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Subjective perception is "hard" because everything we know about physics works exactly the same without it, so at this point we have literally no idea where it
by mcbits 9y ago
Subjective perception is "hard" because everything we know about physics works exactly the same without it, so at this point we have literally no idea where it fits.
But this is kind of a predestined result because the way we approach most science is to filter out subjective phenomena as much as possible and examine only so-called objective phenomena.
- pmoriarty 9y agoI don't think that's it. The real problem is that no science (whether physics, chemistry, biology, or even psychology -- if you deign to call the latter a science) describe what it's like to experience anything. Certainly there are measurements (like the wavelength of light), or even observations (ex: that a certain light was in the red spectrum), but the actual subjective experience of any phenomena seems to be completely out of reach. No one and no scientific theory can tell you what any experience is going to be like for you. For instance, no scientific theory can tell you what seeing the color red is like. This actually goes far beyond the lack of a way for science to grapple with subjective experience, and goes to the root of communicating that experience or even communicating about that experience. It's hard, if not impossible, to communicate what any subjective experience is like. Poets, musicians, or artists might arguably be able to get at it, through some indirect means. But until telepathy comes along, there's really no way to know if what one person describes as their experience really is that way or can even be properly understood by their audience. The ideal that many scientists aim for creates an additional burden of trying to be "objective" and of distrusting reporting on individual's own subjective experiences. Nevertheless, at least in psychology, neurology, and cognitive science, self-reporting on personal experiences is still quite common and is at least tacitly accepted. Researchers may ask, for instance, if the subject feels pain, or about their emotional state, and so forth. That is not completely out of bounds. I'm not aware of so-called "hard sciences" being very interested in what personal experience is like, or in attempting to bring them under their theoretical rubric.
- gus_massa 9y agoIs there any proof that we are not only philosophical zombies, i.e. a loosely defined bunch of atoms?
- Smaug123 9y ago"Poets, musicians, or artists might arguably be able to get at it, through some indirect means." It's worth being explicit that poets can only even attempt to communicate these things to other humans, since human consciousnesses share a very large common base of properties. Similarly, affection is something most mammals [seem to] experience, but only because we've had a common number of millions of years of evolution, meaning that our brains are built to follow the same patterns; affection is not logically entailed by consciousness any more than the sensation of "red" is.
- red75prime 9y ago> For instance, no scientific theory can tell you what seeing the color red is like. Science doesn't stand out here. Nothing can tell you what it is like to see infrared. Modifying your retinal cells and waiting, while your brain teaches itself to process new information, is a way to know how it will look like for you. But you still will be unable to convey this information, which raises a question: is it still an information if it cannot be conveyed.
- pmoriarty 9y agoI think it is information if it can not be conveyed. The other day I was sitting at a table and reading, and my attention happened to be drawn to the table top as I tried to think of the name for its color, but I was momentarily stumped. I couldn't think of a name for the color, as it wasn't a primary color but was kind of a mix of colors. I spent a few seconds in this state, where I was clearly aware of the color and consciously thinking of it, and was in no sense puzzled by the color itself but only lacking a name for it. Then I decided it was a mix of colors that was kind of blue-green. To me it seems the pre-linguistic, conscious awareness that I had of the color of the table was information that I had, but information that I could at least momentarily not communicate.
- joe_the_user 9y ago"Subjective perception is "hard" because everything we know about physics works exactly the same without it, so at this point we have literally no idea where it fits." - Something defined as magically, unexplainably different indeed tautologically can't be explained by physics. - But internal representation of phenomena by the brains of humans certainly seems like it can be explained by biology, physics and general common sense. That the brain produces internal processes when it receives external stimuli - how hard is that?
- antonvs 9y ago> - But internal representation of phenomena by the brains of humans certainly seems like it can be explained by biology, physics and general common sense. Yes, it can. Computer programs have internal representation of phenomena, and so do brains/minds. This doesn't address the problem of consciousness, though. > That the brain produces internal processes when it receives external stimuli - how hard is that? Again, no mystery there - we make machines that produce internal processes when they receive external stimuli, and we understand pretty well how they work. But that's the problem, because that understanding doesn't imply anything that resembles consciousness, and no-one knows how to make that leap other than either claiming consciousness is just a property of all processes, or claiming that the problem doesn't exist. What stops you from writing a conscious computer program?
- joe_the_user 9y ago"But that's the problem, because that understanding doesn't imply anything that resembles consciousness.." - For any given information processing system, it is reasonable to expect that the thing could distinguish kinds of memory. A cpu can read main memory or it can read. Whether data originates internally is almost certainly going to be a "big deal" for any such system. Thus if an information system is self-representing, "reading from a port is different from reading from main memory" and reasonably other distinctions are possible. Humans are social beings, we use language socially but an equivalent statement "internal experience is different sensory input" also seems clearly true. Human share language, take inputs of language and process these internally apparently creating internal representations and possibly comparing these representation to their non-linguistic experiences. A fox in the world, a sensation of a fox, a memory of a fox, and someone's description of a fox or use of the word "fox" are different but we OK with combining them most of the time (seen a fox in the wild once in my life but I feel OK with the concept, expecting this would an instance of the category/species fox). Human language of course, allows ambiguity and violation of selectional restriction - you can ask for the color of ideas and so-forth. In this context, creating a thing that "resembles consciousness" is elided to "mean" creating an internal sensation that resembles the sensation distinguishing internal and external input. But it is easy to imagine any given system naturally reject creating such an sensation unless it was "real". So it's easy to imagine a person who takes in input and claims "none of this resembles consciousness".