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>One thing to consider with that is that only the brain is able to give answers about consciousness A conscious brain that advertises itself with communication

>One thing to consider with that is that only the brain is able to give answers about consciousness A conscious brain that advertises itself with communication certainly makes matters easier for us, however we can make reasonable inferences about consciousness in people and animals based on sophisticated behavior, not just communication. And if there is consciousness bound up in, say, a toenail, and it's not doing anything or communicating anything, not even doing some complicated information processing that it's keeping to itself, it's true that we might very well never discover it. But it's also true that we wouldn't have much reason for believing in any such form of consciousness given that it's completely unobservable. >Also, to be clear here—since this conflation derails just about every discussion of consciousness It sounds like you've got a dog in this one. That's fine; I do too. But I wouldn't say it's necessarily a conflation- some people's inclination to resolve the hard problem is to argue that it is best resolved, in some way or another, by mapping subjectivity onto biology. That's not enough, necessarily, you'll want some good philosophical reasons for thinking that that kind of explanation is capable of doing enough to give a satisfactory account of the hard problem. And that's certainly a matter of debate. But I wouldn't say it's a conflation, necessarily. >In a similar manner I believe the 'hard problem' of consciousness is getting at what it means to be a part of the fabric of the universe, and the laws of physics are expressed through that medium, but no specific laws create it. This sounds like an attempt to smuggle a preferred answer into the definition of the problem. It may be "about" some universal medium in which consciouness and lays of physics are equal participants, if yours is the right answer. But I think it's enough to say that what makes the hard problem a hard problem is the need to explain qualia, and getting it through to people that they need to take qualia seriously, and not just talk about physical correlations.

westoncb 9y ago
> But it's also true that we wouldn't have much reason for believing in any such form of consciousness given that it's completely unobservable. The reason I see is roughly as follows: it also exists in the part of us which is able to communicate, and the conditions for it being there do not appear related the anatomical functions (e.g. cognition and communication) of that other area—so that the problem becomes more a question of demonstrating why we should assume that it does not exist in the parts which don't have communication capabilities. In other words, if all the parts which are able to communicate find it present and yet it is not due to the communication capability itself—why assume its not present rather than just not communicated in other areas? (And to clarify, I believe the above would be nonsense for the non-Hard Problem which is clearly related to cognition—but I'm only speaking of The Hard Problem.) > But I wouldn't say it's necessarily a conflation I think we're talking about different things here. I am specifically talking about people conflating the Hard Problem of consciousness with the non-Hard Problem of consciousness. Or do you mean to say that the two problems are the same and that the designation of 'Hard Problem' as something separate is vacuous? > This sounds like an attempt to smuggle a preferred answer into the definition of the problem. I agree it sounds that way, and I'm open to further argument that that's the case—but I'm pretty sure it's not. Instead, I think if you follow the problem of trying to define qualia far enough, you end up running into my fabric of the universe situation—or at least the distinction I make between the rules of monopoly versus the substrate in which the physical incarnation of monopoly exists. I believe that substrate issue is in the definition of the hard problem, though you can probably find phrasings of it in which its absent. Anyway, I appreciated your reply and would be happy to discuss further.
- glenstein 9y ago
  >And to clarify, I believe the above would be nonsense for the non-Hard Problem which is clearly related to cognition—but I'm only speaking of The Hard Problem. People can give after-the-fact subjective reports of what, if anything, they were experiencing in non-communicative states (for lack of a better term). They can tell us that something was "going on" in their head while they were dreaming, or that they don't recall experiencing anything while being in a coma or being "dead" for a few minutes before being resuscitated. We seem to agree that this is the convenient version of consciousness that people are able to communicate about. And we can look at what brain states match up with these reports -- reports of hard consciousness -- and find that certain brain configurations and activities seem to always be there when hard consciousness is there. But perhaps, you might say, a person who doesn't recall any experiences during a coma actually had experiences then, too. But just doesn't know it and/or weren't able to communicate about it. So on the one hand, the kinds of consciousness a person is able to communicate about is corroborated by some sort of interesting brain activity. And the other kind of consciousness that they can't communicate about, the kind posed by a philosopher, isn't corroborated by anything. That starts to look like a "consciousness of the gaps" problem. And this is without even taking into account aforementioned things like sophisticated behavior and other biological clues which you say are "just" the non-hard problem. There again, I think that these are important evidence, and that excluding them is borrowing from a conclusion to pay for an argument. It's also more elegant from the perspective of simple explanation. The amount of explanatory debt one incurs by taking on the construction project of a parallel, universe-spanning medium inhabited by consciousness is enormous, and there's significant risk that the investment won't pay off. >I think we're talking about different things here. I am specifically talking about people conflating the Hard Problem of consciousness with the non-Hard Problem of consciousness. Or do you mean to say that the two problems are the same and that the designation of 'Hard Problem' as something separate is vacuous? The hard problem is real in that it demands an explanation that is more than just citing brain activity or waving it away as an illusion. But the notion that physical stuff is automatically about something other than the hard problem is baking your conclusion into the definition of the problem. There are certainly all kinds of non-hard things physics/biology explains, but they may yet explain hard things too, provided a compelling enough argument can be made. >Instead, I think if you follow the problem of trying to define qualia far enough, you end up running into my fabric of the universe situation My problem with talking this way is that, if I were to do the same thing, I would end up saying that following the problem of qualia far enough leads to somethingorother about circuits of synapse firing and its intimate connection to experiences, thus the problem is "really" about those things, and someone talking about a universal medium shared by consciousness and physics but independent from them is talking about the wrong thing. But in a way I think you are right,because I think at the end of the day an adequate answer does have to be about finding some ontological level, some "medium", on which consciousness and physics can be understood to be continuous with each other. I just happen to think that that medium is physics, and that we will have to get comfortable with the idea that there are robustly physical answers to questions of what are qualia and what is consciousness. I.e. the idea that what manifests itself as experiences are at some raw level, sheer, nakedly physical events witnessed by other physical events which we call brain activity.

