- Ben Jones. I am not arguing against reductionism. I am arguing in favor of reductionism. My point is that fundamental particles are not the deepest level we can reduce to.

- Latanius. I did not mean that my experience is in some way special, but rather that if you start with a model that does not involve observers, i do not think you will be able to derive the existence of an observer, even if you can predict their behavior with some accuracy. You might, for example, predict that an ai will act in a manner that we would recognize as angry, but you will have no way to approach the question of weather or not the ai is actually experiencing anger, nor any way to even really understand what it means to act in an angry manner. Further more, the idea that the universe amounts to billiard balls bouncing around with out any observers is a bias that physics started with and has been trying to rid itself of. It has already partially done this by incorporating observers into physical models, by for instance noting that the mass of an object depends on the inertial frame of reference of the observer, but I think physics has farther to go to this end, and I think the way to go about this is to define basic elements of physical models directly in terms of the subjective experience of observers, rather then skipping that step and jumping right to fundamental partials, which is an abstract concept that comes from our intuition.

I think the zombie world is a valid thing to consider, but the only way you could say something about the zombie world is to consider what you would see if you were there, and then it would not be a zombie world anymore. Perhaps a more useful zombieish world to consider is one in which there are only zombies except for one epiphenomenal ghost: you.

"So you're denying that the 'subjective' is a subset of the 'objective', categorically?" I am not exactly sure what you mean here.

My understanding of 'subjective' and 'objective' is as follows. I see an image and simultaneously hear a sound. Immediately i recognize that three experiences are occurring: seeing, hearing, and the integration of the two into a third experience, which is aware of the other two. I also have experiences of recognizing other experiences as being more or less similar to eachother.

I would define subjective entities as sets of experiences that are connected through the relationship of one experience being aware of another. And, i would define objective entities as sets of experiences that have a consistent structure of similarity.

Generally an experience is in both a subjective set, and an objective set. I would express this by saying Subject experiences Object.

Our experiences are consistent, and physics presents useful models for predicting the objective aspects of that consistency, but it ignores that objective entities come from our experiences, and i think a model which did not ignore this could give us better explanations of how the material consistency of experience connects experience to computational processes.

I would not deny that such an ai has the subjective experience of anger, and i would definitely accept that it is possible to make something that does. But, this does not mean that i understand how it has subjective experiences, and i would not describe those subjective experiences as arising from quarks, which are more an artifact of the computational processes of the universe then experience is.

In peaceful moments when my mind is clear i become aware of my own experience and the passage of time independent of what my specific experience is at that moment.

I consider this to be a religious experience.

Also, it seems to be the only thing about me that is consistent over time. Certainly I do not now think the same way I did when I was 10 years old, nor do i look the same, or want the same things. My memory connects me more to that 10 year old then other people, but even my memories are suspect.

Through my empathy i can recognize that the experiences of other people are similar in this regard, and so i feel the distinction between myself and others is arbitrary. In this way i can transcend personal identity, and death.

No gods. No afterlife. No reincarnation. No fairy tales.

Scientific models help us by giving accurate predictions, but they are not the only models worth considering. Other models present an ontology that gives meaning to our experiences. People who consider money to be valuable accept the ontological authority of the market place in much the same way that catholics accept the ontological authority of priests over which crackers are the flesh of god.

I don't think it is reasonable to say the laws of physics are part of the territory. The territory, or at least the closest we can get to it, is our direct experience. Any physical model is a map of the territory that we have created from our experience, some may be more accurate then others, but all are still maps. Scientists didn't get rid of the haunts and gnomes any more then relativity got rid of Newtonian physics. It just described them more accurately. There is a real difference, though, between these models beyond accuracy, and that is weather or not the haunts have experience. Surely I feel the wind as it blows over my skin, but does the wind feel me passing through itself? Scientific descriptions of the wind make it seems like it does not act with intention, which seems to suggest that it does not have experience, but our understanding of experience is still limited.