Do you NEED an explanation for "everything"?

[charlou]

The experience of color is, so far, inexplicable. Color doesn't "exist" out there. It is an experience created by the brain. Yes it is true that colors correspond to the absorption patterns of light waves striking the retina. But that is just removing the problem one step. We still haven't explained how the brain creates the experience of color. We can theorize that the brain does so because color differentiation is useful for our survival. But we still haven't explained how the brain creates the experience of color.

When it comes to color we are pretty sure there must be a physical causal explanation for how the brain does it, and it must be the brain doing it for where else would it be coming from. It's not inexplicable, just not yet explained. Why isn't the same thing true for free will or God or souls or any number of other inexplicable experiences? They are all created by the brain. No? Do you think they "exist"? Can I "accept" them even if they don't "exist"? Do I need an explanation for everything?

The notion of "god" is implanted by memetic suggestion, unlike the physical (sensory/neurological) experience of light upon the retina that brings colours literally to mind.

The notion of 'free will' is an interesting thing ... it's a perception many seem to have, based on neither meme, nor physical experience. I suppose the notion is either a survival trait, or a side effect of same.

[hiyymer]

Except, color is also a physical attribute of the surface of the object with a color. The object with a color is absorbing all other parts of the light spectrum and reflecting one, the one that is the object's color. Given that happening in the environment, it's not hard to see how evolution would select for the ability to distinguish colors.

But there is no reason that a particular reflective characteristic should be "blue". Another brain might experience it as what you experience as "red". A colorblind person would have a different experience than a normal person. You are merely again observing that there is a relationship between what exists and the unexplained experience that is entirely inside your head. Just because free will, God, or soul is an experience doesn't mean that it doesn't have some relationship to what exists. But obviously, as with color, none of them exist as the thing in our experience. Should we just accept them, like color, because they are useful to our survival even though they appear inexplicable.

[devogue]

The experience of color is, so far, inexplicable. Color doesn't "exist" out there. It is an experience created by the brain. Yes it is true that colors correspond to the absorption patterns of light waves striking the retina. But that is just removing the problem one step. We still haven't explained how the brain creates the experience of color. We can theorize that the brain does so because color differentiation is useful for our survival. But we still haven't explained how the brain creates the experience of color.

Colour is actually explained by the difference in light frequencies. If it did not exist out there, in the real world, Issac Newton would never have been able to do anything with his prisms. Saying that any gaps in the explanation mean that colour doesn't exist out there is akin to saying that because we don't know the ultimate meaning of Life, the Universe and Everything, some god created it.

The frequencies of light were out there and were picked up and interpreted by Newton's brain, but they weren't interpreted as dashes, dots or even varying intensities of white light (a "black and white" world).

They were interpreted as "green", "red", "blue"... The "blueness" of blue does not exist in nature, only the light frequency that provides the stimulus for the brain to interpret the frequency as "blue" exists outside of the mind.

Qualia are mental.

btw - I'm with laklak regarding the warp drives and big guns. Americans in space! Fuck yeah!

[ughaibu]

When it comes to color we are pretty sure there must be a physical causal explanation for how the brain does it, and it must be the brain doing it for where else would it be coming from. It's not inexplicable, just not yet explained. Why isn't the same thing true for free will. . . .

1) why are you "pretty sure there must be a physical causal explanation for how the brain does it"?
2) assuming that physical causal explanations rely on models, what form of model would explain that which is neither determined nor a matter of chance?

[devogue]

1) why are you "pretty sure there must be a physical causal explanation for how the brain does it"?

I don't see how we can ever be. I think when all the other gaps for god are closed, the last remaining one will be qualia.

[hiyymer]

The experience of color is, so far, inexplicable. Color doesn't "exist" out there. It is an experience created by the brain. Yes it is true that colors correspond to the absorption patterns of light waves striking the retina. But that is just removing the problem one step. We still haven't explained how the brain creates the experience of color. We can theorize that the brain does so because color differentiation is useful for our survival. But we still haven't explained how the brain creates the experience of color.

