4 ms·

There's no asking, let alone answering this question beyond mere speculations, until we've defined "subjective experience" in objective terms — i.e. positively

by K0SM0S 4y ago

There's no asking, let alone answering this question beyond mere speculations, until we've defined "subjective experience" in objective terms — i.e. positively provable, measurable in some unambiguous way (not merely inferred). That is the hard problem. Solving it might require reframing the problem such that this dichotomy isn't even relevant anymore (like say electromagnetic information isn't "opposed" or "dual" or "exclusive" to a gravitational field but merely concurrent) if we are to unify somehow the general field of "theory of mind".

tshaddox 4y ago
It strikes me as odd to start from the position "we declare this thing to undeniably exist" and then spend generations trying to spit out even one sentence describing what evidence or explanation for its existence might even plausibly look like.
- K0SM0S 4y ago
  …to the point of claiming it "must be present in all things, living or otherwise, even particles, yet perfectly invisible" (panpsychism, iirc?). Because why not generalizing a flawed hypothesis whose observational range is limited to a tiny subset of existence (advanced biological species, as far as we know). ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ IMHO it's the old darkness/duality problem all over again — postulating some "essence" (e.g. the spiritual/religious Soul) and basing theory on a mere intuition, instead of invoking a "placeholder" (like "dark matter" isn't necessarily matter but literally "something that behaves as such" whatever it actually is, or like "dark energy" isn't necessarily a fifth interaction but certainly behaves as such or as anti-gravity of sorts; wherein "dark" means "unknown and hidden from direct observation, merely inferred"). Hence my call to not infer the very measurement thereof if we are to call an explanatory hypothesis. Should we start by stating that "qualia" or "consciousness" or whatever is a placeholder name for "whatever dark (unknown, black-box) mechanism explains the observable phenomenon named as such", then we might have a chance at actually forming a coherent theory thereof. IMHO.
  - tshaddox 4y ago
    > Should we start by stating that "qualia" or "consciousness" or whatever is a placeholder name for "whatever dark (unknown, black-box) mechanism explains the observable phenomenon named as such", then we might have a chance at actually forming a coherent theory thereof. IMHO. Perhaps, although in the case of qualia I’m not sure what the phenomenon is that we need a placeholder explanation for. For dark matter we’ve got certain observations of galaxies. For qualia we’ve got, what? A lot of people who feel very strongly that they are unable to deny the existence of something that they cannot describe beyond that claim of undeniable existence? If that’s how astrophysicists explained dark matter I’d be inclined to think that maybe it just doesn’t exist. Edit: thanks to autocomplete we were briefly embroiled in an argument about the existence of quails.
- olalonde 4y ago
  I know it's a bit far fetched but I'd go as far as to say that, by Occam's razor, the conscious experience does not exist. A world where the "conscious experience" does not exist would be indistinguishable from our world; ergo, the "conscious experience" does not exist.
  - in3d 4y ago
    A world where nothing but conscious experience exists and what you think as the world is simulated would be indistinguishable from your experience. Ergo, the “real world” does not exist.
    - olalonde 4y ago
      By Occam's razor here, an un-simulated world ("real world") would be a more simple hypothesis because a simulation would require a simulator to be posited.
- notahacker 4y ago
