Oh, that's easy, don't be a dualist. The "Hard Problem" is that dualists believe that mind and matter are two separate things that never interact. The "problem" then is finding out how two things that never interact can interact. If you believe they can't, then you're stuck. If you believe they can, then you can.
For what it's worth, dualists are rather rare both today and historically. It's only really found among people who have low IQs or are schizophrenic.
There's various forms of Monism. The three principle ones are >Materialism
Neurological phenomena generates mental phenomena. "Consciousness" is the descriptor of neurological phenomena over time that can take its own activity as an input. Thus, there is no such thing as "consciousness", a noun, but there are things that are "conscious", an adjective. This is what Daniel Dennett believes.
>Idealism
This is the idea that everything is mental phenomena. This is really common in both Hindu and Buddhist thought, and Plato is (sometimes) called an Idealist (although Plato is a LOT more complicated than simple labels make him seem).
>Neutral Monism
This is the idea that mind and matter are created by some third thing. Spinoza was one. All Neutral Monists are unique, however.
A fourth view is Pluralism, but outside of Asatru no one really proposes this, it's all just some kind of monism with the odd dualist.
We know that some people perceive the world differently from others, e.g. when it comes to inner monologues, aphantasia, etc. which implies that there are people out there who have 'incomplete' qualitative experiences. If we could tie these phenomena to biological anomalies, it would be a pretty good argument for qualia being material in nature. In that regard the answer to 'why' would be that a given biological system generates qualia once it reaches a certain level of complexity and this is simply a way for nature to allow agents to build models of reality, implement a reward system, etc.
I think there's something to the landian notion of hyperstition. Phenomenological experience clashes with the conception of strictly material and causal reality, exposing us to the fact that we're trapped in a certain paradigm of a cave while the nounema of true life hides like a bitch.
Even if a scientist were to meticulously map and analyze the neural pathways from your retina to your brain when exposed to green light, it would not explain how you are conscious and experiencing the color green. These are 2 separate things, like an object's temperature and chemical composition. The hard problem of consciousness is not a problem, it just is.
>if something is beyond the scope of a bugman method, it's not real
Or maybe we can admit that bugman method is incomplete and doesn't provide the full picture of reality?
>What's me the soft problem of consciousness?
The soft problems are those which are answerable through the scientific method - e.g. what are the neural correlates of experience and how does the brain process information. They may be hard to answer, but it's easy to conceptualize how we could eventually answer them. The hard problem is hard because the question itself is hard to articulate, and relies upon a vague assumption that there's something "weird" about consciousness due to the epistemological gap between matter and subjective experience. The fact that the question itself seems impossible for anyone to articulate in a satisfying way makes me think that it's not a valid question at all, and that we're just looking at things a little bit wrong.
> "Consciousness" is the descriptor of neurological phenomena over time that can take its own activity as an input.
Consciousness Explained was a bit disappointing because Dennett continually says "don't worry guys, I'll address the hard problem once I've described the easy problems", but then he never does. Even in the quote above (which I think fairly characterizes Dennett's view), it does nothing to answer the question of how experience occurs or what it is.
The fact that we have absolutely no way of attesting to anyone else's subjective experience is the weirdest thing to me. I assume that a human being with similar brain structure to mine has subjective experience, but I have absolutely no way of verifying that. This is where I think the p-zombie argument becomes nonsensical, though. If you're like Dennett and you believe that an abstracted representation of sensory experience is what "internal experience" *is*, then a human being without that internal experience is a nonsensical proposition. They would, by definition, lack the ability for internal representation which serves a vital functional purpose in our navigation of the world.
Consciousness and memory are strongly related. I would argue that in organisms with zero need for memory, they are not conscious at all. Since newborn babies have no need for memory, they also are not conscious. Consciousness is a way of simplifying complex inputs and representing them as something that can easily be compared with future conscious experiences. So when I see someone’s face, I don’t have to remember some sort of matrix code overload of information describing the wavelengths of light that emanate from that person’s face, I can just recognize the face by the conscious image produced by the brain. This is clearly an advantage and is probably why consciousness evolved
>Consciousness is a way of simplifying complex inputs and representing them as something that can easily be compared with future conscious experiences.
I posted the earlier quoted post and this is my exact view as well. A lot of arguments I see advocating the unique "weirdness" of consciousness argue that conscious experience is a functionally useless add-on which does nothing to enhance an organism's fitness. This argument falls apart if you view consciousness as you do, wherein a p-zombie would necessarily be functionally different and operationally inferior to a conscious human being.
