There is a difference between “the brain runs on physics” and having a reductive explanation of conscious experience. Running a simulation of a human brain and getting human behaviour out can be an explanation of behaviour, but not of experience. In order to explain experience, we should have the simulation provide experience as an output and verify that the predicted experience matches the actual one.
Do be concrete, if we had a properly worked out explanation of experience, I would want it to answer questions like “when someone says that jazz music is physically painful, what sensation are they referring to? Is there some different sound you could play which would produce the same sensation for me? If not, why not?”
I think the most interesting point in Nagel’s paper is that in order to even be able to check whether a reductionist theory is making the right predictions or not, we will need to develop some skills in being aware of and precisely describe our subjective experience. (He also makes a separate claim, that we will need to be less confused about what subjective experience even means. But I think starting at the practical skills end of the problem is more promising).
There is a difference between “the brain runs on physics” and having a reductive explanation of conscious experience. Running a simulation of a human brain and getting human behaviour out can be an explanation of behaviour, but not of experience. In order to explain experience, we should have the simulation provide experience as an output and verify that the predicted experience matches the actual one.
Do be concrete, if we had a properly worked out explanation of experience, I would want it to answer questions like “when someone says that jazz music is physically painful, what sensation are they referring to? Is there some different sound you could play which would produce the same sensation for me? If not, why not?”
I think the most interesting point in Nagel’s paper is that in order to even be able to check whether a reductionist theory is making the right predictions or not, we will need to develop some skills in being aware of and precisely describe our subjective experience. (He also makes a separate claim, that we will need to be less confused about what subjective experience even means. But I think starting at the practical skills end of the problem is more promising).