Comment on Consciousness

Thu, 14 Jan 2010 05:57:35 GMT

Hal, what would be more bizarre - to say that the colors, smells, and sounds are somewhere in the brain, or to say that they are nowhere at all? Once we say that they aren't in the world outside the brain, saying they are inside the brain is the only place left, unless you're a dualist.

Most people here are saying that these things are in the brain, and that they are identical with some form of neural computation. My objection is that the brain, as currently understood by physics, consists of large numbers of particles moving in space, and there is no color, smell, or sound in that. I think the majority response to that is to say that color, smell, sound is how the physical process in question "feels from the inside" - to which I say that this is postulating an extra property not actually part of physics, the "feel" of a physical configuration, and so it's property dualism.

If the redness, etc, is in the brain, that doesn't mean that the brain part in question will look red when physically examined from outside. Every example of redness we have was part of a subjective experience. Redness is interior to consciousness, which is interior to the thing that is conscious. How the thing that is conscious looks when examined by another thing that is conscious is a different matter.

Discuss