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InTheEndEntropyWins t1_iz3pmdj wrote

Reply to comment by Gmroo in The hard problem of metaphysics: figuring out if other phenomena exist in our universe that like consciousness require we bear a specific metaphysical relation to them - i.e. you can't know of consciousness without being conscious. by Gmroo

I think it would.

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Beiquain4yah6oo8ziza t1_izeg0vz wrote

>I think it would.

If you were the observer you would, but if you had a nervous system incapable of pain you wouldn't understand what pain felt like. That doesn't mean there is anything verbal to know about pain though, it just means that knowing what pain feels like requires having a nervous system capable of experiencing it.

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Gmroo OP t1_iz3qgp2 wrote

Okay, the onus is on you how. Sounds like magic. If I had no taste at all, all my life. And you would tell me the stuff we put in your mouth "tastes liie something".. I wouldn't even be able to comprehend what this taste sense is you speak of.

So how you'd conclude from looking at a physical process "Oh, gee that must feel like someting from the inside" without knowing about what it's like sounds like magic to me.

There'd be a lot of interesting things to conclude if a non-sentient intelligent entity would observe biological life. Complex self-dissipating systems, negentropy...etc., but subjective experience? How? On what basis?

Ever read Bisson's "They're Made out of Meat"? That, only waaaay weirder it'd be for that entity to listen to this "inner feel" we have.

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InTheEndEntropyWins t1_iz3r82t wrote

You are the one making the claims. You can’t lay the foundation of your argument on this point and then turn around asking me to be rove it wrong.

Anyway if I were, then I’d use a reductio ad absurdum style argument. If you do assume what is true then it leads you to the absurdities of the hard problem. You’ll end up with phenomenal experience being an epiphenomena, which is impossible. Or you end up claiming the brain doesn’t obey the laws of physics.

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Gmroo OP t1_iz3sjcg wrote

I am not making any claims. We don't know of any way, in principle, how to infer subjective experience. Don't think there are absurdities there either.

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