A thread through the archive

subjective experience

Essays tagged “subjective experience”. Follow an idea across the archive.

Essays on subjective experience

2 essays

Nov 10, 2022ACX

Can People Be Honestly Wrong About Their Own Experiences?

Scott Alexander explores whether people can be honestly mistaken about their own experiences, presenting counterexamples and attempting to reconcile them with the idea that we can't be wrong about our immediate subjective experiences.

13 min read 1,886 words

Mar 27, 2010LW

It's not like anything to be a bat

Scott presents an anthropic argument suggesting animals might lack subjective experience, based on the observation that if animals were conscious, we would statistically be much more likely to be animals than humans.

5 min read 682 words

animal consciousness animal rights anthropic reasoning