I think your model is very intuitive. In this post, I speculated along a similar vein, though my ideas were less developed and more based on analogies.
I feel convinced that our ‘experience of reality’ is really the experience of a simulation of reality. (You write, “We live in our model and have absolutely, positively no direct knowledge of anything else – none ever.”). This seems to be how I experience reality, but you provide a compelling reason for why:
It takes a fraction of a second to form the conscious experience of an event. But we do not live our lives a fraction of a second late.
We live in simulated moments. We perceive a red object for only a fraction of a second as we scan a room. If we notice the red object, however, we will dwell on this red object for longer than a fraction of a second, perhaps while dwelling on other things simultaneously. What we are dwelling on is not the fractional-second perception of the object itself, but a simulation representation of the object inspired by the fractional perception.
Perhaps the red object is simulated as resting on a table within a room, these contexts are simulated only if we are also aware of them. Being aware of something means we are simulating it. I use the analogy simulation, you use the analogy consciousness edit. Do you think these are analogies for the same thing?
I have side-stepped the ‘hard question’ of how and why red is experienced as red.
There are many questions one can ask about the experience of red, and I don’t understand all of them. However, when I ask myself why ‘red’ seems to have an independent feeling (like a Platonic existence of some sort), I am satisfied with this explanation: my experience of red isn’t the red object itself, and isn’t even the perception of the red object (e.g., looking at a photo of something red in my mind’s eye), it’s the way my brain program simulates red when I dwell on the property red. That is, the qualia RED is red-in-the-simulation. It is certainly distinct from direct perception; it can be evoked independently of a red object but is often inspired by one. It feels more real, more proximate and more red than the immediate experience of looking at a red object.
If I have some time later, I’ll add a comment about my experience of feeling like I developed new qualia experiences on Second Life, precisely because I didn’t have the correct graphics card and couldn’t actually see anything on the screen.
Byrnema, I got through to your post and read it. Yes, your ideas are very similar to mine. We are probably both trying to solve the same problem. I think my approach is somewhat different because I am basically into biology.
An example of this way of thinking is:
1) only animals have nervous systems—Why?
2) only animals intentionally move and therefore need to know where they are, where they want to go and how to get there
3) how does a nervous system give animals this information?
and so on and on, asking biological questions and looking at biological research results. Of course I am also interested in philosophy and psychology but not as comfortable with them.
I feel convinced that our ‘experience of reality’ is really the experience of a simulation of reality. (You write, “We live in our model and have absolutely, positively no direct knowledge of anything else – none ever.”). This seems to be how I experience reality, but you provide a compelling reason for why:
This makes perfect sense about external experience, but it’s interesting to try to apply it to internal experience. It might be true that what we think we’re thinking or feeling is actually simulations of the actual (physical) thoughts and feelings, but it seems like it should ground out at some point—the experience is a simulation of something else, but it’s also a thing in itself.
Is there a short-hand way to distinguish the experience of direct, immediate perception and the experience that is awareness of what you’ve perceived? I don’t suppose the former involves any simulating, and that is where things ground out.
the experience is a simulation of something else, but it’s also a thing in itself.
Could you expand on this? I’m not sure what you mean from a couple possibilities.
We perceive our simulation in some way, possibly reusing the same machinery we use to perceive the external world. ‘Consciousness’ being recursive, and all..
You think you’re seeing the color red. It’s how your brain passes you wavelengths in your environment, or it’s a memory about such an experience, or it’s a generalization about red.
You feel happy. This is how your brain (I’m not sure how or if the complex nervous system in your gut is involved) passes you an emotional state.
The thing I’m trying to get at is, are these experiences of redness or happiness simulations of something else, or is a person experiencing them as primary a thing as the red object.
This idea may not be ideally clear at my end. What are the possibilities you’re seeing?
You will have to clarify what you mean by ‘a person experiencing them’. This sounds like a little homunculus and I assume that you don’t mean that. It leads to an infinite series of watchers watching watchers.
I think there may be something wrong with your ‘this post’ link but I will try again later.
About red:
It seems that qualia have an independent existence. In perception a quale is ‘bound’ to an object or concept. This is seen more clearing when the binding is inappropriate as in people who bind colours to numbers and the like.
