Weak and Strong Emergence, what is it?

[Tournesol]

This is true only up to a point. Games of life (GoL) that we can conceive of are relatively simplistic. But imho it is possible in principle to have a GoL which is sufficiently complex that it does give rise to consciousness – as an emergent property within the game.

In what sense of "emergent" ? Would it then have properties beyond phsycial and computational ones.

I do not believe emergent properties are necessarily non-physical or non-computational. They may simply be perspectival.

In what sense of "emergent"? You use odf "perspectival" implies a weak, epistemic definition of emergence.
The weak forms of emergence are trivially true. But elsewhere you seem to think you ar deomstratig strong emergence.

Once this happens then it opens the door also to strong emergence – because there are properties of that GoL ... which
are in principle inaccessible from our perspective “on the outside looking in”.

Why would they be inaccessible ? Your argyument that conscious states of humans are inaccessible seems to hinge on their complexity. But whatever goes on in a GoL is comprehensible and predictable in principle, no matter how complex. Is this an in-principle inaccesbility, or an in-practice inaccessability ?

No, it does not hinge simply on complexity. It hinges on perspective. Every “observation” assumes a perspective. 3rd person science assumes we can ignore (or compensate for) effects of perspective – but this assumption is an approximation and is not necessarily true under all conditions.

It is necessarily true under phsyicalism as I define it , and it is necessarily true under the GoL.

The predictability of the GoL is predictability of it’s properties based on an external perspective (from outside the GoL) – there is no way, using data from an external perspective, to accurately predict the properties based on a perspective from within the GoL. It is an in-principle inaccessibility.

That doesn't follow at all. Everything about a perspective within the GoL is predictbale from an external
perspectve, including the limitations of an internal perspective within the GoL. Perhaps you mean there is no way, using data from an internal perspective, to accurately predict the properties based on a perspective from within the GoL.

But that boils down to epistemic limitation, and therefore to weak emergence.

But subjective properties ARE self-referential – by definition! That is precisely the reason why we cannot experience the same properties – because we have a completely different frame of (conscious) reference.

If physicalism is true "frames of refernce" are as third-person comprehensible as anything else.

Subjective properties are bound up with (convolved with) the frame of reference. 3rd person science assumes properties can be measured independently of the frame of reference,

3rd person science assumes that the influence of (literal) frames of reference can be compensated for.

hence 3rd person science cannot be applied (in principle) to the explanation of subjective properties.

If they are irreducible. But if they are phsyicalism is false in the first place.

I cannot know (exactly) what it is like to be a perceiving computer (any more than I can know what it is like to a bat) unless I actually BECOME a perceiving computer (or a bat)

IOW, there are irreducibly 1st-personal facts and phsyicalism is false. You seem to be trying to have your cake and eat it.

Not at all – you seem to be using a different definition of physicalism to me. I do not define physicalism to exclude 1st person subjective properties. Physicalism is the thesis that everything supervenes on the physical – it is NOT the thesis that all properties are explainable from a 3rd person perspective.

"Everything supervenes on the physical" is a circular defintion of physicalism. I have arrived
at my version of by unpacking the meaning of "the phsyical". Do you have an alternative unpacking ?

– but then by definition it wouldn’t be “me” knowing it – it would be the computer (or the bat). You simply “can’t get there from here”.

If physicalism is true, everything is entriely comprehensible, in principle, form a 3rd person POV, and it therefore doesn't matter where you start from.

Again, you seem to be using a very strange and restricted definition of physicalism which entails that everything must be comprehensible from a 3rd person. Could you provide a link to where you get this definition from?

Each “experiment” of consciousness is unique and different to every other “experiment” of consciousness, and there is no way in principle that we can precisely replicate one agent’s conscious experiment within another agent - because the precise make-up of the agent is one of the variables in the experiment. Simple as that. It’s all in the perspective. No new laws needed.

Originally Posted by Tournesol
however unique it is. (Unless there are irreducibly 1st-personal properties, and physicalism
is f
alse).

It’s not simply about structure – it’s also about perspective –

Perspective reduces to structure in a physicalist universe.

that’s the point you are missing. Two identical agents (from a structural point of view) can have different perspectives because they occupy different positions and orientations in space. If you want to perfectly replicate an agent’s PoV, you must replicate it’s perspective as well as its structure.

And there is no barrier to that in a physicalist universe

Computationalism isn’t in trouble at all. You just have to recognise that a perception implies a perspective – and there ain’t no way to get the true perspective of a “perceiving computer” from the perspective of a human being.

The wouldn't be if there are irreducibly 1st-persoanl properties, But computationalism implies that mentallity is entirely comprehensible, in principle, form a 3rd-person persepctive, since all computer programmes are.

No, computationalism does not imply such a thing (again unless you are using a very strange definition of computationalism). Computationalism is simply the thesis that cognition is a form of computation – it does not necessarily entail a 3rd person perspective comprehension of cognition.

Not by itself, but no-one thinks computer oprogrammes have mysterious, irreducible
properties, so that follows on readilly.

Just like there ain’t no way to get the true perspective of Q-Goest from the perspective of Moving Finger – it’s impossible by definition.

By whose definition ? Calculating literal perspectives is just geometry. Physicalsim means everything is 3rd personal, including all "frames" and "perspectives".

Again, you seem to be using a strange definition of physicalism.

As opposed to what ? The claim that the physical is physical.

None of this is at odds with computationalism.

Yes it is , as demonstrated.

No it’s not, as shown above. Your definitions of computationalism and physicalism seem strange. Could you perhaps explain what definitions you are using?

I have.

"Physicalism says everything has only physical
properties.

Mathematics is the language of physics.

Therefore, physicalism says everything has only
mathematical properties

Mathematical properties are entirely objective and third-person.

Therefore, physicalism says everything has only proeprties that are entirely objective and third-person."Can you de-circularise *your* definition?

There is nothing we have discussed here which cannot be explained based on a perspectival account of subjective perception.

There are no irreducible perspectives under physicalsim and computationalism.

Where do you get this from?

"...Therefore, physicalism says everything has only proeprties that are entirely objective and third-person."

Remember that “not deducible” simply means “not epistemically accessible”. Just because I have no (epistemic) access to the “inside” of your consciousness (I cannot see the world precisely as you see it) does NOT mean that there are new laws of
physics at work,

If things have "insides" in some irreducible sense, phsyicalism is false.

Not at all. Again, I’ll need to see your definition of physicalism, because I suspect it is different to mine. The thesis of physicalism simply says that everything supervenes on the physical – it does not say that things do not have “insides”, and it does not say that everything is comprehensible from a 3rd person perspective.

And what is this "physical" that everything supervenes on ?

and it does NOT mean that determinism or reductionism (in the ontic sense) has failed. There is no way in principle that Moving Finger can see the world in exactly the same way that Q_Goest sees it,

According to whose principle ? According to physicalism there is such a way. Just understand Q Goest from a 3rd-person perspective.

Once again, physicalism does not entail that everything is comprehensible from a 3rd person perspective.

It does accoreding to the only (non-circular) defintion so
far offerered.

What new physical laws? Don’t swallow the Chalmers’ hyperbole hook, line and sinker. There are no new laws, and none are necessary. Everything can be understood and explained based on “it all depends on your perspective”.

Once you have abandoned the central claim of physicalism, there is not much point worrying about the laws.

The only central claim to physicalism is the thesis that everything supervenes on the physical. A “3rd person perspective account of all phenomena” is certainly not a central claim of physicalism.

No, it's an implication.

 

[moving finger]

Hi Tournesol

Good talking with you, as always.

mathematics does not necessarily have any particular perspective, third person or first person.

It isn't subjective. Whether you call that third-personal or impersonal is a matter of taste. (Of course it does contain *literal* perspective, as a branch of geometery. Presumably your usage is is of "perspective" is mataphorical here).

Yes, you are correct, I mean perspective in the metaphorical sense. I agree that mathematics is objective (ie assumes no particular perspective), but I don’t see that it has any meaning to describe mathematics as having either a third-person or first-person perspective. Objectivity/subjectivity on the one hand and third-person/first-person perspectives on the other do not necessarily mean quite the same thing.

The distinction you have drawn doesn't make a difference.

A difference to what? Physicalism does not say that everything has only properties that are entirely objective or third-person. Physicalism says only that everything supervenes on the physical, it is completely silent on whether any properties are necessarily third-person or first-person. See later.

Not everything is directly measureable in physics, but everything has a mathematical representation.

This latter is not a tenet of physicalism. That everything has a mathematical representation is a premise (which may be true or false) which is independent of the truth of physicalism.

In what sense of "emergent"? You use odf "perspectival" implies a weak, epistemic definition of emergence. The weak forms of emergence are trivially true. But elsewhere you seem to think you ar deomstratig strong emergence.

Then you will need to define just what you mean by weak and strong emergence, because that is not the way that the OP defined the terms (and the definition I am using here).

We can say that a high-level phenomenon is strongly emergent with respect to a low-level domain when the high-level phenomenon arises from the low-level domain, but truths concerning that phenomenon are not deducible even in principal from truths in the low-level domain.

Positing the existence of agents with (first-person) perspective creates a higher-level “domain” supervenient on the lower-level physical domain. There is no way that we can deduce truths about such first-person perspective from the truths in the underlying physical domain – hence such a phenomenon is (according to the way we have defined strong emergence in this thread, as per the OP) strongly emergent.

Every “observation” assumes a perspective. 3rd person science assumes we can ignore (or compensate for) effects of perspective – but this assumption is an approximation and is not necessarily true under all conditions.

It is necessarily true under phsyicalism as I define it , and it is necessarily true under the GoL.

This then seems to be a peculairity of your personal definition of physicalism. Physicalism simply says that everything supervenes on the physical, it does not say that the 1st person perspective can be subsumed in the 3rd person perspective.
How do you conclude (ie can you show how you arrive at the conclusion) that this is necessarily true under the GoL, or is this just your assumption?

The predictability of the GoL is predictability of it’s properties based on an external perspective (from outside the GoL) – there is no way, using data from an external perspective, to accurately predict the properties based on a perspective from within the GoL. It is an in-principle inaccessibility.

That doesn't follow at all. Everything about a perspective within the GoL is predictbale from an external perspectve, including the limitations of an internal perspective within the GoL.

Now it is my turn to say “that doesn’t follow at all”.

Perhaps you mean there is no way, using data from an internal perspective, to accurately predict the properties based on a perspective from within the GoL.

No, I mean there is no way, using data from an external perspective, to accurately predict the properties based on an internal perspective.

But that boils down to epistemic limitation, and therefore to weak emergence.

Again, I am using the definition offered in the OP.

If physicalism is true "frames of refernce" are as third-person comprehensible as anything else.

Again, you seem to have a strange notion of physicalism. Physicalism says only that everything supervenes on the physical, it does not say that everything is comprehensible from a 3rd person perspective.

3rd person science assumes that the influence of (literal) frames of reference can be compensated for.

Agreed – and this is an approximation which does not always hold. Hence the reason why 3rd person science cannot explain 1st person (subjective) properties. But this is not at odds with physicalism.

hence 3rd person science cannot be applied (in principle) to the explanation of subjective properties.

If they are irreducible. But if they are phsyicalism is false in the first place.

Again, you seem to have a strange notion of physicalism. Physicalism says only that everything supervenes on the physical, it does not say that everything is reducible to a 3rd person perspective.

"Everything supervenes on the physical" is a circular defintion of physicalism.

Not at all. If I had said “physicalism is the thesis that everything supervenes on physicalism” that would have been circular. But “physical” and “physicalism” are not the same thing. See later for definition of physical.

I have arrived at my version of by unpacking the meaning of "the phsyical". Do you have an alternative unpacking ?

You have arrived at your version via an unsound argument. See below.

Perspective reduces to structure in a physicalist universe.

And if you build two identically structured universes then you will have perspectives within those two unverses which are also identical with each other. But within anyone universe, you can have a single structure with multiple different perspectives.

that’s the point you are missing. Two identical agents (from a structural point of view) can have different perspectives because they occupy different positions and orientations in space. If you want to perfectly replicate an agent’s PoV, you must replicate it’s perspective as well as its structure.

