(February 13, 2017 at 5:51 am)Mathilda Wrote: I've never seen an adequate explanation for why consciousness should be considered a hard problem.
It's only hard for us because we're using our own brain to understand itself.
I agree with your second point and to some extent with the first... pragmatically at least, but nonetheless, qualia ultimately remains unexplained. In my view it is entirely superfluous (epiphenomenalism) and the brain could do everything without it... true philosophical zombies... so it's a mystery not just how it exists but why it exists. Rhythm/Khemikal once asked me how I could be sure (roughly) that we weren't philosophical zombies but that doesn't really cut it for me... there is something there... some distinguishable change of state/difference (ie one colour different from another, and one moment different from another in the sense of things appearing, changing, and ceasing)... granted it's distinguishable with the brain/mind so perhaps begging the question... but nonetheless just writing it off as an illusion or whatever doesn't ultimately do it for me; change of state indicates difference and therefore cannot be Nothing... or can it? I don't know... that's one of my big questions. I've always wondered, is your perspective just a pragmatic thing because you're a scientist?... in which case I get it and share it for the most part in that the continued and perfect (imo) correlation between neuroscience and consciousness indicates they are one and the same... but nonetheless do you never, even just fleetingly or irrationally, wonder about the phenomenal nature of consciousness?
