There Is No Hard Problem

Either there is an equivocation on the idea of ‘inside’ above or there is a lack of justification for the physical definition of
inside
justifying the arising of subjective experience.

What is ‘inside’ to matter`?

The equivocation: just because some complicated interaction is happening ‘inside’ is not enough to say there will be the ‘inside’ of subjectivity. Inside the ocean, there are ecosystems of complicated interaction. But the inside of the oceanness does not lead to this being conscious - not in most physicalist models.

The lack of justification: why does matter start being an experiencer because causal interactions are inside. why would topology lead to to there being an experiencer? I don’t see the argument, I see a simple flat statement, that conscoiusness is happening when it is inside.

For some reason interconnection inside something leads to matter not just engaging in certain processes, causal chains, but there arises a noticing. I see nothing explaining why this noticing arises. That to me is the hard problem. Not cognition, but awareness.

Another way to put it is this: sure, things within an organism affect eachother and can produce responses. But this can happen without an experiencer. In motors that have feedback for homeostasis. Would you argue that there are the beginnings of conscousness in those motors? I can see saying this is using information from one part of thing to modify processes in another. But I see nothing explaining an experiencer. Cognition, even, should not be confused with awareness.

Carleas, it’s either way. But I mean picking up object kinds of behaviors. Maybe someone says there are more of those than brain states, or that there are more brain states than those, but either way you just think of the 2 categories in terms of sets and settle them up that way. So that way even if it’s practically impossible to take snapshots of 2 identical brain states, as well as it being practically impossible to observe the level of nuance necessary to account for all possible brain states, you can resolve the language by talking about them in terms of types of states and types of behaviors. Basically, you just generalize a bit to be able to reduce one to the other. Then if you want you can talk about how this behavior goes with that brain state, or vice versa. This is basically what the pharmaceutical companies want to do. It’s all just chemical states of the brain! That’s why little Johnny won’t stop abusing animals and taking drugs. I see where it gets tricky when we refer to mind and body and start reducing mind to body in ways that reference the brain as if it weren’t part of the body. But the same move you make to reduce behaviors like picking up objects to brain states, which is to generalize over brain states or behavior enough to be able to identify them with one another is the move you’d make to reduce “mind” to brain. This is what religious people don’t want you to do, because then you don’t need God’s will or any of that stuff to explain what’s being observed. If the mind, or the soul is separate from the body/brain, then there’s magic out there that can be used to appeal to all sorts of nonsense. But if you can match behavior with brain states, and then you can explain that all we can know about the mind/soul is whatever we can observe by looking at the effects that it has on the brain, then you can throw it all out and just look at the brain since that’s where all your observable shit is anyway.

I only intend to say that “X is plausible” is a necessary condition for “X is the case”, and once we show the former, it’s only our lack of information that prevents us from concluding that X is the case. So, in making an argument that X is plausible, I am making a necessary part of the argument that X is the case.

Why only physicalists? What alternatives allow one to assume the existence of other minds?

My general response here would that, 1) we should apply consistent standards, so if we’re assuming the existence of other minds in other theories, it’s not a special weakness in this theory to assume the existence of other minds and reason from there, and 2) we do in fact assume the existence of other minds, and the burden is on anyone claiming that other minds don’t exist to make that case (I’d go as far to say that we don’t really understand our own mind are except by reference to other minds).

By inside/outside, compare to a computer set up to observe certain aspects of its environment and its own workings. The computer might report that the temperature in the room is X, that its #3 drive is on the fritz, etc. That’s inside-view reporting, it’s taking ‘sense data’ and ‘self-experiencing’ and reporting on its state as it perceives it. A technician working with the computer might note that it has a digital thermometer which translates the expansion of a spring into 0s and 1s, and that it has an algorithm that tries to read and write to locations on its drives and receives an error if the drives are on the fritz. That’s the outsid- view. In talking about the system, and appealing to either view, we don’t need to assume consciousness.

For humans, consciousness is the inside-view of the operation of their brain.