There is also at least three different ‘reds’ of a red object. There is the shade that is stored in the visual cortex for a second or two. This red distinguishes between very, very fine differences in hue. It appears to be retrieved during a frame of consciousness and accounts for how vivid consciousness is compared to memory. Then there is the shade of red stored in short term memory which is much less accurate. Finally there is the red that we can call up from the concept red and it is very generic.
I think your model is very intuitive. In this post, I speculated along a similar vein, though my ideas were less developed and more based on analogies.
I feel convinced that our ‘experience of reality’ is really the experience of a simulation of reality. (You write, “We live in our model and have absolutely, positively no direct knowledge of anything else – none ever.”). This seems to be how I experience reality, but you provide a compelling reason for why:
We live in simulated moments. We perceive a red object for only a fraction of a second as we scan a room. If we notice the red object, however, we will dwell on this red object for longer than a fraction of a second, perhaps while dwelling on other things simultaneously. What we are dwelling on is not the fractional-second perception of the object itself, but a simulation representation of the object inspired by the fractional perception.
Perhaps the red object is simulated as resting on a table within a room, these contexts are simulated only if we are also aware of them. Being aware of something means we are simulating it. I use the analogy simulation, you use the analogy consciousness edit. Do you think these are analogies for the same thing?
There are many questions one can ask about the experience of red, and I don’t understand all of them. However, when I ask myself why ‘red’ seems to have an independent feeling (like a Platonic existence of some sort), I am satisfied with this explanation: my experience of red isn’t the red object itself, and isn’t even the perception of the red object (e.g., looking at a photo of something red in my mind’s eye), it’s the way my brain program simulates red when I dwell on the property red. That is, the qualia RED is red-in-the-simulation. It is certainly distinct from direct perception; it can be evoked independently of a red object but is often inspired by one. It feels more real, more proximate and more red than the immediate experience of looking at a red object.
If I have some time later, I’ll add a comment about my experience of feeling like I developed new qualia experiences on Second Life, precisely because I didn’t have the correct graphics card and couldn’t actually see anything on the screen.
Byrnema, I got through to your post and read it. Yes, your ideas are very similar to mine. We are probably both trying to solve the same problem. I think my approach is somewhat different because I am basically into biology.
An example of this way of thinking is: 1) only animals have nervous systems—Why? 2) only animals intentionally move and therefore need to know where they are, where they want to go and how to get there 3) how does a nervous system give animals this information? and so on and on, asking biological questions and looking at biological research results. Of course I am also interested in philosophy and psychology but not as comfortable with them.
This makes perfect sense about external experience, but it’s interesting to try to apply it to internal experience. It might be true that what we think we’re thinking or feeling is actually simulations of the actual (physical) thoughts and feelings, but it seems like it should ground out at some point—the experience is a simulation of something else, but it’s also a thing in itself.
Is there a short-hand way to distinguish the experience of direct, immediate perception and the experience that is awareness of what you’ve perceived? I don’t suppose the former involves any simulating, and that is where things ground out.
Could you expand on this? I’m not sure what you mean from a couple possibilities.
We perceive our simulation in some way, possibly reusing the same machinery we use to perceive the external world. ‘Consciousness’ being recursive, and all..
You think you’re seeing the color red. It’s how your brain passes you wavelengths in your environment, or it’s a memory about such an experience, or it’s a generalization about red.
You feel happy. This is how your brain (I’m not sure how or if the complex nervous system in your gut is involved) passes you an emotional state.
The thing I’m trying to get at is, are these experiences of redness or happiness simulations of something else, or is a person experiencing them as primary a thing as the red object.
This idea may not be ideally clear at my end. What are the possibilities you’re seeing?
You will have to clarify what you mean by ‘a person experiencing them’. This sounds like a little homunculus and I assume that you don’t mean that. It leads to an infinite series of watchers watching watchers.
I think there may be something wrong with your ‘this post’ link but I will try again later.
About red:
It seems that qualia have an independent existence. In perception a quale is ‘bound’ to an object or concept. This is seen more clearing when the binding is inappropriate as in people who bind colours to numbers and the like.
There is also at least three different ‘reds’ of a red object. There is the shade that is stored in the visual cortex for a second or two. This red distinguishes between very, very fine differences in hue. It appears to be retrieved during a frame of consciousness and accounts for how vivid consciousness is compared to memory. Then there is the shade of red stored in short term memory which is much less accurate. Finally there is the red that we can call up from the concept red and it is very generic.