Philosophy, Science, & The Unexplained - Main Thread

[Randall]

ufology wrote: "What it's like to be something is sufficiently similar to what it's like to perceive the world the way that something does."

I don't think so, though perception (visual as well as auditory, tactile, olfactory, etc.) is primary for all animals as they orient themselves in their environment after birth. But taking cats, for example, all cats -- wild ones, homeless domestic strays, and well cared-for, well-loved pets -- likely perceive the sights and sounds and tastes of the physical world in much the same way, but the qualities of their experience in/of the world, the satisfactions they find in being in the world, vary dramatically. You see the point. Much more than sense-data affects consciousness.

To be fair, I did use the phrase "substantially similar", not identical to what it is to be that something ( cat or whatever ). The only way to have every perception and experience that something has is to be that something, which is an issue smcder ( I wish I could just call him Sean or McDermot or whatever ), to continue, is an issue smcder and I blew past on some dark stretch of this philosophical byway some days ago. So if "what it's like to be" doesn't mean the same as "what it is to be" then were back to substantial similarity being sufficient, and obviously the sum total of perceptual information is substantial.

 

[boomerang]

To be fair, I did use the phrase "substantially similar", not identical to what it is to be that something ( cat or whatever ). The only way to have every perception and experience that something has is to be that something, which is an issue smcder ( I wish I could just call him Sean or McDermot or whatever ), to continue, is an issue smcder and I blew past on some dark stretch of this philosophical byway some days ago. So if "what it's like to be" doesn't mean the same as "what it is to be" then were back to substantial similarity being sufficient, and obviously the sum total of perceptual information is substantial.

I would just toss in the thought that every sentient entity has inscribed its own unique signature on the space-time continuum that presumably becomes inviolable and frozen, assuming time's arrow runs only one way. This is why the concept of becoming another entity, human or otherwise, strikes me as innately impossible.

Speaking of cats, I am currently attempting to type while seeing through one to view my screen. The little guy loves to surf the net.

 

[smcder]

That post was a response to a specific statement in the article, to quote: "how the world appears to their different particular points of view". The title of the video is "How Animals See The World" and it's based on a scientific understanding of optics and biology, so the video is actually in all probability, a reasonably accurate representation of that statement. But if one wants to wiggle it around by fudging what we mean by the word "like", then all we have to do is ask ourselves exactly what that word means ( again ).

We've already been over the ground someplace back there, and if I recall correctly, in your view it doesn't mean the same thing what it is to be bat, but merely what it's "like", and that word implies analogy by way of similarity, and I'd say that based on a knowledge of optics and biology, then that is exactly what the video does. What it's like to be something is sufficiently similar to what it's like to perceive the world the way that something does. Why? Because what it would be like to be a bat is substantially similar to knowing what it would be like to perceive the world the way a bat does.

So if that were possible, it would be plenty "bat like" enough to claim similarity without actually being a bat. Or are we going to fudge the meaning back around to "What it is to be a bat" rather than just what it's like? How do we clear up this issue?

I don't think we do, in my experience (and again in this instance) someone either sees the distinction or does not.

 

[Randall]

I don't think we do, in my experience (and again in this instance) someone either sees the distinction or does not.

That's a dodge. Does perceptual experience make up a substantial part of what it's "like" to be something or not? I think it does, and that being the case, if science can show us some of that ( as in the video I posted ), then that is proof of concept. We don't need to go on and develop a 3D VR simulator with complete sensory modulation. On the other hand if perceptual experience is deemed to be unsubstantial, then we're back to the same problem as before, where the whole exercise is pointless because there's no way to know anything more other than to actually be whatever it is we're asking the question about ( Nobody else but you can know what it's like to be you ). Either way I'd say the whole issue of the relevance of the "what it's like" question is getting squeezed from both sides here.

 

[smcder]

To be fair, I did use the phrase "substantially similar", not identical to what it is to be that something ( cat or whatever ). The only way to have every perception and experience that something has is to be that something, which is an issue smcder ( I wish I could just call him Sean or McDermot or whatever ), to continue, is an issue smcder and I blew past on some dark stretch of this philosophical byway some days ago. So if "what it's like to be" doesn't mean the same as "what it is to be" then were back to substantial similarity being sufficient, and obviously the sum total of perceptual information is substantial.

