[orwin]

No. Or rather what do you mean?

We are able to track down and physically explain (thanks to MRI) the sentation, the objective part of consciousness (Chalmers's 'easy problems of consciousness'). That really exist and we can prove it (or we have an idea about experiments to run to prove it)

I suppose here you're talking about the subjective sentation, the phenomenal experience, the 'hard problem', and you reference the 'cogito' not because you are a dualists, but because you truly think Descartes was right on this point (and this point only, the rest was extremely weak).

I will argue that you're wrong. There is absolutely no evidence to the cogito, at most billions of anecdata from homo sapiens who all have similar brains and reactions!

Some people believe subjective experience do not really exist [0][1]. A simple explanation would be: if we are somehow able to predict, by pure observation of predictable physical reactions, how an organism will act and react, including the fact that he will believe in a subjective experience, then we do not need to think subjective experience really exist. This is merely a tool for our bodies to create a sense of self unique through time, created from our own continuous perceptions, to allow our brains to strategize and avoid dangers.

[0]https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-018-02071-y

[1]https://github.com/keithfrankish/articles/blob/master/Franki...

[BasedAnon]

>We are able to track down and physically explain (thanks to MRI) the sentation, the objective part of consciousness (Chalmers's 'easy problems of consciousness'). That really exist and we can prove it (or we have an idea about experiments to run to prove it)

What we prove is an evidence that is filtered through our sensory faculties and experienced by our minds. Our minds still remain judge, jury and executioner and in this same sense if we are to take seriously the faculties of our minds in assessing the physical world, then we must also take seriously our experience of conciousness which remains even when we are unable to sense the physical world. In this sense our experience of conciousness is more real than our looking at an MRI.

>then we do not need to think subjective experience really exist.

What would follow is that you do not need to think subjective experiences exist for others, but for you to make this assessment you at least must have a subjective experience.

[gaganyaan]

I don't really buy your argument about what's more real. If I was watching TV and a character punched the screen and I got a bloody nose from it, that's pretty real.

Similarly, if my mind experiences my body reaching out to take a drug and then my conciousness fractures, I think that's a sign that the experience is pretty damn real, regardless of whatever fragile concept of "consciousness" is floating in that reality.

If "you" are unable to sense the real world because you're unconscious, that doesn't mean your body isn't cogitating, it just means that the individual parts haven't come together to construct the illusion that is "you". Parts of your nervous system continue to work, though.

[orwin]

That's the beauty of illusionism, isn't it? You really have to think against yourself. If you can explain a person's reaction without 'knowing' his subjective experience, you do not need 'hard' consciousness to explain your reactions either. So you, right now, digesting this sentence and experiencing subjective thoughts, do not really experience those, you just have the illusion you do. Look at my second link.