The New "Religion Vs Science" Thread

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Lituya

Mountain climber
Jan 1, 2019 - 05:01pm PT
Because Mt Everest exists means a higher peak can exist, but it doesn't... but by all means, you should spend your life searching for it because, why not?

Well, there's Olympus Mons--if you're still pondering that outside-the-box vacation. In any event, it's important to remember that both these mountains are not things as much as they are events. Same as us. Same as consciousness? Quien Sabe.
TClimberByTrade

climber
Santa Ana
Jan 1, 2019 - 07:24pm PT
In college science classes I have never seen any reference to religion in the curriculum or study materials. I took a recommended international philosophy course recommended for engineers. That Hurley book gave lots of problems to look at but I don't remember any religious problems in the book or assigned.
WBraun

climber
Jan 1, 2019 - 07:32pm PT
In college they worship the dollar .....
Lituya

Mountain climber
Jan 1, 2019 - 11:48pm PT
Insults from a born-again atheist who practices his religion in the same manner he decries. You are an angry little cuss.

Who knows? Well, as I've said before, there is no experiment for faith. There never will be. It's just faith. But nothing about it precludes full participation in reason or science. At least not with the believers I hang out with.
healyje

Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
Jan 2, 2019 - 02:06am PT
MikeL wrote: I’m a little surprised at this response, but as you might say, I hardly know you, I guess. Do you not, or have you not, done anything simply for your own expressiveness? You have no artistic bone in your body? Beauty or an odd creation is irrelevant to you? Would you say that art is not cogent? If that were to be so, then you are a bit alien to the rest of your species. Expression is perhaps the first and most fundamental attribute of intelligence. Even the wheel and fire were creative inventions. If not expression, then what makes the human species significant to your way of thinking?

The material universe as expression or art. Seems a stretch to me, but to each his own. It would seem to me such a singular initial / fundamental consciousness would be indistinguishable from the typical definition of [christianity's] god.
TClimberByTrade

climber
Santa Ana
Jan 2, 2019 - 06:42am PT
A international currency converter was the only money assignment. C++ and Java may have changed since then in way of data type conversions. This '*' is exact value of pointed to storage after data type assignment to a variable. This '&' copies a raw value. To WB.
paul roehl

Boulder climber
california
Jan 2, 2019 - 10:25am PT
Funny how the consciousness team compares their proposed "fun-damn-mental" consciousness to fundamental forces/particles of physics, but rejects that definition of fundamnetal, can't define what they mean by either fundamental or consciousness, and can't formulate a single prediction to validate their "hypothesis." Talk about mental masturbation.

All knowledge is a mediated product of consciousness including scientific observations and the grail of repeatability. If you don't know what consciousness is you invalidate science every bit as much as faith. How can any knowledge be certain if you can't be sure of what conscious mind even is?

But the reality is that we all know consciousness through personal experience and in that we accept the validity of that experience both scientists and priests. At the foundation of science, like faith, all we have is the this curious thing we call consciousness that ultimately we're not entirely sure about. So be absolutely certain of your method and knowledge and despise faith and ignore your hypocrisy. And don't forget spelling is fundamental.

Faith based on self-contadicting 5000 year old fairytales is a bit different than "faith" based on internally consistent, testable theories supported by experimentaion and observation.

You should try reading some of those "fairy tales." They have them in French too.
healyje

Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
Jan 2, 2019 - 10:59am PT
A international currency converter was the only money assignment. C++ and Java may have changed since then in way of data type conversions. This '*' is exact value of pointed to storage after data type assignment to a variable. This '&' copies a raw value.

RuOk?
Minerals

Social climber
The Deli
Jan 2, 2019 - 12:47pm PT

Mmmmm, fairy tail...

Largo

Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
Jan 2, 2019 - 02:12pm PT
Let me try and address Ed's issues with "definitions" and "knowing."

On the mind thread, Ed said: Certainly AlphaZero has demonstrated insight, whether or not it is sentient depends on our ability to define things like "responsiveness," "consciousness," "awareness" etc which we have so far failed at doing in this thread.


Does the verity of our consciousness "depend" on our ability to define it - or not? Is consciousness reified through the cognitive act of defining, or is consciousness postulated by "defining" in the first place? Does the definition precede consciousness? Is consciousness a kind of informational output of a definition? And most importantly, what, epistemically speaking, would satisfy, or meet Ed's criteria for a "definition" in this regards?

