“We experience it, therefore it exists” proves less than it seems. It proves there is an experience to explain. It does not prove that consciousness is what it appears to be from the inside. A mirage is still seen, but the thing it seems to show is not really there. Consciousness might be real in that same limited sense, while our folk model of it could be deeply wrong.
This is a really good point and something that I think is important to clarify at the very start of the discussion. In that way, I'm less interested in explaining consciousness than explaining experience.
When I read this article, I felt like the author was only making his points by convoluting the two. By the end, I felt like, for an expert on the subject, I don't think he actually groks the fundamental point.
I think the article has an interesting argument here. We also "experience" the sun going up and down in the sky. But actually this is an illusion of our vantage point on a spinning rock.
We don't experience the sun going up and down, we experience its direction changing relative to the horizontal plane, and it is not an illusion: it matches planetary motion. The mistake arises when interpreting the raw experience. Sensations don't lie.
Another example: Metal feels colder than plastic, but the sensation is right again: you are loosing more heat when touching metal.
But the sensation in a sense is a lie. Cold strictly speaking isn't real. And for much of human existence we spoke of it as if it was a substance due exactly to this specific sensatation.
And to add to this, sensations do lie. We hear voices that aren't there, things feel hot when they're cold, we feel stationary when we're hurtling around the sun at high speed. Our bodies are not built to sense the truth of the world, only to survive in it. Sometimes those things coincide, sometimes not.
But the debate isn't whether consciousness exists. It's largely whether it's the product of normal neurons doing their thing or something more. Also the details of how it works of course.
Chalmers’ claim is that the fact that it really exists and the fact that we can talk about it are unrelated and basically a coincidence, which I think is completely absurd… If you really believe in qualia IMO you have to bite the bullet and say that there must be physics that we don’t yet understand.
We're approaching the definition of magic here aren't we. And I think this is what really divides this discussion. There is one set of people who insist that things must be explainable. And if something is explainable, it yields to science and is no longer magic.
On the other side, you have people who insist that there are things which do not yield to science. So whether they admit it or not, they insist upon the existence of magic.
In fact, the definition of magic might as well be, that which does not yield to explanation. The only question once you believe in magic is, what alternative epistemology do you accept? Scripture? Tradition? Divine revelation?
Not at all. Saying that science does not yet explain some observed phenomenon is precisely how one starts to make scientific progress. Saying that qualia don’t exist because they are “magical” is like someone telling you lightning doesn’t exist before the understanding of electromagnetism.
> On the other side, you have people who insist that there are things which do not yield to science. So whether they admit it or not, they insist upon the existence of magic.
This is a really valuable framing for this sort of conversation.
Your arguments reminds me of logical loop. A implies B, B implies A. It doesn't mean that A and B are true. You have to be conscious to experience and to be conscious means to to experience. Maybe we are not conscious after all and do not experience? Maybe it is just a lie we are telling ourselves?
