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Comment on Former naturalists/materialists, what changed your view? in ~humanities
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Comment on Former naturalists/materialists, what changed your view? in ~humanities
RNG (edited )Link ParentThe problem is that in one [EDIT] worldview the property is fundamental, and in the other it is composite and emergent, which is where the trouble for me is. I don't want to say that qualia is a...I'm still confused by this. If one system has some property, and another system has a different property, then there is necessarily something about each system that determines those properties.
The problem is that in one [EDIT]
systemworldview the property is fundamental, and in the other it is composite and emergent, which is where the trouble for me is.There is an experience, singular noun. A particular thing which can be experienced. Blueness. Roughness. Anger. I'll call that qualia - and please correct me if your understanding of that word is different.
There is also experience, verb. The act of perceiving (creating? interacting with?) qualia. This is the hard problem. I'll call that consciousness - understand that, for the rest of this comment, this action is what I'm referring to.
Critically, qualia is a state and consciousness is an action.
I don't want to say that qualia is a thing which can be experienced, but is the state of experiencing itself. My thinking of qualia is closer to a subjectless verb than a noun (I think the self is illusory, but panpsychists aren't necessarily committed to this view). Words fail me here because I think qualia are ineffable (ironically because nothing is more readily accessible.)
I'll call that consciousness - understand that, for the rest of this comment, this action is what I'm referring to.
But yes, I think we are on the same page using consciousness this way.
That interaction is probably closer to the typical definition of qualia. But then it, by definition, requires two distinct entities to interact and is not perfectly simple. It requires sufficient complexity in both of these entities and in their interactions.
Wow, you got me there, I agree that this refutes my claim that qualia are simple. (This may be a red herring, but I don't think qualia require a subject, though panpsychists aren't committed to this view.) Though as to whether all qualia require an object is something I may need some time to think about. Maybe I can message you later if I can work out a more coherent view?
The model I described has some overlap here. If you consider the fundamentals to be a substrate (data storage), qualia (data on that storage), and some system that interacts with it - then plenty of systems fit that description.
If I'm understanding this correctly, is this drawing the line between conscious and unconscious matter in terms of whether the matter is arranged in a way that fits this model?
As the complexity of a substrate increases, so does our confidence that it may encode more sophisticated qualia.
As the complexity of a system increases, so does our confidence that it has more sophisticated capabilities. If we are confident that the substrate of the system encodes certain qualia and are confident that the system is capable of awareness, then we can be confident that the system is conscious, experiencing those qualia.
I see. These seem to speak to a related but entirely different problem that is epistemic rather than ontological. The problem of other minds is epistemic; the hard problem of consciousness is ontological.
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Comment on Former naturalists/materialists, what changed your view? in ~humanities
RNG Link ParentIt's the only one I've ever heard of, and it seems the materialist is logically committed to this view. If consciousness isn't an emergent property of unconscious matter, then where does it come...I don't think that's an accurate representation of the materialist - or, if it's the generally accepted one, I don't think it's the only one.
It's the only one I've ever heard of, and it seems the materialist is logically committed to this view. If consciousness isn't an emergent property of unconscious matter, then where does it come from? If it is an emergent property, then that would entail that there is some minimum configuration of matter that gives rise to consciousness, where anything less than that minimum configuration would not result in this emergent property.
As the complexity of a system increases, so does our confidence that certain aspects of experience are present.
So this seems to be addressing an epistemic problem of when we can know that consciousness has emerged, and to what degree we can be confident in that knowledge. I'm focused on the ontological problem of consciousness emerging from unconscious matter at all.
Certain aspects of experience have useful definitions that are binary; but listing real constraints is difficult to impossible.
I'm very glad we got here! The impossibility of listing real constraints is essentially the Hard Problem of Consciousness. The path here is very difficult since every single term used in this discussion is woefully overloaded. Like the Monty Hall problem, it took me sitting with this for a long time to fully grasp what this problem is driving at.
