Interesting essay, Rose! (And thanks for the mention)
I think you implicitly also carve out a space for what makes art so meaningful - it translates "one-of-a-kind, ineffable, transformative experience" into something that can be shared while retaining its uniqueness (in the sense that everyone will 'experience' an artwork differently while sharing 'experiencing that artwork').
I really like that description of art. And then that’s precisely why we want to share a piece of art with the people we love — we want them to experience what we did, but we want to watch it from their unique point of view. Thank you for the kind words 🤍
I am amazed that none of the articles on AI that I have read mention Searle's Chinese Room. To me, it captures perfectly the question of what consciousness is; what does the human have that the computer doesn't have? I've been a programmer my whole life, starting with core memory, so I have a crude understanding of LLMs etc., but I cannot conceive that computers can have the same kind of consciousness that I do. They may have their own very different understanding of the world through sensors, their "red" is not my experience of "red".
So what is the nature of my consciousness? Materialism would have it that it is an emergent property, an artifact of the necessary understanding that there exists self and other. It's either that or that there is something that exists in addition. The brain is a TV receiver of consciousness, rather than generating it. I like that idea of pan-psychism, although theories of dualism have not done well in recent centuries.
FWIW, there are some who think modern culture focuses too much on "experiencing things" and not enough on learning things. (Ironically, all the while, as you say, burying their faces in their phones -- if you don't have a selfie, was it really real?)
BTW, I agree with you that Mary's Room doesn't disprove physicalism. It just points out the same thing your post here does: knowledge *about* something is different from knowledge *of* something. A good example is skydiving. No amount of knowledge can prepare you for the actual experience of jumping out of an airplane.
Interesting point about modern culture’s emphasis on experience vs learning. Perhaps the problem is really a lack of both — we’re missing both experience and the kind of deep learning that comes from focus, reading, etc. Will be thinking about this for future writing. Thanks for reading!
Rose- I’m a fan. I write about similar stuff, I’m an MBBS medical doctor with mental health interests and lived experience.
I hope it’s alright for me to pipe in and participate with you wonderful people. Love the article and the conversations in the comments. I just wanted to add that at any time, whether we like it or not, we are both experiencing and learning to varying degrees anyways. In truth there is learning involved in every experience, and experience involved in all learning. The medium of delivery, the content, and it’s intended purpose are the issue in my opinion. Knowledge about things drives motivation or kills it, to gain knowledge of something by doing it. The partial but intensely delivered knowledge pushed to us on phones, vicariously and dissatisfyingly satisfies us, and therefore demotivates us. It’s literally trading our opportunity for a rich experience for a watered down and dull one that robs you of the desire to engage in the real one.
An example would be how the experience of smoking weed is much more profound than learning from it, versus how the experience of reading a book isn’t as profound as learning from it. I feel as though learning builds an internal experience and creates longing whereas participating in a physical experience in the present moment, in an activity, with an existing repertoire of skills is an “experiencing” experience/physical/body/outward experience that creates a fulfillment of such longings. The cellphone creates longing by teaching us that there is beauty out there to see and experience, while robbing us of time in hours and years. And it does not help us build any habits that drive us to go out there towards fulfillment because it is driving a disconnect from human connection. Humans are the most salient stimulus to our nervous systems. To reach the threshold of stimulation that drives us to action, we must learn to connect with each and express ourselves, because alone we don’t have that kind of power to face the world and survive, and on an animal level we know that to be dead certain. But as a community of well rounded and distributed, diverse skills, we can create a force strong enough to drive a community. That’s how we’re programmed from the cells up to society.
To this effect I would say, knowledge of sky diving could certainly create a longing for the activity and contribute to the probably of its completion, *provided* we have the support of a guy (community strength) attached to our back with much more experience so we don’t pass out before we pull the chute!
To reference the article itself, I too believe that post Covid and world war 3, the thing that will heal us is what is being prevented by the governments of the world and also these days, viruses, and that is to congregate and express how we feel. We need the protests and the Taylor Swift concerts and the video games which so many people play just to do something with other people out of loneliness. It’s what many organized religions and cults exploit by calling us to congregate there, where relief in numbers and reassurance from “authority” is mislabeled as proof of validity. Our heads are full of passion and emotion and the longing to express it and seek fulfillment, an energy which we’re using to live the droning life of a zombie. The pressure that is being harvested in this controlled manner builds and builds and turns to anger and rage. But like a fighting dog, our rage is not at the opponent but a sum of all the dissatisfaction we have experienced, being underfed and worked to the bone. That’s why the zombies are rabid and in their frenzied, disintegrated state of mind, shooting shit up and raising the crime stats.
