omething that scientists can work with. That is, differentiating sentient creatures from non-sentient creatures (which we can point to) and providing testable hypotheses for explaining those differences. — Andrew M

Assuming two things:

1. We can differentiate sentient from non-sentient creatures.
2. Sentience captures everything qualia or phenomenal does.

If we can't reliably do #1, then we still have a harder problem (epistemic), and if sentience is leaving something out, then we're just redefining the problem away, which is ignoring the issue.

So you're not positing nonphysical properties of some nonphysical substance, but nonphysical properties of physical substance? (Remember that I'm asking you about this in terms of ontology) — Terrapin Station

I don't know what the answer is to the hard problem. But I would be very hesitant to support substance dualism. I mention property dualism as a more reasonable possibility.

t would have to be some sort of substance, object, etc., no? Even if you're positing nonphysical objects, substances--whatever that would be. — Terrapin Station

Yeah, there's something that has properties. It could be a field, particle swarm, ordinary object, process, brain state, whatever.

I mention property dualism because it doesn't say there is a nonphysical substance mental states belong to. Rather, brain states have non-physical properties.

We don't see things exactly as they are, or science wouldn't surprise us all the time. Clearly, our senses are limited. The big question is whether the way we perceive things is direct or has to be inferred. We might say we see a solid brown table as it is given our visual system. Then we can use tools like microscopes to see more of the table.

It gets tricky when we wish to describe the table independent of our perception of it. Is the table properly described as brown, solid and smooth? Or do we need more rigorous concepts backed up by data from our tools?

"properties have to be properties of something. Do you agree with that?" — Terrapin Station

I guess if "something" is defined sufficiently broadly to include more than objects.

Sometimes I get the impression that what folks mean by "nonphysical(s)" is something like, "We're just not going to bother doing ontology and we're instead going to talk about things in 'functional' terms per common language." — Terrapin Station

You have an idiosyncratic definition of physical where it becomes almost impossible to discuss non-physical options. I don't believe in winning arguments by definition.

But so you know, qualia, universals, mathematical platonism, and supernatural are considered examples of non-physical something. And property dualism would mean non-physical properties in addition to the physical properties of brain states or whatever.

Think of light as the TV screen. We don't see objects. We see light, which explains the optical illusions of mirages and bent sticks in water. We look at the TV to indirectly get at the football game in another city. We don't see the game, we see the TV, which transmits information via causation. — Harry Hindu

That doesn't sound right. We see the game via the TV. Otherwise, how would you be able to see what goes on? The tv is a means by which we can remotely watch a game. Even in person, we're still seeing the action via light. That's how vision works.

When looking at a distant star, the light takes thousands of years to reach your eye. The star could have exploded yet the light is still traveling across space and interacting with your eyes. When you see the "star" what is it that you are attending in your mind? — Harry Hindu

The star as it was thousands of years ago.

didn't ask about location. I asked about shape. Why do minds take the shape of brains when I look at them? The mind can still be located in the head, but why the shape of a brain in the head? — Harry Hindu

For whatever evolutionary and biological reasons brains are needed to take that shape. It sounds like you're saying a brain in a head is an image that might not reflect the actual geometry of heads. But geometry is something that's easy to figure out from light. That's why visual perception is so advantageous.

Why does the mind take a shape in another mind at all? — Harry Hindu

It has to do with color experience in spatial arrangement forming shapes.

s there no room for indirect realism? — Harry Hindu

Sure. But you've made indirect realism difficult by locating all the properties with the perceiver.

You seem to think the only viable options are dualism or naive realism. — Harry Hindu

There's quite a bit more options.

Do minds have shapes? — Harry Hindu

Minds do perceive shapes, but as far as we can tell, shape does not depend on the perceiver. That's what makes it an objective property.

Why do minds take the shapes of brains when I look at them? — Harry Hindu

Probably because that's the biological center for having minds.

I think we also have no warrant to assume dualism simply because we cannot answer a question which seems on analysis to be incoherent. The assumption of monism or physicalism may be equally flawed. Our models simply have their limits, and we have no way of deciding if or how they might accord with the human mind-independent real. — Janus

I'm sympathetic to that, but it gets you called a "New Mysterian" and a defeatist. I always liked McGinn's arguments for cognitive closure, regardless.

Youre not answering the question and I dont know if id agree that shape is a property of objects. It certainly is a property of our perception of objects. — Harry Hindu

If you can't tell what properties exist in perception and what exist in objects, then why be a realist?

But anyway, science is able to do it, that's how we have physics, chemistry, biology, etc.