The hard problem isn't for a specific person to know what it would be like for them to be a bat, that already entails the subjective awareness of the person - the hard problem is to give an objective account, from physical principles only, of subjective experience.

"There can be a purely physical description of the neurophysiological processes that give rise to an experience, and also of the physical behavior that is typically associated with it, but such a description, however complete, will leave out the subjective essence of the experience – how it is from the point of view of its subject — without which it would not be a conscious experience at all."

One hang up here might be that if you are picturing someone reading the description above - then take them out of your imagination and leave only the physical description.

Without such a reader, who might impute subjective experience to what is being described (say based on its physical behaviors), the description is incomplete because it leaves out that subjective experience of the system being described.

And to go further out on a limb - if you condensed it down to a complete set of instructions for a computer to construct the system - the result could be conscious but an accounting of that consciousness was nowhere in the (objectively) complete set of instructions provided to the computer.

And I think that's the basis for Nagel's and Chalmers' arguments that consciousness is fundamental.

 

[smcder]

That's a dodge. Does perceptual experience make up a substantial part of what it's "like" to be something or not? I think it does, and that being the case, if science can show us some of that ( as in the video I posted ), then that is proof of concept. We don't need to go on and develop a 3D VR simulator with complete sensory modulation. On the other hand if perceptual experience is deemed to be unsubstantial, then we're back to the same problem as before, where the whole exercise is pointless because there's no way to know anything more other than to actually be whatever it is we're asking the question about ( Nobody else but you can know what it's like to be you ). Either way I'd say the whole issue of the relevance of the "what it's like" question is getting squeezed from both sides here.

No, it's a Ford! ;-)

See my last post . . . the hard problem is not for you (or any conscious entity) to know what it is like to be a bat (or any other conscious entity) - it's to objectively (without resort to subjective awareness) account for subjective experience -

 

[Randall]

No, it's a Ford! ;-)

See my last post . . . the hard problem is not for you (or any conscious entity) to know what it is like to be a bat (or any other conscious entity) - it's to objectively (without resort to subjective awareness) account for subjective experience -

I'm not getting the point across. Let's deal with the confusion first. In the past you have claimed exactly the opposite of the above ( That you do need to demonstrate "what it's like" ). So we can't have it both ways depending on what suits our argument at the moment. Secondly we need to deal with this goalpost moving consisting of the addition of your claim, to quote: "(without resort to subjective awareness)". To resolve these issues we could waste time retracing our steps back to the point of inconsistency, or we can resolve it here and now, starting by picking one of the options below:

1. Perceptual experience is a substantial part of "what it's like" to be something ( e.g. a bat or other life form ).
2. Perceptual experience is not a substantial part of "what it is like" to be something ( e.g. a bat or other life form )..

It follows that if perceptual experience is a subjective experience ( which it is ), and it is a substantial part of "what it's like" to be something, then the issue of "objectively accounting for what it's like to be something" can be done by the objective analysis of perceptual mechanisms and properties, and the validity of that analysis is demonstrated by the ability to relay that experience back to us ( as in the video I posted ).

It also follows that rejecting the evidence ( the video ) by arbitrarily saying we can't "resort to subjective awareness" is an unreasonable condition similar to saying, you can try all you want but you're now allowed to demonstrate your proof and therefore you can never succeed. In which case we can throw the whole problem out because it's a rigged game from the start.

It also follows that the only other option is to claim that there is no way to know what "it's like" to be something other than to become that other something, in which case the whole question of "what it's like" it's a pointless endeavor to begin with because it leaves us with no possible solution, and again we can throw the whole problem out.

So it seems that if this is a fair and meaningful problem to pose in the first place, then we actually do have a meaningful answer, as science and the video show.

Lastly, if the answer to the question is option 2. ( above ), then by what rationale can we conclude that perceptual experience is not a substantial part of "what it's like" to be something?

 

[Jeff Davis]

It's a giddy feeling . . . I used to look in the mirror and repeat my name (turns out that's an old technique) - here lately consciousness seems to bear down on me as a kind of unbearable point of concentration and that's not so much fun.

I remember very clearly that when I was in that young boys age of 7-10 I used to get this amazing feeling out of nowhere. It was like waking up on Earth and realizing for the first time, "I'm here. I'm really here. I made it." I never could figure that out until I started considering sentience.

