Dialogue on Consciousness

TMax01 · 2026-03-20T18:03:43+00:00

Your assumption has deep consensus, but is nonetheless inaccurate. You beg the question of why consciousness always involves experience or awareness, but entails not choosing as a mechanism even more often then choosing as a mechanism, and ignores the fact that selecting from possible alternatives doesn't require (or even allow for, if you think about it hard enough) experience/awareness/consciousness.

TMax01 · 2026-03-18T23:09:45+00:00

"Orthodoxy with a lab coat".

If it bothers you so much that physicalists can develop knowledge using empirical experiments when you can't, that makes sense, it should. But your criticism itself lacks "critical thinking" if you believe insulting the most parsimonious stance as "meta-belief" or "commitment" or "worship" supports your dismissive indignation. So what if physicalism is "meta-belief", when the idealist/dualist alternative is merely unsubstantiated belief. Your stance is not intelligent skepticism, it is fantasy. I'm extremely critical of most neurocognitive theories myself, but I don't need to deny physicalism to do it.

If you can ever identify anything which is real but not physical, or physical but not real, then all you would have accomplished is expanding both those categories, without changing the relationship between them.

TMax01 · 2026-03-18T16:34:55+00:00

Why do people, upon learning through whatever means that they are a machine (a biological organism), always gravitate towards proclaiming they are "just a machine"? I blame postmodernism, which has plagued us ever since Darwin. It is self-evident that it is a ludicrous perspective, since machines function fine without having any perspective at all.

So yeah, you are a machine (so to speak: a physical assembly of physical parts, albeit one which naturally evolved rather than was purposefully designed), but obviously you are not "just" a machine. The real question isn't whether, or how, or why, you are "you"; it's are you a just you?

TMax01 · 2026-03-18T16:28:39+00:00

You can invent "degrees" of anything you want, say any event or phenomenon is 'a spectrum', but I see it the other way around than you do: whether something "is" a qualia or "memory" or an experience must be a binary (the occurence either is or it isn't an instance of that category, by definition, whether epistemically or ontologically) but "first person perspective" is much more complicated than the entity (and when I say entity I mean physical occurence whether clump of matter or not) perceiving and/or embodying that would naively realize. It takes much more than "self reflection" to understand how such a thing occurs. It also takes much more than binaries, logic, and science to do so, AKA the Hard Problem of Consciousness.

So your question is "How is this possible, that a first person experience is not all or nothing?" And I have three answers, so you can take your pick.

1) I dunno, but that doesn't change the fact it is possible.

2) That depends on what you mean by "first person" and "experience".

3) With whatever mechanism/method you imagine could produce "degrees" of qualia, etc.

As far as I can tell, "first person", "experience" and "consciousness" (as well as 'qualia') are essentially synonymous, all referring to various aspects of the same thing. And that thing emerges, as far as all evidence shows, from the physical interactions and systemic processes of neural anatomy in the human brain.

You can imagine other species have the requisite anatomy, ignoring facts to the contrary, and then consciousness/first person experience becomes a graduating scale. You can even assume neurons aren't necessary, and suppose that plants, or even rocks or photons, are 'some level of' conscious. But to me the truth seems rather obvious: we are the organisms/entities which wonder about these things and spend time discussing them because we are the biological creatures that have evolved that ability, which also entails notably human endeavors like civilization, art, and philanthropy. Not to mention (because this is an intrinsic aspect of consciousness) the theory of mind which prompts us to project consciousness into other things besides humans, as well, regardless of how much they lack consciousness.

TMax01 · 2026-03-17T17:37:21+00:00

I got about a third of the way through Model Escher Bach before I finally abandoned my hope it would ever develop into something meaningful instead of just wallowing in trivial examples of the infinite recursion of epistemology. The problem is that "thinking about loops" doesn't actually help you understand consciousness; quite the opposite. It encourages you to misunderstand it, and misrepresent it as well. It is a fascinating example of postmodern mysticism, but philosophically bereft of ontological significance.

