Gertie wrote: ↑October 10th, 2020, 6:36 pmYes we see it differently. As I said, the current physicalist scientific model of what the world is made of and how it works has no place for experience. So if we agree experience exists, that means the model is incomplete.
We agree that experience exists, we just disagree on what it means to explain it, specifically on what is fair to ask of science and what is not.
Someone notices that in stretches of calm weather, sea shells on the beach tend to be sorted by size and shape. They ask why this pattern is formed rather than another.
A scientist who specializes in the physics of fluid turbulence attempts to explain. She goes over how the energy in the waves acts on various bodies depending on their shape, mass, and orientation. This tells a causal story for each kind of shell, perhaps using statistical analysis in some area, or telling a brute deterministic story at other points.
If the person responds with the objection that the question of why this pattern rather than another is on display was never answered by these kinds of narratives, we would (or should) regard the person as confused. The scientist really did answer the question, and there’s nothing more to be said. Once you’ve shown what happens and why in each step of the causal chain, explanation is done.
I feel the same way about neuroanatomical explanations of conscious experience. Why did this pain feel sharp and this one feel dull? Because in one case this kind of nerve was stimulated, and in the other case a different kind of nerve was stimulated. Why does chocolate taste this way, and hot sauce tastes that way? Because chocolate stimulates the following kinds of nerves located here and here and here, activating these kinds of brain areas, whereas hot sauce causes the following activities in these different nerves and brain areas over here and here.
You aren’t going to get anything else from brain science, and in my view it is not reasonable to think anything remains to be explained. This is what explaining a conscious experience looks like, and it could never look like anything else.
Gertie wrote: ↑October 10th, 2020, 6:36 pm
I think most would agree we don't know everything, but there is a particular problem re experience, in that it's not third person observable or measurable, which the basic toolkit of science relies on.
As I pointed out earlier, we already have the capacity to observe/measure some aspects of conscious experience from a third person perspective, and the existence of very specific kinds of experiences (visual illusions) have been predicted based on knowledge of how the brain works.
Besides, too much is made out of the first person/third person distinction. In the end the most important thing about the brain events in consciousness is that they are representing features of the world, feeding very specific kinds of information to other systems in the body of an agent. That information flow is not being wired into the same systems of an outside observer. That’s all there is to it.
It’s like making a big deal out of the way a stream looks like from a helicopter hundreds of meters in the air and what it looks like as you are knocked off your feet once you personally step into its current.
Gertie wrote: ↑October 10th, 2020, 6:36 pm
If you don't have an answer to the question of the nature of consciousness, on what basis do you get to decide what suggestions are deluded?
Except I do indeed think we have an answer to the question on the nature of consciousness, at least in outline, we’ve had it for decades, and it continues to improve. Sure, some philosophers disagree, but I’ve yet to see a single reason to take their criticisms seriously.
Yes, and in addition, I would still like to know how "dualistic philosophy was refuted by science."