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> you have to prove that such a thing would be impossible, even just in theory/principle, or sometime in the future when we have better science and tech. You s

> you have to prove that such a thing would be impossible, even just in theory/principle, or sometime in the future when we have better science and tech. You should take these comments in a different spirit that I intended — I am representing the side of philosophers that thinks ‘the hard problem of consciousness is a real and hard problem’. In short, I’m presenting what this side of the debate thinks, and I absolutely think what I said is true. There are philosophers who disagree with those who say what I say, and we certainly haven’t offered anything that’s convincing enough to be considered a proof. I didn’t claim to have a proof, though I think my confidence is warranted. > As a counterpoint, I would like to offer the following: our thoughts, while we are thinking about consciousness and puzzling over it and writing posts on HN about it, are manifested in the physical world as neuron firings and chemicals in the brain. A sufficient explanation of the physical world would include an explanation of how and why these thoughts emerged (through a chain of previous thoughts), and this explanation, I think, has a good chance of showing that the hard problem is just a collection of easy problems after all. Here you present that which looks very much like a standard reductionist physicalist account. For what it’s worth, I think reductionist physicalism is the only physicalism worth giving consideration to, but it doesn’t do anything to explain the thing that I'm really concerned about, how such firings and chemicals are/produce experiences/consciousness. When looking at the physical story alone (the neurons firing, etc), there's no reference to consciousness/experiences. It doesn't appear at all until the physicalist says "and c-fibers firing just are pain" -- at which they are like a magician, having pulled something from thin air.

bondarchuk 5y ago
Again it sounds like you're demanding from physicalists an explanation of consciousness, and, since they can't give one, you take this as a reason for dismissing physicalism. I fully concur that nobody can currently give an adequate explanation. My argument is solely about the theoretical possibility of accounting for consciousness within the physical world. >When looking at the physical story alone (the neurons firing, etc), there's no reference to consciousness/experiences. You can't say that right now, because we're not anywhere near having the capability for "looking at the physical story alone". There's like 80 billion neurons which we can't currently inspect at a reasonable granularity (in space and time), furthermore there's no theory for how to integrate the data of 80 billion neurons with all their firings and states into higher level explanations. >It doesn't appear at all until the physicalist says "and c-fibers firing just are pain" -- at which they are like a magician, having pulled something from thin air. Sure, the physicalist who says just that is stupid. The computationalist who says that the information processing which the brain performs in reaction to c-fiber firings gives rise to the subjective experience of pain is more justified.
- Winsaucerer 5y ago
  > Again it sounds like you're demanding from physicalists an explanation of consciousness, and, since they can't give one, you take this as a reason for dismissing physicalism…There's like 80 billion neurons which we can't currently inspect at a reasonable granularity It’s not a problem of scale, but a problem of kind. No one can give an account of the exact motions of waves, of the waving of leaves in the wind, etc. Physicists struggle with providing the exact movements and outcomes of even very simple systems, let alone the movements of things at the level of the ocean’s waves or leaves in the wind. But I suspect most of us think that at least there’s the right kinds of things at the lowest level of physics to account for this. We’ve got particles (or waves, or fields, or strings, or whatever it turns out to be) that with just a little imagination we can see, when aggregated together in large quantities, could amount to waves in the ocean, or leaves waving in the wind. There’s the right kinds of activities at the lowest level that are plausibly all that’s needed to make up these large scale phenomena. With consciousness, however, there’s nothing in the lowest level that we can point to and say “maybe piling up more of this would amount to consciousness”. There’s things in the lowest levels of physics we can point to and say “these are movement-like events”, but no analogous “these are consciousness-like events”. No candidate precursors to consciousness, to there being experiences and things that have experiences. What I’m saying is that there isn’t even the beginning of a plausible story here. There is, so far as I can see, nothing at the lowest level that is a plausible starting point for consciousness. Suppose that we have two contending theories, and when we compare their relatives virtues and vices, we find in most ways they’re on a par. However, there’s one, and just one, sticking point — one theory cannot even begin to explain or account for a significant (perhaps the most significant to us) part of reality, while the other has no analogous problem. That gives us reason to prefer the other. I think that an idealism something like George Berkeley’s (but not exactly Berkeley’s) is just such a theory. I think reductive physicalism and a particular idealist theory do about as well as each other on a great many points, except this one. The idealist theory can account for or explain physical stuff, but the physicalist theory can’t even begin to account for or explain mental stuff.
  - bondarchuk 5y ago
    Disagree on all counts, and let's leave it at that :-)

bondarchuk 5y ago

Again it sounds like you're demanding from physicalists an explanation of consciousness, and, since they can't give one, you take this as a reason for dismissing physicalism. I fully concur that nobody can currently give an adequate explanation. My argument is solely about the theoretical possibility of accounting for consciousness within the physical world. >When looking at the physical story alone (the neurons firing, etc), there's no reference to consciousness/experiences. You can't say that right now, because we're not anywhere near having the capability for "looking at the physical story alone". There's like 80 billion neurons which we can't currently inspect at a reasonable granularity (in space and time), furthermore there's no theory for how to integrate the data of 80 billion neurons with all their firings and states into higher level explanations. >It doesn't appear at all until the physicalist says "and c-fibers firing just are pain" -- at which they are like a magician, having pulled something from thin air. Sure, the physicalist who says just that is stupid. The computationalist who says that the information processing which the brain performs in reaction to c-fiber firings gives rise to the subjective experience of pain is more justified.

Winsaucerer 5y ago
> Again it sounds like you're demanding from physicalists an explanation of consciousness, and, since they can't give one, you take this as a reason for dismissing physicalism…There's like 80 billion neurons which we can't currently inspect at a reasonable granularity It’s not a problem of scale, but a problem of kind. No one can give an account of the exact motions of waves, of the waving of leaves in the wind, etc. Physicists struggle with providing the exact movements and outcomes of even very simple systems, let alone the movements of things at the level of the ocean’s waves or leaves in the wind. But I suspect most of us think that at least there’s the right kinds of things at the lowest level of physics to account for this. We’ve got particles (or waves, or fields, or strings, or whatever it turns out to be) that with just a little imagination we can see, when aggregated together in large quantities, could amount to waves in the ocean, or leaves waving in the wind. There’s the right kinds of activities at the lowest level that are plausibly all that’s needed to make up these large scale phenomena. With consciousness, however, there’s nothing in the lowest level that we can point to and say “maybe piling up more of this would amount to consciousness”. There’s things in the lowest levels of physics we can point to and say “these are movement-like events”, but no analogous “these are consciousness-like events”. No candidate precursors to consciousness, to there being experiences and things that have experiences. What I’m saying is that there isn’t even the beginning of a plausible story here. There is, so far as I can see, nothing at the lowest level that is a plausible starting point for consciousness. Suppose that we have two contending theories, and when we compare their relatives virtues and vices, we find in most ways they’re on a par. However, there’s one, and just one, sticking point — one theory cannot even begin to explain or account for a significant (perhaps the most significant to us) part of reality, while the other has no analogous problem. That gives us reason to prefer the other. I think that an idealism something like George Berkeley’s (but not exactly Berkeley’s) is just such a theory. I think reductive physicalism and a particular idealist theory do about as well as each other on a great many points, except this one. The idealist theory can account for or explain physical stuff, but the physicalist theory can’t even begin to account for or explain mental stuff.
- bondarchuk 5y ago
  Disagree on all counts, and let's leave it at that :-)