I think the hard problem of consciousness is only hard because people seem to believe that thoughts and feelings are intangible, non-physical things.
It’s almost exactly the other way round.
What is hard about the hard problem is the requirement to explain consciousness, particularly conscious experience, in terms of a physical ontology. Its the combination of the two that makes it hard. Which is to say that the problem can be sidestepped by either denying consciousness, or adopting a non-physicalist ontology.
To me, the conscious experience when you see a red apple, for example, is just the association of certain memories of:
The physical taste of the apple (certain taste receptors activating neurons to the brain) and maybe the memory of the feeling of hunger when you’ve eaten apples
The people near you or the places where you’ve eaten apples in the past (maybe apple picking, at home, etc.)
The neural concept of apple and red and all their associated memories
These memories all appear in the movie screen in your mind (which itself is some kind of neural activity) when you see the red apple, and they may stimulate the same feelings in you now as they did in the past. Memories are just certain neural constructs (ions flowing in and out of channels, arrangement and connentions of dendrites, etc.)
That’s my view, but of course it’s just an opinion and everyone has their own view.
The physical taste of the apple (certain taste receptors activating neurons to the brain) and maybe the memory of the feeling of hunger when you’ve eaten apples
I do know how an apple tastes to me. But I don’t know which neurones fire when I taste one. If it’s really neurones firing, it still doesn’t seem to be. There’s still an explanation needed to fill the gap between the “is” and the “seems”.
Anyway, it’s still the case that dualism and idealism don’t face a hard problem, but they can assert that qualia are just exactly what they seem to be.
I am reporting, not asserting. I report that I have no experience of neural firings as such …I would have to put my head in some kind of scanner to have that experience.
It’s almost exactly the other way round.
What is hard about the hard problem is the requirement to explain consciousness, particularly conscious experience, in terms of a physical ontology. Its the combination of the two that makes it hard. Which is to say that the problem can be sidestepped by either denying consciousness, or adopting a non-physicalist ontology.
To me, the conscious experience when you see a red apple, for example, is just the association of certain memories of:
The physical taste of the apple (certain taste receptors activating neurons to the brain) and maybe the memory of the feeling of hunger when you’ve eaten apples
The people near you or the places where you’ve eaten apples in the past (maybe apple picking, at home, etc.)
The neural concept of apple and red and all their associated memories
These memories all appear in the movie screen in your mind (which itself is some kind of neural activity) when you see the red apple, and they may stimulate the same feelings in you now as they did in the past. Memories are just certain neural constructs (ions flowing in and out of channels, arrangement and connentions of dendrites, etc.)
That’s my view, but of course it’s just an opinion and everyone has their own view.
I do know how an apple tastes to me. But I don’t know which neurones fire when I taste one. If it’s really neurones firing, it still doesn’t seem to be. There’s still an explanation needed to fill the gap between the “is” and the “seems”.
Anyway, it’s still the case that dualism and idealism don’t face a hard problem, but they can assert that qualia are just exactly what they seem to be.
Asserting something doesn’t make it so, but everyone has different opinions, and that’s okay.
I am reporting, not asserting. I report that I have no experience of neural firings as such …I would have to put my head in some kind of scanner to have that experience.