Too-long-didn’t-read version: we’re being starved of both experience and learning of any value, by giving us watered down information about experiences we have to spend work-hours ($) to seek.
I think the kids are messed up just because as the article says, our experience and learning is of a disintegrated quality from very early childhood now. I was 12 when the internet became a staple. I shudder to think of how empty the children must be feeling, and how quickly they’re losing the comfort of a magical world.
Your article really stretched out my head in a good way! I’m sorry for saying so much but I had to get it out!
Wow, thank you for such a thoughtful, absorbing response to my piece. I’m glad it resonated and prompted your own fascinating thoughts. Very glad to have connected here!
I will be thinking about your contrast between experience and knowledge and your interesting insistence on humanity’s often unfulfilled craving for both.
I have just finished writing a piece this week “on being” - because there is a journey to “what’s the point?” And then back again. I agree that the point is to enjoy and relish it all. All being welcome. All experience. So this was great to read and wonderfully written. 🙏
Your description of those authentic moments, however fleeting, which transform us and then linger, resonated very strongly with me. Years ago, I took a night flight across the Florida peninsula to join some friends who were staying on Sanibel Island. I arrived around 5:30 am, sleep-deprived and exhausted. They were already up and heading off to Sanibel’s famous bird sanctuary, and they urged me to join them. I tried to beg off, but they knew me too well (a night person): “You’ll never be up again at this time, Frank, and its so quiet and beautiful now.”. I am so happy I joined them! About 20 minutes into our walk, a magnificent flock of birds passed overhead. I more than watched them, I was somehow joined with them and everything “around” me. I smiled as one of my friends lamented that she’d forgotten her Field Guide, while my other friend bemoaned having forgotten his camera. My feeling was straight out of Baba Ram Dass— “Be Here Now!” It felt so wonderful just to BE there.in the moment.
I had read about transcendent experiences, drug-induced, induced by participating in rituals, and through other means, I had read and heard about feeling oneself to be part of a larger whole. In other words, like Mary, I “knew” a lot about altered states of consciousness, I knew a lot about what many of us were calling the “right-hemispheric” integrative, holistic mode of functioning; but this was so utterly different. I was in that mode; I was an integral part of that experience. (In fact, I would not have used the word “part” at that point— there were no “parts”, just the whole). I would argue that what I was experiencing is a form of knowledge. It’s what Robert Heinlein calked “grokking” something.
One of the problems I have with the Mary’s Room thought experiment is the very premise that we are asked to accept (Mary knows “everything” there is to know about visual perception). What if that’s not the case? What if the implicit definition of knowing or knowledge is too narrow? If that is so, then what does it prove that Mary learns something when she sees the red apple. Does it really prove the Chalmersian argument by default? Or is there a more parsimonious explanation? I’m planning to do a post on this in the near future once I’ve given more thought to a couple of problems. (Hard problems, of course!)
You mention in one of your footnotes that you dispute the Mary’s Room proof yourself. Have you written about this? If so, reference please! I’d love to read your argument.
I’m very glad to have discovered your Substack and am looking forward to reading future posts!
The fleeting, fugal nature of experience creates an urge to crystallize it, allowing us to hear individual melodies within the fugue of experience, which in turn helps us hear the next set of waves of simultaneous experiential melodies and better understand how they harmonize, or not, with one another. This is one way we learn to experience more deeply, more fully, and to better appreciate our experiences and our lives.
Interesting essay, Rose! (And thanks for the mention)
I think you implicitly also carve out a space for what makes art so meaningful - it translates "one-of-a-kind, ineffable, transformative experience" into something that can be shared while retaining its uniqueness (in the sense that everyone will 'experience' an artwork differently while sharing 'experiencing that artwork').