My sense of it is for Ed, "knowing" is having physical data on physical phenomenon on which we can base theories and make predictions, which "proves" the verity of said knowing. The fact that this had lead nowhere per "explaining" consciousness comes as little surprise. But per "knowing" in general, and particularly regarding consciousness, one wormhole into this might be to consider two of Thomas Nagel's basic notions.

First, that the question of consciousness is NOT a causal question (ergo a causal investigation would be irrelevant). Second, that direct experience delivers an info stream that is epistemically ("knowing") different than that found in the objective world of physical forces and objects, and - that stream is ONLY accessible and knowable THROUGH experience.

Both of these notions have been hugely, if awkwardly refuted by the physicalists camp. The Mary's Room thought experiment (TE) was devised to counter these refutations. We've touched on this before, but for quick review, here it is:

Mary lives her entire life in a room devoid of color—she has never directly experienced color in her entire life, though she is capable of it. Through black-and-white books and other media, she is educated on neuroscience to the point where she becomes an expert on the subject. Mary learns everything there is to know about the perception of color in the brain, as well as the physical facts about how light works in order to create the different color wavelengths. It can be said that Mary is aware of all physical facts about color and color perception.


After Mary’s studies on color perception in the brain are complete, she exits the room and experiences, for the very first time, direct color perception. She sees the color red for the very first time, and learns something new about it — namely, what red looks like experientially.
This runs counter to the belief that it is possible for Mary to gain total "knowledge" about color perception by examining the physical world.

The rub is that Mary does learn something new when she leaves the room. Because she DOES learn something new, as a brute experiential fact, it is inescapable that her previous knowledge was incomplete. Ergo, A) there is more to reality than having all the physical information, and B) physical information does not "explain" the experiential.

What's telling here is examining the various counterarguments attempting to refute the Mary's Room thought experience, and unpacking them in turn. But rather than going with Mary's Room as our TE, in light of the fact that all people following this thread are climbers, consider the issue of a topo map (objective info) OF a route, and the experience of actually climbing the route as described on the topo. Put differently, we have a MAP or topo, which in theory stores all of the physical information and quantifications, and we have the experiential "territory" wrought through actually climbing the route.

As with the Mary's Room, the topo map, in theory, contains ALL the physical information about, in this case, the short 5.10a offwidth Yosemite climb known as Chingondo, a route which Ed has done and written about. In using this example, I believe we can, as climbers, come to an indisputable conclusion.

The first objection looks like this: If Mary's environment were constructed as described in the thought experiment, she would not, in fact, learn something new if she stepped out of her black and white room to see the color red. Daniel Dennett asserts that if she already truly knew "everything about color," that knowledge would necessarily include a deep understanding of why and how human neurology causes us to sense the "qualia" of color. Moreover, that knowledge would include the ability to functionally differentiate between red and other colors. Mary would therefore already know EXACTLY what to expect of seeing red, before ever leaving the room. Dennett argues that functional knowledge is identical to the experience, with no ineffable 'qualia' left over.

We can easily transpose this argument to answer for our scenario about the topo of Chingando, and actually climbing same.

First is the contention that Ed "didn't learn anything new" from climbing Chingando that he hadn't previously "known" by memorizing the comprehensive topo. I'll wager that nobody on this thread believes this is remotely true, including Ed.

Next, Uncle Dennett asserts that if Ed had all the physical details about Chingando - as gleaned from the topo - he would have a "deep understanding" of the physical processes of climbing the route and would therefore be able to "sense" the climbing experience beforehand, much as Dennett asserts Mary would be able to sense "red" having never seen or experienced color in her live long life.

This is flat impossible. It also demonstrates one of the persistent myths running rampant through mind studies: That in effect, experience and consciousness can be found, or in some way can be "sensed" by a purely objective agent using purely objective means. Not even.

"Sensing," for starters, is a subjective function based on many factors extending far beyond measuring and number crunching, which is all a machine can ever do, much as that is. Sensing postulates consciousness.

Imagine, for example, a machine from a million years in the future who conducts an objective analysis of a human brain. By definition, all it would detect would be objective functioning. Having no analogue for consciousness itself, and being able to only draw objective conclusions from objective functioning, it could only render an objective break down per objective functioning.

