I agree with this, but would like to add that it’s actually one step worse: most of the interesting experiments one can do with regard to consciousness have results that, for various reasons, cannot be transferred between observers. The quantum immortality hypothesis is one example—if someone else does an experiment, you don’t get to see the result. But the problem is more general; you also don’t get to see the results of experiments that other entities perform to test observer symmetry, or the subjective results of self-copying and merging. So the only information we can have is prior probabilities, which are not very informative, with no experimental data. Perhaps after a dozen one-way trips through cryopreservation, nested simulations, afterlives, etc., I’ll have an answer to how subjective experience works; but no one will ever find an answer in this universe, or convey an answer back to it, so the question has little point here.
I don’t like statements like “we can never know” this or that. For example, you can convince everyone that quantum immortality works by killing them along with yourself. (This shouldn’t pose any risk if you’ve already convinced yourself :-) Paul Almond has proposed that this can solve the Fermi paradox: we don’t see alien civilizations because they have learned to solve complex computational problems by civilization-level quantum suicide, and thus disappeared from our view.
It seems probable to me that if we think a little harder, we can figure out a way to investigate observer-dependent statements scientifically.
I agree with this, but would like to add that it’s actually one step worse: most of the interesting experiments one can do with regard to consciousness have results that, for various reasons, cannot be transferred between observers. The quantum immortality hypothesis is one example—if someone else does an experiment, you don’t get to see the result. But the problem is more general; you also don’t get to see the results of experiments that other entities perform to test observer symmetry, or the subjective results of self-copying and merging. So the only information we can have is prior probabilities, which are not very informative, with no experimental data. Perhaps after a dozen one-way trips through cryopreservation, nested simulations, afterlives, etc., I’ll have an answer to how subjective experience works; but no one will ever find an answer in this universe, or convey an answer back to it, so the question has little point here.
I don’t like statements like “we can never know” this or that. For example, you can convince everyone that quantum immortality works by killing them along with yourself. (This shouldn’t pose any risk if you’ve already convinced yourself :-) Paul Almond has proposed that this can solve the Fermi paradox: we don’t see alien civilizations because they have learned to solve complex computational problems by civilization-level quantum suicide, and thus disappeared from our view.
It seems probable to me that if we think a little harder, we can figure out a way to investigate observer-dependent statements scientifically.