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Doesn't that kind of reasoning lead you down a path towards panpsychism or panexperientialism? Either there is a phase transition of consciousness or there is

Doesn't that kind of reasoning lead you down a path towards panpsychism or panexperientialism? Either there is a phase transition of consciousness or there is not. If there is, we have no idea where it is because we can't prove that another being has subjective experience the way we can ourselves. If there isn't, then something roughly panexperientialist follows and even, say, a gas cloud has (very occasionally and very limited) experience. But which is it? The problem to science itself seems to be that we can't make any comparison of the "what it is like to be" sense of experience. I experience things right now. I can't tell you what it's like with the kind of certainty that is usually associated with science. I can't even tell my future self with that certainty, because memory is a sense in itself and when I recall something, I'm just experiencing something with the sense of memory. If whatever experience is can't be "frozen", then science has nothing to work on, apart from trying to get at it from the objective side of things. But it seems like it's very easy to get sidetracked, hence the argument that Dennett just redefines consciousness as executive function and then proceeds to explain the latter in a materialist framework.

david_w 7y ago
My replies to each of your comments, in order: panpsychism or panexperientialism can't be right because they're not weird enough- to paraphrase Bohr. Would it surprise anyone to find out that, in our exploration of the brain we come across something as weird and upsetting to standard theory as QM is to physics ? __________ If we do a gradual, over a long time, brain cell by brain cell replacement of a living human's brain, that human's self-report is our best bet to get around the impenetrability of the subjective experience of other minds. It is also the biggest challenge to people like me and could point strongly to consciousness as a thing supportable by machines. __________ I agree that this is a problem that science, as it is right now, can't deal with. But that doesn't mean it's not real. The Big Scientific Inquiry, the spirit of science, seeks to explain and understand everything. Many really dramatic upheavals come out of corner cases in science; the things that are slighly off or not accounted for in an otherwise productive theory. _______________ It's not important to anyone's brain research, but it is important to society because making a mistake about what is and is not conscious has the potential for huge negative repercussions. When Dennett dismisses the issue and effectively assumes the consequent of the argument he's supposedly engaged with, not only is he making an error but the consequences of that error are far-reaching into how we act towards one another. What I am arguing, to the extent I am arguing for anything, is that people like Pat Chruchland have a point and it's not an "academic" one; it's substantive. We are making a mistake if we ignore it.

david_w 7y ago

My replies to each of your comments, in order: panpsychism or panexperientialism can't be right because they're not weird enough- to paraphrase Bohr. Would it surprise anyone to find out that, in our exploration of the brain we come across something as weird and upsetting to standard theory as QM is to physics ? __________ If we do a gradual, over a long time, brain cell by brain cell replacement of a living human's brain, that human's self-report is our best bet to get around the impenetrability of the subjective experience of other minds. It is also the biggest challenge to people like me and could point strongly to consciousness as a thing supportable by machines. __________ I agree that this is a problem that science, as it is right now, can't deal with. But that doesn't mean it's not real. The Big Scientific Inquiry, the spirit of science, seeks to explain and understand everything. Many really dramatic upheavals come out of corner cases in science; the things that are slighly off or not accounted for in an otherwise productive theory. _______________ It's not important to anyone's brain research, but it is important to society because making a mistake about what is and is not conscious has the potential for huge negative repercussions. When Dennett dismisses the issue and effectively assumes the consequent of the argument he's supposedly engaged with, not only is he making an error but the consequences of that error are far-reaching into how we act towards one another. What I am arguing, to the extent I am arguing for anything, is that people like Pat Chruchland have a point and it's not an "academic" one; it's substantive. We are making a mistake if we ignore it.