westoncb 9y ago

> But it's also true that we wouldn't have much reason for believing in any such form of consciousness given that it's completely unobservable. The reason I see is roughly as follows: it also exists in the part of us which is able to communicate, and the conditions for it being there do not appear related the anatomical functions (e.g. cognition and communication) of that other area—so that the problem becomes more a question of demonstrating why we should assume that it does not exist in the parts which don't have communication capabilities. In other words, if all the parts which are able to communicate find it present and yet it is not due to the communication capability itself—why assume its not present rather than just not communicated in other areas? (And to clarify, I believe the above would be nonsense for the non-Hard Problem which is clearly related to cognition—but I'm only speaking of The Hard Problem.) > But I wouldn't say it's necessarily a conflation I think we're talking about different things here. I am specifically talking about people conflating the Hard Problem of consciousness with the non-Hard Problem of consciousness. Or do you mean to say that the two problems are the same and that the designation of 'Hard Problem' as something separate is vacuous? > This sounds like an attempt to smuggle a preferred answer into the definition of the problem. I agree it sounds that way, and I'm open to further argument that that's the case—but I'm pretty sure it's not. Instead, I think if you follow the problem of trying to define qualia far enough, you end up running into my fabric of the universe situation—or at least the distinction I make between the rules of monopoly versus the substrate in which the physical incarnation of monopoly exists. I believe that substrate issue is in the definition of the hard problem, though you can probably find phrasings of it in which its absent. Anyway, I appreciated your reply and would be happy to discuss further.

glenstein 9y ago
>And to clarify, I believe the above would be nonsense for the non-Hard Problem which is clearly related to cognition—but I'm only speaking of The Hard Problem. People can give after-the-fact subjective reports of what, if anything, they were experiencing in non-communicative states (for lack of a better term). They can tell us that something was "going on" in their head while they were dreaming, or that they don't recall experiencing anything while being in a coma or being "dead" for a few minutes before being resuscitated. We seem to agree that this is the convenient version of consciousness that people are able to communicate about. And we can look at what brain states match up with these reports -- reports of hard consciousness -- and find that certain brain configurations and activities seem to always be there when hard consciousness is there. But perhaps, you might say, a person who doesn't recall any experiences during a coma actually had experiences then, too. But just doesn't know it and/or weren't able to communicate about it. So on the one hand, the kinds of consciousness a person is able to communicate about is corroborated by some sort of interesting brain activity. And the other kind of consciousness that they can't communicate about, the kind posed by a philosopher, isn't corroborated by anything. That starts to look like a "consciousness of the gaps" problem. And this is without even taking into account aforementioned things like sophisticated behavior and other biological clues which you say are "just" the non-hard problem. There again, I think that these are important evidence, and that excluding them is borrowing from a conclusion to pay for an argument. It's also more elegant from the perspective of simple explanation. The amount of explanatory debt one incurs by taking on the construction project of a parallel, universe-spanning medium inhabited by consciousness is enormous, and there's significant risk that the investment won't pay off. >I think we're talking about different things here. I am specifically talking about people conflating the Hard Problem of consciousness with the non-Hard Problem of consciousness. Or do you mean to say that the two problems are the same and that the designation of 'Hard Problem' as something separate is vacuous? The hard problem is real in that it demands an explanation that is more than just citing brain activity or waving it away as an illusion. But the notion that physical stuff is automatically about something other than the hard problem is baking your conclusion into the definition of the problem. There are certainly all kinds of non-hard things physics/biology explains, but they may yet explain hard things too, provided a compelling enough argument can be made. >Instead, I think if you follow the problem of trying to define qualia far enough, you end up running into my fabric of the universe situation My problem with talking this way is that, if I were to do the same thing, I would end up saying that following the problem of qualia far enough leads to somethingorother about circuits of synapse firing and its intimate connection to experiences, thus the problem is "really" about those things, and someone talking about a universal medium shared by consciousness and physics but independent from them is talking about the wrong thing. But in a way I think you are right,because I think at the end of the day an adequate answer does have to be about finding some ontological level, some "medium", on which consciousness and physics can be understood to be continuous with each other. I just happen to think that that medium is physics, and that we will have to get comfortable with the idea that there are robustly physical answers to questions of what are qualia and what is consciousness. I.e. the idea that what manifests itself as experiences are at some raw level, sheer, nakedly physical events witnessed by other physical events which we call brain activity.