What does it entail when you say that your subjective experience “is real”?
Hmm, that my introspective observation of at time 14:04:38 EST corresponds to something that exists? (I notice feeling like talking in circles, sorry) Say I tell you that I just added two numbers in my head. I believe this is a useful description of some aspect of my cognitive processes, and it is possible to find shared patterns in other cognitive systems when they do addition.
I feel like Alice is uncharitable in this conversation. Lack of sharp boundaries is in my mind no strong argument for denying the existence of a claimed aspect of reality. Okay, this also feels uncharitable, but it felt like Alice was arguing that the moon doesn’t exist because there are edge cases, like the big rock that orbits Pluto. I wished she would make the argument why, in this particular case, the observation of Bob does not correspond to anything that exists. Bob would say
I think I notice something that is real but hard to grasp, has a character of ‘wanting to be ended’, and which sounds a lot like what other people talk about when they are hurt. I’ve observed this “experience” many times now.
Then Alice would maybe say
I can relate to the feeling like there is something to be explained. Like the thing that you call “your experience” has certain features that correspond to something. For example like the different color labels for apples and bananas correspond to something real: a different mix of photons being emitted. I claim that what you call a qualitative experience does not correspond to anything real, there is no pattern of reality where it’s useful to call it being conscious. Now let’s go meditate for a year and you will realize that you were totally confused about this part of your observations.
I feel like you’re too focused on this notion of whether something “exists” or not. One of the main points I was trying to convey in the article is that I don’t consider this to be an ideal way of framing the disagreement. See for instance these quotes:
Going by connotations alone, we might at first think that realism means that a domain in question is real, whereas anti-realism implies that it’s something other than real (e.g., that it’s merely imagined). Although accurate in a very loose sense, this interpretation is misleading.
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Typically, when someone stops believing in God, they also stop talking as though God exists. As far as private purposes are concerned, atheists don’t generally refine their concept of God; they abandon it.[3]
Going from realism to anti-realism works differently.
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Rejecting realism for a domain neither entails erasing the substance of that domain, nor (necessarily) its relevance. Anti-realists will generally agree that the domain has some relevance, some “structure.”
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Now quoting something from your comment:
Lack of sharp boundaries is in my mind no strong argument for denying the existence of a claimed aspect of reality. Okay, this also feels uncharitable, but it felt like Alice was arguing that the moon doesn’t exist because there are edge cases, like the big rock that orbits Pluto.
Hm, I think it goes beyond just saying that a concept has fuzzy boundaries. Some people might say that “markets” don’t exist because it’s a fuzzy, abstract concept and people may not agree in practice what aspects of physical reality are part of a market. This would be a pedantic way of objecting to the claim “markets are real.” That’s not what I think anti-realism is about. :)
With the example of consciousness, my point would go something like this: “There might be a totally sensible interpretation of consciousness according to which bees are conscious, and a totally sensible interpretation according to which they aren’t. Bees aren’t ‘edge cases’ like the rocks that surround Pluto. They either fall square into a concept of consciousness, or completely outside of it. Based on what we can tell from introspection and from our folk concept of consciousness, it’s under-determined what we’re supposed to do with bees.”
If put this way, perhaps you’d agree that this in conflict with the realist intuition that consciousness is this crisp thing that systems either have or lack.
Then Alice would maybe say
Haha. Or if you wanted to make the joke about Dennett’s eliminativism, you could describe Alice’s reply like this:
“Look, here’s an optical illusion. And here’s another one. Therefore, consciousness doesn’t exist.”
But I think that’s uncharitable to Dennett. If you read Consciousness Explained in search of arguments why consciousness doesn’t exist, you’ll be disappointed. However, if you read it in search of arguments why there’s no clearcut way to extrapolate from obvious examples like “I’m conscious right now” to less obvious ones like “are bees conscious?” then the book will be really interesting. All these illusions and discussions about fancy neuroscience (e.g., cutaneous rabbit or the discussion about Stalinesque versus Orwellian revisions) support the point that many processes we believe to have a good introspective grasp on are actually much more under-determined than we would intuitively guess. This supports the view that consciousness is very unlike what we think it is. Some people therefore say things like “consciousness ((as we think of it)) doesn’t exist.” I think that’s misleading and will confuse everyone. I think it would be easier to understand anti-realists if they explained their views by saying that things are different from how they appear, and more ambiguous in quite fundamental ways, etc.
Hmm, that my introspective observation of at time 14:04:38 EST corresponds to something that exists? (I notice feeling like talking in circles, sorry) Say I tell you that I just added two numbers in my head. I believe this is a useful description of some aspect of my cognitive processes, and it is possible to find shared patterns in other cognitive systems when they do addition.
I feel like Alice is uncharitable in this conversation. Lack of sharp boundaries is in my mind no strong argument for denying the existence of a claimed aspect of reality. Okay, this also feels uncharitable, but it felt like Alice was arguing that the moon doesn’t exist because there are edge cases, like the big rock that orbits Pluto. I wished she would make the argument why, in this particular case, the observation of Bob does not correspond to anything that exists. Bob would say
Then Alice would maybe say
I feel like you’re too focused on this notion of whether something “exists” or not. One of the main points I was trying to convey in the article is that I don’t consider this to be an ideal way of framing the disagreement. See for instance these quotes:
[...]
[...]
__
Now quoting something from your comment:
Hm, I think it goes beyond just saying that a concept has fuzzy boundaries. Some people might say that “markets” don’t exist because it’s a fuzzy, abstract concept and people may not agree in practice what aspects of physical reality are part of a market. This would be a pedantic way of objecting to the claim “markets are real.” That’s not what I think anti-realism is about. :)
With the example of consciousness, my point would go something like this: “There might be a totally sensible interpretation of consciousness according to which bees are conscious, and a totally sensible interpretation according to which they aren’t. Bees aren’t ‘edge cases’ like the rocks that surround Pluto. They either fall square into a concept of consciousness, or completely outside of it. Based on what we can tell from introspection and from our folk concept of consciousness, it’s under-determined what we’re supposed to do with bees.”
If put this way, perhaps you’d agree that this in conflict with the realist intuition that consciousness is this crisp thing that systems either have or lack.
Haha. Or if you wanted to make the joke about Dennett’s eliminativism, you could describe Alice’s reply like this:
“Look, here’s an optical illusion. And here’s another one. Therefore, consciousness doesn’t exist.”
But I think that’s uncharitable to Dennett. If you read Consciousness Explained in search of arguments why consciousness doesn’t exist, you’ll be disappointed. However, if you read it in search of arguments why there’s no clearcut way to extrapolate from obvious examples like “I’m conscious right now” to less obvious ones like “are bees conscious?” then the book will be really interesting. All these illusions and discussions about fancy neuroscience (e.g., cutaneous rabbit or the discussion about Stalinesque versus Orwellian revisions) support the point that many processes we believe to have a good introspective grasp on are actually much more under-determined than we would intuitively guess. This supports the view that consciousness is very unlike what we think it is. Some people therefore say things like “consciousness ((as we think of it)) doesn’t exist.” I think that’s misleading and will confuse everyone. I think it would be easier to understand anti-realists if they explained their views by saying that things are different from how they appear, and more ambiguous in quite fundamental ways, etc.