If said machine observed Ed climbing Chingando, it would never conclude Ed was experiencing anything in his battles with the off width crack. All the machine would detect is physical movements because that is all it is doing: detecting and analyzing physical properties, processes and movements.

So far, so good.

Returning to our example of the topo and climbing the route - if Ed has climbed a stack of offwidths, he already and knows, FROM PRIOR EXPERIENCE, what to expect. However this example runs counter to the Mary's Room TE because Mary had NEVER experienced color before leaving the room. Or in our case, Ed had never climbed an offwidth crack in his life. But we'll give it to Ed that he might "sense" what it would be like to "assume the position" in an offwidth climb, even thought he'd never done one, because he can subjectively imagine (an experience) what climbing might be like.

Dennett (who's groping to posit experience in functionalist/ behavioralist terms) then says that Mary's physical knowledge would "include the ability to functionally differentiate between red and other colors."

FYI, "functional knowledge" is any piece of stored information that can be adapted and applied to different circumstances. In our case of the topo and climbing the route, it is a hard sell that stored knowledge about the physical functions involved in climbing Chingando would tell Ed what it would be LIKE to actually climb it. I had arm barring and chicken winging and heel toe jamming explained to me before I ever tried an off width climb, but those FUNCTIONAL DESCRIPTIONS were categorically different than the experience of climbing the Left Side of Reed Pinnacle, my first off width climb. The explanation and the experience were apples and oranges, as any climber can attest.

Attempting to "know" the experience of climbing Chingando by virtue of memorizing the data on a topo map is like attempting to KNOW consciousness by objectively analyzing the brain.

Where Dennett goes completely off the rails is when he claims that "functional knowledge is identical to the experience, with no ineffable 'qualia' left over."

If the physical information, as "stored" on the topo, is IDENTICAL to the information (the experience) gathered from CLIMBING Chingando, then it follows that providing I had a sufficiently detailed topo map of every El Cap route, I'd need only memorize said topos and could claim ascents of every route on the Captian since, according to Uncle Dennett, knowing the data on the topo is to know all - "with no ineffable 'qualia' left over."

That is, whatever knowledge I gained from the topo would cover the entire shebang - with the experience of actually climbing the routes adding nothing "extra" beyond the that stored in the topo.

Try and float that whopper past your fellow climbers...

We are quite within our rights to say Uncle Dennett has no idea what he is talking about - as though anyone on this thread would agree that knowledge (functional or otherwise) gleaned from a topo map is IDENTIAL with climbing the route thus physically described. This is the fatal conflation that fuels Identity Theory (brain states are IDENTICAL to subjective states), the Black Hole of mind studies.

Another attempted refutation, put forth by Nemirow, is that "Mary does not gain new factual knowledge when she leaves the room, but rather a new ability." This one is a little trickier to unpack because Nemirow is arguing off the point of the thought experiment, which is to illustrate how EXPERIENCE renders new information ("what it's like") impossible to know through analysis of physical information. If Mary learns a "new ability," that's extra, and doesn't answer nor refute the gist of the TE. It also runs counter - in a way nobody actually believes - to Nagel's point that experience gives us information that can only be know THROUGH experience - like the experience of consciously seeing red or climbing Chingando.

Any analogue Ed can bring to the experience of climbing Chigando, before he actually ropes up, can not possibly be captured, let alone known or imparted, by the topo, but rather is owing to whatever previous EXPERICNE Ed brings to the climb.

All of this underscores two key facts: First, the topo can ONLY reference physical characteristics and processes, NOT experiential reality. This is, if Ed has never climbed before in his life, the topo can never impart to Ed what it will "be like" to climb Chingando. And secondly, ONLY though experience can experiential reality be known and understood.

If this is so, as Nagel claims it is, expecting the topo to provide a "definition" about the experience of climbing Chingando is logically incoherent. That's not to say a definition cannot be sought, and eventually found; but one seeking to understand experience that also leaves experience OUT of the mix is, perforce, bound to fail. We can easily see why.

That seems to mean that the "definition" Ed insists that we have failed to produce, is basically being sought not from "climbing the route," so to speak, but from studying and analyzing the topo. This last statement by Nemirow underscores the misconception that drives all physicalism into a corner which can never, by definition, furnish a "definition" that would meet Ed's criteria.

And then this: "Mary's learning what seeing red is like, though it cannot be expressed in language or numbers, is nevertheless a fact about the physical world, since the physical is all that exists."