  Can't speak for other humans of course, but I'm more certain my sensory experiences exist than anything else, to the point searching for an evidence base for their existence or concluding they didn't exist unless explained would just be weird. I'm also certain my sensory experiences are not identical to attempts to quantify them or describe them in language or interpretive dance (philosophers struggling to define and articulate things even at high levels of abstraction is weak evidence in favour of qualia, since the defining aspect of qualia is its the portion of human brain state that can't be communicated). The alternative: that its a practical possibility to translate all parts of my sensory experiences into data which can be transmitted and parsed in exactly the same way by other minds feels like the proposition needs some evidence or justification [beyond "Your brain is composed of atoms. Other atoms exist"] Seems to me that the bafflement I'm experiencing at people doubting human sensory experience is the real bit, and the neural network that might be able to perfectly replicate my bafflement in silicon is the purely hypothetical construct.
  - djokkataja 4y ago
    > The alternative: that its a practical possibility to translate all parts of my sensory experiences into data which can be transmitted and parsed in exactly the same way by other minds feels like the proposition needs some evidence or justification [beyond "Your brain is composed of atoms. Other atoms exist"] In theory, if we had high-throughput brain-brain interfaces that could be connected between your thalamus and someone else's, then yes, they could experience the same sensations as you. Of course, besides the challenge of having high-throughput hardware embedded in your brain without killing you, there's also the challenge that brains don't have exact correspondences between every neuron for different people, so any such mapping would be quite complex. But there is an actual example of a pair of conjoined twins who share the same thalamus and can experience the same sensations as one another: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krista_and_Tatiana_Hogan https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krista_and_Tatiana_Hogan > it was confirmed that they share a thalamus which connects their brainstems. Through this shared brain tissue structure and the interconnected neurons, one brain receives signals from the other brain and vice versa. This documentary also reported on experiments that were carried out that confirmed that visual cortex signals based on what one girl saw, were received by both girls' brains. So in effect, one twin could see what the other twin was seeing, making them unique even among craniopagus twins. Also... > I'm also certain my sensory experiences are not identical to attempts to quantify them or describe them in language or interpretive dance (philosophers struggling to define and articulate things even at high levels of abstraction is weak evidence in favour of qualia, since the defining aspect of qualia is its the portion of human brain state that can't be communicated). Language is a very low-fidelity way to express information; we can use abstractions to make up for quite a bit, but it doesn't make sense to think that we're accurately transmitting what's going on in every molecule of our bodies when we say what something feels like to us. And even if we could send an accurate account of all those details, who would have the time to parse through and make sense of it all? And that would be a momentary expression of who we are; it'd be inaccurate in the next moment.
hackinthebochs 4y ago
This issue of "definition" is missing what's at stake. The issue is modelling nature in such a way that plausibly includes subjective experience. And then validating this model. But subjective experience is intrinsically inaccessible to empirical validation. We can test the physical predictions of the model, but how subjective experience fits into the model is an orthogonal question. If we are to answer the question of subjective experience, we need to embrace "speculation" without empirical anchoring to guide our investigations. Shutting down speculation is just to shut down any investigation at all.

