Quote from: Breneir Tzaracomprada on October 07, 2026, 09:39:00 AMOne day I will know what it is like to be a bat and what it is like to be Ian.

You will never know what it is like to be a bat.*

Or, at least, what it is like "for a bat to be a bat", as Nagel says. For my part, I have tried to imagine what it is like to be you after some of your more baffling posts, without success.

I think it is worthwhile to quote from Nagel at some length here to illuminate what he means that experience has "subjective character" that makes it unavailable to scientific reduction. It is not that we have not developed the necessary scientific methods yet; it is that experience is categorically impossible to analyze with such methods.

Quoteif the facts of experience - facts about what it is like for the experiencing organism - are accessible only from one point of view, then it is a mystery how the true character of experiences could be revealed in the physical operation of that organism. The latter is a domain of objective facts par excellence - the kind that can be observed and understood from many points of view and by individuals with differing perceptual systems. There are no comparable imaginative obstacles to the acquisition of knowledge about bat neurophysiology by human scientists, and intelligent bats or Martians might learn more about the human brain than we ever will.

This is not by itself an argument against reduction. A Martian scientist with no understanding of visual perception could understand the rainbow, or lightning, or clouds as physical phenomena, though he would never be able to understand the human concepts of rainbow, lightning, or cloud, or the place these things occupy in our phenomenal world. The objective nature of the things picked out by these concepts could be apprehended by him because, although the concepts themselves are connected with a particular point of view and a particular visual phenomenology, the things apprehended from that point of view are not: they are observable from the point of view but external to it; hence they can be comprehended from other points of view also, either by the same organisms or by others. Lightning has an objective character that is not exhausted by its visual appearance, and this can be investigated by a Martian without vision. To be precise, it has a more objective character than is revealed in its visual appearance. In speaking of the move from subjective to objective characterization, I wish to remain noncommittal about the existence of an end point, the completely objective intrinsic nature of the thing, which one might or might not be able to reach. It may be more accurate to think of objectivity as a direction in which the understanding can travel. And in understanding a phenomenon like lightning, it is legitimate to go as far away as one can from a strictly human viewpoint.

In the case of experience, on the other hand, the connection with a particular point of view seems much closer. It is difficult to understand what could be meant by the objective character of an experience, apart from the particular point of view from which its subject apprehends it. After all, what would be left of what it was like to be a bat if one removed the viewpoint of the bat? But if experience does not have, in addition to its subjective character, an objective nature that can be apprehended from many different points of view, then how can it be supposed that a Martian investigating my brain might be observing physical processes which were my mental processes (as he might observe physical processes which were bolts of lightning), only from a different point of view? How, for that matter, could a human physiologist observe them from another point of view?

We appear to be faced with a general difficulty about psychophysical reduction. In other areas the process of reduction is a move in the direction of greater objectivity, toward a more accurate view of the real nature of things. This is accomplished by reducing our dependence on individual or species-specific points of view toward the object of investigation. We describe it not in terms of the impressions it makes on our senses, but in terms of its more general effects and of properties detectable by means other than the human senses. The less it depends on a specifically human viewpoint, the more objective is our description. It is possible to follow this path because although the concepts and ideas we employ in thinking about the external world are initially applied from a point of view that involves our perceptual apparatus, they are used by us to refer to things beyond themselves - toward which we have the phenomenal point of view. Therefore we can abandon it in favor of another, and still be thinking about the same things.

Experience itself, however, does not seem to fit the pattern. The idea of moving from appearance to reality seems to make no sense here. What is the analogue in this case to pursuing a more objective understanding of the initial subjective viewpoint toward them in favor of another that is more objective but concerns the same thing? Certainly it appears unlikely that we will get closer to the real nature of human experience by leaving behind the particularity of our human point of view and striving for a description in terms accessible to beings that could not imagine what it was like to be us. If the subjective character of experience is fully comprehensible only from one point of view, then any shift to greater objectivity -that is, less attachment to a specific viewpoint - does not take us nearer to the real nature of the phenomenon: it takes us farther away from it.