 

[smcder]

I'm not getting the point across. Let's deal with the confusion first. In the past you have claimed exactly the opposite of the above ( That you do need to demonstrate "what it's like" ). So we can't have it both ways depending on what suits our argument at the moment. Secondly we need to deal with this goalpost moving consisting of the addition of your claim, to quote: "(without resort to subjective awareness)". To resolve these issues we could waste time retracing our steps back to the point of inconsistency, or we can resolve it here and now, starting by picking one of the options below:

1. Perceptual experience is a substantial part of "what it's like" to be something ( e.g. a bat or other life form ).
2. Perceptual experience is not a substantial part of "what it is like" to be something ( e.g. a bat or other life form )..

It follows that if perceptual experience is a subjective experience ( which it is ), and it is a substantial part of "what it's like" to be something, then the issue of "objectively accounting for what it's like to be something" can be done by the objective analysis of perceptual mechanisms and properties, and the validity of that analysis is demonstrated by the ability to relay that experience back to us ( as in the video I posted ).

It also follows that rejecting the evidence ( the video ) by arbitrarily saying we can't "resort to subjective awareness" is an unreasonable condition similar to saying, you can try all you want but you're now allowed to demonstrate your proof and therefore you can never succeed. In which case we can throw the whole problem out because it's a rigged game from the start.

It also follows that the only other option is to claim that there is no way to know what "it's like" to be something other than to become that other something, in which case the whole question of "what it's like" it's a pointless endeavor to begin with because it leaves us with no possible solution, and again we can throw the whole problem out.

So it seems that if this is a fair and meaningful problem to pose in the first place, then we actually do have a meaningful answer, as science and the video show.

Lastly, if the answer to the question is option 2. ( above ), then by what rationale can we conclude that perceptual experience is not a substantial part of "what it's like" to be something?

First, drop the accusations: dodging, moving goal posts and having it both ways - we've been through many twists and turns and side-lines and we have both tried to explain things in many different ways, I suspect we've managed to clarify our own understanding and elaborate our positions along the way, but I have always been sincere and intellectually honest and I assume you always have been as well. What I am trying to do here is grasp and convey the hard problem as best I can understand it - not to win an argument by changing my position.

Here is a post in the thread early in our discussion of the hard problem:

"Let me try this another way - it may be that I am creating a difficulty that isn't there - but I don't think so - it looks like your argument above describes a mechanism that assumesconsciousness and subjectivity without making an account of them . . . so this still isn't the hardproblem of consciousness . . . which is to make an account of subjectivity, which isn't consciousness itself - I think we can admit of consciousness without self-awareness or a full sense of subjectivity, we probably see it on a spectrum among animal minds - so subjectivity is one aspect of (some) consciousness or is present to some degree in all consciousness . . . (panpsychism is maybe the limit point of this position, that everything has consciousness and consciousness underlies everything) -

The "zombie problem" in philosophy proposes that it is conceivable to have a body that is indistinguishable from a person (on the outside, one that would pass the Turing test) - but there is "nobody home" (an interesting expression, by the way) - nothing is going on inside (wherever that is) - no consciousness - so we don't need consciousness to do what we do, indeed Daniel Dennett claims consciousness is constructed after the fact (so consciousness brings up free will, as well as issues of causation) - we see this scenario all the time in sci-fi robotics, where the protagonist cannot be sure the robot is actually conscious (legal issues of "personhood", anyone?) and this also gets into epiphenomenalism and all it's problems, so why bother with consciousness at all? Indeed, the eliminative materialists don't feel that they need to - . . . so it's that thing that we have that says somebody is home that we're trying to make an account of, not merely describe or provide a mechanism for. I can see a technology of consciousness from the virtual photon theory, a telepathy or other kinds of manipulation of fields of awareness . . . but that still leaves the problem of subjectivity, what it is like to be you, intact, right? Or am I muddled here?"

Second, the hard problem is out there and described in the links I sent you by Nagel and Chalmers. The links I sent you have not changed.

