the easy problem of consciousness

[Dimebag]

Of the things I posted, what two things are obviously not different, where I say they are different?

I'm editing this to be more specific:
Is a Thermometer not different from the Temperature?
Is a Scale not different from the Weight?

Why is it seemingly impossible to bridge the understanding between our internal experience and the “external” view of brain functioning.

We are the experience, and we are wanting something to explain this internal feel of experience, from the outside going ons of the brain. Why does this redness have this particular look, compared to say, blueness?

All that can be said from our perspective as experience, is, there is redness, or there is blueness.

From the outside, no redness or blueness can be found. The redness is an expression of the differences of materials, reflecting different wavelengths of photons into our eyes, whose differences are identified by our retina’s as different energetic activations of the three separate detectors which correspond and activate fully when a specific frequency of photon hits that trio of cone cells. The cone cells don’t work separately, they are a combined detection system. As such, any signal from each trio of cone cells already contains information regarding colour detection as “this” colour and not “those other colours”.

Imagine the signal coming from each trio of cone cells corresponds to a particular Morse code (just an example). Each Morse code corresponds to a particular colour in the light spectrum, which cannot be separate from this trio cone system.

That colour signal travels to the visual perception networks and is interpreted, and “decoded” into the particular colour which we become conscious of. The colour information is now contained in the code which is sent to the perceptual network, yet only exists as some agreement between sender and receiver. The perceptual network then interprets that colour, and a colour is seen corresponding to the specific activation signal from that trio of cone cells back in the retina.

The colour is the specific pattern of information interacting with the perceptual system. That’s all we can say at this point. It doesn’t explain why red is red, but, it does explain why red is not like blue, or green. The difference comes from the difference in signal from the three interacting cone cells in the retina (simplified, we are talking essentially about a pixel in our vision). It doesn’t explain the character of that particular colour, just that there is a difference between colours, due to the difference in signal, due to the difference in wavelength interacting with the cone cells.

We are asking for an explanation of the internal, from the external. If we agree that there is an internal, and an external then must we agree that these two worlds must talk to each other conceptually?

They are two different worlds. But the internal world exists imbedded within the external world. Yet there is a boundary between the two worlds, and the internal world can only be known from the internal world. So to try to go outside the internal world and explain it from the external is seemingly impossible.

But remember, the external is only known by the internal. The external world is a conceptual understanding from within the internal subjective. It is a shared conceptual subjective agreement of what lies outside of our subjective experience. The blobs of colour and shape are actually conceptualised as matter, comprised of particles, and subatomic particles.

But we don’t have access to that layer of existence, only to this subjective ground of our existence. We can indirectly infer its existence. Yet only know it through this subjective construct which is experience.


Imagine you were a simulated being inside a computer (just imagine that was possible to create consciousness within a computer). Our subjective world is similarly a construct. You don’t “see” the actual world as it is, only as it seems from this construct. Could this simulated being ever understand the basis of the construct or its experience, or the computer, from its perspective inside as a simulated consciousness?

That’s like the situation of trying to understand consciousness, in relation to the brain, from the point of view of consciousness itself.

We don’t stand outside of consciousness. We are consciousness itself. Can consciousness ever know itself from within itself? I don’t know.

In short, we'd still sense redness even if we didn't think of it that way and the tree falling in the forest would still cause the air to ripple even if nobody heard it. Also, the internal is always subsumed by the external.

You could say the non conceptual sensation of redness is the difference in relation to other possible colours and surrounding different colours.

Yes to your second point about air rippling, yet, this is only a conceptual proposition. In a sense, reality is defined by our awareness of the external. Our existence is inextricably linked to an internal apprehension of a conceptually proposed external world, agreed to exist by virtue of concensus. The external can only be conceptualised by the internal, which is, itself, contained within the external (not the conceptualised external, but an actually totally inaccessible and unknowable external).