This is what I mean when I say “the experience of experiencing”, and my point is that the awareness is just the cognition about the cognition.

The claim that “this can happen without an experiencer” is question-begging. If I’m right, there’s a rudimentary experiencer in the motor. I’m not claiming that the motor is pondering about the nature of its existence, only that the motor’s perceptions about its own operations are effectively a very limited form of qualia.

I would say that we don’t need any more “intermediary substance” besides air, which allows connections in the form of spoken language. I hope that doesn’t sound too flip; if we’re acknowledging that we only ever have imperfect information about what’s really going on ‘out there’ in the non-mind universe, then the mental experiences that over time we’ve come to describe as ‘air’ and ‘noise’ and ‘language’ are just approximations of a real world we don’t and can’t know other than through the mental experiences. But if our mental experiences of ‘air’ are consistent, if when we communicate about them with these ostensible other minds we find that our experiences are consistent with their experiences, then we can talk about ‘air’ as a useful approximation for the real, unknowable world. There’s already plenty of hocus pocus in there, I don’t see the justification for more hocus pocus that adds more unknowability without any commensurate consistency within and between minds.

I can’t, but… again compare to a computer: let’s say we make a system that analyses its own hardware and software and spits out a model of how it all works. We might ask, Can it really propose a coherent description of itself without software? Of course not, the whole description is software mediated, it can’t escape its own software to see a non-software-mediated version of itself. Still, its model can describe the system without any specific line-item for software, e.g. “these electrical pulses go over here, where they turn on or off these gates, which pass or block other electrical charges, etc.” That’s likely to be a hugely inefficient way to describe what the system is doing, but that description can be complete while completely omitting software (despite that the description must be software-mediated).

So too with mind: my perception is mind, my interpretation of brain activity is mind-mediated, yet I’m arguing that a complete description of the brain can be a complete (if hugely inefficient) description of mind while omitting mind as any line-item in that description.

Mr Reasonable, I think I agree, although I’m open to the possibility that fine-enough grained behaviors are actually tightly tied to brain states. So, appealing one last time to the computer metaphor, two computers can both run Chrome, and ‘behave’ the same way, but when we get down into where and how the processing is taking place, the behaviors become ‘clicking with the pointer on pixel (x,y) and running the code stored at location z’, and can’t be very well abstracted into sets, and we really do have 1-to-1 correspondence. In brains, that becomes more salient, since we might both have the idea of a brain and say “brain”, and yet have a very different set of other ideas associated with it, so that I think of computers next and you think of drug companies, or whatever. But I think that’s just a matter of scale from what you’re saying.

It is the interface between the two states which may determine the progression (repeatably) ,until the test repeats itself to exactly one half of the number of cycles.

This is similar in kind to qualitative change by increments, or . a fed back system in pattern re-cognition.

Of pattern recognition becomes some constant between a differentiation between variable yet not relatable parts, and by re integration of patterns where the opposite occurs, two different patterns will become recognizable enough to form an impress of likeness , where the difference will not be noticed however remaining calculable.

I think this is the closest it can get to a description

Sorry Carleas for pre-tempting Your line of thought , but I owed this to Karpel.

Physicalists have tended to view all contact as mediated. This hits that which impinges on that. So minds are always separated and solipsism is always a possibility (or zombies) for a physicalist. This is likely true for other belief systems. But some belief systems do not consider things as separate first. They can have separate and intermeshed at the same time. Idealists have an easier time with this also.

I am not arguing that there are not other minds. I was pointing out that physicalism leads to certain conclusions and doubts, given its nature.

But again, there is no reason for this to include experiencing. As in, there is subject feeling this or that while experiencing the phenomenon of X. Looking out, looking in, there is no reason one should have an experiencer more than the other.

But it’s not just that. Functional processes need not have awareness. You can say that when cognitive processes have themselves as the object conscousness arises, but this is just a flat assertion. I see no justification for that. Organism X looks at the gull, no consciousness. Organism X, wonders about its feeling, consciousness.

