Conscious Realism and the Mind-Body Problem - UCI Cognitive ...

Conscious Realism and the Mind-Body Problem 113user interface. Efficiency with respect to what if, as MUI theory claims,there is no way to access the real world ? The logic here is a little bit likethat of Descartes. Where he suggested that the mental world is similar tothe physical one, MUI theory suggests that the mental world is built insuch a way to be a useful schema of the physical one. Useful with respectto what ? And why should we need a simplified version ?In answering this objection, we must again be careful how we use ourterms. In particular, as discussed before, the phrase real world could meanthe real worlds of our sensory perceptions, whose existence is observerdependent.Or it could mean a world that is objective, in the sense thatit is observer-independent. It is the latter interpretation that is probablyintended by the objection. If so, then MUI theory does not claim thereis no access to the real world, but rather that our access is via sensorysystems that radically simplify, and probably in no way resemble, thatreal world. There is access, just no resemblance.Similarly, when this objection speaks of the physical world, it presumablyassumes a physicalist ontology, with physical objects and propertiesthat are observer-independent. If so, MUI theory and conscious realismtogether do not claim that our sensory worlds are built to be a usefulschema of the physical world, for they reject the ontology of physicalism.If there is no observer-independent physical world, then there is noreason to build schemas of it. MUI theory asserts, instead, that the physicalworld, the world of space-time, objects, matter and so on, is itself asensory user interface that is observer-dependent. This might be counterintuitiveto a physicalist, but it is not logically self-contradictory. It canbe made mathematically precise, and is consistent with quantum theory.With these provisos, we can now address the main question of thisobjection, which is why criteria of efficiency and usefulness should controlthe user interface. The reason is that, according to conscious realism,there is a reality independent of any particular observer, and to interactintelligently or appropriately with that reality one’s sensory perceptionsmust be a useful and efficient guide to that reality. Conscious realismis not solipsism. There is a reality independent of my perceptions, andmy perceptions must be a useful guide to that reality. This reality consistsof dynamical systems of conscious agents, not dynamical systems ofunconscious matter. Moreover, this reality is quite complex. So if mysensory systems are to be efficient, they must dramatically simplify thiscomplexity, and yet still provide a useful guide.A third objection to MUI theory runs as follows: Inexplicably, thetable I see is created by my personal user interface, but your table iscreated in a way that is coherent with my own. An ironic reader wouldask whether they are using the same operating system.To answer this, it is important to note that MUI theory does notrequire that your user interface be functionally identical to mine. Evo-