Re:Making the hard problem of consciousness easier
by pmoriarty on Saturday May 29, 2021 @12:29PM
(#27326304)
Another problem is that many of the people arguing about this don't agree on what it means to "understand" or "explain" something.
Is it enough to get a majority of scientists, researchers, and/or philosophers to agree on something, or have it published in some prestigious journals for us to pat ourselves on the back and consider the subject "understood"?
I have no doubt that such agreement on this subject could be attained, as people are good at convincing themselves and each other of stuff, and it's not inconceivable that it'll happen again regarding consciousness at some point.
However, will that mean that we've really understood it, or merely convinced ourselves that we did?
The same goes for explanations. What counts as an adequate explanation? Are a certain number of successful predictions enough? Is an elegant equation that accounts for all of the data enough? Or do we require something more?
This is where the disagreements come in, as when it comes to experience equations, journal articles, and scientists patting each other on the back as having "understood" it doesn't seem to be enough for many participants in this controversy, and some argue it'll never be enough because there is something special about experience that transcends all that.
That's why articles that point to some new discovery about neuron function or results of experiments on the brain can be seen as laughable before even reading them. On this view no fruit of the scientific enterprise, or even philosophy, can touch what it's like to experience the world.
Is it enough to get a majority of scientists, researchers, and/or philosophers to agree on something, or have it published in some prestigious journals for us to pat ourselves on the back and consider the subject "understood"?
I have no doubt that such agreement on this subject could be attained, as people are good at convincing themselves and each other of stuff, and it's not inconceivable that it'll happen again regarding consciousness at some point.
However, will that mean that we've really understood it, or merely convinced ourselves that we did?
The same goes for explanations. What counts as an adequate explanation? Are a certain number of successful predictions enough? Is an elegant equation that accounts for all of the data enough? Or do we require something more?
This is where the disagreements come in, as when it comes to experience equations, journal articles, and scientists patting each other on the back as having "understood" it doesn't seem to be enough for many participants in this controversy, and some argue it'll never be enough because there is something special about experience that transcends all that.
That's why articles that point to some new discovery about neuron function or results of experiments on the brain can be seen as laughable before even reading them. On this view no fruit of the scientific enterprise, or even philosophy, can touch what it's like to experience the world.