So is imagination an example of nonphysical substance on your view? — Terrapin Station

This is all assuming physicalism is everything else that we have to fit consciousness into. Like Schop, I don't know anymore than anyone else does.

But we can make it broader than that. It's fitting the subjective into the objective, on the empirical grounds that the objective is what gives rise to minds that have experiences.

But yeah, if we're giving an account of reality that leaves out imagination, that's a problem.

I guess I'm asking about the ontological differences and similarities between a part and the whole? — Harry Hindu

We want to know to what extent the world is like our experiences and to what extent it's different. So for example, we've determined that an object's shape is a property of the object, but not its color and only partially it's solidity.

So part of it is figuring what are the relational or representational properties and what are properties of things themselves.

Im not sure I understand the problem. Why would you expect a part of the world, ie appearances, to be the same as the entire world? What do you mean by "the same"? — Harry Hindu

I'm not sure I understand why people don't understand the basics of these discussions. But okay, I'll continue to play along.

If there is a difference between appearance and reality, then that raises potential problems for explaining reality, since we have to get past the appearance. This is how ancient skepticism got going.

For this discussion, it's about the difference between qualia and external objects.

Yes, things aren't always as they seem. We agree on that. However the distinction doesn't imply dualism (i.e., of ontologies or worlds). Adopting dualism is a philosophical choice. — Andrew M

Right, dualism is just one possible answer to the hard problem. So let's say that you're right and there is no hard problem. So how would you decide whether a robot was conscious? What would sonar experience be like? Can Earth as a combined swarm of human activity hear its busy cities? Would a perfect recreation of your brain in software experience pain? What do X-Rays look like? What would the world look like in 5 primary colors? What does carbon monoxide smell or taste like? How many different kinds of experiences can there be?

If there is no hard problem, we should be able to reach scientific or philosophical consensus on those types of questions.

This is assuming that appearances aren't part of reality. How does that make any sense? — Harry Hindu

Of course it's all part of reality. Dreams, imagination, lies, madness, hallucinations, appearances, colors are all real in that sense. But that's not what's meant. When someone asks me if I imagined something or it was real, what they're asking is did it happen separate from my me. And when we try to understand the nature of the world, we want to know what is the same and what is different from how the world appears to us. Of course ultimately that understanding needs to include appearances. And that's where the hard problem, the problem of perception and other related matters come into play.

The world of the solipsist is one and the same with the self of the solipsist. What does this mean? It means that doubt cannot arise, because the world of the solipsist is full of certainty. To present this issue another way, epistemologically the solipsist is hermetically sealed off from anything beyond what constitutes their 'world'. — Wallows

This can be gotten around by defining solipsism a certain way. First of all, the self is just another experience. For the solipsist, all that exists is the experiences a solipsist has. There is no hidden self generating the experiences of a world.

In addition, doubt is just one more kind of experience. Also, the solipsist can doubt because they do have experiences of what appears to be an external world full of other people. Remember that solipsism is a philosophical position that only comes about through inquiry and taking skepticism to its logical conclusion. Nobody is a solipsist by default.

What solipsism is supposed to do is to provide a certain philosophical outlook based on only the experiences a solipsist has and nothing else. It's actually a response to radical skepticism. But just because the position is certain doesn't mean that the solipsist can't doubt the truth of solipsism. After-all, experience appears to be otherwise, and you have all these people in those experiences criticizing and mocking the position.

As for new knowledge, it's just another experience. The question is why is there a stream of experiences if nothing is causing them? There's no more answer to that than why anything exists.

There may be no ontological identicality either simply because all things are, as far as we know, always changing. — Janus

What about for patterns, functions, and processes? If we consider an object to be a certain patten of molecular arrangement, where pattern can allow for some changes to take place. You can even have the same pattern from an entirely different particle swarm as long as it's arranged in a way that satisfies the pattern. A pattern just needs to meet certain criteria for being a chair or a person. And yes, the murky boundary conditions are unavoidable.

It's semantic identity, which doesn't change over time or in different instantiations. I would go as far as to say that there is no identity other than semantic identity. — Janus

Things are identical to themselves. Is that semantic identity also?

f a robot has a similar shape and therefore behavior as you, then why not suppose that it has experiences as well? It seems to me you think that one's hardware (carbon-based vs. Silicon-based) is what determines whether or not there is an experience, and similar behaviors by different hardware are only the result of simulated consciousness. — Harry Hindu

I don't know what determines consciousness and I would be fine with saying Data is conscious. It's the epistemological problem that Block explains which is we can't know either it's the hardware or the functions the hardware performs. It doesn't matter whether Data is convincing. We still have the same philosophical problem.