And there is no barrier to that in a physicalist universe

Agreed. I can replicate a (mammalian) bat, but I (moving finger) can never know what it is like to be that bat, because by definition my perspective is determined by the fact that I am moving finger, not a bat. To take the perspective of the bat, I would have to become the bat, but then I would be the bat, and not moving finger. Hence moving finger can never know what it is like to be a bat.

Computationalism is simply the thesis that cognition is a form of computation – it does not necessarily entail a 3rd person perspective comprehension of cognition.

Not by itself, but no-one thinks computer oprogrammes have mysterious, irreducible properties, so that follows on readilly.

If a machine is able to perceive, then it has a first person perspective, which we could never experience or get access to using 3rd person science. If you wish to call these properties “mysterious” then the machine has “mysterious” properties.

As opposed to what ? The claim that the physical is physical.

No, the claim that everything supervenes on the physical. See below.

"Physicalism says everything has only physical properties.

Mathematics is the language of physics.

Therefore, physicalism says everything has only mathematical properties

Mathematical properties are entirely objective and third-person.

Therefore, physicalism says everything has only proeprties that are entirely objective and third-person."

Mathematics can be used to describe some aspects of the physical world, but it does not follow from this that physical properties are equivalent to mathematical properties, which is what your argument seems to assume.

Since mathematics is simply a language, what constitutes a “mathematical property” anyway (it’s a bit like suggesting that the English language has “properties”)? To me, a mathematical property is simply a particular observation derived from mathematics, such as the fact that 1729 is the sum of two cubes in two different ways. How is such a mathematical property equivalent to any physical property of the world?

Once you have explained exactly what you mean by a mathematical property, you then need to justify the substitution in the third line where you assume an implicit premise that physical properties are equivalent to mathematical properties. Bear in mind that in many cases, “physical” and “mathematical” are often regarded as antonyms, as in “this mathematical solution has no basis in physical reality”

Since I am claiming this implicit premise is false, your argument is unsound and simply reduces to “Physicalism says everything has only physical properties”, which is exactly what I am saying. Your definition of physicalism is therefore essentially the same as mine, but your claim that physicalism entails that everything is comprehensible from a 3rd person persopective is based on an unsound argument with a false implicit premise.

Can you de-circularise *your* definition?

I agree with your statement that physicalism says everything has only physical properties (this is simply another way of saying that everything supervenes on the physical), but the rest of your argument (containing as it does a false premise) is unsound.

*my* definition comes from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy here : http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/physicalism/

And what is this "physical" that everything supervenes on ?

Physical = pertaining to physics, which is the study of the properties and principles related to matter and energy, and of systems comprising matter and energy.

A “3rd person perspective account of all phenomena” is certainly not a central claim of physicalism.

No, it's an implication.

It’s a conclusion derived from an unsound argument.

Best Regards

 

[Tournesol]

It isn't subjective. Whether you call that third-personal or impersonal is a matter of taste. (Of course it does contain *literal* perspective, as a branch of geometery. Presumably your usage is is of "perspective" is mataphorical here).

Yes, you are correct, I mean perspective in the metaphorical sense. I agree that mathematics is objective (ie assumes no particular perspective), but I don’t see that it has any meaning to describe mathematics as having either a third-person or first-person perspective.

if subjective equates to first-person, objective equates to third-person.

Objectivity/subjectivity on the one hand and third-person/first-person perspectives on the other do not necessarily mean quite the same thing.

What is the difference ?

The distinction you have drawn doesn't make a difference.

A difference to what?

Anything.

Physicalism does not say that everything has only properties that are entirely objective or third-person. Physicalism says only that everything supervenes on the physical, it is completely silent on whether any properties are necessarily third-person or first-person. See later.

You never give another defintion of "the physical", so my point stands.

Not everything is directly measureable in physics, but everything has a mathematical representation.

This latter is not a tenet of physicalism.

Who knows? You have not defined "the physical".

That everything has a mathematical representation is a premise (which may be true or false) which is independent of the truth of physicalism.

Who knows? You have not defined "the physical".

In what sense of "emergent"? You use odf "perspectival" implies a weak, epistemic definition of emergence. The weak forms of emergence are trivially true. But elsewhere you seem to think you ar deomstratig strong emergence.

Then you will need to define just what you mean by weak and strong emergence, because that is not the way that the OP defined the terms (and the definition I am using here).

We can say that a high-level phenomenon is strongly emergent with respect to a low-level domain when the high-level phenomenon arises from the low-level domain, but truths concerning that phenomenon are not deducible even in principal from truths in the low-level domain.

In the GoL evything is deducile in principle. Thereofe, in the GoL, nothing has stronhly emergent
features.

Positing the existence of agents with (first-person) perspective creates a higher-level “domain” supervenient on the lower-level physical domain.

That depends on what you mean by "perspective". Literal, geomoetrical perspective has features, and only has features,
which can be deduced in principle. So that does not give you strong meergence. You can posit
some other kind of perspective, but it is a posit.

There is no way that we can deduce truths about such first-person perspective from the truths in the underlying physical domain – hence such a phenomenon is (according to the way we have defined strong emergence in this thread, as per the OP) strongly emergent.

Depending on what you mean by "perspective". But there are no
such perspectives within the GoL.

How do you conclude (ie can you show how you arrive at the conclusion) that this ("we can ignore (or compensate for) effects of perspective") is necessarily true under the GoL, or is this just your assumption?

The GoL is an entirely objective, determinsitic game of perfect information. Everyhting within
it is determinavle in principle.

The predictability of the GoL is predictability of it’s properties based on an external perspective (from outside the GoL) – there is no way, using data from an external perspective, to accurately predict the properties based on a perspective from within the GoL. It is an in-principle inaccessibility.

That doesn't follow at all. Everything about a perspective within the GoL is predictbale from an external perspectve, including the limitations of an internal perspective within the GoL.

Now it is my turn to say “that doesn’t follow at all”.

Well, it does. Everything is predictable in Life, so perspectives are predictable. "Everything"
means everything.

But that boils down to epistemic limitation, and therefore to weak emergence.

Again, I am using the definition offered in the OP.

Again that doesn't help your case. Everything is predictable in Life. Everything.

3rd person science assumes that the influence of (literal) frames of reference can be compensated for.

Agreed – and this is an approximation which does not always hold.

"In principle" means "in principle". Approximations are practical limitations.

Hence the reason why 3rd person science cannot explain 1st person (subjective) properties.

That would be an in-practice limitation.

But this is not at odds with physicalism.

"In principle" is not interchangeable with "in practice"

hence 3rd person science cannot be applied (in principle) to the explanation of subjective properties.

If there are such things/ Are there ? Are they physical ? What do you mean by physical
? Are you ever going to answer that question ?

"Everything supervenes on the physical" is a circular defintion of physicalism.
Not at all. If I had said “physicalism is the thesis that everything supervenes on physicalism” that would have been circular. But “physical” and “physicalism” are not the same thing. See later for definition of physical.

Well, that's interesting. Presumably you would regard "goodness is being good" as non-circular
as well.

Mathematics can be used to describe some aspects of the physical world, but it does not follow from this that physical properties are equivalent to mathematical properties, which is what your argument seems to assume.

Physicalism means everything is physical. Physical means describable by physics. Describable
by physics means describable in mathematical terms. So physicalism means [n]everything[/b] i s
describable in mathematical terms. "Everything" means everything.

Since mathematics is simply a language, what constitutes a “mathematical property” anyway

A property that can be fully described in mathematical language, without
any residue of subjective mystery.

Once you have explained exactly what you mean by a mathematical property, you then need to justify the substitution in the third line where you assume an implicit premise that physical properties are equivalent to mathematical properties.

Physical properties are mathemtically describable (fully) properties.

Bear in mind that in many cases, “physical” and “mathematical” are often regarded as antonyms, as in “this mathematical solution has no basis in physical reality”

"All physical properties are mathematical(ly describable)" doesn't imply
"All mathemacital descriptions have physical counterparts", so that in no objection.

Since I am claiming this implicit premise is false, your argument is unsound and simply reduces to “Physicalism says

everything has only physical properties”, which is exactly what I am saying.

It doesn't reduce to what you are saying, and what you are saying doesn't say anything.

Your definition of physicalism is therefore essentially the same as mine, but your claim that physicalism entails that everything is comprehensible from a 3rd person persopective is based on an unsound argument with a false implicit premise.

Physical properties are "equaivalent" to mathemtical properties in the sense
of being fully describable by them. They are not "equivalent" in the sense of
being identical.

Can you de-circularise *your* definition?

I agree with your statement that physicalism says everything has only physical properties (this is simply another way of saying that everything supervenes on the physical), but the rest of your argument (containing as it does a false premise) is unsound.

*my* definition comes from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy here : http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/physicalism/

Indeed it does. And they don't define physical either. So we are not in a position
where you have one definition of physical and I have another. We are in aposition
where I have a definition which you can neither accept nor improve on.

And what is this "physical" that everything supervenes on ?
Physical = pertaining to physics, which is the study of the properties and principles related to matter and energy, and of systems comprising matter and energy.

Indeed. And nobody disputes that physics uses mathematical descriptions so that takes us into my argument.

A “3rd person perspective account of all phenomena” is certainly not a central claim of physicalism.

No, it's an implication.

It’s a conclusion derived from an unsound argument.

You have not shown my argument is unsound, you are making inaccurate guesses.

 

[Q_Goest]

Interesting discussion about physicalism and emergence. I have a rather narrow focus on emergence right now, so I apologize if I don't respond to everything you've both commented on.

I'd agree that physicalism says that everything supervenes on the physical. But I don't think that's a very good explanation, it can be interpreted in different ways, so first I'd like to understand exactly what is meant by that. The dictionary provides this definition of supervene:
Philosophy. To be dependent on a set of facts or properties in such a way that change can occur only after change has occurred in those facts or properties.
Still needs some explanation, but from that I would say that physicalism is the belief that all matter and energy is dependant on a set of facts or properties in such a way that change can occur only after change has occurred in those facts or properties.

I suspect this definition is still unclear, so if anyone wants to suggest improvements feel free.

Tournsel proposed a series of statements which I rewrote as follows:
- Physicalism says everything has measurable properties.
- Anything measurable is calculable using mathematics.
- Therefore, physicalism says that all properties are calculable.
- Calculable properties are entirely objective and third person.
- Therefore, physicalism says everything has only properties that are entirely calculable to any third-person.

Radioactive decay for example, is a measurable property, though it may or may not be a deterministic one. Thus, if I want to calculate the probability of this property resulting in a decay event, I can use mathematics. So the first two statements above seem quite reasonable to me, the use of the concept of something having properties, regardless of whether they are deterministic or not, seems straightforward to me.

Looking back at the definition of physicalism, I see one might take the definition to mean that these properties may not be measurable in any way from a 3'rd person perspective. Movingfinger seems to suggest that these properties may only be accessible to a specific set or group of matter and energy. In other words, I believe what you're saying, MF, is that physicalism suggests that although the properties (such as consciousness) may be had by a specific set or group (ie: a person is a set or group of matter & energy), those properties may not be accessible to another specific set or group (a 3'rd person perspective). The facts and properties can be had by the 1'st person but not the 3'rd person perspective. Is that what you're suggesting MF?

If on the other hand, we suggest that all properties are accessible from a 3'rd person perspective, and I don't know any that aren't except consciousness, then we must accept that all properties are measurable (and calculable using mathematics) by anyone. Thus, we can say that all properties are calculable*. I think that's what Tournsel has suggested, so please correct me if I've misinterpreted.

MF said: Positing the existence of agents with (first-person) perspective creates a higher-level “domain” supervenient on the lower-level physical domain. There is no way that we can deduce truths about such first-person perspective from the truths in the underlying physical domain – hence such a phenomenon is (according to the way we have defined strong emergence in this thread, as per the OP) strongly emergent.

I think this is a good jumping off point for strong emergence as it relates to physicalism.

From the perspective of a third person, one can know all the "facts or properties" a computer has with the possible exception of consciousness. We can measure and know all the states of all the switches inside any computational device at all periods of time, and we can even predict with deterministic precision any future state as long as we know exactly all the inputs. From the third person perspective, there is nothing we can't measure except this strange phenomenon of consciousness, or at least that is what we might be led to believe if we assume only weak emergence. Note that this is exactly what Bedau is saying about the GoL, and it's why he says it is weakly emergent.

