You ask: Even if the brain models itself, why should that feel like anything? Why isn’t it just plain old computation?
A system that looks at itself creates a “point of view.” When the brain models the world and also itself inside that world, it automatically creates a kind of “center of perspective.” That center is what we call a subject. That’s what happens when a system treats some information as belonging to the system. How the border of the system is drawn differs, body, brain, mind differs, but the reference will always be a form of “mine.”
The brain can’t see how its own processes work (unless you are an advanced meditator maybe). So when a signal passes through that self-model, the system can’t break it down; it just receives a simplified or compressed state. That opaque state is what the system calls “what it feels like.”
Why isn’t this just a zombie misrepresenting itself? The distinction between “representation of feeling” and “actual feeling” is a dualist mistake. The rainbow is there even if it is not a material arc. To represent something as a felt, intrinsic state just is to have the feeling.
You ask: Even if the brain models itself, why should that feel like anything? Why isn’t it just plain old computation?
A system that looks at itself creates a “point of view.” When the brain models the world and also itself inside that world, it automatically creates a kind of “center of perspective.” That center is what we call a subject. That’s what happens when a system treats some information as belonging to the system. How the border of the system is drawn differs, body, brain, mind differs, but the reference will always be a form of “mine.”
The brain can’t see how its own processes work (unless you are an advanced meditator maybe).
So when a signal passes through that self-model, the system can’t break it down; it just receives a simplified or compressed state. That opaque state is what the system calls “what it feels like.”
Why isn’t this just a zombie misrepresenting itself? The distinction between “representation of feeling” and “actual feeling” is a dualist mistake. The rainbow is there even if it is not a material arc. To represent something as a felt, intrinsic state just is to have the feeling.