12 ms·

Consciousness is entirely subjective. There is no objective element to it.

by collyw 10y ago

naasking 10y ago
> Consciousness is entirely subjective. There is no objective element to it. Conjecture!
- monktastic1 10y ago
  Is it? Sounds like a definition to me. Consciousness is the sheer fact of subjectivity (i.e., that it is "like something" to be you).
  - mannykannot 10y ago
    Definitions are not explanations. Anyone wanting to claim that subjective phenomena cannot have objective causes needs to justify that claim.
    - monktastic1 10y ago
      I was responding to the above comment saying that it's a conjecture that consciousness is subjective. I'm saying it's a definition not a conjecture. That fact makes objective investigation very hard. If I don't know whether a person is a p-zombie, I cannot know whether any objective events cause his consciousness. And if it's my consciousness we're talking about, I cannot be there to investigate the objective causes of it.
      - mannykannot 10y ago
        I believe the conjecture lies in the claim that there is no objective element to it. The fact that objective investigation is difficult does not make the case. BTW, your specific arguments for it being hard seem to me to border on solipsism.
        monktastic1 10y ago
        Well, it's related to solipsism in that (a) if solipsism is true, then any objective explanation is illusory, and (b) it is impossible (not just hard) to know whether solipsism is true. Or instead of solipsism, you could substitute a simulation hypothesis. This is what differentiates consciousness from all other phenomena. Gravity may or may not "really" exist; all I seek to explain is why objects appear to attract. On the other hand, consciousness certainly exists (you can test this out by trying to doubt it, in which case you'll have a conscious experience of doubt), and the only phenomena I can explain it with are objective and thus may themselves not really exist.
        mannykannot 10y ago
        Your use of "may" in the last sentence indicates that it does not refute naaskings claim that collyw's assertion that "There is no objective element to [consciousness]" is conjecture. We can also note that your argument that "consciousness certainly exists" (which actually only applies to my consciousness) does not validate any particular belief about it.
        monktastic1 10y ago
        What does it mean for there to be an objective "element" to subjectivity (which here I take to be synonymous with consciousness)? And do you agree with naasking's claim above that it is meaningful to refute your own consciousness?
        naasking 10y ago
        Quantum physics tells me cars don't really exist, they're just one more aggregate of matter really no different than any other aggregate. But when you say "consciousness exists", you mean something different than when you say "cars exist". We both know cars don't really exist, fundamentally, but if you believe in irreducible subjectivity then you believe that consciousness fundamentally exists in the same way that quarks and fields exist. So I do walk around and claim to be conscious just like I walk around and talk about the drive to work every morning, but I always know in the back of my mind that these are merely convenient labels, not things that actually exist. They are merely shorthands for a very complicated description of objective reality.
  - naasking 10y ago
    > Consciousness is the sheer fact of subjectivity (i.e., that it is "like something" to be you). That fact doesn't necessarily entail that it cannot be captured objectively. So your conjecture is that our apparent subjectivity is irreducible, that we must simply accept subjectivity into our ontology, and that's a stretch.
    - monktastic1 10y ago
      The problem, as I see it, is this: you can be sure consciousness exists (try and doubt it, and you will only discover the conscious experience of doubt), but you cannot be sure that anything else does. I cannot see why it's sensible to reduce the one certain thing to any number of uncertain things. In a dream, you may similarly find that certain "objective" phenomena correlate near-perfectly with consciousness. Does this constitute consciousness being "captured objectively" by them? If not, why is the situation any different here, where we cannot be certain we're not in a simulation? (Notice that my argument does not depend on the likelihood of the simulation hypothesis, but just the possibility.)
      - naasking 10y ago
        > The problem, as I see it, is this: you can be sure consciousness exists (try and doubt it, and you will only discover the conscious experience of doubt), but you cannot be sure that anything else does. This is a pretty shallow interpretation of your perceptions I think. A Cartesian cogito argument doesn't prove that you exist because it assumes the conclusion (and so does not prove subjectivity exists). A non-fallacious cogito argument is, "this is a thought, therefore thoughts exist". Where does the subjectivity arise in this proof? At best, you can prove "this is a thought asserting the existence of subjectivity, therefore thoughts asserting the existence of subjectivity exist". This clearly does not entail that this belief is actually true. So in conclusion, I dispute your certainty that consciousness exists. Many things seem certain at first blush, but turn out to be false upon closer inspection. And if you want something more concrete to chew on, I recommend reading [1], which is a neuroscientific theory that attempts to account for our apparent experience of subjectivity. [1] http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00500/full http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00...
neuronexmachina 10y ago
There's actually objective tests you can perform with people with agnosia, example: http://m.nautil.us/issue/47/consciousness/we-need-conscious-robots http://m.nautil.us/issue/47/consciousness/we-need-conscious-... > In fact, even our sensation of the present moment is a construct of the conscious mind. We see evidence for this in various experiments and case studies. Patients with agnosia who have damage to object-recognition parts of the visual cortex can’t name an object they see, but can grab it. If given an envelope, they know to orient their hand to insert it through a mail slot. But patients cannot perform the reaching task if experimenters introduce a time delay between showing the object and cueing the test subject to reach for it. Evidently, consciousness is related not to sophisticated information processing per se; as long as a stimulus immediately triggers an action, we don’t need consciousness. It comes into play when we need to maintain sensory information over a few seconds.
- monktastic1 10y ago
  That sounds to me like they're testing for the ability to name or remember things. For all we know, the patient (heck, other beings in general) don't experience anything at all (i.e., are philosophical zombies). It's easy to conflate all these things with what we're really trying to get at.
Veedrac 10y ago
Then how are you able to tell me it exists?

