This is my Short Solution to the Hard Problem of Consciousness, which I presented to the Oxford Philosophical Society in August 2019. It is very concise, and glosses over some important aspects, but nevertheless appears to work.
Unless you think otherwise...
Unless you think otherwise...
Thank you to everyone that has read, liked, retweeted or commented on this Short Solution over the past two weeks. It's been great fun defending my argument and its conclusion against the various objections raised, some of which were really quite inventive.
Objections varied according to the objector's intuitions: traditional physicalists tend to object to Stmt A; traditional panpsychists tend to object to Stmt B; while some objected to the interpretation of 'N=1', saying that a single particle cannot experience the life of a human.
My own view is that Stmt A is correct, as is Stmt B, and I'm happy to discuss either of these at length and give my reasons why. IMO, the only part of the Short Solution which can be reasonably and convincingly challenged is the last part - the interpretation of solution 'N=1'.
One could argue, for example, that the conclusion "each of our conscious states is numerically identical to the conscious state of one of our material components" does not necessitate the decomposition stated into organs, cells, molecules, etc. and that there are other ways.
This is a valid objection, although difficult to sustain, given evidence that bodies do naturally fall apart in this way. And, since this conclusion is recursive, all decompositions will reach the same level of fundamental particles (assuming such things exist) so the pt is moot.
A better objection is that those fundamental particles are simple objects and hence incapable of possessing a complex conscious state. One could counter this by claiming no contradiction between being physically simple and being experientially complex but I don't think that works
A particle is either simple or it is complex, in my view; the mental/physical distinction is of no value here.
It would seem then that this objection reveals a fatal flaw in the Short Solution, and hence that solution cannot be correct! However, this is not quite the case...
It would seem then that this objection reveals a fatal flaw in the Short Solution, and hence that solution cannot be correct! However, this is not quite the case...
The Short Solution makes no commitment, one way or the other, to the notion of *fundamental* particles of matter. It leaves open the question of whether our decomposition into conscious material things comes to an end or continues indefinitely.
This was deliberate. I knew that most people take atomism as established scientific fact - that there is some ultimate layer of indivisible particles - but this is not a fact. It's an assumption that physicists like to make, because it allows for a Theory of Everything.
But what if there is no Theory of Everything? Physicists have not found it yet and they have no evidence that such a thing exists. Hence, we don't know that matter consists ultimately of fundamental, simple particles, and this objection to the Short Solution fails.
Indeed, this objection (that simple objects cannot possess complex conscious states) can be used (in conjunction with the Short Solution) to argue that the decomposition of matter into smaller and smaller particles must continue forever and that there is no Theory of Everything!
And if there's no Theory of Everything there are no fundamental Laws of Nature, which puts the whole notion of physical laws into question. Could this be how we solve the Problem of Free-will & Determinism? Without fundamental Laws of Nature, there is no reason to doubt Free-will
@threadreaderapp pls unroll thnx
