[ozy]

I don't get how very intelligent people can hold such views.

Where does the dance go, when the dancers go off stage? The dancers are not the dance, but create the dance. There is some kind of duality there.

Similar for the brain. What it does creates the mind/consciousness. Should that feel like something? Why not?

How does the brain decide on next actions? By simulating/predicting futures and "feeling" which is desired, and acting towards that future. Why would that not feel like something?

The "hard question of consciousness" is not an answer. It is a philosophical device without backing. It is unknown if qualia is actually hard, maybe most learning systems have it. What we do know: it is hard to have intuitions about it ...

[thriftwy]

> It is unknown

Well, make it known then for starters, if you want to make the question a little bit softer.

[ozy]

But that is the rub, isn't it. How some mind (or system) experiences something is the very definition of subjective. How to measure that objectively?

Imagine somebody makes a mind out of machine learning. Passes the turing test and more. It reports to "feel", ie to have qualia. Is it parroting what it hears/reads from humans? Or does it actually have a feeling when you show it an image of a sunset? At what breakpoint do you place your debugger and inspect if it is so?

[thriftwy]

A lot of things which we considered subjective were later found to be measurable. I think we should never stop to find an angle from which we can tackle the consciousness problem.