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I'd take your argument further even. We could be mistaken about every experience we've ever had. Let's take the brain in a vat example, in which none of our sen

I'd take your argument further even. We could be mistaken about every experience we've ever had. Let's take the brain in a vat example, in which none of our sensory experiences accurately model reality. This has no bearing on the hard problem of describing consciousness or how organic material (maybe silicon some day) gives rise to it. It also doesn't indicate how a physicalist picture of the mind could, in principle, capture the phenomena.

rosser 8y ago
You can be mistaken about the content of your experience, but I can not conceive you you can be mistaken about the fact you're having one. Dream, delusion, reality, drugs, schizophrenia, completely fabricated sensory manifold, whatever; the content does not matter for purposes of this question. Is that brain in a jar experiencing something? Is it experiencing at all? That's consciousness.
- incadenza 8y ago
  Yes! Much better said.
- kovrik 8y ago
  But wouldn't it mean that literally all living beings have consciousness? That consciousness is not a binary thing, but there are many levels of consciousness. Humans always liked egocentric views -- "The Earth is the center of the Universe". Or another version: "Humans are superior because they have consciousness". If there are many levels of consciousness, one may imagine some extraterrestrial super intelligent beings that are many levels above humans, that would think of humans as non-consciousness beings -- like we think of many animals. Now, if we go down instead, we can say that all animals with brain are conscious (just as not as we are), can't we?
  - rosser 8y ago
    Yes, it does. In fact, I submit that it's the duty of anyone saying that the line separating "conscious" and "not-conscious" animals is here or there has to justify not just why that's where they drew the line, but that there is one in the first place.
- szemet 8y ago
  can not conceive you you can be mistaken about the fact you're having one The experince of having an experince can be wrong. If the existinece of experience is the content of the experience - and you have written that the content can be wrong. If one mistaken about the very fact of experience, is that valid an experience too? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anton–Babinski_syndrome https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anton–Babinski_syndrome
  - hackinthebochs 8y ago
    AB syndrome doesn't seem any more significant to the issue here than a synesthesia or schizophrenia. That their reported experience has no correspondence to the outside world isn't relevant to whether they're having an experience and its nature.
joe_the_user 8y ago
We could be mistaken about every experience we've ever had[...] This has no bearing on the hard problem of describing consciousness or how organic material (maybe silicon some day) gives rise to it. This is assumes beliefs are entirely separate from experiences but that's counter to the complex experience characteristic of consciousness - one can experience believing many things, including contradictory things if one isn't careful. It's narrative that claims to make things uncertain but actually, implicitly maintains a neat, certain rational narrator on top of sensory experience (sensory experience, right or wrong, is spoken of a mere data evaluated by a separate rational actor). However both neurological research and reflection shows the beliefs, consciousness, experience and so-forth are all meshed together.
- rosser 8y ago
  You're trying to make "consciousness" mean far more than many of the rest of us in this discussion, and then arguing against the definition you're the only one using. We're not talking about the content of our experiences, and as long as you keep insisting that's somehow part of the picture, we're never even having a conversation. "Consciousness," as we're using it, is the simple fact that you're experiencing at all. Nothing else. Not the content. Not the feelings about the content. Not the "neat, certain rational mirror on top of sensory experience". Just the raw, unfiltered, unqualified fact that you are having an experience at all. Full stop. Everything else is detail, and can very easily be wrong. The fact that there is an experience happening in the first place, can't. Otherwise, please explain to me how I can be mistaken about the fact that I am experiencing. Not what I'm experiencing — that I'm experiencing.
  - saltcured 8y ago
    From what I understand of anesthesia, you can be in a state where you are experiencing (and can even have slow conversation with the doctor) but you don't remember it. If asked, you would say you were unconscious through the procedure, but a video of the interaction would show that you were there with some access to both your memories and the present moment. When dosed properly, the anesthetic blocks the formation of new memories. Somebody very much like you and inhabiting your body was there and experiencing enough to respond verbally. If you interact closely with people having psychotic breaks and other mental disorders, you can witness someone mistaken about the boundary between themselves and the environment. If you can wrap your mind around that level of malfunction, I think you will begin to appreciate that the very statement "the fact that I am experiencing" is begging the question. The abstract concepts of identity, self, perception, and memory are all intertwined and more nebulous than is comfortable to think about.

