Is Consciousness an Emergent Property of a Master Algorithm?

[confutatis]

We seem to disagree about what 'red,' in general usage, means. Your position seems to identify red with the scientific concept of 'light of 600nm,' or at least characterizes it in the same spirit, insofar as you have claimed that red is a purely linguistic (extrinsic) concept and does not refer to perceptual experiences-- that red is exhaustively characterized by its relationships with other things. I claim that 'red' refers to the phenomenal aspect (which may vary from person to person), which is intrinsic and hence is not exhaustively characterized not by its relationships with other things-- there is something about red above and beyond its extrinsic relationships, some inherent property.

I don't dispute there's some inherent property to the things you perceive as red, I just disagree that that's what the word 'red' refers to. There's a subtle issue here which I think you're failing to contemplate.

Suppose you experience a certain color in your dreams. It's a color like no other, so you can't describe what it is. You can't tell someone that the color in your dreams is like this or that object. But you can still talk about it! You can give the dream-color a name, say, unga, and tell me that in your dreams some people have unga eyes, that the sky looks unga when it's about to snow, that nothing is sexier than a woman wearing an unga dress, and so on. The more you talk about unga to me, the more meaning I will ascribe to the word, despite the fact that I have no experience of it whatsoever.

The subtle issue I think you are missing is this: for you unga means the color you experience in your dreams, but to me it's only a language token whose meaning is defined by its association with other tokens. You think the color you experience is equivalent to the meaning of the word, but the fact that I know the meaning without knowing the experience implies they can't possibly the same thing. The reason you think they are the same is simply because you have given the same linguistic token for two different things. You learn facts about 'red', and you have this subjective experience you choose to call "red", but 'red' has as much to do with "red" as 'spirit' (as in 'vodka is a spirit') has to do with 'spirit' (as in 'the spirit of the times').

The fact alone that you must refer to "my subjective experience of red" as something different from "the color of stop signs" betrays the fact that you think of them as being different things. It's just that the fact that you call "my subjective experience of red" 'red', and "the color of stop signs" also 'red' confuses you.

On this view, people agree as to what is red on the basis of the common causal chain precipitating their phenomenal experiences. Basically, I am saying that one's language refers directly to one's phenomenal experiences, but that in public usage the only common element among such experiences that is available for comparison (and hence available for discussion) is the underlying structural/functional causal chain leading up to those experiences.

A better way to say it is that there are two languages, one spoken by you and you only, and the other spoken by everyone, including yourself. To some extent they intersect, but for the most part they don't. Just look at this forum!

 

[hypnagogue]

The subtle issue I think you are missing is this: for you unga means the color you experience in your dreams, but to me it's only a language token whose meaning is defined by its association with other tokens. You think the color you experience is equivalent to the meaning of the word, but the fact that I know the meaning without knowing the experience implies they can't possibly the same thing. The reason you think they are the same is simply because you have given the same linguistic token for two different things.

You don't know the entire meaning. You don't know all there is to know about unga. I know something about unga that you don't; namely, what it looks like. Your understanding of unga is a subset of all there is to understand about the entire concept; specifically, you only know the functional aspects associated with unga, and not the intrinsic aspect.

The fact alone that you must refer to "my subjective experience of red" as something different from "the color of stop signs" betrays the fact that you think of them as being different things. It's just that the fact that you call "my subjective experience of red" 'red', and "the color of stop signs" also 'red' confuses you.

I think of them as separate things, yes. I already pointed this out, but perhaps not clearly enough: 'red' as in 'the color of stop signs' is a public usage meaning something like science's 'light with wavelength 600nm.' Strictly speaking, this is not a color at all, and is not to be confused with the phenomenally perceived color that one labels 'red.'

In essence it appears as if we agree. I hold that the word red has a dual aspect of reference. Any given person's personal concept of redness is diretcly associated with whatever this[/color] looks like to that person. But when 'red' is used publically, as in a discourse between two people, it can only refer to associated functional aspects (600nm light), which is not the same thing as (although causally related to) this[/color]. I think where we part is that I take the personal understanding of 'red' to be red's primary referent, and the public reference to 600nm light as something of an accidental consequence owing to our inability to directly perceive each other's subjective experiences, whereas you seem to take an inverted stance on red's primary referent.

 

[confutatis]

You don't know the entire meaning. You don't know all there is to know about unga. I know something about unga that you don't; namely, what it looks like. Your understanding of unga is a subset of all there is to understand about the entire concept; specifically, you only know the functional aspects associated with unga, and not the intrinsic aspect.

Well, everything you said about my understanding of 'unga' is true about your understanding of 'red'. You didn't invent the word, so all you (and I) know about it is perfectly equivalent to what I would know about 'unga': nothing except its functional aspects. Exactly what is standing in our way of accepting that the intrinsic aspect is irrelevant to the meaning of the word?

In essence it appears as if we agree.

Could be. It's hard to tell sometimes.

I hold that the word red has a dual aspect of reference.

I hold that one of the aspects matters, the other doesn't. We need the functional aspect to communicate, and that's what words are for. But we don't need to think about the intrinsic aspect of the concept, as it has no effect on our perception of the word.

In essence I think that is the most important point: it doesn't matter what words refer to mean, because they may refer to different things for different people. Truth is not in the intrinsic aspect of the language, because that aspect is not communicable. Truth is in relationships.

I think where we part is that I take the personal understanding of 'red' to be red's primary referent, and the public reference to 600nm light as something of an accidental consequence owing to our inability to directly perceive each other's subjective experiences, whereas you seem to take an inverted stance on red's primary referent.

I feel forced to take the inverted stance because, if we could directly perceive each other's subjective experiences, then language as we know it could not exist. First, because the differences between public and private referent would become clear for everyone to see. And second, because we wouldn't need language in the first place; communication would be done by transferring thoughts, and that would bring about world peace and who knows what else.

Rumour has it that's exactly how people communicate in heaven. I'm sure it must be.

 

[hypnagogue]

Well, everything you said about my understanding of 'unga' is true about your understanding of 'red'. You didn't invent the word, so all you (and I) know about it is perfectly equivalent to what I would know about 'unga': nothing except its functional aspects. Exactly what is standing in our way of accepting that the intrinsic aspect is irrelevant to the meaning of the word?

Suppose for some reason that tomorrow your phenomenal perception of red and green switch, so that stop signs look this color[/color] and grass looks this color[/color]. Will you go on happily referring to red stop signs? I suspect that, at least at first, you would go on wondering about who painted all the stop signs green and why the grass turned red. Eventually, you might adjust and just come to switch the labels, calling this[/color] (as perceived by you) red and this[/color] (as perceived by you) green, and after some time you would speak of colors in a fashion indistinguishable from the way you did originally. But your internal perceptions of these colors would not be indistinguishable-- you, personally, could easily tell the difference between what 'red' used to mean to you and what it means to you now. Hence, the meaning of the word has changed for you on the basis of its changed intrinsic aspect, and so the intrinsic aspect must indeed carry some substantial weight in your personal conception of the word.

I hold that one of the aspects matters, the other doesn't. We need the functional aspect to communicate, and that's what words are for. But we don't need to think about the intrinsic aspect of the concept, as it has no effect on our perception of the word.

The intrinsic aspect is what the functional aspects are anchored in. If the intrinsic aspects change, then the functional aspects change as well, at least until you re-callibrate your language so that it once again fits in with the way everyone else uses it.

In essence I think that is the most important point: it doesn't matter what words refer to mean, because they may refer to different things for different people. Truth is not in the intrinsic aspect of the language, because that aspect is not communicable. Truth is in relationships.

