Theory of 'everything'

>that's not even what he said and you made no argument.

Figures...

my brain likes to fool me from time to time.

>>hur dur vague idea about unreliability

unreliability on our method of knowing.
It puts knowledge itself out of business

>so every everywhere is completely unreliable

Brain is what finds and understands knowledge so if it's unreliable of course I can dismiss things that depend on it.

>so i can dismiss things i emotionally disagree with without any substance

It's what follows from denying qualia.
Don't like it?
Too bad.

>There is no subjective reliability, not is that such thing as universal objectivity, there is however reliability and objectivity within distinct closed systems.

Says the brain who plays tricks with knowledge.

> into the trash it goes

>subjective conscious experience
What is this actually supposed to mean?

I direct my eyes towards a thing. Light enters my eyes. Because I am learned, I can identify certain patterns of light as objects, and perhaps name them, and perhaps categorize them. Others may identify these patterns differently or fail to identify them at all depending on their upbringing and whether or not they are physically blind.

What is the point of describing a "subjective conscious experience" when that subjectivity is the result of one's education and socialization? It is not mathematical and it's not scientific. I say tomato. You say tomato. Someone says it's a fruit. Someone else says it's a vegetable. A 200 kg American says she's allergic and she can't eat it unless it's processed into pizza sauce. Is this what you mean by qualia?

No it's the actual color of red that you perceive you autist. You can't quantify your perception. You can't even describe it with physics, you can only describe the physics of what wavelength you perceived.

Information as quintessence, maybe.

Are you implying that there is a difference between the wavelength of light that human eyes perceive as red and the platonic concept of the color red? Because there isn't any meaningful difference. Perhaps you are the autist.

Yes. There is a difference between the perception of red and the wavelength causing me to perceive it as red.

And what difference is that?

>he still thinks perception is independent from and outside physicality
Ayy lmao get this MDMAcuck out of here

>qualia

Literally what needs explaining? Light goes into your eyes, hits some sensors/nerves, and you react based on electrical signals.

Just because you have a process to ask why you're doing it doesn't make it more complex than that

What are you talking about? A mental representation is perfectly adequate to understand the world, and indeed would have to be congruent with reality to allow any organism to survive. All my post expressed was that the impression of seeing red is not like watching a movie projector inside the brain, where red photons are actually being sprayed on some tiny surface and analyzed. The impression of seeing red is like the misdirection of a stage magician. You think you're seeing it, but the brain is actually just "telling you" you're seeing it. This process can be deconstructed. For example, you can have a strong conviction that you're seeing a dog in your imagination, but when asked to describe it, you will fudge the details or male them up as you go along. That's because the brain convinced you there was more detail than there really was.

What is the difference between the wavelength of light and your nerve's reaction to that wavelength, and the "subjective" red you perceive?

I don't think there is one.

the "hard problem" of consciousness is about as hard as the "hard problem" of temperature.
>b-but how is the jiggling of atoms heat? it's soooo mysterious!!
"heat" and "consciousness" are just two terms for things we perceive.

When it enters the retina and triggers the firing of whatever the fuck neurons are associated with it. And that IS the experience. You can no more ask what it is like to be someone else than you can ask what it is like to be an electron. You can get an idea, but by no means can you experience another person's perception.. by the very nature of it.

>You think you're seeing it, but the brain is actually just "telling you" you're seeing it.
That's complete bollocks. You are your brain. Changes in your brain are your experiences.

Maybe you guys aren't consious then. The difference is my actual perception of it. A computer (biological or otherwise) wouldn't "perceive" anything only analyze it.

"You are your brain." Sort of. Your "conscious" mind (leave aside the baggage that word comes with for now) is what your brain "does," not what it "is," and that doing is actually a vast parliament of processes, sometimes competing and sometimes coordinating. Some of these processes overrule others, and the ones who succeed are often just using misdirection or trickery or cheap, convenient heuristics to get shit done. The gee-whiz feeling of specialness that consciousness inspires in people is mostly overblown.

