However, I think you have something else in mind which is that there is somehow something left out when I explain it by simply appealing to signal processing. In that sense,
I don’t have anything else in mind that I know of. “Explained via signal processing” seems basically sufficent. The interesting part is “how can you look at a given signal-processing-system, and predict in advance whether that system is the sort of thing that would talk* about Qualia, if it could talk?”
(I feel like this was all covered in the sequences, basically?)
*where “talk about qualia” is shorthand ‘would consider the concept of qualia important enough to have a concept for.’”
I mean, I agree that this was mostly covered in the sequences. But I also think that I disagree with the way that most people frame the debate. At least personally I have seen people who I know have read the sequences still make basic errors. So I’m just leaving this here to explain my point of view.
Intuition: On a first approximation, there is something that it is like to be us. In other words, we are beings who have qualia.
Counterintuition: In order for qualia to exist, there would need to exist entities which are private, ineffable, intrinsic, subjective and this can’t be since physics is public, effable, and objective and therefore contradicts the existence of qualia.
Intuition: But even if I agree with you that qualia don’t exist, there still seems to be something left unexplained.
Counterintuition: We can explain why you think there’s something unexplained because we can explain the cause of your belief in qualia, and why you think they have these properties. By explaining why you believe it we have explained all there is to explain.
Intuition: But you have merely said that we could explain it. You have not have actually explained it.
Counterintuition: Even without the precise explanation, we now have a paradigm for explaining consciousness, so it is not mysterious anymore.
We do not telepathically receive experiemnt results when they are performed. In reality you need ot intake the measumrent results from your first-person point of view (use eyes to read led screen or use ears to hear about stories of experiments performed). It seems to be taht experiments are intersubjective in that other observers will report having experiences that resemble my first-hand experiences. For most purposes shorthanding this to “public” is adequate enough. But your point of view is “unpublisable” in that even if you really tried there is no way to provide you private expereience to the public knowledge pool (“directly”). “I now how you feel” is a fiction it doesn’t actually happen.
Skeptisim about the experiencing of others is easier but being skeptical about your own experiences would seem to be ludicrous.
I am not denying that humans take in sensory input and process it using their internal neural networks. I am denying that process has any of the properties associated with consciousness in the philosophical sense. And I am making an additional claim which is that if you merely redefine consciousness so that it lacks these philosophical properties, you have not actually explained anything or dissolved any confusion.
The illusionist approach is the best approach because it simultaneously takes consciousness seriously and doesn’t contradict physics. By taking this approach we also have an understood paradigm for solving the hard problem of consciousness: namely, the hard problem is reduced to the meta-problem (see Chalmers).
I don’t have anything else in mind that I know of. “Explained via signal processing” seems basically sufficent. The interesting part is “how can you look at a given signal-processing-system, and predict in advance whether that system is the sort of thing that would talk* about Qualia, if it could talk?”
(I feel like this was all covered in the sequences, basically?)
*where “talk about qualia” is shorthand ‘would consider the concept of qualia important enough to have a concept for.’”
I mean, I agree that this was mostly covered in the sequences. But I also think that I disagree with the way that most people frame the debate. At least personally I have seen people who I know have read the sequences still make basic errors. So I’m just leaving this here to explain my point of view.
Intuition: On a first approximation, there is something that it is like to be us. In other words, we are beings who have qualia.
Counterintuition: In order for qualia to exist, there would need to exist entities which are private, ineffable, intrinsic, subjective and this can’t be since physics is public, effable, and objective and therefore contradicts the existence of qualia.
Intuition: But even if I agree with you that qualia don’t exist, there still seems to be something left unexplained.
Counterintuition: We can explain why you think there’s something unexplained because we can explain the cause of your belief in qualia, and why you think they have these properties. By explaining why you believe it we have explained all there is to explain.
Intuition: But you have merely said that we could explain it. You have not have actually explained it.
Counterintuition: Even without the precise explanation, we now have a paradigm for explaining consciousness, so it is not mysterious anymore.
This is essentially the point where I leave.
Physics as map is. Note that we can’t compare the map directly to the territory.
We do not telepathically receive experiemnt results when they are performed. In reality you need ot intake the measumrent results from your first-person point of view (use eyes to read led screen or use ears to hear about stories of experiments performed). It seems to be taht experiments are intersubjective in that other observers will report having experiences that resemble my first-hand experiences. For most purposes shorthanding this to “public” is adequate enough. But your point of view is “unpublisable” in that even if you really tried there is no way to provide you private expereience to the public knowledge pool (“directly”). “I now how you feel” is a fiction it doesn’t actually happen.
Skeptisim about the experiencing of others is easier but being skeptical about your own experiences would seem to be ludicrous.
I am not denying that humans take in sensory input and process it using their internal neural networks. I am denying that process has any of the properties associated with consciousness in the philosophical sense. And I am making an additional claim which is that if you merely redefine consciousness so that it lacks these philosophical properties, you have not actually explained anything or dissolved any confusion.
The illusionist approach is the best approach because it simultaneously takes consciousness seriously and doesn’t contradict physics. By taking this approach we also have an understood paradigm for solving the hard problem of consciousness: namely, the hard problem is reduced to the meta-problem (see Chalmers).