject.

I think subjective experience is often conflated with and counted as the experience of subjectivity. — Janus

I think we might be talking semantics here. How do you subjectively view the world? I can't know. You do. Go with that. That is your subjective consciousness.

It is about about an inborn perceptual-affective schema of organizing sensory experience. I have in mind in particular the example of a gay man who was born with a ‘ feminine’ perceptual-affective style that they had no control over. — Joshs

The problem is you're first attributing that behavior to what a woman does. And yet many women do not act "feminine". Does this mean they aren't women? Is a woman who acts masculine a man? The point of the dog article was to show that in non-sexual behaviors, it can be difficult to really tell what sex a dog is. Same with humans.

I've known plenty of men who speak "feminine" like, yet are straight. They are men, not women. There are plenty of gay men who do not exhibit "feminine" (or a cultural stereotype of a woman) behavior. This is because there is nothing inherent in being the male that necessitates that you lift weights and strut around in a room. You can have a very pretty, agile and soft spoken male, and they are still men.

It’s ok if you don’t want to call this inborn style of perceptual
organization ‘gender’. I’m more interested in whether you accept that people are born with such global organizing structures that dictate feminine or masculine behavior that form a large constellation of features all belonging to a single causal pattern. — Joshs

No, its not gender. Its just personality differences. The problem is you're assuming your version of "feminine" is some objective measure. But that measure is based on your culture and background, not biological fact.

I'll give you an example. I taught in inner city schools with mostly blacks and latinos. I'm white. Let me preface this by saying I found no difference between races besides over all culture. You have your jocks, your nerds, and everything in an American white school. TV and movies paint a different picture, and its false. Yet I'm sure some people believe that being black entails that you act or dress a particular way. Its just like gender. Its a subjective stereotype.

One thing I did notice was that young black males at one of my schools tended to act more like stereotypical American women. Black girls tended to be more aggressive and get in far more physical fights than black boys. Why? Culture. A surprising amount of young blacks in that area did not have father's in their lives. So the women ended up having to be the bread winner and fight for success. Being demure was not an option. On the flip side, boys patterned their speech and gestures after the main parent who gave them everything in life, their mother.

Now are these young men and women suddenly different sexes because they don't fit into the stereotypical middle or upper class American view of how a man and woman should act? No. The problem is your idea of "feminine" vs "masculine" is cultural. Your gay friend was compelled to act and express themself a particular way, so they should have done so without reprisal. They are a man by sex, no question, that simply acted differently.

I'm not denying that people want to act and dress the way they want to act and dress. My point is that it is irrelevant to what sex you are, and thus irrelevant in cases of sexual separation in society. If a male suddenly starts behaving in a stereotypically feminine way in Texas, they do not suddenly become a woman and have access to female bathrooms or sports.

In terms of the distinction in epistemic access, I am understanding you to be claiming that we can only “know” of “objective aspects of consciousness”, where “knowledge” is perhaps restricted to what is empirically verifiable? Is that correct? — Bob Ross

Yes, with an addition just to be sure. A subjective consciousness can know its own qualia, no one else can.

I don’t think it matters if a being is actively displaying high-level bodily motions (i.e., actions). Maybe we can agree on that. — Bob Ross

Activity is not needed for subjective consciousness. It is just that activity is needed to objectively conclude that another being is conscious. Now, it may be the case that we can scan a brain and ascertain that the person is conscious, but unable to act. For an intro, this side exception seemed unneeded to ensure the initial idea was not overly complex.

Observing identifying and acting are objective measures of consciousness that can be known from monitoring a thing

I take you to mean that observing, identifying, and acting are pragmatically useful for determining if one has receptivity, sensibility, and some knowledge of its environment: is that correct? — Bob Ross

No, I very purposefully excluded anything that had to do with perception as a requirement for consciousness. Perception is often associated with the five senses. Observation does not preclude perception, but it does not necessitate it. If you are thinking about an image in your mind, you are observing something. When you identify that image, feeling, thought, etc, you are identifying. You can also observe perceptions, have sensibility, and know your environment while being conscious, but those can all be bundled under variations of observation and identity.

Qualitative experience would be the experience of observing and identifying from the subject observing and identifying.

This is where I get a bit confused: are you saying that the exact same “observing” and “identifying” is occurring objectively and the only subjective aspect is the viewpoint of the subject which is objectively “observing” and “identifying”? Because then it sounds like you might be saying qualia are not subjective, but merely the viewpoint of a subject that is having them is. — Bob Ross

The viewpoint of the subject is what I mean by "subjective". It is formed by the viewer, and can only be experienced by the viewer. That subjective experience is what they have, which is undeniable. Subjective does not mean unreasonable, illogical, or unprovable. Subjective merely means that it is an experience that can only be known to the entity having it.

For example, I like the color blue. Its my favorite color. No one else can say objectively that its my favorite color, because there's no way of proving it. I could be lying. Only I know if blue is my favorite color. The fact that blue is my favorite color also does not objectively make blue the best color for everyone. The subjective conscious is simply the personal experience of being conscious, or qualia.

To me, your example argues a different point than your original claim (in that paragraph): the example is already conceding that “there is something to be like me” but that you can’t know what that is like, — Bob Ross

To clarify, the "something like me" would be the objectively observable nature of being a conscious being. I cannot say "subjectively like me". But I can observe a being and determine it is conscious by the actions in commits, because only a conscious being can observe, identify, and act on that combination.

