And if you throw in phrases like "composition problem" and "analytical idealism" the fer fuck's sake provide some simple explanation or something.
At any rate, given the context of the thread I didn't feel the need to clarify what the composition problem nor idealism are. But since you ask:
The composition (aka combination) problem refers to the need to explain how multiple bits of consciousness combine together to form a united and cohesive experience such as yours or mine. The hard problem focuses instead on how quantities (matter) give rise to qualities (experience).
Analytic Idealism is the view that experience is the ontological primitive. Both problems sublimate away. Yes, you can derive physics from it. In fact you don't even bother physics in any way: all we know about it remains valid under analytic idealism. If anything, many counterintuitive findings of QM fall into place under AI. If this pique your interest, here's a good intro https://www.essentiafoundation.org/analytic-idealism-course/.
No. It can be entirely right. It just isn't useful in any way.
From your link "Analytic Idealism is a theory of the nature of reality that maintains that the universe is experiential in essence"
Maintain all you like. It might even - per my prior statement on pan-psychism - be true. I want quantifiable evidence before we accept it as true. Cough up.
Anyway, thanks for the descriptions of the tech terms.
Don't fall back to sophistry. Is there evidence? yes or no, if yes then show me.
> There is research compatible with these claims. It's mentioned and linked in the link I've previously provided.
I'm downloading the single video which mentions the word evidence. If there is any more evidence links, please show me them, especially written evidence, and especially especially, empirical evidence.
To ask what something _is_ implies reduction. You want a description of experience in terms of something else. So you are begging the question, having already concluded that it's not fundamental. In idealism experience is the reduction basis, so the question makes no sense. On the contrary, one should try to explain everything else in terms of experience (and if you don't accept a reduction basis, then you won't be able to explain anything, even with materialism).
Now, the explanations need to be consistent with empirical evidence and they need to have explanatory power. I submit to you that AI succeeds, and the empirical adequacy of those claims is abundantly linked in the description of the material you are downloading.
Science and scientific theories are concerned with the behaviour of nature, not its essence. They tell us how it behaves, not what it is. We build models out of observations and given the chance, we should stand by a model with the most explanatory power.
This is not true. When people have asked "what is gravity" and they determine that its a fundamental, non-decomposable force within the universe, they are not disappointed. That's still an answer.
"Consciousness is a fundamental property of <X> in our universe" is a perfectly fine answer to the question "What is consciousness". It's just not the answer that most people currently find most likely.
> To ask what something _is_ implies reduction
Yes, but you learn something. What is wood? Partly it's lignin. What's that? Randomly polymerised phenol-like molecules. What's phenol? A benzene ring (unsaturated carbon ring) with an OH on it. What are C, O and H? Elements. What is (eg.) carbon? An atom composed of... etc.
You can't reduce consciousness/qualia in any way so you cop out.
The AI video #5 takes some interesting quantum stuff and extrapolates it with extreme dodginess and emotive language into some semi/pseudo-scientific conjectures. My guess is you haven't even watched the vids.
> I submit to you that AI succeeds, and the empirical adequacy of those claims is abundantly linked in the description of the material you are downloading
Nope.
I've had enough here.
Do you notice that this is infinite regress? At a certain point you must accept a non-reducible fundamental. If you don't, then it's infinite regress and you have explained effectively nothing. Materialism accepts the quantum foam as primitive. Idealism consciousness. But it's the same epistemic step, accepting a primitive, and derive the rest from it.
Would these be like the “easy problems” then?
Besides, wouldn't that be exactly like our current physics? (Where we reduce until we find something fundamental like “electric charge just is and has this properties”, similarly for Quantum fields and the like -- and then how that composes and interacts with other fundamentals is the whole business.)
The main difference is that physics is quantifiable, so we can come up with in-principle explanations of really complex stuff (weather forecasts, life itself, etc). With qualities it's a different ballgame, because we are talking about different subjects combining into one. Not saying that it's a dead end, but we haven't even yet started to define the problem, let alone solving it.
There are other more compelling roads. Rather than a combination mechanism, we can look at the problem from a decomposition perspective. This is easier because it's a really well understood phenomenon that we can actually study: the compartmentalization of one unified mind into separate minds, also known as multiple personality disorder or dissociative identity disorder. Here, we have a clear in-principle path to walk.