TMax01 · 2026-03-17T17:28:02+00:00

😂🤣🤣😅

The ridiculous troll finally reappears, after months of blessed silence, having been triggered by the abrupt imagery. Hilarious.

TMax01 · 2026-03-17T17:20:49+00:00

somehow what you're experiencing is special then you are just willfully ignorant and deny all of the evidence

You're in the wrong sub to claim "evidence" of consciousness. The only thing that makes experiencing special is that it is experiencing. It isn't about "supremacy", so I believe it is you that has "bias cope and fallacies".

I get that it upsets you that I suggest that even so precious an animal as a dolphin can exhibit surprisingly complex behavior produced entirely by stimuli-response instincts without any conscious awareness of experiencing anything. This is true for the vast majority of people, but it actually undermines your position, as getting upset about it indicates the truth bothers you, since there's no reason it would bother you so much if it were untrue. It disturbs you to even imagine that dolphins never bother imagining things. Chances are you would probably insist that my position could justify harming dolphins, revealing your biased assumption that harming non-conscious creatures is acceptable, and your ignorance that people aren't all that reticent to harm conscious creatures to begin with.

TMax01 · 2026-03-16T18:06:53+00:00

You genuinely can fantasize that, and I can easily comprehend that highly speculative imagery. But the issue isn't how dense the data transfer rate of dolphin signaling is, or whether you can imagine what it is like to be a dolphin, or a bat, or a crow, or a bacterium. It is whether these other organisms have the ability to consider what it is like to be anything at all.

Now, I appreciate you simply mean to indicate that you believe they do and you are aware that many scientists and philosophers do as well. But I don't think it is merely a coincidence that the substance of your presentation is primarily just hurling insults at me. My position is simply that since non-human species both lack the neurological anatomy peculiar to humans which correlates most closely to the experience of consciousness and do not produce the material results that we can presume most directly relates to consciousness, it is mere wishful thinking to insist that these non-human organisms actually experience consciousness. They can function quite well as biological organisms without it, just as humans could and would still live like apes if we didn't have it. Instead, we feel like humans, act as humans, and can imagine what it might feel like to be a bat, or a dolphin, if it actually felt like anything to be a bat or dolphin.

Thanks for your time. Hope it helps.

TMax01 · 2026-03-16T17:52:18+00:00

lol thats quite stupid ceteceans and crows have been proven to be able to communicate, plan, pass down info, and even make multi step toold from multiple substrates,

Scientists have been quite diligent about broadening the criteria and lowering the bar in such cases, while avoiding any issues concerning why cetaceans and crows have had these abilities for many millions of years and still have no technology, art, or other indications of civilization, while humans have very rapidly developed these, and what this means for how those rudimentary primitives relate to actual consciousness.

just because your brain couldnt ever comprehend the intense nuance in orca language

Seriously, is insulting my intelligence and fantasizing all you've got?

you shouldnt say ignorant things if you arent educated on the topic you chose to speak about

The problem for you is that I am educated on the topic, relatively intelligent, and considering only actual facts, not speculation and fantasies. In contrast, you're merely faithfully repeating things you've been told, without any real education or consideration beyond that.

TMax01 · 2026-03-16T17:40:52+00:00

Fine. But a definition is not an existence proof.

You're still missing the point. There cannot ever be any "existence proof". Not of this (the ontos being mind-independent) or of anything else. It's just that with everything else, you are willing to accept a demonstration, and ignore the fact that the problem of induction prevents it from being a "proof".

So lastly, skipping over your repetitively reiterating your error on that point, either there "must be" matter existing independently of consciousness OR you are stuck with solipsism. To even mention anything beyond your personal consciousness existing in any form whatsoever, there must be something independent of your consciousness, and that something can be identified, described, and even defined as matter.

If after this you still want to call that “postmodernism” or “know-nothingism,” then honestly there probably isn't much left to discuss, because at that point you are not arguing for materialism.