Think about a fly. A fly can observe the smell of trash, then decide to land on it. Do we know if it thinks about it morally? If the fly wonders at its own existence? No. But what we can know is it scans the environment, identifies, and acts upon it. Do we need to know the flies experience of being a fly to objectively conclude it has a basic consciousness? No. Its beyond our knowledge, so we simply exclude it when evaluating what we can know.

Firstly, I just want to note that I do not think I need certainty to “know” things. Yes, I think that I can “know” you have qualitative experience insofar as it would be special pleading of me to think of myself as the only human being who has it. No I am not certain of it. — Bob Ross

You believe I have qualitative experience. Certainty does not give knowledge, logically correct identification from our observations do. You know that I'm conscious because of the actions I've done here. The words that I've written cannot be done without observation and identification. Do you know the feelings I had when I wrote them? No. Do you know all of the other thoughts whirling in my head that are not necessarily conveyed by the words that I wrote? No. Is it important that we know that I have a subjective qualia, or what that subjective qualia is for you to conclude I'm objectively conscious? Not at all.

Objectivity assumes a logic that stands despite subjective challenges to it. We cannot objectively note that everyone sees green as everyone else, but we can objectively note that if someone is observing the wavelength of green, they are at least perceiving a color we can all agree is green. So if you cannot objectively prove that I experience qualia, its not a matter of belief, its a matter of something you cannot know.

Secondly, I am be confident enough to say that a camera and an AI do not have qualitative experience because I can know what they are made of and there is no room for qualitative anything: it is all mechanical, quantitative operations. — Bob Ross

And yet that's not logical. I can look at a brain, know what it is made of and see that there is no room for qualitative anything: it is all chemical, quantitative operations. So according to your argument, you could confidently say that you know no human being has qualitative experience, including yourself. This is a contradiction, so we know it to be wrong.

I would like to note that it is very necessary to prove it if one is a reductive physicalist: the entire metaphysical theory is riding on it. — Bob Ross

Bob, I don't care about philosophical identities. They're useful as a digest to get into particular thoughts, but the identity itself is unimportant. What's important to me is whether arguments have consistent, logical applications that allow us to function in the world optimally. If my points blow through some type of philosophical ideology but meet the criteria I value, so be it.

Also, it seems like ‘proof’ to you implies certainty: is that correct? — Bob Ross

No, proof would be a logically consistent belief that is concurrent with reality, (or "what is") and not denied by it. We can have incredible certainty in beliefs that are wrong. Its been a while, but just think back along the lines of my knowledge paper if you need details.

If I remember correctly, then the vast majority of your “knowledge” is cogency (i.e., inductions and abductions), right? — Bob Ross

No, the vast majority of what we hold are beliefs, and if we're logical, we attempt to hold onto the most cogent beliefs we can when we are unable to know whether that belief is right. It seems a cogent belief that other beings can experience qualia, but it cannot be known what that qualia is like for them. We can objectively know whether something has consciousness or not, regardless of what we personally believe.

To me, it seems as though you are claiming sometimes that we can’t know that other people have qualitative experience (viz., that there is something to be like them: they have qualia) and other times you are conceding that point, like the above paragraph, and saying just can’t know what it would be like to be like them. — Bob Ross

We cannot know, but we believe that others have qualia. But beliefs about something are not objective, therefore they do not belong in objective analysis or discussion. It is not that we cannot speak or have further beliefs about subjective consciousness, it is simply a recognition that such discussions can at most only be beliefs, and not objective certainties.

Can you prove it otherwise? Can you demonstrate with full knowledge that I have subjective qualitative experience?

Why would I need to prove it with full knowledge (and am assuming full certainty) for it to be worth believing (or claiming to know)? — Bob Ross

You can find worth in believing that I have qualia. But you cannot know it. Once again, this inability to know does not mean we cannot reasonably use cogency to think about the possibilities of qualia. Its just that we have to understand that such discussions can never be objective discussions. There will always be an uncertain belief. There is nothing wrong with this, as there are many many things that we cannot truly know yet we reasonably plan and work with. I don't know what tomorrow will bring or if I will even be alive, but I still plan with a general prediction of what will happen. Same with subjective consciousness.

Great post Joshs!

I view individual gender as a mixture of inborn and cultural features. — Joshs

But that is not what gender is. Gender is the expectation that a sex act or express themselves in a particular way. What you are noting is people wanting to act or express themselves a particular way. So if a man is born who wants to wear a dress, then he does. This is not gender. The expectation that a man should NOT wear a dress is gender. The expectation that a woman SHOULD wear a dress is gender. Can a man want to wear a dress and a woman not want to wear one? Of course. That desire does not change their actual sex of being male or female.

When it is no longer invisible to us , due to a sharp enough difference in our gendered behavior with respect to our same-sex peers, we are given an opportunity to notice the way that gender sweepingly affects human behavior in general. — Joshs

Yes, gender is essentially sexism. Men shouldn't cry and women are expected to be emotionally weak and scatterbrained. Does a man crying mean he isn't biologically a man? No. Does an emotionally strong women with a mind as sharp as a tack mean she's biologically a woman? No. Just because societies or individuals expect a sex to act a particular way, does not mean that they are not that sex if they don't. Same as if they act in stereotypical ways to the opposite sex. It does not make them the opposite sex either.