Despite these measurable properties as described by weak emergence, MF and others would have us believe that computationalism is true, and thus there are facts and properties which are not deducible ("truths" which are not deducible) from a third person perspective. Is that correct MF?

Chalmers doesn't seem to be satisfied with this approach. That's understandable, because if there are no other new physical laws which can be applied to the computer to explain conscious phenomena, then IFF** computationalism is true, we must accept that the computational device possesses facts and properties we can't "deduce truths about", just as pointed out by MF! I think that's an important conclusion we must either agree on or otherwise debate.

If what MF points out is true, and we can't deduce certain truths from a third person perspective, then this brings up a real problem. Why should consciousness be the only "undeducible truth"? What possible other experiences can other systems have which are not deducible truths? If we accept this, I believe this leads us to believe in panpsychism. It also leads to the possibility that there are other phenomena that are created by computationalism which are not conscious but are similarly undeducible truths.

If we accept one undeducible truth we must accept any number of others. For example, we might suggest the moon can see the other side of the universe where an army of aliens are preparing to invade Earth. Since the moon can't tell us what it sees, this belief doesn't violate faster than light communication. Similarly, any undeducible truth must be acceptable as long as it doesn't violate any known laws of physics. I see no way of defending the idea of computationalism if this is what is expected of its supporters. Computationalism then becomes something that one can't prove or disprove, much like any religious belief.

Chalmers has an answer for this.

Chalmers claims there must be other organizational physical laws, higher order laws. Chalmers claims that if we were to learn what these laws are and understand how they worked and then apply them to the computer, we might finally be able to know and even measure these properties of consciousness (from a third person perspective).

Ok, so maybe there are other physical laws that we can add or create that can explain how and why a computer becomes self aware. In fact, they might then determine if there are other experiences or phenomena which other systems of matter and energy posses, such as the moon being able to see the far side of the universe but still unable to tell us what it sees.

Personally, I don't like this idea of adding on additional physical laws in order to explain the properties a computer might possess. I think it's enough to assume the computer possesses only those properties we can measure.

Note that this problem is based on the presumption of computationalism. If computationalism is not true, then we might find a different outcome and thus avoid these problems of assuming either undeducible truths as MF suggests or having to add new physical laws to explain properties of unknowable phenomena as Chalmers suggests.

If there's any interest in an alternative concept of "strong emergence" I'd like to introduce a paper by Laughlin, as I think it has some bearing on the debate and may point to an interesting alternate direction. However, I think we need to agree first whether the above is what is being argued by Bedau and Chalmers, especially - how strong emergence is defined with respect to computationalism and physicalism, and the need for additional physical laws.

~

*Albeit, we may have to convert values or amplitudes of those properties depending on perspective. We may measure kinetic energy differently for example, depending on our velocity with respect to the mass being measured, but the kinetic energy of something can always be converted depending on your perspective to show all perspectives agree.

**Meaning if, and only if "computationalism" is true. If computationalism is NOT true, then there is a different outcome to the problem.

 

[moving finger]

Looking back at the definition of physicalism, I see one might take the definition to mean that these properties may not be measurable in any way from a 3'rd person perspective. Movingfinger seems to suggest that these properties may only be accessible to a specific set or group of matter and energy. In other words, I believe what you're saying, MF, is that physicalism suggests that although the properties (such as consciousness) may be had by a specific set or group (ie: a person is a set or group of matter & energy), those properties may not be accessible to another specific set or group (a 3'rd person perspective). The facts and properties can be had by the 1'st person but not the 3'rd person perspective. Is that what you're suggesting MF?

Exactly. Except consciousness is not just one single property, it is a particular set of properties, each of which is accessible from the first person perspective only.

thus there are facts and properties which are not deducible ("truths" which are not deducible) from a third person perspective. Is that correct MF?

Correct.

If what MF points out is true, and we can't deduce certain truths from a third person perspective, then this brings up a real problem. Why should consciousness be the only "undeducible truth"?

Consciousness is not the only undeducible truth. Godel's theorem tells us that no sufficiently complex mathematical decsription can be both consistent and complete (ie there are in principle undeducible truths within any such system if we wish to maintain consistency), and the HUP says that in principle not everything about the world is knowable. There are thus potentially many "undeducible truths" in the world. I'm simply saying that all 1st person perspective properties are "undeducible" from the 3rd person perspective. You are focussing on consciousness, but consciousness is simply a particular set of such 1st person perspective properties.

It also leads to the possibility that there are other phenomena that are created by computationalism which are not conscious but are similarly undeducible truths.

Agreed.

Computationalism then becomes something that one can't prove or disprove, much like any religious belief.

The fundamental premises of most philosophies cannot be proven or disproven. You are free to reject computationalism, but what would you put in its place, and can you argue that the fundamental premises of your pet explanation can be proven or disproven?

Chalmers claims there must be other organizational physical laws, higher order laws. Chalmers claims that if we were to learn what these laws are and understand how they worked and then apply them to the computer, we might finally be able to know and even measure these properties of consciousness (from a third person perspective).

You cannot get at 1st person laws from the 3rd person perspective. You and Chalmers are free to try, but you're tilting at windmills.

Ok, so maybe there are other physical laws that we can add or create that can explain how and why a computer becomes self aware.

I can "explain" how and why this happens based on our existing laws, I don't need any new laws (and I certainly don't need to posit any supernatural entities such as primordial consciousness) to show how consciousness is an emergent phenomenon based purely on physicalism. But what I cannot do is to comprehend that computer's 1st person perspective from my perspective.

In fact, they might then determine if there are other experiences or phenomena which other systems of matter and energy posses, such as the moon being able to see the far side of the universe but still unable to tell us what it sees.

You cannot get at 1st person "laws" from the 3rd person perspective. You and Chalmers are free to try, but you're tilting at windmills.

Best Regards

 

[moving finger]

Hi again Tournesol

if subjective equates to first-person, objective equates to third-person.

They don’t equate, that’s the whole point.

What is the difference ?

Objective = a view without any bias whatsoever, is independent of any perspective
Subjective = a view with some kind of bias, is dependent on a particular perspective
1st person perspective = a view with a particular perspective of an entity “from the inside” of the same entity
3rd person perspective = a view with a particular perspective of an entity “from the outside” of that entity

Now, the important point here (which is crucial to this entire argument) is that science is predicated on the 3rd person perspective - everything in science (all experiments, all hypotheses, all explanations and interpretations of the results) is based on this perspective, ie that we measure entities "from the outside". Often in science we ASSUME that this provides us with an objective view of the world - but that is an approximation. A truly objective view is a view from NO perspective, a view from "nowhere and nowhen" - but all of our science is bound up inextricably with the 3rd person perspective, the view from the outside only. We cannot, by definition, get "inside" the experiment to get a perspective from the inside (because in doing so we change the experiment - this is why moving finger can never know what it is like to be Tournesol). Thus science is in principle (by definition) strictly not truly objective (even though we can often approximate objectivity). All science is subjective (ie it is based on a 3rd person perspective, and any view from a perspective is subjective by definition), and we simply assume that this gives us an objective view. The assumption is an approximation.

A difference to what?

Anything.

The distinction as explained above makes a whole world of difference.

You never give another defintion of "the physical", so my point stands.

Read my post again, you’ll find the definition of physical. If you disagree with it please feel free to provide your own.

Not everything is directly measureable in physics, but everything has a mathematical representation.

This latter is not a tenet of physicalism.

Who knows? You have not defined "the physical".

Yes I have. Read my previous post again. Then show me where the claim “everything has a mathematical representation” is a tenet of either physicalism or physics.

In the GoL evything is deducile in principle. Thereofe, in the GoL, nothing has stronhly emergent features.

How do you deduce 1st person perspective properties (properties of perspectives from within the GoL) of the GoL?

Literal, geomoetrical perspective has features, and only has features, which can be deduced in principle. So that does not give you strong meergence. You can posit some other kind of perspective, but it is a posit.

How do you deduce 1st person perspective properties (properties of perspectives from within consciousness) of conscious entities from a 3rd person perspective?
At the end of the day, everything is based on a posit, so what does that prove?

But there are no such perspectives within the GoL.

How do you know that? Is that your posit?

The GoL is an entirely objective, determinsitic game of perfect information. Everyhting within it is determinavle in principle.

How do you know that? Is that your posit?

Well, it does. Everything is predictable in Life, so perspectives are predictable. "Everything" means everything.

The response “Well, it does” is not a coherent logical argument. How do you predict the 1st person perspective properties of a conscious entity from your 3rd person perspective? According to you, everything is predictable from the 3rd person perspective….. so how is it done? Or is the assertion that “everything is predictable from the 3rd person perspective” simply your unsubstantiated posit?

Again that doesn't help your case. Everything is predictable in Life. Everything.

That’s obviously your posit.

3rd person science assumes that the influence of (literal) frames of reference can be compensated for.

Agreed – and this is an approximation which does not always hold.

"In principle" means "in principle". Approximations are practical limitations.

Your claim did not say “in principle”, it said “science assumes”. An assumption does not equate to a principle. Which law of physics says that everything in physics is in principle deducible from the 3rd person perspective?

That would be an in-practice limitation.

Is that your posit?

"In principle" is not interchangeable with "in practice"

You have not established that there is any principle involved, you simply assume there is one.

If there are such things/ Are there ? Are they physical ? What do you mean by physical? Are you ever going to answer that question ?

Read the entirety of my previous post.

Presumably you would regard "goodness is being good" as non-circular as well.

I have defined physical in terms independent of physicalism, and I have defined physicalism in terms of physical. There is no circularity involved. A circular definition is a definition of a word in terms of itself (ie the same word). Are you suggesting that “physicalism” and “physical” are identical? (note – similarity in spelling does not equate to identical - the “ism” on the end is a significant clue!).

Physicalism means everything is physical. Physical means describable by physics. Describable by physics means describable in mathematical terms.

There is no accepted law of nature or physics which says that all physical properties are necessarily mathematically describable, except perhaps in your personal philosophy.

Since mathematics is simply a language, what constitutes a “mathematical property” anyway

A property that can be fully described in mathematical language, without any residue of subjective mystery.

Thus a mathematical property is a property that can be fully described in mathematical language….. and you accuse me of using circular definitions?

Physical properties are mathemtically describable (fully) properties.

That is your posit. There is no accepted law of nature or physics which says that all physical properties are necessarily mathematically describable, except perhaps in your personal philosophy.

It doesn't reduce to what you are saying, and what you are saying doesn't say anything.

I am saying that your claim that all physical properties are necessarily mathematically describable is your unsubstantiated posit, a posit that I claim to be false. You don’t agree with my claim, but it doesn’t follow from this that what I am saying “doesn’t say anything”.

Physical properties are "equaivalent" to mathemtical properties in the sense of being fully describable by them. They are not "equivalent" in the sense of being identical.

Being “fully describable by mathematics” is your posit, the truth of which is here disputed.

And nobody disputes that physics uses mathematical descriptions so that takes us into my argument.

That “physics uses mathematical descriptions” is simply a contingent fact based on the efficacy of mathematical language in describing many physical phenomena – but it does not follow from this that all physical phenomena are describable by mathematics – you are simply assuming this to be the case.

You have not shown my argument is unsound, you are making inaccurate guesses.

Dear Tournesol, at the end of the day, you have your posit (which is that “all physical phenomena are describable by mathematics”) and I have mine (which is that “NOT all physical phenomena are describable by mathematics”). You cannot show my posit to be false, neither can I show yours to be false. Its a bit like the distinction between determinism and indeterminism (on which you and I also disagree) - whether one believes the world is fundamentally deterministic or not is a posit, it cannot be proven either way (which is why my personal philosophy does not assume determinism to be either true or false, I accept that the world may be indeterministic but I simply see no efficacy in indeterminism, ie the posit of indeterminism explains nothing about the world which cannot also be explained based on determinism).

All philosophies boil down to this in the end. Call my posit an “inaccurate guess” if you wish, but that’s simply your subjective opinion, and you’re in a glasshouse yourself so I suggest you think twice before throwing stones.