And in the case or Data, I'm pretty sure it would also be an ethical problem. There was an episode where Data is put on trial to determine whether he's a person, or can be treated like a product and used for mass production. We would want to know whether he can really feel pain or sadness as part of making an ethical determination as to whether Data deserved rights.

This issue has come up in the real world with the treatment of animals.

OK, Grandin says she thinks in images, but she can't be forming simultaneous images of every roof she's ever seen. — Janus

Probably not. It's just interesting that she's describing a set and when I think of a roof, it's a universal concept.

3. Having an experience = having physical property P

Next he asks, "How could phenomenal consciousness just be a certain physical property? Surely if something SEEMS phenomenally conscious, it IS phenomenally conscious. "

His answer: we are not aware OF phenomenal consciousness at all. What we are aware of are the qualities (like redness) of which phenomenally conscious states make us aware. — Relativist

Hmmm, so then it becomes a matter of explaining physical property P, which is a matter left up to neuroscience, I take it. I like it better than saying red experience is an illusion.

Consciousness is not the problem. Our account of it is. — creativesoul

Agreed, so what is the correct account?

All concepts are creature dependent. — creativesoul

Alright, yes, nature isn't conceptual. So I'll rephrase:

Some of our concepts are about the structure, function and properties of the world. Others reflect our experiences of the world. Since there's a big difference between the two, at least when we get to science, then there's a hard problem, since we are part of the world science seeks to explain.

Our experience of the world differs considerably from our explanation of the world.

I showed how qualia fit into a physicalist account (I did not originate this; I'm relating Michael Tye). I realize this isn't a complete account, but it's a piece of the puzzle. — Relativist

Okay, but the hard problem is showing how a brain state of seeing red is a red experience, or results in a red experience. Saying they're identical is one way to go that would fit with physicalism. But it doesn't explain why some brain states are experiential and others are not.

Does Type support an identity theory of mind?

The quale "green" is not ontologically identical to the scientific concept of green (e.g. the range of wavelengths), but the two are related to one another: objects that we perceive as matching the green quale of experience are also known (through science) to reflect light in a specific range of wavelengths. — Relativist

Right, but this presents an ontological problem. For physicalists, anyway. It's not a problem if you're down with dualism, or you're an idealist. It's also not a problem for anti-realists, because they will just deny there is an ontological distinction to be made between subjective and objective.

What do you mean by "reconciled"? — Relativist

The hard and harder problems exist if we take our ontology from science, because it leaves the phenomenal out. Reconciling would mean figuring out a way to include the phenomenal in the scientific, whether that's by reduction, identity, elimination, emergent or expanding the scientific ontology (panpsychism or dualism).

What do phenomenal concepts have in common such that that commonality makes them count as being phenomenal, whereas the non phenomenal concepts do not have/share this same common denominator or set thereof? — creativesoul

Phenomenal are creature dependent. We see red not because the world is colored in, but because our visual system evolved to discriminate photons that reflect off surfaces in combination of three primary values. But that still leaves out the experience of red, because a detector or robot can make that discrimination without supposing there is any experience.

Here it gets a bit murky because shape and extension is also part of our visual experience. It's just that we can use those aspects of our visual field to form scientific explanations of the world. The real question is why there is an experience of a visual field, instead of it being "all dark" like it would presumably be for a detector or a rock.

Vision is tricky. Pain and pleasure are easier to make clear. Why does my nervous system need to have an experience of a painfully touching a stove if we can describe the nervous system performing the function of jerking my hand back without any experience?

Consciousness is not the problem. Our account of it is. — creativesoul

Obviously it's not a problem for nature. It's a problem for humans because we can't figure out what the proper account of consciousness is. And depending on what the proper account is, our ontology or epistemology might need to change to reflect that.

What is the difference between those and that which does not count as being those? — creativesoul

Phenomenal: color, sound, smell, taste, pain, pleasure, hot, cold, thoughts, beliefs, desires, dreams, feelings.

Non: shape, space, time, composition, number, structure, function, computation, information, empirical.

That's not my experience (nor, I think, anyone else's). — Andrew M

It's been the human experience since at least philosophical inquiry began and the distinction between appearance and reality was a thing. Thus the word phenomenal and science attempting to explain what appears to us. The table appears solid, but it's not solid in the way it seems to be to us. Everyone is surprised when they learn a table is mostly empty space. Nor does it have as well a defined boundary as it appears, because its actual boundary is molecular.