This statement overlooks two indisputable facts we have just covered. First, "seeing red," like climbing Chingando, is categorically different - that is - is not IDENTICAL with - the physical facts stored on the top about an off width climb in the physical world. And secondly, Ed's successful ascent of climbing Chingando extends beyond the physical data listed on the topo, and includes Ed's experience of climbing the route, which exists as a brute experiential fact, and DOES exist. The rub is it doesn't exist nor is identical with the data on the topo.

In all cases like this, what you have are frantic efforts of the physicalist to conflate the climbing with the topo, so to speak, to say both are "explained" by, and are identical with, the physical properties listed thereon. And if this is NOT the case, experience itself is not "real," or the real whopper, that "we only think there is more." The one posited by few, and believed by almost nobody is that the physical IS the experiential, that the topo IS the experience - if only we understood the magnificence of matter, the complexity of the numbers cha cha cha. Again, apples and oranges.

Lastly, when people - from Plank to the Information Theory folks, to Theise and others - list consciousness as "fundamental," what they all are saying is that consciousness was not preceded by nor sourced by a prior physical mechanism. Rather the other way around.

Goofy thing is, the physical IS the experiential, but not in the way physicalist believe it is - that is, as the after-the-fact artifact of a physical mechanism. That covers brain generated content, but not consciousness itself, regardless of structure, complexity, processing speed, and all the rest which also get inflated as - and posited as - causal generators of consciousness.


Ed Hartouni

Trad climber
Livermore, CA
Jan 2, 2019 - 05:15pm PT
That's a rather elaborate straw man, Largo.

The experience of reading a topo is not identical to the experience of physically doing the climb, and I have not made any assertion that equates the two.

In terms of AlphaZero, there are a couple of very interesting aspects that I believe are pertinent to the discussion, the first being the vast experience that AlphaZero has playing chess, and the second its ability to use that experience to generalize its play. It is also very interesting that given the architecture of AlphaZero, we cannot identify by doing an equivalent of an fMRI where the "state" is that leads to the moves on the board, nor can we ask the equivalent of "why did you do that?" and get any answer that makes sense. Does AlphaZero have qualia, too?

These may be hallmarks of learning and behavior in such architectures, neural networks.

We cannot tell whether or not AlphaZero "understands" chess, except to look at its play, and very sophisticated players believe that it does.

From the perspective of the "Chinese room argument" we find that AlphaZero was given the rules of chess, and perhaps the goal "to win" but didn't have a script of instructions on how to do that, it learned by experience (in a very real way). So do we conclude that AlphaZero does NOT understand chess, but it is the strongest chess player in the world, having taught itself. Seems paradoxical.

We, humans, also learn from experience, and having a map makes it much easier to succeed in and adventure than not having one. We learn how to read the symbols on the "map" and how to use them in our "adventures." (AlphaZero had no such map.)

Not only that, but the idea of a "map" is more general. At a time when being able to recall memories of things was important, a typical (and ancient) technique was to employ the Method of loci, why do you think that is such a powerful technique? here the memories are put in place, in the mind, and visiting that place (in the mind) access the memory. How clever we are to hack the brain... maybe there is more to a map.

So what do you make of AlphaZero's experience?
healyje

Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
Jan 2, 2019 - 06:42pm PT
BES1'st is back after getting the boot

That's it! Getting senile so I couldn't quite put my paw on it...thanks.
WBraun

climber
Jan 2, 2019 - 07:35pm PT
With Alpha zero you've created by manipulating the material energies into a nice ultimately useless material machine.

That's all, ultimately useless.

You might as well just eat nuts and bolts instead of intelligence itself.

It's done absolutely nothing for your own self which is NOT material to begin with.

You've not advance one step but instead just reinforced the illusion of gross materialism.

You've actually even devolved your consciousness even more.

Mayadeva is extremely powerful for living entities in the material illusion that the material plane is all in all.

But that is all gross materialist ever and only know.

And thus they continually mislead themselves and everyone else as to what the real purpose of life actually is here.

But modern science does not want to go there, instead, they end up in an artificial environment masqueraded as real .....
BASE104

Social climber
An Oil Field
Jan 3, 2019 - 04:19am PT
Neuroscientists have figured out a lot about how the brain works. Largo couldn’t get published if he conjectured for another hundred years. His posts from today look just like his posts from five years ago. Not surprising from a guy who seems to only write about the same decade over and over.