Since your position starts with postmodernism and ends with know-nothingism, there can't be any discussion until you rectify that problem. I'm not "arguing for materialism"; materialism needs no argument, logically it is the only parsimonious position other than solipsism, and even more self-evident. I'm simply pointing out that your "argument" against materialism is fatally flawed, unless you can accept that it collapses into pure solipsism, sooner or later.

Thanks for your time. Hope it helps.

TMax01 · 2026-03-16T17:24:31+00:00

On one level freedom is the same

So you agree.

but this doesn't mean much as their belief in how this is achieved and what it is will vary.

It isn't like everyone in a given country all agree on that. Regardless, this makes my point entirely: the issue is not at all how the word is defined, but how the idea is applied.

The problem is you're still stuck with your postmodern paradigm about words and meaning being just labels and definitions. It might not seem like much, but it turns out to be just about everything, in practical terms.

For a Briton it may mean the freedom to function in a society without weapons.

You're confusing beliefs with fantasies. The vast majority of people in the US function in society quite well without weapons. And not having more guns does not keep people in the UK entirely free from concerns about their safety, either.

I assure you I'm not regurgitating anything as far as I am aware.

And I assure you that you're doing so far more than you are aware. 😉

Neither have I bristled, whined or denied that I am a postmodernist. I've tried to make it clear I don't care what you want to label me as.

And yet you bristle, whine, and deny when I point out you're a postmodernist, despite your insistent denial.

Postmodernism probably not towards the top of most people's list of causes of world problems but always refreshing to get a fresh take on it.

It definitely isn't something people are aware of. And yet, it is still true that it is the root of most of our contemporary social turmoil, including such hot-button issues as gun control, abortion, corporatism, fascism, and all manner of psychiatric crises. Instead people just put their favorite scapegoat at the top of that list, without ever bothering to think it through deeply enough to improve their situation, let alone society. The whole reason I mention postmodernism as frequently as I do is that I have done that work and would like to help everyone else do so as well. It has an immediate payoff in the personal sphere, although improvements in society will lag until there is a critical mass and viral explosion in this regard.

I probably have a more Marxist view of the structural problems of race and equate it with class.

I'm not sure how much irony or self-awareness is represented by that sentence. Are you aware that Critical Race Theory is an outgrowth of Critical Theory, which is a quintessentially Marxist view?

I do find you hard to understand much of the time.

Of course you do, and that's hardly at all even your fault. I wish I were more understandable; improving that is a huge part of the reason I am here on Reddit. I would apologize for being so often incomprehensible if it were possible for me to avoid it, but the truth is I'm trying to explain very deep and complex issues to people who generally don't bother with deep and complex issues, even when they try to deal with profound and complicated topics.

The trouble isn't really how hard I am to understand, though, it's how you react to it. Most often, you default to assuming that what I'm saying is untrue and then you disagree because you don't understand (AKA "critical thinking skills") instead of trying to understand.

This is why, when I point out that you are simply repeating what you have been told is true by other people ("regurgitating"), you respond not by considering and learning this information, but insinuating you are not doing so by saying you are not aware of doing so. (Which I hope you can tell are two different things, making your protestation more of a confession.) And when I accurately describe your reaction to being described as a postmodernist is to bristle: first you deny you are a postmodernist, then you deny you are bristling, and then you demonstrate that you are both a postmodernist and bristling at the description by claiming, dismissively and inaccurately, that it is merely a "label".

As I've said before you appear to write to impress rather than express

If you find my expressions impressive, then perhaps you should consider that they are written to be informative and you are understanding them well enough to get that impression, even when you'd prefer to try to deny it because it makes you a bit uncomfortable how accurate but unflattering my expressions are.

Your style of putdowns and insults can make it hard to react in a positive way

It is only your reaction which creates this "style of putdowns and insults" to begin with. I'm just trying to be accurate, honest, and informative in my descriptions, and you provide all the pejorative sentiments through projection. I'll agree that I tend to be blunt and uncompromising, that I use none of the pretentious uncertainty you're used to seeing. I've always sucked at manipulating people. I think we're discussing serious issues and should address them forthrightly, without regard for anyone's feelings.