>You think you're seeing it, but the brain is actually just "telling you" you're seeing it.
This is the most ridiculous thing I have read here. You are essentially saying your own mind is an illusion, what in thr fuck. How delusional can physicalists get just to justify their faith in science.

this game of "spot the brainlet solipsist" is getting pretty easy nowadays desu

Don't attack them so harshly, it's simply a case of dunning-kruger. Science is a hammer and qualia is a problem that requires a screwdriver. This lot are approaching it in the only way they know how.

> A computer (biological or otherwise) wouldn't "perceive" anything only analyze it.
Wait, so uh, what's the difference between a biological computer then and a person? When does it go from "analysis" to "perception"?

qualia isn't even a problem
you're a pedant playing a semantic game

>When does it go from "analysis" to "perception"?
You can only know for certain that you perceive things everything else could merely be analyzing things. However, we choose to believe other people are truly consious just like us so that we aren't so lonely. Everything except solipsism obviously implies taking some kind of leap in faith.

The only thing I know is different between me and others is that I'm me, and no one else. I don't see where this claim that I'm doing something differently or experiencing things differently than others comes from, I have no reason to believe that their experience is different, nor do I have any evidence for it (such as as experiment that could show that someone else sees red as a different color than I do).

I'm not making that claim. I am claiming that the actual perception is something that can't possibly be physical. You could potentially argue that different people see different colors than me but I'm not claiming that.

Your claim is made without evidence and without reason, is it not?
You may be unconvinced that there is no physical basis for perception but that's not an actual reason to convince yourself that perception has no physical basis. You should be neutral, having no opinion one way or another. But here you stand, on a side of the fence where you have no cause to tread. Why?

not if it is possible to mind meld with other people

The reason I think it has no physical basis is because all physical explanations for perception require me to deny perception as I KNOW it to be. You can't possibly convince me that my perception is merely an illusion from neurons firing in my brain.

>You can't possibly convince me that my perception is merely an illusion from neurons firing in my brain.
Why?

And also why do you consider it an illusion, or somehow bad? If it really is just an aggregate effect of the way our neurons work, is that bad? Does it make you feel less special or something? You're so terrified of the prospect (for some reason) that you're willing to just plug your ears forever? Even in the face of possible physicalist interpretations having more evidence in the future?

>You're so terrified of the prospect (for some reason) that you're willing to just plug your ears forever?
I think you are the terrified one. You probably think the idea that materialism is false would render science false or useless but I don't agree. However, to say consciousness is an illusion is provably false. You can't say ,"It seems like you are perceiving but you aren't." That statement is the equivalent to saying, "You perceive that you are perceiving but you really aren't."

What word would you prefer "you think you are perceiving"? "Compute"? Or how about just straight "You aren't perceiving"? Can you do something OTHER than be a pedant and talk about semantics?

>You aren't perceiving"?
That's provably false. I am perceiving your post right now. You are the pedant. I am describing a concept using the word "perceiving" but for some reason you don't want to accept the concept I am describing and would rather argue that I'm wrong because you think perception is something else like "computing" which carries a different meaning to me. A computer is not perceiving anything.

Because you can't actually describe what perceiving is. How do I know you're perceiving? How am I supposed to tell you from a well-spoken robot who always claims that he is perceiving when someone challenges his ability to perceive? Instead of giving an actual definition you just throw up your hands and say
>You can only know for certain that you perceive things everything else could merely be analyzing things.
Again, you have yet to actually describe it beyond "it's just computing except it's what I do which makes it ultra special"

>How do I know you're perceiving? How am I supposed to tell you from a well-spoken robot who always claims that he is perceiving when someone challenges his ability to perceive?
If you don't believe I am perceiving then why argue with me? Isn't that equivalent to arguing with your computer? This isn't at all about me convincing you I am perceiving, this is about you convincing me I am NOT perceiving. I am saying that is impossible because I KNOW I am in fact perceiving or experiencing (whichever word sounds better to you).

