Comment by jdietrich | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jdietrich | Hacker News Reader

If you believe in the existence of consciousness, what would prove to you that your qualitative experience is fundamentally no different to the state of a Turing machine? What would persuade you that what is called "consciousness" is of no special interest?

OP states that "[consciousness is] a situation where a root cause is murky and escapes testability", which is simply special pleading. If you cannot test your hypothesis, what is more likely - that you have discovered a completely unique and mysterious phenomenon, or that your hypothesis is inadequate?

It appears to me that the whole argument is predisposed upon that sort of special pleading. We have no clear evidence for the existence of consciousness, but it must exist because my subjective perception tells me it does. That perception different from the subjective perception of god or auras or the buddha-nature because... it just is.

Bluntly, go away and come back when you have a null hypothesis.

Why should it matter whether or not "qualitative experience is fundamentally no different to the state of a Turing machine"? I don't see a claim anywhere that a Turing machine can't be conscious.

"but it must exist because my subjective perception tells me it does." seems like a rhetorical trick, consciousness is the underlying mechanism of perception, so it's not my perception of it that tells me it exists, it's the fact that I have perception at all.

As for a null hypothesis, how about this: "If my qualitative experience is no different to the state of a Turing machine, it should be possible to temporarily modify my mental state to remove all qualia -- so that I perceive nothing, but am still able to process everything" (In short, if I'm running code like sensoryData.processWithFeedbackTo(consciousness.Perception), it should be possible to do sensoryData.processWithFeedbackTo(null) temporarily)

Some people get so used to the idea that science explains everything, that they became completely blind to opposing views. It's hardwired deeply into their brains. That's how I explain to myself this kind of blindness I witness in every discussion about consciousness.

Why do I feel pain when the atoms in my brain are in a specific configuration? Current state-of-the-art physical models can't possibly explain that. And it's even impossible to describe what feeling of pain is in physical terms. (No, I don't mean neural activity during pain, I mean the feeling of pain.)

Every physical theory is based solely on consciouss experience. Everything we know about the world is through consciousness.

Science is not an opinionated entity that "explains" things. Rather, it is a method for learning more about the world around us while attempting to minimize influence from bias and other sources of human error.

It's not that we can only discover things via science. It's just that we shouldn't trust discoveries made via flashes of insight, clairvoyance, intuition, guesswork, divine inspiration, etc.

"It's not that we can only discover things via science. It's just that we shouldn't trust discoveries made via flashes of insight, clairvoyance, intuition, guesswork, divine inspiration, etc."

If we can't trust discoveries through non-scientific means, than it seems to me you are saying we can only discover things via science. So if I have continuing experience of something so far yet to be confined within an ordered model of falsifiable hypotheses, what am I to do?

I don't understand your question, exactly, so forgive me if my response seems off. But what are you to do? Nothing special. Just refrain from jumping to conclusions. Instead, say, "I don't know." Which is the same thing the ancient Greeks should've done when asked why the sun travels across the sky, rather than assuming that Apollo drags it behind his magical chariot.

Science (I mean physics specifically) is about finding patterns in our conscious experiences. For example, when I drop a rock, I can see it falling.

There are very solid arguments suggesting that consciousness is outside of the scope of current physics. But it's hard to proof that objectively, because consciousness is inherently subjective.

You are assuming that the "feeling" of pain is inherently different from neural activity during pain. He is saying that to do so without argument is special pleading.

> but it must exist because my subjective perception tells me it does.

What is there besides one's own subjective perception? Hello! This is a figment of your imagination calling.

The effect of your actions on the physical world is no different than an advanced Turing machine.

But the internals of your mind might contain some sort of consciousness that isn't understood yet scientifically.

Do you yourself experience subjective awareness? Why? And what does that subjective awareness have to do with a Turing machine?

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