by K0SM0S 4y ago

tshaddox 4y ago

It strikes me as odd to start from the position "we declare this thing to undeniably exist" and then spend generations trying to spit out even one sentence describing what evidence or explanation for its existence might even plausibly look like.

K0SM0S 4y ago
…to the point of claiming it "must be present in all things, living or otherwise, even particles, yet perfectly invisible" (panpsychism, iirc?). Because why not generalizing a flawed hypothesis whose observational range is limited to a tiny subset of existence (advanced biological species, as far as we know). ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ IMHO it's the old darkness/duality problem all over again — postulating some "essence" (e.g. the spiritual/religious Soul) and basing theory on a mere intuition, instead of invoking a "placeholder" (like "dark matter" isn't necessarily matter but literally "something that behaves as such" whatever it actually is, or like "dark energy" isn't necessarily a fifth interaction but certainly behaves as such or as anti-gravity of sorts; wherein "dark" means "unknown and hidden from direct observation, merely inferred"). Hence my call to not infer the very measurement thereof if we are to call an explanatory hypothesis. Should we start by stating that "qualia" or "consciousness" or whatever is a placeholder name for "whatever dark (unknown, black-box) mechanism explains the observable phenomenon named as such", then we might have a chance at actually forming a coherent theory thereof. IMHO.
- tshaddox 4y ago
  > Should we start by stating that "qualia" or "consciousness" or whatever is a placeholder name for "whatever dark (unknown, black-box) mechanism explains the observable phenomenon named as such", then we might have a chance at actually forming a coherent theory thereof. IMHO. Perhaps, although in the case of qualia I’m not sure what the phenomenon is that we need a placeholder explanation for. For dark matter we’ve got certain observations of galaxies. For qualia we’ve got, what? A lot of people who feel very strongly that they are unable to deny the existence of something that they cannot describe beyond that claim of undeniable existence? If that’s how astrophysicists explained dark matter I’d be inclined to think that maybe it just doesn’t exist. Edit: thanks to autocomplete we were briefly embroiled in an argument about the existence of quails.
olalonde 4y ago
I know it's a bit far fetched but I'd go as far as to say that, by Occam's razor, the conscious experience does not exist. A world where the "conscious experience" does not exist would be indistinguishable from our world; ergo, the "conscious experience" does not exist.
- in3d 4y ago
  A world where nothing but conscious experience exists and what you think as the world is simulated would be indistinguishable from your experience. Ergo, the “real world” does not exist.
  - olalonde 4y ago
    By Occam's razor here, an un-simulated world ("real world") would be a more simple hypothesis because a simulation would require a simulator to be posited.
notahacker 4y ago
Can't speak for other humans of course, but I'm more certain my sensory experiences exist than anything else, to the point searching for an evidence base for their existence or concluding they didn't exist unless explained would just be weird. I'm also certain my sensory experiences are not identical to attempts to quantify them or describe them in language or interpretive dance (philosophers struggling to define and articulate things even at high levels of abstraction is weak evidence in favour of qualia, since the defining aspect of qualia is its the portion of human brain state that can't be communicated). The alternative: that its a practical possibility to translate all parts of my sensory experiences into data which can be transmitted and parsed in exactly the same way by other minds feels like the proposition needs some evidence or justification [beyond "Your brain is composed of atoms. Other atoms exist"] Seems to me that the bafflement I'm experiencing at people doubting human sensory experience is the real bit, and the neural network that might be able to perfectly replicate my bafflement in silicon is the purely hypothetical construct.
- djokkataja 4y ago
  > The alternative: that its a practical possibility to translate all parts of my sensory experiences into data which can be transmitted and parsed in exactly the same way by other minds feels like the proposition needs some evidence or justification [beyond "Your brain is composed of atoms. Other atoms exist"] In theory, if we had high-throughput brain-brain interfaces that could be connected between your thalamus and someone else's, then yes, they could experience the same sensations as you. Of course, besides the challenge of having high-throughput hardware embedded in your brain without killing you, there's also the challenge that brains don't have exact correspondences between every neuron for different people, so any such mapping would be quite complex. But there is an actual example of a pair of conjoined twins who share the same thalamus and can experience the same sensations as one another: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krista_and_Tatiana_Hogan https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krista_and_Tatiana_Hogan > it was confirmed that they share a thalamus which connects their brainstems. Through this shared brain tissue structure and the interconnected neurons, one brain receives signals from the other brain and vice versa. This documentary also reported on experiments that were carried out that confirmed that visual cortex signals based on what one girl saw, were received by both girls' brains. So in effect, one twin could see what the other twin was seeing, making them unique even among craniopagus twins. Also... > I'm also certain my sensory experiences are not identical to attempts to quantify them or describe them in language or interpretive dance (philosophers struggling to define and articulate things even at high levels of abstraction is weak evidence in favour of qualia, since the defining aspect of qualia is its the portion of human brain state that can't be communicated). Language is a very low-fidelity way to express information; we can use abstractions to make up for quite a bit, but it doesn't make sense to think that we're accurately transmitting what's going on in every molecule of our bodies when we say what something feels like to us. And even if we could send an accurate account of all those details, who would have the time to parse through and make sense of it all? And that would be a momentary expression of who we are; it'd be inaccurate in the next moment.

hackinthebochs 4y ago

This issue of "definition" is missing what's at stake. The issue is modelling nature in such a way that plausibly includes subjective experience. And then validating this model. But subjective experience is intrinsically inaccessible to empirical validation. We can test the physical predictions of the model, but how subjective experience fits into the model is an orthogonal question. If we are to answer the question of subjective experience, we need to embrace "speculation" without empirical anchoring to guide our investigations. Shutting down speculation is just to shut down any investigation at all.