SteveKlinko wrote: ↑Fri Apr 13, 2018 4:49 pm
Greta wrote: ↑Fri Apr 13, 2018 1:54 am
SteveKlinko wrote: ↑Fri Apr 13, 2018 1:17 am
Yes, it's so simple to see that the Hard Problem exists, but I have been arguing for a long time with Physicalists who say that there is no such thing as Consciousness in the first place so the Hard Problem doesn't exist. They say Consiousness is an Illusion. They say the Hard Problem is therefore solved and we don't need to think about it anymore. It was refreshing to read your post.
I have been checking a line of thought that consciousness comes in layers of control.
First is basic uncontrolled responses that are chemically or mechanically based - that of simple creatures. Then there is the capacity to control responses, deferring rewards and strategising. Then there is the human layer, where we control our controls - rather than just gaining experience to improve our responses like other animals, we have the capacity to shape or change our natural responses. This makes us much more adaptable than other species; when conditions change, if their conditioned responses aren't enough, then they die out. Human, on the other hand, can shape their responses to suit the situation. Just as animals with the ability to strategise had an advantage over simpler animals, humans have an advantage due to their ability to shape and change their strategies, and create new ones.
It's early days yet, so my ideas above are not yet clearly developed - they are still a bit garbly but hopefully not impenetrably so.
I like to stick with one simple problem and that is as follows ... Given:
1) Neural Activity for Red happens.
2) A Conscious Red experience happens.
How does 1 produce 2?
If you can put together an answer to this question you will have solved the Hard Problem of Consciousness.
Steve, I prefer not to stick with "one simple problem" because the problem is, by definition, "hard"
Jokes aside, the issues raised by the Mary's Room thought experiment are complex, and at the time I was referring more to the gradual emergence of humanlike consciousness rather than qualia. It is a bizarre problem. Why should a particular dynamic pattern of neuronal activity correlate with an experiential state? We cannot even imagine the connection.
Come to think of it, what is an experiential state anyway? It's often said that consciousness "feels like something" but that just suggests a metaphor - a metaphor with what? It feels like ...? What does that something feel like? Seemingly only other states, which is circular, and perhaps reflects the fact that, whatever is going on with qualia, feedback is fundamental to it.
So I have much sympathy with the idea that qualia is what it feels like to process energy. However, this ostensibly leads to a panpsychic conclusion, although not so far-fetched when once considers the exponential differences between the complexity of the living and nonliving, the intelligent and the vegetative. Maybe there's more minimal senses of being than we realise?
I feel it's significant that, during early gestation, the blastocyst has three layers - inner, middle and outer - and the brain is the only major organ that stems from the outer layer, the ectoderm (along with nerves and skin), while all others grow from the innermost layer, the endoderm. So the brain is literally, physically, "the outside brought inside".
So we input all manner of forms from the outside world, which results in particular dynamic patterns of neuronal activity which determines our responses. If qualia is what it feels like to process energy (and presumably the information it carries as well) then that sense of being stems from a hugely complex array of processes, each one adding a little more detail to the sense of experience. I see all of the body systems being involved with qualia (since they all process energy and info), with the digestive and respiratory systems deserving special mention along with the brain.