For me: "(without resort to subjective awareness)" is not an addition, it is a clarification of what is implicit in the hard problem (below, it is in the phrase purely physical description)

However, I believe this possibility is ruled out by the conditions that have defined the physical sciences from the beginning. The physical sciences can describe organisms like ourselves as parts of the objective spatio-temporal order – our structure and behavior in space and time – but they cannot describe the subjective experiences of such organisms or how the world appears to their different particular points of view. There can be a purely physical description of the neurophysiological processes that give rise to an experience, and also of the physical behavior that is typically associated with it, but such a description, however complete, will leave out the subjective essence of the experience – how it is from the point of view of its subject — without which it would not be a conscious experience at all.

My very best, most succinct and honest attempt to state the hard problem is:

The physical description of chemical reaction is a complete description.

But a physical description of a conscious system is not complete as it fails to account for the subjective awareness of the resulting system.

 

[Jeff Davis]

Bio-chemical reactions also have not been shown to produce information. Sentience and information are unique to consciousness, but no less unique to individual cognition. There is no achieving one without the other.

 

[Constance]

This won't be everyone's cup of tea and I'm not proposing it for discussion (unless anyone wants to discuss it). It's a commentary on a brief example of the poet Wallace Stevens's lifelong meditation on consciousness and perception and what we can learn about the nature of 'reality' (and ourselves) by pursuing the reflective thought {I think Jeff would call it 'sentience'} that arises from our perceptions understood as experiences of the world. Michigan Quarterly Review|Come A Little Bit Closer Now Baby: Wallace Stevens’ “Bouquet of Roses in Sunlight”

 

[Constance]

footnote: I have to register a disagreement with one statement the commentator makes in interpreting this poem: "Feelings are not real, the sense of a thing is not real." Indeed both are, as indeed the bouquet of roses is, but this is just one poem written along the way in Stevens's working out the nature of 'reality'.

 

[Randall]

First, drop the accusations: dodging, moving goal posts and having it both ways - we've been through many twists and turns and side-lines and we have both tried to explain things in many different ways, I suspect we've managed to clarify our own understanding and elaborate our positions along the way, but I have always been sincere and intellectually honest and I assume you always have been as well. What I am trying to do here is grasp and convey the hard problem as best I can understand it - not to win an argument by changing my position.

I recognize that. My intent isn't to corner you personally, but to corner the problem itself, and you just happen to be the person who wrote the words. So if the words you wrote don't address what was said, then your response comes across as a dodge, and if you add a new condition ( or seemingly new condition ) then your response comes across as moving the goalposts. Moving us past those problems requires some rationale as to why it's OK not to address the point made or why it's OK to add some new ( or seemingly new ) condition to the problem, not to ask me to "drop the accusations". Perhaps from your perspective I should just "get it" because it's so obvious ( or something ). But if that's the case, then it should be easy for you to address those issues in manner that is coherent and understandable for the average person ( like me ). The rest of your content we've been through, so back to the issue at hand:

The physical description of chemical reaction is a complete description. But a physical description of a conscious system is not complete as it fails to account for the subjective awareness of the resulting system.

And the point made by posting the video is that by using "a physical description of a conscious system" based on science, we can relay "the subjective awareness of the resulting system", and that:

1. If that is not allowed, then it's the same as stating the problem so as to make it impossible to solve, in which case the problem is pointless other than as an exercise to lead a person to that conclusion. OR
2. If that doesn't count because it's not relaying awareness sufficiently enough, then it's once again asking for something impossible, in which case the point becomes no more than one of resignation to the validity of ones own subjective experience ( and nothing more ). OR
3. It is allowed and it does count and therefore we have a proof of concept for how a physical description of a conscious system accounts for the subjective awareness of the resulting system.

If we cannot progress from here then once again I dispute that the so-called hard problem is a valid problem in the first place, and it therefore is of no use other than as an exercise to reach that conclusion.

 

[Jeff Davis]

This won't be everyone's cup of tea and I'm not proposing it for discussion (unless anyone wants to discuss it). It's a commentary on a brief example of the poet Wallace Stevens's lifelong meditation on consciousness and perception and what we can learn about the nature of 'reality' (and ourselves) by pursuing the reflective thought {I think Jeff would call it 'sentience'} that arises from our perceptions understood as experiences of the world. Michigan Quarterly Review|Come A Little Bit Closer Now Baby: Wallace Stevens’ “Bouquet of Roses in Sunlight”

That was amazing Constance.
Yes, that in and of the magic that we are, according to the simplest and most innocently agile immaginings, towering above all is the experince of being. Simply being, as every beauty we first behold.