AI is coming soon. It is a mistake to assume that it will resemble the human mind. For one thing, our memories are lousy, and we are instinctively subjective.
WBraun

climber
Jan 3, 2019 - 07:55am PT
Base 104 --- AI is coming soon.

LOL where have you been?

Still sleeping underground looking for oil?

Artificial intelligence has been around for years and years now.

No one here is trying to stop it.

The discussion here is rooted in the actual differences between the machine consciousness and living entities consciousness.

No one here is trying to get published.

Try and get out of your underground mental tunnel.

You're starting to look very st00pid .....

MikeL

Social climber
Southern Arizona
Jan 3, 2019 - 09:32am PT
Ed: the first being the vast experience that AlphaZero has playing chess, and the second its ability to use that experience to generalize its play. . . . . These [actions] may be hallmarks of learning and behavior in such architectures, neural networks. 

Isn’t this (experiencing, learning, generalizing) anthropomorphizing just a little bit? Is that proper?

For example, learning, according to various literatures, is a notion that has many conceptualizations. There’s semantic learning (typical schooling), procedural learning (step-by-step processes that produce desired results), and episodic learning (understanding, complexly embedded in narratives). As well, . . . “behaviors?” What is it that gets learned? Process? Semantics (Largo’s point above)? Inarticulated intuitions?

What *should* be understood by anything if “learning” can be claimed?
Largo

Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
Jan 3, 2019 - 10:07am PT
From the perspective of the "Chinese room argument" we find that AlphaZero was given the rules of chess, and perhaps the goal "to win" but didn't have a script of instructions on how to do that, it learned by experience (in a very real way). So do we conclude that AlphaZero does NOT understand chess, but it is the strongest chess player in the world, having taught itself. Seems paradoxical.
--


What you have done in the above, Ed, is to conflate data collection or machine registration and data processing, with "experience." In your mind, following Uncle Dennett's lead, they are "identical."

It's telling that you would believe so. It's also inevitable, since by sticking with a strictly objective investigation, which doesn't seek, rather by definition and method AVOIDS subjective "contamination" of the facts and figures, that you would view machine registration as IDENTICAL with human experience. A real world example, in the physical world you hold so dear, can sort this out in clear and simple terms.

Let's return to our "straw man" example of climbing, which we all know. Now imagine a futuristic machine (not sentient) that can be programmed to climb Chingando. However you might describe what the machine does on the route, objectively speaking it will be a stimulus-response machine that will operate as such, will record inputs, will update its data base accordingly, and so forth. What is happening can be viewed computationally because that is all that is happening: computations, and physical responses. The machine is not consciously aware of either BEING a machine, or climbing Chingando. It has no subjective experience whatsoever.

Put a human on Chingando and he or she has a flow of conscious experience and that is what makes all the DIFFERENCE.

As is, you believe that machine registration and mechanical response are IDENTICAL with subjective experience, because you are trying to understand or explain experience as a computational response carried out by a mechanical brain "that only thinks it is having a conscious experience."

A zombie might not be able to tell the difference. Any schoolboy can.

And move on to BASE, who believes Strong AI is coming and coming soon.

What is this belief based on. Just this:

All strong AI geeks work off a belief systems saying that the human brain is a physical system and only a physical system, and we need only replicate the functionality of that system (the brain) and whatever "properties" or "states" the brain "produces" will perforce be had by the replication. That the effect will be "identical" with whatever the replication was based on, in this case, the brain.

Again, we can go to the physical world to fact check this belief, and the conclusion is dead obvious.

Take the common belief that functionally speaking, the objective functions of the brain can be digitally replicated on some future computer, perhaps a snazzy quantum unit that can process a gazillion megabites of data in nothing flat. While this is still some years off (just around the corner some computer nerds claim), we can simply look at other replications to see if this claim is true, or false.

Take fire, for example. Or rain. Both have been replicated on any number of computers but we can no more warm our hands or swim in these replications than a cow can jump over the moon. Why? Because as Searle pointed out, replication is NOT duplication.

People who believe otherwise quite live up to the name of mad scientist or nutty professor, IMO. In both cases we have people who have inverted Nagel's basic ideas per consciousness, believing that consciousness IS a causal problem, and that all and everything "real" about consciousness need not be accessed through experience itself, but can be fully "known" through a functional analysis of objective parts and processes. This does, indeed, give you an objective take "with no qualia left over," to use Uncle Dennett's daffy term.

