- #36
Fliption
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Originally posted by Mentat
OK, but is it really good philosophy to arbitrarily create new definitions and then try to fit certain phenomena into them?
Like the term "Sub-experiences"?
Originally posted by Mentat
OK, but is it really good philosophy to arbitrarily create new definitions and then try to fit certain phenomena into them?
Originally posted by Fliption
Like the term "Sub-experiences"?
Originally posted by Mentat
While I didn't coin the term, I also didn't invent the definition. It's definition existed and was being discussed long before I assigned a word to it. It's actually just another part of Chalmer's "easy problems".
Originally posted by Canute
Good point. Besides which it seems completely obvious that to explain a 'sub-experience' presents exactly the same problem as explaining an experience, unless it's now going to argued that a sub-experience is not a sub-experience.
Originally posted by hypnagogue
I'd like to emphasize that this is a very succint and powerful way of stating the problem of 'sub-experiences' that somehow combine to make experiences as we perceive them. Using 'sub-experiences' in this way only begs the question (a recurring theme when one tries to explain consciousness via only physical reductionism), because it presumes that these sub-experiences themselves really have properties such that we can coherently see how they account for the properties of experience. (In this sense explaining experience in terms of sub-experience is not unlike explaining the sense of self in terms of a homunculus-- it merely pushes the real problem onto another level of analysis without adequately addressing it.) The whole problem to begin with is that materialism does not-- indeed, cannot-- mention any properties on any physical level that have a binding logical connection to the properties of subjective experience.
Originally posted by Canute
Yes, and Terry Pratchett uses a similar explanation to account for the continuing existence of Discworld, although in his case it's turtles rather than sub-experiences.
You have to make up your mind. Either a neuron is a neuron or it is a sub-experience. If it a sub-experience then a priori we are experiencing it, and the problem remains unchanged.
Unfortunately it is no easier to explain how a single neuron gives rise to a sub-experience than it is to explain how a brain gives rise to a unified collection of them.
I'll take your word for it.Originally posted by Mentat
First off, it's now single neurons, they are the most "stupid" demons, which do nothing but get stimulated, and stimulate their neighbors (though they have the odd property of tending toward synchronous self-restimulation...that is, if they're a pyramidal neuron in the neocortex).
Ok so experience does not reduce to single neurons, but interactions between groups of them. What machanism turns the physical interaction into a subjective experience?Secondly, I don't want to call the demons "sub-experiences" but what they are doing together is a "sub-experience" at different levels of complexity.
I've read his books very carefully.Dennett called it the "question/answer" game (I really suggest that you all read his book, since I probably won't do it justice, no matter how hard I try), but I prefer the Selectionist approach of a Darwinian struggle for new territory.
So why not define 'experience' once and for all? According to you it can be defined as an interaction between neurons which act as 'experiencers', although these 'experiencers' cannot be said to experience at all, since we can't define experience.Anyway, it is the process that is a sub-experience, the "stupid demons" are just "experiencers" at different levels of complexity (down to the level of a single demon which can't be said to "experience" at all (though, of course, we haven't even defined "experience", so he could be "experiencing" more than a human for all I know...this cannot be discussed logically until we define the most integral term in the discussion). [/B]
Originally posted by Mentat
The question then becomes (as it always seems to do) "How does the person become conscious of the 'impression' in the first place?", IOW, "Why doesn't the brain simply compute the 'impressions' instead of broadcasting them as a visual image?".
My answer, of course, is that a visual cortex doesn't have any other way to process and store "impressions". It calls 'em like it sees 'em. What is your explanation?
Originally posted by Canute
I'll take your word for it.
Ok so experience does not reduce to single neurons, but interactions between groups of them. What machanism turns the physical interaction into a subjective experience?
I've read his books very carefully.
So why not define 'experience' once and for all? According to you it can be defined as an interaction between neurons which act as 'experiencers', although these 'experiencers' cannot be said to experience at all, since we can't define experience.
However if we could define experience then we might be able to define it as an interaction between neurons, which we will define as 'experiencer's who can't really be said to 'experience' anything since 'experience' is an interaction between a group of neurons, which entails the neurons cannot be 'experiencers' unless we redefine experience in such a way that they can be, which may be possible since we cannot define experience, even though ex hypothesis we have defined it as an interaction between a group of neurons.
I don't buy it, and I find it genuinely hard to believe that you do. I prefer to think that the existence of consciousness has a rational explanation.
Originally posted by hypnagogue
More difficulties. What do you mean by "broadcasting them as a visual image"? It sounds suspiciously like you are begging the question by once again assuming something about brain function.
Q: Why is the sky blue?
A: Because it can't be any other color except blue.
I don't find that answer very helpful.
Originally posted by Mentat
Well, how would you phrase the emergent question...I was really just trying to state what your side would probably ask in that situation, but you would certainly do a better job at that...
The question then becomes (as it always seems to do) "How does the person become conscious of the 'impression' in the first place?", IOW, "Why doesn't the brain simply compute the 'impressions' instead of broadcasting them as a visual image?".
And you're right, btw, my phrasing does beg the question.
First off, the scientific answer is actually "It just is", since "why" is not a scientific question.
Because you asked the wrong question. Ask the "freer" philosopher (one not confined to the bounds of the Scientific Method) and you will get their personal opinion, and that isn't very helpful either.
Originally posted by hypnagogue
I think your first phrasing was fine, but not the second. The question is not "Why does the brain do this computation and not that computation?" but rather "Why should any neural computation be associated with subjective experience?" If we already assume that 'that computation' is responsible for consciousness, we have only assumed what we set out to explain in the first place.
But this is the same kind of phrasing you have been repeatedly using. Are you admitting that you are assuming what you are supposed to be showing?
The point was that you were still answering in a manner that didn't address the question (essentially a "how" or "what cause" question).