(2018-05-06, 04:20 PM)Sciborg_S_Patel Wrote: [ -> ]I was thinking it of a variation on Pascal's Wager - interesting it made you think of Tolstoy, hopefully you make this thread. 
It surprised me too. When it comes to literature, I was much more familiar with the works of Isaac Asimov and Arthur C. Clarke. Nevertheless, I found something even more resonant in at least one portion of Tolstoy.
Courtesy of the Daily Grail, here's a little Scientific American article by Shermer entitled "Will Science Ever Solve the Mysteries of Consciousness, Free Will and God?":
https://www.scientificamerican.com/artic...l-and-god/
His answer is no. I'm not really a fan of philosophy, but the arguments he makes seem so superficial and silly that I think he should leave it to the philiosophers.
(2018-06-27, 11:21 AM)Chris Wrote: [ -> ]Courtesy of the Daily Grail, here's a little Scientific American article by Shermer entitled "Will Science Ever Solve the Mysteries of Consciousness, Free Will and God?":
https://www.scientificamerican.com/artic...l-and-god/
His answer is no. I'm not really a fan of philosophy, but the arguments he makes seem so superficial and silly that I think he should leave it to the philiosophers.
They are superficial, but I think his ultimate conclusion may not be wrong, at least if by "solve" he means prove beyond and sort of doubt.
Shermer seems like a hard guy to pin down sometimes.
Just out of curiosity, can someone better versed in these questions clarify whether Shermer's characterisation of the "hard problem" is correct?
The hard problem of consciousness is represented by the qualitative experiences (qualia) of what it is like to be something.
Is it really the same problem as "What is it like to be a bat?"
(2018-06-27, 05:54 PM)Chris Wrote: [ -> ]Just out of curiosity, can someone better versed in these questions clarify whether Shermer's characterisation of the "hard problem" is correct?
The hard problem of consciousness is represented by the qualitative experiences (qualia) of what it is like to be something.
Is it really the same problem as "What is it like to be a bat?"
I am not claiming to be better versed in these questions but that is how I understand the "hard problem". Nagel's example was a bat but we could just as easily say the same for you and I: I can never know how you experience the world. Take something like the colour red, for example. We both see red but do you experience red in the same way that I do? We can't possibly know. We can know the physics of colour wavelengths and the physiology of the eye and brain which process the colour data but we can't know how that feels for each other to look at something red.
The difference is that physics and physiology are objective: they can be measured and thus are accountable to science. The way I feel about something is subjective and personal. It can't be measured, you can't write a formula to encapsulate my feeling. That is why subjectivity is eschewed by scientists and why Alan Wallace wrote a book about the "
Taboo of Subjectivity". So "qualia" are those "what it's like" elements to our experience and qualia are the reason there is a hard problem for scientists who are bound by objectivity.
The other part of the Shermer article brings up something we have also
discussed at length here already: Scientific (or Methodological) Naturalism. The idea that science can only deal with what scientists deem to be of the "natural" world. That is the material world. So the so-called supernatural, like God or the afterlife, belongs to religion which deals in such concepts but not science. So those who are aligned with scientism will contend that if something can't be examined by science it can be ignored, it is not of the natural world and probably doesn't exist.
Kamarling
Thanks. I must admit I've never really understood clearly what the "hard problem" is.
Regarding the part about God, Shermer's argument seems to blur the distinction between the "natural world" and the "material world", and also the distinction between a God who can influence the natural world and a God who is a "natural being". Perhaps I'm expecting too much from a five-sentence paragraph.
(2018-06-27, 09:40 PM)Chris Wrote: [ -> ]Kamarling
Thanks. I must admit I've never really understood clearly what the "hard problem" is.
Regarding the part about God, Shermer's argument seems to blur the distinction between the "natural world" and the "material world", and also the distinction between a God who can influence the natural world and a God who is a "natural being". Perhaps I'm expecting too much from a five-sentence paragraph.
You are right that he doesn't see that distinction. I think that Shermer has the concept of a God separate from "his" creation. In short, he has the same concept as the bible literalists and fundamentalists. In my view there is no separation therefore no external influence. God is nature and nature is God. The material world is merely a manifestation: something we perceive as material because we are likewise constrained by the same physical laws that are also manifest but, ultimately, exist in the universal mind. Of course, we don't have an adequate lexicon for these concepts - or, at least, I don't.
Personally, I don't think we need be concerned with "what it is like to be a bat" or what it is like to experience the colour red, or any of those things. By the time we ask those questions, we have already taken consciousness for granted, missed the boat as it were, it has already sailed without us.
In my view, we need to start earlier. How is it that we experience at all? Doesn't matter what the experience is, just the mere fact that we do.
I should say, this is just my wording, it may amount to the same as has already been said.
As an aside, I don't deem it impossible to experience what it is like to be "something else", there are lots of examples of altered states of consciousness, whether via the route of dreaming, or other routes, where we may experience other realities. Not to say that this would satisfy someone who wanted the answers nailed down and repeatable in the lab.
(2018-06-28, 04:54 AM)Typoz Wrote: [ -> ]Personally, I don't think we need be concerned with "what it is like to be a bat" or what it is like to experience the colour red, or any of those things. By the time we ask those questions, we have already taken consciousness for granted, missed the boat as it were, it has already sailed without us.
In my view, we need to start earlier. How is it that we experience at all? Doesn't matter what the experience is, just the mere fact that we do.
I should say, this is just my wording, it may amount to the same as has already been said.
As an aside, I don't deem it impossible to experience what it is like to be "something else", there are lots of examples of altered states of consciousness, whether via the route of dreaming, or other routes, where we may experience other realities. Not to say that this would satisfy someone who wanted the answers nailed down and repeatable in the lab.
I'm not sure that those altered states or experiences of other realities are relevant to the point that Nagel, Chalmers and others are making. That point being that we can't experience what it is like from the perspective of the bat or the other person. We can experience other realities but that is still our own experience. We could be transported to an alien world and see their landscape but that would tell us little about how they experience that world.
While I do agree that just by asking the question we have already acknowledged consciousness but neither Nagel nor Chalmers is questioning the reality of consciousness. That is something you would expect from Churchland or Dennett who does pose precisely that question about whether consciousness is real. It is called Eliminative Materialism.
(2018-06-28, 08:51 PM)Kamarling Wrote: [ -> ]I'm not sure that those altered states or experiences of other realities are relevant to the point that Nagel, Chalmers and others are making. That point being that we can't experience what it is like from the perspective of the bat or the other person. We can experience other realities but that is still our own experience. We could be transported to an alien world and see their landscape but that would tell us little about how they experience that world.
You seem to be ruling out the possibility that altered states from your perspective can include experiencing "what it is like from the perspective of the bat or the other person". That was the very thing which I was suggesting was possible. I guess we'll have to agree to disagree.
I'm not entirely certain on your other point but at the end of the day I think it comes down to a label originally created by a particular person. Since I didn't originate that terminology I'll leave it to the originator to define their own terms.