Literally just mainlining marketing material straight into whatever’s left of their rotting brains.
this post was submitted on 23 Nov 2023
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the_dunk_tank
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Having done some quick reading, I can see that qualia are definitionally subjective, but I would question how anyone could assert that they possess internal mental experiences that "no amount of purely physical information includes.", or that such a thing can even exist with any level of confidence. Certainly not enough confidence to structure an argument around. The justification seems to be the idea that because we cannot do something now, that thing cannot be done. I don't find that convincing.
This might be going too far into the analogy, but I think the problem with a comparison to a radio is that if you examine the radio down to its smallest part, and then assemble a second radio, that radio will behave in the same as the first.
Presumably as well, with enough examination, it would come to be understood that the voices coming from the radio are produced somewhere else, and there would be no reason for anyone to think that the voices themselves are appearing from an intangible and inherently subjective origin. If consciousness is essentially a puppeteer for the physical human body, that doesn't preclude consciousness existing physically somewhere else, and that the "broadcaster" isn't something capable of examination or imitation.
The whole argument seems to boil down to "maybe consciousness doesn't work the way science would currently suggest it does." but doesn't present any evidence that the consciousness is somehow unsolvable.
Instead, assuming that an undetectable intangible and fundamentally improvable mechanism is behind consciousness without proof is worse than lazy, it's magical thinking. While I don't think you could ever prove that that wasn't the case, it should only seriously be entertained once every other option has been thoroughly exhausted.
(Reading this back, this feels quite confrontational. I don't intend it to be, but I lack the ability to word it in the tone that I would prefer.)
its not just that we cannot do it now, its that it is literally definitionally impossible even conceptually to arrive at or explain subjectivity, assuming a physicalist model of the world that specifically discludes it in principle.
the claim is not that consciousness is 'unsolveable', but that it is unsolved, and that it is irreducible to terms of pure information processing. subjectivity is entirely separate from and unnecessary for information processing.
correct, it was merely to elucidate the difference between causation and correlation and the scientific method and attitude. the metaphor is not designed to interrogate subjectivity.
no, instead one should assume nothing, like a scientist should. you assume that you do not know until you actually do.
to go back to the analogy you are here like one of the uncontacted people encountering a radio, and, after much experimentation and analysis among your group has concluded that the voice cannot come from inside but form some as yet unknown source outside, you call them insane for positing even the hypothetical existence of such a thing instead of assuming it comes from inside in some way we don't yet understand (but are the assumed teleological inevitability of our current understanding which obviously never needs to be revised).
Yet they also seem to be claiming that the source of the voices is not just unknown, but unknowable, and they cannot explain even conjecturally how it might be that the voices are transmitted. When there is observable activity inside the radio that might seem to be creating the voices, but our group does not yet understand the details of how it works, it might not be insane, but it's not particularly rational to focus on the transmission theory.
the voices in this analogy are not claimed to be unknowable full stop, merely irreconcilable with some or all of their previous understanding of the world. in non-analogical terms i am not saying we cannot explain subjectivity at all, but that we cannot explain it with our traditional ways of thinking (i am against dualism as much as physicalism). back to the analogy, it may be perfectly 'rational' to dismiss the transmission theory, but it would be rationally incorrect, rationally ignorant, and would prevent exploration of alternative routes of inquiry that could hypothetically lead to the truth.