My second claim has to do with the embodied nature of physical sexual features. Embodied approaches within psychology reveal that such anatomical
manifestations of biological sexual expression such as genitalia can’t be understood in isolation from how they are used, how they are performed and enacted. — Joshs

This is not pyschological gender, but sexual orientation. Now people may have a gendered viewt of sexual orientation. "You're a man and you want to sleep with another man? Well you must not be a man then." Of course you're still a man, your biology hasn't changed. You just don't fit into what that particular society stereotypes or wants to force a man to act like.

Saying tv at our biological sexual parts are embodied and enacted via gender is quite a distance from talking about capability of pregnancy. — Joshs

So to clarify here, who you sleep with has nothing to do with your gender, which is simply a stereotype of what society or you believe a sex should act like. Sexual orientation is not gender.

Let us clear something up first. Most people with AIS have XY chromosomes. If you send their genome to a geneticist, he would tell you they are male, not that they have chromosomes different from men and women. Because according to genetic definitions of sex, they are male. Thus if we accept your objective scientific definition, people of biological male sex can have vaginas and give (surrogate) births.

Do we agree so far? — Jabberwock

First, I again ask you on your next reply to answer my questions to you. Is it fair that I'm the only one being asked questions in a discussion while mine go ignored and unanswered? No. That's not a discussion. What we're trying to do here is have a discussion between two people trying to figure out what makes logical sense in matters of sex and gender. Carving out only what you want to discuss when the other person takes their time to address everything you've asked is not a discussion, its a one sided attack. I don't think you're intentionally doing it as you seem like a bright individual, and I've really enjoyed your points so far. But please, take the time to answer my questions as well if I have spent the time and effort to answer yours.

Those with AIS are not able to birth kids or get other people pregnant. https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/androgen-insensitivity-syndrome/

Regardless, such a person is still a man, but with the caveat that they have a disorder that they are insensitive to androgens. Once puberty hits, the syndrome is first found when secondary sex characteristics begin to happen.

Lets say for fun however that male's could give birth. They would still be males. Male seahorses for example give birth. By sex, they are still males. Once again, having an exception to the norm does not change the norm, nor has your example shown me that sex is not objective.

Alright, with that please answer my previous points and questions before asking more of your own Jabberwock. I look forward to your answers!

I am currently addressing this here https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/14370/subjective-and-objective-consciousness if you want to join in. I don't want to spread the same topic to multiple threads out of respect to the forum.

Thank you Josh's fantastic contribution. I'm going to link some research on sex differences and behavior in dogs.

"Ethological studies also underline many behavioral sex differences in other animals [18]. Prominent observations related to reproductive behaviors, such as parental care, mating strategies, and courtship displays, are almost exclusively expressed by only one of the sexes. These traits have been tagged as real “sexual dimorphism” [19] or “qualitative differences” [18]. However, differences in behaviors not exclusive to reproduction are less obvious and may differ in magnitude between the sexes. Odor detection and stress responses, for example, fall in this category and are simply considered “sex differences” [19] or “quantitative differences” [18].

In some cases, both sexes appear to exhibit the same behavior; however, the underlying neural substrate differs between them such that, under particular conditions, one sex might display a different behavior (sex convergence and divergence, [19]). For example, Lighthall et al. [20] reported there were no significant sex differences in a human decision-making task; however, under the influence of a cold pressor stress, men showed a faster reward-related decision-making speed than females, thus indicating a clear sexual divergence in behavior. This effect was attributed to differential brain functions in the dorsal striatum and anterior insula, with an increased activation in men compared to women after the stress event. Finally, there may also be “population differences” in behavior, which indicates that the frequency of display varies between the sexes, although the pattern is consistent [18]. For example, in most social mammals, males tend to disperse more than females [21]."
-Behavioral and Perceptual Differences between Sexes in Dogs: An Overview
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6162565/

To sum up those weighty paragraphs, there are clear differences in behavior between the sexes in regards to sexual behavior, at least in the norm. After all there are gay dogs. But to drill down even further, obviously a female brain would need to handle menstruation, while a male brain would handle the male sex organ for procreation.

But what is important is while there can be a general sense of non-sexual behavior differences between the animals, its less obvious. Thus an agressive dog can be assumed to be male more often than not, but being aggressive does not make a dog male, nor is it limited to only males being aggressive.

This is a similar point in humans. In general, expected behavior in non-sexual interactions from a particular sex is gender. And gender expectations are not objective evaluations of how an actual sex should or must act. I've made the point further up to Jabberwock in a very good discussion that our current division by sex, is due to physical sex differences. To add to this, a consideration is the sexual behaviors between the sexes as well. Male sexual aggression is a strong consideration for why women have women's shelters and separate bathrooms.

What is not considered in these sexual separations are non-sexual actions that someone may assume a sex would have. In other words, gender is not a reason for the separation. Males may be seen as more aggressive, but an aggressive woman is not forced to use a male bathroom because she does not fit her gender role. My point is that even if there are non-sexual brain differences between men and women due to biological sex, it has not been, nor should be, a consideration in situations that are divided by sex.