Now, I don't want to put words in your mouth, but we probably still disagree about the nature of this impossibility. I think you are saying that there actually are constraints that exist that determine whether a collection of matter is conscious or unconscious, but it is epistemically impossible to know when a collection of matter crosses The Line.
I hold the position that on materialism it is problematic to believe any such constraints could exist at all.
Each aspect is itself an emergent phenomenon.
Qualia (first person experiences) are perfectly simple and aren't necessarily composed of aspects or parts. You don't need self-awareness, intelligence, or reason just to have the mere experience of anything at all.
I agree, but I've been specifically trying to avoid these words to avoid the baggage and preconceptions that come with them. Apologies if I've confused anything as a result.
I think we've done well in this conversation to navigate around all of the billion definitions of consciousness to get at the core issue. I like avoiding philosophical jargon (like qualia) until it's absolutely necessary in a discussion, because the improved precision comes at the cost of accessibility to some bystanders.
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Comment on Former naturalists/materialists, what changed your view? in ~humanities
RNG (edited )Link ParentI just want to interject here and say that I greatly appreciate your replies. This subject and our conversation about it is meaningful and a ton of fun for me. The drawing of a line at all is...I just want to interject here and say that I greatly appreciate your replies. This subject and our conversation about it is meaningful and a ton of fun for me.
We could debate about where exactly The Line is, but it's probably somewhere around the level of an infant.
The drawing of a line at all is problematic. As we discussed before, drawing a line anywhere is both arbitrary and unjustified.
but the fact you're trying to reduce it to this binary yes it is or no it isn't.
The panpsychist is not committed to the view that experience is binary, the materialist is. The materialist is committed to the view that consciousness is an emergent property of unconscious matter; that there is a necessary minimum configuration of matter required to bring about experience, before which consciousness does not exist, and after which consciousness is present.
Experience is this huge, complicated, multi-faceted thing. Does it experience emotions? Which ones? Can it suffer? Can it reason? Is it aware of its surroundings? Is it self-aware? When you try to classify something, say this thing experiences or that thing does not, you're accidentally blending all these facets together.
We're moving into the territory that makes using philosophical terms like qualia useful. Emotions can be described purely in physical terms absent a subjective experience or qualia of them. Reason, self-awareness, and awareness of surroundings are not necessary components of experience. Infants can lack some of these attributes and computers can have some of these attributes. To the panpsychist, qualia isn't composed of parts; it is a simple property of reality.
Something may be aware of its surroundings, but not of itself. Something might simply not have the ability to suffer. Are these things experiencing? On which side of The Line do they sit?
That's a good question for the materialist who believes that consciousness is an emergent property of unconscious matter. A panpsychist isn't committed to The Line; it is a perfectly smooth spectrum from the incomprehensibly simple to the complex.
So, yes, when you adjust your thermostat there might be some "experience" happening, but given the level of complexity involved it can't be anything substantial. It's not aware of its surroundings, and it's certainly not aware of itself.
I think the panpsychist would fully agree with this statement. The thermostat's qualia would be like my perception of blueness: it doesn't require a theory of self, an understanding of the things around me, or reason. It's just experience itself; though the experience is just so simple for the thermostat that it is almost humorous to compare it to my own.
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Comment on Utopian Scholastic in ~design
RNG LinkThis website is a ton of fun. I've just been going through the categories and discovering that there are aesthetics I have encountered, but never knew had a discrete style and name. Some are very...This website is a ton of fun. I've just been going through the categories and discovering that there are aesthetics I have encountered, but never knew had a discrete style and name. Some are very nostalgic, others somewhat cringy. There are:
Some I liked:
Some I hate:
And some that stand out for me:
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Comment on Former naturalists/materialists, what changed your view? in ~humanities
RNG Link ParentThis is correct, but this is not strictly materialism. This view (panpsychism) is one such possible response to the hard problem of consciousness. In panpsychism, it wouldn't be possible for...If you say a thermostat, a microbe, a cat, an infant, an adult all sit on some spectrum of consciousness - then you're really saying that p-zombies cannot exist.