The fact that we (or at least I) find it impossible to conceptualize consciousness without memory makes me suspect that they're either identical or dependent on each other. Unfortunately I still get that niggling feeling that there's another question to be asked that will allow me to wrap my head around experience. Maybe it's as simple a brute-force answer as experience being what happens when a sensory organ is stimulated, but that's a very unsatisfying answer to me.
Now I’m wondering if this relationship between memory and consciousness will be useful in creating AI. We don’t actually know how to create consciousness, but maybe we could use the same method of translating data into something easier to remember. For example, as far as I’m aware, most chess engines don’t actually use an image of a board in their analysis, they simply store all the data as variables. But what if we programmed the AI to translate every position into an image and then use image recognition, so that as it trains, it learns the ability to read a position exactly like a human does? A human can often look at the position and tell who’s winning, simply by the king safety, space advantage, piece activity, material difference, etc.
I’m not an expert on AI and I don’t know how it works, but maybe the AI has already figured out this process internally, and some people might argue that it may already be conscious. But I disagree. Until we know exactly how consciousness is created in the brain, I think the AI consciousness will always be a simulated consciousness, with no actual qualia happening. But it may be useful nonetheless
Not him but how can you write about qualia? Isn't that the whole definition of it, that you can't write it down? Or are you completely unfamiliar with what is being discussed?
How can anyone express anything that is defined as being unable to be expressed? It's a useless concept. Where is the line between pure inaccessible qualia and expressed subjectivity?
Choke yourself out, all you will see is red and black and then eventually pure black. Clearly that is bad, and boring, so you are stuck here. Might as well do something, since you are here.
>Serious answers only please, not "it's turtles all the way down"
that is a serious answer you bugman, it explains the universe better than materialism
You're heard fo Hard Problem, now prepare for Harderer Problem: not only we cannot explain qualia, we cannot even pinpoint its place or time of origin in humans. Qualia either is or isn't, you can't be "kinda conscious", but we know that we all started as a small clump of cells, which definitely did not possess it, then born as infants, who most likely did not have it either. I mean, nobody remembers the first few years of their life, and insofar as observation, human children resemble animals more than humans, babies even react to the basket problem the same way as dogs. So, we all start as p-zombies, tabula rasa which then gets qualia installed onto it like software by...something...at some indeterminate point, which shouldn't be indeterminate in the first place, shouldn't self-aware mind remember the moment of its own becoming into being? Also, installed from where? How can qualia that isn't not know that it isn't and then be aware that it is, while not knowing the period of time when it wasn't? The fact that people do not remember their own becoming is deeply disturbing.
Consciousness and memory are strongly related. I would argue that in organisms with zero need for memory, they are not conscious at all. Since newborn babies have no need for memory, they also are not conscious. Consciousness is a way of simplifying complex inputs and representing them as something that can easily be compared with future conscious experiences. So when I see someone’s face, I don’t have to remember some sort of matrix code overload of information describing the wavelengths of light that emanate from that person’s face, I can just recognize the face by the conscious image produced by the brain. This is clearly an advantage and is probably why consciousness evolved
Where is your sense of self, your consciousness? What are you? Let's use the process of elimination. I think everyone agrees you are not your body, as if you lose an arm or a leg your continuous experience of self is still the same. If you replace your brain cells one by one with identical ones it's usually assumed that you remain yourself through the process, some people even admit a stronger version of this claim where you can substitute parts of your brain with computer chips one by one. So you're also not the physical structure of your brain. Are you your memories, personality and experiences? You were still yourself as you were born, before forming any memory, and it's assumed you're still still yourself as you forget things and learn new things. Even through amnesia, you might behave differently but it's usually assumed you're still you as far as your qualia goes. Are you the sum of everything? I don't see how since we already discussed how you can change any of the parts and you remain the same. So what are you? Whatever is left after we take away all these things.
>So what are you? Whatever is left after we take away all these things.
To me the answer has long been that "you" is a very useful fiction, but a fiction nonetheless. Any organism that hopes to survive and replicate has to navigate in a way that treats its physical being as more important than (and therefore fundamentally separate from) the world. For humans, with their capacity for internal representation and abstracted memory formation (often in the form of "stories"), this necessitates the creation of a concept of "I" which is deceptively consistent in our internal narrative despite its lack of consistency in reality. With human society being as complex as it is, not only are we protecting our physical beings, but our social ones as well. Hence, I assume, why eastern aesthetics would sequester themselves from society to try to realize these truths on a deep level.