I agree that it is this way for language as it is used publically. The truth in the publically agreed upon statement "That stop sign is red" lies in the stop sign's functional/relational properties. But I also think we can sensibly speak of truth in a purely private sense. I may never know the truth about what you are personally experiencing, but surely you do.

I feel forced to take the inverted stance because, if we could directly perceive each other's subjective experiences, then language as we know it could not exist.

I agree, but I don't think this requires us to think of the functional aspects of language as primary, eg what the words mean/refer to in the first instance of one's own personal conception of them.

 

[confutatis]

Suppose for some reason that tomorrow your phenomenal perception of red and green switch, so that stop signs look this color[/color] and grass looks this color[/color]. Will you go on happily referring to red stop signs? I suspect that, at least at first, you would go on wondering about who painted all the stop signs green and why the grass turned red. Eventually, you might adjust and just come to switch the labels...

Well, I don't think that's exactly how people react. Because you were convinced that red is this[/color], you will insist that something happened to the world which caused stop signs to change color. Not only that, the neurological glitch would probably be interpreted as some event of cosmic significance. Trust me, I've read enough about people who undergo what are essentially similar experiences, and they all react the same way.

I once read a book, I believe it was by Charles Tart, in which the author was describing the dilemma of understanding drug experiences from a rational point of view. As you probably know, people who take hallucinogens usually go bananas after their experience, and start talking about things that make no sense at all. The interesting thing the book describes is the dilemma: the best way to understand what a subjective experience really is is to have it yourself. As you would say, the best way to know what 'red' is is to experience it. However, in the case with hallucinogens, no scientist who takes it as a matter of research fails to go bananas just like any of his subjects. Upon returning from his "trip" he suddenly loses interest in the subject, and starts pursuing cosmic things.

(as I wrote that I just realized that we may be no different: our experience of 'red' stands in our way of understanding 'red' from a rational perspective, or at least makes us lose interest in the subject. Certainly blind people are far more interested in learning about colors than we are)

I may never know the truth about what you are personally experiencing, but surely you do.

No, I surely don't know the truth about my experiences, because that truth is tainted by several things beyond my awareness and my power to control.

I don't think this requires us to think of the functional aspects of language as primary, eg what the words mean/refer to in the first instance of one's own personal conception of them.

At one point in your life all you had to go by were the functional aspects. You certainly were not born speaking English. As a child, all your parents and everyone around you ever give you are the functional aspects, and you have to figure out the intrinsic aspects for yourself. However, that process does not last too long and by the time you are an adult you no longer care about new functional/structural aspects. Everything you hear that you fail to make sense of gets chalked up as "nonsense". (by 'you' I mean any person; I'm not immune to that myself)

So our language is tainted by the individual hues each speaker adds to it, as they fail to make sense of existing concepts and add their own personal interpretation to them. It's no wonder we ended up with such a mess.

 

[hypnagogue]

Well, I don't think that's exactly how people react. Because you were convinced that red is this[/color], you will insist that something happened to the world which caused stop signs to change color. Not only that, the neurological glitch would probably be interpreted as some event of cosmic significance. Trust me, I've read enough about people who undergo what are essentially similar experiences, and they all react the same way.

That's a possibility but I don't think it would have to happen that way. If a person wasn't driven insane by such an occurence, eventually he would have to start referring to stop signs as red just to get on in the world. After a while, this reference would not become effortful but reflexive, and so red would come to mean a new thing to him, something distinct from what he knew to be red beforehand even though externally there is no distinction to be drawn in his language before and some time after his color-swapping incident.

I once read a book, I believe it was by Charles Tart, in which the author was describing the dilemma of understanding drug experiences from a rational point of view. As you probably know, people who take hallucinogens usually go bananas after their experience, and start talking about things that make no sense at all. The interesting thing the book describes is the dilemma: the best way to understand what a subjective experience really is is to have it yourself. As you would say, the best way to know what 'red' is is to experience it. However, in the case with hallucinogens, no scientist who takes it as a matter of research fails to go bananas just like any of his subjects. Upon returning from his "trip" he suddenly loses interest in the subject, and starts pursuing cosmic things.

That's a pretty strong claim. I do know what you're talking about, as I saw several speakers involved with psychedelics at the Tuscon conference of consciousness who did appear to be 'bananas.' But there were also several who remained quite grounded, at least as far as one could tell from their talks. I personally know people who are perfectly well grounded and 'normal' (not bananas or 'out there') despite extensive experience with psychedelics. I have experience myself but I think I'm as perfectly rational as I was beforehand, and certainly I'm not bananas (or would you disagree? ).

(as I wrote that I just realized that we may be no different: our experience of 'red' stands in our way of understanding 'red' from a rational perspective, or at least makes us lose interest in the subject. Certainly blind people are far more interested in learning about colors than we are)

Here's the rub. We can't fully comprehend red without experiencing it. Or rather, I can't fully comprehend what red means to me if I neglect what this[/color] looks like to me, and likewise you can't fully comprehend what red means to you if you neglect what this[/color] looks like to you. If we want to be more general we can say that the concept of color cannot be fully understood in the absence of some sort of visual subjective experience to be systematically associated with the linguistic usage of the word, and from this it follows that blind people cannot fully understand color (though they can fully understand properties of photons and the like).

If studying red from a rational perspective means only studying its functional aspects, then it follows that a rational perspective cannot fully grasp this[/color] (neither as it looks to me, nor as it looks to you, nor as it looks to anybody). But I wouldn't characterize it this way; we can attempt to come to a rational understanding of red and simultaneously acknowledge our phenomenal experiences of redness, and indeed that is much of what philosophy of mind is all about. The experience of phenomenal redness may present a formidable challenge in understanding red, but it doesn't necessarily preclude us from understanding it-- we just have to be careful in our reasoning.

No, I surely don't know the truth about my experiences, because that truth is tainted by several things beyond my awareness and my power to control.

You know your experiences seem a certain way to you. Whatever tainting factors you can imagine can only influence the way your experiences appear to you, but your experiences just are these assorted appearances. So it can't be that such factors stand in the way of your knowing your experiences. If I have an illusion as of a 3D necker cube, then I may be misled about the truth of the nature of cube (it is actually flat) but I'm not wrong about the experience (it really does appear to be 3D to me).

At one point in your life all you had to go by were the functional aspects. You certainly were not born speaking English. As a child, all your parents and everyone around you ever give you are the functional aspects, and you have to figure out the intrinsic aspects for yourself. However, that process does not last too long and by the time you are an adult you no longer care about new functional/structural aspects. Everything you hear that you fail to make sense of gets chalked up as "nonsense". (by 'you' I mean any person; I'm not immune to that myself)

So our language is tainted by the individual hues each speaker adds to it, as they fail to make sense of existing concepts and add their own personal interpretation to them. It's no wonder we ended up with such a mess.

We may be approaching a chicken/egg issue here. How did language start? It certainly didn't start in the way you correctly assess its current status, or else it would have to have been a 'given' and not something created entirely by humans. The first person to come up with a word for 'red' surely meant by that word his experience of this[/color]. It turned out to work fantastically that other people could recognize this same thing and call it 'red' also only on the basis of underlying functional commonalities. Once 'red' thus became a public concept, it rightfully referred to such functional aspects in its purely public sense, but in its subjective origin (both in the first speaker(s) and in every infant that acquired language thereafter) it refers to the (possibly different) phenomenal perceptions built up from this common functional base.

