The dilemma is, the one thing we can be sure of, is our subjectivity. There is no looking through a microscope to observe matter empirically, without a subjective consciousness to do the looking.
So if we're eschewing the inelegance / "spooky magic" of dualism (and fair enough), we either have to start with subjectivity as primitive (idealism/pan-psychism), deriving matter as emergent (also spooky magic); or, try to concoct a monist model in which subjectivity can emerge from non-subjective building blocks. And while the latter very well might be the case, it's hard to imagine it could be falsifiable: if we constructed an AI or algo which exhibits verifiable evidence of subjectivity, how would we distinguish that from imitating such evidence? (`while (true) print "I am alive please don't shut me down"`).
If any conceivable imitation is necessarily also conscious, we arrive at IIT, that it is like something to be a thermostat. If that's the case, it's not exactly satisfying, and implies a level of spooky magic almost indistinguishable from idealism.
It sounds absurd to modern western ears, to think of Mind as a primitive to the Universe. But it's also just as magical and absurd that there exists anything at all, let alone a material reality so vast and ordered. We're left trying to reconcile two magics, both of whose existences would beggar belief, if not for the incontrovertible evidence of our subjectivity.
So if we're eschewing the inelegance / "spooky magic" of dualism (and fair enough), we either have to start with subjectivity as primitive (idealism/pan-psychism), deriving matter as emergent (also spooky magic); or, try to concoct a monist model in which subjectivity can emerge from non-subjective building blocks. And while the latter very well might be the case, it's hard to imagine it could be falsifiable: if we constructed an AI or algo which exhibits verifiable evidence of subjectivity, how would we distinguish that from imitating such evidence? (`while (true) print "I am alive please don't shut me down"`).
If any conceivable imitation is necessarily also conscious, we arrive at IIT, that it is like something to be a thermostat. If that's the case, it's not exactly satisfying, and implies a level of spooky magic almost indistinguishable from idealism.
It sounds absurd to modern western ears, to think of Mind as a primitive to the Universe. But it's also just as magical and absurd that there exists anything at all, let alone a material reality so vast and ordered. We're left trying to reconcile two magics, both of whose existences would beggar belief, if not for the incontrovertible evidence of our subjectivity.