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Comment by creamytaco | Hacker News Reader

Here is another wow moment that follows from the one you mentioned: The universe you experience is different than my own. We use language and shared culture to consensually hallucinate a "shared" universe but no such thing truly exists for us. We can perceive objects and describe them in similar ways but the fact remains that we can't access the universe that the objects truly exist in (if that even exists) since, for us, they have no independent existence outside of our mental representation. Or shortly, when you die the universe dies with you.

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That's right. Things that we agree on being named the same we call 'real'.

Imagine this, say what everyone perceives as the color red I perceive it as what everyone else perceives as yellow. But since I have been taught the name of the colors by these people, I will end up matching the names of the colors although I am perceiving something very different.

This needs to be considered in debates on whether animals have consciousness, do they have an "I". The dominant popular belief is that they aren't. My question is, devoid of a common communication language how would you find out. Only thing we have is their observable external behavior. If that is consistent with the 'consciousness' hypothesis, then that's all we can say. In that case we have about as much evidence of presence of consciousness that a fellow human incapable of communicating with us in language as much as another animal say a dolphin. In both the cases its a hypothesis that explains externally observable behavior.

Till we find a way to listen into one's internal monologue this is pretty much all we can do.

I like Feynman's example of the 'inside of a brick' no one has seen that with an unaided human eye. Before other forms of sensing the 'inside' came along (X-ray, ultrasound, ...) it was just a hypothesis that fit observable experience. No one would have actually seen the inside of a brick. When you break it open, its no longer the 'inside'. That there is no 'inside' and that a new surface is formed by the be the act of breaking the brick could have been a plausible alternative hypothesis. Existence of an 'inside' is just a simpler hypothesis.

> Only thing we have is their observable external behavior. If that is consistent with the 'consciousness' hypothesis, then that's all we can say. In that case we have about as much evidence of presence of consciousness that a fellow human ...

It's been mind boggling to me for years that this isn't the default accepted position. That most intelligent life (ie animals) are conscious just like us. Look at what dogs, cats, monkeys do. In what possible way can you say they aren't conscious but another person you can't speak with is? Based on what evidence?

The fact we try and reserve consciousness for humans is the most "epi-cycles in support of geocentrism" thing I've ever seen in science. It's silly. It's wholly unscientific, in fact it's anti-science as it actively avoids the most scientific explanation to reach a conclusion that "we're special".

Its flawed and a stain on science.

I'm a little confused here. Is it the accepted scientific dogma somewhere that other mammals aren't conscious?

> say what everyone perceives as the color red I perceive it as what everyone else perceives as yellow.

This is part of the "knowledge argument":

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knowledge_argument

The philosophers Hobbes and Calvin do not disappoint https://i.redd.it/h2pt1xw3d9801.jpg

It doesn't matter how one person perceives "red". What matter is they can consistently agree with other about what things are red what not.

It is a bit like a web-page with many dom-elements on it, each having its own id. The id is like our perceptions. The id is arbitrary but what matters is that the same id always refers to the same dom-element.

I mean I don't even know what I perceive when I perceive red. I just perceive and use the id "red" for it. The thing is that in our brain there is some kind of an id associated with our experience of redness. When we experience it we say hey I recognize this experience as something familiar, so I will use the same id 'red' to describe it as I have before.

> The universe you experience is different than my own.

How would you know this if you've never experienced how I experience it?

> We use language and shared culture to consensually hallucinate a "shared" universe but no such thing truly exists for us.

You seem to suggest that culture is some shared fantasy superimposed on reality, but how could it be given your solipsism? How could anything be shared?

> We can perceive objects and describe them in similar ways

How would you know? Maybe I mean different things when I speak. Maybe my speech isn't speech at all and you're just construing it as such? Maybe there is no me?

> but the fact remains that we can't access the universe that the objects truly exist in (if that even exists)

How would you know without being able to "access" the universe to make that comparison? Are you a gnostic with secret knowledge (in which case, you do have access)? You've also already assumed a distinction between universe and mind, but how could you if all you have are these "representations", as you call them? The distinction would itself just be a mental "representation".

> since, for us, they have no independent existence outside of our mental representation.

If there is no reality to represent, then they aren't mental representations, are they.

> Or shortly, when you die the universe dies with you.

The universe you don't know actually exists? But if it exists, why should it die with you?

P.S. Less weed, more rigor.

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