 

[Fliption]

Circular definitions are a different issue. Concepts defined in a circular manner do not need to refer to anything real. You can think of symmetry in language as a set of circular definitions that you can successfully map to some aspects of your experience. For instance, 'left' and 'right'. You certainly know that there's more to 'left' than simply 'the opposite of right'.

Ok. But the critical realization for me is that it definitely involves a circular definition.

They're not circular, they're symmetrical. You know what 'mental' and 'physical' refer to.

Sure they are. You just said this:

"You can think of symmetry in language as a set of circular definitions that you can successfully map to some aspects of your experience. "

Being circular is what it means to have symmetry according to this.

public = physical, private = mental; makes no difference.

The moon is purple!

Actually, any definition of anything is meaningless, as it is just a statement of the same idea in different words.

One step at a time. This seems like an extreme conclusion that leads to chaos. I'm just trying to understand the steps that get you there first. Currently, I disagree with this view.

I don't know if proper philosophical definitions of any term exist.

Then take my word for it because I do know and they do exists.

That's exactly the materialist's dilemma: how can anyone not be a materialist? Which, by the way, is just a particular case of a more universal dilemma: how can can anyone disagree with me as to what is true, given that what I know to be true cannot possibly be false?

This isn't what I was saying. It's one thing for 2 people to hold different views on what is truth and not understand how anyone could disagree. It's another entirely for someone to define the opposing view in such a way that it's just wrong by definition. This is just dishonest debate. If we're going to philosophical disagree then we have to agree on what it is we are disagreeing about. How can 2 parties intellectually disagree on materialism when they don't even agree on what it means to be material? These 2 people may not even disagree at all. It's just sloppy philosophy.

I think you can be very naive if you think people manipulate words with some agenda in mind. Some undoubtedly do, like politicians, lawyers, businessmen, but most people tend to be sincere when they express their philosophical views. The reason we hold different, often antagonic worldviews has little to do with intellectual dishonesty.

I think it is naive to believe people don't do this. This statement seems odd coming from someone who, in another thread, said the only reason people held the views we do about consciousness was because we were afraid of our own non-existence.

While I disagreed with that motivation for myself, I do believe that many people are dishonest in discussions like this. Some of them are so sneaky (to use that word again) that they don't even realize their own bias.

 

[Mentat]

Man, there're a lot of responses, since I was here last . I'll try to get to all of them eventually, but don't have much time right now, so I'll just respond to this one...

Again, I cannot precisely pick out the concept in words, but I can only point to it. When you look at a stop sign, what does it look like to you? Among its many apparent properties, it has a certain visual phenomenal quality that you call 'redness.'

Discrimination is clearly involved here (eg, discriminating the redness of the sign from the blueness of the sky), but discrimination alone does not exhaustively characterize this phenomenon. For instance, for a human there is something different about discriminating hues of color and pitches of tone. You may say that this difference is purely underpinned by computational differences, and that may be the case, but we are only trying here to point to instances of what we mean by P-consciousness, not explain them.

But if "P-consciousness" is merely the act of performing A-consciousness within one's own "computer", then why don't we just say that instead?

Let me put it another way. Imagine that one day you encounter a curious cognitive dissociation. Suddenly you can't see anything at all, that is, the world looks to you the same way it looked in the past when you would close your eyes. And yet, you can walk around just as well as you could before, and you can accurately describe the world (e.g. by telling someone "I see a red stop sign" when a red stop sign is placed at a distance before you) just as well as you could before. This would be a case of visual A-consciousness without visual P-consciousness.

But how could I have visual A-consciousness, if I don't process the visible world? IOW, if I can't see anything, how can I tell you about it? I would be as a blind man.

If P-consciousness does not exist for you, then your personal experience of acting in the world would be the same as your current personal experience of deep sleep: i.e., you would have no personal experience at all. If you respond to this by saying that you would indeed have personal experience just in virtue of your A-consciousness as you acted in the world, then you would be acknowledging the existence of P-consciousness and adding some claims about its properties (eg it exists whenever certain A-conscious activities occur).

Not really (forgive me if I seem argumentative, this point really doesn't seem valid to me yet), since I could define the first-person viewpoint (which is the only one that any conscious computer can have anyway) as yet another process of A-consciousness.

A-consciousness entails the behavioral characteristics of, say, sadness, but it doesn't entail the personal feeling of sadness.

But, if personally feeling sadness is a behavior, then A-consciousness would indeed entail the personal feeling.

I refer you to my newest thread (haven't typed it yet), which will be entitled "Physical, Design, Intentional: An elaboration on 'algorithm'".

If there is no P-consciousness, then by definition there is no personal feeling of sadness. This is the familiar schism; A-consciousness speaks of 3rd person observable properties...

But why would a being that only has A-consciousness speak of it's own processes in the 3rd person?

It doesn't follow that your failure to explain P-consciousness entails that you are a zombie. If I can't explain how weather works, that doesn't mean there is no weather.

It's not that I can't explain it (that burden rests upon you, as you are certainly aware), it's that I can't understand it. And, since all of you can understand it, based solely on having experienced/processed it yourselves, then it seems possible that I am a zombie.

 

[hypnagogue]

Let me put it another way. Imagine that one day you encounter a curious cognitive dissociation. Suddenly you can't see anything at all, that is, the world looks to you the same way it looked in the past when you would close your eyes. And yet, you can walk around just as well as you could before, and you can accurately describe the world (e.g. by telling someone "I see a red stop sign" when a red stop sign is placed at a distance before you) just as well as you could before. This would be a case of visual A-consciousness without visual P-consciousness.

But how could I have visual A-consciousness, if I don't process the visible world? IOW, if I can't see anything, how can I tell you about it? I would be as a blind man.

Your response here seems to indicate that you are coming into the discussion with too much a priori baggage. P and A are surely intricately intertwined, but in the first instance P is not defined in terms of processing at all. Any such claims we make about P must be infered and/or empirically justified, not taken as givens. In particular you seem to strongly equate P with processing the visual world: no P implies no visual processing. But this is not the case, as is demonstrated in blindsighted patients, who can perform well above chance in forced choice visual tasks despite claiming that they can't see anything. If we are to believe their verbal reports, then clearly they are doing some A-conscious visual processing while having no P to speak of.

I'm not claiming that the scenario quoted above (which we could think of as an extraordinary case of blindsight with full A-conscious capacity and no P) is really possible; in fact I don't think it is at all. But the point was to try to clarify what I mean by P-consciousness. If you openly conceive of the above scenario without importing any a priori assumptions on what you think P must be, then perhaps you will be able to identify what I'm referring to.

 

[confutatis]

In particular [Mentat seems] to strongly equate P with processing the visual world: no P implies no visual processing. But this is not the case, as is demonstrated in blindsighted patients, who can perform well above chance in forced choice visual tasks despite claiming that they can't see anything. If we are to believe their verbal reports, then clearly they are doing some A-conscious visual processing while having no P to speak of.

Hypnagogue, you said Mentat is coming to the discussion with a lot of a-priori baggage, but from my perspective you are doing exactly the same. You are assuming blindsight is evidence that there is a difference between A and P; I think it's just as valid to assume that there's no difference at all between A and P, and that blindsight is just a mild form of blindness. Think about it: if someone is completely blindsighted but gives no verbal or behavioural clues about it, would that person be blind?

I'm not claiming that the scenario quoted above (which we could think of as an extraordinary case of blindsight with full A-conscious capacity and no P) is really possible; in fact I don't think it is at all.

I think this can be taken to mean you don't really believe P can exist in the total absence of A. Am I correct? And if so, wouldn't that make the C-zombie concept a logical impossibility?

