The formal revisions to physics that I propose do not in themselves reintroduce color (or any other aspect of consciousness) into the real. But they are meant to make it possible, and the key move is to identify the thing that is conscious with a sharply defined entity in the physics, the monad. At present, computational neuroscience revolves around coarse-grained computational states of physical aggregates whose boundaries are vague from a fundamental perspective. (Under exactly what conditions does a wandering electron count as part of a neuron that it’s passing through? Etc. And yet conscious states are supposed to be identified with computational states of neurons.) Once you have sharp boundaries, you still have to deal with the formal mismatch between physical properties and phenomenal properties, but I think that’s doable. But if you can’t even be precise about whether there’s a conscious entity there, and how many of them there are, then you cannot even get started.
The formal revisions to physics that I propose do not in themselves reintroduce color (or any other aspect of consciousness) into the real. But they are meant to make it possible, and the key move is to identify the thing that is conscious with a sharply defined entity in the physics, the monad. At present, computational neuroscience revolves around coarse-grained computational states of physical aggregates whose boundaries are vague from a fundamental perspective. (Under exactly what conditions does a wandering electron count as part of a neuron that it’s passing through? Etc. And yet conscious states are supposed to be identified with computational states of neurons.) Once you have sharp boundaries, you still have to deal with the formal mismatch between physical properties and phenomenal properties, but I think that’s doable. But if you can’t even be precise about whether there’s a conscious entity there, and how many of them there are, then you cannot even get started.
Would a rose smell more sweet if you were defined as a fundamental entity in physics?
At least it could have a smell.