It’s like there is a boundary between internal and external, which cannot be bridged, yet, the external can be conceptualised based on multiple subjective agreements about external inferences. Agreement between external and internal depend on observational consistencies of internal models. We make a model about the external, which is contained within the internal, and “stands for” the external. That model can be updated and improved based on interactions and sharing of models between different subjects. But it’s always via the internal, the subjective. The external is never known directly as it is, only as it seems. Yet, the internal does exist inside this unknowable external. Like a bubble trying to explore an environment, but only ever knowing it by the impressions the bubble makes with the environment. A model of the environment is built in the bubble, so as to navigate it. The bubble “learns” via bumping into and mapping the environment.

Sounds bullshit, I’m just using analogy.

[Advocate]

[quote=Dimebag post_id=478650 time=1604532622 user_id=5396]
Yes to your second point about air rippling, yet, this is only a conceptual proposition. In a sense, reality is defined by our awareness of the external. Our existence is inextricably linked to an internal apprehension of a conceptually proposed external world, agreed to exist by virtue of concensus. The external can only be conceptualised by the internal, which is, itself, contained within the external (not the conceptualised external, but an actually totally inaccessible and unknowable external).

It’s like there is a boundary between internal and external, which cannot be bridged, yet, the external can be conceptualised based on multiple subjective agreements about external inferences. Agreement between external and internal depend on observational consistencies of internal models. We make a model about the external, which is contained within the internal, and “stands for” the external. That model can be updated and improved based on interactions and sharing of models between different subjects. But it’s always via the internal, the subjective. The external is never known directly as it is, only as it seems. Yet, the internal does exist inside this unknowable external. Like a bubble trying to explore an environment, but only ever knowing it by the impressions the bubble makes with the environment. A model of the environment is built in the bubble, so as to navigate it. The bubble “learns” via bumping into and mapping the environment.

Sounds bullshit, I’m just using analogy.
[/quote]

Yes, "reality" is our consensus experience while "truth" is our individual perspectives on it. We know the external world by way of our external senses. Whatever that experience is, even if it's an illusion, is what the word reality refers to. We are embodied beings and physical space is the correlation between our internal and external senses, explicitly. Here's an exploration of that boundary: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... y_X2Kbneo/ The bubble also learns by relating prior experience to similar ones by extension, aka logic.

[SteveKlinko]

It's simply a different metaphorical understanding of the same physical stuff. They're not different things in any sense. I challenge anyone to show in what sense they are even possibly different. Positing that they are inherently different based on nothing, as you've done here, leaves you the burden of proof because we already have a sufficient answer.

To illustrate, a "walker" in the "game of life" is not a separate thing, it's just a pattern we recognize as an entity because that pattern corresponds to a formula we already understand. If you choose the right (wrong) level of understanding, things can seem more intentional than they are.

Of the things I posted, what two things are obviously not different, where I say they are different?

I'm editing this to be more specific:
Is a Thermometer not different from the Temperature?
Is a Scale not different from the Weight?

Why is it seemingly impossible to bridge the understanding between our internal experience and the “external” view of brain functioning.

We are the experience, and we are wanting something to explain this internal feel of experience, from the outside going ons of the brain. Why does this redness have this particular look, compared to say, blueness?

All that can be said from our perspective as experience, is, there is redness, or there is blueness.

From the outside, no redness or blueness can be found. The redness is an expression of the differences of materials, reflecting different wavelengths of photons into our eyes, whose differences are identified by our retina’s as different energetic activations of the three separate detectors which correspond and activate fully when a specific frequency of photon hits that trio of cone cells. The cone cells don’t work separately, they are a combined detection system. As such, any signal from each trio of cone cells already contains information regarding colour detection as “this” colour and not “those other colours”.

Imagine the signal coming from each trio of cone cells corresponds to a particular Morse code (just an example). Each Morse code corresponds to a particular colour in the light spectrum, which cannot be separate from this trio cone system.