This is correct, but this is not strictly materialism. This view (panpsychism) is one such possible response to the hard problem of consciousness. In panpsychism, it wouldn't be possible for p-zombies to exist, because experience is a fundamental property of the system.
If the system is complex enough you'd call it a p-zombie, then it's also complex enough to have an experience
This would be true under panpsychism, but under materialism, there doesn't appear to be any level of complexity that would justify a complex system having first-hand experience. I can make a seemingly super-intelligent AI that has sensors that can process colors and detect temperature, but there's no level of complexity under materialism where I'd be justified in saying the AI has first person experiences like seeing color and feeling temperature.
My whole stance on AI is that, knowing how the thing works, I have to think its experience - if you want to call it that - is much closer to that of a fly or an ant than to a cat or a human.
I guess my whole stance is that if we assume materialism I don't think we are justified in saying the AI has experience at all.
Even if I grant that AI is anywhere on the consciousness spectrum, then it seems like the door is cracked open for other sorts of software to have even simpler, yet completely real first person experiences; we wouldn't be justified in drawing The Line right there. I'd agree that a neural network has more complex experiences than a script, but we'd also expect that other things like complex Minecraft Redstone machines and perhaps thermostats would have very real though admittedly very simple experiences. It seems like this view, when taken to its logical conclusion, is panpsychism.
And I can spend a bunch of time trying to figure out where The Line™ is that separates the experience of a rock or a goldfish or myself, but it's a fool's errand. Any decision you make is arbitrary.
We are in total agreement; we cannot justify drawing The Line at any particular point, because doing so would be as unjustified and arbitrary.
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Comment on Former naturalists/materialists, what changed your view? in ~humanities
RNG Link ParentAgreed, and this would be true of p-zombies as well. I think it is possible that the totality of human behavior can be explained as deterministic interactions of matter rather than consciousness....Human behaviour, and other complex systems, are emergent properties of the arrangement of matter and energy in our bodies
Agreed, and this would be true of p-zombies as well.
and much of our behaviour is dependent on consciousness
I think it is possible that the totality of human behavior can be explained as deterministic interactions of matter rather than consciousness. Neural network weights updated, hormones, action potentials, the total sum of these systems can explain how a human works without ever entailing that there is some sort of qualia or phenomenological experience of the system itself.
I cannot conceive of a single behavior that is truly dependent on the way we are using the word consciousness here: qualia or phenomenological experience. All of it can be explained by soulless material interactions.
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Comment on Former naturalists/materialists, what changed your view? in ~humanities
RNG Link ParentBy definition, p-zombies function identically to other humans. I'm not arguing for solipsism; I'm merely demonstrating that the "problem of other minds" isn't a physical/metaphysical problem, but...What justification is there to suspect that another human, that is generally similar to other humans, happens to function radically differently?
By definition, p-zombies function identically to other humans. I'm not arguing for solipsism; I'm merely demonstrating that the "problem of other minds" isn't a physical/metaphysical problem, but an epistemic one. I'm using the fact that it is epistemically possible for a p-zombie to exist as a thought experiment to draw a distinction between information processing (like what software or AI does) and what some philosophers call qualia or first-hand experiences (like experiencing "blueness", not merely storing data about the wavelength of light.)
To completely close the door on the epistemic possibility of p-zombies in my thought experiment, it would need to be demonstrated that p-zombies are a physical or metaphysical impossibility, which I don't think there's good evidence for.
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Comment on Former naturalists/materialists, what changed your view? in ~humanities
RNG Link ParentI'm not committed to the position that a p-zombie is necessarily physically identical to some specific instance of a person, rather that they are merely biologically human. It doesn't follow that...I'm not committed to the position that a p-zombie is necessarily physically identical to some specific instance of a person, rather that they are merely biologically human. It doesn't follow that because one human has property "X" (in this case conscious experience) that it is impossible for any human to lack property "X".
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Comment on Former naturalists/materialists, what changed your view? in ~humanities
RNG Link ParentThat's still a pretty strong claim, how do you justify this position?But I do think that they are physically impossible; i.e., impossible within the laws of the actual universe.
