One question that interests me but may well be impossible to answer: how different is consciousness for different people? We all seem to be talking about the same experience, but is it really the same?
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No. Not the same. We, like all living beings, are *informationally closed* systems. But the fact that we can speak about it means that our particular kind of "material substrate" is organized in a way that is similar enough to produce the same *type* of experience, different from, let's say, a bat.🤔
jun 21, 2025, 3:28 pm • 0 1 • view
BTW, for the same (different substrate) reason, "artificial intelligence" cannot have the *same type* of experience as humans, even though it can shuffle words used in human languages in a way that may convince you that they are "just like us". To paraphrase Korzybski: "The map is not the territory"
jun 21, 2025, 4:00 pm • 2 0 • view
It’s quite different in lots of ways! Even just our perceptions have all kinds of unappreciated variations!
jun 21, 2025, 2:05 pm • 0 0 • view
That’s true. There are even subtle differences in the colors I see with each eye. But my intuition is that if I could climb into your head it would seem weird but not incomprehensible. But who knows?
jun 21, 2025, 2:26 pm • 0 0 • view
Consciousness or conscious experience?
jun 21, 2025, 5:39 pm • 0 0 • view
I had in mind conscious experience. Other aspects of consciousness are interesting as well, but for the differences to be noticeable wouldn’t they have to affect experience in some way?
jun 21, 2025, 9:51 pm • 0 0 • view
My point is: consciousness is a noun, ie a thing, while experience is a process. Does consciousness as a thing exist? This is connected to the question whether selfconsciousness is the same as consciousness. See (especially around 1 hr): www.youtube.com/watch?v=qlPH... #neuroscience #consciousness
jun 22, 2025, 3:17 pm • 4 0 • view