[qsera]

You have fixed perception in your dreams also.

See, you have this observation of subjective experience. One hypothesis for wher this come from, require only consciousness, and the second requires consciousness as well as a whole universe. And the second hypothesis brings up even more questions. Where did this universe come from? Who created it? Why was it created?

The simple answer is that only consciousness really exists and everything is painted on top of that.

[markhahn]

simple question: why not the opposite?

that is, reality exists and consciousness is "painted" on top of that?

IMO, anti-materialists are merely uncomfortable with the degree to which they understand neuroscience and related topics (including, btw, capabilities and limits of LLMs). Chalmers, for instance, basically insists that the Hard Problem is Hard simply because he finds it hard.

[qsera]

>that is, reality exists and consciousness is "painted" on top of that?

Because it brings along more questions like "Why does the reality exist"? "Why does the reality looks like this, and not like something else"?

Any answer that brings up more questions that it answers is not a very good answer IMHO...

[GoblinSlayer]

These questions can be asked about idealism too. And they go ad infinitum, so you can't reduce their number even if you answer them.

[qsera]

Not really.

You cannot ask why consciousness exist. That would be like asking why a circle exist. To elaborate if we consider that our reality is computable from a set of physical laws and a set of random events, then it implies that the consciousness inside that reality is also computable.

The next question is whether the subjective experience those consciousness, or those consciousness themselves can exist without something actually doing the computation.

Does a circle exist before someone draw it? It does, right? and thus, if a world with consciousness is definable, then the subjective experiences inside those consciousness will happen without something actually computing it.

So all such possible worlds exist. By "exist" I don't mean the classical meaning of it. Just that there are subjective experiences going on "inside" them.

I think quantum mechanics also converge on the same idea with the multi-world interpretation of quantum events. At every point when there is a random event, the universe is split and all possibilities is realized in disjoint universes.

And I think this is the same thing as I have described above. Actually multi-world interpretation would be the final nail in the coffin for physicalism. How can material world split infinitely at every infinitely small instance ! But evidence shows that something like that is happening.

So it has to be something like what have been described above.

[GoblinSlayer]

>You cannot ask why consciousness exist.

Why consciousness exists? Here I just asked it.

>How can material world split infinitely at every infinitely small instance !

It does so by continuous motion described by a differential equation. I don't see any problem. If it did something else you would still ask why it does what it does.

[mjburgess]

It's not a simple answer, because its not an answer to any question. It is "simpler" to assume the thermometer readings exist without any thing to cause them, then they move up and down, and its "simpler" to assert: it is the nature of thermometers to move up and down.

This kind of simplicity isn't simplicity at all, it is to abandon saying anything. It is in the nature of consciousness to inexplicably have all the properties which are needed so as to seem the way it does, sure.

And what is this "consiousness" in the end, which has in its nature, the production of all material reality to serve as a fixed causal basis for perception? to generate perceptions of the brain and bodies of animals; of our death, and of a world which is describabl without any of its own properties? What is the nature of a consciousness which deliveries to us a world that requires none of it?

What is it that when I move the muscles of my eye, and what i see changes? What is it that i require a light in a room to see at all? That i require it to be the case that whatever I perceive, my fixed perceptions must always be as-if the laws of physics were true? What is it to say, "consiousness has the property of seeming as if when I see, I see because light scatters off a surface into my eye, and I can control the image genrated by moving the muscles of my eye?" and yet all of that sentence be false without the word 'seeming' ?

What madness to is it to say that mercury in a thermometer not only acts as-if it is in coffe, but in its nature, acts as if there is an entire world that it is moving through -- and its motion up and down is always according to laws and principles as if such a world existed?

This is no longer consciousness at all. When the nature of mercury in a thermometer is to act as if coffee exists, it is no longer mercury. When "consciousness" is taken to have all the features needed to provide the material world, it is no longer anything in a mind -- but has within it, the whole of the external, fixed, material -- and so it is itself now alike those things. When "consciousness" has finally been modified to produce everything within it, the term means nothing at all.

The entire system of properties and objects which are external to consciousness, narrowly defined, are still external within consciousness broadly defined. And with this broad definition comes all the laws of physics, all the properties of materiality, all of everything which mentions nothing of sensation. And the word "consciousness" has to bare all these properties? And you call this simple?

It is much simpler to answer the question: why does the mercurary in the thermometer move? is it because in its own nature is a simulation of an entire universe? No, its nature is simple. It is that there is such a universe it is inside.

And our consciousness is likewise simple.

[qsera]

> its not an answer to any question

It is. It is the theory of everything.

> what is this "consiousness" in the end, which has in its nature, the production of all material reality to serve as a fixed causal basis for perception?

If you haven't already came acrosss M.U.H, I would just direct you to https://arxiv.org/pdf/0704.0646

>What madness to is it to say that mercury in a thermometer not only acts as-if it is in coffe, but in its nature, acts as if there is an entire world that it is moving through -- and its motion up and down is always according to laws and principles as if such a world existed?

Yes, that is exactly what is being proposed. Causality is an illusion. But how? Imagine an idea of a "definable world". Imagine that all definable worlds "exist", but imagine consciousness appearing only in "regular" worlds, with uniform laws and behaviors..

[GoblinSlayer]

>I hypothesize that only computable and decidable (in Godel's sense) structures exist

That's kinda DoA. Isn't there a proof that uncomputable things exist in mathematics, so if mathematics is true, why hypothesize that they don't exist even if we know that they exist?

>but imagine consciousness appearing only in "regular" worlds, with uniform laws and behaviors..

Why this limitation? Irregular worlds with appearing consciousness are mathematically definable just fine, easily even.

[qsera]

>Why this limitation?

This is not a limitation. The basis of this idea is that there is consciousness in this (our) world. So we know that consciousness can result from our set of physical laws and the set of all random events in this world . That is the only thing we know for sure, and the only place we can start reasoning..

We don't know if it is possible for consciousness to exist in a world where everything is random, or less regular..

[GoblinSlayer]

It's easy to define: a world the same as our world, but has an additional random phenomenon, humans would still exist. Mathematics is fantasy, you can postulate anything you want there.