algekalipso comments on Arguments against the Orthogonality Thesis - Less Wrong

-7 Post author: JonatasMueller 10 March 2013 02:13AM

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Comment author: algekalipso 11 March 2013 03:27:18AM *  0 points [-]

The crux of the disagreement, I think, is in the way we understand the self-assessment of our experience. If consciousness is epiphenomenal or just a different level of description of a purely physical world, this self-assessment is entirely algorithmic and does not disclose anything real about the intrinsic nature of consciousness.

But consciousness is not epiphenomenal, and a purely computational account fails to bridge the explanatory gap. Somehow conscious experience can evaluate itself directly, which still remains a not well understood and peculiar fact about the universe. In addition, as I see it, this needs to be acknowledged to make more progress in understanding both ethics and the relationship between the physical world and consciousness.

Comment author: JonatasMueller 11 March 2013 03:59:53AM *  3 points [-]

Indeed, epiphenomenalism can seemingly be easily disproved by its implication that if it were true, then we wouldn't be able to talk about our consciousness. As I said in the essay, though, consciousness is that of which we can be most certain of, by its directly accessible nature, and I would rather think that we are living in a virtual world under an universe with other, alien physical laws, than that consciousness itself is not real.