Your ship of Theseus examples point us to the fact that we're kidding ourselves if we think this "I" has fundamental reality outside of peoples' minds. That's not to say "I" isn't useful, or that we should throw it away as a concept - just that it's merely a concept. There is no fundamental separation between you and the outside world, only the lines you yourself draw. We can look at a table and readily understand that it is equally valid to call it a table or call it four legs and a flat board. But for some reason when it comes to ourselves, we get all tied up and offended at this same idea. Probably because we're questioning the deeply-ingrained (and again, very *useful*) fiction that I am fundamentally separate from you, and that I am fundamentally continuous with my past selves.
I forgot to answer the actual question. All that said, the two equally valid answers would be that you do not exist, and that you are the universe experiencing itself (and I mean that in the least woo-woo way possible).
>Your ship of Theseus examples point us to the fact that we're kidding ourselves if we think this "I" has fundamental reality outside of peoples' minds. That's not to say "I" isn't useful, or that we should throw it away as a concept - just that it's merely a concept.
This sort of dishonest answer wasn't satisfactory in the times of Descartes and it still sucks ass. Even if my Ego it just a bacterium on the anus of cosmic god or universe experiencing itself doesn't matter. *I* very clearly feel myself to *BE*. *I* could be made of immaterial illusions, rainbow farts and dream of a toad, *I AM* still made. *I* could be just an evolutionary gimmick designed to facilitate a better organization of memory and decision-making by a dumb animal body, but *I* clearly am not that tool. The qualia of my personality cannot be disentangled or explained through non-qualia means. You haven't even began answering the problem.
>*I* very clearly feel myself to *BE*
And we can clearly see why this is useful to you and speculate on how it evolved. What is this sense of 'being'? A narrative inside your head saying "me, my, mine" combined with a sense of physical boundaries delineated by the limits of your sensory organs? Or is there something more to it?
>Are you the sum of everything? I don't see how since we already discussed how you can change any of the parts and you remain the same.
You have failed to establish this fact. Rather, you argued against it throughout your post. All you've done is describe several ways in which people cling to the idea of a coherent "I" throughout several thought experiments which serve to demolish it. What, exactly, supposedly remains the same when you replace every part of my brain and body down to the last atom?
>You have failed to establish this fact. Rather, you argued against it throughout your post.
You're talking to a different anon by the way. I made the ship of Theseus post but I'm satisfied with the conclusion. That is, I know what I'm not, I don't care about what I am. Maybe I'm a soul, maybe I'm nothing.
You missed my point completely
You ask >What is this sense of 'being'?
While I'm asking WHO experiences the sense of being. The exact nature of being is irrelevant, its function is irrelevant. You say that I am >A narrative inside your head saying "me, my, mine" combined with a sense of physical boundaries delineated by the limits of your sensory organs?
But WHO reads the narrative, to whom the words are spoken, which being is there to feel bound by physicality and senses?
This is the entire crux of the hard problem while you insist on answering it's soft variety.
>While I'm asking WHO experiences the sense of being. >But WHO reads the narrative, to whom the words are spoken, which being is there to feel bound by physicality and senses?
This is where I think language breaks down in describing reality as it is. You're insisting that there must be a WHO because the English language dictates that a verb must have a subject. Experience occurs, and the idea that it occurs to a YOU is a convenient narrative device for our understanding of the world. Vibrations in the air strike ear drums. There is a sound. There is a labelling of the sound as 'dog barking' or 'wind blowing'. There is no "I" until a thought appears stating "I heard a sound."
This I-centric narrative that comes after the experience is put into memory because it's far more comprehensible a way of encapsulating the experience for a being which needs to navigate the world under the illusion of separateness from it. I realize that you don't care if the subjective you is based in the body or god's anus or whatever - I point this out because I believe that seeing the reason for our believing in a YOU will help us pick it apart.
I cannot find a WHO/YOU/I/etc. outside of thought or experience. I am genuinely curious to know if you can.
>The qualia of my personality cannot be disentangled or explained through non-qualia means.
What do you mean by disentangled or explained? We can at least share them (see below). Would that be different from 'explaining' them?