The problem you face with your posit is that you then have trouble explaining conscious phenomena - since you believe all physical phenomena are describable by mathematics. It seems this leads you (and perhaps Q_Goest and perhaps Chalmers) to reject physicalism (ie there must be "something else", over and above physicalism, which explains consciousness). For me, however, there is no problem - from my posit, I can explain how consciousness emerges based entirely on physicalism.

Whether that makes your theory "better" than mine, or vice versa, is simply a matter of opinion. It simply depends on one's perspective.

Best Regards

 

[Tournesol]

Objective = a view without any bias whatsoever, is independent of any perspective
Subjective = a view with some kind of bias, is dependent on a particular perspective
1st person perspective = a view with a particular perspective of an entity “from the inside” of the same entity
3rd person perspective = a view with a particular perspective of an entity “from the outside” of that entity

Literal or metaphorical perspective ? Surely a metaphorical perspective just is subjective bias.

Now, the important point here (which is crucial to this entire argument) is that science is predicated on the 3rd person perspective

Literal or metaphorical perspective ? Surely science is based on the
avoidance of personal bias, which is metaphorical perspective.

- everything in science (all experiments, all hypotheses, all explanations and interpretations of the results) is based on this perspective, ie that we measure entities "from the outside".

From the outside, taken literally is literal perspective. And literal perspective can
be compensated for.

Often in science we ASSUME that this provides us with an objective view of the world - but that is an approximation. A truly objective view is a view from NO perspective,

No literal or no metaphorical perspective ? If we understand the difference between the two,
we will understand that in order to achieve lack of bias (metaphorical perspective), we don't need any particual
literal perspective. Any literal perspective is as good as any other, you get rid of bias
by understanding its sources and compensating for them.

a view from "nowhere and nowhen"

Metaphorically, I assume.

- but all of our science is bound up inextricably with the 3rd person perspective, the view from the outside only.

Literal or metaphorical perspective ?

We cannot, by definition, get "inside" the experiment to get a perspective from the inside

We can't literally get inside. But what we
are aiming for is freedom of from subjective bias , which is metaphorical perspective.

It could be the case that things have an inherent (metaphtorical) perspective of their
own (over and above the literal, geometrical perspective), and that the only mode of epistemic
access to such a metaphorical perspective is to stand in the shoes (almost literally)
of the thing in question. But it doesn't have to be. It is not an implication
of ny kind of physicalism. It could also be the case that things don't have
tricky metaphtorical perspectives of that kind, and in that case the
fact that we cannot literally stand in their shoes is epistemically irrelvane.
we woudn't learn anything if we did.

The GoL is an illustraton of this.
As an external observer, you have complete information about
what is going on in the Life world. Since already you have complete information,
there is nothing you can learn by projecting yourslef into the Life world.
All you would gain is a merely literal perspective, a set of epistemic
limitations which were predictable from your outside-observer stance ITFP.

(because in doing so we change the experiment

If you are dealing with a Life world, the way in which
you
would change the experiment are themselves predictable.

- this is why moving finger can never know what it is like to be Tournesol). Thus science is in principle (by definition) strictly not truly objective

Science may not be truly objective your sense, but that is not [e]because[/b]
of the existence of literal perspectives, and it is not because of oberver effect,
both of which can be predicted/compensated objectivity.

Science can only fail to be objective if the universe has a certain kind
of metaphyics, a kind which is contradictory to physicalism (as opposed
ot materialism), not the kind the completely objective ontology the GoL has.

(even though we can often approximate objectivity). All science is subjective (ie it is based on a 3rd person perspective, and any view from a perspective is subjective by definition),

Literal or metaphorical perspective ? Literal perspective isn't subjective by definition. It is just
a matter of angles and vanishing points. And that is the only kind you
get "for free" with phsyicalism. Any other kind has to be posited.

and we simply assume that this gives us an objective view. The assumption is an approximation.

The people who assume that are assuming one kind of ontology -- an ontology
which is physicalist in my sense -- and the others are assuming something else.

Read my post again, you’ll find the definition of physical. If you disagree with it please feel free to provide your own.

Your definition is really two definitions


1) Physical = pertaining to physics,


2) which is the study of the properties and principles related to matter and energy, and of systems comprising matter and energy.


(1) is the same as my definition. Physcalism per se, physicalism properly so-called.

(2) is a claim about what kind of stuff the world is made of: matter and energy. As such,
it is really a defintion of materialism, not physicalism. It is logically possible
that the world consits of nothing but material bodies experiencing
qualia, with no mathematical and measurable properties. That would mean
physics, as the attempt to explain the world mathematically, was doomed from
the start. If it is logically possible to assert (2) and deny (1), the two
definitions cannot be the same.

That ontology is not being seriously proposed. The kind of ontology
that is in under scrutiny is the kind where (2) is true, but (1)
is false; everything is matter/energy, but some properties
are closed to physical investigation. Not everything supervenes
on "the phsyical" where "the physical" is that which pertains to Physics.

That is the way the world must be in order for it to be the case
that there are certain things which are epistemically closed
to you depending on where you are in the world. A physical(2)
world is entirely knowable, in principle, objectively,
just like a GoL world, and all perspectives in it are
only literal , and thus predictable and compensatable.

(To look at it another way:
If physical does not, and never did, have
any implication about subjectivity or qualia,
why do avowed physicalists like Dennet
and the Churchlands so strenuoulsy qualiaphobic?)

Not everything is directly measureable in physics, but everything has a mathematical representation.

This latter is not a tenet of physicalism.

Who knows? You have not defined "the physical".
Yes I have. Read my previous post again. Then show me where the claim “everything has a mathematical representation” is a tenet of either physicalism or physics.

"the physical" pertains to physics, and "Physical definitions, models and theories are invariably expressed using
mathematical relations." If there
is something which does not have a mathematical representation, it does not
supervene on the physical.

Of course, "everything has a mathematical representation" is not a tenet of materialism.

In the GoL evything is deducile in principle. Thereofe, in the GoL, nothing has stronhly emergent features.

How do you deduce 1st person perspective properties (properties of perspectives from within the GoL) of the GoL?

Literal or metaphorical perspective?

Assuming literal:-
If the GoL contained a pattern of cells constituting an intelligent agent, it would presumably
rely on gliders, or some such pattern, to interact with its environment, just as
we rely on photons and sound waves. This would place certan epsitemic limitations on it.
For instance, if there were a Life pattern which a glider could pass thorough unchanged,
that would be "invisible". All this is predictable in principle.

Of course you might have meant metaphorical perpective -- subjectivity, qualia,
and so on. But then you need to show that exist in the Life world
in the first place. I don't doubt that they exist in our world, but htat might
just mean our world has a different ontology.

Literal, geomoetrical perspective has features, and only has features, which can be deduced in principle. So that does not give you strong meergence. You can posit some other kind of perspective, but it is a posit.

How do you deduce 1st person perspective properties (properties of perspectives from within consciousness) of conscious entities from a 3rd person perspective?

Literal or metaphorical perspective?

i don't have to accept that "1st person perspective properties" are literal prespective.

At the end of the day, everything is based on a posit, so what does that prove?

Some sets of posits are mutually incompatible. Atheism isn't compatible with creationism.
And strong emergence isn't compatible with everything-has-only-mathematicallly-describable-properties
physicalism.

But there are no such perspectives within the GoL.

How do you know that? Is that your posit?

No, I don't need to posit it.

i) The external oberver has complete information about the Life world.
ii) IF there were metaphorical perspectives of the kind youfavour within the life
world, an external observer would learn something by projecting himslef into
the Life World.
iii) But an extrnal observer cannot learn anything new; he has complete information.
iv) Reductio: Either i) or ii) is false. i) is true, so ii) is false.

The GoL is an entirely objective, determinsitic game of perfect information. Everyhting within it is determinavle in principle.

How do you know that? Is that your posit?

It's a fact. If you dispute it , you need to learn more about Life.

http://www.math.mcgill.ca/~wilds/research/life/index.html


Well, it does. Everything is predictable in Life, so perspectives are predictable. "Everything" means everything.

The response “Well, it does” is not a coherent logical argument.

Not it isn't. It is a waste of time to argue for facts. Facts should be looked up
That is what encyclopedias are for.

Your claim did not say “in principle”,

You are working toward the claim that there are strongly emergent features in a
physicalist/life world. "Strong Emergence" is defined in terms of in-principle
predicability.

it said “science assumes”. An assumption does not equate to a principle. Which law of physics says that everything in physics is in principle deducible from the 3rd person perspective?

As I said before, it is an implication.

That would be an in-practice limitation.

Is that your posit?

No, it follows from the meaning of "approximation".

"In principle" is not interchangeable with "in practice"

You have not established that there is any principle involved, you simply assume there is one.

You established that there is a principle involved when you appealed to
Chalmer's definition of Strong Emergence.

Presumably you would regard "goodness is being good" as non-circular as well.

I have defined physical in terms independent of physicalism, and I have defined physicalism in terms of physical. There is no circularity involved. A circular definition is a definition of a word in terms of itself (ie the same word). Are you suggesting that “physicalism” and “physical” are identical? (note – similarity in spelling does not equate to identical - the “ism” on the end is a significant clue!).

"Goodness" isn't spelt the same as "being good", so the anwer is presumably "yes".

Physicalism means everything is physical. Physical means describable by physics. Describable by physics means describable in mathematical terms.

There is no accepted law of nature or physics which says that all physical properties are necessarily mathematically describable, except perhaps in your personal philosophy.

It is a methodological principle of phsyics. It characterises it as a science.

"Physical definitions, models and theories are invariably expressed using mathematical relations."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physics

Since mathematics is simply a language, what constitutes a “mathematical property” anyway

A property that can be fully described in mathematical language, without any residue of subjective mystery.

Thus a mathematical property is a property that can be fully described in mathematical language….. and you accuse me of using circular definitions?

If you don't know what "mathematical" means, you can look it up here;

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematics

That is your posit. There is no accepted law of nature or physics which says that all physical properties are necessarily mathematically describable, except perhaps in your personal philosophy.

"Physical definitions, models and theories are invariably expressed using mathematical relations."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physics

And nobody disputes that physics uses mathematical descriptions so that takes us into my argument.

That “physics uses mathematical descriptions” is simply a contingent fact based on the efficacy of mathematical language in describing many physical phenomena – but it does not follow from this that all physical phenomena are describable by mathematics – you are simply assuming this to be the case.

If a "physcial phenomenon" is a phenomenon pertaining to physics
and if physics is a mathematical science by defintion, which it is, all physcial
phenomena are mathematically decribable...by defintion. You comment only
makes sense if there is some way way of defining physical other than "pertaining to physics".
Well, there is the matter/energy definition. It is possible that matter could have non-mathematical
properties. But that is a posit. There is certainly nothing non-mathematical goping on
in the Life world. The GoL is a mathematical construct by a mathematician.

Dear Tournesol, at the end of the day, you have your posit (which is that “all physical phenomena are describable by mathematics”) and I have mine (which is that “NOT all physical phenomena are describable by mathematics”).

What I say is factually supportable. What you say isn't even consistent.

You cannot show my posit to be false, neither can I show yours to be false.

There are questions of internal consistency as well. We may not know
which ontology the real world has, but we know what the Life world
is, and you have made claims about thatas well.

Its a bit like the distinction between determinism and indeterminism (on which you and I also disagree) - whether one believes the world is fundamentally deterministic or not is a posit, it cannot be proven either way (which is why my personal philosophy does not assume determinism to be either true or false, I accept that the world may be indeterministic but I simply see no efficacy in indeterminism, ie the posit of indeterminism explains nothing about the world which cannot also be explained based on determinism).

It can, in fact, explain why it is complex.

All philosophies boil down to this in the end.

There are questions of internal consistency and factual evidence as well. It's not all
"posits"

problem you face with your posit is that you then have trouble explaining conscious phenomena - since you believe all physical phenomena are describable by mathematics.

I am not saying that physicalism as I have defined it is actually true. I do
think qualia conflict with physicalism. OTOH, I am not saying "qualia exist in the real
world, therefore quaia exist in the GoL".