rosser 8y ago

You can be mistaken about the content of your experience, but I can not conceive you you can be mistaken about the fact you're having one. Dream, delusion, reality, drugs, schizophrenia, completely fabricated sensory manifold, whatever; the content does not matter for purposes of this question. Is that brain in a jar experiencing something? Is it experiencing at all? That's consciousness.

incadenza 8y ago
Yes! Much better said.
kovrik 8y ago
But wouldn't it mean that literally all living beings have consciousness? That consciousness is not a binary thing, but there are many levels of consciousness. Humans always liked egocentric views -- "The Earth is the center of the Universe". Or another version: "Humans are superior because they have consciousness". If there are many levels of consciousness, one may imagine some extraterrestrial super intelligent beings that are many levels above humans, that would think of humans as non-consciousness beings -- like we think of many animals. Now, if we go down instead, we can say that all animals with brain are conscious (just as not as we are), can't we?
- rosser 8y ago
  Yes, it does. In fact, I submit that it's the duty of anyone saying that the line separating "conscious" and "not-conscious" animals is here or there has to justify not just why that's where they drew the line, but that there is one in the first place.
szemet 8y ago
can not conceive you you can be mistaken about the fact you're having one The experince of having an experince can be wrong. If the existinece of experience is the content of the experience - and you have written that the content can be wrong. If one mistaken about the very fact of experience, is that valid an experience too? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anton–Babinski_syndrome https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anton–Babinski_syndrome
- hackinthebochs 8y ago
  AB syndrome doesn't seem any more significant to the issue here than a synesthesia or schizophrenia. That their reported experience has no correspondence to the outside world isn't relevant to whether they're having an experience and its nature.

joe_the_user 8y ago

We could be mistaken about every experience we've ever had[...] This has no bearing on the hard problem of describing consciousness or how organic material (maybe silicon some day) gives rise to it. This is assumes beliefs are entirely separate from experiences but that's counter to the complex experience characteristic of consciousness - one can experience believing many things, including contradictory things if one isn't careful. It's narrative that claims to make things uncertain but actually, implicitly maintains a neat, certain rational narrator on top of sensory experience (sensory experience, right or wrong, is spoken of a mere data evaluated by a separate rational actor). However both neurological research and reflection shows the beliefs, consciousness, experience and so-forth are all meshed together.

rosser 8y ago
You're trying to make "consciousness" mean far more than many of the rest of us in this discussion, and then arguing against the definition you're the only one using. We're not talking about the content of our experiences, and as long as you keep insisting that's somehow part of the picture, we're never even having a conversation. "Consciousness," as we're using it, is the simple fact that you're experiencing at all. Nothing else. Not the content. Not the feelings about the content. Not the "neat, certain rational mirror on top of sensory experience". Just the raw, unfiltered, unqualified fact that you are having an experience at all. Full stop. Everything else is detail, and can very easily be wrong. The fact that there is an experience happening in the first place, can't. Otherwise, please explain to me how I can be mistaken about the fact that I am experiencing. Not what I'm experiencing — that I'm experiencing.
- saltcured 8y ago
  From what I understand of anesthesia, you can be in a state where you are experiencing (and can even have slow conversation with the doctor) but you don't remember it. If asked, you would say you were unconscious through the procedure, but a video of the interaction would show that you were there with some access to both your memories and the present moment. When dosed properly, the anesthetic blocks the formation of new memories. Somebody very much like you and inhabiting your body was there and experiencing enough to respond verbally. If you interact closely with people having psychotic breaks and other mental disorders, you can witness someone mistaken about the boundary between themselves and the environment. If you can wrap your mind around that level of malfunction, I think you will begin to appreciate that the very statement "the fact that I am experiencing" is begging the question. The abstract concepts of identity, self, perception, and memory are all intertwined and more nebulous than is comfortable to think about.