Trying to simplify my Consciousness hypothesis

[Edwardo Piet]

There is no why. There is no purpose to it. Like I said it's like a side effect.

It's like... why do moths kill themselves repeatedly against hot lamps? It's a side effect of how they navigate with the moon.

I think our consciousness is just a side effect of our complex brains. It has no purpose in itself.

In fact it couldn't have a purpose. If I was a P-zombie I'd be functionally identical.

[The Grand Nudger]

It's a mystery because we don't know how it works or why it's there.

Probably a -bit- of an overstatement there, on your part.  

What matters is the distal cause: why it is that objects may become subjectively aware at all.

Because they can?  Because it's possible? Because a set of biological processes exist which are capable of turning the possible into the actual?  How about that for a why?  

What is it about the universe that allows me, or anyone else, to know what it's like to see the color red, or to enjoy a nice cup of hot chocolate?

Material interaction, in both cases, and demonstrably so.

[Edwardo Piet]

Definitely an overstatement.

And when there are people out there who say Quantum Mechanics is spooky and consciousness is spooky so maybe the two spooky stuff are connected I'm just like "No just no stop it JUST STOP IT" seriously.....

[Neo-Scholastic]

I think our consciousness is just a side effect of our complex brains. It has no purpose in itself.

If so, then why should I read and respond to your posts? Why do you write them? What's the point? For that matter, is it rational to believe that any of your thoughts and feelings no correspondence with external reality?

[bennyboy]

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Qualia is the subjective experience of what things are like: what it's like to drink hot chocolate, what it's like to see something red, and so on.
...

Which makes it a variable.  For example, hot chocolate will be less sweet if imbibed after eating pancakes with maple syrup.

Yep, and it will probably taste different to different people. But I know what it's like FOR ME to drink THAT hot chocolate.

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Qualia has only ever meant one thing, so far as I know.

In 1988, Dan Dennett attempted to pin it down by proposing that "the root concept of qualia has four conditions.   Qualia are:
1) ineffable
2) intrinsic
3) private, and
4) directly apprehensible ways things seem to one.

That is to say, they are
1) somehow atomic to introspection and hence indescribable ("you had to be there");
2) not relational or dispositional or functional (the colour red may be anxiety-provoking to some people but that subjective disposition is not a quale of red);
3) "You had to be there, but you can't be, they're mine and mine alone!"; and
4) your qualia are known to you more intimately than anything else.

In Intuition Pumps he added: "This is still regarded as a good starting place in most circles, but since the point of that essay was to show that nothing could meet these four conditions, there has been ample discussion of revised or improved versions of the concept, with no emerging consensus."

I dunno, I wouldn't necessarily put those stipulations on the word. The way you present it makes it look much like a strawman to me.

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It's a mystery because we don't know how it works or why it's there.

Probably a -bit- of an overstatement there, on your part.  

Okay. How does it work, and why is it there?

What matters is the distal cause: why it is that objects may become subjectively aware at all.

Because they can?  Because it's possible? Because a set of biological processes exist which are capable of turning the possible into the actual?  How about that for a why?  

So-- brute fact?

What is it about the universe that allows me, or anyone else, to know what it's like to see the color red, or to enjoy a nice cup of hot chocolate?

Material interaction, in both cases, and demonstrably so.

You're not really addressing the question. Given that you are not asserting that qualia adds something to a physical system, then why does it exist rather than not existing?

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I think our consciousness is just a side effect of our complex brains. It has no purpose in itself.

In fact it couldn't have a purpose. If I was a P-zombie I'd be functionally identical.

To me, this is the most honest answer.  However, it seems that since qualia can't interact with anything, there would be no mechanism for it to evolve, even by chance.  It's not like scramble DNA leading to extra-thick skin or something-- it would be the spontaneous coming into being of subjective awareness into a universe that didn't have it before.  This seems implausible to me-- why would a fully-formed ability to experience piggy-back other systems over billions of years and presumably many milions of species of organism if it was causally irrelevant?

[The Grand Nudger]

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Probably a -bit- of an overstatement there, on your part.  

Okay.  How does it work, and why is it there?

Asking the question over and over again won't make any answer you've already been given, or the wide field of study you know exists...... disappear.  

So-- brute fact?

An explanation by brute fact would be to say "why does it exist" - because it exists"....which, ofc, isn't what I said, so?  I gave you a mechanism which is know to exist, and known to be capable of actualizing what is possible. I thought you'd appreciate it. Personally, I think the question is malformed....I'm just trying to meet you in the middle.

You're not really addressing the question.  Given that you are not asserting that qualia adds something to a physical system, then why does it exist rather than not existing?

Correction, you disagree with the manner in which I address the question.  If you're intent on nothing but repeating the question what can I do but repeat my answer? I;m not looking to get you to agree with any answer I might propose. Just trying to help you winnow down your objections and statements to those that would, at least, be cogent. Less of the can't, less of the known unknowns, less of the no one answers...and more of I don't think that it does, there are some things we we don't know, and I don't agree with all of the answers we do have. Doesn't that strike you as a more reasonable, and less grandstandish way to approach the subject?

