“It would be preferable to find consciousness in the real world. Either reflected in behavior or in the physical structure of the brain.”
“It would be preferable” expresses wishful thinking. The word refers to subjective experience, which is subjective by definition, while you are looking at objective things instead.
No, “it’s preferable”, same as “you should”, is fine when there is a goal specified. e.g. “it’s preferable to do X, if you want Y”. Here, the goal is implicit—“not to have stupid beliefs”. Hopefully that’s a goal we all share.
By the way, “should” with implicit goals is quite common, you should be able to handle it. (Notice the second “should’. The implicit goal is now “to participate in normal human communication”).
“Subjective perception,” is opposite, in the relevant way, to “objective description.”
Suppose there were two kinds of things, physical and non-physical. This would not help in any way to explain consciousness, as long as you were describing the physical and non-physical things in an objective way. So you are quite right that subjective is not the opposite of physical; physicality is utterly irrelevant to it.
The point is that the word consciousness refers to subjective perception, not to any objective description, whether physical or otherwise.
Can you find another subjective concept that does not have an objective description? I’m predicting that we disagree about what “objective description” means.
Yes, I can find many others. “You seem to me to be currently mistaken,” does not have any objective descripion; it is how things seem to me. It however is correlated with various objective descriptions, such as the fact that I am arguing against you. However none of those things summarize the meaning, which is a subjective experience.
“No, physical things have objective descriptions.”
If a physical thing has a subjective experience, that experience does not have an objective description, but a subjective one.
“It would be preferable to find consciousness in the real world. Either reflected in behavior or in the physical structure of the brain.”
“It would be preferable” expresses wishful thinking. The word refers to subjective experience, which is subjective by definition, while you are looking at objective things instead.
No, “it’s preferable”, same as “you should”, is fine when there is a goal specified. e.g. “it’s preferable to do X, if you want Y”. Here, the goal is implicit—“not to have stupid beliefs”. Hopefully that’s a goal we all share.
By the way, “should” with implicit goals is quite common, you should be able to handle it. (Notice the second “should’. The implicit goal is now “to participate in normal human communication”).
We can understand that the word consciousness refers to something subjective (as it obviously does) without having stupid beliefs.
Subjective is not the opposite of physical.
Indeed.
“Subjective perception,” is opposite, in the relevant way, to “objective description.”
Suppose there were two kinds of things, physical and non-physical. This would not help in any way to explain consciousness, as long as you were describing the physical and non-physical things in an objective way. So you are quite right that subjective is not the opposite of physical; physicality is utterly irrelevant to it.
The point is that the word consciousness refers to subjective perception, not to any objective description, whether physical or otherwise.
No, physical things have objective descriptions.
Can you find another subjective concept that does not have an objective description? I’m predicting that we disagree about what “objective description” means.
Yes, I can find many others. “You seem to me to be currently mistaken,” does not have any objective descripion; it is how things seem to me. It however is correlated with various objective descriptions, such as the fact that I am arguing against you. However none of those things summarize the meaning, which is a subjective experience.
“No, physical things have objective descriptions.”
If a physical thing has a subjective experience, that experience does not have an objective description, but a subjective one.