OK, good. At least we have that on the table. That is a rare physicalist position. But now we need a definition of perceptions of its own operations. Would this take place in a reef, say? Why not consider panqualiaism, while we’re at it. Why is the skin the limit of the orgasmism? We have causal chains coursing through matter, in all directions, why should it honor the skin as a special bounday?

I am still not seeing anything that explains why we do not have a zombie universe. You can say ‘when someone focuses on itself, it becomes consciousn’, but we don’t know if that is the limit of consciousness. We don’t know the mechanism. But we have an axiom that is very hard, if not impossible, to falsify or verify.

It can be said that “we have imperfect information about what’s really going on ‘out there’ in the non-mind universe”, or it could be said that we have perfect information of what’s going on in the mind. Beginning with the latter, as we all would have done before any notion of the former was ever conceived (the “non-mind universe” ‘out there’ conceived in the mind no less), the issue with the latter is that we have less useful predictive power relative to the usefulness in predictive power of the former. The difference therefore is in utility, and the inversion of mind with “non-mind” such that “non-mind” replaced mind as more fundamental was because of utility. Reality is thus a social construct that would not exist or occur to the mind of somebody born into no social contact. You are not far off at all in your mention of spoken language as the foundation of what we now casually deem to be the reality beyond the mind: the source of all the goings in within our mind.

This is the riddle I’ve been exploring, and the solution I’ve been considering for a long time now. Not that it might quite easily be very misguided. I even seem to remember a reference to the construction of such things through language alone by my favourite philosopher, Nietzsche, somewhere in The Gay Science. I can try and seek it out if you’re interested and if you’ve not already read it.

Consider not only air, but all that we experience either side of it. “Where” do they occur? The useful conception is to suggest they originate from reality out there in space, but even the study of “out there in space” reveals that all our experience is only of our interpretations of the data we sense from “out there in space”. The spatial element of our experience is then to be reconsidered as originating in our brain - so where is all of everything then? Out there or in the brain? In the mind? What then of space at all? If you’ve seen Joe Rogan’s interview with Elon Musk, Elon similarly raises the point of “space” and “where” any thing actually is if everything is already virtual reality. For these mind bubbles I’ve suddenly interested myself in, as a concept, the fact that the supposed spatial locations of things in minds overlap with what others say doesn’t mean that the minds themselves are spatially overlapping, or even that minds occupy any space at all - or at least that they don’t conform with Materialist notions of space. “Air” is only really a placeholder to account for the time it takes for the first things we seemingly experience “over there” to meet with things “over here”, and the feeling of resistance that occurs with wind or moving fast. It’s not quite so strange, then, that interactive virtual 3D representations so closely match our experience despite their 2D format. Has the mind been tricked by the 2D, or is the 3D a trick?

What is software? Software is the “intangible” information that tells the Hardware what to do, right? Well no, software is all physical too. Every key stroke and mouse click or movement is the change in electrical current through hardware. It results in very specific light shows on your monitor practically incidentally. The “rift” between hardware and software is better said to be the mind’s reaction to these light shows etc., between the hardware of “reality” and the software of the mind. But just as it’s all hardware “in reality” it’s all mind: the computer hardware, the electrical current changing due to inputs, the display of the monitor and the associations of the brain that result in various different outputs of the mind interacting with other elements of the mind that aren’t deemed “self”. Of course, you’re merely creating an analogy, and all the computer would be doing is condensing more complex information that can be much more easily summed up and communicated on an abstract level without details, more efficiently translating meaning (that which we respond to most) than if every detail were specified.

Note that the computer would not be communicating anything if it didn’t change the type of the information that it used to communicate. If it changed nothing, it’d just be functioning as normal: the type of information used to communicate has to be different in order for it to be information. A “complete description of the brain” is no description if a brain is simply working, it has to be translated into something else so that an association can be made - such is the mechanism of the brain itself e.g. the association of one group of neurons with another through electro-chemical stimulation in order for brain activity to occur at all. I can’t simply present “mind” and expect information to happen, it is required - through language - for a different type of substance to be invoked to be associated with mind such that the mind can understand it. This manifests in sensory creations such as “the brain” that works in this very convenient way to represent the mind, within the mind, so that the mind can think it has understood something new. It would never have been able to do this without the brain in this way, not because the brain is of a more fundamental substance.

