What is that criticism supposed to be criticizing?

Nagel's paper covers a lot of ground, but none of what you described has any bearing on the point about it "what it's like" as a way to identify conscious experience as distinct from, say, the life of a rock. (Assuming one isn't a panpsychist who believe that rocks possess consciousness.)

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glenstein 6 days ago | parent | next [-]

It gives obvious examples of the way our awareness of factual circumstances give us inroads into what might be experienced. And the upshot is that this might suggest the rest of consciousness can be understood by iterating forward in a similar manner. Dennett makes this exact same point about Mary's Room. Far from talking past the article, it's attacking the fundamental principle.

	▲	antonvs 6 days ago \| parent [-]
		"Might suggest" - sure, that might be possible. That's not so much a criticism of Nagel as the hope that the problems he's highlighting might one day be solved.

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card_zero 6 days ago | parent | prev [-]

The pessimism, the "facts beyond the reach of human concepts".

	▲	antonvs 6 days ago \| parent [-]
		That's not pessimism. It's interrogating the nature of reality. If you want to discover truth, you can't shy away from conclusions because they don't make you feel good.