What a copout >if the language poses a problem that seems hard to overcome, the language must be wrong
This is stupid even under materialist/scientific worldview. Science breaks down all the time, on subatomic levels, beyond event horizon, at speeds approaching light. Scientists do not simply give up lookking for solution, they improve methods and gather more data.
The sentence >Experience occurs, and the idea that it occurs to a YOU is a convenient narrative device for our understanding of the world
Is an example of circular logic, you tell me that I'm wrong to feel like myself because my self is actually not a self but something that tells something to be feel like a self. Fictitiousness of you is explained through the lens of you. Like using a computer simulation to prove that we do not live in a simulation. Do better family.
4 weeks ago
Anonymous
>if the language poses a problem that seems hard to overcome, the language must be wrong
This isn't what I said. Questions along the lines of the hard problem of consciousness implicitly assume that experience requires an experiencer. I pointed out that this was a requirement of language, not of reality.
>you tell me that I'm wrong to feel like myself because my self is actually not a self but something that tells something to be feel like a self
I didn't say you were wrong to feel that. All I'm saying is that self is a feeling. There is no circular logic. Experience occurs. A thought appears saying "I experienced this". That's all that happens.
4 weeks ago
Anonymous
>Questions along the lines of the hard problem of consciousness implicitly assume that experience requires an experiencer
But I'm an experiencer, I experience. I see myself separate from reality, therefore I can't be a pure experience just floating in space. I exist.
4 weeks ago
Anonymous
>I see myself separate from reality
But I see you as part of reality.
4 weeks ago
Anonymous
This is a p-zombie dilemma again. Qualia is personal, you see yourself as Ego and me as only an expression of Ego. You can explain me as a clever trick of material nature, but you still can't explain yourself.
Every man has a living soul granted by God.
The soul that is washed by Christ goes to heaven for eternity.
The soul that remains filthy dies and goes to hell.
Answer what? Do you want to know a summary of what it is or do you expect some bozo on LULZ to come in here having solved it?
>do you expect some bozo on LULZ to come in here having solved it?
This is what I was hoping for, yes
Oh, that's easy, don't be a dualist. The "Hard Problem" is that dualists believe that mind and matter are two separate things that never interact. The "problem" then is finding out how two things that never interact can interact. If you believe they can't, then you're stuck. If you believe they can, then you can.
For what it's worth, dualists are rather rare both today and historically. It's only really found among people who have low IQs or are schizophrenic.
What are the alternatives?
There's various forms of Monism. The three principle ones are
>Materialism
Neurological phenomena generates mental phenomena. "Consciousness" is the descriptor of neurological phenomena over time that can take its own activity as an input. Thus, there is no such thing as "consciousness", a noun, but there are things that are "conscious", an adjective. This is what Daniel Dennett believes.
>Idealism
This is the idea that everything is mental phenomena. This is really common in both Hindu and Buddhist thought, and Plato is (sometimes) called an Idealist (although Plato is a LOT more complicated than simple labels make him seem).
>Neutral Monism
This is the idea that mind and matter are created by some third thing. Spinoza was one. All Neutral Monists are unique, however.
A fourth view is Pluralism, but outside of Asatru no one really proposes this, it's all just some kind of monism with the odd dualist.
Daniel Dennett is a p-zombie
You ultimate cannot prove materialism because you have to use idealistic methods to do it.
Consciousness comes from the brain.
We know that some people perceive the world differently from others, e.g. when it comes to inner monologues, aphantasia, etc. which implies that there are people out there who have 'incomplete' qualitative experiences. If we could tie these phenomena to biological anomalies, it would be a pretty good argument for qualia being material in nature. In that regard the answer to 'why' would be that a given biological system generates qualia once it reaches a certain level of complexity and this is simply a way for nature to allow agents to build models of reality, implement a reward system, etc.
Every person has their own Human soul, there's the solution to the hard problem of consciousness.
You don't even know what it is
My solution: hard solipsism
I think there's something to the landian notion of hyperstition. Phenomenological experience clashes with the conception of strictly material and causal reality, exposing us to the fact that we're trapped in a certain paradigm of a cave while the nounema of true life hides like a bitch.
Even if a scientist were to meticulously map and analyze the neural pathways from your retina to your brain when exposed to green light, it would not explain how you are conscious and experiencing the color green. These are 2 separate things, like an object's temperature and chemical composition. The hard problem of consciousness is not a problem, it just is.