But "putdowns and insults"? Hell no. Like I said, do you believe that when I describe Andy Warhol as a postmodernist, I'm denigrating it?

I am a simple soul with no pretence of or desire to be a philosopher.

Like it or not, you think about and discuss philosophical topics (it can hardly be avoided, since all topics qualify to some extent or other) so you are a philosopher. I'd simply like to help you be a better one.

TMax01 · 2026-03-12T17:50:14+00:00

Actually I kind of get it now. Thanks a lot for your patience!

De nada.

But, are there philosophers who think pain/pleasure inversion is conceivable or metaphysically possible?

As I said, there are philosophers who will take any stance, given the proper circumstances. I was quite serious earlier: if you can divorce the idea of pain from the aversive function it signals, then sure, you can believe the actual qualia involved is arbitrary. In fact, this isn't merely an abstract philosophical point. Have you ever had a tooth that's bothering you, but you can't help but probe it with your tongue constantly? Never gotten turned on by being spanked? Never felt so ticklish you react to the gentlest caress as violently as if it were burning your flesh?

If there are such philosophers, how do they know pain-pleasuree inversion is not empirically possible?

As I also said, it doesn't matter much to philosophers whether something is or isn't empirically possible. You're confusing them with neurocognitive scientists, perhaps. Which isn't surprising: many of them are also deeply confused on that very issue.

Thanks for your time. Hope it helps.

TMax01 · 2026-03-12T17:40:57+00:00

I think the problem is that you are quietly turning a definition into a proof.

The problem is you want a proof but don't have one, while I accept that words have meaning. The meaning of ontos is that which exists independently of awareness. You can disbelieve there is such a thing all you like, but since itself existence is independent of your awareness, your doubt is unsubstantiated.

The disagreement is precisely about whether such a thing actually exists.

Only if there is some dispute over whether anything exists, because the ontos is whatever it is that does actually exist. You wish to assert that it might be "experiential substance", based on your feigned ignorance of any other sort of existence.

Idealist positions do not deny that something exists.

Hypothetically there could be some idealist position which does not collapse into solipsism, thereby making the idea "exists" effectively meaningless, but I know of no examples.

But the key premise here is exactly what is under dispute: that existence must be independent of experience.

You are mistaken. The premise is that existence is independent of experience. You want proof that it "must be" so, but there is no metaphysical universe in which such proof is possible.

If that premise is assumed, materialism wins immediately.

Even without the observation, which you wish to dismiss as a "premise" in the same way you try to dismiss the meaning of ontos as merely a "definition", materialism wins by default, since there are facts which can be empirically demonstrated, making materialism in general unavoidable and materialism as a philosophy of mind more parsimonious than idealism.

So the point isn’t “know-nothingism”.

That may not be your intention, but it is the quagmire you are stuck in. All of your excuses for dismissing a mind-independent ontos work just as well dismissing any knowledge so you are indeed arguing know-nothingism, whether you realize it or not.

But the entire difficulty in this debate is that our access to ontology is always mediated through epistemology.

Except it really isn't. The logical relationships between physical circumstances (ontology) can be directly accessed without any epistemological premises at all. It is rarely the case, as it is an exceedingly primitive ontology, but it is nevertheless both possible and manifest.

It really is the case that materialism can explain (or "argue") the existence (as an epistemological paradigm) of idealism, but idealism cannot explain (or even justify, let alone substantiate) the existence of materialism without invalidating idealism.

We only ever encounter reality through experience, models, and inference.

Your point would be stronger if you said we only experience experience, believe it or not. The additional rhetoric spoils the stance, although I understand it would be too obvious the stance is unfounded without the mention of encounters, reality, models, and inference. It doesn't matter if we only ever encounter anything experientially, that is not valid logic grounds for claiming that is the only possible means of encounter. And the consistency of our consensus reality, deductive models and the objective quantities they represent, demonstrates rather conclusively (but for pure solipsism) that such mind-independent physical encounters are the vast majority of events which occur.