Is “qualitative experience” (i.e., qualia) different to you than observing, identifying, and acting (or are they the same)? — Bob Ross

They are slightly different. Qualitative experience is the subjective act of observing and identifying. You can act as well, its just not required to subjectively be conscious. Think about someone in a coma that was unresponsive, but later comes out of it and is able to repeat conversations they heard while unresponsive. They were conscious, just unable to act.

Observing identifying and acting are objective measures of consciousness that can be known from monitoring a thing. Put a puzzle in front of a person, and they'll observe, attempt to identify, and make an action based on that identity.

Is “awareness” different than “qualitative experience”? Is it the same as observing, identifying, and acting? — Bob Ross

Awareness is a combination of two main factors: Observation and identification. — Philosophim

Qualitative experience would be the experience of observing and identifying from the subject observing and identifying.

Am I correct in saying that, under your view, “objective” and “subjective” consciousness are both referring to qualitative experience? Awareness? Both? — Bob Ross

No, only subjective consciousness refers to qualitative experience. Its not that objective experience denies that subjective consciousness exist, it just knows that it cannot be known and as such cannot be determined by an objective evaluation.

Correct me if I am wrong, but it seems like you are saying that we can objectively know that other beings have qualitative experience and that there is something to be like that subject but we cannot know what it is like to be that subject: is that correct? — Bob Ross

No, we cannot actually know whether other beings qualitatively experience, we can only assume or make an induction that they do. As there is no way to objectively measure or comprehend what another's qualitative experience would be like, its outside of our ability to know. Its like this: Both of our eyes see the wavelength for the color green, but I can never know if what you subjectively experience as green is the same as what I subjectively experience as green.

They can have robotic consciousness.

Are you saying that there is something to be like a robot as a subject (but we just can’t know what that is like) and it has qualitative experience? — Bob Ross

We can assume that there is, but we cannot know that there is. Whether a robot has qualitative experience and what its like is outside of the realm of knowledge.

I don’t hold that a camera + a computerized interpreter (of the images) equates to a conscious being but I do agree that the camera is aware (as an observer) to some limited degree (in order to take in a photo of the environment). I just don’t hold consciousness and observation as the same thing, so can you elaborate on what you mean? — Bob Ross

Something aware can both observe and identify. A camera that receives light through the lens and then prints it onto a photo is a simple observer. It does not identify anything in the picture itself, it just observes and records. An identifier is something which can look at that picture and think, "That part of the picture is a cloud". Consciousness requires both observation and the ability to identify. Observation or the ability to identify alone do not make consciousness.

Is that not the qualitative experience?

No, I do not hold that there is something to be like a camera + computerized interpreter (of those images or what have you). I do not hold that the camera has qualitative experience: all that is occurring is quantitative measurements through-and-through. — Bob Ross

And you can't know that it has qualitative experience, anymore than you can know any other objectively conscious being has qualitative experience. Bob, can you prove that I have qualitative experience? Can you know it for certain? It is just as difficult to prove I have qualitative experience as it is to prove a dog has qualitative experience. Since we cannot, when talking about what we can know objectively, qualitative experience of beings or things other than ourselves is unnecessary.

e.g., the subjectively experienced redness of the truck can’t be accurately quantified, whereas the camera is capturing quantitatively what it thinks is there and displaying it quantitatively via pixels (in hex encoded colors or what have you), of which you qualitatively experience when you look at the image via the camera screen (after taking a picture). There’s nothing qualitative happening in terms of the internal processes of the camera nor is the camera subjectively experiencing anything (I would say). — Bob Ross

I'll refer back to seeing the wavelength green vs experiencing the qualitative color of what green is to you. Its not that there isn't anything qualitatively happening to other people. Its that its outside of our knowledge. Because we cannot prove it, it is unimportant for us what exact color we see when we see the wavelength green. Same with the qualitative experience of an ai observing and identifying objects in a picture. We can note it sees the wavelength of green, but we cannot know what that experience is for it. Since we cannot know if it does or does not have qualitative experience, its subjective consciousness is not considered in objective consciousness evaluation.

Objective consciousness is the observation and confirmation that there is consciousness apart from the subjective experience itself.

I don’t see how you can come to understand a thing as conscious but yet say you haven’t thereby posited it as subjectively experiencing: could you elaborate? — Bob Ross

Certainly. Consciousness is described as anything which can observe and identify. The only way we can objectively know if something is consciousness is by observing its actions. There are only certain actions one can take which determine consciousness. If I put iodine in a person's blood, it will show signs of hormones for your thyroid. What is the qualitative experience of having iodine in your blood? If someone put it into our blood stream, we would not observe it by feeling in our blood, nor be able to identify it. Therefore we are not conscious of it.

However, stick a needle in someone's skin to insert the iodine, and a person can identify the feel and sight of the needle, and identify that it is a needle, or at least something that causes pain. Thus the person is conscious of the needle. Do we know what they feel? No. That is the subjective consciousness of the person. Does it matter subjectively what they feel when evaluating objectively whether they are conscious or not? No.

By my lights, the whole point of saying something is conscious is to grant that it has subjective experience, and the outer, objective analysis of that looks like the an aware, organic entity. It sounds like, under your view, there could be a being which is conscious but doesn’t have any subjective experience but, to me, that’s like saying that we can determine something thinks while holding it may not have a thinker. — Bob Ross

I am going a step further. I'm saying its impossible to know if something else besides yourself has qualitative experience because its purely subjective. Can you prove it otherwise? Can you demonstrate with full knowledge that I have subjective qualitative experience?

