Comment by prmph
6 days ago
Consciousness the the fundamental reality; it is the only thing we know for sure.
I know for sure what I am perceiving. Forget about if it is a simulation or not: it is still what I am perceiving. There is nothing else I can be sure of.
So you are correct that it is, in some sense, un-explorable. However, if the above is the reason, then nothing else is explorable also; you cannot prove that we are not in a simulation, and in a sense it does not matter.
If you accept that we assume we are not in a simulation and the knowledge we have matters, then consciousness is also open to exploration, and it is not only a philosophical thing. There are several hard questions about consciousness that are meaningful in this frame:
- Why do some things appear to be conscious and other not so?
- Is there only one consciousness in the universe, or multiple?
- Is consciousness local and embodied, or not?
- Would restoring the physical substrate of consciousness (if possible) lead to the same consciousness, or an identical one? Does this distinction between "same" and "identical" consciousnesses even make sense?
Etc
> Consciousness the the fundamental reality; it is the only thing we know for sure.
These statements conflate, as idealists do, epistemology and ontology.
What we know "for sure" has no bearing on what's real. These are entirely separate questions.
What an ape might, or might not, feel certain (or any which way about) says nothing about where an ape finds itself. Of course, this is a great injury to our ego, and sense of power to determine the nature of the world by our mind alone -- but such is life.
The world is not human, not at all like a human, and nothing about it follows from us at all. The world is not made in our image. Consciousness is a derivative, secondary phenomenon which is a measurement process occurring in the body of an ape, and whatever it manages to measure with any clarity, has no impact on the nature of that world.
>Consciousness is a derivative, secondary phenomenon which is a measurement process occurring in the body of an ape
Can you define existence without depending on or referring to consciousness?
Yes. Though i think you're committing the gentic fallacy here, which is the core fallacy at the heart of idealism and much 19th C. german philosophy.
The properties of the origin of somethign imply nothing about the properties of the product. That a bread factory is made of metal, does not mean bread is.
That in my statement of things in language I am conscious of what I state, says nothing about the truth (or other such properties) of what I say.
A photographic plate is made of metal, the mountain it photographs, of mud.
I am conscious, but when I say, "reality is all that which is extended in space and time" -- the truth of that proposition has nothing to do with my being consiouss -- it is a loaf of bread, a photograph, a product of a process invovling consiousness but in none of its properties, depends upon it.
Every relevant thing we do requires consciousness -- just as everythign a thermometer does requires, say, its own mercury -- but in measuring coffee's temperature, coffee is in no way mercury. And when we measre the world, by photographing it with consciousness, it is in no way conscious.
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Largely I find your points reductionist and insulting to the very sacred experience that is unfolding for you and me. Consciousness is a primary or even a priori phenomenon from which all of your surmisals stem. You have got it backwards. The fact someone once saw an ape, or saw a nebula, or made a measurement of brain waves, these all had to happen within human-experience. The experiencing itself is irreducible. Consciousness as a byproduct or secondary phenomenon as you claim, is to be expected for someone brought up in the modern era where religion and spirituality were so vehemently eschewed that men leaned too far into the other extreme and became physicalist-materialists claiming the lived experience is but a mere symphony of neurological interactions without consequence. This is a disastrous view. This is basically a swift ticket to a hell-realm. The basic posture is all wrong - you must return to the fundamental facts, namely those of your lived experience. What you claim as primary evidence are in fact secondary observations. And then you use the secondary observations to make claims about a primary nature "out there" and "distinct from" human-experiencing. This is simply not the case. This view is logically untenable. One does not study consciousness by looking at pictures and drawings and photos, just like how one does not study what music sounds like by inspecting the buttons of a saxaphone unblown. The fluid nature of the energetic capacity of mind is very difficult to discern - it's not an everyday occurence, sages spend their whole lives pursuing prayer and meditation in order to catch a mere glimpse at the primal nature of experience. Everything else flows from this. Your mind is the root of all things, it is the common denominator in all moments of your experience.
You can read my other comment. You're also committing the genetic fallacy.
Yes, a hand can measure itself. Yes, consciousness as a measurement process of reality can expose to the conscious agent that its own consciousness is a merely a process in the world.