Similarly, the table's color is just how our visual system perceives the light bouncing off the table, as opposed to the radio, gamma, X-Rays going through the table. Or the infrared or ultraviolet bouncing off. If we could perceive the entire EM spectrum of the sky, it wouldn't be blue. Thus the sky on a clear, sunny day is not actually blue, that's just our experience of it.

Furthermore, our color experience is correlated with whatever neural activity results in a color experience. This neural activity is not blue or painful. But it somehow results in blue or pain. And nobody can why or how that's the case, other than it's a correlation.

The "concept" of greenness is that mental image that we perceive. The word "green" refers to this quale. The range of wavelengths associated with greenness are those wavelengths that are associated with this quale. — Relativist

Right, and it is these concepts which cannot be reconciled with our scientific concepts.

The experience of greenness is nonverbal; words cannot convey the experience. — Relativist

Words can convey that we have those experiences. As a sighted person, when you say you saw something red, I can visualize or remember red.

Oliver Sacks has one story of a person with brain trauma who lost the ability to not only see but remember colors. Their world became shades of gray. Communicating red to them would be like a talking bat communicating sonar to us. We know it exists, but we wouldn't know what it's like, or in this person's case, be able to put yourself into that state.

What problems are you referring to? — Relativist

That consciousness isn't limited to perception. Let's say for sake of argument the naive realist view of colors, smells, tastes, sounds and feels was correct. Even in that case, it leaves a hard problem for memory, imagination, dreams and hallucination, because those experiences originate in the brain and not the outside world.

I think the most coherent version of solipsism is just experiences with no self owning anything. Self is just another experience of the single stream, which is all there is.

Some of the more important mental activity that is discussed in theory of mind is that which mediates between stimulus and response. — Relativist

Problem is that consciousness isn’t limited to perception. Memory, dreams, imagination, feelings, thoughts and hallucinations all can have colors, sounds, etc

I just don’t buy that language is the problem here. I have pain and color experiences, but those aren’t part of the scientific explanations of the world or our biology. And language doesn’t create pain or color experiences. Rather, they are simply part of our experience which language reflects. This leaves color and pain unexplained, with no way so far for us to reconcile with science.

Language is dualistic, because that’s our experience of the world. No amount of invoking ordinary language or Wittgenstein makes that go away.

f one morning you wake up feeling dumpy and stupid, just write an article in a philosophy forum and talk about how much you don't know about consciousness, you will feel better. The more you write about this thing that you don't know, the smarter you'll feel. — god must be atheist

That and professional philosophers write papers, publish books and give talks on consciousness. Consider these kinds of threads to be loose commentary.

Is this a real problem though? — Benkei

Yes, as much as any philosophical problem is real.

I'm from the "common sense" approach that what's conscious is what people decide it is and it's neither here nor there why. — Benkei

The debate has been rigorously laid out by Chalmers, Nagel, Dennett (in the negative), Block, etc.

Of course you can ignore all that in favor of ordinary language if you like. Just keep in mind that philosophy got started long ago in part because ordinary language contains many conceptual problems.

Second time I read the term "superhuman". The fact something is done at a superhuman level is now posited as an argument against something being conscious. — Benkei

It's only meant to say that Data is not a functional isomorph with humans. Data isn't perfectly simulating the functions of human brains, so we can't use that argument to say he has to be conscious.

I also don't think being able to reproduce the full range of human emotion should be a prerequisite to be considered conscious. — Benkei

Agreed, but the harder problem is about the epistemic justification for deciding whether a physical system different from our own is conscious. And the argument is that we have no way to really know, because our own consciousness does not tell us what it is about us that makes us conscious. It could be the brain stuff, it could be the functions performed by the brain, it could be both, or it could be that something else like panpsychism is the case. We just can't tell.

Yes, I saw that and agree. I'm not satisfied with anyone's solution to the hard or harder problems. You end up biting one or more bullets no matter which way you go.

Solipsism or not, if we suppose that you are talking-in-a-dream to other people in a language that is understood by your dream participants, then it is not a private language. — Luke

It is, because the dream participants are me. Or to be more accurate, the dream participants are experiences only, not other people. A solipsist engages in private language by definition, so solipsism would have to be ruled out for a private language to be impossible.

As for BIVs, do you know any? — Luke

This is a philosophical discussion, and if someone makes that claim that something is impossible, then it's right to point out scenarios where it's not. Impossibility is a very strong claim.