It's almost as if consciousness isn't real, and every species experiences reality, pain, and stress in different ways... Remember, we are always trying to determine whether another species is sentient or intelligent, but we only seem to the determining how similar to humans that species is.
I often wonder if such philosophical zombies really do exist among us. Just as some people are born without the ability to hear or see, what if there are some born without a subjective experience? And congratulations on 1k followers! Your channel is one of my favorites.
If you ever wonder this, then I encourage you to meet some of my co-workers. They will remove all doubt. And, oh my god, yes! Great quality and I loves listening to the videos! I hope your channel contributes to grow!
I have one problem with your stated definition of consciousness: "Consciousness, in this context, refers to the state of being aware of one's own thoughts, sensations, emotions, and perceptions." You don't have to be aware of one's thoughts, sensations, emotions, or perceptions to be conscious. Simply by having these things (qualia) one is conscious. I think adding the qualifer about awareness adds a potential confusion about the "self-aware" consciousness observed only in humans and some animals. You COULD call the simple experience of qualia "awareness" of qualia as well, but it's not the best choice of word in my opinion. The hard problem of consciousness changed my worldview. We could have perfect predictions of our brains and behaviour, but we'd still never derive qualia themselves. One could take consciousness to be a strongly emergent phenomena, but to me this is magical.
Thank you for your comment:) Although that‘s not the definition of consciousness I gave in the video. I agree that by simply having these qualia one is conscious.
Well, it's actually quite simple in the case of your colour example. Let's look at the physics, you assert that the woman "knows" about colour. Yet both physics wise, and neurologically, that cannot be! Naming a colour means your brain classifies a neurological input. In this case as "red". Without ever having had that input, the link isn't there yet. The link isn't established until it is said. Of course, in reality her colour receptors likely have died off. But we know from historical analysis that many ancient civilization didn't have the colour blue, and therefor just had more variations of green. As to consciousness, we know from physics experiments, that classifying something by an observer (either computer or human) has a physical effect on the experiment. (Also not necessarily persistent) you are, factually, part of a participatory universe that isn't independent of all acts of observation. The moment your brain discretizes via an action potential, this physics demand is achieved. But just as a fair warning. Because of the proven participatory universe, the world doesn't make you conscious, but because you are, the world is as it is. Let me know what you need references about.
I think the problem might just be one of nomenclature. If someone has spent a lifetime studying the science of colour then they do have some knowledge of the subject. Also when they see actual colours they are not necessarily adding to that knowledge. They have then in fact started acquiring knowledge about a new subject which is the experience of colour. There! I've solved your "hard problem" (joking! 😊)
I like this answer, but it does show that you recognize (correctly, imo) that science of colour and experience of colour as separate things. I think this counts as a "yes" answer to the Mary's room question.
I would say you CAN have complete knowledge about a topic without having experienced it. Experiencing it is not necessarily adding knowledge, just more data/information. Knowledge is conclusions made/acquired based on gaining data/information through experience (whether it be first hand through sense or second or third hand through other external detection mechanisms). And I think it's bold to claim that an artificial human that has all the exact same inputs and outputs would have anything different than what we call consciousness. How would you know it doesn't have that? Really just seems like you're applying some supernatural element without justification.
I wonder what the implications will be when (if) we finally figure out how consciousness works.
It's almost as if consciousness isn't real, and every species experiences reality, pain, and stress in different ways...
Remember, we are always trying to determine whether another species is sentient or intelligent, but we only seem to the determining how similar to humans that species is.
I often wonder if such philosophical zombies really do exist among us. Just as some people are born without the ability to hear or see, what if there are some born without a subjective experience?
And congratulations on 1k followers! Your channel is one of my favorites.
If you ever wonder this, then I encourage you to meet some of my co-workers. They will remove all doubt.
And, oh my god, yes! Great quality and I loves listening to the videos! I hope your channel contributes to grow!
Thank you guys, this really means a lot to me! Your comments give me the motivation to continue putting out content:)
I have one problem with your stated definition of consciousness: "Consciousness, in this context, refers to the state of being aware of one's own thoughts, sensations, emotions, and perceptions."
You don't have to be aware of one's thoughts, sensations, emotions, or perceptions to be conscious. Simply by having these things (qualia) one is conscious. I think adding the qualifer about awareness adds a potential confusion about the "self-aware" consciousness observed only in humans and some animals. You COULD call the simple experience of qualia "awareness" of qualia as well, but it's not the best choice of word in my opinion.
The hard problem of consciousness changed my worldview. We could have perfect predictions of our brains and behaviour, but we'd still never derive qualia themselves. One could take consciousness to be a strongly emergent phenomena, but to me this is magical.
Thank you for your comment:) Although that‘s not the definition of consciousness I gave in the video. I agree that by simply having these qualia one is conscious.
Well, it's actually quite simple in the case of your colour example.
Let's look at the physics, you assert that the woman "knows" about colour. Yet both physics wise, and neurologically, that cannot be! Naming a colour means your brain classifies a neurological input. In this case as "red". Without ever having had that input, the link isn't there yet. The link isn't established until it is said. Of course, in reality her colour receptors likely have died off. But we know from historical analysis that many ancient civilization didn't have the colour blue, and therefor just had more variations of green.
As to consciousness, we know from physics experiments, that classifying something by an observer (either computer or human) has a physical effect on the experiment. (Also not necessarily persistent) you are, factually, part of a participatory universe that isn't independent of all acts of observation. The moment your brain discretizes via an action potential, this physics demand is achieved.
But just as a fair warning. Because of the proven participatory universe, the world doesn't make you conscious, but because you are, the world is as it is.
Let me know what you need references about.
I think the problem might just be one of nomenclature. If someone has spent a lifetime studying the science of colour then they do have some knowledge of the subject. Also when they see actual colours they are not necessarily adding to that knowledge. They have then in fact started acquiring knowledge about a new subject which is the experience of colour. There! I've solved your "hard problem" (joking! 😊)
I like this answer, but it does show that you recognize (correctly, imo) that science of colour and experience of colour as separate things. I think this counts as a "yes" answer to the Mary's room question.
I would say you CAN have complete knowledge about a topic without having experienced it. Experiencing it is not necessarily adding knowledge, just more data/information. Knowledge is conclusions made/acquired based on gaining data/information through experience (whether it be first hand through sense or second or third hand through other external detection mechanisms). And I think it's bold to claim that an artificial human that has all the exact same inputs and outputs would have anything different than what we call consciousness. How would you know it doesn't have that? Really just seems like you're applying some supernatural element without justification.
Some topics, but not all. If philosophers didn't obsess endlessly over color and chairs...