>if something is beyond the scope of a bugman method, it's not real
Or maybe we can admit that bugman method is incomplete and doesn't provide the full picture of reality?
What's me the soft problem of consciousness?
>What's me the soft problem of consciousness?
The soft problems are those which are answerable through the scientific method - e.g. what are the neural correlates of experience and how does the brain process information. They may be hard to answer, but it's easy to conceptualize how we could eventually answer them. The hard problem is hard because the question itself is hard to articulate, and relies upon a vague assumption that there's something "weird" about consciousness due to the epistemological gap between matter and subjective experience. The fact that the question itself seems impossible for anyone to articulate in a satisfying way makes me think that it's not a valid question at all, and that we're just looking at things a little bit wrong.
> "Consciousness" is the descriptor of neurological phenomena over time that can take its own activity as an input.
Consciousness Explained was a bit disappointing because Dennett continually says "don't worry guys, I'll address the hard problem once I've described the easy problems", but then he never does. Even in the quote above (which I think fairly characterizes Dennett's view), it does nothing to answer the question of how experience occurs or what it is.
The fact that we have absolutely no way of attesting to anyone else's subjective experience is the weirdest thing to me. I assume that a human being with similar brain structure to mine has subjective experience, but I have absolutely no way of verifying that. This is where I think the p-zombie argument becomes nonsensical, though. If you're like Dennett and you believe that an abstracted representation of sensory experience is what "internal experience" *is*, then a human being without that internal experience is a nonsensical proposition. They would, by definition, lack the ability for internal representation which serves a vital functional purpose in our navigation of the world.
Rare consciousness realizer
>Consciousness is a way of simplifying complex inputs and representing them as something that can easily be compared with future conscious experiences.
I posted the earlier quoted post and this is my exact view as well. A lot of arguments I see advocating the unique "weirdness" of consciousness argue that conscious experience is a functionally useless add-on which does nothing to enhance an organism's fitness. This argument falls apart if you view consciousness as you do, wherein a p-zombie would necessarily be functionally different and operationally inferior to a conscious human being.
The fact that we (or at least I) find it impossible to conceptualize consciousness without memory makes me suspect that they're either identical or dependent on each other. Unfortunately I still get that niggling feeling that there's another question to be asked that will allow me to wrap my head around experience. Maybe it's as simple a brute-force answer as experience being what happens when a sensory organ is stimulated, but that's a very unsatisfying answer to me.
Now I’m wondering if this relationship between memory and consciousness will be useful in creating AI. We don’t actually know how to create consciousness, but maybe we could use the same method of translating data into something easier to remember. For example, as far as I’m aware, most chess engines don’t actually use an image of a board in their analysis, they simply store all the data as variables. But what if we programmed the AI to translate every position into an image and then use image recognition, so that as it trains, it learns the ability to read a position exactly like a human does? A human can often look at the position and tell who’s winning, simply by the king safety, space advantage, piece activity, material difference, etc.
I’m not an expert on AI and I don’t know how it works, but maybe the AI has already figured out this process internally, and some people might argue that it may already be conscious. But I disagree. Until we know exactly how consciousness is created in the brain, I think the AI consciousness will always be a simulated consciousness, with no actual qualia happening. But it may be useful nonetheless
>The fact that we have absolutely no way of attesting to anyone else's subjective experience is the weirdest thing to me.
Double blind studies? Two people writing down their experience of similar or same events? or am I misunderstanding what you're talking about
Not him but how can you write about qualia? Isn't that the whole definition of it, that you can't write it down? Or are you completely unfamiliar with what is being discussed?
How can anyone express anything that is defined as being unable to be expressed? It's a useless concept. Where is the line between pure inaccessible qualia and expressed subjectivity?
Choke yourself out, all you will see is red and black and then eventually pure black. Clearly that is bad, and boring, so you are stuck here. Might as well do something, since you are here.
There is your answer. Deep throat some cock.
