
Materialism alone cannot explain the riddle of consciousness - malloryerik
https://aeon.co/essays/materialism-alone-cannot-explain-the-riddle-of-consciousness
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blacksqr
The article presents no evidence to support this assertion. What aspect of the
human brain transcends physical law? The author makes no attempt to say.

The problem with the so-called riddle of consciousness is that you can assert
to me that you experience subjectivity, but you cannot demonstrate to me that
you do. You cannot establish that any other person experiences subjectivity.
Thus you cannot demonstrate even to yourself that you experience subjectivity
because it is impossible to have a control, an externally verifiable example
of subjective consciousness. If you cannot demonstrate to yourself that you
are conscious, then there is no riddle of consciousness. And if you cannot
establish a standard for discriminating consciousness, there is no way you can
exclude the possibility that its visible expressions can be modeled in purely
physical systems.

Arguments by assertion of the specialness of human consciousness keep
appearing on HN like clockwork.

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dkarapetyan
Isn't this confusing the map for the terrain? The mathematical formalism
doesn't have an answer to the questions this essay is asking. If you model
reality with wave functions and compute then you get certain results. That's
pretty much all the mathematics says. Material things are entirely absent in
the mathematical formalism.

In math people learn to not ask questions like "what is a set?". The answer is
always whatever is consistent with the axioms of set theory. That question is
a non-question in the mathematical formalism of set theory. I think it's the
same thing in physics. Asking what is an electron when all you have are some
axioms about wave functions will lead to equally nonsensical answers.

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malloryerik
It sounds like you may actually be in accord with the author. His point seems
to be a reminder that, as I think you are in part saying, mathematical
formalism -- and physics -- don't have answers to many fundamental questions,
yet it is tempting and can even appear more "serious" to jump to conclusions,
especially when jumping to another field, and act as if they do.

"Classifying consciousness as a material problem is tantamount to saying that
consciousness, too, remains fundamentally unexplained."

So it appears that he's reminding us that the map is still largely blank, with
only some terrain filled in.

This hits my ears almost like an echo of Plato's Apology, wherein Socrates
claims that if the Delphic oracle is correct and he is indeed wiser than
others, it is only because he has a better grasp of his own ignorance.