Great points Bob, glad to see you thinking about it!

My entire argument is the entire argument. Please read it.
— Philosophim

I did and then you decided this all only applies to the limited context of "places divided by sex". I was trying to clarify your context. You said in public it doesn't matter at all. Seems Ad-hoc. — Cheshire

Its not ad-hoc at all. There are places that society divides people by sex. In public we do not divide people by sex, at least in America.

The whole discussion started with my objection to your claim that 'sex' is objective. If your claim now is that 'sex' is 'what we divide by' and we pick and choose the features for the division, then I guess it is a tacit acknowledgment that it is not. — Jabberwock

I have never said that we pick and choose the features of what counts as male and female. XY and XX for the norm. This is objective and unchanging. What I noted is that there are places we divide by sex and not gender. Point out exactly where I start to say sex itself is subjective and please answer the point I made in the quote.

We don't divide the sexes by brains, period. If you think we should, then please give a reason why. — Philosophim

Try to avoid accusing others of taccit denial of their own claims without very clearly pointing out the exact wording and the logical contradiction. It comes across as dishonest and is often done by those who are no longer able to answer the points of the argument. Combined with the fact you did not answer my request, its looking like you are unable to do so, and are now attacking straw men. I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt though! I could be wrong, it just needs to be clearly shown.

If it was subjective and arbitrary, why do transgender people want to be the other sex so much? If it was subjective and arbitrary, they wouldn't care. It is objective and not arbitrary by this alone.
— Philosophim

Because the society strongly acts and sometimes enforces that division. It does not really give you an option not to belong to any group, even though some of your features might not 'belong'. — Jabberwock

Societies expectations of how you should act as a man or woman are subjective and arbitrary. That's gender. Your sex is not subjective or arbitrary. This is why gender should not be considered in sex division. Even if your features do not match someone's gendered opinion of how a man should act, you're still objectively a man.

It seems that you decide that the person is 'the norm of their sex' based on several arbitrarily selected attributes. When I point out that there might be different attributes to be taken into consideration, you just dismiss them, based on 'what society thinks'. Not very objective, I would say. — Jabberwock

No, I've said clearly what the norm of sex is. XX and XY are female and male respectively with expected secondary sex characteristics. That is not arbitrary. If so, show me how please. I have not dismissed your attributes in any way. I have noted them as being either deviations from sexual norms, such as a XXY, or gender which is subjective. Please give a specific example of what I am ignoring or misaligning to the definitions I've given.

If 'being a woman entails' some behaviors, then they are ulitimately biologically conditioned. But your definition of 'gender' claims they are not. And as I wrote, sex of the brain does not depend on a single or some features - why would it? — Jabberwock

And what behaviors biologically entail you to be a woman? Wearing a dress? Beyond the biological differences that the brain would need to interface with to birth or procreate, what is objective behavior that solely belongs to a man or a woman? My point is that being a woman does not entail you to behaving or dressing a particular way. That's society stereotyping, not an objective assessment.

Again, is another question I've asked you here that you have not answered.

I have not seen a compelling reason for a transgender person who is the norm of their sex suddenly being allowed into a place divided by sex because they want to act or dress in a stererotypical belief of how a sex should behave or dress. Feel free to give one, and we can keep discussing this point. — Philosophim

As well, please do not just accuse an argument of contradicting itself or being arbitrary without evidence. Please copy the lines in question you think I contradicted myself at, then point out where the contradiction is. Its easy to get into your own head and definitions and see a contradiction where the OP has not because they are not agreeing to your definitions. Further, if you don't show me directly, I'm going to correctly conclude that you misunderstood, so its important for both of us. Its fine if you don't agree to my definitions, and some of the questions I've asked you are giving you a chance to challenge them, but we need to be on the same page so we're not talking past one another.

1. That is exactly my point. Your claim is that transgenderism is NOT a result of biological expression of sex difference - how can you be sure? — Jabberwock

Everything is biological. You are your brain, and it is biological. The point I'm making is that if we could actually identify sex differences in the brain, its irrelevant to why we divide the sexes to begin with. We don't divide the sexes by brains, period. If you think we should, then please give a reason why.

That is precisely because 'sex' is a subjective collective term for many features that typically are bundled together, but not always, so the division will always be arbitrary. — Jabberwock

If it was subjective and arbitrary, why do transgender people want to be the other sex so much? If it was subjective and arbitrary, they wouldn't care. It is objective and not arbitrary by this alone.

And again, and if we start repeating ourselves its probably time to agree to disagree, I've noted that exceptions do not change the rules that concern the norms. We make exceptions for those people. I have not seen a compelling reason for a transgender person who is the norm of their sex suddenly being allowed into a place divided by sex because they want to act or dress in a stererotypical belief of how a sex should behave or dress. Feel free to give one, and we can keep discussing this point. But without answering this question, there is no more to explore here.

Finally, the label of sex is settled by science around the world. Give a scientist a genome of any human being and they will identify XY as male and XX as female. This is not subjective.

That is precisely because 'sex' is a subjective collective term for many features that typically are bundled together, but not always — Jabberwock

To this point again, exceptions are not the norm. Exceptions do not change the rules for the norm unless a valid reason is given. An exception to one's chromosomes do not change the objective definition that an XY is a man while an XX is a woman.

