Are Qualia Real? Debate & Discussion

[Les Sleeth]

The question of "why does experience exist" is not a scientific problem, any more than the question of "why does gravity exist".

Yes, but we are debating in the philosophy area.

 

[Tournesol]

Well, we are going to have to disagree HUGELY here because I think the Occam concept has a narrow, specialized application that is very much limited to observable physical situations. It doesn't work well when applied to metaphysical questions, whether one's metaphysics is physicalism or spiritualism or . . . (name your poison).

You are portraying O's R as something which generates good theories in
certain fields. I think of it as something which constitutes good theories
in every field - something which is part of the definition of what a good
theory is , a criterion of theoretical excellence. So what, in your view, are the
criteria of goodness in metaphysics ? (AFAICS metaphsyicians care at lot about ontological parsimony. It is almost the sole motivation for idealism
and solipsism).

It makes no sense to state that simplicity is universally preferable to complexity. Have you followed any of the debates here by people trying to over-simplify relativity? If something is complex, then it would be moronic to try to make it simple.

Of course explanatory economy needs to be balanced against explanantory breadth. It is always acceptable to add an entity to a theory if you can explain more by doing so. However, in the particular case of non-physicalist
explanations of consciousness, I don't see the benefit. If you declare that
there is a Universal Consciousness Field, then there is still the Hard Problem of
how it interacts with the brain. Physicalism has its own Hard Problem and one less entity.

I am uncommitted, but I am also not going to deny experiences with my own consciousness which do not conform to physicalist theory.

I fail to see how experience alone can deliver a verdict of non-physiciallity.
Surely physicallity is conceptual, a way of thinking about the world. In which case,we have the option of thinking about the material world differently,
rather than heading straight for an appeal to the supernatural.

 

[Tournesol]

The hard problem is that physical principles cannot explain subjective experience, and therefore something more may be required to account for consciousness.

Physical description don't capture exprience. That doesn't mean the brain isn't generating experience, it just means physical descriptions aren't the whole story.

The [physicalist] spin you put on the debate makes it sound like there’s nothing to the issue but figuring out how the brain does it.

The choice seems to be between how the brain 'does it' (generates consc.) ...and how the brain 'does it' (receives or concentrates consc.)

Again, you cannot seem to differentiate between mentality and raw experience.

I am arguing that there is no sharp distinction in th efirst place.

The experience of physical pain—whether it is stimulated by a smack over the head, one’s delusions, or an electrode hooked to the brain—is experience if pain is actually felt. If, on the other hand, a person is imagining pain and not actually feeling it anywhere, then that is mental.

How can you 'imagine' pain without feeling it ? If I imagine a horse -- imageine,as in 'image', ie picture to my self -- surely I have an experience.

Mentality is based on conceptualization, reason, logic, imagination; experience is based on sensitivity . . . two different things. We know this because we have clearly distinguished them for doing science. There is hypothesis and there is observation. They work together, but you cannot substitute one for the other and do science properly.

It's been known for ages that observation is theory-laden.

 

[Tournesol]

The question of "why does experience exist" is not a scientific problem, any more than the question of "why does gravity exist".

Not only is the latter a scientific problem, it has a perfectly good solution,
in GR: gravity exists because acceleration does.

 

[Canute]

Where do I start ? The whole of psychology and neuroscience supports this idea. Every identified aspect of consciousness can be affected by drugs, surger, injusry to the brain etc.

Nobody denies that our states of consciousness are affected by brain events, any more than they deny that central processor states affect the display on computer monitors. But computers don't cause monitors, and there is no evidence that brains cause consciousness. This is the whole problem. If there were evidence then there would be no 'problem of consciousness'.

The only counterargument anyone has is the 'receiver' idea, the idea that the brain just picks up consciousness from somewhere else, and physical interventions affect its ability to do so, not "consciousness itself"

That is not the only counterargument, but it's one of them. I think people who put this argument, and arguments like it, generally say that ordinary human consciousness takes a form which is largely, perhaps almost entirely, determined by brain (or at least is correlated to brain states). But they argue that consciousness itself, in an ontological sense, is something more fundamental than brains. It is not just mystics and meditators who claim this. Colin McGinn, for instance, as 'analytical' a philosopher as one could wish for, suggests that consciousness originates 'prior' to the birth of the universe. Neurophysiologist Karl Pribram opines that "Searching for consciousness in the brain is like digging to the centre of the Earth in search of gravity".

