(I skipped straight to ch7, according to your advice, so I may be missing relevant parts from the previous chapters if there are any.)
I probably agree with you on the object level regarding phenomenal consciousness.
That being said, I think it’s “more” than a meme. I witnessed at least two people not exposed to the scientific/philosophical literature on phenomenal consciousness reinvent/rediscover the concept on their own.
It seems to me that the first-person perspective we necessarily adopt makes inclines to ascribe to sensations/experiences some ineffable, seemingly irreducible quality. My guess is that we (re)perceive our perception as a meta-modality different from ordinary modalities like vision, hearing, etc, and that causes the illusion. It’s plausible that being raised in a WEIRD culture contributes to that inclination.
A butterfly conjecture: While phenomenal consciousness is an illusion, there is something to be said about the first-person perspective being an interesting feature of some minds (sufficiently sophisticated? capable of self-reflection?). It can be viewed as a computational heuristic that makes you “vulnerable” to certain illusions or biases, such as phenomenal consciousness, but also:
the difficulty to accept one-boxing in the Newcomb’s problem
mind-body dualism
the naive version of free will illusion, difficulty in accepting physicalism/determinism
(maybe) the illusion of being in control over your mind (various sources say that meditation-naive people are often surprised to discover how little control they have over their own mind when they first try meditation)
A catchy term for this line of investigation could be “computational phenomenology”.
My guess is that we (re)perceive our perception as a meta-modality different from ordinary modalities like vision, hearing, etc, and that causes the illusion. It’s plausible that being raised in a WEIRD culture contributes to that inclination.
This seems exceedingly unlikely. Virtually every culture has a conception of “soul” which they are confused about, and ascribe supernatural non-materialist properties to.
(I skipped straight to ch7, according to your advice, so I may be missing relevant parts from the previous chapters if there are any.)
I probably agree with you on the object level regarding phenomenal consciousness.
That being said, I think it’s “more” than a meme. I witnessed at least two people not exposed to the scientific/philosophical literature on phenomenal consciousness reinvent/rediscover the concept on their own.
It seems to me that the first-person perspective we necessarily adopt makes inclines to ascribe to sensations/experiences some ineffable, seemingly irreducible quality. My guess is that we (re)perceive our perception as a meta-modality different from ordinary modalities like vision, hearing, etc, and that causes the illusion. It’s plausible that being raised in a WEIRD culture contributes to that inclination.
A butterfly conjecture: While phenomenal consciousness is an illusion, there is something to be said about the first-person perspective being an interesting feature of some minds (sufficiently sophisticated? capable of self-reflection?). It can be viewed as a computational heuristic that makes you “vulnerable” to certain illusions or biases, such as phenomenal consciousness, but also:
the difficulty to accept one-boxing in the Newcomb’s problem
mind-body dualism
the naive version of free will illusion, difficulty in accepting physicalism/determinism
(maybe) the illusion of being in control over your mind (various sources say that meditation-naive people are often surprised to discover how little control they have over their own mind when they first try meditation)
A catchy term for this line of investigation could be “computational phenomenology”.
This seems exceedingly unlikely. Virtually every culture has a conception of “soul” which they are confused about, and ascribe supernatural non-materialist properties to.
Yes, and the eliminationist approach doesn’t explain why this is so universal and what process leads to it.