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It's impossible to explore consciousness with empirical methods, because we have no mechanism to observe it other than our own brains. We cannot even be sure ot
by aninhumer 9y ago
It's impossible to explore consciousness with empirical methods, because we have no mechanism to observe it other than our own brains. We cannot even be sure other people experience consciousness.
There is no experiment we can construct which will tell us if a particular physical system experiences consciousness, be that a computer, a human brain, or a seemingly inert rock.
- naasking 9y ago> It's impossible to explore consciousness with empirical methods, because we have no mechanism to observe it other than our own brains. Only if you assume the conclusion in thinking consciousness is magic by making first-person subjective experience some irreducible fact of reality. Your exact same argument would apply to "living matter" too. What distinguishes living matter from non-living matter? Some philosophers made a big stink about how living matter cannot be created from non-living matter, and they invented philosophies to address this question, like vitalism. Where is vitalism now? The same thing will happen with dualistic philosophies of mind.
- goatlover 9y ago> Only if you assume the conclusion in thinking consciousness is magic by making first-person subjective experience some irreducible fact of reality. If experience is irreducible, then something else is. In physics, that would probably be fields. Irreducible doesn't mean magic. It means we can't find anything to reduce it to.
- naasking 9y agoTheories like IIT are just barely one step away from magic IMO. Consciousness is an intricate, macroscopic phenomenon, so to require it be present in every microscopic spec of matter just because we can't get a grip on qualia seems like a serious overreach.