 

[Randall]

footnote: I have to register a disagreement with one statement the commentator makes in interpreting this poem: "Feelings are not real, the sense of a thing is not real." Indeed both are, as indeed the bouquet of roses is, but this is just one poem written along the way in Stevens's working out the nature of 'reality'.

Oh goody ... more poetry. it seems to me that the key line in this one is:

"So sense exceeds all metaphor"

The above is an absolutist claim and I have noticed that absolutist claims often tend to fall apart fairly fast. In the context of the poem it seems that the only metaphors that are considered are those that are used to describe perceptual experience ( in this case vision ). In this context it is entirely logical that sense ( perceptual experience ) would "exceed" ( place first in the hierarchy of cause and effect ), because without having first experienced the perception, we cannot generate a metaphor that relays what it's like, and what's more, what something is "like" isn't what it is, and therefore the closest we can get to knowing what something is, apart from the impossible task of becoming that something, is to perceive it as directly as possible via our senses.

So on the above level, everything holds together just fine ( sense exceeds metaphor ). But isn't there more to flowers than what perceptual experience alone provides? Certainly flowers are decorative and can make a room smell better, but are not flowers themselves often metaphors? In this context, a purely perceptual ( sensory experience of color, smell, shape etc. ) cannot exceed the metaphor of love or purity or passion that the flowers are. In this context flowers aren't flowers, they're a metaphor that exceeds sense.

 

[smcder]

I recognize that. My intent isn't to corner you personally, but to corner the problem itself, and you just happen to be the person who wrote the words. So if the words you wrote don't address what was said, then your response comes across as a dodge, and if you add a new condition ( or seemingly new condition ) then your response comes across as moving the goalposts. Moving us past those problems requires some rationale as to why it's OK not to address the point made or why it's OK to add some new ( or seemingly new ) condition to the problem, not to ask me to "drop the accusations". Perhaps from your perspective I should just "get it" because it's so obvious ( or something ). But if that's the case, then it should be easy for you to address those issues in manner that is coherent and understandable for the average person ( like me ). The rest of your content we've been through, so back to the issue at hand:

And the point made by posting the video is that by using "a physical description of a conscious system" based on science, we can relay "the subjective awareness of the resulting system", and that:

1. If that is not allowed, then it's the same as stating the problem so as to make it impossible to solve, in which case the problem is pointless other than as an exercise to lead a person to that conclusion. OR
2. If that doesn't count because it's not relaying awareness sufficiently enough, then it's once again asking for something impossible, in which case the point becomes no more than one of resignation to the validity of ones own subjective experience ( and nothing more ). OR
3. It is allowed and it does count and therefore we have a proof of concept for how a physical description of a conscious system accounts for the subjective awareness of the resulting system.

If we cannot progress from here then once again I dispute that the so-called hard problem is a valid problem in the first place, and it therefore is of no use other than as an exercise to reach that conclusion.

So if the words you wrote don't address what was said, then your response comes across as a dodge, (to you) and if you add a new condition ( or seemingly new condition ) then your response comes across as moving the goalposts. Moving us past those problems requires some rationale as to why it's OK not to address the point made or why it's OK to add some new ( or seemingly new ) condition to the problem, not to ask me to "drop the accusations".

To not register as accusatory, you need to make room for your role in interpreting the statements, you could say "your response comes across as a dodge to me", "it seems to me you added a new condition", "it seems to me like you have changed or added to your position - can you explain or perhaps I don't understand something here" . . . but the statements you make do sound, to me, accusatory.

Perhaps from your perspective I should just "get it" because it's so obvious ( or something ). But if that's the case, then it should be easy for you to address those issues in manner that is coherent and understandable for the average person ( like me ). The rest of your content we've been through, so back to the issue at hand:

I don't think it's obvious or that you or any particular person should just get it - I've said repeatedly some people seem to "get it" and some don't, the rabbit or the duck. I don't think that has anything to do with intelligence. I've never seen anyone discuss the difficulties in conveying the hard problem, in "getting it" but I bet they are out there - I may see what I can find.

But if that's the case, then it should be easy for you to address those issues in manner that is coherent and understandable for the average person ( like me ).

