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1. omnicognate · 1789739615 · focus · HN ↗

   > something it's like to be you

   This phrase comes up a lot in discussions of consciousness and I've never understood it and never seen why it's supposed to encapsulate the idea.

   It isn't "like" anything to be me. There isn't something else I can compare it to. All I know is that I exist and experience and that there is an aspect of that experience that is impossible to communicate, define or share.

   1. somenameforme · 1789742960 · focus · HN ↗

      It refers to a simple issue. If you write a program to add 2+2, do you imagine some entity whiffs into existence, perceives itself deciding to add 2+2, and then whiffs out of existence at the conclusion? It seems fairly absurd. So the implication is that there is no consciousness behind the action, there is nothing like being a program adding 2+2.

      Yet if somebody takes an entirely materalistic take of the world, that is to say that all things are the result of purely physical processes, it leads to an odd scenario because a human would also just be a series of ongoing physical processes - neurons firing in response to stimuli leading the brain to some inevitable 'reflex', and so on. Yet we, or at least I, certainly am aware of this world and imagine myself being the driver of all my actions. In other words I am conscious.

      So the implication, if one accepts materalism, would be that if you make something complex enough - then at some point consciousness just whiffs into existence somehow.

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