That colour signal travels to the visual perception networks and is interpreted, and “decoded” into the particular colour which we become conscious of. The colour information is now contained in the code which is sent to the perceptual network, yet only exists as some agreement between sender and receiver. The perceptual network then interprets that colour, and a colour is seen corresponding to the specific activation signal from that trio of cone cells back in the retina.

The colour is the specific pattern of information interacting with the perceptual system. That’s all we can say at this point. It doesn’t explain why red is red, but, it does explain why red is not like blue, or green. The difference comes from the difference in signal from the three interacting cone cells in the retina (simplified, we are talking essentially about a pixel in our vision). It doesn’t explain the character of that particular colour, just that there is a difference between colours, due to the difference in signal, due to the difference in wavelength interacting with the cone cells.

We are asking for an explanation of the internal, from the external. If we agree that there is an internal, and an external then must we agree that these two worlds must talk to each other conceptually?

They are two different worlds. But the internal world exists imbedded within the external world. Yet there is a boundary between the two worlds, and the internal world can only be known from the internal world. So to try to go outside the internal world and explain it from the external is seemingly impossible.

But remember, the external is only known by the internal. The external world is a conceptual understanding from within the internal subjective. It is a shared conceptual subjective agreement of what lies outside of our subjective experience. The blobs of colour and shape are actually conceptualised as matter, comprised of particles, and subatomic particles.

But we don’t have access to that layer of existence, only to this subjective ground of our existence. We can indirectly infer its existence. Yet only know it through this subjective construct which is experience.


Imagine you were a simulated being inside a computer (just imagine that was possible to create consciousness within a computer). Our subjective world is similarly a construct. You don’t “see” the actual world as it is, only as it seems from this construct. Could this simulated being ever understand the basis of the construct or its experience, or the computer, from its perspective inside as a simulated consciousness?

That’s like the situation of trying to understand consciousness, in relation to the brain, from the point of view of consciousness itself.

We don’t stand outside of consciousness. We are consciousness itself. Can consciousness ever know itself from within itself? I don’t know.

As usual, some very nice ponderings. I still think the Connection Perspective could be helpful here. In this perspective there is the normal Physical Space, plus a separate Conscious Space where Conscious Experiences happen. The Inter Mind connects Conscious Space to Physical Space. And you know the rest of the story.

[Advocate]

>As usual, some very nice ponderings. I still think the Connection Perspective could be helpful here. In this perspective there is the normal Physical Space, plus a separate Conscious Space where Conscious Experiences happen. The Inter Mind connects Conscious Space to Physical Space. And you know the rest of the story.

That's still imagining a gap and then imagining a filler. The only gap is in our understanding, not in how brain and mind fit together. I have yet to see a coherent expression of what the hard problem is. "How?" is a problem for neuroscience. What's left for philosophy?

[SteveKlinko]

>As usual, some very nice ponderings. I still think the Connection Perspective could be helpful here. In this perspective there is the normal Physical Space, plus a separate Conscious Space where Conscious Experiences happen. The Inter Mind connects Conscious Space to Physical Space. And you know the rest of the story.

That's still imagining a gap and then imagining a filler. The only gap is in our understanding, not in how brain and mind fit together. I have yet to see a coherent expression of what the hard problem is. "How?" is a problem for neuroscience. What's left for philosophy?

The Gap is traditionally called the Explanatory Gap. But you say there is an Understanding Gap. You say there is no Gap (imagining a gap) and then you say there is a Gap (gap in our understanding). The Hard Problem is to figure out How to fill that Understanding Gap. And of course my fill for the Gap is necessarily Speculative as are all attempts to further the Understanding of Consciousness.

[Immanuel Can]

"How?" is a problem for neuroscience. What's left for philosophy?

"Why".

[Advocate]

[quote="Immanuel Can" post_id=478683 time=1604586486 user_id=9431]
[quote=Advocate post_id=478679 time=1604584058 user_id=15238]
"How?" is a problem for neuroscience. What's left for philosophy?
[/quote]
"Why".
[/quote]

That presumes/imagines intent. If you're going to make up a question you can make up an answer.

