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Is it really surprising that we have a first person subjective experience? We know that we are incredibly complex things, constantly integrating and acting on v
by ppod 9y ago
Is it really surprising that we have a first person subjective experience? We know that we are incredibly complex things, constantly integrating and acting on very complicated external stimuli. Such a system should have references to its own body and its own neural states, its train of reasoning should frequently include itself, its focus will drift forward and backwards in time... this is just how a system like this would work. If the system communicates about its state then its language should have referents to these internal states, referents like "experience", and "feels like", and "I understand". Is that surprising? Wouldn't it be surprising if it wasn't like that? I don't think you need to invoke an essentially mysterious "conscious" property of the mind to explain that.
- stonesixone 9y ago> I don't think you need to invoke an essentially mysterious "conscious" property of the mind to explain that. I don't think consciousness is being invoked to "explain" any of the things you list. The issue to explain is why we observe consciousness existing or accompanying these things in the first place (for ourselves). For example, one can imagine a system capable of referencing itself, choosing actions based on that, etc, that isn't conscious. That's a philosophical zombie. So the question is why aren't we all philosophical zombies.
- ozy 9y agoA system that can observe things, and also observe its own observations, its own mental states, it is not so clear that such a system can be a p-zombie.