Because, unlike you, I don't mind discussing things with things that may or may not perceive (whatever that means). I would be perfectly happy to have an argument with a computer that was well-spoken enough to interest me, just as a chess game would be no less (even more) challenging against a computer as against a human.

The real question is that why you are happy to argue with me, even though you can only be sure that you yourself are perceiving, and not me (in this way I may as well be a computer to you), unless you're also fine with conversing with things that don't perceive (whatever that means).

And no, I can't tell you that you aren't perceiving, I don't know where you got that idea. I can't see inside your head, I have no idea what the fuck you're thinking, nor how you think it. I only have the outward evidence, which is rather neutral on the matter, but I'm of the opinion that most, if not all, outward behaviors of humans could be done also by computers. Things which you decidedly claim cannot perceive. So I'm left with you claiming to have some special quality, but which you cannot show me or even demonstrate exists in the first place, and of this I am rather skeptical. Since, as you said, you know you perceive apparently, again I'm not sure what you gain by continuing to argue.

If there were no other conscious beings then the universe would be a terrifyingly lonely place. I already said that I choose to take a leap of faith and believe other beings are perceiving just like I am because it can allow me to feel less alone. No matter what you believe you are always taking a leap of faith in something (although certain things are more reasonable than others). Maybe you don't care that other conscious beings exist but I certainly do, or maybe you aren't even conscious which is why you don't understand my argument, maybe you are merely a machine.

This is what I was talking about earlier, why do you consider it bad or lonely? As I've stated I REALLY don't see the big deal about this magical "perceiving" thing, so I'm not comforted by their presence, nor discomforted by their absence.

When I consider human brains/human experience to be equivalent to nothing more than a very complicated computer program, I'm not depressed, think "Oh no, nothing real exists!" or something similar. I think it's wonderful that the positive aspects of human experience aren't so rare after all, that even computers could one day be as complicated as us (although I'll freely admit that's a distant speculation still).

If I really fucking love ice cream, and later learn that everyone else in the world has also had ice cream, I'm not depressed by the fact that my experience was not special, but happy that many others were also able to experience the same positive feelings about it that I did.

>why do you consider it bad or lonely?
Huh, maybe you really aren't conscious. The reason it would be lonely is that I would be the only being who actually perceives or feels anything. Everything else would merely act as if they perceive and feel things but they really don't. There would be no more value in those people than there would be value in a pile of rocks. The only value would be in a purely objective sense that there might be complex explanations for why they exist but there would be no true emotional connection between me and them because I am the only one who feels anything.

Now you're just making a no true scotsman about feelings or emotions, just tossing things aside as not TRULY emotional or not ACTUALLY perceiving. If God or some metaphysical alien who you were able to 100% trust completely came down and put signs on everyone who was "real", who could "actually" percieve, and those who couldn't, would you really suddenly associate with the "real" ones, and be happy to treat the others as you would a pile of rocks?

To me it just sounds like a horrible worldview to be in, constantly terrified that something you interact with isn't "genuine", with only your own self-admitted complete speculation that you don't live in a horror of a world where only you are "conscious".

But no sudden new information could ever invalidate the real fun and enjoyment I've had with other people, even if none of them "actually felt". I actually enjoyed it, and they did too by every measure I could possibly use on them, so what more is necessary? I choose to predicate my beliefs on what I can actually determine, rather than some magic I can never see inside people's heads and that will never have an effect on how they act, and I feel much better for it.

Fair enough, I guess you have a point that as long as it seems like they are conscious then it doesn't matter that much. However you will still not be able to convince me that consciousness that I experience is something that can be explained with physical properties.

Physicalism is dead. It can't explain qualia and as much as physicialists want to autistically screech that it's a spook, qualia is proof enough that consciousness does not come from any physical system of molecules or neurons.

So much amateur philosophy in this thread.