Wanting to wear a dress doesn't make you feminine, but being feminine might make you want to wear a dress. — Jabberwock

They're actually the same statement. "Feminine" is a gender term. It implies that being a woman entails certain cultural expressions and behaviors that can be different across cultures. My sister does not wear dresses, does not paint her nails, and dissects dead bodies for a living. These would largely be considered masculine actions in some cultures. Does that mean my sister should suddenly be playing sports on a male team? That people should now call her a man? Of course not.

The second argument I think you need to make is why being masculine or feminine as expressed subjectively by cultures should logically lead to someone being identified as a male or female sex by law. I'm very open to hearing it!

Very glad to see you Bob! The reason I bowed out from your thread is I felt my points would deviate too much from your original intent. I felt that your thread was addressing those who were somewhat familiar with your topic, and agreed and understood basic points. My questions and critiques seemed too far out of place for your OP, and I did not want to derail your thread from others.

the former seemed to be the latter with just the redaction of “what it is to be like a subjective experiencing” or, as you put it, “the viewpoint of consciousness itself”. — Bob Ross

I think you have the right of it. Its really a separate evaluation. Objective and subjective consciousness are two aspects of "consciousness". My point was to take the original concept and divide it into clearer and more distinct notions to avoid potential problems when they are blended together.

If that is correct, then I don’t see how “They are entirely separate realms of discussion and analysis”: when one analyzes how an organism has conscious experience of something, that is still “tied” to the same “consciousness” as that organism that is subjectively experiencing. I fear that this distinction implies that there could possibly be a being which has consciousness but doesn’t subjectively experience, but the consciousness we are studying objectively (from the side of behavior) is the same thing as the qualitative experience that the subject itself is having: we just don’t have direct, private access to it like that subject does. — Bob Ross

My point is that it is irrelevant when studying objective consciousness that we have an objective evaluation of the subjective consciousness. This is mostly because subjective consciousness of other beings is outside of knowledge. It is something we simply cannot know. No human knows what its like to be subjectively conscious as a dog. But objectively, does a dog have consciousness? Yes, by its ability to observe, identify, and act.

A being can be “aware” in the sense of being capable (to some degree) of observing its environment and identifying different aspects of its observation without having qualitative experience: for example, even basic AIs today can observe their environment and identify things (such as cups, tables, chairs, etc.) and they do not have conscious, qualitative experience: — Bob Ross

My argument is that they do. Do they have human qualitative consciousness? No. They can have robotic consciousness. What is it like to experience from within the system the ability to observe, identify, then make an action? Its impossible to know. As such, its irrelevant in objective evaluation.

The problem is we're constantly trying to attribute subjective consciousness to situations that are impossible to do so. Objectively, consciousness does not require you to be human, can we both agree on that? Is a dog conscious? A bat? A crab? They all have brains, though much more primitive than human brains. Therefore their consciousness, in what they are able to observe, identify, and act on, is much more limited. Will we ever know what its like to have the qualitative experience of a dog? No. That still doesn't mean we can't work with what we have.

An allegory is quantum physics or even odds. Both of these evaluative fields work within the limitations they know. Qauntum physics has a limit where you cannot both know a particles velocity and location at the same time. So we construct a system around which one we decide to measure. A deck of 52 playing cards has an unknown order, but we know what all the cards are. Therefore we can construct odds. Objective consciousness is simply removing that which cannot be possibly known, the actual subjective experience.

are you talking about qualitative experience or just the ability to take in input and interpret the environment?--these are two very different things — Bob Ross

Are they? When a simple camera takes a picture, it simply processes the light. It cannot identify anything within that light. Only a consciousness can take in light, then form some identity out of it like a cloud, a sun, and grass. To observe, then identify, doesn't some "thing" have to observe, then match it to an identity? Is that not the qualitative experience? Some "thing" must maintain both the observation, and actively match an identity. We don't have to know what that's like for different observers and identifiers, but we can say the state of observing and identifying is consciousness at the most basic level.

If we attach a program to a camera that can identify things like clouds, a sun, and grass in the picture, then that is what it is conscious of. But that is ALL it is conscious of. It does not have feelings, or the ability to have the four other senses human's do. But there is something that retains an observation long enough to process through several identities, then match them.

Is “subjective” consciousness the qualitative experience and “objective” consciousness the mere awareness of the environment (plus the interpretation of it)? — Bob Ross

No, subjective consciousness is merely what it is like to be the thing which is conscious. Objective consciousness is the observation and confirmation that there is consciousness apart from the subjective experience itself. Thus if we can observe an entity that can observe, identify, and act, we can conclude it is conscious at least within what it can observe, identify, and act upon.

And yet you just did.
— Philosophim
You can't observe that you're not thinking a particular thought.

Not sure I understand the op either. It doesn't seem like you're discussing two kinds of consciousness. It seems like you're looking for a way to objectively identify another consciousness. — Patterner

You can't observe that you're not thinking a particular thought. — Patterner

Look, I don't care. Its irrelevant so believe what you want. The point is not that I'm trying to identify another consciousness, its that consciousness can be divided into subjective and objective parts. If there's something you don't understand about that, feel free to ask.