I don't think you're the average person. I don't think it's obvious or that anyone should just be able to get it. I've tried to make analogies and explain it the best way that I can - I don't even know that every problem can be conveyed in a way that is understandable for every person - but that doesn't invalidate the problem or the fact that some do see it as a problem.

Even if you cannot see it - you could try to appreciate the possibility that others see it as a valid problem and perhaps that might raise some questions for you - instead of dismissing it outright - although you might ultimately come to that conclusion. In such a situation you could also ask yourself if there is something you just don't understand. Or something all the others just don't understand. And that may well be the case and this is why I said e-mail Chalmers or Nagel, see what they think -

I have repeatedly asked myself these questions throughout this discussion: "maybe I don't get the hard problem or it is invalid" - but I do still seem to have a sense of what it means and to be able to follow the discussions around it in the papers I've referenced and other discussions and that's all I have to confirm that there may be something in it. So you are free to dispute the problem but your arguments so far don't change the meaningfulness of the problem to me. The effect they tend to have is to make me think that you don't "get it". But again, I'm not dead certain of that.

At this point, I don't know - read or re-read Chalmers and Nagel, read Dennett's take on it - we don't have to re-invent the wheel or, if we have this down to some kind of misunderstanding between us - then we may need to both expand our position. We might both go "oh, now I get it!" But, I have read those papers and others and as I said, it still sticks with me.

I just don't seem to be able to convey it - so I encourage you to research other ways of looking at it.

Back to your issue at hand, it seems to me to be beside the point of the hard problem - it's not an answer to the hard problem because it doesn't address it. It's not a physical description of a conscious system that makes an account of what it's like to be that system - rather, it is a video that shows, to a person (who is conscious) what it might be like if their sense were different and by analogy, to argue that that is what it is like to see the world "through the eyes" of another kind of being - but even then, I personally don't come away knowing what it's like to be a dog. I can say, oh, that must be kind of what the world looks like to a dog. Two different things in my head.

I'm a broken record here . . .

 

[smcder]

Here's the kind of thing I was looking for, a whole smorgasboard or plethora or panopoly of options to choose from!

THE BRAIN FROM TOP TO BOTTOM

a couple of samples (for illustrative purposes only . . . )

"Contrary to what McGinn and Pinker believe (see sidebar), Gerald Edelman sees no intrinsic problem in the scientific study of consciousness. He summarizes his position in the following two sentences: “If the phenomenal part of conscious experience that constitutes its entailed distinctions is irreducible, so is the fact that physics has not explained why there is something rather than nothing. Physics is not hindered by this ontological limit nor should the scientific understanding of consciousness be hindered by the privacy of phenomenal experience.”

"Some authors, such as philosopher Colin McGinn and linguistSteven Pinker, think that the difficulties we experience in dealing with the hard problem of consciousness are simply due to the limitations of the human brain. This brain is theproduct of evolution, and, like the brains of other animals, it has its cognitive limits. For example, a human brain cannot hold 100 digits in its short-term memory, cannot visualize a 7-dimensional space, and perhaps also may be unable to understand how neuronal activity that can be observed from the outside can give rise to our subjective inner experience. But of course, the authors who hold this position cannot completely discard the possibility that new ideas might emerge from the head of a future Darwin or Einstein to shed a completely new light on this question."

. . . and so forth . . .

 

[Randall]

I'm a broken record here . . .

Are we, or are we not going to tackle the following directly:

Which of the choices below reflect your present opinion?

1. Perceptual experience is a substantial part of "what it's like" to be something ( e.g. a bat or other life form ).
2. Perceptual experience is not a substantial part of "what it is like" to be something ( e.g. a bat or other life form ).

Then depending on your choice above:

It follows that if perceptual experience is a subjective experience ( which it is ), and it is a substantial part of "what it's like" to be something, then the issue of "objectively accounting for what it's like to be something" can be done by the objective analysis of perceptual mechanisms and properties, and the validity of that analysis is demonstrated by the ability to relay that experience back to us ( as in the video I posted ).

It also follows that rejecting the evidence ( the video ) by arbitrarily saying we can't "resort to subjective awareness" is an unreasonable condition similar to saying, you can try all you want but you're now allowed to demonstrate your proof and therefore you can never succeed. In which case we can throw the whole problem out because it's a rigged game from the start.