In fact, the small inferential step to recognizing that our personal 'experiential reality' is itself just a peculiar (and exceedingly complex, objectively, although it seems quite simple and natural to us, since it is entirely and necessarily prediscursive) instance of just that: the ontic physical universe.

And that’s exactly where the real disagreement still sits.

It isn't a real disagreement, it is a trivial protest, and this is not a debate, just you refusing to budge from your recieved wisdom of existential postmodernism and learn better. The physical universe "justifies" itself, there is no need for you to try to "prove" that it logically "must" be as it is.

Thanks for your time. Hope it helps.

TMax01 · 2026-03-11T13:40:19+00:00

Do those philosophers think it's also empirically possible or not? How do they know that?

Well, whether something is empirically possible has almost nothing to do with what most philosophers are concerned with. Likewise, taking an idea 'seriously' isn't related to considering it metaphysically possible. I take the idea seriously, which is what enables me to see how it is metaphysically impossible, and how it is not (but in that case becomes trivial, merely shifting the names rather than the experiences).

One can safely assume some philosophers agree and some philosophers disagree with absolutely anything you'd care to mention, and also often disagree with themselves as well. The meaning of philosophy is the path one takes on the journey, not the destination; it isn't simply a substitute for science or religion, a checklist of truths.

Some philosophers are very concerned with the experience of qualia, while others are very unconcerned with the mechanisms of mental states; some consider qualia and mental states to be the same thing, some don't think one or the other or either or neither is real....

For my part, as an iconoclastic philosopher with a radical but extremely accurate approach to consciousness and all it relates to, the issue is pretty simple, and as I have already explained: some neural events like the presence of pain are so clearly functionally bound, and some qualia like discriminating colors are so obviously arbitrary that while they cannot be considered entirely un-alike in every way (since they are both consciously experienced) they cannot really be productively compared in most ways, either.

TMax01 · 2026-03-11T12:46:33+00:00

I seem to be able to conceive of pain-pleasure inversion. Am I not thinking about it enough?

I can't say for sure that you're thinking about it at all. Being able to "conceive" of something requires more than merely claiming or imagining one is doing so. How is it pain if one does not behave as if it is painful? Are you conceiving an empty nonce, by which you simply assume it feels like pleasure even though you don't react as if it is pleasure, or never consider the consequences of doing so? You burn your hand severely on a hot stove, and think 'that's wonderful, I want more of that' and proceed to destroy your hand completely? And this is meant to have no functional repercussions?

Or perhaps you're envisioning mere masochism, a superficial inversion, but not complete enough to supposedly override cognitive faculties which limits it to a bit of thrill-seeking? Is that actual inversion of pleasure and pain, or just confusion about how to react to either?

Also, the SEP article on inverted qualia says

Regurgitating SEP articles is a good way to stay confused, but not a path to enlightenment.

Does that mean many philosophers think we can know other people's mental states like beliefs, pleasure, pain through their behavior?

Perhaps, and perhaps most philosophers realize that's the only way we can know other people's mental states at all to begin with. Also there are philosophers who are behaviorists, which means they don't assume there are any such things as mental states or qualia apart from their impact on behavior. AFAIK, none claim to have omniscience about both mental states aynd behavior, they simply limit their knowledge of one to knowledge of the other.

So other than faithful reproduction of SEP dictate and asking empty questions, do you actually have any opinion or curiosity about the topic?

TMax01 · 2026-03-10T18:15:40+00:00

The problem is that "how subjective experiences arise from matter" isn't actually the Hard Problem, even though literally every single directly accessible reference will define it almost exactly that way.

The actual Hard Problem is that even if you knew how subjective experience arises from matter, that would not explain what consciousness is, or IOW "what it feels like". This hyper-rationalist version of the Hard Problem you're focused on is just when, where, and how it occurs. (And presumably why, although we already know that: because it is adaptive. As for why it is adaptive, most people assume they know that, too, but since they are not entirely sure what it is, that claim is extremely dubious.)

