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How could you possibly deny the existence of your subjective experience? This is just utterly incomprehensible to me.

handrous 5y ago
It's not a denial of the existence of subjective experience. It's a denial that it "means anything" or has any influence on events.
badinfo 5y ago
What's the philosophical difference between your subjective experience of existence and a 90s-style power-on-self-test? "I am on. I can tell that I am on. I dunno what I think once I am off." Same could be said of man, machine, consciousness, whatever. What's incomprehensible is the baseless belief that consciousness is some special state of existence unique to balding, violent apes floating around a wet rock, anthropomorphizing all the crap around them just to make themselves feel special.
- ImprobableTruth 5y ago
  Huh? Subjective experience is about whether the machine experiences the power-on-self-test, not about what it emits externally. Animals, machines or even rocks might all be conscious, but we simply don't know because it's impossible to ascertain through external means. >What's incomprehensible is the baseless belief that consciousness is some special state of existence unique to balding, violent apes floating around a wet rock, anthropomorphizing all the crap around them just to make themselves feel special. What a ridiculous strawman.
  - bserge 5y ago
    A machine does "experience" it, even if through a very limited number of sensors and logic.
  - badinfo 5y ago
    > but we simply don't know because it's impossible to ascertain through external means. Yeah, exactly. We haven't developed a good enough Turing test -- for machines, people, or gods. > What a ridiculous strawman. I don't believe is a strawman as much as you think it is. A lot of arguments for consciousness derive from the desire for humans to be special, which is in turn derived from Abrahamic cosmology that places us directly beneath their God.
NikolaeVarius 5y ago
Because, thinking the existing of subjective experience that is any way special is just societal programming that claims that humans are special and important in the universe. If you step away from the bias, there is no reason to think our consciousness is anything special. Who cares about subjective experience, it all disappears into the void when those chemical reactions stop.
- oogabooga123 5y ago
  All he’s saying is that as a subset of the universe, whatever words you want to apply to describe your subjective experience, apply equally to the universe, since you are part of the universe. Not sure what “special” has to do with it
- ImprobableTruth 5y ago
  Subjective experience can both be something real and also not something special in some magical sense. If subjective experience were really just an illusion, why would you care about what happens to yourself - hell, why would you even have a concept of 'yourself'?
  - NikolaeVarius 5y ago
    I dont care what happens to me. If my consciousness stops its not my problem anymore anyway The illusion is here might as well go along until it stops
- EMM_386 5y ago
  > Because, thinking the existing of subjective experience that is any way special is just societal programming that claims that humans are special and important in the universe. This has absolutely nothing to do with humans, or even this planet. I have no "bias". We have trillions of stars in trillions of galaxies. I was talking about consciousness, zero to do with "societal programming". If you don't want it to be about humans than make it about planet X that is orbiting star Y in galaxy Z that has also evolved conscious beings. You don't think existing at all as a conscious entity in a vastly enormous, complex and strangely beautiful universe is "any way special"? We'll have to agree to disagree on that one!
jagrsw 5y ago
Eg. by the power of the Boltzmann Brain argument. In short, if Universe will exist forever (no matter its heat death, the Boltzmann Brain also works under those conditions), then all configurations of matter (locally) will appear over its "lifetime" infinitely many times. Consequently, you with your subjective experience and memories could have been created a picosecond ago by "random" motions of matter, without the need for them (ie activities leading to memories) to occur, and without thoughts being previously processed. As strange, as it sounds, the argument is actually solid, though hard to grasp in the first moment for those who haven't encountered it yet :). PS: This also means that 'cogito ergo sum' is too strong of a statement. Just saying "something exists" (as in, "why there's something rather than nothing") seems sufficient.
- bsanr2 5y ago
  Eh. This seems like a very "Load State" kind of way of looking at things. That doesn't preclude a kind of higher-order logic which generated this state, and from within the state, there would be no way to tell. So time isn't stored sequentially, so what? The illusion of continuous subjective experience is tantamount to it.
- ImprobableTruth 5y ago
  If I'm actually a Boltzmann Brain, all my memories are a lie and I just exist for a picosecond, then Boltzmann Brains can experience subjective experiences, so what? >This also means that 'cogito ergo sum' is too strong of a statement. Just saying "something exists" (as in, "why there's something rather than nothing") seems sufficient. How do you know that something exists?
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]

It's not a denial of the existence of subjective experience. It's a denial that it "means anything" or has any influence on events.

badinfo 5y ago

What's the philosophical difference between your subjective experience of existence and a 90s-style power-on-self-test? "I am on. I can tell that I am on. I dunno what I think once I am off." Same could be said of man, machine, consciousness, whatever. What's incomprehensible is the baseless belief that consciousness is some special state of existence unique to balding, violent apes floating around a wet rock, anthropomorphizing all the crap around them just to make themselves feel special.