Because it has a simpler ontology. It doesn't require a Universal Consciousness Field that spends millions of years hanging around waiting for a nervous system to manifest in.

I didn't notice anyone suggesting this. You are assuming that consciousness as manifest 'in' nervous systems is an advance on consciousness in a more fundamental state. Generally people who claim that consciousness is fundamental argue that it's the other way around.

If physicist John Wheeler is right then consciousness had to exist at the very birth of the universe. He doesn't find the idea ridiculous or in contravention of Occam's rule of thumb. The reason you find your hypothesis more simple is that you are thinking of just a small part of a much bigger problem. If you relate the problem of the origins of consciousness to the wider problem of the origins of the universe you find that making consciousness fundamental is the simplest solution.

It tells us that the ineffability of qualia is not absolute; in some cases we can make good guesses at them without being exposed to them.

Only if we have been exposed to something like them previously and can make a guess based on analogy. But, as you say, it is a guess. The fact that we can guess what a quale might be like to experience doesn't make qualia effable. Rather, the fact that we are forced to guess shows that they are not.

As solipsism is unfalsifiable then clearly we cannot show that qualia are less real than material objects. Descartes makes this point, that it is possible that material objects do not exist, but not possible that the experiencer of them, at some level, does not.

 

[Tournesol]

Nobody denies that our states of consciousness are affected by brain events, any more than they deny that central processor states affect the display on computer monitors. But computers don't cause monitors, and there is no evidence that brains cause consciousness. This is the whole problem. If there were evidence then there would be no 'problem of consciousness'.

As I stated first time around, you need to take the neurological evidence
in conjunction with Occam's Razor -- it is the simplest explanantion.
Now, the Occam's razor solution isn't necessarily correct . So when you
say "no evidence" what you presumbaly mean is "the evidence isn't conlcusive,
since the simplest explanation may not be the correct one". But it is not
as if anyone else has a conclusive explanation. Everyone else has reasons
that incline them towards one eplanation or another -- evidence, in other words.
And so do physicalists.

That is not the only counterargument, but it's one of them. I think people who put this argument, and arguments like it, generally say that ordinary human consciousness takes a form which is largely, perhaps almost entirely, determined by brain (or at least is correlated to brain states). But they argue that consciousness itself, in an ontological sense, is something more fundamental than brains. It is not just mystics and meditators who claim this. Colin McGinn, for instance, as 'analytical' a philosopher as one could wish for, suggests that consciousness originates 'prior' to the birth of the universe.

Where ? AFAICT he insists that consc. is a natural phenomenon and
rejects panexprientialism.

Neurophysiologist Karl Pribram opines that "Searching for consciousness in the brain is like digging to the centre of the Earth in search of gravity".

And one day I will hear someone give a reason for those ideas, not just a ready made conclusion.

If physicist John Wheeler is right then consciousness had to exist at the very birth of the universe.

He has a crazy idea, but no that one: he thinks consciousness existing now
affects the distant past.

He doesn't find the idea ridiculous or in contravention of Occam's rule of thumb. The reason you find your hypothesis more simple is that you are thinking of just a small part of a much bigger problem. If you relate the problem of the origins of consciousness to the wider problem of the origins of the universe you find that making consciousness fundamental is the simplest solution.

Hmmm...

 

[learningphysics]

Not only is the latter a scientific problem, it has a perfectly good solution,
in GR: gravity exists because acceleration does.

Well, ok. Since GR holds, and since acceleration exists, gravity does.

Now the question becomes:
"Why does GR hold, and why does acceleration exist?"

I think you see what I'm getting at. I can keep asking why.

Scientific laws regarding the nature of experience will have to say something like... "If so and so occurs..., experience will happen"...

Anything more than this... an ultimate explanation (which seems to me what people seeking solutions to the hard problem are looking for), is out of the realm of science.

 

[Tournesol]

I rather suspect explanations with *that* degree of ultimacy are beyond any realm.

 

[learningphysics]

I rather suspect explanations with *that* degree of ultimacy are beyond any realm.

Yes, perhaps. It seems that ultimate explanation is *possible* with regards to mathematics and logic.

 

[Canute]

As I stated first time around, you need to take the neurological evidence in conjunction with Occam's Razor -- it is the simplest explanantion. Now, the Occam's razor solution isn't necessarily correct . So when you say "no evidence" what you presumbaly mean is "the evidence isn't conlcusive,since the simplest explanation may not be the correct one". But it is not as if anyone else has a conclusive explanation. Everyone else has reasons that incline them towards one eplanation or another -- evidence, in other words. And so do physicalists.