It seems this leads you (and perhaps Q_Goest and perhaps Chalmers) to reject physicalism (ie there must be "something else", over and above physicalism, which explains consciousness). For me, however, there is no problem - from my posit, I can explain how consciousness emerges based entirely on physicalism.

Your argument rests on the double meaning of "perpective".

Whether that makes your theory "better" than mine, or vice versa, is simply a matter of opinion. It simply depends on [one's perspective.

Aaagh!

 

[Tournesol]

I'd agree that physicalism says that everything supervenes on the physical. But I don't think that's a very good explanation, it can be interpreted in different ways, so first I'd like to understand exactly what is meant by that. The dictionary provides this definition of supervene:
Philosophy. To be dependent on a set of facts or properties in such a way that change can occur only after change has occurred in those facts or properties.
Still needs some explanation, but from that I would say that physicalism is the belief that all matter and energy is dependant on a set of facts or properties in such a way that change can occur only after change has occurred in those facts or properties.

The point is that physicalism about the mental means
that mental facts supervene on physical facts.

Personally, I don't like this idea of adding on additional physical laws in order to explain the properties a computer might possess.

Chalmers thinks we need those laws to
explain properties we possess. He also thinks that
a brain can be slowly transofemd into a
functionally equivalent computer, and the brains's
qualia would not slowly fade out during the process.

 

[moving finger]

He also thinks that a brain can be slowly transofemd into a functionally equivalent computer, and the brains's qualia would not slowly fade out during the process.

I agree with Chalmers on this. His "fading qualia" argument is a good one. And completely consistent with physicalism.

Best Regards

 

[Tournesol]

He states quite clearly that his theory is not
consistent with physicalism. what mistake is he making, IYO?

 

[moving finger]

He states quite clearly that his theory is not
consistent with physicalism. what mistake is he making, IYO?

why is it (ie on what grounds is he claiming it is) not consistent with physicalism?

Best Regards

 

[selfAdjoint]

He states quite clearly that his theory is not
consistent with physicalism. what mistake is he making, IYO?

His difference from physicalism is that he introduces a new ontological principle, a new kind of causality. He distinguishes "Naturalism", which he claims to adhere to, from "Physicalism" which he sees as overly limited.

 

[moving finger]

Hi again Tournesol

Objective = a view without any bias whatsoever, is independent of any perspective
Subjective = a view with some kind of bias, is dependent on a particular perspective
1st person perspective = a view with a particular perspective of an entity “from the inside” of the same entity
3rd person perspective = a view with a particular perspective of an entity “from the outside” of that entity

Literal or metaphorical perspective ?

Both.

Surely a metaphorical perspective just is subjective bias.

You seem to be agreeing with me : Subjectivity entails perspective. Objectivity entails absence of perspective. Science is based on a 3rd person perspective, hence science is not objective (although it often approximates to objectivity).

Now, the important point here (which is crucial to this entire argument) is that science is predicated on the 3rd person perspective

Literal or metaphorical perspective ? Surely science is based on the avoidance of personal bias, which is metaphorical perspective.

Both literal and metaphorical.

Again we seem to agree. Experimental/empirical investigation in science assumes that a 3rd person perspective is somehow equivalent to objectivity – but this is an approximation only. If we can always separate “observer” from “observed”, such that changing the observer has no impact on what is being observed, then we can claim objectivity in our measurements. This is a fundamental premise of all scientific investigation. In most experiments we can probably claim that this can be achieved (however there are some who believe that the outcome of experiments in quantum mechanics is inextricably linked with the observer, in which case objectivity is not achieved). But when we start investigating consciousness, we can no longer claim objectivity, because the 1st person perspective of conscious experience inextricably binds up both observer and observed, such that this perspective is inaccessible to any other observer, by definition.

If we study any system which possesses (as part of the system) an internal 1st person perspective on the world, there is no way (in principle) that we can fully understand that 1st person perspective from our 3rd person vantage point. There is no compensation we can make that converts our 3rd person perspective “of the behaviour of a conscious subject” or “of the neural correlates of consciousness” into anyting which resembles the subject’s 1st person perspective of conscious awareness “from the inside”. It is impossible in principle.

True objectivity is the absence of any particular (literal and metaphorical) perspective, 3rd person, 1st person, or any other. How can any external observer profess to have an objective view of my conscious experience, when they have access only to a limited 3rd person perspective of my conscious experience – ie they do not (can not) know it from the inside. All they can do is to observe my external behaviour and to observe “neural correlates” of reported experiences – they cannot observe my conscious experience as I do. An external observer’s observation of me is not objective – it is a subjectively biased observation – biased by the restriction to a 3rd person perspective. And there is no way (by definition) to compensate for this bias.

- everything in science (all experiments, all hypotheses, all explanations and interpretations of the results) is based on this perspective, ie that we measure entities "from the outside".

From the outside, taken literally is literal perspective. And literal perspective can be compensated for.

That’s the whole point – it can’t always be done. How can you “compensate for” your 3rd person perspective (either literal or metaphorical) on my consciousness (you have access only to observations of my behaviour, and to the external (3rd-person observable) properties of neural processes in my brain) to achieve the unique 1st person perspective on my consciousness which only I have (which is accessible and knowable by definition only by me, from the “inside of me”)?

You are the one claiming that all perspectives can always be compensated for – so I welcome you explaining to us how it’s to be done in the example above?

Often in science we ASSUME that this provides us with an objective view of the world - but that is an approximation. A truly objective view is a view from NO perspective,

No literal or no metaphorical perspective ?

Both.

If we understand the difference between the two, we will understand that in order to achieve lack of bias (metaphorical perspective), we don't need any particual literal perspective. Any literal perspective is as good as any other, you get rid of bias by understanding its sources and compensating for them.

In principle yes one gets rid of bias in experiments by understanding the sources of bias and compensating for them. But you cannot compensate for this bias when the observer is inextricably bound up with the observed (as in the case of conscious experience). In principle there is no way to “compensate for” your 3rd person perspective (on my consciousness) in order to achieve my 1st person perspective (on my consciousness), because you cannot understand all of the sources of the 3rd person and 1st person bias, and compensate for them, from within the system (the “system” here is the entire experimental setup which includes observer, you, and observed, me). You literally “cannot get there from here”.

a view from "nowhere and nowhen"

Metaphorically, I assume.

Both metaphorical and literal.

- but all of our science is bound up inextricably with the 3rd person perspective, the view from the outside only.

Literal or metaphorical perspective ?

Both.

We cannot, by definition, get "inside" the experiment to get a perspective from the inside

We can't literally get inside. But what we are aiming for is freedom of from subjective bias , which is metaphorical perspective.

We cannot metaphorically get inside it either. How can you (ie what is the process whereby you can) metaphorically get inside my head in order to get exactly the same 1st person perspective (on my conscious experience) that I have from within my head? It cannot be done – in principle – because my conscious experience is part of what makes me “me”, and it is impossible to substitute (either literally or metaphorically) another observer into that conscious experience and at the same time claim that this other observer has the same 1st-person perspective that I have. You cannot remove the subjectivity of 1st person perspectives on consciousness, because the person is part of the conscious experience. Either moving finger experiences moving finger’s brain “from the inside”, or Tournesol experiences (if such a thing is physically possible) moving finger’s brain “from the inside” – but these are and always will be two different (literal and metaphorical) perspectives on possible conscious experience within that brain. In the case of conscious experience, the observer is always inextricably convolved with the observation, which makes the observation subjective by definition. There is simply no way to achieve an objective perspective on conscious awareness “from the inside”.

Cannot be done.

As an external observer, you have complete information about what is going on in the Life world. Since already you have complete information, there is nothing you can learn by projecting yourslef into the Life world. All you would gain is a merely literal perspective, a set of epistemic limitations which were predictable from your outside-observer stance ITFP.

How do you know (ie what is the evidential justification to support the belief) that you have complete information? All the information you have is limited to 3rd person perspective information about properties of the GoL as viewed from the outside of the GoL. You don’t know (you cannot know) what the properties of the GoL are from the perspective of an agent which is within the GoL. In the same way you might claim to “have complete information about what is going on” in moving finger’s conscious brain by examining my neural states from the outside – but you would be wrong. Because you would have no idea of the internal properties of my conscious experience (ie my consciousness as viewed by an observer inside that consciousness, ie by me) simply from studies of the external properties. It cannot be done.

If you are dealing with a Life world, the way in which you would change the experiment are themselves predictable.

Predictable by whom? Since an external observer has no access to the internal properties of such a world (ie properties as detected by an internal observer), no external observer can predict those internal properties. Just as Tournesol cannot predict the properties of moving finger's conscious awareness that are detected (experienced) by moving finger, because Tournesol is limited to a 3rd person perspective view of moving finger’s concsiousness, ie from the outside.

- this is why moving finger can never know what it is like to be Tournesol). Thus science is in principle (by definition) strictly not truly objective

Science may not be truly objective your sense, but that is not [e]because[/b] of the existence of literal perspectives, and it is not because of oberver effect, both of which can be predicted/compensated objectivity.

Tournesol, I’m going to cut it short at this point. Not because I don’t find this dialogue interesting, but because we seem to be going round and round in circles repeating the same things from one paragraph to the next, and it seems pointless to just keep repeating myself all the time. I’ll therefore just summarise my argument :

How can you (ie what is the process whereby you can) either literally or metaphorically get inside my head in order to get exactly the same 1st person perspective (on my conscious experience) that I have (on my conscious experience) from within my head? It cannot be done – in principle – because my conscious experience is part of what makes me “me”, and it is impossible to substitute (either literally or metaphorically) another observer into that conscious experience and at the same time claim that this other observer has the same 1st-person perspective that I have. You cannot remove the subjectivity of 1st person perspectives on consciousness, because the person is part of the conscious experience. Either moving finger experiences moving finger’s brain “from the inside”, or Tournesol experiences (if such a thing is physically possible) moving finger’s brain “from the inside” – but these are and always will be two quite different (literal and metaphorical) perspectives on possible conscious experience within that brain. In the case of conscious experience, the observer is always inextricably convolved with the observation, which makes such observation subjective by definition. There is simply no way to achieve an objective perspective on conscious awareness “from the inside”.

Best Regards

 

[Q_Goest]

Hi MF. You seem to be defending the idea that there are undeducible truths (facts and properties) which are not measurable nor are they in any way discernable from a third person perspective, and you've cited Gödel's theorem and HUP in defense.

First, I disagree these are valid for defense of your views. Gödel's theorem applies to mathematics, it does not address anything physical. Physical things may be measurable and calculable, but I disagree you can turn that around and say that mathematics has physical properties. We may not be able to determine through algorithm, some truths regarding mathematical theorems, but this isn't to say there is something physical we don't have the ability to discern or measure. There is no first person perspective to mathematics.

Regarding HUP, again this is not valid. We can measure and we can calculate radioactive decay for example, and the probability of the location and momentum of a particle, just not at the same time. Radioactive decay and particle location and momentum can be regarded as facts and properties. Thus the saying, "Just shut up and calculate." because these properties are measurable and calculable. That is quite different than not having any insight whatsoever into a phenomenon such as subjective experience (seeing the color red). So I don't see those two examples having any bearing on what you're proposing, specifically that there are facts and properties about which we have no way of measuring in any way whatsoever. The HUP argument comes slightly closer to the mark than the Gödel theorem argument because at least the HUP argument regards something physical, but HUP simply says we can't know exactly, it doesn't say we can't measure facts and properties.

It sounds like you also would like to argue for some kind of panpsychism because you're supporting a first person perspective for such things as the GoL and any computational system in general. From my perspective, that's unacceptable even for the more extreme philosophers and is quite out of the mainstream. Both Searle and Putnam have pointed out there are serious difficulties in our definition of computationalism which lead to panpsychism, and I see your arguments as directly contradicting efforts by philosophers such as Copeland and Chalmers to defend computationalism while avoiding panpsychism.

In fact, your arguments are very similar to both Searle and Putnam's arguments which show that computationalism leads to panpsychism, specifically Searle's argument regarding a wall being a computational structure and Putnam's argument regarding open FSA's that he published in his book "Representation and Reality". Copeland later wrote a paper entitled "What is Computation" in order to defend the panpsychism attack on computationalism. Chalmers wrote, "Does a Rock Implement Every Finite-State Automaton" also in defense of computationalism and against the attack Putnam made.