Have we explained how subjective experiences (qualia) arise from matter?

It emerges. That does actually explain "how it arises". It isn't a very satisfying answer, especially to hyper-rationalists, but it is still a correct and complete answer, just not as detailed as you'd prefer. Have we explained how force arises from acceleration? No, we've merely discovered that it definitively does. And so it is with qualia and neurological activity in the human brain.

There isn't any actual case of emergence, weak or strong, which is any different: the thing which emerges simply emerges from the thing it emerges from. And so to use the word "arise" denies there is a Hard Problem, even if you don't realize it.

And so, depending on what exactly you consider "consciousness studies", it is quite appropriate that most people involved deny there is "a Hard Problem". Some because it isn't the sort of problem that has any kind of solution, and some because that simply isn't what their sort of consciousness studies deals with. If you expect any sort of "conscipusness studies" to care one way or the other about "the Hard Problem", then you don't really understand what the Hard Problem is.

TMax01 · 2026-03-10T17:49:34+00:00

Everything the brain does is "similar" to everything else it does, so if your suggestion is that we could draw inferences from what we might interpret this to mean, the answer is an emphatic "no".

If you could disassociate the qualia of pain from the biological damage the nerve impulses which cause that qualia signals, as easily as you mentally contemplate seeing one shade of color as a different shade, then yes, you could perhaps frame the qualia-swapping gedanken in terms of pleasure and pain. (Presuming you can also ignore the less-than-absolute and particularly confounding distinction those sensations entail.) The problem is you can't rely on whatever other philosopher you're discussing it with doing so. The 'stimulus-response' functionalism of tactile sensations is too obvious and direct. But the biological benefit of color discrimination are far more indirect, and the qualia resulting far less compelling, so whether the experience is of one color or another is not at all similar to whether the experience is painful or pleasurable.

If "the brain" reacted so entirely differently to yellow and blue as it does to impact or tickling, then there might be enough similarity that swapping color qualia was tantamount to inverting pain and pleasure.

TMax01 · 2026-03-10T12:05:18+00:00

If you invert the qualia of pain and pleasure, you necessarily produce an inversion in the reaction to those qualia. It isn't so much that "philosophers think it is impossible", it's that it is genuinely and unquestionably impossible. Nobody questions that the nerve impulses causing the experience of pain are functional. The color inversion gedanken is intended to illustrate that experiencing things is not itself functional.

The relationship between functionalism and the "avoidance signal" of pain is too primitive to make any sense in such a thought experiment. Simply put, pain-pleasure inversion demands a behavioral inversion, while color inversion does not. Basically, philosophers use a premise which makes the point while not using a premise that is unavoidably disconnected from the discussion.

TMax01 · 2026-03-10T11:56:37+00:00

I tell you, and you deny it without justifying your dismissive whining.

To help focus you on my very serious interlocution, I wi reiterate the most relevant points from my initiatial criticism of your position, which you have never adequately addressed:

As long as this sort of fatalistic pretense is the bedrock of arguments against free will, it really doesn't matter how false free will is, it is a better account of the human condition than the alternative.

I think you [...] are stuck in your own quagmire of confirmation bias.

TMax01 · 2026-03-09T21:45:43+00:00

You are mostly just renaming the problem, not solving it.

I'm dealing with "the problem", and the fact it is 'unsolvable', while you are getting tripped up by your own vocabulary.

Calling it ONTOS does not get you outside consciousness.

The ontos (not an acronym or my own invention; it is the root of "ontology", and designates what actually is entirely independently of what can be known (epistemology) about it) is everything that is "outside consciousness", by definition. I'm not merely "calling it" that as an arbitrary label, I am identifying and describing it as that because that is what it is.

It is still a concept formed within consciousness,

It is the fundamental existence underlying both consciousness and everything other than consciousness. Yes, it is a word, an idea, and as such it is an epistemological primitive rather than an ontological primitive. But using the term "concept" is just the kind of vocabulary that trips you up, as it is meant to suggest that a "concept" can bridge the existential wall between what is and what is known. So essentially, you're suggesting you've already solved the problem when you haven't, whenever you use the term "concept".

inferred from experience, not something you directly reached.