ImprobableTruth 5y ago
Huh? Subjective experience is about whether the machine experiences the power-on-self-test, not about what it emits externally. Animals, machines or even rocks might all be conscious, but we simply don't know because it's impossible to ascertain through external means. >What's incomprehensible is the baseless belief that consciousness is some special state of existence unique to balding, violent apes floating around a wet rock, anthropomorphizing all the crap around them just to make themselves feel special. What a ridiculous strawman.
- bserge 5y ago
  A machine does "experience" it, even if through a very limited number of sensors and logic.
- badinfo 5y ago
  > but we simply don't know because it's impossible to ascertain through external means. Yeah, exactly. We haven't developed a good enough Turing test -- for machines, people, or gods. > What a ridiculous strawman. I don't believe is a strawman as much as you think it is. A lot of arguments for consciousness derive from the desire for humans to be special, which is in turn derived from Abrahamic cosmology that places us directly beneath their God.

NikolaeVarius 5y ago

Because, thinking the existing of subjective experience that is any way special is just societal programming that claims that humans are special and important in the universe. If you step away from the bias, there is no reason to think our consciousness is anything special. Who cares about subjective experience, it all disappears into the void when those chemical reactions stop.

oogabooga123 5y ago
All he’s saying is that as a subset of the universe, whatever words you want to apply to describe your subjective experience, apply equally to the universe, since you are part of the universe. Not sure what “special” has to do with it
ImprobableTruth 5y ago
Subjective experience can both be something real and also not something special in some magical sense. If subjective experience were really just an illusion, why would you care about what happens to yourself - hell, why would you even have a concept of 'yourself'?
- NikolaeVarius 5y ago
  I dont care what happens to me. If my consciousness stops its not my problem anymore anyway The illusion is here might as well go along until it stops
EMM_386 5y ago
> Because, thinking the existing of subjective experience that is any way special is just societal programming that claims that humans are special and important in the universe. This has absolutely nothing to do with humans, or even this planet. I have no "bias". We have trillions of stars in trillions of galaxies. I was talking about consciousness, zero to do with "societal programming". If you don't want it to be about humans than make it about planet X that is orbiting star Y in galaxy Z that has also evolved conscious beings. You don't think existing at all as a conscious entity in a vastly enormous, complex and strangely beautiful universe is "any way special"? We'll have to agree to disagree on that one!

jagrsw 5y ago

Eg. by the power of the Boltzmann Brain argument. In short, if Universe will exist forever (no matter its heat death, the Boltzmann Brain also works under those conditions), then all configurations of matter (locally) will appear over its "lifetime" infinitely many times. Consequently, you with your subjective experience and memories could have been created a picosecond ago by "random" motions of matter, without the need for them (ie activities leading to memories) to occur, and without thoughts being previously processed. As strange, as it sounds, the argument is actually solid, though hard to grasp in the first moment for those who haven't encountered it yet :). PS: This also means that 'cogito ergo sum' is too strong of a statement. Just saying "something exists" (as in, "why there's something rather than nothing") seems sufficient.

bsanr2 5y ago
Eh. This seems like a very "Load State" kind of way of looking at things. That doesn't preclude a kind of higher-order logic which generated this state, and from within the state, there would be no way to tell. So time isn't stored sequentially, so what? The illusion of continuous subjective experience is tantamount to it.
ImprobableTruth 5y ago
If I'm actually a Boltzmann Brain, all my memories are a lie and I just exist for a picosecond, then Boltzmann Brains can experience subjective experiences, so what? >This also means that 'cogito ergo sum' is too strong of a statement. Just saying "something exists" (as in, "why there's something rather than nothing") seems sufficient. How do you know that something exists?
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]