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> It sounds similar to Chalmers' position on information, except that Chalmers says there is a natural link between rich information and being conscious that is

> It sounds similar to Chalmers' position on information, except that Chalmers says there is a natural link between rich information and being conscious that is an additional law in addition to the physical ones. I will apply Occam's razor to that additional law until there is evidence for it. More generally, there is a straightforward physical possibility for explaining the subjective and personal nature of qualia, and other aspects of consciousness: our brains are not connected in such a way that language processing is capable of initiating all of the state changes that other sensory inputs can, and so we cannot communicate those state changes directly. This not only accords with our actual experiences, but it is probably just as well, or else we might find it (even) hard(er) to distinguish reality from imagination (and by "reality", I mean concrete, "that bear just noticed me", reality.) One may, of course, take one's own Occam's razor to this idea, if you think physical constraints on information flow in a brain are less pausible than Chalmer's extra-physical link.

goatlover 7y ago
> I will apply Occam's razor to that additional law until there is evidence for it. Fair enough, but Hume already did that for laws (causality). We don't observe laws, just constant conjunction. B always follows A, so we say law C is the cause of that. Or description, if one doesn't like the implication. Adopting a Humean approach, there is already evidence that consciousness is conjoined to certain neural activity. But, that can work just as well for IIT as it does Chalmers. And I have no idea whether causal laws exist or what consciousness is. I guess IIT is as good an approach as any.
- mannykannot 7y ago
  I have noticed a tendency, in philosphical discussions in general, for one party to hoist the discussion up from a specific issue to a very general and fundamental level. It is all very well to say that we can have no certainty whether causal laws exist or what consciousness is, but we must recognize that if that is one's argument, then one has effectively terminated the discussion as irresolvable: no matter how much empirical evidence emerges, it is not going to be enough to overcome this response. If one takes this way to leave the discussion, then there would be more than just a hint of motte-and-bailey equivocation if one were to then re-enter it with a specific claim, such as that Chalmers or Searle or Koch have a plausible argument that consiousness cannot possibly be this or that. As it happens, I very much doubt that IIT is on the right track, but at least it is (or was, initially) an attempt to find out what consciousness is, rather than what it is not.

goatlover 7y ago

> I will apply Occam's razor to that additional law until there is evidence for it. Fair enough, but Hume already did that for laws (causality). We don't observe laws, just constant conjunction. B always follows A, so we say law C is the cause of that. Or description, if one doesn't like the implication. Adopting a Humean approach, there is already evidence that consciousness is conjoined to certain neural activity. But, that can work just as well for IIT as it does Chalmers. And I have no idea whether causal laws exist or what consciousness is. I guess IIT is as good an approach as any.

mannykannot 7y ago
I have noticed a tendency, in philosphical discussions in general, for one party to hoist the discussion up from a specific issue to a very general and fundamental level. It is all very well to say that we can have no certainty whether causal laws exist or what consciousness is, but we must recognize that if that is one's argument, then one has effectively terminated the discussion as irresolvable: no matter how much empirical evidence emerges, it is not going to be enough to overcome this response. If one takes this way to leave the discussion, then there would be more than just a hint of motte-and-bailey equivocation if one were to then re-enter it with a specific claim, such as that Chalmers or Searle or Koch have a plausible argument that consiousness cannot possibly be this or that. As it happens, I very much doubt that IIT is on the right track, but at least it is (or was, initially) an attempt to find out what consciousness is, rather than what it is not.