Seeing red is more than a role or disposition. That is what you have left out.
Suppose epiphenomenalism is true. We would still need two separate explanations—one explanation of your epiphenomenal activity in terms of made-up epiphenomenology, and a different explanation for how your physical body thinks it’s really seeing red and types up these arguments on LessWrong, despite having no access to your epiphenomena.
The mere existence of that second explanation makes it wrong to have absolute confidence in your own epiphenomenal access. After all, we’ve just described approximate agents that think they have epiphenomenal access, and type and make facial expressions and release hormones as if they do, without needing any epiphenomena at all.
We can imagine the approximate agent made out of atoms, and imagine just what sort of mistake it’s making when it says “no, really, I see red in a special nonphysical way that you have yet to explain” even when it doesn’t have access to the epihpenomena. And then we can endeavor not to make that mistake.
If I, the person typing these words, can Really See Redness in a way that is independent or additional to a causal explanation of my thoughts and actions, my only honest course of action is to admit that I don’t know about it.
It’s wrong to have absolute confidence in anything. You can’t prove that you are not in a simulation, so you can’t have absolute confidence that there is any real physics.
Of course, I didn’t base anything on absolute confidence.
You can put forward a story where expressions of subjective experience are caused by atoms, and subjective experience itself isn’t mentioned.
I can put forward a story where ouches are caused by pains, and atoms aren’t explicitly mentioned.
Of course you now want to say that the atoms are still there and playing a causal role, but have gone out of focus because I am using high level descriptions. But then I could say that subjective states are identical to aggregates of atoms, and therefore have identical caudal powers.
Multiple explanations are always possible, but aren’t necessarily about rival ontologies
About 95%. Because philosophy is easy* and full of obvious confusions.
(* After all, anyone can do it well enough that they can’t see their own mistakes. And with a little more effort, you can’t even see your mistakes when they’re pointed out to you. That’s, like, the definition of easy, right?)
95% isn’t all that high a confidence, if we put aside “how dare you rate yourself so highly?” type arguments for a bit. I wouldn’t trust a parachute that had a 95% chance of opening. Most of the remaining 5% is not dualism being true or us needing a new kind of science, it’s just me having misunderstood something important.
Suppose epiphenomenalism is true. We would still need two separate explanations—one explanation of your epiphenomenal activity in terms of made-up epiphenomenology, and a different explanation for how your physical body thinks it’s really seeing red and types up these arguments on LessWrong, despite having no access to your epiphenomena.
The mere existence of that second explanation makes it wrong to have absolute confidence in your own epiphenomenal access. After all, we’ve just described approximate agents that think they have epiphenomenal access, and type and make facial expressions and release hormones as if they do, without needing any epiphenomena at all.
We can imagine the approximate agent made out of atoms, and imagine just what sort of mistake it’s making when it says “no, really, I see red in a special nonphysical way that you have yet to explain” even when it doesn’t have access to the epihpenomena. And then we can endeavor not to make that mistake.
If I, the person typing these words, can Really See Redness in a way that is independent or additional to a causal explanation of my thoughts and actions, my only honest course of action is to admit that I don’t know about it.
It’s wrong to have absolute confidence in anything. You can’t prove that you are not in a simulation, so you can’t have absolute confidence that there is any real physics.
Of course, I didn’t base anything on absolute confidence.
You can put forward a story where expressions of subjective experience are caused by atoms, and subjective experience itself isn’t mentioned.
I can put forward a story where ouches are caused by pains, and atoms aren’t explicitly mentioned.
Of course you now want to say that the atoms are still there and playing a causal role, but have gone out of focus because I am using high level descriptions. But then I could say that subjective states are identical to aggregates of atoms, and therefore have identical caudal powers.
Multiple explanations are always possible, but aren’t necessarily about rival ontologies
Anyhow, I agree that we have long since been rehashing standard arguments here :P
How likely is it that you would have solved the Hard Problem? Why do people think philosophy is easy, or full of obvious confusions?
About 95%. Because philosophy is easy* and full of obvious confusions.
(* After all, anyone can do it well enough that they can’t see their own mistakes. And with a little more effort, you can’t even see your mistakes when they’re pointed out to you. That’s, like, the definition of easy, right?)
95% isn’t all that high a confidence, if we put aside “how dare you rate yourself so highly?” type arguments for a bit. I wouldn’t trust a parachute that had a 95% chance of opening. Most of the remaining 5% is not dualism being true or us needing a new kind of science, it’s just me having misunderstood something important.