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Why is phenomenological subjective experience a thing at all? Unless you're a proponent of panpsychism, we have to ask why living beings have it, but other natu

Why is phenomenological subjective experience a thing at all? Unless you're a proponent of panpsychism, we have to ask why living beings have it, but other natural processes do not. From this perspective, it's actually easier to conceive of a world like ours without subjective experience than one with it.

dragonwriter 2y ago
> Unless you're a proponent of panpsychism, we have to ask why living beings have it, but other natural processes do not. No, we don't. Because, while an individual may experience it, the conjecture that other things do or do not have it is without exception an unverifiable assumption, not an observed phenomenon which calls for an explanation. > it's actually easier to conceive of a world like ours without subjective experience than one with it. This is demonstrably false, because no experiencer can observe subjective experience other than their own, and, despite that, describing the world in terms of subjective experience occurring in a vast array of other beings beside the speaker is near-universal, to the point that we pathologize not viewing the universe that way.
- root_axis 2y ago
  > the conjecture that other things do or do not have it is without exception an unverifiable assumption Yes, but ultimately, either they do or they don't, and the default assumption is that they don't, unless you favor panpsychism.
jstanley 2y ago
The real problem with the p-zombies thing is why do p-zombies talk about consciousness?. You and I have the experience of talking about being conscious because we have the experience of being conscious in the first place. But for a p-zombie to behave exactly the same as us, it would have to have some other mechanism for talking about being conscious that is not dependent on being conscious. So that would mean that our talking about consciousness can be explained by some mechanism other than our being conscious in the first place! Our experience of consciousness, and our talking about experiencing consciousness, could just happen to be one massive coincidence rather than being causally linked! Doesn't seem likely, ergo no p-zombies. https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/kYAuNJX2ecH2uFqZ9/the-generalized-anti-zombie-principle https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/kYAuNJX2ecH2uFqZ9/the-genera...
naasking 2y ago
> From this perspective, it's actually easier to conceive of a world like ours without subjective experience than one with it. Welcome to eliminative materialism!
pixl97 2y ago
>we have to ask why living beings have it, but other natural processes do not. The entropy gradient is the first one. Of course lots of natural processes have a bit of energy generated so it's not the only part. Memory is the next one. Being able to take some of that entropy and put it in a more orderly fashion while rejecting the disorganized part. Crystals can use energy to create ordered systems, but they don't have any means of error correcting. Execution/replay/updating of said memories based on input from the world around it. Now before humans came along 'life' was the only thing that could readily manage these traits, and that was after a few billion years of trial and error. Humans now have been going down the path of giving other non-living objects these traits. Advanced computer systems are getting closer to the point of recording information and acting on it in a manner that certainly seems like a subjective experience.
- mensetmanusman 2y ago
  Entropy gradients are non explanations. Pointing to statistical mechanics and saying the derivative of an exponent is an exponent is an odd way to explain qualia.
  - pixl97 2y ago
    They are not an explanation, they are a requirement. You don't have consciousness in a rock because nothing is happening in a rock.
    - mensetmanusman 2y ago
      Tell that to the quintillions of electrons hopping between orbitals taking tens of attoseconds to complete :)
      - pixl97 2y ago
        I mean eletrons switch orbitals when photons are absorbed or released by said atom. The particular problem we have here is where is the memory at this subatomic level. Memory appears to be an emergent behavior at higher levels.
tasty_freeze 2y ago
Although interesting, the question of why we have it is orthogonal to the question of whether we have it and whether p-zombies could exist that don't have it but are otherwise indistinguishable from us.
arde 2y ago
We exist but p-zombies, as far as we can tell, do not. So their existence is a hypothesis we cannot assume.

dragonwriter 2y ago

> Unless you're a proponent of panpsychism, we have to ask why living beings have it, but other natural processes do not. No, we don't. Because, while an individual may experience it, the conjecture that other things do or do not have it is without exception an unverifiable assumption, not an observed phenomenon which calls for an explanation. > it's actually easier to conceive of a world like ours without subjective experience than one with it. This is demonstrably false, because no experiencer can observe subjective experience other than their own, and, despite that, describing the world in terms of subjective experience occurring in a vast array of other beings beside the speaker is near-universal, to the point that we pathologize not viewing the universe that way.

root_axis 2y ago
> the conjecture that other things do or do not have it is without exception an unverifiable assumption Yes, but ultimately, either they do or they don't, and the default assumption is that they don't, unless you favor panpsychism.

jstanley 2y ago

The real problem with the p-zombies thing is why do p-zombies talk about consciousness?. You and I have the experience of talking about being conscious because we have the experience of being conscious in the first place. But for a p-zombie to behave exactly the same as us, it would have to have some other mechanism for talking about being conscious that is not dependent on being conscious. So that would mean that our talking about consciousness can be explained by some mechanism other than our being conscious in the first place! Our experience of consciousness, and our talking about experiencing consciousness, could just happen to be one massive coincidence rather than being causally linked! Doesn't seem likely, ergo no p-zombies. https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/kYAuNJX2ecH2uFqZ9/the-generalized-anti-zombie-principle https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/kYAuNJX2ecH2uFqZ9/the-genera...

naasking 2y ago

> From this perspective, it's actually easier to conceive of a world like ours without subjective experience than one with it. Welcome to eliminative materialism!

pixl97 2y ago

>we have to ask why living beings have it, but other natural processes do not. The entropy gradient is the first one. Of course lots of natural processes have a bit of energy generated so it's not the only part. Memory is the next one. Being able to take some of that entropy and put it in a more orderly fashion while rejecting the disorganized part. Crystals can use energy to create ordered systems, but they don't have any means of error correcting. Execution/replay/updating of said memories based on input from the world around it. Now before humans came along 'life' was the only thing that could readily manage these traits, and that was after a few billion years of trial and error. Humans now have been going down the path of giving other non-living objects these traits. Advanced computer systems are getting closer to the point of recording information and acting on it in a manner that certainly seems like a subjective experience.

mensetmanusman 2y ago
Entropy gradients are non explanations. Pointing to statistical mechanics and saying the derivative of an exponent is an exponent is an odd way to explain qualia.
- pixl97 2y ago
  They are not an explanation, they are a requirement. You don't have consciousness in a rock because nothing is happening in a rock.
  - mensetmanusman 2y ago
    Tell that to the quintillions of electrons hopping between orbitals taking tens of attoseconds to complete :)
    - pixl97 2y ago
      I mean eletrons switch orbitals when photons are absorbed or released by said atom. The particular problem we have here is where is the memory at this subatomic level. Memory appears to be an emergent behavior at higher levels.

tasty_freeze 2y ago

Although interesting, the question of why we have it is orthogonal to the question of whether we have it and whether p-zombies could exist that don't have it but are otherwise indistinguishable from us.

arde 2y ago

We exist but p-zombies, as far as we can tell, do not. So their existence is a hypothesis we cannot assume.