Pleasure and Joy

[genkaus]

You've said that experience IS brain function, and now you say that brain function explains experience. So you can say that brain function explains itself, or that experience explains itself.

Are you willfully misunderstanding my statement? Let's see if you get it through analogy:

Black-hole is a superdense matter. Simultaneously, superdense matter explains a black-hole.

Electric current is a flow of electrons. The flow of electrons explains electric current.

Clouds are suspended water-particles. Suspended water particles explain clouds.

Similarly, experience is brain-function. Brain-function explains experience.

Do you get it or do you need further explanation?

You would be if you posited properties to the black hole which nobody can observe, and which are not required to explain the observations which cause you to infer its existence in the first place.

Unfortunately for you, the super-dense matter of the black hole is not observable - given that the black-hole itself is not observable. As for it being 'required' to explain anything - that's debatable. Fairy-dust would explain the existence of black-hole equally well, the same way soul would explain the existence of experience.

lol even you have to put quotes around it. I look forward to seeing the brain scans which you did of yourself, which you've also found in other humans. Frankly, I did not know you had access to any of that kid of equipment.

You want me to reveal all the personal aspects of my identity over the internet - sorry, not gonna happen.

I'm saying that your conclusions are NOT drawn from careful consideration of physical facts. You did NOT infer the existence of awareness, in yourself or anyone else, based on behavior or brain function. You already believe that others actually experience.

And you are sure of this because....?

I did carefully consider physical facts. I do know of the existence of my own awareness. The physical facts I considered were separating behaviors which are necessarily the result of experience and which aren't. Other physical facts are my physiological reactions. Yet others are the same behaviors and reactions in other. Which is why I know that others actually experience.

The problem is that all those physical facts upon which you claim to draw work fine without positing any kind of actual experience. You are inferring properties that aren't required, only because you might as well since you feel you "know" the truth already.

Sorry, they don't. You cannot display behavior like subjective preferences, learning, conditioning etc. without actual experience.

You can claim gnosticism about idea which share the same context, which is determined by perspective and the set of assumptions one makes.

First, you have to establish gnosticism as a coherent concept within that context.

So I can know for sure that there's milk in my fridge. I don't need to worry that maybe I'm in the Matrix, and the milk isn't real, because I'm not making assertions about the existential reality of the milk-- only that if I open the fridge, there it is to be experienced visually.

Sorry, but unless you make the assertion about the existential reality of the milk - no, you cannot know.

In a video game, I can know for sure that if I get too close to a certain monster, it will kill me. If someone else asks "Are you sure?" I'll say I know for sure. In the context of that video game, it's a fact that that monster will kill me 100% of the time. Anyone who talks to me is operating in the same context that I am: no sensible person will say, "La la la I'm not really dead I'm in my Mom's basement eating Doritos." This fails, because he's abandoning the context.

Bad example. It fails because the death here refers not to you but to the digital program you happen to be controlling.

Similarly, if someone gets knocked out, I can snap my fingers in front of his face until he blinks and say, "He's finally conscious again, because he's experiencing my finger snaps." Since I'm operating in a context defined by accepting the ideas both of the reality of the physical universe and of experience in other humans, then the only criterion of experience is his behavior. He's as conscious as anyone else is, and since I'm already assuming (even implicitly) that other humans can be conscious, there's no conflict there.

You are assuming - not me.

This is where you are. You've chosen your set of assumptions, and are fully immersed in the gnostic reality of the context which is defined by them. The problem is that you don't accept that they are assumptions-- you think they are based on evidence of a context external to assumptions. But they aren't.

Here's where you go wrong - I've already laid out my assumptions. I've also laid out why my assumptions are axiomatic and how any denial of those assumptions results in self-refutation. I've also shown why gnosticism is valid only within the context of those assumptions. And here's the kicker - assuming that others are capable of experience is not and has never been one of my assumptions. That knowledge is based on evidence. Which is precisely why your accusation of circular reasoning fails.

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They are, in fact, not separate.

The better analogy is a brick. Its shape and mass matter for building. Its color does not. You say that subjective experience matters, but then turn around and say everything is explicable as third-party observable physical processes. If that is so then, subjective experience is redundant. You cannot supply a reason why, in your theory, brain-states with observable properties need the additional property of subjective experience. Sorry genkaus, but you need to get your story straight. You are not being consistent.

Do you intentionally ignore the rest of my post that already contains the answer to your question or do you simply not read it?

Here's where I first gave the explanation for this specific issue:

Yes, it is causally relevant. The causal chain can be viewed at different levels - we can view it at particulate level exchanging energy all the way up to the level of planetary motion. The level at which human consciousness exists and intuitively perceives the reality - i.e. as singular entities rather than collection of particles - the existence of subjective experience within those entities becomes relevant.

The second explanation through analogy is here:

For example, suppose I send a document to the printer, resulting in the action of it being printed. Now you say that there are two possibilities. The existence of document is a necessary property, there being a set of electronic signals is incidental. Or the existence of signals is necessary and there being a document is incidental. And I must choose which is the case. However, the fact is, without that document, there wouldn't be
those electronic signals and without those electronic signals there wouldn't be a document - they are one and the same thing. That we can conceptually regard them as separate entities does not change the fact.

And what both of them say is that subjective experience is not an additional or redundant property - it is the necessary consequence of the way the brain works. Viewing the same phenomenon atomically you see the causal chain as stimulus -> series of brain states -> behavior. Viewing it holisitically, you see is as stimulus -> experience -> behavior.