Trying to simplify my Consciousness hypothesis

[DLJ]

If by "physical" you include 'chemical', then what else is there?  Magic?

You can pick the non-explanation of your choice.  So far, there's neither a plausible explanation of how a physical system of any kind can be subjectively aware of what it's like to experience, nor is there any method by which to determine which physical systems do so.  In fact, there's no proof that any non-bennyboy physical system actually DOES know what it's like to drink hot chocolate, or to kiss a girl for the first time, or to have a headache.

This added bonus (pattern recognition, predictive modelling, event detection) gives us empathy (the 'knowing what it's like to") which is useful for discerning intent - whether it's "where will this mammoth run to next?" or "Is he cheating on me?" - empathy enables bonding which assists with tribal identity (in-group / out-group) which enables security and stability which aids survival.

Utility is not really a causal explanation.  The problem of consciousness isn't to determine whether it's useful-- it clearly is.  The problem is the conflation of subjective and objective perspectives, which are normally considered diametrically opposed, into a monist world view.  Specifically, why would a system governed by the rules of physics (including chemistry) ever develop something as materially useless as the capacity to experience qualia?


Take a computer for example.  No matter how complex we can make a computer, we can revise its software, make hardware improvements, and so on.  We can probably make computers that will do almost every task better than humans 100% of the time, including making driving decisions in off-road terrain and so on.  But at no point of that process would we expect to have to imbue the computer with the ability to know what its like to experience dust or blue skies-- it just has to grind through its data and output a driving behavior.

Ah. I think we've got a mix of proximate vs. ultimate "whys" going on here.

Regarding "a plausible explanation of how a physical system of any kind can be subjectively aware of what it's like to experience", I don't have a problem with the idea of self-monitoring software of our self monitoring software mapped onto a model (simulator) of self.

I wonder what it was like to experience a blue sky the first time I experienced it.

I'm not a big fan of this 'qualia' notion. Something that has not been adequately defined is not very useful, philosophically speaking.