When I said 'no evidence' I meant that there is no scientific evidence that brains cause consciousness. There is evidence of an association between brains and consciousness but it can be interpreted in more than one way so does not count as evidence in any particular direction.

Btw, I'm not unaware of current research, and follow the journals to keep an eye on what's new. But so far the evidence doesn't help resolve this issue. This is because evidence of a correlation between brain states and conscious states has no bearing on which causes which, or on whether they are both caused by something else. All three views are current, and the scientific evidence supports each of them equally. This was Descartes's problem, and has led some to even suggest that brain and mind are causally independent but synchronised (by God in some views, by consciousness in others). The issue is still a problem, or one of them.

Also, it is not quite true to say that nobody has an explanation. Rather, scientists do not accept the explanation given by those who study evidence derived from research into experience as opposed to evidence derived from research into other people's brain states, judging it to be 'too subjective' and therefore not 'scientific'. They therefore categorise this explanation as a non-explanation, dismissing it in principle rather than because they have researched into it. They therefore, generally speaking, end up thinking that nobody has yet put forward an explanation.

Where ? AFAICT he insists that consc. is a natural phenomenon and
rejects panexprientialism.

Try a search on 'mysterianism'. To suggest that consciousness is fundamental is not to suggest that it is not a natural phenomenon nor, I think, does it necessarily imply panexperientialism.

And one day I will hear someone give a reason for those ideas, not just a ready made conclusion.

The reasons are not hard to find, they're all over the Western scientific/philosophical literature on consciousness, and have been laid out a zillion times by Eastern philosophers. Are you quite sure that you're not hearing them, or just not listening?

He has a crazy idea, but no that one: he thinks consciousness existing now affects the distant past.

You may think that's crazy, but it's bang in line with what we know of quantum physics, in particular the time-symmetric nature of causation, and the common view in physics that space-time is some sort of illusion.

Hmmm...

Ha. Good response. The idea that consciousness is fundamental makes many people go hmmm, but it is not at all odd, or at least no more odd than the idea that matter is fundamental. However I can understand why you're sceptical. I used to be as well, and have argued at length that it was a ridiculous idea.

However, I wasn't trying to persuade you here that it's true, just pointing out that if it is true then on analysis it allows a very simple explanation of reality to be constructed. Because of this the idea cannot be dismissed by reference to Occam, only by reference to the evidence.

According to scientific experts that evidence is ambiguous. According to others, Les Sleeth for instance, and a couple of millenias worth of other people who have taken an introspective as well as an 'extrospective' approach to researching the nature of consciousness and reality, the evidence is perfectly clear, self-evident in fact, but takes a bit of time and practice to uncover. Whether true or false this is not a claim that can simply be dismissed out of hand, but only by reason or evidence.

 

[StatusX]

Here's a couple more ideas I had. First, if you don't believe in qualia, then reincarnation is a fundamentally incoherent idea to you. If you can imagine reincarnation being possible, then you see what we mean by qualia, that there is an inner experiencing being independent of the physical body. (call it a soul if you want, but it doesn't have to go to heaven, and I doubt it would exist in any form after death).

Second, imagine two universes. One "exists" in the same sense that our universe exists (don't worry if you think this is vauge, that will be my point). The second is just a hypothetical universe some scientist has thought up. Neither of these universes contain any experiencing beings. Is there any possible way in which the first can be considered more real than the second? Is existence a meaningful concept in the absence of experience? Are qualia just the manifestation of that extra posit in physics that "this is all real"? Interestingly (and unintentionally) this makes the wording of the title of this thread more significant: Is "real" just "experienced"?

 

[Les Sleeth]

Is existence a meaningful concept in the absence of experience? Are qualia just the manifestation of that extra posit in physics that "this is all real"? Interestingly (and unintentionally) this makes the wording of the title of this thread more significant: Is "real" just "experienced"?

Personally I don't think experience has anything to do with the existence of something else. Things/conditions exist whether anyone is conscious of them or not, but the only reason that is known is because experience also exists. So experience is about knowing existence, IMO.

 

[Les Sleeth]

I am arguing that there is no sharp distinction in the first place . . . How can you 'imagine' pain without feeling it ? If I imagine a horse -- imagine,as in 'image', ie picture to my self -- surely I have an experience. . . . It's been known for ages that observation is theory-laden.

I don't have much hope we will ever agree mainly because of your above view, which seems to be that mentality and experience are the same thing (I've admitted mentality is an experience). I'll make one more attempt to argue they are entirely different.