Take for example your response in another thread:

Even if the HUP did not exist as a limitation to epistemology, there is no way any agent within a finite universe could know all the details of that universe. Let's say the universe comprises N particles. To record the positions and momentum of each of those particles in 3 dimensions at one moment in time would require 6 real numbers, that's 6*N real numbers for a system of N particles. Leaving aside the problem that a real number might not be fully specifiable with a finite number of digits, where/how do you store those 6*N real numbers if you only have N particles in your universe? It cannot be done.

I think this statement is in error but I'll disregard as I certainly understand what you're trying to get at. Note however, that the manipulation of matter and energy is in fact a computation. We don't need a computer with N raised to some very high power to compute what the universe is doing, because the universe is in essence a computational structure. It is also a vastly complex one, much more complex than any computer we can manufacture for exactly the reasons you describe. Imagine a single neuron not being able to compute the entire brain. Similarly, a computer can't calculate an entire universe, so if you say a computer can be self aware, but only if it is large and complex enough, then we must conclude the universe is also aware.

These are exactly the kind of problems philosophers are trying to get away from. Thus, I see your argument that there are first person facts and properties which can't be measured or known in any way from a third person perspective to be an argument that is very far from mainstream and also counter to the intent of the science of consciousness.

I apologize if that sounds like a harsh view to take of your beliefs, it's not meant to be. I simply don't understand where you're going with these first person/third person perspective ideas. It seems to me, computationalism is failing because of exactly the lack of consideration to the definition of computationalism that you've made here. There needs to be a more precise definition of computationalism, for example, see Copeland's paper.

One other thing I'd like to mention is that in order for there to be a science of consciousness, we need to have measurable facts and properties from a third person perspective. I'll accept that it is possible that I may not be able to access your subjective experiences, but I can't accept that the facts and properties of subjective experiences are fundamentally unknowable from a third person perspective.

I also don't think strong emergence as defined by philosophers such as Chalmers is the right answer for all the reasons I've given in previous posts. Not sure why you still think I'm supporting his views, I'm not. I'm only trying to point out what the arguments are for each case in order to make some headway into a new area.

 

[moving finger]

Hi Q_Goest

Thanks for the reply.

You seem to be defending the idea that there are undeducible truths (facts and properties) which are not measurable nor are they in any way discernable from a third person perspective, and you've cited Gödel's theorem and HUP in defense.

First, I disagree these are valid for defense of your views. Gödel's theorem applies to mathematics, it does not address anything physical. Physical things may be measurable and calculable, but I disagree you can turn that around and say that mathematics has physical properties. We may not be able to determine through algorithm, some truths regarding mathematical theorems, but this isn't to say there is something physical we don't have the ability to discern or measure. There is no first person perspective to mathematics.

You seem to misunderstand my argument.

I think the term “undecidable truths’ is misleading. I believe you introduced this term into the discussion? I think a better and more accurate term would be “meaningless questions”. Why? Because “undecidable truths” implies that there is a truth behind the question, and the truth is just inaccessible to us (ie it is simply a question of epistemology). Whereas “meaningless questions” implies that there is no truth behind the question at all (ie it is a question of ontology rather then epistemology).

I am not at all saying that mathematics has physical properties, I have no idea where you get this notion from. Mathematics is simply a language that we choose to use to describe some aspects of the physical world. It does not follow, however, that the physical world is completely describable using mathematics.

Godel’s theorem is strictly a theorem about complex formal systems, as opposed to a theorem only about mathematics. Godel was a logician rather than a mathematician. Mathematics just happens to be one language that we can use to decribe the properties of formal systems. Godel’s theorem says that no sufficiently complex formal system can be both consistent and complete. In other words, if you describe your complex formal system using mathematics, then for your description to be consistent it follows that not every statement which can be framed in the language that you use to describe your formal system necessarily has a formal meaning (in the sense of being interpretable). Godel’s theorem finds application in logical arguments more often than in mathematics.

There are many types of questions, in all languages, that may be meaningless. For example :

Is the King of France bald?
If the barber of Seville shaves everyone in Seville who does not shave himself, does the barber shave himself?
What happened (temporally) before the Big Bang?
What is the largest natural number?
Given the precise position of this quantum object, what is its precise momentum?

The answer (imho) to each of the above is “mu” (the Zen Buddhist term meaning in effect “to answer would be meaningless, because the question has no answer”).

The above questions do NOT hinge on “undecidable truths”; they are simply meaningless questions. It is not the case (for example) that there IS a largest natural number (and we just don’t know what it is); rather it IS the case that there is no largest natural number, therefore asking “what is that number?” is a meaningless question. Similarly, it is not the case that, given the exact position of a quantum object there IS simultaneously an exact momentum (and we just don’t know what it is) rather it IS the case that given an exact position there is simultaneously no exact momentum, therefore asking “what is that momentum?” is a meaningless question.

All I am saying is that questions of the type “what is it like to be a bat?” (which entail projecting one conscious perspective inside another) are also meaningless. Conscious perspective is unitary, there is simply no way that agent A can get exactly the same perspective on agent B’s conscious perceptions that agent B gets on those same conscious perceptions. NOT because they represent an “undecidable truth”, but because the question is meaningless.

Now, it also seems to be your premise (as well as Tournesol’s) that we can fully describe the physical world using mathematics. But that’s a premise. Can you describe your first person perspective of consciousness using mathematics? If yes, how? If no, doesn’t that suggest your premise may be false?

We can measure and we can calculate radioactive decay for example, and the probability of the location and momentum of a particle, just not at the same time.

Exactly. Thus there are unanswerable (meaningless) questions about the physical world. The word “just” in your above comment says it all. If you know precisely the location then you do not know precisely the momentum; if you know the momentum you do not know the position. Not because the precise momentum “exists” and we simply cannot measure it, but because for a quantum state there is no such thing as a well-defined momentum simultaneous with a well-defined position. Thus an unanswerable question is “given a precise position X, what is the precise momentum?” Why is it unanswerable? Because the concept of a simultaneously precise position and momentum for a quantum object is incoherent or meaningless, thus the question is meaningless. Mu. (Here I am taking the precision to be without limit).

The same is true if we ask “what would be Q_Goest’s 1st person perception of moving finger’s 1st person conscious states?”. Physically implanting Q_Goest into my brain somehow (even if such a thing were possible) would NOT result in Q_Goest experiencing moving finger’s conscious states, it would result in “some other entity” (some strange combination of Q_Goest plus moving finger) experiencing that other entity’s conscious states. The question is meaningless. The answer is Mu.

Radioactive decay and particle location and momentum can be regarded as facts and properties. Thus the saying, "Just shut up and calculate." because these properties are measurable and calculable.

But that is precisely where you are wrong! We cannot accurately (to unlimited precision) calculate the simultaneous position and momentum of a quantum object, because the concept (of simultaneous position and momentum in this case) is meaningless. The SUAC philosophy does not say that we can calculate everything with unlimited precision, it recognises that there are fundamental limits to what we can calculate about the world, and what we cannot know we have no business asking questions about.

It sounds like you also would like to argue for some kind of panpsychism because you're supporting a first person perspective for such things as the GoL and any computational system in general. From my perspective, that's unacceptable even for the more extreme philosophers and is quite out of the mainstream. Both Searle and Putnam have pointed out there are serious difficulties in our definition of computationalism which lead to panpsychism, and I see your arguments as directly contradicting efforts by philosophers such as Copeland and Chalmers to defend computationalism while avoiding panpsychism.

Absolutely not. With respect, you seem to be trying to label me according to your own prejudices. Panpsychism, in philosophy, is either the view that all parts of matter involve mind, or the more holistic view that the whole universe is an organism that possesses a mind. I do not believe either of these. I believe that conscious awareness (and the associated 1st person perceptual phenomena that accompany such awareness) is an emergent property of the physical world, and what we call a mind is simply the particular physical arrangement that gives rise to the emergence of that conscious awareness. My position does not entail any primordial consciousness, it does not entail that all parts of matter involve mind, it does not entail that the whole universe is an organism that possesses a mind. If you believe the thesis that consciousness emerges from the physical entails panpsychism then you are very much mistaken.

Even if I were advocating panpsychism (which I am not), whether such a view is “unacceptable” from your perspective or not is (with respect) neither here nor there. What you need to do is to present and defend rational arguments to show why my view is unacceptable, and not simply to suggest that mainstream philosophers think differently. Argumentum ad Verecundiam (argument from authority, ie “that cannot be correct, because the experts say so”) does not amount to a “hill of beans” in philosophical debate. Simply quoting names such as Searle, Putnam, Chalmers etc does not an argument make (though I have noticed that many people often feel strangely comforted if they think they can somehow link their personal philosophical position to popular names).

In fact, your arguments are very similar to both Searle and Putnam's arguments which show that computationalism leads to panpsychism, specifically Searle's argument regarding a wall being a computational structure and Putnam's argument regarding open FSA's that he published in his book "Representation and Reality". Copeland later wrote a paper entitled "What is Computation" in order to defend the panpsychism attack on computationalism. Chalmers wrote, "Does a Rock Implement Every Finite-State Automaton" also in defense of computationalism and against the attack Putnam made.

Saying that consciousness arises from the physical does not imply or entail that all physical objects possesses consciousness. A wall can be a computational structure (depending on how one defines computational, and the physical characteristics of the wall), but it does not follow from this that all walls are necessarily computational structures. I fundamentally disagree with Searle’s philosophy (his Chinese Room argument is fallacious, but it unfortunately beguiles and deceives the unwary); but if you want to start discussing his ideas we better start a whole new thread.

I think this statement is in error but I'll disregard as I certainly understand what you're trying to get at.

Imho there is little point in claiming my statement is in error if you are not prepared to explain, and defend, why you think this.

if you say a computer can be self aware, but only if it is large and complex enough, then we must conclude the universe is also aware.

This does not follow at all, and I am frankly very surprised that you fall into such an obviously fallacious line of reasoning. Not all complexity gives rise to self awareness. You are following the same line of naïve reasoning of “affirming the consequent” as does Searle, by saying “well, if consciousness is simply due to complexity, then the universe must be conscious because the universe is certainly complex!”.

“Affirming the consequent” is a non-validating form of fallacious argument in propositional logic which goes :

1) If p then q.
2) q.
3) Therefore, p.

This a fallacious argument.

Your argument (and Searle’s apparently) seems to be basically the following :
1) If an entity is conscious then the entity is complex.
2) The entity is complex.
3) Therefore the entity is conscious.

Another example :
1) If it's raining then the streets are wet.
2) The streets are wet.
3) Therefore, it's raining.

Obviously fallacious arguments. Consciousness entails complexity, but it does not follow that everything complex is therefore conscious. That’s your mistake (and Searle’s).

These are exactly the kind of problems philosophers are trying to get away from. Thus, I see your argument that there are first person facts and properties which can't be measured or known in any way from a third person perspective to be an argument that is very far from mainstream and also counter to the intent of the science of consciousness.

Again, “far from mainstream” is an argument that does not amount to a hill of beans in philosophical debate. The intent of the science of anything is fundamentally one of understanding. Understanding entails comprehending the difference between meaningful and meaningless questions. Is accepting the principle of the HUP “counter to the intent of the science of quantum mechanics”? No, it is simply accepting that some questions are meaningless.

I’m not a great fan of Kant, but he did have some good insights. As he said :

To know what questions may reasonably be asked, is already a great and necessary sign of sagacity and insight. For if a question is absurd in itself and calls for an answer where none is required, it not only brings shame on the propounder of the question, but may betray an incautious listener into absurd answers, thus presenting, as the ancients said, the ludicrous spectacle of one man milking a he-goat and the other holding a sieve underneath.

(Immanuel Kant (1724-1804); From: Critique of Pure Reason)

To me, Chalmers’ attempts to suggest we need a “whole new science” of consciousness invokes such a ludicrous spectacle as Kant describes.

I apologize if that sounds like a harsh view to take of your beliefs, it's not meant to be.