*Unless you are talking about what you believe happens in the afterlife, in which case that is a different conversation

I would not object if an admin moved this message somewhere else, but until then I will keep posting here

Quote from: Sir Lüc on October 07, 2026, 12:43:55 PMBy precedent, nominations will remain open until a week from me calling for them, so a little less than two days for any other nomination!

I believe our precedent here is 2 weeks based on our constitution  and how things have been run before

I will say, I do have anxiety about such things so I won't be able to join in this (this is a long term thing, and have mentioned a few times over the years)

But I hope it goes well, and if needed I can send a prepared remark to be read out by someone at the event

As long as it's Latin.

Quote from: Mic'haglh Autófil, O.Be on August 22, 2026, 02:44:09 PMProduction on the next batch will be during the next Cosa term.

Is there any update on the Talossan ID cards for the next batch?

At the risk of it shutting down can I say this is a fantastic discussion on consciousness and sentience? We might want to move it to a dedicated thread and I was thinking why don't we have a Philosophy Club?

Quote from: Marcel Eðo Pairescu Tafial, UrGP on October 07, 2026, 12:18:07 PMThe AI consciousness debate feels to me like this with extra steps:


I'm not sure we'll ever get anywhere productive with this. Nor do I think that subjective conscious experience will ever be objectively measurable. It's a whole bunch of non-starters and circular logic.

Oh I've seen this a few times. Makes me laugh. I am okay with allowing time and science to answer whether we will be able to measure subjective experience.

By precedent, nominations will remain open until a week from me calling for them, so a little less than two days for any other nomination!

Quote from: Marcel Eðo Pairescu Tafial, UrGP on October 02, 2026, 11:46:19 AM

Quote from: Sir Lüc on October 02, 2026, 10:44:38 AM[...]

1/2) As I understand it, the Lexhatx doesn't allow the Cosă to set its own rules like it does the Senäts (Lexh.H.3.1), so these rules would not be strictly binding.

This is absolutely true, but I suspect we're in "the law doesn't explicitly allow something, so it must mean it disallows it" territory. These rules basically only govern how an informal session operates and entirely operate within the limits of existing legislation, for example when dealing with bills, or when saying the Túischac'h maintains order. By comparison, the Senate rules are completely different and much more consequential; for example, they precisely set the terms of office of senators, which is something the Cosă doesn't need, since an MC gains their seat when they're appointed and (normally) loses it on Dissolution.

QuoteI hesitate to add these rules to the Lexhatx directly because internal processes really shouldn't be a matter of national legislation in the first place.

Fully agreed.

Quote3/4) To the surprise of perhaps no one, these rules I worked out together with AD last term are heavily based on how associations in Germany usually govern themselves, and under this framework, all the points I mentioned are in fact points of order. The idea is that an agenda is set beforehand, and everything that interrupts or distracts from the agenda is a point of order, and the chair adjourns the session once the agenda has run its course. My choice of inspiration doesn't imply that German associations have a better internal structure than the House of Commons, it was moreso a framework that was already familiar to me and easy to adapt to our circumstances here, and I wouldn't mind changing them in the direction of the Commons if there's enthusiasm for it.

That's fine, it's just odd that we'd choose a framework specific to Germany over something more international. And I'm saying that while also firmly believing we shouldn't parrot what any specific legislature does; my "a motion is not a point of order" objection is more grounded in an English dictionary definition and in common procedure, tbh.

Quote5) That would be nice, but you can't really force MCs to be more proactive than they have to be. That's something I've been struggling with during my two terms as Túischac'h at all times.

I fully get what you're saying, as a four-terms-and-a-bit Túischac'h and Mençei - but I'm sure nudging the Seneschal to move to adjourn when we're done is not an unreasonable expectation.

Any further nominations?

-Txec R