How’s that for hocus pocus?

The problem is that matter is assumed to be unconsious in materialism.

I belief it is not an assumption at all.
It is just that there is no proof matter can be conscious as generally defined.
merriam-webster.com/dictionary/conscious

One point is this;
Being conscious is a very obvious fact [say 95/100].

But what is ‘matter’ is merely a scientific fact which in a way is a 80/100 matter of fact. Note scientific facts are merely polished-conjectures [Karl Popper].

The raising of a ‘hard problem’ of consciousness is problem of conflating and equivocating of different perspectives and a linguistic issue.

I believed it would be more wiser to forget with the Hard Problem of Consciousness since this is an impossibility. That is, it is not possible for humanity to construct a normal biological human nor repeat the 2 billion evolutionary process to enable the emergent of humans as they are today.

Rather humanity can replicate ‘consciouness’ in robots to as close as possible to that of human consciousness. Humanity already doing that at present and progressing steadily.

Matter is believed to blindly follow laws of nature. There was no hard problem of consciousness if matter was conscious since brain could perform all its function in absence of consciousness depending on how it is structured. Like a robot we can unconsciously perform many tasks at once. So the questions are what is the use of consciousness and how matter becomes conscious otherwise the robots we make will be unconscious.

Matter do not follow laws of nature blindly.

Consciousness is an emergent that can be justified and verified as a fact.
Matter is also an emergent spontaneously with the rest of reality as it is.
The laws of nature are realized by consciousness in tandem with matter.
The laws of nature do not pre-exist by itself but is conditioned with consciousness, i.e.
if no consciousness, then no laws of nature. Kant had argued for this.

It is not that matter is conscious.
The fact is consciousness co-exists with and is an emergent with matter and vice-versa, as in the dynamics of Yin-Yang.

The purpose of an evolving higher consciousness in humans is to enable the human species to deal with greater threats [catastrophe, epidemic, global, galatical] to the human species.
With a greater and higher consciousness humanity has the potential to survive the inevitable death of Earth via the possibility of living in other planets, thus our venture into space explorations which is only possible with increasing higher consciousness.
I believe this is the critical reason for why there is an evolution and progress of consciousness within humanity.

Do you have an example of where it does not? Is there matter in your body or your body as a whole that is not utterly determined by the laws of nature?

It can be justified, but so can most propositions. But that it is emergent is merely a hypothesis.

In tandem with matter? So consciousness is not matter?

Kant was also a theist.

And you are missing his point completely. Since matter will do what it does, following deterministic chains of action, there is no need for consciousness. The body would react as the body reacts. There is a witness, an experiencing, but bodies could do with out it.

So nature is teleological?

So you’re not Darwinian.

So you mean that a falling apple is conscious. How about a tree? What if you cut a branch of tree?

It is ridiculous to equate to ‘matter following laws of nature blindly’ as if like some ignorant person following man-made laws/rules blindly.

As Kant had argued, whatever is the laws of nature are finalized by humans based on human observations and experiences of consistent events, thus man-made and driven by human consciousness.

Nope, it is not a hypothesis.
Human consciousness and its range of awareness can be easily proven.

The theory is, DNA wise there will be an emergence of a range of human consciousness over their lifetime which can be easily proven within ALL humans [with rare exceptions].

We know for sure human consciousness emerges but to trace its origin is impossible.

Consciousness is a mental state, it is not matter as defined via Physics.

Irrelevant.

If you are not conscious, how can you express the above?
Thus reality-as-it-is in relation to human beings is conditioned upon human consciousness, this is an undeniable fact.

There is witnessing and experiencing via an emerging consciousness.
There is a range of experiencer but there is no ultimate experiencer without human consciousness.

Nature is not teleological in the sense of an ultimate purpose - whatever that is.