Once again, qualia is nothing special. It is an illusion. Every bit as much of an illusion as the way your brain hides your blind spot from you, or the way it convinces you that your peripheral vision is in color rather than black and white. It's all a bunch of stage magic, tons of little tricks that together feel really impressive, even supernatural. In reality, "qualia" is simply your brain telling itself there is something out there in the world. It is not a miniature sensory museum in the computational architecture of the brain, just a bunch of telegrams that get sent from time to time by the unconscious, saying, "You are experiencing red, the taste of wine, etc." There is no actual red or wine-flavor on the "telegram."

>There isn't a perceptual experience of red
>All mental representations in the brain are basically conjuring tricks the brain uses to convince itself of order.
A conjuring trick is still a thing that exists, user.

You just explained the issue away, you didn't actually address it at all. Also you just decided to insult anyone who disagrees with you as an "amateur."

In the same way that a magician pulling a rabbit out of his hat is "magic," sure. It looks impressive, but the underlying trickery is banal.

How did I explain it away? By underappreciating the gee-whizness of consciousness, which is what most qualia talk is about?

You must not be conscious then.

You have to accept that it's possible all these guys are just automatons with no qualia. Maybe they are? We just can't tell. The only thing you can be certain of is that you have qualia yourself.

I'm perfectly willing to take someones word for it when they tell me that they don't have it. And I completely understand why they would (incorrectly) therefore assume that I too don't have it.

That would explain a lot actually.

What a strange post. Do you also take the word of someone who claims to have "super qualia," perfect introspection, or ESP? Anyways, the problem with threads like these is that most posters haven't interrogated their own intuitions enough to see where they disjoint from objective reality. They get so spellbound by the persuasiveness of certain intuitions that it doesn't occur to them those intuitions might be parlor tricks or outright lies.

Nobody is arguing whether our qualia offer true information about the world. We are arguing that the qualia themselves are what contradicts the notion that consciousness is physical. Sure I could see a color that is actually blue as red and be wrong but that doesn't relate to the fact that the mere act of seeing is something that can't be properly explained physically.

>What a strange post. Do you also take the word of someone who claims to have "super qualia," perfect introspection, or ESP?
No, don't be daft.

I know I have consciousness, so I'm willing to believe that others may have it too. I don't have trouble believing whether it is possible or not because I already have it myself.

I don't have "super qualia, perfect introspection, or ESP" so I wouldn't be willing to accept someone word for it when they claim they do. Likewise, you don't have qualia so it's perfectly understandable why you wouldn't believe me when I say I have it.

It can be explained properly, if you bothered to read the literature on visual perception. Yes, consciousness is physical. By your logic, numbers can't be explained because they're nonphysical.

>There are no actual photons stored in the brain. This sounds unintuitive, but it's true.
this more than anything shows that you don't see what it is this discussion is about.

When we describe concepts such as brains, storing, photons, mental representations, and tricks, we're referring to abstract structures/ "forms"/ sets. Things that are definitively objective.

When we describe qualitative concepts, we're talking about a categorically/ ontologically different type of thing. The experience of a musical piece is a different aspect of its existence than the structures which underlie it. This experience definitively cannot be described by said structure, though its quality seems perfectly related to/ reflected of it.

I'm not even sure you know what you mean when you say "qualia." So, what do you mean? What is this special sauce of consciousness that's so impressive it requires a whole other layer of reality to explain?

pardon my english

Well, recommend me some literature explaining it then because so far the only physicallist exlpanation I've encountered is "it doesn't exist, you're making it up". This is rather unpalatable to me, especially with the extremely weak arguments that are usually wheeled out, because my own consciousness and qualia is one of the few I can be certain of. If you want to convince me that it's an illusion you need to bring me evidence strong enugh to convince me that basically my whole life and everything I've experienced is actually a big lie.

I think you misunderstood what I meant by seeing. I'm not talking about the neurons firing in my brain and all that jazz I am talking about my actual perception of the color blue.

It's hard to explain to someone who doesn't have it. How would you explain what it's like to see colour to a blind person?

