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> I mean, certainly, the neurons themselves are not the same. Your neurons don't fire when I see red, or vice versa. But that's not enough to settle anything.

> I mean, certainly, the neurons themselves are not the same. Your neurons don't fire when I see red, or vice versa. But that's not enough to settle anything. Correct, other than it makes an identity theory of mind problematic. > Why should that mean that our experiences are different? That's not my objection. You stated in the previous post: > There is no "experience" of seeing red beyond the simple fact of perceiving 700nm-wavelength light. I'm objecting to attempts to reduce experience to its physical substrate and then say there's nothing more to the matter. But there is if the reduction doesn't work. And it doesn't in this case, because there are red visual experiences which are not perceptual. Dreams, memories, visualizations and hallucinations can all contain red visual experiences in the absence of 700nm photons. So can directly stimulating the right neurons with a magnet or electrodes in the brain via surgery. This leaves the hard problem intact.

geofft 6y ago
You're right, my phrasing was not accurate in my initial post. Let me rephrase: You cannot identify/designate the experience of seeing "red" any more precisely than "that experience one has on seeing 700nm-wavelength light," just like you cannot identify the experience of seeing "three" any more than "that experience one has on seeing a thing and another thing and another thing." It's true that you do not need the actual perception in order to have the experience, in either case. But do you believe there is a hard problem of the experience of three? Do you ask whether the exact symphony that plays in your brain plays in mine when we look at the same three objects? (Maybe yes, and I'm misunderstanding what you think the hard problem is?)
- goatlover 6y ago
  > But do you believe there is a hard problem of the experience of three? I think there seems to be a hard problem of any experience, be it red, three, pain, etc, because nobody has come up with a convincing way of how to reduce that to the physical. > Do you ask whether the exact symphony that plays in your brain plays in mine when we look at the same three objects? I doubt it does as individual brains differ, although there are likely similar patterns of neurons firing. This is why it's hard to reduce experience to brain activity. > Maybe yes, and I'm misunderstanding what you think the hard problem is? Making consciousness compatible with physicalism.

geofft 6y ago

You're right, my phrasing was not accurate in my initial post. Let me rephrase: You cannot identify/designate the experience of seeing "red" any more precisely than "that experience one has on seeing 700nm-wavelength light," just like you cannot identify the experience of seeing "three" any more than "that experience one has on seeing a thing and another thing and another thing." It's true that you do not need the actual perception in order to have the experience, in either case. But do you believe there is a hard problem of the experience of three? Do you ask whether the exact symphony that plays in your brain plays in mine when we look at the same three objects? (Maybe yes, and I'm misunderstanding what you think the hard problem is?)

goatlover 6y ago
> But do you believe there is a hard problem of the experience of three? I think there seems to be a hard problem of any experience, be it red, three, pain, etc, because nobody has come up with a convincing way of how to reduce that to the physical. > Do you ask whether the exact symphony that plays in your brain plays in mine when we look at the same three objects? I doubt it does as individual brains differ, although there are likely similar patterns of neurons firing. This is why it's hard to reduce experience to brain activity. > Maybe yes, and I'm misunderstanding what you think the hard problem is? Making consciousness compatible with physicalism.