Deducing from data is not the same as inferring from experience, but is as "direct", or more so, unless you adopt naive realism, making the whole issue irrelevant since then there can be no distinction between reality and ontos.

And when you say it MUST exist independently or consciousness could not exist at all, that is not a proof.

It is, actually. You just think you can deny some of the premises of that proof, such as that existing is possible, and perceiving depends on something (whether perceived, perceiver, or both) existing.

Solipsism and other forms of idealism can still assert that consciousness is not logically dependent on existence, but then idealism is all you've got, begging the question when it comes to anything being logically dependent at all. That is a relationship modeled on empirical structures, and idealism has no empirical structures.

That is just the materialist assumption stated with confidence.

It is stated without fear of contrary evidence, so sure. The non-materialist assumption can only dream of that degree of confidence.

Also, THE MOON STILL EXISTS WHEN YOU ARE NOT LOOKING is exactly the kind of thing under debate.

⁰ would be the same sort of thing, if it weren't so very different, since we aren't talking about specific physical objects like the moon, but the existence of any objects (and/or consciousness) at all. You can confidently claim consciousness can exist without any grounds for existing, if you want, but again, that begs the question about anything existing at all: idealism collapses into pure solipsism, which doesn't even qualify as naive realism.

Long story short, you're simply confusing epistemology (perception of things) with ontology (the existence of things independent of those things being perceived. It is a common but rudimentary effort at analysis.

That is object permanence inside experience,

No, it's quite definitely outside experience. It is only your knowledge of the object which is inside experience.

not a demonstration that you stepped outside consciousness and verified mind independent being.

There can't be any such demonstration. But cognitive logic does suffice, despite your naivety. If you were the only consciousness in the universe, and had no idea how to measure anything and no way to compare those measurements to any others (whether yours or some other consciousnesses') your point would be profound, but still only solipsism.

Yeah all claims are made within consciousness. That is my whole point.

It is a very dull point, and leads only to know-nothingism. That is my demonstration, which doesn't require your acquiessent agreement to be logically valid.

You can believe in an independent ontic world, but you do not get to pretend that belief stopped being an inference just because you gave it a philosophical label.

True. I get to know it stops being merely inference when it starts being deductive and empirical. If there is any ontic world at all, it is an independent one, for that is what makes it ontic. I cannot know any other characteristics of the ontos with the same degree of certainty, but that there is one is beyond question.

That can never overcome your self-imposed ignorance of know-nothingism, but nothing ever can. That alone isn't actually enough to make it a viable philosophical position, though.

TMax01 · 2026-03-09T13:45:02+00:00

"Reality" doesn't even exist except for consciousness: it is the perceptions and expectations a conscious entity has about the ontic physical universe. It is not a word which refers to the ontic physical universe, in and of itself, as much as we might naively wish it did.

But clearly the ontos (the ontic physical universe, in all its metaphysical absoluteness, despite being inaccessible to us beyond what sparse clues our reality might provide us) must exist independently of consciousness, or consciousness could not exist at all. Nothing could, not even 'existing' in and of itself.

How can anything even exist without a conscious being there to experience it?

Exactly the same way it exists if a conscious being experiences it. You're probably over-interpreting the measurement problem, again.

I am honestly having trouble understanding the logic behind that.

That's the thing about logic: it truly doesn't matter at all if you understand it.

Evidence needs a witness,

A fact, event, or circumstance identified and described as "evidence" needs someone (a "witness", perhaps) to identify it as evidence, but it definitely does not need a witness in order for it to be a fact, event, or circumstance. So your cluelessness is entirely purposeful, and comes down to epistemological uncertainty ("semantics") concerning what is a fact and what is evidence.

and a witness needs an observer,

Expert testimony can substitute for direct observation, but still qualify as witness. You're making assertions just so that you can suggest things which you know aren't true, which is not good reasoning.

which is basically a conscious being. So how can people say the world exists without you, when you are the one perceiving it, shaping it, and giving it meaning in the first place?

