5 ms·
And yet most people call it a car, consider it real, and at the same time don't see a problem in reducing it to its physical properties. "is the qualitative ex
by petervm 6y ago
And yet most people call it a car, consider it real, and at the same time don't see a problem in reducing it to its physical properties.
"is the qualitative experience of consciousness actually real, or is it reducible to third-party objective facts"
Why not both?
The "real" refers to our subjective experience. That there is something that is like to be me. Something that is like to be a bat. And at least under certain definitions, that's what we call conscience. That something I know I experience and that I doubt a computer is experiencing too.
Why would this be incompatible with reducing this experience to third party objective facts? We simply don't know but I don't see why we couldn't.
- naasking 6y ago> > "is the qualitative experience of consciousness actually real, or is it reducible to third-party objective facts" > Why not both? Because those are mutually exclusive options. Either something is ontologically fundamental, or it's not. It can't be both.
- kordlessagain 6y agoCan you visualize a car?
- naasking 6y agoSure.
- petervm 6y agoAfter posting my comment yesterday, I read some of your other comments and I don't think we actually disagree. The problem is probably the definition of "real". I'm not arguing that consciousness is a fundamental property of the universe when I say it is real. The jury is still out but that's not what interests me the most. When I say "real" I'm talking about my subjective experience. It is real in the sense that it is something that I know I experience, regardless of the mechanisms involved. Ultimately, what I'm interested in is finding out how it arises. Explaining it. Reducing it to its "third-party objective facts" if possible. Being able to look at a machine that mimics us and tell if that machine is experiencing something comparable to what we experience.