When it comes to color we are pretty sure there must be a physical causal explanation for how the brain does it, and it must be the brain doing it for where else would it be coming from. It's not inexplicable, just not yet explained. Why isn't the same thing true for free will or God or souls or any number of other inexplicable experiences? They are all created by the brain. No? Do you think they "exist"? Can I "accept" them even if they don't "exist"? Do I need an explanation for everything?

The notion of "god" is implanted by memetic suggestion, unlike the physical (sensory/neurological) experience of light upon the retina that brings colours literally to mind.

The notion of 'free will' is an interesting thing ... it's a perception many seem to have, based on neither meme, nor physical experience. I suppose the notion is either a survival trait, or a side effect of same.

I hate to disappoint you but memes are just a silly idea that Dawkins had because he wanted a rationalization for his anti-religious crusade. It's not science and has no scientific standing. Some scientists have tried to do something with it, but to little avail. The trouble is that it can't be defined in a scientifically useful way. Meme is a story, an interpretation, and not something that exists.

[charlou]

I hate to disappoint you but memes are just a silly idea that Dawkins had because he wanted a rationalization for his anti-religious crusade. It's not science and has no scientific standing. Some scientists have tried to do something with it, but to little avail. The trouble is that it can't be defined in a scientifically useful way. Meme is a story, an interpretation, and not something that exists.

I'm not disappointed by your dismissal, I just disagree with it.

[hiyymer]

The notion of 'free will' is an interesting thing ... it's a perception many seem to have, based on neither meme, nor physical experience. I suppose the notion is either a survival trait, or a side effect of same.

Free will is not really separable from agency, the will-er. There is no free will without an agent doing the willing. The evidence is that, like color, agency only exists in our experience. It is very much more than a "notion". Like color, agency is very transparently real to us.

[charlou]

Much of what you say comes across as internally contradictory. I'll leave you with it.

[hiyymer]

1) why are you "pretty sure there must be a physical causal explanation for how the brain does it"?

I don't see how we can ever be. I think when all the other gaps for god are closed, the last remaining one will be qualia.

I vote for explaining why the life form exists at all.

[GrahamH]

1) why are you "pretty sure there must be a physical causal explanation for how the brain does it"?

I don't see how we can ever be. I think when all the other gaps for god are closed, the last remaining one will be qualia.

I vote for explaining why the life form exists at all.

How would you go about explaining why?

[devogue]

Sometimes I wish I was Robert Byers.

[Santa_Claus]

I like colours. I use 'em instead of words. It makes thinking easier.

Except at night when there be no Sun (where's it go?).

[hiyymer]

Much of what you say comes across as internally contradictory. I'll leave you with it.

That's because it is. It's hard to talk about and not use pronouns.

"The evidence is that, like color, agency only exists in our experience. It is very much more than a "notion". Like color, agency is very transparently real to us."

It's not "our" experience. It not real to "us". Those are the agents that don't exist. Agency is such an integral part of the mechanism that we never really leave it. "I" can't talk to "you" without agency. Consciousness can't happen without agency.

Hawking/Mlodinow use the example of awake brain surgery experiments. Stimulate a specific part of the brain and produce the conscious experience in the patient of "I want to" do some specific thing like move a limb or open the mouth and talk. The stimulation doesn't move the limb. It creates the experience of the self agent wanting to move the limb.

[GrahamH]

Much of what you say comes across as internally contradictory. I'll leave you with it.

That's because it is. It's hard to talk about and not use pronouns.

"The evidence is that, like color, agency only exists in our experience. It is very much more than a "notion". Like color, agency is very transparently real to us."

It's not "our" experience. It not real to "us". Those are the agents that don't exist. Agency is such an integral part of the mechanism that we never really leave it. "I" can't talk to "you" without agency. Consciousness can't happen without agency.

Hawking/Mlodinow use the example of awake brain surgery experiments. Stimulate a specific part of the brain and produce the conscious experience in the patient of "I want to" do some specific thing like move a limb or open the mouth and talk. The stimulation doesn't move the limb. It creates the experience of the self agent wanting to move the limb.

Perhaps the stimulation moves the limb and other brain activity 'explains' the action as a want.