> It's the investigation of that question itself that is of interest, and I think quite valuable, both in principle as well as useful from a programming point of view.
I agree, but I believe our progress in this area is hindered by unjustified ideas like platonism inherited from our history of religion and spiritual belief. They bias us towards unnecessary non-materialism.
> Sure but your argument is so broad that it applies to everything then.
No. When I said no one has really seen a circle, I wasn't distinguishing between sense impressions / predictions and some external reality. As you point out, that would be problematic. But there is no true apple form. Granted, there may be stereotypical apples.
A mathematical circle is different. It has equal radius everywhere in a continuum (real numbers). It has no thickness. These are essential features of a mathematical circle. I have never seen such an object. Neither has anyone else. It can't be built out of matter, which is probably the appeal of platonism. It does exist in material form in our heads, not outside. It can be reasoned about. We can draw approximations to it. This changes nothing for working with math, as others have pointed out. We should obviously choose to speak in terms of circles when doing math, instead of specifying the exact neural correlates of circle, but it's a matter of abstraction and utility.
Regarding fundamental? particles, we recognize that these are features of our current model of reality.
We can certainly talk about abstract concepts, but there is no reason to think that they exist without physical correlates. That doesn't lessen the usefulness of the (possibly leaky) abstractions.
Regarding other substrates. Yes, figuring out what other substrates could possibly support what I experience as consciousness, and what others report as consciousness is very interesting/useful. I'm working on this now.
I think we get in trouble though when we define consciousness too broadly.
I agree, but I believe our progress in this area is hindered by unjustified ideas like platonism inherited from our history of religion and spiritual belief. They bias us towards unnecessary non-materialism.
> Sure but your argument is so broad that it applies to everything then.
No. When I said no one has really seen a circle, I wasn't distinguishing between sense impressions / predictions and some external reality. As you point out, that would be problematic. But there is no true apple form. Granted, there may be stereotypical apples.
A mathematical circle is different. It has equal radius everywhere in a continuum (real numbers). It has no thickness. These are essential features of a mathematical circle. I have never seen such an object. Neither has anyone else. It can't be built out of matter, which is probably the appeal of platonism. It does exist in material form in our heads, not outside. It can be reasoned about. We can draw approximations to it. This changes nothing for working with math, as others have pointed out. We should obviously choose to speak in terms of circles when doing math, instead of specifying the exact neural correlates of circle, but it's a matter of abstraction and utility.
Regarding fundamental? particles, we recognize that these are features of our current model of reality.
We can certainly talk about abstract concepts, but there is no reason to think that they exist without physical correlates. That doesn't lessen the usefulness of the (possibly leaky) abstractions.
Regarding other substrates. Yes, figuring out what other substrates could possibly support what I experience as consciousness, and what others report as consciousness is very interesting/useful. I'm working on this now.
I think we get in trouble though when we define consciousness too broadly.