A major problem with physicalist dismissal of experiential evidence (as I’ve discussed previously) is that the conventional case for believing in physics is that it explains experiential evidence, e.g. experimental results. Solomonoff induction, among the best formalizations of Occam’s razor, believes in “my observations”.
If basic facts like “I have observations” are being doubted, then any case for belief in physics has to go through something independent of its explanations of experiential evidence. This looks to be a difficult problem.
You could potentially resolve the problem by saying that only some observations, such as those of mechanical measuring devices, count; however, this still leads to an analogous problem to the hard problem of consciousness, namely, what is the mapping between physics and the outputs of the mechanical measuring devices that are being explained by theories? (The same problem comes up of “what data is the theorizing trying to explain” whether the theorizing happens in a single brain or in a distributed intelligence, e.g. a collection of people using the scientific method)
If basic facts like “I have observations” are being doubted, then any case for belief in physics has to go through something independent of its explanations of experiential evidence. This looks to be a difficult problem
There are significant differences between observations in the sense of pointer positions, and qualia.
You could potentially resolve the problem by saying that only some observations, such as those of mechanical measuring devices, count; however, this still leads to an analogous problem to the hard problem of consciousness, namely, what is the mapping between physics and the outputs of the mechanical measuring devices that are being explained by theories?
A major problem with physicalist dismissal of experiential evidence (as I’ve discussed previously) is that the conventional case for believing in physics is that it explains experiential evidence, e.g. experimental results. Solomonoff induction, among the best formalizations of Occam’s razor, believes in “my observations”.
If basic facts like “I have observations” are being doubted, then any case for belief in physics has to go through something independent of its explanations of experiential evidence. This looks to be a difficult problem.
You could potentially resolve the problem by saying that only some observations, such as those of mechanical measuring devices, count; however, this still leads to an analogous problem to the hard problem of consciousness, namely, what is the mapping between physics and the outputs of the mechanical measuring devices that are being explained by theories? (The same problem comes up of “what data is the theorizing trying to explain” whether the theorizing happens in a single brain or in a distributed intelligence, e.g. a collection of people using the scientific method)
There are significant differences between observations in the sense of pointer positions, and qualia.
That’s much more like the easy problem.