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If so, then why should I read and respond to your posts? Why do you write them? What's the point?

All questions that have no bearing on the truth value of the proposition to which you responded.  -but hey...why do you, what -is- the point?  In your estimation, ofc?

For that matter, is it rational to believe that any of your thoughts and feelings no correspondence with external reality?

I'm reading that as "have no correspondence with external reality"..personally, I'd say no, but I didn't see anyone make such a claim?

[emjay]

The problem for me is in understanding exactly what I mean by the word "exists"; I can say "I exist" any time I am experiencing because "I" am the only seemingly constant presence as the subject of experiences. If I'm a direct realist I can say everything I experience as external (ie sensory input) exists. If I'm an indirect realist, as I am, I say that external things exist and an internal model/representation of those things exists, which is what I perceive. I go further and narrow my conception of 'I' by seeing not only what is traditionally internal-external (ie internally perceived as external, directly for direct realists or indirectly for indirect realist) as internal-external but also things often considered to be part of the 'I'... like will for instance, such that pretty much everything is considered internal-external for me... the only part that's not the focal point which is the subject of experiences.

What I'm saying is that whatever perspective you have regarding internal-external, it ultimately comes down making statements about what exists about things you notice in consciousness; some people stay 'direct' (Exists(me)+(Exists(External objects)), some people go meta... ie 'indirect' (Exists(me)+(Exists(Internal model)+Exists(External Objects)))... and some people, like me, go even more meta (Exists(me)+(Exists(changeable states... will, feelings etc)+(Exists(Internal model)+Exists(External Objects))). But they're all just existence statements about whatever we've noticed in consciousness.

And since it's by no means certain even that 'I' exist as I subjectively infer I do, rather than some sort of ever-changing construct that only appears to be continuous, then it seems to me that existence statements are very dubious, given that they refer to the contents of consciousness which in some cases are considered to be external things or representative of external things but in other cases representative of the perceiving 'system' and/or the self as subject of perceptions.

It's just hard to know what I mean by the word "exists"... maybe it's not a useful term when consciousness is concerned because it can conflate the 'material' with the 'immaterial' and treat them just the same... as stuff that exists relative to (ie noticed by) a subjective observer, but where that observer itself is by no means cut and dry to be exactly what we think it is. No one else can know I exist only through inference from my body and my brain, but it's not the same thing. So I don't know whether exists is a useful word in this context.

[I_am_not_mafia]

First tell us what qualia is, how to recognise it and give us reason to suspect that it exists.

Qualia is the subjective experience of what things are like: what it's like to drink hot chocolate, what it's like to see something red, and so on.  In order to recognize your own, I recommend you open your eyes and look at something, assuming you yourself are not a philosophical zombie.  As for "suspecting" that it exists, I can only comment for myself-- qualia is an accurate label for my experiences of what things are like-- it doesn't need to be proven, because the word is simply a label for that.  I suspect that YOU also experience qualia, since you are likely human, and since I suspect that all humans experience qualia.

I don't believe that you experience qualia. Convince me that you do. As far as I You're just a biological automata.

When you drink hot chocolate your taste buds recognise the chemical make-up of the liquid and match it to other evolved and learned tastes (e.g. sweet, not bitter or sour) to determine whether it will cause disturbance to your homoeostatic balance. Signals from your body reveal that it is warm. When you see red then the red sensitive cones in your eyes are firing more strongly than the green and blue ones. This then triggers certain associations, both evolved and learned and maybe evokes memories.

You say you experience qualia but you are repeating phrases learned from your environment. I see no evidence of you actually experiencing red or hot chocolate. You're just reacting to sensory stimuli. No different from a circuit board controlling a robot, or a fish or animal or a baby with a brain that is still developing.

[Edwardo Piet]

To me, this is the most honest answer.  However, it seems that since qualia can't interact with anything, there would be no mechanism for it to evolve, even by chance.

You say it's the most honest answer but you're entirely missing my point about evolutionary by-products.

There doesn't need to be a reason for qualia to evolve. It's purposeless and useless, a side effect. A side effect of having complex brains that ARE useful.

A moth doesn't have an evolutionary reason for suiciding itself into a hot lamp either. It's an evolutionary by-product and side effect of its flight mechanism that is useful.

[The Grand Nudger]

If there ever comes a day where moth suiciding into lamps becomes advantageous (stranger things have happpened) will we all sit in slack jawed wonder as to "why" it came to be so?  I mean, why have that urge at all?  Why should there be any urge as opposed to no urge? What about the nature of the universe allows them to have such an urge?

Why, why, why why why.

In my experience, people revert to a neverending stream of why;s in these sorts of questions when the answered "what" is demonstrative but unamenable. It;s one of those fun ticks of linguistics that no amount of answering can prevent a person from simply repeating "yes, but why....?".