I really like that description of art. And then that’s precisely why we want to share a piece of art with the people we love — we want them to experience what we did, but we want to watch it from their unique point of view. Thank you for the kind words 🤍
I am amazed that none of the articles on AI that I have read mention Searle's Chinese Room. To me, it captures perfectly the question of what consciousness is; what does the human have that the computer doesn't have? I've been a programmer my whole life, starting with core memory, so I have a crude understanding of LLMs etc., but I cannot conceive that computers can have the same kind of consciousness that I do. They may have their own very different understanding of the world through sensors, their "red" is not my experience of "red".
So what is the nature of my consciousness? Materialism would have it that it is an emergent property, an artifact of the necessary understanding that there exists self and other. It's either that or that there is something that exists in addition. The brain is a TV receiver of consciousness, rather than generating it. I like that idea of pan-psychism, although theories of dualism have not done well in recent centuries.
The Chinese Room thought experiment is another fascinating one — would love to explore in a future newsletter.
Your larger questions about consciousness are very similar to the ones I like to write about here. Glad to continue connecting here.
FWIW, there are some who think modern culture focuses too much on "experiencing things" and not enough on learning things. (Ironically, all the while, as you say, burying their faces in their phones -- if you don't have a selfie, was it really real?)
BTW, I agree with you that Mary's Room doesn't disprove physicalism. It just points out the same thing your post here does: knowledge *about* something is different from knowledge *of* something. A good example is skydiving. No amount of knowledge can prepare you for the actual experience of jumping out of an airplane.
Interesting point about modern culture’s emphasis on experience vs learning. Perhaps the problem is really a lack of both — we’re missing both experience and the kind of deep learning that comes from focus, reading, etc. Will be thinking about this for future writing. Thanks for reading!
Rose- I’m a fan. I write about similar stuff, I’m an MBBS medical doctor with mental health interests and lived experience.
I hope it’s alright for me to pipe in and participate with you wonderful people. Love the article and the conversations in the comments. I just wanted to add that at any time, whether we like it or not, we are both experiencing and learning to varying degrees anyways. In truth there is learning involved in every experience, and experience involved in all learning. The medium of delivery, the content, and it’s intended purpose are the issue in my opinion. Knowledge about things drives motivation or kills it, to gain knowledge of something by doing it. The partial but intensely delivered knowledge pushed to us on phones, vicariously and dissatisfyingly satisfies us, and therefore demotivates us. It’s literally trading our opportunity for a rich experience for a watered down and dull one that robs you of the desire to engage in the real one.
An example would be how the experience of smoking weed is much more profound than learning from it, versus how the experience of reading a book isn’t as profound as learning from it. I feel as though learning builds an internal experience and creates longing whereas participating in a physical experience in the present moment, in an activity, with an existing repertoire of skills is an “experiencing” experience/physical/body/outward experience that creates a fulfillment of such longings. The cellphone creates longing by teaching us that there is beauty out there to see and experience, while robbing us of time in hours and years. And it does not help us build any habits that drive us to go out there towards fulfillment because it is driving a disconnect from human connection. Humans are the most salient stimulus to our nervous systems. To reach the threshold of stimulation that drives us to action, we must learn to connect with each and express ourselves, because alone we don’t have that kind of power to face the world and survive, and on an animal level we know that to be dead certain. But as a community of well rounded and distributed, diverse skills, we can create a force strong enough to drive a community. That’s how we’re programmed from the cells up to society.
To this effect I would say, knowledge of sky diving could certainly create a longing for the activity and contribute to the probably of its completion, *provided* we have the support of a guy (community strength) attached to our back with much more experience so we don’t pass out before we pull the chute!
To reference the article itself, I too believe that post Covid and world war 3, the thing that will heal us is what is being prevented by the governments of the world and also these days, viruses, and that is to congregate and express how we feel. We need the protests and the Taylor Swift concerts and the video games which so many people play just to do something with other people out of loneliness. It’s what many organized religions and cults exploit by calling us to congregate there, where relief in numbers and reassurance from “authority” is mislabeled as proof of validity. Our heads are full of passion and emotion and the longing to express it and seek fulfillment, an energy which we’re using to live the droning life of a zombie. The pressure that is being harvested in this controlled manner builds and builds and turns to anger and rage. But like a fighting dog, our rage is not at the opponent but a sum of all the dissatisfaction we have experienced, being underfed and worked to the bone. That’s why the zombies are rabid and in their frenzied, disintegrated state of mind, shooting shit up and raising the crime stats.