It is true that when you imagine or think, you have an experience because not only is a thought or image present in your mind, you are also aware there is an image there. It's the "you" that makes it a conscious experience. If there was no internal "subject" to be aware the image -- like, say, the way a television has an image -- then it isn't conscious.

In your example of imagining a horse, the image is one thing and your internal awareness of it is another, but in any case, if there is no actual horse there to experience, then you are experiencing your imagination and not a horse. In the example of pain, if you imagine it then as long as you don't feel pain, then you are having an experience of imagination, not pain. Once you feel pain somewhere you are also experiencing pain. I say, it is the sensitivity of consciousness that allows experience, whether the input comes from thoughts, imaginings, the senses, etc., and the presence of a self

I have a little theory that one reason for the differences you and I are having is due to what kind of experience we each rely on most to know reality. If one relies primarily on the intellect, what is the primary source of one's experience? It is the intellect, which has been conditioned, can't stop thinking (i.e., and so is not under control), full of bias and opinion . . . In my view that person is not spending enough time viewing reality without the intellectual filters.

Another option for experience is to just be in the moment of reality, and to keep one's mind more quiet so one can experience reality as it is instead of how one's mind wants to present it.

So who is better set up to know reality? The person devoted to experiencing his own mind, or the person devoted to experiencing reality as it is and keeping mind out of the way?

 

[StatusX]

Personally I don't think experience has anything to do with the existence of something else. Things/conditions exist whether anyone is conscious of them or not, but the only reason that is known is because experience also exists. So experience is about knowing existence, IMO.

What about non-cognitive experience? If that exists, it isn't about knowing, it's purely about being. Also, this would make a consciousness-causes-collapse interpretation of QM more natural.

 

[learningphysics]

the being that is having experience

The real "irreducible" problem seems to me not that experience does happen... I believe we'll have better and better correlations between brain states and experience... states of matter and experience in the future. I'm willing to say that matter can create experience.

But I'm not willing to say that matter can create a being that is capable of having experience. For every experience there is the matter of the experience, and there is the subject. What is the nature of this subject? Is it matter? Is there a subject at all? I believe it exists, many would say no.

 

[Les Sleeth]

What about non-cognitive experience? If that exists, it isn't about knowing, it's purely about being. Also, this would make a consciousness-causes-collapse interpretation of QM more natural.

I've been following some of the discussion about that here, but I personally don't believe non-congitive experience makes sense. Without subjective awareness I wouldn't call it experience because then we've just messed up the meaning of experience. Maybe there are proto-experience conditions or parallels in reality, but I'd call them something else to preserve the definition of experience.

I also am not convinced it's consciousness that's causing the collapse, but rather some way we are physically intruding when we observe (I like the carrier wave theory myself). But even if it is consciousness that causes it, I don't see how that implies non-cognitive experience. It could simply mean that under certain condtions, experience can result in physical consequences.

 

[Tournesol]

Yes, perhaps. It seems that ultimate explanation is *possible* with regards to mathematics and logic.

I don't see how either maths or logic can explain the *real* existence
of anything, and I don't see how either can said to be ultimate when they depned on axioms.

 

[Les Sleeth]

The real "irreducible" problem seems to me not that experience does happen... I believe we'll have better and better correlations between brain states and experience... states of matter and experience in the future. I'm willing to say that matter can create experience.

But I'm not willing to say that matter can create a being that is capable of having experience. For every experience there is the matter of the experience, and there is the subject. What is the nature of this subject? Is it matter? Is there a subject at all? I believe it exists, many would say no.

That's an interesting way to outline the problem. I am not quite sure I understand what you mean by "matter can create experience." Do you mean avenues for stimulating experience, such as the senses, or physical data that is experienced?

See, I can't understand how there can be experience without the being. The being is what creates subjectivity, and subjective awareness is the definition of experience. Now, if you are talking about particular types of experience such as sound or sight, etc., rather than the actual state of "experiencing" then I agree matter generates experiences. I also don't think the brain is generating the experiencing being.

 

[Tournesol]

When I said 'no evidence' I meant that there is no scientific evidence that brains cause consciousness. There is evidence of an association between brains and consciousness but it can be interpreted in more than one way so does not count as evidence in any particular direction.

Yes it does in conjunction with Occam's razor. Of course nothing
counts as evidence for anything without some theoretical assumptions
in the backgorund.

