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You seem to be misunderstanding the question of consciousness. It's not about how you observe others to appear conscious, but about how you yourself observe you

by adwn 7y ago

You seem to be misunderstanding the question of consciousness. It's not about how you observe others to appear conscious, but about how you yourself observe your own consciousness. > It's a lie our brain tells us [...] Who is "us"? Or, to be more precise, if your brain tells you that you're experiencing pain, than what is "you", and what is "experiencing"? That's the question of consciousness. This is not something we know how to observe and judge in others, you can only observe it in yourself (and draw conclusions about other people by analogy, i.e., due to similarity between our physical brain structures). For example, is the following Python script print("I am conscious.") any more conscious than this one? print("I am not conscious.") You'll probably say that they're both not conscious, although there is no hard evidence either way. And that's because we don't know how to reliably observe consciousness.

mapcars 7y ago
>you can only observe it in yourself I don't think you can really observe it either. I doesn't look like I can name any property of "it", I can only be aware of "it".
- marcAKAmarc 7y ago
  I think you can definitely observe it in yourself. Try this (copy and pasting from a separate response I made): Think about experiencing pain and what it feels like to you. Really try to simulate it in your thoughts. Probably sucks. Now think about happiness and what that feels like to you. Probably doesn't suck as much. Without watching a scan of your brain, and without collecting any sort of quantifiable data about your nervous system, you were most likely able to recall those two feelings and (much more importantly) discern the difference between those two feelings just now. You didn't do this by any type of measurement of quantity, just by quality of experience (qualia). If you were able to identify and discern the separate feelings you have internally assigned to happiness and pain without quantifying them, I would call that proof of consciousness within yourself maybe.
kypro 7y ago
> You seem to be misunderstanding the question of consciousness. It's not about how you observe others to appear conscious, but about how you yourself observe your own consciousness. Well yeah, I experience something which I understand to be a conscious experience, but I don't think it's real. I accept there is an experience of consciousness, but I don't see any reason to believe it is real even though I think I experience it. > Who is "us"? Or, to be more precise, if your brain tells you that you're experiencing pain, than what is "you", and what is "experiencing"? That's the question of consciousness. I think my brain is sensing pain and telling me to perceive the pain in the context of "self". I've never understood why some people don't think this logically consistent honestly. It seems like the only possible explanation unless you start assuming consciousness is a metaphysical, almost magical thing. > You'll probably say that they're both not conscious, although there is no hard evidence either way. And that's because we don't know how to reliably observe consciousness. This isn't a good argument. There's no hard evidence that there isn't an invisible elephant sat next to you right now. I don't understand why you are even assuming that there might be something such as consciousness? There is literally no objective physical evidence for it, where as there is mass amounts of data to show neurologically it's probably an illusion. Really all I am saying is that I don't think we should believe our minds when they tell us our experiences are important because we are so bias, and there are clear evolutionary incentives for us to think that way.
- adwn 7y ago
  > Well yeah, I experience something which I understand to be a conscious experience, but I don't think it's real. To paraphrase, you're saying that you experience an experience, but this experience isn't real, therefore you're not experiencing it. This is a contradiction, and it doesn't make sense: Consciousness is the act of experiencing something, even if this "something" is not real. For example, experiencing a drug-induced hallucination is still a real phenomenon, even if the content of the hallucination is not real. > I think my brain is sensing pain and telling me to perceive the pain in the context of "self". You're using the words "I"/"me" and "perceive". Consciousness is the "I" that "perceives". > This isn't a good argument. There's no hard evidence that there isn't an invisible elephant sat next to you right now. I have (soft) evidence that I have a consciousness. I cannot share this evidence with you, therefore it is not hard evidence – this is the as yet unsurmountable problem with consciousness. In contrast, I have neither hard nor soft evidence that there's an invisible elephant next to me. I'm sorry, I don't know how to explain this phenomenon to you. Maybe you're not conscious, and I'm figuratively trying to explain colors to a blind person. I consider it much more likely, however, that you're in denial of the evidence you have right in front of your inner eye.

by adwn 7y ago

mapcars 7y ago

>you can only observe it in yourself I don't think you can really observe it either. I doesn't look like I can name any property of "it", I can only be aware of "it".

marcAKAmarc 7y ago
I think you can definitely observe it in yourself. Try this (copy and pasting from a separate response I made): Think about experiencing pain and what it feels like to you. Really try to simulate it in your thoughts. Probably sucks. Now think about happiness and what that feels like to you. Probably doesn't suck as much. Without watching a scan of your brain, and without collecting any sort of quantifiable data about your nervous system, you were most likely able to recall those two feelings and (much more importantly) discern the difference between those two feelings just now. You didn't do this by any type of measurement of quantity, just by quality of experience (qualia). If you were able to identify and discern the separate feelings you have internally assigned to happiness and pain without quantifying them, I would call that proof of consciousness within yourself maybe.

kypro 7y ago

> You seem to be misunderstanding the question of consciousness. It's not about how you observe others to appear conscious, but about how you yourself observe your own consciousness. Well yeah, I experience something which I understand to be a conscious experience, but I don't think it's real. I accept there is an experience of consciousness, but I don't see any reason to believe it is real even though I think I experience it. > Who is "us"? Or, to be more precise, if your brain tells you that you're experiencing pain, than what is "you", and what is "experiencing"? That's the question of consciousness. I think my brain is sensing pain and telling me to perceive the pain in the context of "self". I've never understood why some people don't think this logically consistent honestly. It seems like the only possible explanation unless you start assuming consciousness is a metaphysical, almost magical thing. > You'll probably say that they're both not conscious, although there is no hard evidence either way. And that's because we don't know how to reliably observe consciousness. This isn't a good argument. There's no hard evidence that there isn't an invisible elephant sat next to you right now. I don't understand why you are even assuming that there might be something such as consciousness? There is literally no objective physical evidence for it, where as there is mass amounts of data to show neurologically it's probably an illusion. Really all I am saying is that I don't think we should believe our minds when they tell us our experiences are important because we are so bias, and there are clear evolutionary incentives for us to think that way.

adwn 7y ago
> Well yeah, I experience something which I understand to be a conscious experience, but I don't think it's real. To paraphrase, you're saying that you experience an experience, but this experience isn't real, therefore you're not experiencing it. This is a contradiction, and it doesn't make sense: Consciousness is the act of experiencing something, even if this "something" is not real. For example, experiencing a drug-induced hallucination is still a real phenomenon, even if the content of the hallucination is not real. > I think my brain is sensing pain and telling me to perceive the pain in the context of "self". You're using the words "I"/"me" and "perceive". Consciousness is the "I" that "perceives". > This isn't a good argument. There's no hard evidence that there isn't an invisible elephant sat next to you right now. I have (soft) evidence that I have a consciousness. I cannot share this evidence with you, therefore it is not hard evidence – this is the as yet unsurmountable problem with consciousness. In contrast, I have neither hard nor soft evidence that there's an invisible elephant next to me. I'm sorry, I don't know how to explain this phenomenon to you. Maybe you're not conscious, and I'm figuratively trying to explain colors to a blind person. I consider it much more likely, however, that you're in denial of the evidence you have right in front of your inner eye.