A Conscious Universe

[The Grand Nudger]

I can produce an unlimited number of examples. I'll say that "redness" is an experience, and you'll say I'm experiencing brain chemistry. I'll say that no, in fact, I'm experiencing redness-- that the experience of brain chemistry would involve an fMRI or something. Then we'll rinse and repeat for 20 pages. But let's not do that. There are other ideas in this thread that are worth discussing.

Not unless this one is, I don't think so - because it all stems from this. You know what though, fuck this nonsense man...lol, that's stonewalling reassertion, not an example. I wouldn't say that you're "experiencing brain chemistry", I'd say that "brain chemistry -is- experience". Until you can really let that sink in I don't think you understand my position at all. That you imagine that I would respond to that in a manner that you might.....shows me that you still haven't grasped why this is such an important nuance. We don't just have ideas -about- things...the ideas themselves -are- things.

Fair enough. And in my view of idealism, the two views are a chicken-and-egg issue: for the most part irrelevant.

Convenient, that a difference between us on the very foundation of our disagreement would be irrelevant.

It is because of QM, in which I don't see ideas to represent what can usefully be called "a thing," and because of qualia, which I also don't think can be resolved unambiguously in geometric space, that I break from that mundane view.

You seem to have some strange beliefs about QM, as others have mentioned. That qualia -can be- resolved in geometric space is precisely what any of my explanations are trying to bring you to...-even if that's not the way we do it-. You have described something that unambiguously, and demonstrably -can be- resolved in this way. You don't think that resolution is good enough, even if it satisfies your description....qualia, to you, is "more" or "other" or "else".......but I still don't see why you think this. Look, I get it if you don't find our explanations to be thorough, we know less than we'd like - but to consider this unresolvable, ambiguous, or even impossible from the standpoint of material reduction or geometric space is just absurd. Maybe physical stuff with mass and location and structure isn't "generating qualia" in our heads- but that whats in our heads is capable of doing so(and specifically with reference to it's size, it's structure) under it's own steam with no hidden variables or special sauce isn't actually all that difficult to demonstrate-......unless, of course, you've given me an inadequate description of qualia.

I don't pretend to know the mechanism of qualia. You, however, gave an explicit physical description of what qualia are,

What they could be, if your description is accurate.

and how they are brought into existence,

How they could be, if your description is accurate.

and I wanted you to support those assertions.

-which I did....and which was deemed irrelevant when provided. Qualia, if you ask me, -and judging by your description of it- is a description of a material thing (an immense collection of material things, to be more accurate), in the same way that Mario is a description of a material thing. In either box and all space in between. Qualia poses no more of a challenge for a monism, or material reduction than Mario does-as you've described it. If I ask you to think about the color red, a very material collection of things is going to start doing work - and we can observe that to occur, and that's precisely what happens when you ask an NES to make Mario jump. Your description of qualia is both linguistically and mechanical equivalent to the output of a fucking nintendo man.....and hilariously...you even have qualia of -that- output, that simple machine is interacting with your qualia damned near directly and to incredible effect! So perhaps you can see why above, I wondered for a moment, whether or not you might be holding a little back in your description of qualia. It all seems too simple for there to be some intractable problem in my framework, when it comes to explaining what qualia is, and how it could be achieved.

I'm wondering, btw, whether or not the next time you see "Mario" jumping around like a douche...you'll have a momentary glimpse of tiny little machines doing work, current passing between them....if you'll -see- Mario that way, if that will be your new qualia, as regards Mario, rather than as a little italian man in red suspenders? Will you see Mario as he is, for what he is, or will you continue to see him as you see yourself? What's the difference, between you and he, anyway? Could you, from the point of view of what you take idealism to mean, say something to the effect of "nothing, ultimately, we're the same sort of stuff - generated by the same principles and mechanics."?