Btw, I'm not unaware of current research, and follow the journals to keep an eye on what's new. But so far the evidence doesn't help resolve this issue. This is because evidence of a correlation between brain states and conscious states has no bearing on which causes which, or on whether they are both caused by something else.

Considerations of theoretical simplicity and consitency weigh strongly in favour
of mind states being identical with or caused by brain states. Do not confuse
the fact that a question is open with the idea that all options are equally likely.

All three views are current, and the scientific evidence supports each of them equally. This was Descartes's problem, and has led some to even suggest that brain and mind are causally independent but synchronised (by God in some views, by consciousness in others). The issue is still a problem, or one of them.

Also, it is not quite true to say that nobody has an explanation. Rather, scientists do not accept the explanation given by those who study evidence derived from research into experience as opposed to evidence derived from research into other people's brain states, judging it to be 'too subjective' and therefore not 'scientific'.

Can you point me to what they about how an immaterial consciousness ineteracts with a physical brain ?

They therefore, generally speaking, end up thinking that nobody has yet put forward an explanation.

I keep asking for explanations (as opposed to claims) and not getting them.

Try a search on 'mysterianism'.

McGinn's mysterianism is the claim that consciousness is natural but bwyond
our ability to understand.

The reasons are not hard to find, they're all over the Western scientific/philosophical literature on consciousness, and have been laid out a zillion times by Eastern philosophers. Are you quite sure that you're not hearing them, or just not listening?

I have read a many versions of dualism, idealism, panexperientialism, etc,
and obviously I don't find them convincing. If you can settle
on a version and put up a defence for it, fine.

You may think that's crazy, but it's bang in line with what we know of quantum physics,

We don't know what the correct interpretation of QM is, and the
idea that consciousness has somehting to do with it is based
on clearly identifiable errors.

in particular the time-symmetric nature of causation,

That is one theory. One of the better ones in my view, but Wheeler's
theory requires backwards causation AND miraculous consciousness.

and the common view in physics that space-time is some sort of illusion.

No, that is not a common view.

The idea that consciousness is fundamental makes many people go hmmm, but it is not at all odd, or at least no more odd than the idea that matter is fundamental.

it odder, because a) matter has clearly always been around and consc.
has not b) we know of oodles of things which are material but not
conscious, and have no clear evidence of anything that is consc. but not material.

However, I wasn't trying to persuade you here that it's true, just pointing out that if it is true then on analysis it allows a very simple explanation of reality to be constructed. Because of this the idea cannot be dismissed by reference to Occam, only by reference to the evidence.

Without Occam, the evidence supports an infinity of theories.

 

[learningphysics]

That's an interesting way to outline the problem. I am not quite sure I understand what you mean by "matter can create experience." Do you mean avenues for stimulating experience, such as the senses, or physical data that is experienced?

See, I can't understand how there can be experience without the being. The being is what creates subjectivity, and subjective awareness is the definition of experience. Now, if you are talking about particular types of experience such as sound or sight, etc., rather than the actual state of "experiencing" then I agree matter generates experiences. I also don't think the brain is generating the experiencing being.

I think we are in agreement. The Buddhist concept of "no-self" is mainly what I was thinking of when I mentioned people who'd say there was no being. Also Hume.

Their argument seems to be that within the content of experience there is no being that is seen, or at least nothing that can be called "self". If the self is not within sense-data then how do we know it exists? (This is not me asking, but the type of argument I've seen put forward).

It seems obvious to me that experience necessarily has a subject, because of the "nature" of experience. And it obviously cannot be within sense-data because it is what is experiencing the sense-data. There are things we can be certain of, even if they are not "sensed".

 

[Les Sleeth]

I think we are in agreement. The Buddhist concept of "no-self" is mainly what I was thinking of when I mentioned people who'd say there was no being. Also Hume.

Their argument seems to be that within the content of experience there is no being that is seen, or at least nothing that can be called "self". If the self is not within sense-data then how do we know it exists? (This is not me asking, but the type of argument I've seen put forward).

It seems obvious to me that experience necessarily has a subject, because of the "nature" of experience. And it obviously cannot be within sense-data because it is what is experiencing the sense-data. There are things we can be certain of, even if they are not "sensed".

Nicely reasoned. I'd add that those who ask the question "if the self is not within sense-data then how do we know it exists" do so because they've not explored the consciousness potential of inner experience. If they have success with that, then they will know that experience isn't dependent on the senses.

 

[StatusX]

Here's a test for those of you who don't believe in qualia, related to what I said before about reincarnation.