It also follows that the only other option is to claim that there is no way to know what "it's like" to be something other than to become that other something, in which case the whole question of "what it's like" it's a pointless endeavor to begin with because it leaves us with no possible solution, and again we can throw the whole problem out.

So it seems that if this is a fair and meaningful problem to pose in the first place, then we actually do have a meaningful answer, as science and the video show.

Lastly, if the answer to the question is option 2. ( above ), then by what rationale can we conclude that perceptual experience is not a substantial part of "what it's like" to be something?

------------------------------------

If you are at all interested in continuing, then let's take it piece by piece if necessary.

 

[Randall]

Here's the kind of thing I was looking for, a whole smorgasboard or plethora or panopoly of options to choose from! THE BRAIN FROM TOP TO BOTTOM

Good link. What I'm doing by asking these questions and describing the resulting consequences is weaving our way through the problem much like the flow chart in the article. I believe that if we can get past the point in my last post, we'll both be standing on the same ledge with respect to the problem. I also think that accomplishment would be an improvement from where we were before. So the aim is onward and upward regardless of whatever our personal interpretations of the content might be. Trust in that.

 

[smcder]

Are we, or are we not going to tackle the following directly:

Which of the choices below reflect your present opinion?

1. Perceptual experience is a substantial part of "what it's like" to be something ( e.g. a bat or other life form ).
2. Perceptual experience is not a substantial part of "what it is like" to be something ( e.g. a bat or other life form ).

Then depending on your choice above:

It follows that if perceptual experience is a subjective experience ( which it is ), and it is a substantial part of "what it's like" to be something, then the issue of "objectively accounting for what it's like to be something" can be done by the objective analysis of perceptual mechanisms and properties, and the validity of that analysis is demonstrated by the ability to relay that experience back to us ( as in the video I posted ).

It also follows that rejecting the evidence ( the video ) by arbitrarily saying we can't "resort to subjective awareness" is an unreasonable condition similar to saying, you can try all you want but you're now allowed to demonstrate your proof and therefore you can never succeed. In which case we can throw the whole problem out because it's a rigged game from the start.

It also follows that the only other option is to claim that there is no way to know what "it's like" to be something other than to become that other something, in which case the whole question of "what it's like" it's a pointless endeavor to begin with because it leaves us with no possible solution, and again we can throw the whole problem out.

So it seems that if this is a fair and meaningful problem to pose in the first place, then we actually do have a meaningful answer, as science and the video show.

Lastly, if the answer to the question is option 2. ( above ), then by what rationale can we conclude that perceptual experience is not a substantial part of "what it's like" to be something?

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If you are at all interested in continuing, then let's take it piece by piece if necessary.

Maybe I'm making an assumption here . . .

to make sure - are you wanting me to respond to this as an answer to the "hard problem" of consciousness as posed by Nagel and Chalmers? Because that is how I have been reading it. Specifically you offer this video in answer to:

Nagel:

"There can be a purely physical description of the neurophysiological processes that give rise to an experience, and also of the physical behavior that is typically associated with it, but such a description, however complete, will leave out the subjective essence of the experience – how it is from the point of view of its subject — without which it would not be a conscious experience at all."

Chalmers:

"It is undeniable that some organisms are subjects of experience. But the question of how it is that these systems are subjects of experience is perplexing. Why is it that when our cognitive systems engage in visual and auditory information-processing, we have visual or auditory experience: the quality of deep blue, the sensation of middle C? How can we explain why there is something it is like to entertain a mental image, or to experience an emotion? It is widely agreed that experience arises from a physical basis, but we have no good explanation of why and how it so arises. Why should physical processing give rise to a rich inner life at all? It seems objectively unreasonable that it should, and yet it does.

If any problem qualifies as the problem of consciousness, it is this one. In this central sense of "consciousness", an organism is conscious if there is something it is like to be that organism, and a mental state is conscious if there is something it is like to be in that state. Sometimes terms such as "phenomenal consciousness" and "qualia" are also used here, but I find it more natural to speak of "conscious experience" or simply "experience". Another useful way to avoid confusion (used by e.g. Newell 1990, Chalmers 1996) is to reserve the term "consciousness" for the phenomena of experience, using the less loaded term "awareness" for the more straightforward phenomena described earlier. If such a convention were widely adopted, communication would be much easier; as things stand, those who talk about "consciousness" are frequently talking past each other."