[justanotherjoe]

Qualia is not that hard to me to explain when you consider that the outside world as you experienced it, is just a mental representation. A very faithful one, but still just a mapping. Why there is seeming dichotomy between the inner and outside world in terms of quality can be attributed to how the brain compartmentalized it. Both are in your head. This is qualia of the brain, how its seemingly apart from the 'real' world is because it's made so, because it's useful. So in short, it's as simple as 'the brain make some transformations to the signal'. I find that acceptable.

How about the real real outside world? We don't know it. No one knows the thing in itself. So far, to see the world you have to be embedded in it and see something from a specific POV.

Why there is at all consciousness, idk. Why not? Consciousness seems functional... because humans can't really do anything while unconscious. So it seems to me very much part of evolution.

[_akhe]

Yes it exists and is probably some biological product of evolution, but the brain is apparently not like a heart that pumps, or a lung that is essentially a bag that pulls oxygen out of air, it's doing something else that isn't explained using any mechanical analogy (AKA the materialist worldview).

In materialism everything we know is machines and mechanisms: From atoms to trees to buildings. It works for explaining most things, but maybe there are some things that aren't machine-like, leaving us with no way to understand it (at least not using those concepts).

Think of it like - you can program a computer to do all kinds of things, but it will never "feel pain" because that is a totally different class of phenomenon that we have no idea how to produce - no amount of code will ever make pain or joy happen to the computer - it's not a code problem. "Feeling of pain" etc. are the primitives of our experience, these little experiences add up to make up our lives and selves, but we have no idea what they are or how to produce them. We only know adjacent physical things that happen alongside it like neurons firing - which not only doesn't even begin to explain it directly but is itself a concept of the consciousness machine we're trying to explain.

[akomtu]

A human body can be in a zombie state while doing something. So a human can do something while unconscious, although we may rightfully call such a body not a real human. Conscious experience begins when that human connects to his body.

[_akhe]

Good points - sleep walking, even general absent-mindedness. In its most extreme form: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophical_zombie

[justanotherjoe]

absent mindedness is still conscious tho. And sleepwalking is not the level of function im talking. You can't do your job while sleepwalking. I'm not convinced humans can do intelligent work without being conscious. No such states that i've seen anyways.

[_akhe]

It's a very good point - that consciousness may be necessary for certain tasks like recognizing faces, counting, reading, etc. (whatever it may be).