The most likely way a teleportation device would work would be to scan every atom in our body, destroy us, and create a physically identical body at another location. I, for one, would never use such a machine, and I doubt many would. But if you really believe we are nothing more than our physical bodies, then you should have no qualms about being destroyed and recreated. Where as I would be afraid that I'd no longer be "looking out through the eyes" of this new body (think about what would happen if the original body wasn't destroyed), such a fear would be absurd and meaningless to you. So, would you do it?

 

[learningphysics]

Here's a test for those of you who don't believe in qualia, related to what I said before about reincarnation.

The most likely way a teleportation device would work would be to scan every atom in our body, destroy us, and create a physically identical body at another location. I, for one, would never use such a machine, and I doubt many would. But if you really believe we are nothing more than our physical bodies, then you should have no qualms about being destroyed and recreated. Where as I would be afraid that I'd no longer be "looking out through the eyes" of this new body (think about what would happen if the original body wasn't destroyed), such a fear would be absurd and meaningless to you. So, would you do it?

Actually it seems that if you believe we are no more than our physical bodies, you'd be even more afraid of going into a transporter. Since it is definitely a new physical body, not the same one as before... then by definition (if we define a person as the physical body) the original person is destroyed (original physical body is destroyed) and a new one is created (new physical body with new atoms).

 

[StatusX]

Actually it seems that if you believe we are no more than our physical bodies, you'd be even more afraid of going into a transporter. Since it is definitely a new physical body, not the same one as before... then by definition (if we define a person as the physical body) the original person is destroyed (original physical body is destroyed) and a new one is created (new physical body with new atoms).

If an exact copy is created, nothing will have changed except your position. There is no meaningful physical difference between two identical atoms. What would they have to be afraid of, if they were guaranteed everything would go as planned? On the other hand, if you believed there was some non-physical essence that wasn't being transferred, you would be afraid to use it.

 

[learningphysics]

If an exact copy is created, nothing will have changed except your position. There is no meaningful physical difference between two identical atoms. What would they have to be afraid of, if they were guaranteed everything would go as planned? On the other hand, if you believed there was some non-physical essence that wasn't being transferred, you would be afraid to use it.

What if an exact copy was created and the original wasn't destroyed? If there is no non-physical essense, what happens?

 

[StatusX]

What if an exact copy was created and the original wasn't destroyed? If there is no non-physical essense, what happens?

I don't know, but how does this affect the question? The point is that if a person is no more than their physical body, then there is nothing wrong with destroying that body and then recreating it exactly as it was before. The person would not report any changes, except that they are now in a new location. Heterophenomenolgy would have to say this is the same person. A physicalist should have no problem using a teleporter.

 

[loseyourname]

Here's a test for those of you who don't believe in qualia, related to what I said before about reincarnation.

The most likely way a teleportation device would work would be to scan every atom in our body, destroy us, and create a physically identical body at another location. I, for one, would never use such a machine, and I doubt many would. But if you really believe we are nothing more than our physical bodies, then you should have no qualms about being destroyed and recreated. Where as I would be afraid that I'd no longer be "looking out through the eyes" of this new body (think about what would happen if the original body wasn't destroyed), such a fear would be absurd and meaningless to you. So, would you do it?

I wouldn't have any trouble doing it. Even if you believe, as you do, that consciousness is somehow linked to the intrinsic base of the physical, why should you have any qualms? Intrinsically, the physical stuff should still be the same as well, and hence you should continue to be the same experiencing subject, whether you are a physicalist or not. The only hypothesis that would have you as a potentially different person is the soul hypothesis, which you've never seemed to subscribe to. (Although it is worth pointing out that, even under the soul hypothesis, your soul can presumably find its way back to your physical body in the same manner it found its way there in the first place.)

 

[StatusX]

I wouldn't have any trouble doing it. Even if you believe, as you do, that consciousness is somehow linked to the intrinsic base of the physical, why should you have any qualms? Intrinsically, the physical stuff should still be the same as well, and hence you should continue to be the same experiencing subject, whether you are a physicalist or not. The only hypothesis that would have you as a potentially different person is the soul hypothesis, which you've never seemed to subscribe to. (Although it is worth pointing out that, even under the soul hypothesis, your soul can presumably find its way back to your physical body in the same manner it found its way there in the first place.)

The problem I have, as mentioned above, is what would happen if the original wasn't destroyed? There is no reason you would stop experiencing from the original body and switch over to the new one. So why should you switch when the original is destroyed. Of course, this presupposes the existence of an inner experiencing being. But it's interesting to note that the mind-body problem could actually have some practical applications. We'll want to know exactly how our experiences ground themselves in our physical brains before we hop in a teleporter.

