Heterophenomenology does tackle that question, just at one remove—it attempts to account for your reports of those inner sensations.
It does so in terms making no reference to those inner sensations. Heterophenomenology is a lot more than the idea that first-person reports of inner experience are something to be explained, rather than taken as direct reports of the truth. It—Dennett—requires that such reports be explained without reference to inner experience. Heterophenomenology is the view that we are all p-zombies.
It avoids the argument that a distinction between conscious beings and p-zombies makes no sense, by denying that there are conscious beings. There is no inner experience to be explained. Zombie World is this world. Consciousness is not extra-physical, but non-existent. It is consciousness that is absurd, not p-zombies.
You do not exist. I do not exist. There are no persons, no selves, no experiences. There are reports of these things, but nothing that they are reports about. In such reports nothing is true, all is a lie.
Physics revealed the universe to be meaningless. Biology and palaeontology revealed our creation to be meaningless. Now, neuroscience reveals that we are meaningless.
Such, at any rate, is my understanding of Dennett’s book.
Heterophenomenology is a lot more than the idea that first-person reports of inner experience are something to be explained, rather than taken as direct reports of the truth. It—Dennett—requires that such reports be explained without reference to inner experience.
This is the exact opposite of my understanding, which is that heterophenomenology itself sets out only what it is that is to be accounted for and is entirely neutral on what the account might be.
It—Dennett—requires that such reports be explained without reference to inner experience.
Sure.
Heterophenomenology is the view that we are all p-zombies.
Doesn’t follow. H17y can be seen as simply a first, more tractable step on the way to solving the hard problem. Perhaps others would agree with your statement, but I don’t believe Dennett would.
A flawed understanding, then. Dennett certainly does not deny the existence of selves, or of persons. What he does assert is that “self” is something of a different category from the primary elements of our current physics’ ontology (particles, etc.). His analogy is to a “center of gravity”—a notional object, but “real” in the sense of what you take it to be definitely makes a difference in what you predict will happen.
It does so in terms making no reference to those inner sensations. Heterophenomenology is a lot more than the idea that first-person reports of inner experience are something to be explained, rather than taken as direct reports of the truth. It—Dennett—requires that such reports be explained without reference to inner experience. Heterophenomenology is the view that we are all p-zombies.
It avoids the argument that a distinction between conscious beings and p-zombies makes no sense, by denying that there are conscious beings. There is no inner experience to be explained. Zombie World is this world. Consciousness is not extra-physical, but non-existent. It is consciousness that is absurd, not p-zombies.
You do not exist. I do not exist. There are no persons, no selves, no experiences. There are reports of these things, but nothing that they are reports about. In such reports nothing is true, all is a lie.
Physics revealed the universe to be meaningless. Biology and palaeontology revealed our creation to be meaningless. Now, neuroscience reveals that we are meaningless.
Such, at any rate, is my understanding of Dennett’s book.
This is the exact opposite of my understanding, which is that heterophenomenology itself sets out only what it is that is to be accounted for and is entirely neutral on what the account might be.
Sure.
Doesn’t follow. H17y can be seen as simply a first, more tractable step on the way to solving the hard problem. Perhaps others would agree with your statement, but I don’t believe Dennett would.
A flawed understanding, then. Dennett certainly does not deny the existence of selves, or of persons. What he does assert is that “self” is something of a different category from the primary elements of our current physics’ ontology (particles, etc.). His analogy is to a “center of gravity”—a notional object, but “real” in the sense of what you take it to be definitely makes a difference in what you predict will happen.