The "Hard Problem" of Consciousness and the Relation of Mind to Brain

Smartso

This is a thread for discussion of the relation of the mind to the brain and how and whether subjective experience arises from only physical processes. It seems to me that the world consists of an objective physical reality. However, I don't have any direct experience of objective reality. Everything I know and experience is through subjective experience of mental events. In one sense everything is physics, in another sense everything is mental. I think these views are compatible, please share your views on these matters.

Insatiable

Smartso;13013 said:

However, I don't have any direct experience of objective reality.

How is it that you do not? You live in a world governed by physics. Everything in this world is arguably governed by objective facts: the force of gravity, some basic mathematical truths, theorems, and perhaps logical truths as well (e.g. modus tollens, modus ponens, etc.). How can you say that you haven't directly experienced objective reality when we practically take it for granted and to a certain extent depend on it to function?

Smartso;13013 said:

Everything I know and experience is through subjective experience of mental events.

I would put it differently: you experience the objective subjectively. Perhaps some people view objective truths in their own manner. However, this truth will remain fundamentally unchanged regardless of how it is viewed. For example it doesn't matter who thinks what or what's happening in the world, a triangle will always have three sides and two and two will always equal four. If you deny this, then you are being irrational.

Take for example that at one point the Earth was putatively held to be flat or believed to be the centre of the universe. People's opinions, however, did not change the actual shape of the Earth--it merely felt like an objective truth due to everyone believing it as such, not because it could be arrived at via inference.

Smartso;13013 said:

I think these views are compatible, please share your views on these matters.

I would have to agree with you. As I said before, you could perceive objective fact and reality your own way. An objective reality does not exclude the existence of subjective experience. You merely experience objective facts and incorporate them into your own mindset.