> If you can explain redness fully in terms of physical systems and processes, then somebody having that firsthand experience for the first time shouldn't be th

> If you can explain redness fully in terms of physical systems and processes, then somebody having that firsthand experience for the first time shouldn't be thinking "oh, so that's what it is like to actually see red." I mean, I think I totally agree here. It's just that I think a "full" explanation would be able to include a description of "what it is like". And that somebody having the firsthand experience would think "Yup, that matches what I read it would be like". The cynical side of me feels that people who deny this will ever be possible are being a little pessimistic or unambitious. > You should also know what it is like to have experiences that your brain doesn't have the hardware for, like a bat's experience of echolocation. I don't think that this necessarily follows. The hardware defines limits to what an individual can understand. I will never have a full understanding of the location and velocity of every atom in the universe - even if in principle a physical description of it could exist - because my brain's hardware is insufficient to represent the model. Likewise I cannot expect a human to know what it's like to have a bat's experiences. But there could in principle be a super AI that can understand both human and bat experiences.