Has anyone proposed a solution to the hard problem of consciousness that goes:
Qualia don’t seem to be part of the world. We can’t see qualia anywhere, and we can’t tell how they arise from the physical world.
Therefore, maybe they aren’t actually part of this world.
But what does it mean they aren’t part of this world? Well, since maybe we’re in a simulation, perhaps they are part of the simulation. Basically, it could be that qualia : screen = simulation : video-game. Or, rephrasing: maybe qualia are part of base reality and not our simulated reality in the same way the computer screen we use to interact with a video game isn’t part of the video game itself.
We don’t see objects “directly” in some sense, we experience qualia of seeing objects. Then we can interpret those via a world-model to deduce that the visual sensations we are experiencing are caused by some external objects reflecting light. The distinction is made clearer by the way that sometimes these visual experiences are not caused by external objects reflecting light, despite essentially identical qualia.
Nonetheless, it is true that we don’t know how qualia arise from the physical world. We can track back physical models of sensation until we get to stuff happening in brains, but that still doesn’t tell us why these physical processes in brains in particular matter, or whether it’s possible for an apparently fully conscious being to not have any subjective experience.
At least I presume that you and others have subjective experience of vision. I certainly can’t verify it for anyone else, just for myself. Since we’re talking about something intrinsically subjective, it’s best to be clear about this.
We don’t see objects “directly” in some sense, we experience qualia of seeing objects. Then we can interpret those via a world-model to deduce that the visual sensations we are experiencing are caused by some external objects reflecting light. The distinction is made clearer by the way that sometimes these visual experiences are not caused by external objects reflecting light, despite essentially identical qualia.
I don’t disagree with this at all, and it’s a pretty standard insight for someone who thought about this stuff at least a little. I think what you’re doing here is nitpicking on the meaning of the word “see” even if you’re not putting it like that.
Has anyone proposed a solution to the hard problem of consciousness that goes:
Qualia don’t seem to be part of the world. We can’t see qualia anywhere, and we can’t tell how they arise from the physical world.
Therefore, maybe they aren’t actually part of this world.
But what does it mean they aren’t part of this world? Well, since maybe we’re in a simulation, perhaps they are part of the simulation. Basically, it could be that qualia : screen = simulation : video-game. Or, rephrasing: maybe qualia are part of base reality and not our simulated reality in the same way the computer screen we use to interact with a video game isn’t part of the video game itself.
Qualia are the only thing we[1] can see.
We don’t see objects “directly” in some sense, we experience qualia of seeing objects. Then we can interpret those via a world-model to deduce that the visual sensations we are experiencing are caused by some external objects reflecting light. The distinction is made clearer by the way that sometimes these visual experiences are not caused by external objects reflecting light, despite essentially identical qualia.
Nonetheless, it is true that we don’t know how qualia arise from the physical world. We can track back physical models of sensation until we get to stuff happening in brains, but that still doesn’t tell us why these physical processes in brains in particular matter, or whether it’s possible for an apparently fully conscious being to not have any subjective experience.
At least I presume that you and others have subjective experience of vision. I certainly can’t verify it for anyone else, just for myself. Since we’re talking about something intrinsically subjective, it’s best to be clear about this.
I don’t disagree with this at all, and it’s a pretty standard insight for someone who thought about this stuff at least a little. I think what you’re doing here is nitpicking on the meaning of the word “see” even if you’re not putting it like that.