Hey, I don’t mind harsh views at all, if they are supported by rational argument. But a harsh view amounts to nothing more than your subjective personal opinion if its not backed up with clear rational argument. Present your argument and I will gladly defend my views agains it – but to claim that my views are wrong simply because in your opinion they are “not mainstream” is an argument that (as I said already above) does not amount to a hill of beans in philosphical debate. There is no single "mainstream", there are many opposing views on the science of consciousness, and if your personal philosophy is to unquestioningly and blindly follow what you think is the mainstream, without being prepared to defend your position using rational argument, then I wish you luck.

I can't accept that the facts and properties of subjective experiences are fundamentally unknowable from a third person perspective.

Countless numbers of people had, and still have, the same problem with accepting quantum uncertainty. Many people are appalled at the idea that some things are fundamentally unknowable in principle, and reject the notion outright. The implication of Godel's theorem (that any sufficiently complex formal system must be incomplete if it is to be consistent) is similarly difficult for many laypeople to accept, which is why there is continued interest in so-called paradoxes such as the barber paradox.

The same refusal to accept unknowability in principle also underscores the confusion that abounds in debates on the nature of knowledge, with many people insisting that knowledge must be "certain knowledge" if it is to qualify as knowledge (which is why so many people find it hard to understand and accept the JTB analysis). But simply accept that all knowledge claims are predicated on belief, and "I believe that I know that X" does not entail "I am certain that I know that X" (ie knowledge claims are fallible) and the problem vanishes completely.

Thus, with respect, the fact that you cannot accept the notion that some questions are meaningless is your problem, not mine. That you cannot accept that some questions are meaningless is not a rational argument against the notion that some questions are meaningless.

Best Regards

 

[Q_Goest]

Hi MF.

I think the term “undecidable truths’ is misleading. I believe you introduced this term into the discussion? I think a better and more accurate term would be “meaningless questions”. Why? Because “undecidable truths” implies …

The phrase was "undeducible truths" not "undecidable". If I replace the correct term into your post, it seems the point is still being missed. We discussed this before here:

Q_Goest said: thus there are facts and properties which are not deducible ("truths" which are not deducible) from a third person perspective. Is that correct MF?

MF Responded: Correct.

Undeducible truths are facts about properties which we have no way of deducing. We might suggest that we can't deduce simply by examining the computer, whether or not it is experiencing the color red for example. We might say the computer is having a subjective experience, and we may describe this experience as a phenomenon which is had by the computer, but we might be prone to believe that the facts about these phenomena can't be deduced by examinaing the computer itself. Whether this is true or not shouldn't be debated. What needs to be debated is that given the assumption that the computer's experience can't be deduced by observing or measuring the device, what is our conclusion?

I'd suggest there are potential conclusions one can reach by making specific assumptions about computationalism. For example, one can assume the phenomena supervenes on the action of a computer's parts. One can also assume that only classical physical laws are necessary to understand the actions of a computer.

One might also assume however, that what we call subjective experiences are unlike other phenomena. Classical phenomena have properties and there are facts about those properties which we can measure and calculate. However, one can also make the assumption that subjective experience is something unlike classical phenomena, and those subjective experiences may not be something we can measure in any way. Most classical phenomena such as weather patterns, orbits of planets, the function of a car engine, all are phenomena that can be described and understood by examining the interaction of the parts of the system that creates the phenomenon. However, when it comes to consciousness or subjective experience, we might find ourselves doubting these phenomena can be described or understood (ie: deduced) from the facts about the actions of the computational machine which allegedly experiences these phenomena.

There are other views if we make other assumptions:
1. To a computationalist that accepts strong emergence per Chalmers, we might believe that we can deduce these facts about subjective experience from new physical laws which are essentially organizational principals.
2. To someone that believes in quantum consciousness, these facts and properties might be deducible as we discover new physical dimensions or levels or discover new quantum interactions.

More on this momentarily.

It does not follow, however, that the physical world is completely describable using mathematics.

I think we might benefit by focusing on the fact that computationalism is predicated only on classical physics. It does not depend on HUP or anything else. Computationalism could have been theorized hundreds or even thousands of years ago. Yet, as I'm sure you know, it's a new concept which has arisen only in the past half century. Computationalism doesn't require microchips or anything electronic though. Computationalism doesn't need HUP, electricity, Godel's theorem, or anything like that. It simply says that the mind is a mathematical algorithm of some sort which is completely deterministic since it can in fact be described using math. There is no reason in principal, that the Egyptions couldn't have come up with the concept of computationalism, and created a cognizant computer made from water buckets, ropes and wooden scaffolding thousands of years ago.

All I am saying is that questions of the type “what is it like to be a bat?” (which entail projecting one conscious perspective inside another) are also meaningless.

Yes, we may say that as a human it is impossible to have the same subjective experiences as a bat, but that's irrelevent. What's important is whether or not we can tell if a bat is actually experiencing anything at all. Does a bat have subjective experiences? What is it that can have subjective experiences? Can a computer have them? Does the laptop computer I have right now experience anything? Does my son's video game in which ogres from pod land come to destroy Earth experience anything? Do the ogres experience dying as my son drills them with an assault rifle of unimaginable power? I love it when those ogres burst like popcorn! lol And if a computer can have subjective experience only if it's performing the correct algorithms, then can any equivalent system have them such as a computer made out of water buckets and valves? (multiple realizability says it must!)

I'll grant you that humans can't experience what a bat does, but that isn't important. The important question is, "Can we know what system is having an experience?" More on this in a moment.

Conscious perspective is unitary, there is simply no way that agent A can get exactly the same perspective on agent B’s conscious perceptions that agent B gets on those same conscious perceptions.

So far I don't disagree. All this says is that I can't become you and experience exactly what someone else does, just like the bat idea above.

NOT because they represent an “undecidable truth”, but because the question is meaningless.

The question we need to ask is not whether we can experience someone else's subjective experiences, but whether or not we can know if a system is having an experience at all.

Now, it also seems to be your premise (as well as Tournesol’s) that we can fully describe the physical world using mathematics. But that’s a premise. Can you describe your first person perspective of consciousness using mathematics? If yes, how? If no, doesn’t that suggest your premise may be false?

Would you agree that computationalism assumes that the proper logical algorithm will create the phenomena of subjective experience? One can call this a logical algorithm or the execution of a series of mathematical steps. All states of a computer can be mathematically represented. All states of any computational device of any type can in fact be mathematically represented. That is the point of weak emergence that I believe is so easily missed. Weak emergence indicates that any computational machine, running any program, can be mathematically represented because in fact it is all mathematical by definition. It is a deterministic computation. So everything a computer does is not only measurable, but the measurement of any state of any computer provides us with sufficient information to know exactly, everything it is going to do in the future, provided we also know all input as a function of time.

Argumentum ad Verecundiam (argument from authority, ie “that cannot be correct, because the experts say so”) does not amount to a “hill of beans” in philosophical debate. Simply quoting names such as Searle, Putnam, Chalmers etc does not an argument make (though I have noticed that many people often feel strangely comforted if they think they can somehow link their personal philosophical position to popular names).

<argh> you found me out. I'm just blowing smoke, right? <sigh>

MF said: Even if the HUP did not exist as a limitation to epistemology, there is no way any agent within a finite universe could know all the details of that universe. Let's say the universe comprises N particles. To record the positions and momentum of each of those particles in 3 dimensions at one moment in time would require 6 real numbers, that's 6*N real numbers for a system of N particles. Leaving aside the problem that a real number might not be fully specifiable with a finite number of digits, where/how do you store those 6*N real numbers if you only have N particles in your universe? It cannot be done.

Q said: I think this statement is in error but I'll disregard as I certainly understand what you're trying to get at.

MF said: Imho there is little point in claiming my statement is in error if you are not prepared to explain, and defend, why you think this.

Perhaps selfAdjoint can clarify for us, but I believe that to calculate N particles using a classical computer, to record position and momentum of each is 2 raised to the N power. I'll admit I'm unsure of that, but honestly it doesn't matter for this discussion. Just out of curiosity, I'd like to find out though.

Thus, with respect, the fact that you cannot accept the notion that some questions are meaningless is your problem, not mine.

<argh, again> I seem to have many problems, don't I? <sigh twice>

I wouldn't be discussing these things with you MF, if I didn't feel you had something valuable to add to the discussion. I appreciate your posts since they come from an intellegent perspective and that's what's needed to challenge and progress my understanding of consciousness. Personally, I also enjoy reading those folks that do this for a living, so when I post references to papers or the papers themselves, it is in the hopes that the arguments they have provided might already be read and understood. I'd like to better understand the papers as well as have others understand them because we shouldn't be sitting here debating between ourselves with our own ideas. That would be ignoring the shoulders on which we can find a foot hold. On the other hand, it could be as you say, because I enjoy blowing smoke. <haha>

~

Getting back to the OP on hand regarding emergence, I'd like to enumerate what I see as our options given various assumptions. If our minds are mathematical processes as computationalism suggests, then we have one of 3 choices to make depending on what assumptions we want to accept. There may be more choices which depend on other assumptions, but the roads I see we can go down include the following:

1a. One set of assumptions leads to panpsychism (all matter has consciousness).
1b. We might also conclude panpsychism, plus, we might also conclude that we may add any other phenomena we wish, such as religion.

We get to this conclusion by making the assumptions I've described earlier. First, that a computer can become conscious. We also assume there are measurable properties or facts that a computer has. This is exactly what Bedau talks about as he describes the GoL. These measurable properties or facts as I'll call them include the color of a given pixel. Obviously, the color is measurable, and it's location is also measurable. The game also creates pictures with these pixels, one of which is termed a "glider". This is simply the recognition that the shape is made up of various colored pixels in a specific arrangement. We can deduce the rules, we can create a simulation of the GoL, we can do many things.

The GoL is not considered a conscious phenomena. It's a very simple game, my computer now is doing things many orders of magnitude more complex, so it boggles my mind to hear someone suggest the GoL has some kind of 'experience'. This observation is a good lead in however to what could then lead to panpsychism, or the concept that all matter is cognizant to some degree.

If we observe any computer, we might suggest that we can know everything about all the measurable properties and facts. We can know every state of every switch, and we can in fact even become that computer ourselves simply by performing the same mathematical functions that the computer does. This isn't very practical of course because we'd need to live to be billions of years old to do what a computer does in just a few seconds. However, there is no reason in principal that we couldn't do everything a computer does. We'd need a way to represent the state of the computer, but a pen and paper would do just fine. We can't say pen and paper are insufficient to create consciousness because that would proclaim that there is something unique about the mechanism or substrate on which a computation is performed that is special and unique. Such a proclamation would go counter to the fundamental premise of computationalism which states it doesn't matter if we use neurons or microchips or buckets filled with water to do the computation. If they all do the same computation, they all have the same experience.

Moving on, if we observe the computer we can know all the measurable facts and properties because by definition, they are measurable facts and measurable properties. We don't need anything more to explain what the computer is doing. What the computer is doing is performing an alorithm or series of mathematical manipulations or a series of symbolic manipulations - take your pick. All of that is knowable by definition.

What we don't know is what the computer might be experiencing! If we don't know what the computer is experiencing, if there is no way whatsoever to deduce this information, then these facts about the computer are undeducible. If this is true, and we can't know if the computer is experiencing anything at all, then we must be prepared to accept there are phenomena such as subjective experience which occur that we weren't aware are occurring, including panpsychism.

Searle and Putnam have put forth alternate arguments which lead us to the same conclusion. Searle writes:

On the standard definition […] of computationalism it is hard to see how to avoid the following results: 1. For any object there is some description of that object such that under that description the object is a digital computer. 2. For any program and for any sufficiently complex object, there is some description of the object under which it is implementing the program. Thus for example the wall behind my back is right now implementing the Wordstar program, because there is some pattern of molecule movements that is isomorphic with the formal structure of Wordstar. But if the wall is implementing Wordstar then if it is a big enough wall it is implementing any program, including any program implemented in the brain.

Putnam wrote something very similar. Chalmers is quoting him here in '96.