Everyone who has it can tell what it is.

what is the truth value of intra-coherence if the set itself is not justified? it may make sense from a pragmatic perspective, but one would not be able to make the objections you made if that's your approach. You wouldn't feel correct in your opinion, just safer.

The experience of listening to a music piece is not an "aspect" of the piece's existence, so I'm not sure what you mean by that. Such an experience is just a bundle of sense-data, which is very much objective, even if it's private. And sense-data are, again, just editorials from the unconscious, nothing terribly special.

He doesn't understand because he doesn't have qualia.

"Consciousness Explained" is a good starting point, albeit dated. It's a mistake to think that your existence is a lie because qualia aren't real. More accurately, your mind is less special than you might have thought when comparing it to other phenomena of the natural world. Your mind is very much the product of a biological computer.

A distinction without a difference.

>Consciousness Explained
More like Consciousness Explained Away.

Funny.

I know that to be false. I cannot prove it to you because you are not conscious but I know for myself it is false.

So, you're saying that qualia exists and computer can have it. I really hope that book has some explanation and evidence for this assertion because I have never met a computer that is conscious. Maybe it will also tell me unicorns actually exist and expect me to believe it? We will see though, I guess.

>Dennet
Into the trash it goes. Never listen to pseudoscientists.

no red wavelength here

youtube.com/watch?v=Aevh_dQHT88

>physical
What does this mean?

>afterimages are qualia

Qualia isn't a coherent concept to begin with, so, no, computers can't have it. What they do have (at least, our biological ones) is a capacity for sense-data. So, sure, a synthetic computer could too, if you knew how to build one.

Dennett is hardly the first philosopher to field eliminative materialism, but the book is an easy read, and enjoyable.

Well, here is the problem. Just because you claim something is not a coherent concept doesn't mean it is so. A blind man may claim your description of colour makes no sense at all. How could he understand? He couldn't. He would just say it's a bunch of jumbled up bullshit and it doesn't make sense at all. "There are only 4 senses, stop chatting this bullshit when you can't even explain what colour is."

I have been experiencing my own consciousness and qualia all my life, much like I have been experiencing the physical world around me. If you came up to me and tried to convince me that the physical world is a lie and an illusion, what would be my response? Of course, I would tell you to go fuck yourself. Likewise when you try to tell me that my whole experience of consciousness and qualia is a lie, my inclination is to again tell you to go fuck yourself.

Therefore this book of yours needs to have evidence that would be powerful enough to convince someone the world around him is a lie.

>Well, here is the problem. Just because you claim something is not a coherent concept doesn't mean it is so. A blind man may claim your description of colour makes no sense at all. How could he understand? He couldn't. He would just say it's a bunch of jumbled up bullshit and it doesn't make sense at all. "There are only 4 senses, stop chatting this bullshit when you can't even explain what colour is."
What? We can understand things like atoms perfectly fine even though have no personal experience with them. We can describe them well, they answer many questions that arose concerning science, and can experimentally show that they exist. All of these things a blind man can do with sight. A blind mathematician can definitely understand EM forces and photons, and he can also notice that people around him react to things that are very far away and make no noise, seemingly impossibly unless there was some kind of energy separate from sound, that is created under different circumstances, and which some people can detect.

So no, light and color are very well defined concepts that the blind are perfectly capable of understanding. No blind person would claim that light doesn't exist, and not just because of societal pressure of most people claiming that it does.

>What? We can understand things like atoms perfectly fine even though have no personal experience with them
Actually you can't. This is a well known fact of science. You can have a vague idea about what properties an atom has, you don't know what an atom actually is in reality. It's a major problem these days with people conflating the world we experience with theoretical models of reality that may or may not be congruent with actual experience. As Bertrand Russel said:

>It is not always realized how exceedingly abstract is the information that theoretical physics has to give. It lays down certain fundamental equations which enable it to deal with the logical structure of events, while leaving it completely unknown what is the intrinsic character of the events that have the structure. All that physics gives us is certain equations giving abstract properties of their changes. But as to what it is that changes and what it changes from and to - as to this, physics is silent

Without direct experience all you're looking at is an abstracted model of how a thing might work. You don't know what that thing actually is like in reality however.