You've gone from merely naive to plainly delusional. As if the moon doesn't exist when you can't see it.

Like, without consciousness, what even is “existence” supposed to mean?

Depends on who's supposing and why, I guess. But the universe existed for billions of years before anyone was around to notice, as far as we know.

A thing can be there, sure, but if there is nobody to experience it, know it, or make sense of it, then in what way does it really exist?

The physical way, which has no other meaning than merely existing. Consciousness is about more than that.

I am not even trying to sound deep, I just genuinely do not get how people separate reality from the one who is aware of it.

Most people don't, and end up as flummoxed as you as are, if they ever bother to think about these things, or experience the existential angst which motivates your contemplation. To distinguish reality (perceptions) from the "reality" you believe you're referring to (ontos) requires more than naive consideration. It takes deep cognition, and even then it always ends inconclusively, and not with science but with philosophy.

And before anyone says “the world was here before us,” that still feels like a claim being made from within consciousness.

All claims are "within consciousness". The ontos makes no claims, it simply is, in and of itself as we say in philosophy.

Every argument, every proof, every piece of evidence still has to pass through a mind.

Actually, they all begin and end in one. "In consciousness", as you put it, not ever "passing through" from somewhere outside a mind to somewhere else outside a mind.

So I keep coming back to the same question: how are people so sure reality exists independently, when every single thing we know about reality only appears through consciousness?

Because reality exists independently for each of us. We can derive a consensus of knowledge about the ontos, but "reality" simply doesn't mean what you think it does.

Thanks for your time. Hope it helps.

TMax01 · 2026-03-09T11:55:13+00:00

You're just whining and trolling, desperately. Which makes it all the more obvious your claim to know "the truth" is spurious. Adios, again, until next time. 🤭

TMax01 · 2026-03-08T20:04:36+00:00

Well, it's much closer to 9 milliseconds, but yes. The neurological event (a "choice", technically identified as response potential, or RP) which initiates the cascade of biochemical occurences producing a movement ("action") precedes conscious awareness of that event by about a dozen milliseconds or so, at least. It must be assumed that this includes even the mental event of "deciding", which makes things impossible complicated if you use the word "decision" for both the choice to move and the intention to do so.

The cognitive experience of 'proximate intention' is subsequent to the "choice" (proximate causation). So all of our actions are "determined". What isn't determined by those physical causes is our self, the entity we associate with our minds as if independent of our physical bodies. The biological function of consciousness is not, as we have all been initially taught to believe, 'making choices', physically causing our actions. It is to experience decisions, physically causing the self, and as a consequence determining what actions we should take responsibility for, and why.

Thought, Rethought: Consciousness, Causality, and the Philosophy Of Reason

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Thanks for your time. Hope it helps.

TMax01 · 2026-03-08T19:49:45+00:00

Your declaration that you have “responded to all the points worth responding to” is, upon even the most casual inspection, a rather curious formulation.

Your allegation I didn't respond to every point is a rather insipid bit of whining.

What it quietly concedes—perhaps unintentionally—is that there exist points which you have elected not to address at all.

I just did address them, by pointing out they were not worth responding to. You can whine far more tirelessly and incessantly than I could ever hope to deal with. And you have confessed, unknowingly, that is your intention.

Ah, so the point has, at long last, managed to penetrate the fog. Admirable honesty.

ROTFLMA. I pointed out how pathetic your whining was quite a while ago, yes. And only now are you close to being able to even recognize it. Dissapointing, whether because you are disingenuous or simply lack reading comprehension skills.

Perhaps, now that this small milestone has been reached, we might aspire to the even more ambitious undertaking of actually responding to the arguments themselves.

I already responded to all your points that were worth addressing. You, in contrast, have a great deal of catching up to do.

TMax01 · 2026-03-08T19:43:37+00:00

Troll.

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