Just as a camera, in photographing a mirror, discovers that it is only a camera located at some point in space and time.
The "back to basics" pov you're talkign about is one which actually abandons everything consciousness tells you about the world, because you're afraid of what you've found.
An ape without a mirror thinks, of course, it is god. What an insult to find the face of this god is only that of an ape.
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If there's no nature out there, then what is hell?
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> you cannot prove that we are not in a simulation, and in a sense it does not matter
I'd consider myself a materialist (in the philosophical sense) and this is why (and I agree with the rest of your comment to)
We can not know, but in the absence of evidence to the contrary (e.g. someone metaphorically popping their head in from "outside" and revealing another layer to us), while it is important to understand that we do not know, it is more productive to assume in the absence of evidence, whether it is "real" or subjective or a simulation.
As long as it appears to us to follow consistent rules, we can explore those rules, and explore our apparent material reality.
Why does whether we're in a simulation or not matter for whether anything is explorable?
You can explore how the simulation works, there's just some other layer you can't explore. Or maybe you can somehow.
When you look at the stars, are they real or a simulation in your brain? Does that mean you can't explore them?
> When you look at the stars, are they real or a simulation in your brain?
This is unknowable.
It is knowable isn’t it? We know our brains play a variety of tricks to get a cohesive view out of two wildly complicated but deeply flawed meat sensors.
That fits the definition of a simulation.
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> Consciousness the the fundamental reality; it is the only thing we know for sure.
Who invented the words "consciousness" "reality" "fundamental" that you are now using? you are using language invented elsewhere while claiming you can't be sure of its reality.
Are you also claiming you can't be sure someone had to create and raise you to get to the point of asking such questions? We are downstream from parents and society.
The whole discussion here is anchored on individual level, but we are not viable outside society. It's like extracting one cell from one organ and saying it is mysterious why it is like that, while ignoring the organism and the evolution.
If society fails, human die too. If a human makes a fatal mistake, the cells in their body die too. We depend on top level doing its job to keep the lower layers viable.
> You are using language invented elsewhere while claiming you can't be sure of its reality.
Your senses are the only thing on which this statement rests. Your don't know anything like "language", "invented" etc. All you know is what your mind and your senses tell you.
And, yes, engaging with you on this topic, and my argument, is also included in what I refer to as my perception. I have no way to prove that you are even conscious, or that anything like language or invention actually are real, whatever real means.
So it's through the senses that one attains mathematical knowledge?
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> Are you also claiming you can't be sure someone had to create and raise you to get to the point of asking such questions? We are downstream from parents and society.
Yes exactly. You are sure of nothing except the fact this now exists. The simulation could collapse in the next second. I could awake from this dream.
> Consciousness the the fundamental reality; it is the only thing we know for sure.
> I know for sure what I am perceiving
This reflects my view. And I’ve always found it mildly amusing that beings I cannot prove to myself are perceiving attempt to convince me that I’m not perceiving, when that’s exactly what I’m maximally sure of. Imagine arguing with an LLM designed to convince you that you’re not real. It would be weird, wouldn’t it?
> It would be weird, wouldn’t it?
That depends how it tried and what influences the LLM had on the outside world.
For example if the LLM could drug you, either by convincing you to take drugs, or trick you into doing it, then convincing you that you're not real becomes monumentally easy. Derealization can be a monumentally profound/terrifying experience to your psyche.
> Is there only one consciousness in the universe, or multiple?
This sounds similar to the "how do you know you're not dreaming?" question.
When you are in a dream, you really are the only single conciousness of that world. Any other person you interact with inside your dream is not performing any thinking of their own. Instead, dream interactions are just your single consciousness interacting with itself.
I think it is obvious there are multiple consciousness in the universe and not just one. Unless you're in a dream right now ;)
Only if we abandon reason while simultaneously claiming objectivity.
I cannot know objectively whether I am in a simulation or not. I can, however, reason about my experience, the experiences of others (as I perceive them), and the systems that facilitate perception. All of that information is logically coherent, so I can "know" it. My knowledge may not be objectively proven, but it is the most subjectively relevant conclusion.
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