>>

you missed the point, so forget that first bit

what about the rest of that post?

>The experience of listening to a music piece is not an "aspect" of the piece's existence
It is from the perspective of a conscious observer.

We don't need a perfect understanding of it, an abstract model is good enough for most of our purposes, it's significantly more than any explanation of qualia, which is what we were talking about.

No, an experience reflects/ correlates with a bundle of sense-data. I have an experience, and I see that each time that experience exists, there is a particular physical structure associated with it. The structure of an experience is not the experience itself. Conceptualization of a thing is not the thing itself.

qualia does not exist =/= hurr durr everything you experience is an illusion your whole life is a big lie

Don't be such a moron.

Qualia is as big a part of my experience as the world around me. You're telling me it does not exist and expect me to just believe you, yet you wouldn't believe me if I told you that the world doesn't exist.

>We don't need a perfect understanding of it, an abstract model is good enough for most of our purposes,
Yeah I'm not denying that. I'm just saying there is a fundamental difference between knowledge and experience, which is why qualia is a problem for anyone who mistakenly believes the physical brain can be the sole cause of consciousness.

If your brain is actively lying to you then how does it follow that you can trust your conclusion on any matter at all? You seem to be arguing that qualia is a perceptual trick your brain plays but then you refuse to follow that line of thought to it's logical conclusion because it undermines your argument.

Do you always trust what you experience? I take it you've never tried any mind-altering drugs. Surely you know of mirages or optical illusions? How do you feel about those?

>mfw he thinks I can't explain qualia

Because not everything people fucking act on is qualia you retarded dipshit. Just because your brain lies to you sometimes doesn't mean that everything is an illusion and you can't trust anything ever because the whole universe is a lie.

>The experience of listening to a music piece is not an "aspect" of the piece's existence... an experience is just a bundle of sense-data

When I listen to Cmajor or focus on the color of the sky, descriptions of the exact wave mechanics and neurophysiological computations which coincide with said sensations does not describe a fundamental aspect of what it was that existed during those events. These "merely" quantify a particular quality which exists at that given moment.

THIS is more intense than THAT, but THIS is not intensity itself.

How can one ask to prove the existence of THIS using terms of intensity when intensity itself is only brought up to describe the relationship between THIS and THAT.

>Do you always trust what you experience?
Nope, but no matter what mind altering substances I consume my qualia is still present, even when the material world is not. In fact, this seems to suggest it's more reliable than even my physical senses.

Still, if you were to tell me my entire world experience is illusory and that I've in fact been in a hospital bed my whole being fed LSD I would tell you to fuck off. Yet, you have no problem doing exactly this when it comes to qualia.

Right, and you're the legendary mind tamer who's figured out that your brain is only lying about qualia and in everything else it's telling the truth.

This seems rather convenient doesn't it? You can't explain qualia so you argue qualia and ONLY qualia are an illusion your brain tricks you into believing. I think it's a bad argument because you're desperately trying to dismiss qualia but also trying to prevent the conclusion that follows by arbitrarily separating qualia from the rest of your consciousness.

I think if you want to make your argument you need to have the guts to admit that is qualia are illusory then there is no reason you can argue any other aspect of your conscious experience is not also illusory, meaning anything and everything you experience could potentially be an illusion, essentially completely disconnecting your conscious experience from objective reality. Trying to separate qualia off into it's own distinct thing because it's inconvenient to your argument doesn't make any logical sense.

So either

1. You can rely on your senses and your conscious experience is directly tied to objective reality

2. Qualia are illusory in which case EVERYTHING you experience could be illusory and your experience is disconnected from objective reality

It's one or the other. Not both. Trying to argue both means you're just trying to dismiss qualia because it's a point against physicalism.

Come on man he presented a well thought out distinction and your answer seems as though it completely glossed over everything... reread the fuckin thing a few times before you spit out an answer