If I am making a reductio absurdum argument against materialism, it does not mean I believe in materialism. — RogueAI

Then please make such an argument. Refer back to my original points to you where I formed a logical argument, then asked you to clarify and explain your own.

We are talking about places that are divided by sex. My claim is that gender does not override sex division, because gender and sex are different.
— Philosophim

So, your entire argument is regarding the caveat moments such as dressing rooms and bathrooms? — Cheshire

My entire argument is the entire argument. Please read it.

Not if attraction to women is just one biological feature that aligns with features typically attributed to men and her other psychological features align with those of women. Again, psychology is also part of genetic expression and it might also be sexual, as there are biologically caused psychological differences typically attributed to sex. Thus it should be considered by you as 'secondary sex expression'. — Jabberwock

1. We do not know enough about the brain to determine this.
2. Separations by sex have NEVER involved brain differences. As such, a brain difference should not suddenly become a deciding factor. You think that a six foot 10 230 pound male should compete in women's sports because he has more grey matter in his brain than average?
3. What would be more feminine or masculine in the brain that isn't gender? Wanting to wear a dress doesn't make you feminine. There is nothing biological about being a woman that naturally compels one to wear a dress. Can you give some examples on your end?

I'm an idealist. I've identified as such here for quite awhile. I was meeting you halfway for sake of argument earlier. Don't accuse me of trolling, please.

We're at first principles now. I want to know why, at the starting gate, I should adopt your materialistic view of reality because in actuality, I don't. — RogueAI

You aren't responding to my earlier points and now you want to change to a debate over materialism? I'm not playing this game. If you're not answering my points and just asking more questions, then you're not discussing. The subject was about the brain and consciousness. I've already put in effort to make some points and ask you to justify yourself. If you want to engage with me, first justify yourself. Explain to me why you don't believe brains are material reality instead of asking me. The onus is on you to respond and make an actual point before continuing on with your questioning. If you cannot do so, then lets end the conversation.

Then you are inconsistent in your definitions – you treat physical sex expression in genitals differently than physical sex expression in a brain. — Jabberwock

No, I'm not. I'm saying that expected behavior is gender. If your brain now determines your sex, that means a lesbian could be considered a man because their brain is attracted to a woman. Do we want to go down that path? No, we don't. Sex is simply chromosonal and secondary sex expression.

To a point I made earlier, we don't divide the sexes by their brains. Bathroom division is based on physical privacy and vulnerability. Sports are divided based on the fact that testosterone and male hormones create physically superior people per weight class. Women's shelter's are to protect sexually traumatized women from being around the sex that traumatized them. Your brain is irrelevant.

And you cannot be aware that you are not thinking a particular thought. That would be thinking, "I'm not thinking about crayons right now." — Patterner

And yet you just did. Honestly, this is an incredibly unimportant part of the OP. What about the subjective vs objective consciousness?

And how are you aware of yourself? Don't you need to observe something, then say, "I identify this as myself?"
— Philosophim
Do you have to observe anything to know that you exist, that you are awake? — Alkis Piskas

Yes. The state of wakefulness feels different from the state of sleeping. I'm pretty sure we're having a miscommunication on what "observation" is. The word is not important. My point is there are things that we encounter, and then we identify them. Simple as that.

Do you have to feel or think anything to know that you exist? That you are a person? That you are reading this message? — Alkis Piskas

Yes! I can't read a message without observing the message and identifying that they are words.

Knowing that "something". What is this something?
— Philosophim
Anything. Whatever. No some thing in particular. It could be e.g. just sitting on a chair. — Alkis Piskas

That's an observation combined with identification. Anything is observation. Identification is noting that anything is me sitting in a chair.

The feeling of the chair on your bottom does not determine the fact that you are sitting. — Alkis Piskas

The feeling is an observation. The identification is what determines whether I'm sitting.

You do not watch your legs and whole body move fast to be aware that you are running. You just know that you are running. — Alkis Piskas

Observe does not mean watch. Observation is feelings, thoughts, etc. Identification is noting that the combination of what you're observing can be identified as running.

But you can also be aware of the absence of thoughts! — Alkis Piskas

Yes, an observation that you're not thinking a particular thought can be identified as not having thoughts. You're taking observation to mean that we are ascertaining the existence of something. Observation is just your subjective experience without identity. Identity creates differences within that subjective experience.

That's a contradiction to what I've defined. I need to observe something and then identify that as a "thought". I need to observe something and identify it as a "body". The combination of the two is awareness.
— Philosophim
Yes I know that. Repeating it does not prove that I'm wrong! — Alkis Piskas

Pointing out its a contradiction does. Show that it is not a contradiction and you may have something.

Also, I wonder why do you chose to ignore all that I have said and shown in multiple ways about observation not being necessary for awareness to exist ... — Alkis Piskas

I'm not ignoring. I'm the OP who provided the definition and I'm trying to point out that you didn't understand what observation meant. Which is fine, no problem. But when responding you should attempt to understand the OP first right? We don't want straw man arguments.

Suppose that a person has a male body with male genitals, but due to some developmental occurrence this person's brain acquires features typically associated with women, therefore causing that person's strong identification with women. Would that person be transsexual or not? — Jabberwock

No, that person would be transgender according to the definitions I've provided. Gender is how we expect a sex to act or dress. That's what the brain controls. We could also call that subjective stereotyping, or sexism. I think its very important as a society that is trying to avoid discrimination that we don't go back to the old idea that women and men's gender should define who they are.