That's still a pretty strong claim, how do you justify this position?
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Comment on Personal reflections on Quaker retreat, community, and worship in ~life
RNG (edited )Link ParentYou've been more than generous, thank you for taking the time to reply to me, this is really interesting stuff. Epistemologically or ontologically? Also, would you consider your view to be an...You've been more than generous, thank you for taking the time to reply to me, this is really interesting stuff.
or at least non-static. Bendable.
Epistemologically or ontologically? Also, would you consider your view to be an apophatic approach to the divine, as is common in other mystical traditions?
You'll need to forgive me, I'm not well-read in this stuff, so I'm trying to understand how hyperreality works in pre-modern cultures who's populations had little access to media. What would be a pre-modern simulacrum? An idol maybe? I can imagine people of every historical era have confused maps with the territory. I am also struggling to understand how I should connect this to your view on the relationship between the Earthly and the divine, so I may need an ELI5 :)
Among Friends who attend liberal and unprogrammed meetings, and again among young Friends, there is perhaps more emphasis on the light before us (as a piece of and/or within people) than in an overpowering supernatural force which happens to take a human-esque (with personality) or parental aspect as demonstrated in the Bible.
So in the sense that liberal Quakers don't really have a creed, and thus lacking an enforced "orthodoxy," a particular belief can't really be "heterodox." Faith and Practice is not a Bible.
I know this is really disconnected from the rest of our conversation, but what is the relationship between Quakers and scripture? Do Quakers believe in Sola scriptura? If you have a sort of inner revelation, how does this relate to scripture?
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Comment on Former naturalists/materialists, what changed your view? in ~humanities
RNG Link ParentWhile this is a valid objection (if one can justify it), I'm skeptical that p-zombies are metaphysically impossible. I think if one makes this objection they have a burden of proof to justify why...one can assert that P-zombies are physically impossible (or, if you balk at the word "physically", then impossible within the laws of nature of our universe), and that imagining a P-zombie is essentially the same as imagining Superman.
While this is a valid objection (if one can justify it), I'm skeptical that p-zombies are metaphysically impossible. I think if one makes this objection they have a burden of proof to justify why a p-zombie couldn't possibly exist.
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Comment on Former naturalists/materialists, what changed your view? in ~humanities
RNG Link ParentThis sounds quite reasonable to me, and is similar to an idea I've been considering called panpsychism, which holds even systems like a thermostat have incomprehensibly simple experiences, and...and that all things with the ability to make complex decisions experience some form of consciousness. Perhaps every time someone executes a lines of code, a thread of consciousness is created and then dies away.
This sounds quite reasonable to me, and is similar to an idea I've been considering called panpsychism, which holds even systems like a thermostat have incomprehensibly simple experiences, and that experience itself is a fundamental property of reality.
Does this differ from what humans do all day most of the time? We regularly make extremely complex decisions (e.g., coordinating millions of cells to manipulate our appendages, using these appendages to manipulate a vehicle with a fine degree of control and timing, processing subtle variations in light to identify the environment we are driving in and moving obstacles within it, and recalling a complex set of distances, angles, and sights that we have memorized in order to drive to a specific destination) on autopilot.
This is precisely what humans do all the time. Both "conscious" humans and p-zombies can be accurately described by this. What differentiates these two is that so-called "conscious" humans have first hand experiences and p-zombies function more like how most people think of software or LLMs: no personal first hand experiences.
For example, in the process of writing this comment, there are some seemingly subconscious processes going on. I am not consciously moving my fingers to type (they feel like they are moving on their own) and I am not consciously selecting the precise words (it feels like they are just appearing to me out of nowhere, and my conscious brain has only to review them after my fingers have typed them). I am certainly having a conscious experience here as well, but its job (to have a notion of what I want to communicate and to double-check that what I am writing gets that idea across) feels so small compared to all the other things my brain is doing in the background. Is it possible that the part of my brain that chooses words is fully conscious, but it is equally mystified about how itse writing prompts are chosen and how its output is ultimately either accepted or sent back for a re-write? Perhaps it feels like the reviewing task is done subconsciously, and its role is the only truly conscious act in the whole production.
