[petervm]

And yet most people call it a car, consider it real, and at the same time don't see a problem in reducing it to its physical properties.

"is the qualitative experience of consciousness actually real, or is it reducible to third-party objective facts"

Why not both?

The "real" refers to our subjective experience. That there is something that is like to be me. Something that is like to be a bat. And at least under certain definitions, that's what we call conscience. That something I know I experience and that I doubt a computer is experiencing too.

Why would this be incompatible with reducing this experience to third party objective facts? We simply don't know but I don't see why we couldn't.

[naasking]

> > "is the qualitative experience of consciousness actually real, or is it reducible to third-party objective facts"

> Why not both?

Because those are mutually exclusive options. Either something is ontologically fundamental, or it's not. It can't be both.

[petervm]

After posting my comment yesterday, I read some of your other comments and I don't think we actually disagree.

The problem is probably the definition of "real".

I'm not arguing that consciousness is a fundamental property of the universe when I say it is real. The jury is still out but that's not what interests me the most. When I say "real" I'm talking about my subjective experience. It is real in the sense that it is something that I know I experience, regardless of the mechanisms involved.

Ultimately, what I'm interested in is finding out how it arises. Explaining it. Reducing it to its "third-party objective facts" if possible. Being able to look at a machine that mimics us and tell if that machine is experiencing something comparable to what we experience.

[naasking]

This might be a fun read for you then: https://nbviewer.jupyter.org/github/k0711/kf_articles/blob/m...

[petervm]

Will do, thanks!

[kordlessagain]

Can you visualize a car?

[naasking]

Sure.