Do you run around tearing wigs off of bald people? Do you refuse to acknowledge that they appear to have hair? — Cheshire

No because I'm not in a situation where people are separated by having hair and not having hair. We are not talking about the general public. Your gender or sex is really no one else's business in public. We are talking about places that are divided by sex. My claim is that gender does not override sex division, because gender and sex are different.

Insisting someone is literally a different sex when it's intuitively a contradiction to a lot of the public has just made things worse. I more or less adopted the opinion of a surgeon that performs the procedures. In his words, the result is a feminized man or the inverse. — Cheshire

I think we agree. Gender presentation does not change your sex.

The alteration seems to help but no one thinks they have become a different sex. — Cheshire

Then they should have no problems with not being allowed into places based on sex division when they are not that sex.

Implicit in what you said is an assumption that there exist physical objects like brains. Why should I agree with your materialist/physicalist assumption? — RogueAI

RogueAI, I'll answer your questions if you're serious about replying to mine. First, you already agreed when we started discussing brains.

What you think is neural causation is neural correlation. It's the old, correlation is not causation. — Philosophim

You already agree there are neurons, and you claimed they correlated with mind, and didn't cause it. At this point retreating and saying, "Well maybe brains don't exist" is borderline trolling. I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt that you just made a mistake.

Also, please answer the rest of the points I made. Its going to need to take you more than a few sentences to reply adequately. Please take it seriously. If that is not what you are interested in, then again, no harm in bowing out of a conversation.

X amount of indefinite harm will occur for a future person who is not born yet. Some have argued that one is not "preventing harm" for anyone, as they don't exist yet. Is this just rhetorical hedging in order to hold a certain ethical belief, or do they have some ontological validity in the idea that the potential person is not actual and therefore nothing is being prevented to any actual thing. — schopenhauer1

I still don't understand what you mean in relation to conditionals. Get rid of all the fancy vocabulary. Don't worry about what "some" other people are saying. I want to hear what you think. Don't use X or X2. Remove all abstracts. Use an example like I did with the pregnant woman tempted by alcohol.

You seem so nervous to say what you want to say! Do not worry about being wrong so much that you lose your ability to be right! Worrying about being smart is one of the traps that inhibits true discussion. I've seen many "dumb" examples cut through to the heart of an issue faster than any abstract could. As it currently stands, I'm unable to clearly understand what you're trying to discuss.

At what point does a future person come into ethical consideration? Some have argued that because a person does not exist yet, that "that person" is an invalid category because it is en potential and not actual. — schopenhauer1

I don't understand. I just gave an example of a human that is about to be born. Give me an example of what you're thinking and your opinion on it. Don't worry about what others think.

Just looking at their body is not enough, if the person's brain or even some of its areas might express as woman's. I am not saying that it is always the case for transgender people, but there is some research that indicates that in some cases their brains might indeed be different. — Jabberwock

True. For example women in general have more grey matter in their brains than men do. But if a man has more grey matter than a few women, does that make him a woman? Of course not. Sex separations in society are also not based on brain differences. No one cares about your brain composition in sports, bathrooms, or women's shelters.

In such cases maybe it would be more productive to limit the divisions not to sex (as we agree that the expression might not be clear cut in some persons), but to particular features. — Jabberwock

Lets look at it this way. We make laws based on norms, then make exceptions for cases that do not fit the norm.

So we have 95% of the population or more is a clear cut man or woman. Someone comes along and genetically does not fit. In that case we as a society can decide if their physical features are more important. Likely such a person would want to be in places where their expressed features more closely mirror the secondary affects of a particular sex, so society should probably accept that. I doubt anyone here has a problem with it.

Lets say though that a genetic woman has had some type of disruption in their development that they have the secondary sex characteristics of a man. Despite this, they choose to use the woman's restroom because they are in fact, a woman. I don't think anyone would have a problem with this either.

Now does that mean we suddenly change the rules for the norm? No. If you're a genotypical and phenotypical woman and you disguise yourself as a man, you don't suddenly get a right to walk into the men's restroom or play in men's sports. It doesn't matter that the exception can, they have something they can't change themselves.

Again, all of this is really talk of transexuals, which is not really an issue. Does a genotypical and phenotypical male get to dress up and talk like a stereotypical woman and suddenly get access to places restricted by sex? No, that doesn't make any sense at all.

If something does not exist in the future, but could exist in the future on certain known conditions, does that future state of affairs have any ethical worth to consider? Let us say a human exists in future point Y, but does not exist now in actual point X. Does future point Y have any ethical consideration since they don't exist yet in future point Y? — schopenhauer1

I think we're still a little abstract. I like to give a concrete example of any abstract I use so its clear to others.

Lets say I'm pregnant and I want to get drunk. There's a high probability or certainty it will cause fetal alcohol syndrome, impairing my child's brain in the future. I can choose to drink and enjoy myself, or emotionally suffer until the desire blows over so that my child doesn't receive brain damage.

I think its pretty clear that this is an ethical consideration. Schopoenhauer1, it sounds like you're trying to say something without saying something. Give your idea fully. What are you looking for here? Its a lot easier to get to the point instead of holding out on it until some abstracts have been established.