But the point was to try to clarify what I mean by P-consciousness. If you openly conceive of the above scenario without importing any a priori assumptions on what you think P must be, then perhaps you will be able to identify what I'm referring to.

Here and I'm butting in your conversation with Mentat, so feel free to dismiss my comment, but I don't really think you understand what Mentat is saying. I never got, from any of his posts, the notion that he denies the existence of P-consciousness; he just thinks there's nothing to be said about it, because anything you try to say about it can be shown to be about A-consciousness.

I personally think you and some others here are missing a subtle but important point. Consider, for instance, the difference between ontology and epistemology: the idea of dividing reality between "what things really are" and "what we know about things" implies there is some unknown discrepancy between reality and our knowledge of it, which is a self-evident truth. However, the only way you can possibly maintain the distinction is to assert that the discrepancy is not only unknown but also unknowable. For if we could know how our knowledge differs from reality, then we would also know "how things really are" and the distinction between ontology and epistemology would vanish into thin air.

The argument about consciousness is no different. A-consciousness is what you can know about the mind, P-consciousness is that which, no matter how much you know about A, may still be different from A despite the apparent similarities. I see only two possibilities: if P is knowable from A, then P is the same thing as A; if P is fundamentally unknowable, then it's not the same thing as A, but it's still unknowable. I don't know exactly which position Mentat takes, but ultimately it makes no difference. It's pretty hard to define P-consciousness as being different from A-consciousness without making any claim that you know something about the difference, which ultimately renders the definition nonsensical.

 

[hypnagogue]

Hypnagogue, you said Mentat is coming to the discussion with a lot of a-priori baggage, but from my perspective you are doing exactly the same.

I should have made it clearer then that I meant a priori baggage about what P must be, above and beyond what it is defined to be. There is clearly a distinction to be made, from one's own 1st person view, between A and P consciousness. Attempting to show that A and P are the same thing does not deflate the observation that there at least is an apparent difference between the two from the subjective perspective, and that must be our starting point before we can really get anywhere in the discussion.

You are assuming blindsight is evidence that there is a difference between A and P; I think it's just as valid to assume that there's no difference at all between A and P, and that blindsight is just a mild form of blindness. Think about it: if someone is completely blindsighted but gives no verbal or behavioural clues about it, would that person be blind?

There always must be assumptions when we attribute P-consciousness to other beings. It's reasonable enough, however, to assume that verbal reports are a pretty reliable indicator of the presence or absence of P. Now, if a blindsighted person reports no P for a certain portion of his visual field, and we conclude that he therefore really has no P here, then clearly we can begin to sketch out a relationship between P and A. We can now say that P is not equivalent to A, since some A persists in the complete absence of P. Perhaps we can postulate a deep connection between the portions of A that are absent in this blindsighted person and P. Even here, however, it is difficult to establish anything more than a correlation.

I think this can be taken to mean you don't really believe P can exist in the total absence of A. Am I correct? And if so, wouldn't that make the C-zombie concept a logical impossibility?

I believe that in our world, P-consciousness as it is typically experienced by humans most probably cannot exist in the absence of human A-consciousness.

Your zombie implication is off the mark in several respects. First of all, "no P without A" implies that A is necessary for P. But C-zombies were devised to show that A is not sufficient for P. It is entirely logically coherent that A be necessary, but not sufficient, for P. (In order for you to the drive to the store, it is necessary that your gastank be full, but the satisfaction of this condition is not sufficient to get you to the store; you still need to use the keys to enter and start the ignition, know the sequence of directions needed to get to the store, etc.)

Second of all, even if we suppose that insights into blindsight suggest that C-zombies cannot exist in this world (and we have every reason to suspect that this is true), this only implies the nomological, not the logical, impossibility of C-zombies. As far as we know it is nomologically impossible to exceed the speed of light, but that does not imply that it is logically impossible.

The argument about consciousness is no different. A-consciousness is what you can know about the mind, P-consciousness is that which, no matter how much you know about A, may still be different from A despite the apparent similarities.

A-consciousness is what you can know about other minds. P-consciousness is what you can know about your own mind.

I see only two possibilities: if P is knowable from A, then P is the same thing as A; if P is fundamentally unknowable, then it's not the same thing as A, but it's still unknowable.

P is knowable to the individual. I know about my own P, otherwise I wouldn't be talking about it. But if P were straightforwardly the same as A, then I should be able to know your P just as well as I do mine. That I cannot do this implies that the issue is more complex than the way you are presenting it.

 

[Fliption]

I think you are the only person on this forum who can understand that if I manage to find the way to express the idea clearly.

 

[confutatis]

I should have made it clearer then that I meant a priori baggage about what P must be, above and beyond what it is defined to be. There is clearly a distinction to be made, from one's own 1st person view, between A and P consciousness. Attempting to show that A and P are the same thing does not deflate the observation that there at least is an apparent difference between the two from the subjective perspective, and that must be our starting point before we can really get anywhere in the discussion.

Thanks for clarifying that.

I do not dispute there is a perceived distinction; that would be foolish.

There always must be assumptions when we attribute P-consciousness to other beings.

This is where I think you might be wrong, but it's difficult to explain why. I know it's difficult because I had difficulty understanding the notion myself. But I'll try again anyway, this time by asking a question rather than posing an argument.

I think I know what you mean by P-consciousness, but suppose I don't. How would I go about finding out what the concept of P-consciousness refers to, and whether it applies to me or not?

I'm hoping you'll see what an attempt to answer thse questions brings to mind.

It's reasonable enough, however, to assume that verbal reports are a pretty reliable indicator of the presence or absence of P.

I think verbal reports are the only indicator, reliable or not, given that at some point in your life you didn't know what P was (I'm talking about the concept, not the phenomenon).

Now, if a blindsighted person reports no P for a certain portion of his visual field, and we conclude that he therefore really has no P here...

Perhaps I'm misunderstanding you, but this seems to indicate you think P and language go together. Put yourself in the position of a blindsighted person and try to think what subjective phenomenon could prevent you from making statements about your visual field.

...then clearly we can begin to sketch out a relationship between P and A. We can now say that P is not equivalent to A, since some A persists in the complete absence of P.

It is a known fact that not everything in A is mirrored in P. There's no question that they are not the same thing. The real question is, how are they different? It seems to me the difference has a lot to do with language: P can be verbalized, A cannot, except for the portion of A which intersects with P.

I believe that in our world, P-consciousness as it is typically experienced by humans most probably cannot exist in the absence of human A-consciousness.

I do have trouble with arguments based on the notion of "our world", because to me there is only one world by definition. That makes communication a bit difficult.

Your zombie implication is off the mark in several respects. First of all, "no P without A" implies that A is necessary for P.

I should probably have said "no knowledge of P without knowledge of A", and that applies to the first-person case as well.

But C-zombies were devised to show that A is not sufficient for P.

But the argument for C-zombies assumes a priori that A is not sufficient for P. I think this is why Mentat refers to it as a strawman argument.

It is entirely logically coherent that A be necessary, but not sufficient, for P.

All I can say is that it seems logical to some people and illogical to others. It seems logical from a certain point of view, and it seems illogical from another. But it's really difficult to get people who look at the argument from a different point of view, and it's not because they won't, it's because they don't realize the other point of view is just as valid.

As far as we know it is nomologically impossible to exceed the speed of light, but that does not imply that it is logically impossible.

I'm not sure what you mean by that, as it is a fact of physics that speeds greater than c can't be measured because of the way speed is defined. This, by the way, seems one of the most difficult things for people to understand: that the way we define things creates limitations on what can be said about those things. Many physicists understand that very well; in fact I learned this from an extremely bright physicist. But it took me months.