Too-long-didn’t-read version: we’re being starved of both experience and learning of any value, by giving us watered down information about experiences we have to spend work-hours ($) to seek.
I think the kids are messed up just because as the article says, our experience and learning is of a disintegrated quality from very early childhood now. I was 12 when the internet became a staple. I shudder to think of how empty the children must be feeling, and how quickly they’re losing the comfort of a magical world.
Your article really stretched out my head in a good way! I’m sorry for saying so much but I had to get it out!
Wow, thank you for such a thoughtful, absorbing response to my piece. I’m glad it resonated and prompted your own fascinating thoughts. Very glad to have connected here!
I will be thinking about your contrast between experience and knowledge and your interesting insistence on humanity’s often unfulfilled craving for both.
On second thought, I shouldn’t comment here after drinking haha. But thank you for reading! Looking forward to exploring your substack. 🙏🏽
You can read the spoilers all day, but nothing beats having the drive to live those plot twists yourself!
Love this. Experience is the stuff of life.
I have just finished writing a piece this week “on being” - because there is a journey to “what’s the point?” And then back again. I agree that the point is to enjoy and relish it all. All being welcome. All experience. So this was great to read and wonderfully written. 🙏
Ah, wonderful to hear that our ideas have aligned. Thank you for reading 🤍
Hi Rose,
Your description of those authentic moments, however fleeting, which transform us and then linger, resonated very strongly with me. Years ago, I took a night flight across the Florida peninsula to join some friends who were staying on Sanibel Island. I arrived around 5:30 am, sleep-deprived and exhausted. They were already up and heading off to Sanibel’s famous bird sanctuary, and they urged me to join them. I tried to beg off, but they knew me too well (a night person): “You’ll never be up again at this time, Frank, and its so quiet and beautiful now.”. I am so happy I joined them! About 20 minutes into our walk, a magnificent flock of birds passed overhead. I more than watched them, I was somehow joined with them and everything “around” me. I smiled as one of my friends lamented that she’d forgotten her Field Guide, while my other friend bemoaned having forgotten his camera. My feeling was straight out of Baba Ram Dass— “Be Here Now!” It felt so wonderful just to BE there.in the moment.
I had read about transcendent experiences, drug-induced, induced by participating in rituals, and through other means, I had read and heard about feeling oneself to be part of a larger whole. In other words, like Mary, I “knew” a lot about altered states of consciousness, I knew a lot about what many of us were calling the “right-hemispheric” integrative, holistic mode of functioning; but this was so utterly different. I was in that mode; I was an integral part of that experience. (In fact, I would not have used the word “part” at that point— there were no “parts”, just the whole). I would argue that what I was experiencing is a form of knowledge. It’s what Robert Heinlein calked “grokking” something.
One of the problems I have with the Mary’s Room thought experiment is the very premise that we are asked to accept (Mary knows “everything” there is to know about visual perception). What if that’s not the case? What if the implicit definition of knowing or knowledge is too narrow? If that is so, then what does it prove that Mary learns something when she sees the red apple. Does it really prove the Chalmersian argument by default? Or is there a more parsimonious explanation? I’m planning to do a post on this in the near future once I’ve given more thought to a couple of problems. (Hard problems, of course!)
You mention in one of your footnotes that you dispute the Mary’s Room proof yourself. Have you written about this? If so, reference please! I’d love to read your argument.
I’m very glad to have discovered your Substack and am looking forward to reading future posts!
Thank you for the kind words! What a fascinating and transformative experience — I’m glad the article resonated.
I haven’t written more specifically on the Mary’s room thought experiment, but I would like to soon. I have some thoughts brewing.. more to come!
The fleeting, fugal nature of experience creates an urge to crystallize it, allowing us to hear individual melodies within the fugue of experience, which in turn helps us hear the next set of waves of simultaneous experiential melodies and better understand how they harmonize, or not, with one another. This is one way we learn to experience more deeply, more fully, and to better appreciate our experiences and our lives.
Thank you for your insight.
Really enjoy your characterization of experience as “fugal.” Thanks so much for reading and sharing your thoughts.
Thank you Rose, aligned and subscribed 🤗
So glad to hear that. More to come 🤍