 

[Tournesol]

I don't have much hope we will ever agree mainly because of your above view, which seems to be that mentality and experience are the same thing (I've admitted mentality is an experience). I'll make one more attempt to argue they are entirely different.

I am not arguing that phenomenallity and cognition and consciousness are
all identical; I am trying to urge against characterising qualia in terms of absolutes
(absolutely ineffeable, incorrigible, private, etc) since a) it's not true and b) it plays straight into
the hands of qulai-denyers like Dennett.

It is true that when you imagine or think, you have an experience because not only is a thought or image present in your mind, you are also aware there is an image there.

Or at least there is some awareness.

It's the "you" that makes it a conscious experience.

Or the experience itself.

If there was no internal "subject" to be aware the image -- like, say, the way a television has an image -- then it isn't conscious.

This 'homuncular' or 'Cartesian Theatre' image is also a) ill-supported and b) a gift
to consciousness-denyers.

I have a little theory that one reason for the differences you and I are having is due to what kind of experience we each rely on most to know reality. If one relies primarily on the intellect, what is the primary source of one's experience? It is the intellect, which has been conditioned, can't stop thinking (i.e., and so is not under control), full of bias and opinion . . . In my view that person is not spending enough time viewing reality without the intellectual filters.

Well, if the metaphysics of mind is such that thoughts and ideas are barriers
to awareness, and without them we become omniscient, then that might work.

OTOH, if the metaphysics of mind is such that thoughts and ideas are all we have to work with and without them we are as helpless as newborn infants, then it won't.

Another option for experience is to just be in the moment of reality, and to keep one's mind more quiet so one can experience reality as it is instead of how one's mind wants to present it.

And this allows one to experience reality as it is in itself...or is one just experiencing one's own experience.

So who is better set up to know reality? The person devoted to experiencing his own mind, or the person devoted to experiencing reality as it is and keeping mind out of the way?

Or the person experiencing whatever their limited, finites self is capable of experiencing, and making the bold, if unconsicous, assumption that they are in possesion of the complete picture.

 

[learningphysics]

I don't know, but how does this affect the question? The point is that if a person is no more than their physical body, then there is nothing wrong with destroying that body and then recreating it exactly as it was before. The person would not report any changes, except that they are now in a new location. Heterophenomenolgy would have to say this is the same person. A physicalist should have no problem using a teleporter.

Well, I'd think there were some physicalists who would hold that one atom "is" significantly different from another.

Anyway. It seems like there are a variety of positions. From the thread and off the top of my head:

A. No experiencing beings.
Impossible to create or destroy anyone. However, for me anyway, it contradicts my primal intuition of experience.

B. There is an experiencing being
1) The being is something physical.
a) The being is literally his atoms. Any change in the set of atoms
yields a new person. With this view, a transporter recreation would
be a new person. Copying yields no paradox. However, this view
implies that persons are continually destroyed and created as atoms
are replaced.
b) The person arises as a result of some physical process - an
epiphenomenon of some type. As long as the process remains, the
person remains. Transporter recreation would be the same person.
Copying yields a paradox.
2) The being is non-physical (soul), linked to the physical body. Here it is
unknown what will happen when you destroy and recreate the physical
body. If the link is reestablished, the person is resurrected in the new
physical body. Copying presumably creates a new person with the new
body linked to a different soul. Or maybe it is a physical process in the
body that creates the link. If two bodies have identical processes maybe
they share the same soul, like a time-sharing process in a computer
network.

 

[Billy T]

I wouldn't have any trouble doing it. Even if you believe, as you do, that consciousness is somehow linked to the intrinsic base of the physical, why should you have any qualms? Intrinsically, the physical stuff should still be the same as well, and hence you should continue to be the same experiencing subject, whether you are a physicalist or not. The only hypothesis that would have you as a potentially different person is the soul hypothesis...

Not true that the soul is the only reason why one should hesitate before stepping into the teleporter. I am referrring to my concept (attachment to post 1 of thread "What Price Free Will") of what i am am. Namely informtion, not matter, in a parietal simulation. The matter pass thru the teleported, ok, but what about the information. This information is not the nature and location of each atom, not even the individual barrions and leptons. Let me give you an example: Let's teleport a computer, not one just out of the box, but one that is currently busy processing "information". Most of it will get thru fine, with each transistor in an off or on state (assuming it has only two states) but what about the current (rate of electron flow) in some of the wires that are being charged up to inititiate the state change of a transistior they will soon switch. (If you must think in terms of a clocked computer, consider that the next clock cycle is just starting, but no transitor state has yet changed and no two change at exactly the same time within the clock cycle.) That is your teleport must not only get every material object (electrons, etc.) correctly located, but also repoduce their speeds down the various printed circuity "wires."

