[Reactionary_]

There is a functional and descriptive science of the apparatus of our consciousness, i.e. the things you describe.

There is also the profound mystery of how individually 'unconscious' physical constituents of our nervous system can give rise to our conscious experience of the world.

The domain of the first is neuroscience and will yield its mysteries to us in time.

As for the Hard Problem of Consciousness as I've described it above, I have resigned myself to the belief that we will never be able to peel back that fundamental mystery. One could (and many have) write volumes on why this is the case, but I believe the simplest explanation of why the Hard Problem is Hard is that we are unable to even state the nature of the problem in a satisfactory way. Our language (our comprehension) fails when we try to probe at the root of consciousness.

[AQuantized]

Could it be that the inability to state the hard problem sensibly is because there is no such problem? I understand it's a somewhat unsatisfactory Dennetian response, but there is the possibility that as neuroscience untangles the softer problems of consciousness, the alleged hard problem will melt away.

[Reactionary_]

I'm inclined to disagree with that view.

A complete physical understanding of the structure and dynamics of the brain and all of its parts would never indicate some subjective experience of consciousness. We only assume that because we know from our own experience that consciousness exists (for ourselves).

Saying it's not a problem is hand wavy. Go touch a hot stovetop and tell me that consciousness does not have a quality and value all its own, beyond the electrochemical correlates of the experience of pain.

[michaelscott]

The hot stovetop is an interesting example to use, because the muscle-related reaction of your hand removing itself from the hot stovetop is often not a conscious act. But we do consciously perceive the sensation of pain.

In this very specific instance (and others like it) our consciousness might only be reacting to the world around us and comprehending the current state of ourselves and the immediate environment, as opposed to taking a conscious action.

[AnimalMuppet]

It's the difference between watching audio waveforms on an oscilloscope and listening to Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. These are not equivalent experiences, no matter how accurately the oscilloscope reproduces the waveform.

[AstralStorm]

I'd call it waxing poetic. How do you know if your senses and modeling is not actually getting the data for the symphony from advanced oscilloscope?

Good old brain-in-a-jar experiment applies.

[AstralStorm]

Sensing pain is not a prerequisite for consciousness. We do not even know if having any senses is - though complete lack thereof will cause problems with detecting consciousness. Due to lack of response.

The intriguing part here is to consider if a person in a sensory deprivation apparatus is actually conscious.

[saltcured]

Also consider a person who is day-dreaming and one who is lucid dreaming. As with sensory deprivation, both may be having complex, self-aware cognition and remember it later to talk about it.

[Reactionary_]

Of course not, but pain is a prime and salient feature of conscious experience.

[Filligree]

Something in causing you to say that you have subjective experience, however, and that's a causal relation that could theoretically be unraveled.

It seems unlikely that your statements have nothing to do with your consciousness, and you just happen to accidentally tell the truth.

[resource0x]

There's s a simple theory about the root of our consciousness: it's a property of individual cell.

Something like this: http://www.ucl.ac.uk/jonathan-edwards/publications/conscprop...

If this is true (I personally believe so), we need to focus on individual cells/bacteria for the answers.

[lioeters]

I enjoyed the linked article.

In the introduction is a proposal/suggestion that "every neuron has at least some form of sentience."

The author describes this word "sentience" as a more primitive (primary, basic, ancestral) kind of consciousness. Something that has:

"simultaneous access to many elements of information in defined inter-relationships, i.e. access to a pattern"

"in which the accessible pattern includes a useful map of some other 'outer' environment, normally the outside of a human being, with a sense of time and, in its fullest form, adult consciousness, a sense of self"

..which seems like a range/spectrum from sentient to fully conscious.

With such a definition, a cell could be considered "sentient", and organisms from molds, plants, animals to humans all demonstrate higher sentience.. I wonder how low it can go: since patterns and relationships are mentioned, could a standing wave be considered to have a low level of "sentience"?

[red75prime]

Sure, everything has zero-sentience. Zero-sentience correctly reflects the lack of a sense of itself. Some structures have other levels of sentience in addition to zero-sentience.

[naasking]

> One could (and many have) write volumes on why this is the case, but I believe the simplest explanation of why the Hard Problem is Hard is that we are unable to even state the nature of the problem in a satisfactory way.

Or the nature of our perceptions simply fools us into thinking there's actually a problem to solve.

[JackFr]

Or our brains are tricking us into believing that they are universal knowing machines -- that is anything we cannot know cannot be, and anything that is we are capable of knowing.

[AstralStorm]

Interesting figure of speech "our brains". Did you employ some other reasoning tool formulating that sentence? (Yes you did, quite a few. Those tools were designed using the brain too.)

[JackFr]

I don't follow -- but I'm curious what you mean?

[throwaway37585]

Elaborate?

[naasking]

The problem of qualia stems from taking certain properties of our perceptions at face value. Like subjectivity, which can't be explained by an appeal to third-person objective facts.

But subjectivity could very well be an illusion. Like how single CPU computers simulate multitasking, the maelstrom of conflicting signals constantly vying for dominance could create an illusion of "inner" and "outer" that we mistake for subjectivity, because we don't have a lens with which to observe this inner process.

See the following for a possible mechanistic explanation of subjectivity: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.0050...

[throwaway37585]

> But subjectivity could very well be an illusion.

This sounds like a contradiction. What is being illuded? If there is no subject, there can't be an illusion.

[naasking]

Man, If I had a nickel every time someone used that reply...

> If there is no subject, there can't be an illusion.

A common misconception, but incorrect. An illusion is simply a fact that, when taken at face value, entails a false conclusion. There is no reason a computer system can't be deceived by an illusion too, even one without "consciousness".

[throwaway37585]

> Man, If I had a nickel every time someone used that reply...

Perhaps the reason you see it so frequently is because it's obvious?

> An illusion is simply a fact that, when taken at face value, entails a false conclusion.

An illusion is simply what fact? What does it mean to take it at "face value"? What "false conclusion" does it entail?

> There is no reason a computer system can't be deceived by an illusion too, even one without "consciousness".

I think you're equivocating here. What definition of illusion are you using?

[eternalban]

> There is also the profound mystery of how individually 'unconscious' physical constituents of our nervous system can give rise to our conscious experience of the world.

The simplest explanation is that consciousness is a sort of fundamental field.