>you will see
that's the consciousness part
consciousness is God and the universe originates out of the infinite divine consciousness
>the universe originates out of the infinite divine consciousness
Serious answers only please, not "it's turtles all the way down"
>Serious answers only please, not "it's turtles all the way down"
that is a serious answer you bugman, it explains the universe better than materialism
>infinite divine consciousness
dude weed
You're heard fo Hard Problem, now prepare for Harderer Problem: not only we cannot explain qualia, we cannot even pinpoint its place or time of origin in humans. Qualia either is or isn't, you can't be "kinda conscious", but we know that we all started as a small clump of cells, which definitely did not possess it, then born as infants, who most likely did not have it either. I mean, nobody remembers the first few years of their life, and insofar as observation, human children resemble animals more than humans, babies even react to the basket problem the same way as dogs. So, we all start as p-zombies, tabula rasa which then gets qualia installed onto it like software by...something...at some indeterminate point, which shouldn't be indeterminate in the first place, shouldn't self-aware mind remember the moment of its own becoming into being? Also, installed from where? How can qualia that isn't not know that it isn't and then be aware that it is, while not knowing the period of time when it wasn't? The fact that people do not remember their own becoming is deeply disturbing.
Consciousness and memory are strongly related. I would argue that in organisms with zero need for memory, they are not conscious at all. Since newborn babies have no need for memory, they also are not conscious. Consciousness is a way of simplifying complex inputs and representing them as something that can easily be compared with future conscious experiences. So when I see someone’s face, I don’t have to remember some sort of matrix code overload of information describing the wavelengths of light that emanate from that person’s face, I can just recognize the face by the conscious image produced by the brain. This is clearly an advantage and is probably why consciousness evolved
Where is your sense of self, your consciousness? What are you? Let's use the process of elimination. I think everyone agrees you are not your body, as if you lose an arm or a leg your continuous experience of self is still the same. If you replace your brain cells one by one with identical ones it's usually assumed that you remain yourself through the process, some people even admit a stronger version of this claim where you can substitute parts of your brain with computer chips one by one. So you're also not the physical structure of your brain. Are you your memories, personality and experiences? You were still yourself as you were born, before forming any memory, and it's assumed you're still still yourself as you forget things and learn new things. Even through amnesia, you might behave differently but it's usually assumed you're still you as far as your qualia goes. Are you the sum of everything? I don't see how since we already discussed how you can change any of the parts and you remain the same. So what are you? Whatever is left after we take away all these things.
>So what are you? Whatever is left after we take away all these things.
To me the answer has long been that "you" is a very useful fiction, but a fiction nonetheless. Any organism that hopes to survive and replicate has to navigate in a way that treats its physical being as more important than (and therefore fundamentally separate from) the world. For humans, with their capacity for internal representation and abstracted memory formation (often in the form of "stories"), this necessitates the creation of a concept of "I" which is deceptively consistent in our internal narrative despite its lack of consistency in reality. With human society being as complex as it is, not only are we protecting our physical beings, but our social ones as well. Hence, I assume, why eastern aesthetics would sequester themselves from society to try to realize these truths on a deep level.
Your ship of Theseus examples point us to the fact that we're kidding ourselves if we think this "I" has fundamental reality outside of peoples' minds. That's not to say "I" isn't useful, or that we should throw it away as a concept - just that it's merely a concept. There is no fundamental separation between you and the outside world, only the lines you yourself draw. We can look at a table and readily understand that it is equally valid to call it a table or call it four legs and a flat board. But for some reason when it comes to ourselves, we get all tied up and offended at this same idea. Probably because we're questioning the deeply-ingrained (and again, very *useful*) fiction that I am fundamentally separate from you, and that I am fundamentally continuous with my past selves.
I forgot to answer the actual question. All that said, the two equally valid answers would be that you do not exist, and that you are the universe experiencing itself (and I mean that in the least woo-woo way possible).
>Your ship of Theseus examples point us to the fact that we're kidding ourselves if we think this "I" has fundamental reality outside of peoples' minds. That's not to say "I" isn't useful, or that we should throw it away as a concept - just that it's merely a concept.
This sort of dishonest answer wasn't satisfactory in the times of Descartes and it still sucks ass. Even if my Ego it just a bacterium on the anus of cosmic god or universe experiencing itself doesn't matter. *I* very clearly feel myself to *BE*. *I* could be made of immaterial illusions, rainbow farts and dream of a toad, *I AM* still made. *I* could be just an evolutionary gimmick designed to facilitate a better organization of memory and decision-making by a dumb animal body, but *I* clearly am not that tool. The qualia of my personality cannot be disentangled or explained through non-qualia means. You haven't even began answering the problem.
>*I* very clearly feel myself to *BE*
And we can clearly see why this is useful to you and speculate on how it evolved. What is this sense of 'being'? A narrative inside your head saying "me, my, mine" combined with a sense of physical boundaries delineated by the limits of your sensory organs? Or is there something more to it?