The wonkiest part of this whole circle jerk is the obvious fact that using a "purely objective" methodology and means of inquiry will inevitably "find" nothing more than purported objective functioning, and will conclude: There's nothing more there. "More" being whatever they can "find" objectively. The fact that this is a closed circle seems altogether lost on some.


paul roehl

Boulder climber
california
Jan 3, 2019 - 12:54pm PT
Eventually, how to optimize the production and distribution of goods and services (food, shelter, water, medicine) and minimize suffering in a complex global market.

Make everybody fat and happy and they'll still suffer. Science only takes you so far.

Says the guy who desperately wants consciousness to be a fundamental aspect of the universe, despite the lack of evidence that consciousness exists anywhere else in the universe, not to mention the inability to define what he means by either fundamental or consciousness.

You're making the argument that an undefined consciousness negates any knowledge, including scientific. Nonsense, literally.

All knowledge is a mediated product of consciousness including scientific observations and the grail of repeatability. If you don't know what consciousness is you invalidate science every bit as much as faith. How can any knowledge be certain if you can't be sure of what conscious mind even is?

But the reality is that we all know consciousness through personal experience and in that we accept the validity of that experience both scientists and priests. At the foundation of science, like faith, all we have is the this curious thing we call consciousness that ultimately we're not entirely sure about. So be absolutely certain of your method and knowledge and despise faith and ignore your hypocrisy. And don't forget spelling is fundamental.
Largo

Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
Jan 3, 2019 - 02:48pm PT
Says the guy who desperately wants consciousness to be a fundamental aspect of the universe, despite the lack of evidence that consciousness exists anywhere else in the universe, not to mention the inability to define what he means by either fundamental or consciousness.
--


I've asked these questions before and heard ... crickets.

What criteria must be met to "define" what consciousness is?

When you look at your own conscious experience, above and beyond WHAT you are conscious OF, what do you find and how might you define it?

When seeking a definition of consciousness, is your first impulse to look at how a computer processes information and try and understand your own consciousness accordingly, or does it make more sense to look long and hard at your own consciousness and go from there?

When Nagel said, Understanding consciousness is NOT a causal question, what do you think he meant by that (whether you agree or disagree is not the question).

Is it your experience that consciousness "exists" in the same way that an apparently external object exists in your mind, as well as "out there?"

Note also that when ideas are presented here and elsewhere that undermine physicalism, the retorts not only dodge the hard questions, posit them as "straw men," but go no distance is A) specifying WHAT you are disagreeing about, and B) countering with logically coherent arguments and the thinking that led you there.

This is especially true of the persistent myth that the structure/architecture of a physical system is in ANY way an efficient cause of consciousness. In the entire universe, there is no evidence, not a single shred that shows a linear/causal relationship between matter and consciousness. "The brain, idiot," is the cry. But objective evaluations of the brain only show ... objective functioning.
Largo

Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
Jan 3, 2019 - 03:08pm PT
No one is ducking your question, Antichrist. But the way you are asking it postulates first assumptions that might not be true. The first of those might be that by "definition" you mean a physical/linear/causal "explanation" exact enough to enable a strong AI geek to program same into a computer and become the next Dr. Frankenstein.

When I say, fundamental, I mean that which was not "created" by way of a prior physical mechanism or process. It is not the "output" of any thing, object, physical process, warp in the space/time matrix, nor yet the effect of quantum shizzzzam. Nor is it a phenomenon you can measure. When people say, Then it's nothing, I agree if by that you mean no-thing. A no-thing is an experiential fact that, as my example showed, and as Nagel said, is that which cannot be known or encountered by way of viewing the topo, so to speak, but is readily available to anyone willing to dive into consciousness itself. The belief that such a dive can or should render a computation or physical definition is to misunderstand what is at play here - in the most grievous way, and in a way that will never be made clear though eyeballing the topo, so to speak.

In the example I gave of climbing as opposed to trying to understand the climbing EXPERIENCE by way of data on the topo, that should have made it clear what Nagel was talking about - that the experiential renders data and knowing that is not accessible through objective data analysis. If you disagree, show your work and present your thinking in that regards.

Has it ever occurred to you that that the 3rd person objective definition I believe you are seeking for consciousness is like fishing for a blue marlin by tossing your hook in Death Valley?
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