So I think we are reaching the limits of how useful the word "consciousness" can be in this conversation. In philosophy circles, the term qualia is used to differentiate mental processes from phenomenological experiences themselves. It seems we can argue that intelligence, specifically human intelligence, is given rise to by complex systems, but we'd predict p-zombies would have these same systems. Qualia, or your first hand experiences of things isn't a necessary part of these systems; words are generated, letters are typed, but why should there be an experience or qualia of such?
Okay, so now I'm going to go off-track from our conversation for a little bit, and nothing in this paragraph is part of my argument, but it seems wholly relevant to your comment. Meditative practice is probably the best way to get at the base of what parts of your cognition are the "conscious" parts and which parts are the helpful but non-conscious structures that you referenced in your typing example. The answer to which parts are conscious and which parts aren't is fully knowable, but is quite literally ineffable. But I'll do my best: when you are trying to think of an actor's name and can't remember it, it feels like you are interfacing with some intelligence system that is distinct from "you" that isn't functioning correctly. When I type a sentence, this intelligence system generates a word at a time; I don't know what the final word of the sentence is before I type it (turns out the last word was "it", huh.) I experience each word as it is in the process of being typed. At the ground of consciousness, there seems to only be experiences, qualia. In these examples there is no conscious "intelligence"; only the conscious experience of a non-conscious intelligence. Qualia seems to be the totality of what...I? am experiencing, maybe even tautologically. All that can be experienced is experiences themselves.
Callosum syndrome is caused by severing the connection between the two halves of the brain (which is sometimes done to alleviate severe symptoms of epilepsy) and effectively results in the patient having something akin to two separate brains inside the same head. Do both of these hemispheres experience consciousness? Maybe. It certainly seems plausible to me, and if this is the case, maybe all kinds of things experience consciousness in weird and disconnected ways.
This point seems compelling to me, and seems to really get to something like panpsychism: experience is either the floor of reality or a fundamental property of it, and as you build up more complex systems, more complex experiences become possible.
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Comment on Former naturalists/materialists, what changed your view? in ~humanities
RNG Link ParentI'd argue is that there is not a meaningful difference between the two for the purposes of this conversation. You could imagine that GPT-4 is indeed merely a program, that "sees" blue and...Is there a difference between neurons firing in your brain when you see blue and values being increased when GPT-4 sees blue?
I'd argue is that there is not a meaningful difference between the two for the purposes of this conversation. You could imagine that GPT-4 is indeed merely a program, that "sees" blue and processes that information, but has no first-person experience (i.e., consciousness) related to that process. In fact, assuming that the AI is actually conscious is bad epistemology under a materialist worldview; the totality of the evidence regarding what GPT-4 is doing is perfectly explained without needing to invoke consciousness, so it is better not to do so.
Similarly, we can imagine that it is possible that there is a human that "sees" blue and processes that information, but has no first-person experience (i.e., consciousness) related to that process. This is what I am calling a p-zombie. Like with the GPT-4 example, the interactions of fundamental particles (hormones, neurons, etc.) can sufficiently explain what we see with the human. We do not need to invoke "consciousness" as under materialism we can perfectly describe the deterministic process that causes the p-zombie to behave the way that it does.
If materialism is true, one might predict that the only sorts of humans we can rationally expect to exist would be p-zombies. However, I have incontrovertible first-hand experiences that prove that at least one human is not a p-zombie.
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Comment on Former naturalists/materialists, what changed your view? in ~humanities
RNG Link ParentIs it possible in your view for there to be an AI, maybe an LLM, that acts as if it is conscious but is not? For instance, an AI that processes input and provides output similarly (if not...Is it possible in your view for there to be an AI, maybe an LLM, that acts as if it is conscious but is not? For instance, an AI that processes input and provides output similarly (if not identically) to something that is conscious, but isn't actually conscious? Imagine an AI similar to GPT-4 that has camera input, it may receive and process the color blue, but it doesn't have a first-person experience of blueness, there's just nothing. Is it possible for an AI to lack first-hand experiences even if it has intelligence and similar cognitive structures to humans?
