It seems that “existence is consciousness” is doing all the lifting here. If we weren’t software programs, we would still exist and be conscious.
Yes, talk about software is mostly irrelevant.
You have not put forward a reductive explanation of consciousness, because there is no physical reason that every existing thing should just be conscious.
Сonsciousness is reduced to existence by equivalence. And existence is a part of physical ontology. That’s how all reductions work—there is no “physical reason” that sound is a moving air—it’s just that we had one model and now we have a better one.
No, reductive explanations have to show the properties of the level phenomenon vary in a detailed way with the details of reduction base. A reductive explanation of consciousness would result in being able to to predict qualia from neural activity.
Reductive explanations result in identifications, but not all identifications are reductive explanations.
The level of detail depends on the phenomenon and in the case of hard-problem-consciousness there just not much detail on the physical side. So the only requirement is correctness, not the level of detail.
Predicting specific qualia is mostly separate problem, but… it was never in doubt that qualia are predictable? You don’t even need neural activity—you can just predict that you will see the sky if you look at the sky. Developing high-level model of qualia recognized by humans may be interesting, but it’s not the hard problem—once you figured that consciousness is existence, it’s not mysterious or conceptually difficult to predict qualia because you can reuse physicalist framework you used to predict all other things.
But the human brain is often cited a the most complex thing in the known universe.
That’s why it’s unsurprising that the solution doesn’t involve brain much.
I see no reason to suppose that.
The reason I was thinking of is the difference in naturallness of the phenomenon when translated into physical ontology. If your question is “what’s light?” you can point to the electromagnetic field term. If you want to predict the exact picture on your screen from first principles, you’ll need the electromagnetic field but also additional unrealistic amount of work. Yes, reductionist explanation should provide reasons why it’s compatible with non-reduced phenomenon. But that’s done—it solves conceivability argument by substituting “existence” for “consciousness”, it explains why apparent unity of experience is not precisely true, it provides explanations for why we can extrapolate/isolate solution in many concrete example problems. And you didn’t specify any concrete aspects of consciousness that you think are not derivable from physical description given consciousness=existence. Like, what step of justification you’re unconvinced by? The only reason for prediction from neural activity to matter is if you think physicalism does not work for physics. But that is even not how it works in the zombie world.
Yes, talk about software is mostly irrelevant.
Сonsciousness is reduced to existence by equivalence. And existence is a part of physical ontology. That’s how all reductions work—there is no “physical reason” that sound is a moving air—it’s just that we had one model and now we have a better one.
No, reductive explanations have to show the properties of the level phenomenon vary in a detailed way with the details of reduction base. A reductive explanation of consciousness would result in being able to to predict qualia from neural activity.
Reductive explanations result in identifications, but not all identifications are reductive explanations.
The level of detail depends on the phenomenon and in the case of hard-problem-consciousness there just not much detail on the physical side. So the only requirement is correctness, not the level of detail.
Predicting specific qualia is mostly separate problem, but… it was never in doubt that qualia are predictable? You don’t even need neural activity—you can just predict that you will see the sky if you look at the sky. Developing high-level model of qualia recognized by humans may be interesting, but it’s not the hard problem—once you figured that consciousness is existence, it’s not mysterious or conceptually difficult to predict qualia because you can reuse physicalist framework you used to predict all other things.
I see no reason to suppose that.
But the human brain is often cited a the most complex thing in the known universe.
That’s why it’s unsurprising that the solution doesn’t involve brain much.
The reason I was thinking of is the difference in naturallness of the phenomenon when translated into physical ontology. If your question is “what’s light?” you can point to the electromagnetic field term. If you want to predict the exact picture on your screen from first principles, you’ll need the electromagnetic field but also additional unrealistic amount of work. Yes, reductionist explanation should provide reasons why it’s compatible with non-reduced phenomenon. But that’s done—it solves conceivability argument by substituting “existence” for “consciousness”, it explains why apparent unity of experience is not precisely true, it provides explanations for why we can extrapolate/isolate solution in many concrete example problems. And you didn’t specify any concrete aspects of consciousness that you think are not derivable from physical description given consciousness=existence. Like, what step of justification you’re unconvinced by? The only reason for prediction from neural activity to matter is if you think physicalism does not work for physics. But that is even not how it works in the zombie world.
Huh?
I mentioned the hard problem , which is literally defined in terms.of qualia.