What I've been trying to understand are the limitations on what can be said about P-consciousness based on the way we define it. I think you are the only person on this forum who can understand that if I manage to find the way to express the idea clearly.

A-consciousness is what you can know about other minds. P-consciousness is what you can know about your own mind.

Whatever it is you know about your mind, you must have learned it from other people. Unless by "know" you mean something different from what I have in mind.

P is knowable to the individual. I know about my own P, otherwise I wouldn't be talking about it.

So how come C-zombies talk about P? Chalmers explicitly says they do.

But if P were straightforwardly the same as A, then I should be able to know your P just as well as I do mine. That I cannot do this implies that the issue is more complex than the way you are presenting it.

I don't think you fully understand the way I'm presenting the issue, but I also think we're making progress understanding each other.

To some extent, you know a good deal about my P, which is what allows us to communicate. There are certainly things about me that I know and you don't, but I'd like to suggest another approach to describe that aspect of our consciousness. Describing P as completely unknowable doesn't really work; it provides substance for materialistic claims a-la Dennett.

 

[Mentat]

Your response here seems to indicate that you are coming into the discussion with too much a priori baggage. P and A are surely intricately intertwined, but in the first instance P is not defined in terms of processing at all. Any such claims we make about P must be infered and/or empirically justified, not taken as givens. In particular you seem to strongly equate P with processing the visual world: no P implies no visual processing. But this is not the case, as is demonstrated in blindsighted patients, who can perform well above chance in forced choice visual tasks despite claiming that they can't see anything. If we are to believe their verbal reports, then clearly they are doing some A-conscious visual processing while having no P to speak of.

While I understand most of what you're saying, I can't see why one calls it "A-consciousness" at all. That stands for "Action-consciousness" right? From your description of it, it seems that it is simply "Action" with no consciousness involved at all. You are referring to something that simply does the right thing at the right time to appear as though it is conscious. So, why does one include the term "consciousness" in "A-consciousness" when it doesn't refer to consciousness at all?

I'm not claiming that the scenario quoted above (which we could think of as an extraordinary case of blindsight with full A-conscious capacity and no P) is really possible; in fact I don't think it is at all. But the point was to try to clarify what I mean by P-consciousness. If you openly conceive of the above scenario without importing any a priori assumptions on what you think P must be, then perhaps you will be able to identify what I'm referring to.

This reminds me of the paper that selfAdjoint posted on another thread. You are implying that, while it may not be possible in practice to have "A-" (really just referring to the appropriate "action") without P-consciousness, you can imagine it to be the case, and thus there must be a distinction between the two (after all, how could one imagine one thing existing without another if the two are not distinct entities?). However, the author of that paper (who was that, by the way?) made a rather good argument (IMO) toward the fact that our ability to imagine something that can only weakly be conceived (with many conceptual gaps, leading to the tendency to think that it is impossible in practice) is no indication that such a thing is even possible in principle (much like Sylvan's box (I think that's what it was called) is not possible, even in practice, though it is something about which one can (ficticiously) write).

 

[confutatis]

the author of that paper made a rather good argument (IMO) toward the fact that our ability to imagine something that can only weakly be conceived (with many conceptual gaps, leading to the tendency to think that it is impossible in practice) is no indication that such a thing is even possible in principle

I find it strange that someone actually has to write a paper about that, given that it should be so obvious to anyone. But apparently I'm wrong, since the world is full of people who believe in some mythical power words supposedly have. Describe an empty box that has something inside, and instead of dismissing the idea as being illogical, many people will try hard to make sense of it. Worse, some even believe to be successful at making sense out of nonsense. Go figure...

 

[hypnagogue]

While I understand most of what you're saying, I can't see why one calls it "A-consciousness" at all. That stands for "Action-consciousness" right? From your description of it, it seems that it is simply "Action" with no consciousness involved at all. You are referring to something that simply does the right thing at the right time to appear as though it is conscious. So, why does one include the term "consciousness" in "A-consciousness" when it doesn't refer to consciousness at all?

The word 'consciousness' picks out many different concepts. To facilitate precise, meaningful discussion, it is useful to pick out and refer to some of these distinguishable concepts that all exist underneath the greater hood of the word 'consciousness.'

The most general bifurcation we can make is between P-consciousness (phenomenal consciousness) and A-consciousness (access consciousness). We've already discussed P-consciousness to death. Here's http://www.swif.uniba.it/lei/foldop/foldoc.cgi?access+consciousness of access consciousness:

access consciousness
<philosophy of mind> Also known as a-consciousness, is a kind of direct control. A representation is access-conscious if it is poised to be under direct control of reasoning, reporting and action.

Above, you seemed to be using the word "conscious" to mean "P-conscious." So if we make that substitution, then what you meant to say was...

From your description of it, it seems that it is simply "Action" with no P-consciousness involved at all. You are referring to something that simply does the right thing at the right time to appear as though it is P-conscious.

That is a pretty accurate description. In everyday life, we use the information made available from the A-consciousness of others to make inferences about their P-consciousnesses. Of course, a given A-conscious behavior only gives the appearance as if there is a certain P-conscious experience underlying it, an appearance that may be misleading or outright false.

So, why does one include the term "consciousness" in "A-consciousness" when it doesn't refer to consciousness at all?

We need the A-consciousness of others to make judgments about their P-consciousness, so epistemically the two are deeply related. A-consciousness is our means of expressing and knowing about P-consciousness. But you are correct to note that the definition of A-consciousness does not directly refer to P-consciousness at all, and this is a key point I have been trying to establish. Your strategy to deny P thus far has been to equate P with A at the outset, but now perhaps you see that there is a bit of a conceptual wedge we can drive between the two.

This reminds me of the paper that selfAdjoint posted on another thread. You are implying that, while it may not be possible in practice to have "A-" (really just referring to the appropriate "action") without P-consciousness, you can imagine it to be the case, and thus there must be a distinction between the two (after all, how could one imagine one thing existing without another if the two are not distinct entities?). However, the author of that paper (who was that, by the way?) made a rather good argument (IMO) toward the fact that our ability to imagine something that can only weakly be conceived (with many conceptual gaps, leading to the tendency to think that it is impossible in practice) is no indication that such a thing is even possible in principle (much like Sylvan's box (I think that's what it was called) is not possible, even in practice, though it is something about which one can (ficticiously) write).

It's not as simple as this, as I indicated in that thread. The conceivability argument (with zombies and such) is intimately related with the explanatory argument and the knowledge argument, such that you can't really fully grasp or fully deny anyone of them without fully grasping / denying the others. The explanatory argument appears to be particularly relevant. Very briefly, it goes

(1) Physical accounts explain at most structure and function.

(2) Explaining structure and function does not suffice to explain consciousness; so

—

(3) No physical account can explain consciousness.

(more at http://jamaica.u.arizona.edu/~chalmers/papers/nature.html )

If this is accurate, then the 'weakly conceived' critique of the conceivability argument is toothless. True, we can't imagine the complexity of the brain in great detail; but even if we could, it would still not be apparent how the brain is responsible for P-consciousness. In effect, the explanitory argument appears to make the conceivability argument 'strongly conceived' by making it applicable to all cases.

By way of analogy, suppose I claim that it is impossible to derive an imaginary number from the set of real numbers using only the operations of addition and multiplication. In a sense, my initial intuition here is weakly conceived, as I cannot possibly imagine every single case of adding / multiplying every permutation of numbers. But I don't need to imagine all the details. I can see underlying principles which makes my intuition true for all cases.

