Post #1302794

2026-03-27 16:29 UTC

I can only suppose that of other people as well. There's no way to measure consciousness. The only evidence of its existence is the fact that it feels like something to be me from my subjective perspective. Other humans behave the way I do so I assume they're probably having similar experiences but I have no idea [what it's like to be a bat](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_Is_It_Like_to_Be_a_Bat%3F) for example. However, answering the question "what it's like to be" is not relevant here. What's relevant is that existence has [qualia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qualia) at all.

Replies (1)

@partofthevoice@lemmy.zip 2026-03-27 18:01

> However, answering the question "what it's like to be" is not relevant here. What's relevant is that existence has qualia at all. Does existence “have qualia?” That treats qualia almost like it’s ontological, if I’m interpreting you correctly. Yet, qualia can only exist from the perspective of a *being* with the capacity to model a (seemingly external) world via said qualia. There is no *magic qualia sauce* we can embed inside something. Qualia, I think, is a process of information reduction… but also it’s a flavor of information interrogation. Because, reducing electromagnetic radiation to “visual perception” happens inside light sensors too — albeit without counting as “qualia.” What would you say counts as “qualia?” Or rather, what are its dependencies?

Open ##1302795