- #36
moving finger
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I don’t see where there is a problem. Metzinger’s account of consciousness is (imho) a perfectly rational and reasonable explanation of how consciousness arises.Canute said:It is generally accepted that states of consciousness are correlated with brain-states. If someone sticks a pin in your foot then signals are sent up your leg and into your brain and a state of consciousness corresponding with a feeling of pain is caused. Most scientists and philosophers feel that there is nothing mysterious about most of this process, and that it can be explained without calling into question the assumption that brains give rise rise consciousness. However, it is argued by many, and the argument has not been successfully refuted as yet, that we cannot explain the existence of phenomenal consciousness in this way. We can explain all the neurophysiological states which lead to the feeling of pain, but not why there is such a feeling.
Explaining the functional aspects of mind is therefore considered an 'easy' problem. However, explaing the 'what it is like' of consciousness, e.g. the fact that there is something that it is like to feel pain, cannot be explained so easily. David Chalmers, who christened the hard problem, suggest that there are in principle reasons that prevent us from explaining it in terms of brain functions. The evidence suggests he is right, since nobody has yet come up with any such explanation (if we ignore the mystical explanation). There are a number of hypotheses doing the rounds, but each has only a few adherents.
Chalmers therefore speaks of psychological consciousness, which is 'easy' to explain (relatively) and phenomenal consciousnes, which seems inexplicable once one assumes that either mind causes brain or brain causes mind (in an ontological sense). It is explaing the 'what it is like' of consciousness that is called 'the hard problem'. By 'hard' is meant intractable. (Just as if it were a metaphysical question, which it is in my view).
“What it is like for individual Y to feel X”, the phenomenal feeling of X by Y, is something unique to that individual Y in the process of feeling X – it corresponds to a particular and unique configuration of neurophysiological states within individual Y which is correlated with a particular set of stimuli. There is no reason to think that such states will be identical to those found in any other individual – though the fact that we are all genetically similar does suggest that we may be able to assume our phenomenal feelings may also be “somewhat similar”.
What more needs to be explained? Where is the problem?
If by “fail to account for conscious experience” Chalmers means that we cannot explain exactly why the feeling of X is what it is for individual Y, then he is right – but why is this a problem? The feeling is unique to that individual, in the same way that any given random real number is unique. We do not try to explain why a random real number “is what it is” – we do not classify this as a “problem” - we simply accept that it is a random real number.Canute said:This is from Chalmers' paper 'Facing up to the Problem of Consciousness'
"We have seen that there are systematic reasons why the usual methods of cognitive science and neuroscience fail to account for conscious experience. These are simply the wrong sort of methods: we need an extra ingredient in the explanation. This makes for a challenge to those who are serious about the hard problem of consciousness: What is your extra ingredient, and why should that account for conscious experience?"
What does it take to show that it is not a problem? It seems to me that Chalmers is seeing a problem where there is no problem. You claim that nobody has shown that it is not a problem – I could equally claim that nobody has shown that it is a problem (in the same sense that “explaining why a random real number is what it is” is not a “problem” – it’s a meaningless question).Canute said:Of course, some researchers do not agree that this problem is hard in the way Chalmers suggests, but many do, and nobody has shown it is not.
I disagree. How can one solve a problem which does not exist?Canute said:But to show there is no hard problem one would have to solve it, and unless one can solve it then the evidence suggests that Chalmers is right, it cannot be solved by our usual method, nor in line with our usual assumptions about it.
Exactly – and we can ask the same question of a machine, once we build a machine which can report “how it feels”. Qualia are just elements of “how it feels”.octelcogopod said:What I'm saying is that there needs to be a mechanism of response, it doesn't have to be a conscious response, we can simply define qualia by asking the following question: "How did it feel?"
“Who felt it” simply requires an agent able to register phenomenal experience and able to make a report of that experience (based on comparisons with stored data from other phenomenal experiences).Canute said:Hang on a moment. How did what feel? The qualia? In this case who felt it? And who wants to know? If you study these questions carefully, whether by logic or introspectively, I think you'll find that that there is more to consciousness than qualia.
“Who wants to know” simply requires an agent asking for reports.
Best Regards