 

[Fliption]

I find it strange that someone actually has to write a paper about that, given that it should be so obvious to anyone. But apparently I'm wrong, since the world is full of people who believe in some mythical power words supposedly have. Describe an empty box that has something inside, and instead of dismissing the idea as being illogical, many people will try hard to make sense of it. Worse, some even believe to be successful at making sense out of nonsense. Go figure...

I certainly can relate to this but when I confront it, I have two choices. Either 1) everyone truly is being nonsensical or 2) perhaps there is something that I am not understanding.

Since I am not an all-knowing person nor do I consider myself to be smarter than everyone else, I usually allow room for number 2.

 

[hypnagogue]

I find it strange that someone actually has to write a paper about that, given that it should be so obvious to anyone. But apparently I'm wrong, since the world is full of people who believe in some mythical power words supposedly have. Describe an empty box that has something inside, and instead of dismissing the idea as being illogical, many people will try hard to make sense of it. Worse, some even believe to be successful at making sense out of nonsense. Go figure...

This is just a strawman. The article used the 'empty box' as an example for intuition, not as a directly analogous case, and for good reason; it is not directly analogous.

'Empty' is defined in such a way that the usage of the word automatically precludes any notion of 'containment.' 'A-consciousness' is not defined in such a way that the usage of the word automatically entails some sort of P-consciousness. The author used the former to demonstrate a case where it is obvious that an imaginary story asserts a paradox as a truth, in order to demonstrate that this is possible in principle; then the author implies that this may be the case for stories about C-zombies. What the author does not do is say that stories about C-zombies are obviously the same as stories about full empty boxes.

That you equate the two so strongly makes you, at least in this instance, a functionalist in the strongest sense. By this reasoning, Ned Block's Chinese Gym (a gym filled with people communicating via walkie talkie such that each performs the function of a neuron and that the whole mirrors the function of a human brain) is P-consciousness and it's absolutely illogical not to think so. Who knows, the Chinese Gym may actually be P-conscious... but I wouldn't say it was so obvious as to think it completely illogical to think otherwise. Would you?

 

[confutatis]

I certainly can relate to this but when I confront it, I have two choices. Either 1) everyone truly is being nonsensical or 2) perhaps there is something that I am not understanding.

Since I am not an all-knowing person nor do I consider myself to be smarter than everyone else...

Now is it my impression, or are you trying hard to sound wise? tsc tsc...

 

[hypnagogue]

I think I know what you mean by P-consciousness, but suppose I don't. How would I go about finding out what the concept of P-consciousness refers to, and whether it applies to me or not?

This is a tricky issue, of course, with no definitive answer. Here's a variation on the theme I have been using:

Look at a scene. Now close your eyes. There is a discernable difference between the two cases; as a first approximation we might say that in the former you are aware of visual information and in the latter you are not. So far we haven't said anything that strongly indicates P rather than A, so we need to do better.

Now, draw a picture of the scene, copying everything that you perceive as structural information of the scene. You will now have a line drawing of the scene that has the same structural informational content as your own awareness of it. (Your line drawing should not have color, since color does not present itself in visual awareness as structural information.) Conceptually subtract the structural information contained in the line drawing from the structural information contained in your visual awareness. If you have some remaining 'residue' of awareness, then you have visual P-consciousness. If you do not, then you (probably) don't have visual P-consciousness.

I'm not completely satisfied with that answer myself, but maybe it's a start.

Perhaps I'm misunderstanding you, but this seems to indicate you think P and language go together. Put yourself in the position of a blindsighted person and try to think what subjective phenomenon could prevent you from making statements about your visual field.

They must go together in some sense if we can meaningfully refer to subjective experiences. However, this doesn't imply that they are the same thing, or that one is necessary for the other.

I imagine if I were a blindsighted person, the blind portion of my visual field would either be a patch of darkness or a somehow altogether spot of 'unseeableness' like a spot behind my head. In any case, I could make statements about it along the lines of the following: "I don't see anything there." Again, there's nothing here that leads me to believe that they must be the same thing-- at most I infer that words can refer to experiences.

It is a known fact that not everything in A is mirrored in P. There's no question that they are not the same thing. The real question is, how are they different? It seems to me the difference has a lot to do with language: P can be verbalized, A cannot, except for the portion of A which intersects with P.

A-consciousness can be verbalized, by definition. The 'A' stands for 'access.' If it is A-conscious, it is 'consciously' accessible, and if it is 'consciously' accessible, it is available for some kind of verbal report.

I do have trouble with arguments based on the notion of "our world", because to me there is only one world by definition. That makes communication a bit difficult.

It's necessary to make that distinction when we talk about zombies. Anyway, you are taking the term too literally. We don't have to suppose that other worlds actually exist in order to talk about them; they are simply toy model worlds with different natural laws. Cosmologists talk of such toy model universes on a regular basis; they do not suppose that these models actually exist somewhere.

I should probably have said "no knowledge of P without knowledge of A", and that applies to the first-person case as well.

That probably applies to the first person case, but there may be some sense in which there can be first person P without an explicit, corresponding first person A. For practical purposes I'll agree, but I don't think it can be taken as an uncontested given (even if it might seem nonsensical).

But the argument for C-zombies assumes a priori that A is not sufficient for P. I think this is why Mentat refers to it as a strawman argument.

No, it has the reasoning of the explanatory argument behind it, as I explain in a previous post in this thread.

I'm not sure what you mean by that, as it is a fact of physics that speeds greater than c can't be measured because of the way speed is defined. This, by the way, seems one of the most difficult things for people to understand: that the way we define things creates limitations on what can be said about those things. Many physicists understand that very well; in fact I learned this from an extremely bright physicist. But it took me months.

But speed is defined in this way not for some arbitrary reason; it is defined in this way in order to correspond to what is observed to happen in nature. If we redefine speed so that we can talk of speeds greater than c, we still won't be able to measure such a thing because it's physically impossible. Langauge is not as ironclad as we come to think it is, but at the same time it's not as arbitrary as you make it out to be.

Whatever it is you know about your mind, you must have learned it from other people. Unless by "know" you mean something different from what I have in mind.

An infant knows the sky is blue, even if it doesn't have words for 'sky' or 'blue.' At the very least, if an infant can perceive this[/color], then an infant will know this[/color] when its eyes are pointed towards a clear sky. And that in itself is reflexive knowledge of the mind.

So how come C-zombies talk about P? Chalmers explicitly says they do.

C-zombies don't really talk about P in the same sense that I do, even if they come to move their lips in the same way and utter the same sounds. I (presumably) talk about P in virtue of having P, whereas a C-zombie only talks about P in virtue of some causal phenomenon other than P.

To some extent, you know a good deal about my P, which is what allows us to communicate. There are certainly things about me that I know and you don't, but I'd like to suggest another approach to describe that aspect of our consciousness. Describing P as completely unknowable doesn't really work; it provides substance for materialistic claims a-la Dennett.

I can infer the structural and functional aspects of your P, by means of knowing your A (eg hearing you speak about your P). But this gets us no farther from the deflationist materialistic approach; I still know nothing about you other than what is made known to me via your A. The important point is that I know nothing about your P beyond its structural and functional aspects, and there is more to your P than just its structural and functional aspects. Therefore I do not know a great deal about your P, and the part I do not know is precisely that part that is not expressible via A (eg, via a materialist / heterophenomenologist approach).

 

[Fliption]

Now is it my impression, or are you trying hard to sound wise? tsc tsc...

