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Thanks for sharing that. The trouble I have is that "modeling" can happen in the absence of what I'm calling "experience." Given that one can happen without th

Thanks for sharing that. The trouble I have is that "modeling" can happen in the absence of what I'm calling "experience." Given that one can happen without the other, they cannot be equivalent. So the trouble always seems to come back to giving a formal definition for "experience." I admit that I can't, but I can give a procedure (roughly, meditation) that seems to get other people to a point where they say "oh, that." For a particular reason that I seem unable to communicate, at that point it becomes less meaningful to say that experience is "caused by" physical things as opposed to merely correlated with them. The more clearly I see what it is I'm trying to explain, the more clear it becomes why there's an "explanatory gap." I'm sure this is terribly unsatisfying and sounds like hand-waving woo, and I'm sorry I can't do better right now.

dwaltrip 9y ago
> The trouble I have is that "modeling" can happen in the absence of what I'm calling "experience." This is the big claim. I'm highly skeptical. The way I see it, the self-modeling that occurs in biological organisms _is_ the conscious experience. They are one and the same. Each momentary, instantaneous experience is the latest output of the self-modeling process. As another angle, this seems closely related to identity. I see identity as being intertwined with, perhaps even stemming from, the accumulated impact and memory of these models. At least, the portions that refer to us. The boundaries can be quite fuzzy -- we are partially defined by our friends, etc. Each instantaneous model changes the brain a bit, and over time this process constructs one's identity (starting with a tiny kernel at birth) In summary, maybe we can say that "I" is simply the brain's current best guess at what the entity that houses it actually is, and that conscious experience is the brain's best guess at what this "I" is currently experiencing (caveat: these guesses are biased towards survival -- accuracy is not the only concern). > but I can give a procedure (roughly, meditation) that seems to get other people to a point where they say "oh, that." Meditation is very interesting. I've done some, and I'd like to dig into it more. However, I interpret the experience differently. > I'm sure this is terribly unsatisfying and sounds like hand-waving woo, and I'm sorry I can't do better right now. Not at all! I'm enjoying the discussion. Thanks for being frank.

dwaltrip 9y ago

> The trouble I have is that "modeling" can happen in the absence of what I'm calling "experience." This is the big claim. I'm highly skeptical. The way I see it, the self-modeling that occurs in biological organisms _is_ the conscious experience. They are one and the same. Each momentary, instantaneous experience is the latest output of the self-modeling process. As another angle, this seems closely related to identity. I see identity as being intertwined with, perhaps even stemming from, the accumulated impact and memory of these models. At least, the portions that refer to us. The boundaries can be quite fuzzy -- we are partially defined by our friends, etc. Each instantaneous model changes the brain a bit, and over time this process constructs one's identity (starting with a tiny kernel at birth) In summary, maybe we can say that "I" is simply the brain's current best guess at what the entity that houses it actually is, and that conscious experience is the brain's best guess at what this "I" is currently experiencing (caveat: these guesses are biased towards survival -- accuracy is not the only concern). > but I can give a procedure (roughly, meditation) that seems to get other people to a point where they say "oh, that." Meditation is very interesting. I've done some, and I'd like to dig into it more. However, I interpret the experience differently. > I'm sure this is terribly unsatisfying and sounds like hand-waving woo, and I'm sorry I can't do better right now. Not at all! I'm enjoying the discussion. Thanks for being frank.