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What is it like to be a bat?

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180 points adityaathalye | 5 comments | 03 Sep 25 17:48 UTC | HN request time: 0.005s | source
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bondarchuk ◴[03 Sep 25 19:34 UTC] No.45119634[source]▶
>"An organism has conscious mental states if and only if there is something that it is like to be that organism – something that it is like for the organism."

IMHO the phrasing here is essential to the argument and this phrasing contains a fundamental error. In valid usage we only say that two things are like one another when they are also separate things. The usage here (which is cleverly hidden in some tortured language) implies that there is a "thing" that is "like" "being the organism", yet is distinct from "being the organism". This is false - there is only "being the organism", there is no second "thing that is like being the organism" not even for the organism itself.

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mtlmtlmtlmtl ◴[03 Sep 25 20:00 UTC] No.45119822[source]▶
This is the conclusion I come to whenever I try to grasp the works of Nagel, Chalmers, Goff, Searle et al. They're just linguistically chasing their own tails. There's no meaningful insight below it all. All of their arguments, however complex, all rely on poorly defined terms like "understand" "subjective experience", "what it is like", "qualia", etc. And when you try to understand the arguments with the definition of these terms left open, you realise the arguments only make sense when the terms include in their definition a supposition that the argument is true. It's all just circular reasoning.
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mellosouls ◴[03 Sep 25 20:25 UTC] No.45120025[source]▶
All of their arguments, however complex, all rely on poorly defined terms like "understand" "subjective experience", "what it is like", "qualia", etc.

Because they are trying to discuss a difficult-to-define concept - consciousness.

The difficulty and nebulousness is intrinsic to the subject, especially when trying to discuss in scientific terms.

To dismiss their attempts so, you have to counter with a crystal, unarguable description of what consciousness actually is.

Which of course, you cannot do, as there is no such agreed description.

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cwmoore ◴[03 Sep 25 21:59 UTC] No.45120832[source]▶
“The Feeling of What Happens” by Antonio D’Amasio, a book by a neuroscientist some years ago [0], does an excellent job of building a framework for conscious sensation from the parts, as I recall, constructing a theory of “mind maps” from various nervous system structures that impressed me with a sense that I could afterwards understand them.

[0] https://www.labyrinthbooks.com/the-feeling-of-what-happens/

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brudgers ◴[03 Sep 25 22:50 UTC] No.45121220[source]▶
As a radical materialist, the problem with ordinary materialism is that it boils down to dualism because some types matter (e.g. the human nervous system) give rise to consciousness and other types of matter (e.g. human bones) do not.

Ordinary materialism is mind-body/soul-substance subjectivity with a hat and lipstick.

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AIorNot ◴[03 Sep 25 23:31 UTC] No.45121533[source]▶
So how does a radical materialist explain consciousness- that it is too is a fundamental material phenomena? If so are you stretching the definition of materialism?

I find myself believing in Idealism or monism to be the fundamental likelihood

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1. brudgers ◴[04 Sep 25 02:10 UTC] No.45122715[source]▶
It doesn’t explain it.

Consciousness is a characteristic of material/matter/substance/etc.

There are not two types of stuff.

It is epistemologically rigorous. And simple.

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2. AIorNot ◴[04 Sep 25 03:33 UTC] No.45123242[source]▶
well the hard problem of consciousness gets in the way of that

- I assume you as a materialist you mean our brain carries consciousness as a field of experience arising out of neural activity (ie neurons firing, some kind of infromation processing leading to models of reality simulated in our mind leading to ourselves feeling aware) ie that we our awareness is the 'software' running inside the wetware.

That's all well and good except that none of that explains the 'feeling of it' there is nothing in that 3rd person material activity that correlates with first person feeling. The two things, (reductionist physical processes cannot substitute for the feeling you and I have as we experience)

This hard problem is difficult to surmount physically -either you say its an illusion but how can the primary thing we are, we expereince as the self be an illusion? or you say that somewhere in fields, atoms, molecules, cells, in 'stuff; is the redness of red or the taste of chocolate..

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3. markhahn ◴[04 Sep 25 05:25 UTC] No.45123869[source]▶
whenever I see the word 'reductionist', I wonder why it's being used to disparage.

a materialist isn't saying that only material exists: no materialist denies that interesting stuff (behaviors, properties) emerges from material. in fact, "material" is a bit dated, since "stuff-type material" is an emergent property of quantum fields.

why is experience not just the behavior of a neural computer which has certain capabilities (such as remembering its history/identity, some amount of introspection, and of course embodiment and perception)? non-computer-programming philosophers may think there's something hard there, but they only way they can express it boils down to "I think my experience is special".

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4. AIorNot ◴[04 Sep 25 06:20 UTC] No.45124159{3}[source]▶
Because consciousness itself cannot be explained except through experience ie consciousness (ie first person experience) - not through material phenomena

It’s like explaining music vs hearing music

We can explain music intellectually and physically and mathematically

But hearing it in our awareness is a categorically different activity and it’s experience that has no direct correlation to the physical correlates of its being

The common thought experiment is the color blind researcher experiencing color for the first time(Mary the Colour Scientist https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knowledge_argument)

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5. GoblinSlayer ◴[04 Sep 25 09:04 UTC] No.45125179{4}[source]▶
Experience doesn't look necessary: we consider tesseract explained even though we can't experience it.