Hmm, what I've written seems clear and to the point to me. I apologize if my tone has shown frustration in the past. It isn't my intention to offend you at all. In this particular post I'm just trying to point out that I think you don't properly understand the zombie argument. Which is perfectly fine. I misunderstood it myself. I think you are misunderstanding it because your words are exactly what I thought when I misunderstood it. It does seem nonsensical at first glance. But once you understand how to take it (not literally) and what the real point of the illustration is, I think you'll find it to make sense. Well, you may still disgaree with it( as many people do) but I don't think you'll find it nonsensical.

 

[confutatis]

This is just a strawman. The article used the 'empty box' as an example for intuition, not as a directly analogous case, and for good reason; it is not directly analogous.

I never said it was, although perhaps the author said it. I haven't read the whole paper, and was only commenting on the bit about the possibility of stating paradoxes.

'Empty' is defined in such a way that the usage of the word automatically precludes any notion of 'containment.'

I can assure you that quite a few people think words don't preclude anything. If you go to a Catholic mass, the priest will assure you that what he drinks after consecration is the blood of Christ, even as it came from a bottle of wine, smells like wine, tastes like wine, and would definitely be classified as 'wine' as a result of a chemical analysis. I'm a Catholic myself, but I don't understand why they have to claim all sorts of nonsense like that. My guess is that the nonsense has the specific purpose of confounding the faithful, but I'm only guessing.

'A-consciousness' is not defined in such a way that the usage of the word automatically entails some sort of P-consciousness.

Well, sometimes the paradox implied by some definitions is not clear to see. For instance, it wasn't immediately obvious to Newton that the idea of a fully deterministic universe would lead to a paradox. In fact it took centuries for everyone to be convinced that the Newtonian universe ultimately made no sense, even though people always intuitively knew that.

I think both Chalmers' and Dennett's approach lead to paradoxes, but I realize few people are capable of contemplating that possibility.

That you equate the two so strongly makes you, at least in this instance, a functionalist in the strongest sense.

I do not equate the two, I think we don't have a good way of defining what's different about them, even as I perceive them to be different. It's a problem of finding the right way to define concepts so that our definitions agree with our perception. As it is today, neither Chalmers' nor Dennett's definitions make much sense, and in the end all these discussions are about personal choices - each side chooses one aspect as relevant and dismisses the contradictions as irrelevant.

By this reasoning, Ned Block's Chinese Gym (a gym filled with people communicating via walkie talkie such that each performs the function of a neuron and that the whole mirrors the function of a human brain) is P-consciousness and it's absolutely illogical not to think so. Who knows, the Chinese Gym may actually be P-conscious... but I wouldn't say it was so obvious as to think it completely illogical to think otherwise. Would you?

"Obvious" is relative. Before Newton, it was obvious that the universe was non-deterministic. After Newton it became obvious that it was deterministic. Nowadays quantum mechanics has made it obvious that the universe is non-deterministic. Whether a thing is obvious or not doesn't seem relevant to me.

However, I don't think much can be said about your Chinese Gym, since from my perspective the very concept of consciousness does not fit the facts very well. In fact, the Chinese Gym is a good example of how it's difficult to know when to describe something as conscious or not. I definitely think we need a novel approach, but I wouldn't be foolish to suggest one by myself. I'll wait for someone famous to do it.

 

[confutatis]

I apologize if my tone has shown frustration in the past.

I don't mind the frustration, but I really hate to be "psychoanalyzed" the way you and Sleeth so often do. I have nothing against psychoanalysis, I realize many people pay for such services and are often pleased with the results; I just don't like it when people use their shallow notions of psychology to make claims about a person they know very little about. That truly irks me.

It isn't my intention to offend you at all.

I'm never offended; it's just that I often have a feeling that I might as well talk to my cat, as the chances of mutual understanding seem higher sometimes. At least the cat will just walk away when he gets bored, instead of throwing meaningless psychobabble at me.

Now let's leave that aside and try to have an intelligent discussion one more time...

In this particular post I'm just trying to point out that I think you don't properly understand the zombie argument.

It's fair enough that you think that, but it's not true.

I misunderstood it myself.

Which happens to differ from my experience, because I used to think Chalmers was right, and now I think he has left out a very important fact.

I think you are misunderstanding it because your words are exactly what I thought when I misunderstood it.

Did you ever thought the problem with Chalmers' argument had to do with semantics? I never got that from your posts.

It does seem nonsensical at first glance.

It didn't seem nonsensical at my first glance. I actually thought it made perfect sense. Then I learned something and I came to think it makes some sense, but it's not perfect. It is definitely at odds with known facts, although exactly why is not easy to see, otherwise Chalmers himself would have seen it.

But once you understand how to take it (not literally) and what the real point of the illustration is

If I'm not to take an argument literally, then I'm not to take its implications literally. I have no problem with doing that whatsoever; I enjoy all kinds of stuff that cannot be taken literally and find great meaning in them, more meaning in fact than with things that should be taken literally. I'm often profoundly moved by things other people perceive as garbage.

Perhaps that is what I'm missing. Perhaps Chalmers' argument is not supposed to make much sense, it's supposed to inspire and move you. Maybe it's supposed to show die-hard materialists that there are things forever beyond the reach of science. If that is really what it is, then I rest my case. But if it is supposed to be a rational argument about a scientific subject, then I still see problems.

 

[Fliption]

That truly irks me.

I have my pet peeves as well. The funny thing is that when someone does these things it causes me to do the very thing that irks you. It's simply because I associate (perhaps incorrectly) my pet peeves with certain personal characteristics.

Did you ever thought the problem with Chalmers' argument had to do with semantics? I never got that from your posts.

Let's make sure I'm being clear to you. I'm not really referring to Chalmers argument as a whole. I have been and still am willing to hear a different perspective on these things. I'm talking specifically about the zombie exercise, which is only a piece of Chalmers argument. It is your comments on this piece that sound as if you don't understand it fully. For example, you have taken issue with the "other worlds" that hypnagouge mentions. You seem to be saying that it doesn't make sense for someone to make a world with new laws and claim that something is possible there and then extrapolate that to our own world as a possibility. Well, of course I agree with this. This would be an awful way to prove anything is possible in our world. But this isn't what the exercise is intended to do. It is a thought exercise to illustrate the difference between what hypnagogue calls "nomological" and "logical" possibility. So it really has nothing to do with other worlds. If you understand what he means by these terms then you may not need this illustration tool and you may very well have valid points to dispute his points but disputing "other worlds" isn't getting to it.

The whole issue to me (and hypnagogue can correct me if he thinks I misrepresent things) is about whether the body of knowledge and ability from the materialists pardigm can conceive of a reason why humans must be conscious, given what it knows about how the brain etc works. This doesn't mean that you and I can't go into a room and come up with some a'priori reason why this must be the case. Chalmers is making a claim about materialism's ability to do these things.

 

[confutatis]

It is a thought exercise to illustrate the difference between what hypnagogue calls "nomological" and "logical" possibility. So it really has nothing to with other worlds. If you understand what he means by these terms then you may not need this illustration tool and you may very well have valid points to dispute them but disputing "other worlds" isn't getting to it.

I don't dispute the fact that there are things that cannot be explained. You seem to think I'm of the opinion that consciousness can be fully explained in physical terms, whereas my position is that what you have in mind when you think about the hard problem cannot be explained at all. You suggest we need a new paradigm to explain consciousness, I maintain no such paradigm can possibly exist.

The whole issue to me is about whether the body of knowledge and ability from the materialists paradigm can conceive of a reason why humans must be conscious, given what it knows about how the brain etc works. This doesn't mean that you and I can't go into a room and come up with some a'priori reason why this must be the case. Chalmers is making a claim about materialism's ability to do these things.

