RichardKennaway comments on Timeless Identity - Less Wrong

23 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 03 June 2008 08:16AM

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Comment author: RichardKennaway 02 October 2013 08:52:12AM 0 points [-]

How do you explain "feeling like" and "experience" in general? This is LW so I assume you have a reductionist background and would offer an explanation based on information patterns, neuron firings, hormone levels, etc.

I indeed have a reductionist background, but I offer no explanation, because I have none. I do not even know what an explanation could possibly look like; but neither do I take that as proof that there cannot be one. The story you tell surrounds the central mystery with many physical details, but even in your own accont of it the mystery remains unresolved:

Somewhere along the line, the subjective experience of "consciousness" arises.

However much you assert that there must be an explanation, I see here no advance towards actually having one. What does it mean to attribute consciousness to subatomic particles and rocks? Does it predict anything, or does it only predict that we could make predictions about teleporters and simulations if we had a physical explanation of consciousness?