Consciousness is entirely subjective. There is no objective element to it.

by collyw 10y ago

Consciousness is entirely subjective. There is no objective element to it.

naasking 10y ago

> Consciousness is entirely subjective. There is no objective element to it. Conjecture!

monktastic1 10y ago
Is it? Sounds like a definition to me. Consciousness is the sheer fact of subjectivity (i.e., that it is "like something" to be you).
- mannykannot 10y ago
  Definitions are not explanations. Anyone wanting to claim that subjective phenomena cannot have objective causes needs to justify that claim.
  - monktastic1 10y ago
    I was responding to the above comment saying that it's a conjecture that consciousness is subjective. I'm saying it's a definition not a conjecture. That fact makes objective investigation very hard. If I don't know whether a person is a p-zombie, I cannot know whether any objective events cause his consciousness. And if it's my consciousness we're talking about, I cannot be there to investigate the objective causes of it.
    - mannykannot 10y ago
      I believe the conjecture lies in the claim that there is no objective element to it. The fact that objective investigation is difficult does not make the case. BTW, your specific arguments for it being hard seem to me to border on solipsism.
      - monktastic1 10y ago
        Well, it's related to solipsism in that (a) if solipsism is true, then any objective explanation is illusory, and (b) it is impossible (not just hard) to know whether solipsism is true. Or instead of solipsism, you could substitute a simulation hypothesis. This is what differentiates consciousness from all other phenomena. Gravity may or may not "really" exist; all I seek to explain is why objects appear to attract. On the other hand, consciousness certainly exists (you can test this out by trying to doubt it, in which case you'll have a conscious experience of doubt), and the only phenomena I can explain it with are objective and thus may themselves not really exist.
        mannykannot 10y ago
        Your use of "may" in the last sentence indicates that it does not refute naaskings claim that collyw's assertion that "There is no objective element to [consciousness]" is conjecture. We can also note that your argument that "consciousness certainly exists" (which actually only applies to my consciousness) does not validate any particular belief about it.
        monktastic1 10y ago
        What does it mean for there to be an objective "element" to subjectivity (which here I take to be synonymous with consciousness)? And do you agree with naasking's claim above that it is meaningful to refute your own consciousness?
        naasking 10y ago
        Quantum physics tells me cars don't really exist, they're just one more aggregate of matter really no different than any other aggregate. But when you say "consciousness exists", you mean something different than when you say "cars exist". We both know cars don't really exist, fundamentally, but if you believe in irreducible subjectivity then you believe that consciousness fundamentally exists in the same way that quarks and fields exist. So I do walk around and claim to be conscious just like I walk around and talk about the drive to work every morning, but I always know in the back of my mind that these are merely convenient labels, not things that actually exist. They are merely shorthands for a very complicated description of objective reality.
- naasking 10y ago
  > Consciousness is the sheer fact of subjectivity (i.e., that it is "like something" to be you). That fact doesn't necessarily entail that it cannot be captured objectively. So your conjecture is that our apparent subjectivity is irreducible, that we must simply accept subjectivity into our ontology, and that's a stretch.
  - monktastic1 10y ago
    The problem, as I see it, is this: you can be sure consciousness exists (try and doubt it, and you will only discover the conscious experience of doubt), but you cannot be sure that anything else does. I cannot see why it's sensible to reduce the one certain thing to any number of uncertain things. In a dream, you may similarly find that certain "objective" phenomena correlate near-perfectly with consciousness. Does this constitute consciousness being "captured objectively" by them? If not, why is the situation any different here, where we cannot be certain we're not in a simulation? (Notice that my argument does not depend on the likelihood of the simulation hypothesis, but just the possibility.)
    - naasking 10y ago
      > The problem, as I see it, is this: you can be sure consciousness exists (try and doubt it, and you will only discover the conscious experience of doubt), but you cannot be sure that anything else does. This is a pretty shallow interpretation of your perceptions I think. A Cartesian cogito argument doesn't prove that you exist because it assumes the conclusion (and so does not prove subjectivity exists). A non-fallacious cogito argument is, "this is a thought, therefore thoughts exist". Where does the subjectivity arise in this proof? At best, you can prove "this is a thought asserting the existence of subjectivity, therefore thoughts asserting the existence of subjectivity exist". This clearly does not entail that this belief is actually true. So in conclusion, I dispute your certainty that consciousness exists. Many things seem certain at first blush, but turn out to be false upon closer inspection. And if you want something more concrete to chew on, I recommend reading [1], which is a neuroscientific theory that attempts to account for our apparent experience of subjectivity. [1] http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00500/full http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00...

neuronexmachina 10y ago

There's actually objective tests you can perform with people with agnosia, example: http://m.nautil.us/issue/47/consciousness/we-need-conscious-robots http://m.nautil.us/issue/47/consciousness/we-need-conscious-... > In fact, even our sensation of the present moment is a construct of the conscious mind. We see evidence for this in various experiments and case studies. Patients with agnosia who have damage to object-recognition parts of the visual cortex can’t name an object they see, but can grab it. If given an envelope, they know to orient their hand to insert it through a mail slot. But patients cannot perform the reaching task if experimenters introduce a time delay between showing the object and cueing the test subject to reach for it. Evidently, consciousness is related not to sophisticated information processing per se; as long as a stimulus immediately triggers an action, we don’t need consciousness. It comes into play when we need to maintain sensory information over a few seconds.

monktastic1 10y ago
That sounds to me like they're testing for the ability to name or remember things. For all we know, the patient (heck, other beings in general) don't experience anything at all (i.e., are philosophical zombies). It's easy to conflate all these things with what we're really trying to get at.

Veedrac 10y ago

Then how are you able to tell me it exists?