To me this seems clearly possible. This is fundamentally what we are talking about when we discuss p-zombies. I know that I am not a p-zombie, because I do have phenomenological experiences; best that I can tell, there is at minimum one such consciousness that is not a p-zombie. However I'm skeptical that it necessarily follows that the appearance of consciousness is identical to consciousness itself; for instance I am very skeptical that the Mistral model running on my home computer has first-hand phenomenological experiences.
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Comment on Former naturalists/materialists, what changed your view? in ~humanities
RNG LinkAI and consciousness I've recently been interested in the philosophy of consciousness in response to the latest developments of AI. A computing system can act intelligently; it can learn from...AI and consciousness
I've recently been interested in the philosophy of consciousness in response to the latest developments of AI. A computing system can act intelligently; it can learn from inputs and create outputs, but when, under a materialist view, should consciousness show up as an emergent property of such a system? It seems that we can imagine an AI that functions identically to a human mind, yet has no conscious experience itself; it merely processes inputs/outputs and potentially updates weights in its neural network. It's hard to say under materialism that there should ever be a point where such a system is actually conscious, that is to say, has first person experiences.
Philosophical zombies
This problem isn't limited to AI. We can also imagine a biological intelligence, maybe a human, that functions identically to a human mind, yet has no conscious experience itself; it merely processes inputs/outputs and potentially updates weights in its brain. Such a human is known in philosophy as a philosophical zombie or p-zombie. It merely functions as a learning input/output machine. Why should any any intelligent system including humans have consciousness at all? Under materialism, we have a perfectly sufficient explanation for consciousness that doesn't require this first-person phenomenological experience. It turns out that this has been a problem in philosophy for a long time.
The problem is that we know that the universe contains more than merely p-zombies. When I see the color blue, there is something more than just a brain processing wavelength information, there is my conscious experience of blue. The blueness isn't in my brain; if you cut my brain open at the moment of me seeing blueness, you wouldn't find blueness in there. It's not clear why any system, AI or biological, should have the conscious experience of blueness, more than the mere processing of information about light.
Responses to the Hard Problem of Consciousness
One response to this problem is panpsychism. This posits that experience is something matter has; fundamental particles have incomprehensibly simple experiences and something like consciousness emerges as the interactions between particles increase in organized ways. This would probably entail systems like ChatGPT having some sort of intelligent conscious experience, along with literally everything else (to some degree.) Of course, some sort of mind/body dualism, belief in the soul, or other beliefs you're likely already familiar with (pantheism, neoplatonism, etc.) don't suffer from this particular problem. I'm not entirely convinced that any of these are true.
Summary
I imagine some reading this will still struggle to understand what the problem is and may ask "isn't receiving the input of blue the same as experiencing 'blueness?'" Like the Monty Hall problem, it initially was very hard for me to understand why there is a "Hard Problem" at all, but once it clicked I had this "aha" moment of what this problem is actually driving at. This problem alone has been enough to shake my confidence in materialism, and has opened the door to a ton of personal research into psychology, the nature of consciousness, etc.
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Former naturalists/materialists, what changed your view?
There have been a number of threads recently that have touched on this topic recently, and I thought the conversation deserved its own place. My default worldview for the past decade+ has been...
There have been a number of threads recently that have touched on this topic recently, and I thought the conversation deserved its own place.
My default worldview for the past decade+ has been something best characterized as naturalistic or materialist (the totality of reality can be explained by material and its interactions.) I've had a few things challenge this view recently, namely the "Hard Problem of Consciousness." I'll post my own comment about what moved me from hard materialist to agnostic on materialism, but I encourage you to post your own reasoning in your comment!
