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Yes but see, in your example, I would then say your fingers are conscious, too. Or that there is an experience of being a finger. Who, besides the finger, could

Yes but see, in your example, I would then say your fingers are conscious, too. Or that there is an experience of being a finger. Who, besides the finger, could say otherwise? Just because you've moved the experience from me having it, to the finger having it, doesn't mean that the experience disappeared. The problem is yet again w/ the definition of having an experience, as I said in my reply to the parent. It's just language, and the reason why we find ourselves in some kind of linguistic paradox trying to explain it.

PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago
It's not just language. I doubt that you think it is like anything to be a rock. You do think that it is like something to be a person (or even a finger)! Those are two different states of existence, one with experiences/qualia (i.e. it is like something to be that thing) and one without. How do we explain the difference. ps. interesting user name.
- CuriouslyC 5y ago
  The minerals in rocks can change in response to their environment. There has to be something that it feels like for that change to happen.
- abletonlive 5y ago
  How can you be so sure there is no experience of being a rock? Surely it's wildly different from being a finger or a person, and perhaps, very boring from a human's perspective. I'm not sure why everybody insists you can have qualia or you can't, as if it's a binary thing. Perhaps it's a gradient. I would say there is something like being a plant, or something like being a computer program. Just because we are unable to imagine it as humans does not mean that it doesn't exist. What makes my experience of seeing red any more special than the experience of a plant reacting to light? The fact that I can type about it on hackernews and the plant can't?
  - PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago
    Well, I'm not totally convinced it's not like anything to be a rock. But this is the generally widely-used object of "an object without qualia". You are apparently a believer in some degree of panpyschism. That's fine. Conscious is like gravity - it's just a part of the universe and there's no explanation for it other than that it is experienced by anything with (mass, for gravity ; ??? for consciousness). I'm not opposed to this explanation, I'm just not (yet) convinced that it's the right one.

PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago

It's not just language. I doubt that you think it is like anything to be a rock. You do think that it is like something to be a person (or even a finger)! Those are two different states of existence, one with experiences/qualia (i.e. it is like something to be that thing) and one without. How do we explain the difference. ps. interesting user name.

CuriouslyC 5y ago
The minerals in rocks can change in response to their environment. There has to be something that it feels like for that change to happen.
abletonlive 5y ago
How can you be so sure there is no experience of being a rock? Surely it's wildly different from being a finger or a person, and perhaps, very boring from a human's perspective. I'm not sure why everybody insists you can have qualia or you can't, as if it's a binary thing. Perhaps it's a gradient. I would say there is something like being a plant, or something like being a computer program. Just because we are unable to imagine it as humans does not mean that it doesn't exist. What makes my experience of seeing red any more special than the experience of a plant reacting to light? The fact that I can type about it on hackernews and the plant can't?
- PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago
  Well, I'm not totally convinced it's not like anything to be a rock. But this is the generally widely-used object of "an object without qualia". You are apparently a believer in some degree of panpyschism. That's fine. Conscious is like gravity - it's just a part of the universe and there's no explanation for it other than that it is experienced by anything with (mass, for gravity ; ??? for consciousness). I'm not opposed to this explanation, I'm just not (yet) convinced that it's the right one.