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Why is it always the same people who expound the "hard problem" of conciousness. It is tiring to see authors like koch on everything.
by bobmaxup 5y ago
Why is it always the same people who expound the "hard problem" of conciousness. It is tiring to see authors like koch on everything.
- martingoodson 5y agoI agree. This quasi-mystical framing seems unlikely to bear scientific fruits. Is consciousnesses a clearly defined term?
- TheOtherHobbes 5y agoWho or what is asking that question?
- martingoodson 5y agoWell I typed it, obviously. But my existence doesn’t say anything about whether a ‘hard problem’ of consciousness is a useful way to think about the human mind.
- nsomaru 5y agoIs it that obvious? Who is this “I” you speak of?
- martingoodson 5y agoThe history of Western philosophy has amply demonstrated that investigating the grammar of language is not a useful way to find out how the world works.
- mooseburger 5y agoThat isn't about grammar. Presumably, this "I" is real. Can you find it in the world? If you say it's the brain, there's only elementary particles there, same as everything else. We see no such "I" there. So where is this "I"?
- tsimionescu 5y agoBy the same logic, you could claim that a computer that is calculating Pi is not actually calculating Pi: Presumably, this computation is real, but where is it in the world? If you claim that it's in the micro processor, there's only elementary particles there, same as everything else. There's no computation there. So where is the computation? Of course, the rebuttal is very simple: the computation is actually in the microprocessor; and consciousness is actually in the brain. They are of course made of particles (or strings or fields or whatever the ultimate building block may be) just as everything else is, or are one interpretation/structure of those particles. And note that the fact that interpretation entails an interpreter does not make my argument circular: just as you can write a computation that detects computation in a microprocessor, you can have one consciousness interpreting the same sort of thing as another consciousness. Similarly to how the von Neuman numeral 2 is an interpretation of the set {{}, {{}}} and vice versa (that is, the physical process would be isomorphic to consciousness).
- namero999 5y agoI don't think that's the point parent was making. Of course in a processor there are only particles, and we can easily detect computation by analyzing how registers and in turn potentials change. The point being made is that this description of computation does not leave behind anything else to be described. In other words, my analysis of the process fully describe the process. I can even simulate my description and obtain the same result (say, 1+1=2 obtained by running a program on silicon or by shifting registers with pen and paper). With consciousness is not so trivial. I can fully describe the neural correlates of you experiencing joy, or recalling a memory, or whatever, and there would be still plenty not captured by my description, which is the endogenous phenomenal experience of it. This is why it's hard. There is no epistemic bridge to cross (or burn).
- martingoodson 5y ago‘Where’ is it? Where is homeostasis? Where is the immune system? As tsimionescu suggested, a spatial metaphor is not the only way to understand phenomena.
- mistermann 5y agoI would say it "is" more like Western philosophy suggests this, or you could also say they have not yet discovered a way that it is useful.
- mellosouls 5y agoThis "quasi-mystical framing" by Chalmers was a major contributor to recharging and refocusing the contemporary philosophical and scientific attack on the problem of consciousness.
- martingoodson 5y agoGreat. Could you tell us what scientific fruits have resulted?
- mellosouls 5y agoI just have.
- gizajob 5y agoPhilosophy isn't science.
- martingoodson 5y agoThe article we are both commenting on is in a scientific journal and is concerned with scientific research into consciousness. I think it’s appropriate to talk about scientific results here.
- ganzuul 5y agoFine, but this is all I got: f(a,a) f(a,b) It's called 'hard' for a reason. :p