The "Hard Problem" of Consciousness and the Mereological Fallacy

[@Nexus-jg7ev]

Thank you very much fir your work! This was a great video!

[@manekdsilva]

Great video for clarifying the misconceptions involved in these discussions. From what I understand, your claim would be that consciousness is an emergent property of the entire physiology of the body above a certain threshold of complexity. So essentially the answer to “why does a complex biological body create qualia?”, becomes “it just does”. Similar to us knowing that mass creates gravity, but if one were to ask WHY mass creates gravity, the answer is “it just does”. And that’s completely fair. However maybe the reason the hard problem of consciousness appears more mysterious, is firstly it’s the only emergent property that’s inherently subjective, and secondly for now we don’t have the same clarity as we do in physics or metabolic activity. People are essentially wondering if we’ll ever find something akin to the formulae we have for converting mass to gravity, or converting nutrients to energy. Soon as we have a formula for “converting x to consciousness”, the problem would be considered less hard.

[@Paul-D-Hoff]

It's little men all the way down.

[@markomilicevic7557]

Hello again. Could you explain why you think the "Hard Problem" is a pseudo problem? And when you say "Hard Problem" are you referring to the "Hard Problem of explaining *how* qualia comes to be"? Or something else? I think it's the *how* that generates so much fascination. If you were to say that qualia is a property of whole organisms, and is a result of evolution, etc... then i could be convinced to come onboard with all that. But until you have some concrete account of the *how*, then you are not directly speaking to the Hard Problem (at least for me). It's like saying that evolution resulted in computers. I could agree with that, but it tells me nothing about *how* computers accomplish what they do? Thx again for the interesting presentation.

[@Torkieh]

nailed it.

[@agrbrown]

The thesis is that the "Hard Problem" is a pseudoproblem. The "how" of color perception, for example, is explained by the eyeball (rods and cones on the retina measuring wavelengths etc.) and subsequent activity in the optic nerve and visual cortex. Seeing blues and reds is what it is like to be that kind of body. The qualia are not "caused" by some further operation. As I say in the video, the idea that there is a further explanatary "gap" is a residue of mind-body dualism. One must already view qualitative experience (experience in general, I guess) as something "non-physical" and spooky - something that needs explaining. As I also argue here, there is a very stubborn misconception that the only way problems are resolved is through empirical research. This makes it hard for many to even grasp the possibility that an apparent "problem" might be resolved by showing that there is a misconception. "If you were to say that qualia is a property of whole organisms, and is a result of evolution, etc... then i could be convinced to come onboard with all that." But that is exactly what I am saying. Maybe some technical language could help: Consciousness is an "emergent" property that emerges at some threshold of an organism's sensitivity and reactivity to its environment. If you think of consciousness as a non-physical phenomenon (what ever that could mean) in the first place, then you think some "further" explanation is necessary, but physical science is a closed system of explanation: no non-physical references allowed. There is the birth of the apparent problem: age-old Cartesian intuitions about mind-body dualism, ironically infesting the thinking of modern, scientific people.

[@agrbrown]

Because you are civil (!), I will venture another comment: looking back over the slides in this video, the point that the "problem" is a conceptual one really does seem quite clear. So it is a curious experience, posting these videos, to time and again get comments from people who have, so far as I can see, taken the time to watch the videos but then come back to an insistence that some sort of "scientific explanation" (your "how") is needed: as if they hadn't even seen my arguments at all. Claims from conceptual analysis are not even being comprehended, let alone considered.

[@newplace2frown]

​@@agrbrown Interesting video, interesting response!

[@wangsunfuh8889]

​@@agrbrown The transducer in the eye is the first step and we know that people experience various levels of perception as demonstrated by color blindness, fog from eye illness, and focus - these are issues in the transducer, but other knock-on effects come along even here. Lazy eyes sometimes develop from astigmatism, where system wide behavior adjusts for the flaw in the eye. Every layer in a neural system could have its own dampening metrics. Even under a full explanation of a physical system, which we do not have, a signal to the would-be perceptor may be modulated by that perceptor itself. Ample testimony can be found for how much signal processing can be thrown out of balance with very small amounts of hallucinogenic drugs. On top of the sensation of vision, the imagination of pictures also exists. To say color originates in the eye denies this other channel completely.