As an idiot. This stuff cripples my mind with wanting to know how did we come about. Not in a spiritual way really. Like just the mechanisms of it all. Coz it’s weird to me to think we are made of matter than can experience at the same time it’s weird to think it didn’t really need or could have happened.
A good question in my mind is how could we say that anything exists if there isn’t anything that has *inner* existence? The naive understanding of "matter" is that it’s something that only has *outer* existence, it can be seen in its external presence but it has no inner presence, "there’s nothing it is in itself; it only exists for the things outside itself that come into contact with it". But if Everything that exists only existed "for things outside itself" then how could anything be said to exist? IIT says that certain dynamical configurations of matter not only exist in as far as they impact other things, but they also exist *in themselves* as they have causal influence over themselves in virtue of the feedback loops found in their structure ("they’re folded back on themselves" or "closed in on themselves"). This degree of recursivity found in their structure tracks their degree of integration, aka their degree of "causal power over themselves", which according to IIT is tha same thing as the degree of consciousness they have, aka the degree of "existing for themselves" that they have. I don’t know if this is true but for me personally it at least makes an iota of sense, which is impossible to find anywhere else except in hypotheses that aren’t (yet?) scientific, just mere philosophical conjectures. One such thing is non-materialistic physicalism which says that the formalism of physics (the quantum wave function or whatever better thing we’ll develop in the future) describes the behavior of *fields of qualia* instead of fields of insentient stuff that doesn’t exist in itself. This hypothesis maintains physics as the basis for discovering *outer* behavior but it says that the different solutions of quantum field theory (the myriad different possible configurations implied by QFT) all come associated with an *inner* quality of being. So, to answer Stephen Hawking’s "what breathes fire in the equations?" famous question, the answer is qualia; the fundamental fabric of the universe is qualitative. Another possibility, somewhat similar to non-materialist physicalism, is found in the different field theories of consciousness ( a presentation here: ruclips.net/video/BMUnN52i2Dg/видео.htmlfeature=shared&t=271 ).
although a 'hard problem' consciousness is mass produced on a hug, huge scale. It might be compared to a caveman coming across an iPhone factory, everything about the device is incomprehensible and yet there are millions of them and they are made out of nothing other than rocks and minerals he has seen piles of before put together in a way he can't comprehend, until he takes some courses in chemistry and computer science that is. He is capable of understanding but does not yet and to him the wonder and conceptual impossibility of it are baffling. this is all just an ideas though, even though consciousness is produced on the scale of billions (in humans at least, the number gets larger with other animals) it still is odd and hard to pin down and still at least to us for now is a 'hard problem' great video
I don't think those are unrelated, if you can figure out how consciousness experience is created, you've already figured out the why. It's like saying we can explain how a phone works, but not why, they're basically the same question.
As an idiot. This stuff cripples my mind with wanting to know how did we come about. Not in a spiritual way really. Like just the mechanisms of it all. Coz it’s weird to me to think we are made of matter than can experience at the same time it’s weird to think it didn’t really need or could have happened.
A good question in my mind is how could we say that anything exists if there isn’t anything that has *inner* existence? The naive understanding of "matter" is that it’s something that only has *outer* existence, it can be seen in its external presence but it has no inner presence, "there’s nothing it is in itself; it only exists for the things outside itself that come into contact with it". But if Everything that exists only existed "for things outside itself" then how could anything be said to exist? IIT says that certain dynamical configurations of matter not only exist in as far as they impact other things, but they also exist *in themselves* as they have causal influence over themselves in virtue of the feedback loops found in their structure ("they’re folded back on themselves" or "closed in on themselves"). This degree of recursivity found in their structure tracks their degree of integration, aka their degree of "causal power over themselves", which according to IIT is tha same thing as the degree of consciousness they have, aka the degree of "existing for themselves" that they have. I don’t know if this is true but for me personally it at least makes an iota of sense, which is impossible to find anywhere else except in hypotheses that aren’t (yet?) scientific, just mere philosophical conjectures. One such thing is non-materialistic physicalism which says that the formalism of physics (the quantum wave function or whatever better thing we’ll develop in the future) describes the behavior of *fields of qualia* instead of fields of insentient stuff that doesn’t exist in itself. This hypothesis maintains physics as the basis for discovering *outer* behavior but it says that the different solutions of quantum field theory (the myriad different possible configurations implied by QFT) all come associated with an *inner* quality of being. So, to answer Stephen Hawking’s "what breathes fire in the equations?" famous question, the answer is qualia; the fundamental fabric of the universe is qualitative. Another possibility, somewhat similar to non-materialist physicalism, is found in the different field theories of consciousness ( a presentation here: ruclips.net/video/BMUnN52i2Dg/видео.htmlfeature=shared&t=271 ).
what an interesting discussion!
I'm so glad I stumbled upon this. Perfect recommendation.
although a 'hard problem' consciousness is mass produced on a hug, huge scale. It might be compared to a caveman coming across an iPhone factory, everything about the device is incomprehensible and yet there are millions of them and they are made out of nothing other than rocks and minerals he has seen piles of before put together in a way he can't comprehend, until he takes some courses in chemistry and computer science that is. He is capable of understanding but does not yet and to him the wonder and conceptual impossibility of it are baffling.
this is all just an ideas though, even though consciousness is produced on the scale of billions (in humans at least, the number gets larger with other animals) it still is odd and hard to pin down and still at least to us for now is a 'hard problem'
great video
I think Chalmer’s question was why, more than how.
I don't think those are unrelated, if you can figure out how consciousness experience is created, you've already figured out the why. It's like saying we can explain how a phone works, but not why, they're basically the same question.
Seth may be an accomplished neuroscientist, but he is remarkably close-minded
Why so?
Philosophers can't understand consciousness, so they call it "the hard problem" so that they don't look so stupid.
Philosophers were the ones asking the question in the first place. Scientists weren't even interested in facing that problem