[Immanuel Can]

"How?" is a problem for neuroscience. What's left for philosophy?

"Why".

That presumes/imagines intent. If you're going to make up a question you can make up an answer.

Or, if you're going to refuse a legitimate question, then you can condemn yourself permanently to confusion, darkness and no possible answer. Which way the game actually plays depends on what you make of the evidence that this world is a place with a deliberate design: you don't "disprove" it by simply refusing the question.

P.S. -- I've pointed this out to you before, but I think you should do like everybody else does, and use the button with the " sign on it above to quote a message.

[Advocate]

[quote="Immanuel Can" post_id=478685 time=1604587727 user_id=9431]
[quote=Advocate post_id=478684 time=1604587049 user_id=15238]
[quote="Immanuel Can" post_id=478683 time=1604586486 user_id=9431]

"Why".
[/quote]
That presumes/imagines intent. If you're going to make up a question you can make up an answer.
[/quote]
Or, if you're going to refuse a [i]legitimate[/i] question, then you can condemn yourself permanently to confusion, darkness and no possible answer. Which way the game actually plays depends on what you make of the evidence that this world is a place with a deliberate design: you don't "disprove" it by simply refusing the question.

P.S. -- I've pointed this out to you before, but I think you should do like everybody else does, and use the button with the " sign on it above to quote a message.
[/quote]

It would be legitimate if you'd acknowledge that "why?" must include prior intent, in which case it's a theological problem, also not philosophy.

[SteveKlinko]

"How?" is a problem for neuroscience. What's left for philosophy?

"Why".

That presumes/imagines intent. If you're going to make up a question you can make up an answer.

Why is the sky Blue?
Why does the stone fall when released.
Why do the seasons change?
Why is grass Green?
Etc.

These questions can be answered Scientifically.
No intent is necessary, if I understand what you are complaining about.

[Advocate]

>Why is the sky Blue?
Why does the stone fall when released.
Why do the seasons change?
Why is grass Green?
Etc.

These questions can be answered Scientifically.
No intent is necessary, if I understand what you are complaining about.
[/quote]

Those are actually "how?" questions. They're a matter of process. Why means "from what intent" or "to what end?", which requires intent.

It's a failure of English that the two are so often conflated.

[SteveKlinko]

>Why is the sky Blue?
Why does the stone fall when released.
Why do the seasons change?
Why is grass Green?
Etc.

These questions can be answered Scientifically.
No intent is necessary, if I understand what you are complaining about.

Those are actually "how?" questions. They're a matter of process. Why means "from what intent" or "to what end?", which requires intent.

It's a failure of English that the two are so often conflated.
[/quote]
If I say Why did you do that, I am asking about your intent.
If I say Why is the sky Blue, I am not implying, nor is there any hidden meaning of Intent in the word itself.
It's all a matter of Context.

[Immanuel Can]

P.S. -- I've pointed this out to you before, but I think you should do like everybody else does, and use the button with the " sign on it above to quote a message.

Is that subtle enough?

It would be legitimate if you'd acknowledge that "why?" must include prior intent, in which case it's a theological problem, also not philosophy.

Of course "why" must include prior intent. So must "mechanism." So without thinking about it, you also implied prior intent, by way of engineering or design.

That's pretty routine with people who don't believe in God; they find themselves anthropomorphizing "nature" or "chance" or "evolution," as if these things had design intention, because they can't seem to describe the world adequately without doing that.

Maybe it's just easier, though, to realize that design is an indication of intelligence and purpose, and not of mere chance.

[henry quirk]

P.S. -- I've pointed this out to you before, but I think you should do like everybody else does, and use the button with the " sign on it above to quote a message.

Is that subtle enough?

or, he could do as I've done in this here post

[Immanuel Can]

P.S. -- I've pointed this out to you before, but I think you should do like everybody else does, and use the button with the " sign on it above to quote a message.

Is that subtle enough?

or, he could do as I've done in this here post

That'll do. But why not use the button?