Repeatedly on LW, I’ve seen one person (frequently Mitchell Porter) raise the problem of qualia; and seen otherwise-intelligent people reply by saying science has got it covered, consciousness is a property of physical systems, nothing to worry about.
It might be the case that some of us are over-confident regarding the chances qualia and consciousness can be explained as properties of certain kinds of physical systems (though I would never take even odds against science). But it seems to me a much bigger problem that someone would take the fact that no one has yet demonstrated satisfactorily that qualia and consciousness are properties of physical systems and then spend a bunch of time making up some non-experimental nonsense about quantum mechanics in an attempt to explain them. Either experimental cognitive science can answer these questions or it can’t, but no one else is even doing the science. If you’re interested in these questions that is where you should work (in Cog Sci or an adjacent field). If it turns out that consciousness can’t be explained in this way, if we know everything there is to know about AI and the human brain (at the neuron level) then we can start coming up with new hypotheses.
Unless you’re doing science, clarifying questions so that they can be objects of science or clarifying science’s answers; shut up and let the grown ups work.
(Of course, even if we all end up property dualists there is no reason to think mental properties are properties of something other than neurons and circuits).
It might be the case that some of us are over-confident regarding the chances qualia and consciousness can be explained as properties of certain kinds of physical systems (though I would never take even odds against science). But it seems to me a much bigger problem that someone would take the fact that no one has yet demonstrated satisfactorily that qualia and consciousness are properties of physical systems and then spend a bunch of time making up some non-experimental nonsense about quantum mechanics in an attempt to explain them. Either experimental cognitive science can answer these questions or it can’t, but no one else is even doing the science. If you’re interested in these questions that is where you should work (in Cog Sci or an adjacent field). If it turns out that consciousness can’t be explained in this way, if we know everything there is to know about AI and the human brain (at the neuron level) then we can start coming up with new hypotheses.
Unless you’re doing science, clarifying questions so that they can be objects of science or clarifying science’s answers; shut up and let the grown ups work.
(Of course, even if we all end up property dualists there is no reason to think mental properties are properties of something other than neurons and circuits).