[pandoro]

This raises an interesting question: is experience possible without a "point of view" as you call it; without any subject, only sensing and reacting? I don't think so. A purely reactive system cannot experience the world. Subjective experience requires an object to be experienced and a subject experiencing the object. In the case of the bat, the object(s) being experienced are all the signals coming from the sense organs of the bat plus the inner chatter of the bat's mind (if they have some). The subject experiencing those objects is the exact same subject allowing us to experience "human-specific" objects.

[randallsquared]

> The subject experiencing those objects is the exact same subject allowing us to experience "human-specific" objects.

That's the question, is it not? We don't know how that "subject" is implemented in humans, but assuming we figure it out, we'll be able to see if that process is happening in other brains as well.

[pandoro]

That might be too much of an assumption to make because of the binding problem. Imaging knowing absolutely everything there is to know - measurably, quantifiably, down to atomic/quantum states - about what happens when a human sees red but only having experienced a black and white world. Do you learn anything new when seeing a cherry for the first time? You experience red for the first time. Measurement is third-person by definition, and consciousness is irreducibly first-person. So no instrument, however precise, can ever close that gap. Consciousness/"the subject" is the raw material of reality. Matter, sensory inputs and mind are experienced as objects in consciousness not the other way around. So in that sense "the subject" is exactly the same for the bat or the human.

[randallsquared]

> Measurement is third-person by definition, and consciousness is irreducibly first-person. So no instrument, however precise, can ever close that gap.

In a "logical proof" sense, yes.

However, that doesn't stop us from being able to experiment and understand consciousness, any more than it stops us from understanding the rest of the world around us. For example, "readiness potential" experiments, and the reliable cessation of consciousness under anesthesia.

[pandoro]

Interesting examples, thanks for the nice discussion!

I believe it goes deeper than the "logical proof" sense. It's a category mistake. Consciousness can never be "objectified".

About the readiness potential I'd argue that it's still happening in consciousness just not being registered by the mind of the participant. In the experiment "conscious decision" or "unconscious brain activities" are misnomers. Thoughts, decisions, memory, latent biases, etc. are processes of the mind not of consciousness.

Anesthesia and deep sleep are also useful scenarios to investigate. There is an interesting question to contemplate for those examples: are they an absence of experience or an experience of absence? I'd contend that it's the experience of the complete cessation of all workings of the mind and sense organs. But consciousness is still there. Otherwise how would you experience the transition from waking state to deep sleep/anesthesia and then back to waking?