I fully understand that. Chalmers is trying to show that materialism fails to answer some questions that are meaningful from the materialist point of view itself. In other words, that the materialistic worldview is incomplete. I have no problem with that; the problem I have is with the notion that there exists some paradigm which explains consciousness better than the current one. There isn't, and nobody, not even Chalmers, has come up with one yet.

 

[Fliption]

the problem I have is with the notion that there exists some paradigm which explains consciousness better than the current one. There isn't, and nobody, not even Chalmers, has come up with one yet.

Ahhh, finally! Well, I think we agree on this!

I know I've used the phrase " a new paradigm" but maybe I misled when I used it. I'm not familiar enough with what Chalmers thinks about this to comment on it but my thoughts are that a "new paradigm" cannot explain consciousness. It only finds a place for it. As you said, Materialism assumes something about consciousness that Chalmers attempts to show is inconsistent. The "new paradigm" wouldn't explain consciousness; It would only make an assumption about it that is consistent with the rest of the paradigm. The assumption that consciousness is a fundamental property of reality and not an effect of more fundamental material parts. While this puts a sort of "fix" on the problem, I agree it doesn't really explain anything. But I'm not sure how one explains anything that is fundamental since typically the act of explaining something involves equating it to its more basic constituent parts. Are matter and energy considered explained? Maybe Chalmers thinks so, but I don't think I do.

 

[confutatis]

I know I've used the phrase " a new paradigm" but maybe I misled when I used it.

So I'm not the only one being cryptic? That's good to know.

I'm not familiar enough with what Chalmers thinks about this to comment on it but my thoughts are that a "new paradigm" cannot explain consciousness. It only finds a place for it.

Most religions provide paradigms that accommodate consciousness just the way we experience it. In fact, that is the reason I take religion seriously and regard it as more important than science.

Look at this for instance: materialists says love is the result of a chemical reaction, religion says love is something God expects of people. I find the religious explanation far easier to understand and accept than the materialistic one. I'm perfectly happy with the scientific paradigm so long as I have religion to explain that which science cannot.

The "new paradigm" wouldn't explain consciousness; It would only make an assumption about it that is consistent with the rest of the paradigm.

Look, you just said you are not all-knowing or smarter than anyone else. Do you think if that could be done, or if there were any advantage to it, people smarter than you and I wouldn't have done it already?

I'm not sure how one explains anything that is fundamental since typically the act of explaining something involves equating it to its more basic constituent parts.

The problem with consciousness is deeper than that. The reason consciousness can't be explained is because you need consciousness to understand any explanation. An explanation of consciousness would amount to a description of the English language written in English - useless to people who already know English, and useless to people who don't.

But there are aspects of consciousness that can, and should, be explained. For instance, I'd love to understand why I can't get rid of my nail-biting habit. I'm quite sure a scientific, materialistic approach may reveal the answer and provide me with extremely useful knowledge. And I couldn't care less whether materialists don't believe in God so long as they give me information I can use.

Are matter and energy considered explained?

Not currently, but there are people working on it. Those are not "hard problems"; many physicists believe everything can be explained in terms of information.

 

[Fliption]

So I'm not the only one being cryptic? That's good to know.

I'm pretty sure I used "new paradigm". I'm not sure I actually said it "explains" consciousness. That's why I said "perhaps I have misled" . So I don't think I've been cryptic. I used cryptic to mean too brief, circular and making flashy conclusions with no adequate explanations. I don't think this is me

Most religions provide paradigms that accommodate consciousness just the way we experience it. In fact, that is the reason I take religion seriously and regard it as more important than science.

Look at this for instance: materialists says love is the result of a chemical reaction, religion says love is something God expects of people. I find the religious explanation far easier to understand and accept than the materialistic one. I'm perfectly happy with the scientific paradigm so long as I have religion to explain that which science cannot.

Great. I don't have a problem with this view of things. But somewhere there has to be a discussion of what science can and cannot explain. That's what I think is in scope for philosophy.

Look, you just said you are not all-knowing or smarter than anyone else. Do you think if that could be done, or if there were any advantage to it, people smarter than you and I wouldn't have done it already?

I don't know, ask Chalmers. I didn't come up with these ideas. But I have read them and realize that they are saying something about reality that makes more sense then what materialism is claiming. It's funny you ask me this above when I can ask the same thing about your view. Somehow everyone, including Chalmers and Dennett don't get yours. Of course, you didn't say you weren't all knowing and smarter than everyone else. I said that, so nevermind.

The problem with consciousness is deeper than that. The reason consciousness can't be explained is because you need consciousness to understand any explanation. An explanation of consciousness would amount to a description of the English language written in English - useless to people who already know English, and useless to people who don't.

I'm not saying the problem isn't deeper than that. I'm just saying at this basic level I don't think consciousness can be explained. I think your view above is similar to what Canute's been saying lately. He has been saying it a bit differently as he has been using Godel(I think) to conclude what appears to me to be the same type of conclusion.

But there are aspects of consciousness that can, and should, be explained. For instance, I'd love to understand why I can't get rid of my nail-biting habit. I'm quite sure a scientific, materialistic approach may reveal the answer and provide me with extremely useful knowledge. And I couldn't care less whether materialists don't believe in God so long as they give me information I can use.

Do you ever try to reconcile the fact that materialism works so well in these areas but then breaks down in other areas? That's what I think people like Chalmers are trying to do.

Not currently, but there are people working on it. Those are not "hard problems"; many physicists believe everything can be explained in terms of information.

To the extent that an explanation is a reductive description, there is nothing to work on. Fundamental things just are.

 

[confutatis]

I don't have a problem with this view of things. But somewhere there has to be a discussion of what science can and cannot explain. That's what I think is in scope for philosophy.

I don't think materialists ever claimed they can explain conscious experience. They do tend to dismiss the question, or classify experience as illusion, but they are hardly alone in their inability to properly answer every single question they may be asked. It seems to me the strength in their view comes from the fact that it is as incomplete as any other, but it has the advantage of being useful. I personally think it has the disadvantage of being ugly, but that is just my personal judgement.

But I have read them and realize that they are saying something about reality that makes more sense then what materialism is claiming.

Materalistic claims do not make much sense to people who are not materialists. That is not a problem with their view; the real problem would be if it didn't make sense to materialists themselves.

It's funny you ask me this above when I can ask the same thing about your view. Somehow everyone, including Chalmers and Dennett don't get yours.

That is because I happen to have a view that was developed by people as smart as Chalmers and Dennett, possibly more so. I don't think I am the genius you think I'm claiming to be; there's nothing original to anything I ever posted here, it's all ideas I picked up somewhere.

I think your view above is similar to what Canute's been saying lately. He has been saying it a bit differently as he has been using Godel(I think) to conclude what appears to me to be the same type of conclusion.

Godel was definitely on to it. The only problem is that his theorem does not mean what many people think it means, but I believe his theorem was just an expression of a deeper insight.

Do you ever try to reconcile the fact that materialism works so well in these areas but then breaks down in other areas?

Nope. I don't think there's anything to be reconciled, because I never thought materialism was true. Materialism lacks a solid foundation, even materialists know that. One shouldn't be bothered by the empirical success of materialism, because empirical success has nothing to do with truth.

 

[Fliption]

I personally think it has the disadvantage of being ugly, but that is just my personal judgement.

Heh, "ugly". I like that.

One shouldn't be bothered by the empirical success of materialism, because empirical success has nothing to do with truth.

Whoa! That's a whole new can of worms there. You'll get lots of push back on this one, as I'm sure you know.