>Are you the sum of everything? I don't see how since we already discussed how you can change any of the parts and you remain the same.
You have failed to establish this fact. Rather, you argued against it throughout your post. All you've done is describe several ways in which people cling to the idea of a coherent "I" throughout several thought experiments which serve to demolish it. What, exactly, supposedly remains the same when you replace every part of my brain and body down to the last atom?
>You have failed to establish this fact. Rather, you argued against it throughout your post.
You're talking to a different anon by the way. I made the ship of Theseus post but I'm satisfied with the conclusion. That is, I know what I'm not, I don't care about what I am. Maybe I'm a soul, maybe I'm nothing.
You missed my point completely
You ask
>What is this sense of 'being'?
While I'm asking WHO experiences the sense of being. The exact nature of being is irrelevant, its function is irrelevant. You say that I am
>A narrative inside your head saying "me, my, mine" combined with a sense of physical boundaries delineated by the limits of your sensory organs?
But WHO reads the narrative, to whom the words are spoken, which being is there to feel bound by physicality and senses?
This is the entire crux of the hard problem while you insist on answering it's soft variety.
>While I'm asking WHO experiences the sense of being.
>But WHO reads the narrative, to whom the words are spoken, which being is there to feel bound by physicality and senses?
This is where I think language breaks down in describing reality as it is. You're insisting that there must be a WHO because the English language dictates that a verb must have a subject. Experience occurs, and the idea that it occurs to a YOU is a convenient narrative device for our understanding of the world. Vibrations in the air strike ear drums. There is a sound. There is a labelling of the sound as 'dog barking' or 'wind blowing'. There is no "I" until a thought appears stating "I heard a sound."
This I-centric narrative that comes after the experience is put into memory because it's far more comprehensible a way of encapsulating the experience for a being which needs to navigate the world under the illusion of separateness from it. I realize that you don't care if the subjective you is based in the body or god's anus or whatever - I point this out because I believe that seeing the reason for our believing in a YOU will help us pick it apart.
I cannot find a WHO/YOU/I/etc. outside of thought or experience. I am genuinely curious to know if you can.
>The qualia of my personality cannot be disentangled or explained through non-qualia means.
What do you mean by disentangled or explained? We can at least share them (see below). Would that be different from 'explaining' them?
https://www.cbc.ca/cbcdocspov/features/the-hogan-twins-share-a-brain-and-see-out-of-each-others-eyes
What a copout
>if the language poses a problem that seems hard to overcome, the language must be wrong
This is stupid even under materialist/scientific worldview. Science breaks down all the time, on subatomic levels, beyond event horizon, at speeds approaching light. Scientists do not simply give up lookking for solution, they improve methods and gather more data.
The sentence
>Experience occurs, and the idea that it occurs to a YOU is a convenient narrative device for our understanding of the world
Is an example of circular logic, you tell me that I'm wrong to feel like myself because my self is actually not a self but something that tells something to be feel like a self. Fictitiousness of you is explained through the lens of you. Like using a computer simulation to prove that we do not live in a simulation. Do better family.
>if the language poses a problem that seems hard to overcome, the language must be wrong
This isn't what I said. Questions along the lines of the hard problem of consciousness implicitly assume that experience requires an experiencer. I pointed out that this was a requirement of language, not of reality.
>you tell me that I'm wrong to feel like myself because my self is actually not a self but something that tells something to be feel like a self
I didn't say you were wrong to feel that. All I'm saying is that self is a feeling. There is no circular logic. Experience occurs. A thought appears saying "I experienced this". That's all that happens.
>Questions along the lines of the hard problem of consciousness implicitly assume that experience requires an experiencer
But I'm an experiencer, I experience. I see myself separate from reality, therefore I can't be a pure experience just floating in space. I exist.
>I see myself separate from reality
But I see you as part of reality.
This is a p-zombie dilemma again. Qualia is personal, you see yourself as Ego and me as only an expression of Ego. You can explain me as a clever trick of material nature, but you still can't explain yourself.
There is no answer.
it simply is.
Every man has a living soul granted by God.
The soul that is washed by Christ goes to heaven for eternity.
The soul that remains filthy dies and goes to hell.
Simple.
It’s literally just your understanding/awareness of yourself and the world of which you are a part.
Probably comes from the brain; more research is needed