[bumby]

I have the same conclusions as you, but don't have the confidence to state them so matter-of-factly. There seems a rather large amount of room for "we don't know." And, given that it may not be a testable hypothesis and thus outside the realm of science, there's even room for "we may never know."

And before people get in a huff, the same generally goes for the hard problem of consciousness, yet we generally don't go around doubting that others have subjective experience.

[taberiand]

I state it matter-of-factly because I believe the idea of it being supernatural lacks evidence of any sort; there's no reason at all to make that hypothesis in the first place. I feel like the studies (or at least the reporting of the studies) come at the question from the wrong direction - the hypothesis should be that all of these experiences have explanations grounded in the function of the brain and body, because the opposite approach is, as you point out, unfalsifiable.

Naturally we don't know, which is why we should assume the explanation that is grounded in reality until it is proven otherwise - especially when the effect of the supernatural answer being true is indistinguishable from the natural answer. If all life after death amounts to in how it affects the living is knowing that the "tunnel of light" is real (but not what lies beyond that), then what use is that information compared to just believing it to be imaginary?

[bumby]

I understand your point. And if you also want to take a strictly materialistic worldview, there’s nothing wrong with it. But what’s strange to me is when people take such a hard line in one area but don’t apply the same logic to another. Would you, for example, extend that same logic to claim your loved ones are philosophical zombies incapable of subjective experience? After all, there’s no good proof of the hard problem of consciousness and it’s likely an untestable claim as well. If you reply with “yes, but…” all it really means is you are either cherry picking where to apply the logic or you recognize there are limits to what science can test/prove and there may be elements outside that domain.

[ericmay]

Better yet, consciousness as you’re describing it here is most likely an illusory artifact and evolutionary adaptation, particularly useful for survival and group cooperation. I wouldn’t be so quick to assume about the OP.

With that being said I think it’s fair to suggest we can’t prove that others are conscious but we can do a lot more here with science than we can with the alleged afterlife.

[bumby]

I think that’s why it’s generally broken down into the “easy” and “hard” problems of consciousness. Easy in the sense that we can use our existing scientific toolset; hard as in we cannot.

[ericmay]

Sure but as it relates to the after-life there's not even a "hard" problem to speak of because there is nothing we can assert except that maybe it is the same experience as the one before birth.

We can't effectively use the tools of science here (at least yet), whereas with consciousness and conscious experience we can at least grapple around the edges.

[bumby]

How can we grapple with the edges of the hard problem, except at a philosophical level? To me, that sounds very much like the afterlife debate. I think it just feels different because we each have an innate “feeling” of subjective experience that’s not easy to dismiss.

[taberiand]

I apply the same logic in all cases (as much as any fallible person can), which in your example leads me to assume just as confidently that of course other people have subjective experiences and obviously exist separate to my self. It's the logical conclusion using the same reasoning behind believing the after-life does not exist.

I believe consciousness is an emergent property of the of the brain and body, and the associated connections and (physical/chemical/electrical/etc) interactions

In that context, subjective experiences exist just as much as anything else does, obeying all the laws of physics.

I don't understand why people think the problem is hard, except for hoping and wishing that it is?

[bumby]

It’s usually not considered hard only by those who don’t recognize the difference between the hard and soft problem of consciousness. (And of course, those people exist)

Can you prove to me, an external observer, that you have subjective experience? Can you prove the “redness” you see?[1] You really can’t, and that’s why the problem is hard. You can show brain scans, you can explain the interaction of wavelength on the eye etc. but that describes objective, not subjective, experience. So by your previous logic, your subjective experience does not exist because it’s not provable. Or, more relevant to HN, can you pinpoint when adding those systems to a computer suddenly makes subjective experience emerges in the machine?

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knowledge_argument

[taberiand]

Subjective experience is measurable and provable:

I have something that is defined as "subjective experience". That subjective experience exists - as a physical, measurable, system; an emergent phenomenon of the composition and interaction of my brain, body and associated inputs - and it stands to reason that everyone else with the same comparable physical existence also has the same kind of subjective experience.

I think the issues that you describe are only problems of definition and categorisation. It seems me you're basically saying subjective experience is defined as "something impossible to prove" which yeah if you want it that way sure, it's impossible.

[bumby]

I’m not saying subjective experience is by definition that which is unprovable. I’m saying there is a different type of information that may be outside the measure ability of scientific methods. I’m saying there is a different experience being had by a conscious being seeing the redness of something vs something inanimate processing the information of red light.

From the link above, despite Mary knowing everything objective there is to know about color,

“The central question of the thought experiment is whether Mary will gain new knowledge when she goes outside the colorless world and experiences seeing in color.”

By your statement above, it sounds like you define consciousness as a level of information processing. So do you think anything that processes information is conscious? Or is there a tipping point where consciousness emerges? If so, how do you measure when a plant or animal or machine crosses that threshold? That is, how do you measure qualia? You claim that conscious experience is a measurable phenomenon but that makes me think you don’t recognize the distinction between the easy and hard problem of consciousness. You actually describe the hard problem in terms if the definition of the easy problem. (Which is fine, and plenty of people have that view, but it’s a different point than seems debated here and it’s imperative to not conflate the two. You might as well just say there is no hard problem)