3 ms·

They suggest consciousness is fundamental and irreducible? This is like saying "where the car goes when you take all its pieces away?". Occam's razor suggests t

They suggest consciousness is fundamental and irreducible? This is like saying "where the car goes when you take all its pieces away?". Occam's razor suggests that the material (easier) explanation is much more likely to be the answer than any complex one. It's not even a good question unless they first prove consciousness can exist outside its physical support, AKA the immortal soul.

bumby 5y ago
>the immortal soul. This is a different argument. It's not necessarily saying consciousness is distinct from matter. The panpsychist view (not sure if Chalmers is in this camp) is that consciousness is a fundamental property to all matter, from photons to the human brain. (This isn't to say a photon has experiences as a human does, but rather the complex human consciousness is derived from a much simpler forms of consciousness). This is different from saying ""where the car goes when you take all its pieces away?". This assumes consciousness is an emergent property, rather than a fundamental one. The "car" is emergent from the right arrangement of "car parts". Rather, the question "where is the mass/charge of the car when you take away all its pieces" is a better analogy, because the car mass/charge is derived from the mass of the car part's mass/charge.
- ASalazarMX 5y ago
  Thank you for answering. I searched more about this, and it seems like it's a controversial idea, having more traction around philosophers because there's not enough evidence to test scientifically. I too feel like conscience is an emergent property, like insects can exhibit surprisingly complex behaviors with simple minds, but it's too soon to say one way or the other without further research.
  - bumby 5y ago
    I can't say that I fully understand the concepts, but it does seem very much like it's a realm of philosophy. Annaka Harris has a pretty accessible book that introduces the idea and Philip Goff has some interviews and presentations that goes much more in-depth. >there's not enough evidence to test scientifically. This aligns exactly with what Chalmers says, that explaining subjective experiences is the "hard" problem precisely because we don't have a way to gather data. Gathering data is, almost by definition, an objective measure and can't give much insight into subjective experience. To a certain extent, if feels like defining or measuring subjective experience can't be looked at with traditional scientific inquiry. Unfortunately, that can also lead to a bunch of quackery.

bumby 5y ago

>the immortal soul. This is a different argument. It's not necessarily saying consciousness is distinct from matter. The panpsychist view (not sure if Chalmers is in this camp) is that consciousness is a fundamental property to all matter, from photons to the human brain. (This isn't to say a photon has experiences as a human does, but rather the complex human consciousness is derived from a much simpler forms of consciousness). This is different from saying ""where the car goes when you take all its pieces away?". This assumes consciousness is an emergent property, rather than a fundamental one. The "car" is emergent from the right arrangement of "car parts". Rather, the question "where is the mass/charge of the car when you take away all its pieces" is a better analogy, because the car mass/charge is derived from the mass of the car part's mass/charge.

ASalazarMX 5y ago
Thank you for answering. I searched more about this, and it seems like it's a controversial idea, having more traction around philosophers because there's not enough evidence to test scientifically. I too feel like conscience is an emergent property, like insects can exhibit surprisingly complex behaviors with simple minds, but it's too soon to say one way or the other without further research.
- bumby 5y ago
  I can't say that I fully understand the concepts, but it does seem very much like it's a realm of philosophy. Annaka Harris has a pretty accessible book that introduces the idea and Philip Goff has some interviews and presentations that goes much more in-depth. >there's not enough evidence to test scientifically. This aligns exactly with what Chalmers says, that explaining subjective experiences is the "hard" problem precisely because we don't have a way to gather data. Gathering data is, almost by definition, an objective measure and can't give much insight into subjective experience. To a certain extent, if feels like defining or measuring subjective experience can't be looked at with traditional scientific inquiry. Unfortunately, that can also lead to a bunch of quackery.