There is no predetermined destiny that the Earth will be hit by a large rogue asteriod or meteorite that could split the Earth into billion of pieces. The increasing progressive evolution of consciousness within humans is merely to give it a chance to survive ever greater threats that are to be known in time.

Irrelevant to the point.
I agree with Darwin’s theory of evolution.

You missed my point.

In the general context of ‘conscious’ the default is always with reference to human consciousness.
Non-human animals has their own consciousness [relative to their evolution hierarchy] which is definitely not equivalent to that of humans.
Generally, non-living things which are not animals are not associated with ‘consciousness’ i.e. a apple, tree, do not have consciousness [as generally defined].

Why human is so fundamental in your world view?

The point is humans are part and parcel of reality-as-it-is such that we cannot extricate the human factor from reality and still claimed it is reality-as-it-is.

Say
Reality-as-it-is is 100%
Reality-as-it-is = X% [others] + Y[human factor]% = 100%.
If you take away the human factor from reality-as-it-is, then what you have is an incomplete reality.

Though it is an incomplete reality, theists claimed such a reality is God - the ultimate being.
Whilst God will provide psychological comfort to the majority, the downside is the terrible evil and violent acts committed in the name of God, especially in Islam’s case. One of the type of terrible evil among others is this evident stats;
thereligionofpeace.com/TROP.jpg
One point to note, whatever is attributable to a God - the all powerful - is beyond human control and management. If God said so, then believers must do it without question.

On the other hand, when we recognized and understand the fact that reality-as-it-is comprised the human factor as fundamental and part & parcel of reality, then we have some degree of control over reality.

Note it is not my view, but the Eastern religions, like Buddhism, and other non-theistic spirituality has been adopting such a perspective since thousands of years ago.

But there was no human some millions years ago.

The above is true but only true as conditioned by us being humans. There is no other way but to face this condition.

How can you realized the above statement without being human?
Note the terms ‘human’ ‘millions’ ‘years’ ‘ago’ are only valid concepts because human exist.

There is no way you can prove anything then, i.e. ‘some millions years ago’.
The only way the above statement made sense is via human concepts, cognition and realization. Kant provided the philosophical justification for this point.

It is natural and tempting to reify nothingness, but
the reality is, as Wittgenstein stated,
“Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.”.

Whenever humans take it too seriously and attempt to speak of and reify the ‘whereof one cannot speak’ there is an accompaniment of a huge potential liability via theism. Note the terrible evil and violent acts arising from theism when theists reify the unspeakable nothing which is fundamental driven by an impulse from an existential psychological crisis.

Btw, what do you have to lose if you were to shut up and don’t even think about “it” [impulse driven thought] at all. Like the fact that one must breath no matter how, most people cannot shut up about "it’ i.e. the ultimate being aka God, Absolute, etc.

The point is, those with weaker spirituality will not be able to modulate their reificating impulse but will be compelled to end up speaking of [grasping at] some kind of God or the likes [Being, Absolute, Oneness, etc] so that their unease will be soothed.
There is a correlation between this impulse to reify nothingness with the sensitive desperate need to breath when the breath is stop for a certain period.

See:
The Desperate Need to Breath and Spirituality
viewtopic.php?f=5&t=194655

Things can exist objectively without a need for an intelligent agent who can conceptual them.

The above is a mere statement which anyone can think of and make.
How can you EVER justify the above without human subjects being part and parcel in arriving at the above statement.
I have argued, how you arrive at the above proposition is due to psychological impulses within the self.

Btw, objectivity is inter-subjectivity via implicit and explicit consensus.
Thus objectivity falls back on the human subjects factor.
Note objectivity does not arise from merely conceptual abilities but rather comprised the whole evolutionary process, sense experiences, sensibility, intellect, conceptual, reasoning, etc that enable reality-as-it-is to emerge.

The most objective knowledge on hand is scientific knowledge which is based on inter-subjective consensus, i.e. within the scientific community and that the non-scientists has faith in the scientific framework and system’s reliability and credibility.