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Comment on Have you had a life-altering change in who you are? in ~talk
RNG Link ParentThat's one hell of a situation. Did you do physical therapy after the stroke? I hear it does wondersThat's one hell of a situation. Did you do physical therapy after the stroke? I hear it does wonders
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Comment on Have you had a life-altering change in who you are? in ~talk
RNG (edited )Link ParentYou cannot believe that science, evolution, or even collective knowledge exist without first believing that the external world exists. It is precisely through your access to the external world...To say we all believe without proof would be grossly misunderstanding science, evolution and overall collective knowledge
You cannot believe that science, evolution, or even collective knowledge exist without first believing that the external world exists. It is precisely through your access to the external world through your senses that you gain access to the discoveries of science. If you were skeptical of the existence of the external world (it may all be a dream, hallucination, simulation, etc.) then you'd have no reason to trust your senses when, for instance, you use them to read a book about evolution. You could never have evidence external to your senses to justify their trustworthiness. The greater point is that there are assumptions we must make axiomatically in order to get anywhere.
There is partial or full evidence that minds exist based on tests and experiences about consciousness and our definition of it.
Maybe you can make the claim that it is impossible for philosophical zombies (p-zombies) to exist, which might entail some burden of proof, but if it is at least metaphysically possible for p-zombies to exist, then it is impossible for you to tell the difference between a human with phenomenological experiences from a p-zombie, since the only human whose phenomenological experiences you have access to is your own.
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Comment on Have you had a life-altering change in who you are? in ~talk
RNG Link ParentI don't want to put words in u/Chocobean's mouth, but the critical part is this to me: We all believe foundational "dots on the board" about reality without proof. These are the axioms of our...I don't want to put words in u/Chocobean's mouth, but the critical part is this to me:
Conspiracy theorists have a lot more dots on their board to connect than we do; a materialist has far fewer dots than I do.
We all believe foundational "dots on the board" about reality without proof. These are the axioms of our worldview. For instance, we tend to agree the external world exists; there are things outside my mind that exist. Of course, I may be wrong, reality may only consist of a single disembodied mind, my mind, and I am hallucinating or dreaming at all times. I may be in a simulation or may be otherwise deceived about the presence of external reality. Generally, most philosophers believe in the external world, because it's hard to have a useful discussion with others if we can't even agree on this point.
Another example is we generally believe other minds exist. We have absolutely ZERO evidence they do, everyone besides you may be a philosophical zombie and you are the only conscious person in the world.. We generally accept that other minds exist for pragmatic reasons, and because, it really feels like they are there even if we don't have any evidence for it.
Besides the external world and other minds, there are countless other things we may decide to believe axiomatically, like objective morality, or maybe even some sort of theism.
I want to get back to this quote:
Conspiracy theorists have a lot more dots on their board to connect than we do; a materialist has far fewer dots than I do.
You can imagine a skeptic that goes further than the materialist and has even less dots on the board. They are skeptical that any other mind exists, and won't change their mind without evidence. They are skeptical that the external world exists at all; they can't trust their faulty senses. They have virtually no dots on the board.
At bedrock, we construct a worldview starting with these unprovable axioms and build up. I think we are not only justified in believing that these axioms actually reflect reality, but should realize that these axioms have instrumental value in helping us chart the otherwise incomprehensible reality around us.
I'm putting this here at the top; it's how I'm using the word consciousness throughout this comment. I don't think this consciousness entails intelligence, self-awareness, understanding, etc. Though one maybe meaningless change: this isn't "creating" or "interacting" with qualia, but is the perception of qualia or qualia itself.
Why think any of these parts necessary for consciousness? Also, unless I'm misunderstanding something, it seems like you're affirming that consciousness is emergent and has a minimum necessary configuration in order to exist. I think we maybe agree that materialism entails this?
You said this in your previous comment:
While I am skeptical about your data model of consciousness, it does seem that consciousness is dependent on some entity (being experienced?) which I called the "object". I don't really have much to add here at the moment, and still need to think this through.
So my argument for the non-physicality of consciousness under materialism rests in part upon the metaphysical possibility of p-zombies. Even if I grant that we can have 100% confidence that no such thing has ever been instantiated, this wouldn't have a bearing on my argument.