In the attachment referred to, (and the original JHU paper on which it is based) I postulate a "biological uncertainity principle" which in essence states that the more precisely the state of brain cells are measured, the more the results of the measurement have changed the premeasurement state. If this is true (and hard to imagine it is not in brains even a small fraction as complex as human ones) Then your physical body is going to teleport just fine, but you will be modified in the processs, even if every barrion and lepton is in just the correct place.

PS to Tournesol: I not sure I fully uderstood your Post 99, but think there I agree with you. We have been going at it so strongly in the "Time does not exist - Math Proof" thread that I thought I should say this. Also note it is not fair to use my above reference to time against me there.

 

[loseyourname]

Not true that the soul is the only reason why one should hesitate before stepping into the teleporter. I am referrring to my concept (attachment to post 1 of thread "What Price Free Will") of what i am am. Namely informtion, not matter, in a parietal simulation. The matter pass thru the teleported, ok, but what about the information. This information is not the nature and location of each atom, not even the individual barrions and leptons. Let me give you an example: Let's teleport a computer, not one just out of the box, but one that is currently busy processing "information". Most of it will get thru fine, with each transistor in an off or on state (assuming it has only two states) but what about the current (rate of electron flow) in some of the wires that are being charged up to inititiate the state change of a transistior they will soon switch.

Current is only a matter of the sum properties of individual electrons, all of which is preserved in an exact copy. If the copy is indeed exact, then it should be dynamically exact, not statically exact, and any information should be preserved.

To StatusX, I don't see a paradox. There would then be two of you. Each has an equal claim to the name and past of one StatusX. That doesn't mean they will share the same future of the same future experiences, but they will have exactly the same past. One person split into two. What's the big deal?

 

[StatusX]

To StatusX, I don't see a paradox. There would then be two of you. Each has an equal claim to the name and past of one StatusX. That doesn't mean they will share the same future of the same future experiences, but they will have exactly the same past. One person split into two. What's the big deal?

I know we don't see eye to eye on qualia, but I think you are underestimating the problem here. Imagine it is done this way. First, an exact copy of you is created, but you aren't told. For all you know, this could have already happened; there is no reason to believe it would affect your experience in any way. Now you are destroyed. What happens? You die. There is no teleportation. There is a copy that goes on to live your life, and you just die. You would really have no problem with this?

This, reincarnation, the "Why am I me and not someone else?" problem. They are all very similar. They refer to the existence of an inner experiencing being that could logically (ie, it is a priori conceivable) inhabit different bodies. Basically a soul, without the religious connotations. Do you find any of these ideas coherent? I'm not sure if this is the same as the qualia problem. Maybe someone who knows more about this can offer a better explanation of what I'm talking about.

 

[Steve Esser]

Sorry for the late response to the original question. I'll try to catch up the recent posts soon. But, FWIW:

With regard to qualia: I vote no, but for a different reason than others. After all, I believe first person experience is a fundamental part of nature, which is not completely reducible to a third-person account of the concurrent brain states. However, describing the contents of experience as qualia only seems to lead to confusion. It continues a long tradition of separating thing into the ways they seem to us and the way they really are, implicitly adopting a Cartesian split into two substances. It inappropriately implies a static notion of what is actually an activity. Our experience is a process of direct engagement as a system embedded in its environment. While humans have developed a cognitive capacity to reflect on our experiences, this often leads to a misleading account of them (other examples abound, including the Libet experiments in the other thread).

 

[learningphysics]

Current is only a matter of the sum properties of individual electrons, all of which is preserved in an exact copy. If the copy is indeed exact, then it should be dynamically exact, not statically exact, and any information should be preserved.

To StatusX, I don't see a paradox. There would then be two of you. Each has an equal claim to the name and past of one StatusX. That doesn't mean they will share the same future of the same future experiences, but they will have exactly the same past. One person split into two. What's the big deal?

Is there a being having an experience? After the split, where is this being?

Bodies can split into two... matter can split into two... but the experiencing being... how can it split into two? It appears to me that if neither of the two beings after the split is the original being, then the original is dead.