In an appendix to his book Representation and Reality (Putnam 1988, pp. 120-125), Hilary Putnam argues for a conclusion that would destroy [computationalism]. Specifically, he claims that every ordinary open system realizes every abstract finite automaton. He puts this forward as a theorem, and offers a detailed proof. If this is right, a simple system such as a rock implements any automaton one might imagine. Together with the thesis of computational sufficiency, this would imply that a rock has a mind, and possesses many properties characteristic of human mentality. If Putnam's result is correct, then, we must either embrace an extreme form of panpsychism or reject the principle on which the hopes of artificial intelligence rest.

About these arguments, Scheutz writes:

There are, however, strong arguments against this endeavor of explaining mind in terms of computation: some disagree with established notions of computation and argue that these notions will be of no help for CCM because they even fail to capture essential aspects of computation (e.g., intentionality, see Smith, 1996). Others, accepting them, show that some of these notions, such as Turing-computability, are too "course-grained" to be suitable for cognitive explanations (e.g., Putnam, 1998, who proves that every ordinary open system "implements" every finite state machine without input and output, or Searle, 1992, who polemicizes that even ordinary walls can be interpreted as "implementing" the Wordstar program). The former line of attack concentrates on our misunderstanding of what everyday computation is all about, whereas the latter debunks our understanding of how an abstract computation can be realized in the physical - how computation is "implemented".

I believe both Putnam and Searles arguments rest on the assumptions outlined above, specifically that there is nothing one can measure that will tell us if a rock or a wall for example, is cognizant. More importantly, their arguments rest on the fact that we haven't properly defined computationalism. If we can't detect consciousness, if we can't deduce if something is conscious or not from what we can measure, then we have a serious problem, and such things as panpsychism, as well as any other phenomenon such as supernatural dieties, are possible outcomes.

2. Another set of assumptions leads to the mind being strongly emergent at the classical level and thus we need new physical laws which are 'organizational' so to speak. This is Chalmer's position. I won't elaborate on this one. I've provided a link to the paper so we can discuss specifics from that. In the end, I think this reasoning fails for two primary reasons. The first is that strong emergence hasn't been seriously considered by science at any level higher than the mesoscopic. The second reason is that the arguments put forth by Searle and Putnam should still hold unless there is a better definition for computationalism which differentiates computational structures.

3. Another set of assumptions leads to computationalism being false. There can be various reasons for this, one of which includes the fact that strong emergence can only be dignified by science on the molecular level, and computers don't work at this level.

I'd elaborate on these last two, but it seems this post is already longer than I'd expected.

 

[moving finger]

Hi Q_Goest

Undeducible truths are facts about properties which we have no way of deducing.

Imho “undeducible truths” is (in this context) just as incorrect as undecidable truths. Both terms imply there is a truth, which is simply inaccessible to us. This is not necessarily the case. If a question is meaningless, it has “no answer” not because there is a true answer and we simply do not know what it is (which would be an epistemic limitation), but because there simply is no right or wrong answer (an ontic limitation).

Example : If I ask “what is the largest natural number?”, would you answer there IS a largest natural number, but we just cannot know what it is (this would indeed be an undeducible truth or undecidable tuth), or would you answer there is NO largest natural number (in which case the original question is meaningless).

“How can I find the largest natural number?” is not impossible because it involves an “undeducible truth”, it is impossible because the question is meaningless. Similarly, “how can I experience exactly what the computer experiences?” is not impossible because it involves an “undeducible truth”, it is impossible because the question is meaningless.

We might suggest ….. what is our conclusion?

What do you mean exactly by “deduce the computer’s experience”?
By definition, the only agent who can possibly experience precisely what the computer is experiencing is the computer. If Q_Goest were able somehow to “get inside” the computer hardware to try and “see for himself” what the computer is experiencing, what you would end up with is a different agent – it would be some kind of “amalgamation” of Q_Goest plus computer hardware which would then be “having the experience”, and we have no reason to expect that this would be identical with the experience which the computer (prior to insertion of Q_Goest) was having. The objective of “deducing the computer’s experience” therefore assumes something which is impossible in principle, viz to be able to substitute another point of view (PoV) into an existing 1st person subjective experience without changing the experience in any way, such that we can claim the result is the same (ie identical) experience. The conclusion is that what you want to do (ie deduce the computer’s experience from another perspective) is impossible in principle (as is the objective of “deducing” the highest natural number), hence leading not to undeducible truths, but to meaningless questions.

I think we might benefit ……. thousands of years ago.

Computationalism, just like physicalism, does not entail that all properties are describable from a 3rd person perspective.

So far I don't disagree….. the bat idea above.

Excellent – then you will understand why it is impossible to “deduce the computer’s experience” (which was your earlier objective, and an objective which I suspect Tournesol still believes attainable). If you are now watering down your requirement and instead of wanting to “deduce the computer’s experience” all you want to do is to answer the question “is the computer having any experience at all?” then that’s a completely different question.

Before we can discuss possible answers to the question "is the computer having any experience at all?" you will first need to define precisely what you mean by "having an experience".

Would you agree ….. series of mathematical steps.

An algorithm doesn’t “create” anything. An algorithm is simply a description of parts of a (physical) process. It is the relevant (physical) process, not the algorithm per se, from which subjective experience emerges.

Another way to think about it is : The map is not the territory. In other words, don't confuse the description of a process (which is what an algorithm is) with the process itself.

All states of a computer ….. input as a function of time.

Again, measurable by whom? My argument is that not all properties of an agent are necessarily accessible from (hence not measurable from) the 3rd person perspective.

Perhaps selfAdjoint can ….. find out though.

I don’t think so. Here’s why. The position and momentum of a single particle at a single point in time can be specified independently of the positions and momenta of any other particles that may exist, hence the information to store these data should scale linearly with the number of particles, not exponentially.

I wouldn't be discussing these …… we can find a foot hold.

I understand. If you wish to discuss the ideas presented in published papers I’m very happy to do that – the point I am trying to make is that I cannot do that if you simply reply with “that’s not what Chalmers (or Searle, or Putnam) thinks/says/writes/believes, and here by the way is a reference”. I’m not particularly interested in trawling through a publication and using detective work to try and find out just what point you are trying to make/defend, when you should by rights be doing that yourself. If you want to discuss ideas presented by others from outside of this forum, I think it is at least reasonable that you present and discuss just what you think the important aspects of those ideas are that need to be discussed (not simply provide a link to the papers).

1a. One set of assumptions leads to panpsychism ..…. we can do many things.

Again, measurable from whose perspective? 1st person subjective properties are by definition NOT necessarily measurable from any other perspective.

The GoL is not considered …….. all matter is cognizant to some degree.

I am not suggesting any particular instance of the GoL necessarily “has some kind of experience”, any more than I am suggesting that any particular instance of mass/energy “has some kind of experience”. But I see no reason why consciousness and/or phenomenal experience could not arise as an emergent property within a sufficiently complex version of the GoL, just as we know consciousness and/or phenomenal experience arises as an emergent property within a sufficiently complex instance of mass/energy. This does NOT entail panpsychism, it does not entail that all complex entities are conscious (for the reasons explained in my last post).

If we observe any computer…. does in just a few seconds.

Once again, you are assuming that you can measure internal (1st person perspective) properties from a 3rd person perspective. You cannot. Just look at the human brain – there is no way that you can measure “what red looks like to moving finger” by probing/measuring my brain from the outside. It is in principle impossible.

However, there is no reason in principal ……. If they all do the same computation, they all have the same experience.

The only way to perfectly replicate the 1st person properties of a computer would be to perfectly replicate that computer. But we cannot get “inside” the computer to “see” those properties for ourself, because even if you could somehow implant Q_Goest’s consciousness inside the computer hardware, what you end up with is some kind of amalgamation of Q_Goest plus computer hardware, it is NO LONGER the same physical configuration of the original computer.

Computationalism simply says that cognition is a form of computation. An algorithm is not a form of computation, an algorithm is a decription of a physical process (of computation). Computationalism does NOT say that different embodiments of the same algorithm on different physical substrates necessarily results in identical 1st person subjective experiences. This is an (erroneous) additional assumption you seem to be making. If you think the assumption is correct, perhaps you can explain where you get this notion from (ie how do you arrive at this conclusion?)

Moving on, …… knowable by definition.

Again I ask - Knowable by whom? You cannot, by definition, know the 1st person perspective properties from a 3rd person perspective. “Observing the computer” from the third person perspective (just like observing my brain from the outside) tells you absolutely nothing about any possible internal properties of the computer as viewed from a 1st person perspective (ie as viewed by the computer itself).

What we don't know ….. are undeducible.

I prefer to call the question “what is the computer experienceing?” a meaningless question – because only the computer can know what it is experiencing. For any third party to ask the question has no meaning whatsoever.

If this is true, …… including panpsychism.

To say that we cannot know WHAT the computer is experiencing is NOT the same as saying that we cannot know IF the computer is experiencing anything. There IS a very simple way to find out IF the computer is experiencing anything – the same way that I find out whether a human being is experiencing anything – ask it!

On the standard definition …… implemented in the brain.

How does it follow that the wall IS implementing the program simply BECAUSE there is some pattern of molecule movements that is isomorphic with the wordstar program?

In an appendix to his book ….. artificial intelligence rest.

How does a finite entity like a rock implement "any automaton one might imagine"?

I believe …… are possible outcomes.

Of course panpsychism is (logically) “possible” – but then so are Tooth Fairies.

2. Another set of assumptions …….. computational structures.

I would agree with Chalmers in that consciousness is a strongly emergent property, but I disagree that we "need new laws of physics" - basically because such laws would be in principle inaccessible from a 3rd person perspective, hence asking what these laws are is completely pointless.

3. Another set of assumptions …….. don't work at this level.

Dignified by science? What is that expression supposed to mean?

Best Regards

 

[Tournesol]

Surely a metaphorical perspective just is subjective bias.

You seem to be agreeing with me : Subjectivity entails perspective.

metaphorical perspective

Objectivity entails absence of perspective.

metaphorical perspective

Science is based on a 3rd person perspective, .

Literal perspective. Most people think science is an objective unbiased enterprise,
and that is based on a 3rd-person (literal) perspective.

Either they are confused, or you are.

Literal perspective -- geometry -- does not mean the same
thing as metaphorical perspective -- bias.

You are trying to present your argument as:

1) Science uses a 3rd-person perspective
2) Perspective is subjective bias
3) Science is subjective and biased.

Something has to be wrong with it because "science uses a 3rd-person perspective"
is very much part of scientific objectivity, which is denied in the conclusion.

The problem, of course, is the double meaning of "perspective". The
argument essentially suffers from the Fallacy of Equivocation.

Removing the ambiguity..

1*) Science uses a 3rd-person literal perspective
2*) Metaphorical erspective is subjective bias
3) Science is subjective and biased.

...it can be seen that the conclusion doesn't follow from the premisses.

Again we seem to agree. Experimental/empirical investigation in science assumes that a 3rd person perspective is somehow equivalent to objectivity – but this is an approximation only. If we can always separate “observer” from “observed”, such that changing the observer has no impact on what is being observed, then we can claim objectivity in our measurements. This is a fundamental premise of all scientific investigation. In most experiments we can probably claim that this can be achieved (however there are some who believe that the outcome of experiments in quantum mechanics is inextricably linked with the observer, in which case objectivity is not achieved).

It's really the apparatus rather than the observer. And it still a physical,
quantitative issue. It remains to be seen whether that ind of issue can be equated
with cognitive issueslike bias, and how either of them
relate to experiential issues like qualia. A lot of different
concepts have been shoehorned into "perspective".

But when we start investigating consciousness, we can no longer claim objectivity, because the 1st person perspective of conscious experience inextricably binds up both observer and observed, such that this perspective is inaccessible to any other observer, by definition.

None of that follows necessarilly from epistemic principles. You are making metaphsyical assumptions.

If we study any system which possesses (as part of the system) an internal 1st person perspective on the world, there is no way (in principle) that we can fully understand that 1st person perspective from our 3rd person vantage point.

By what principles? By physicalist metaphsyics (exemplified in the GoL), everything
is exactly predicatble including perspectives (literal of course).

There is no compensation we can make that converts our 3rd person perspective “of the behaviour of a conscious subject” or “of the neural correlates of consciousness” into anyting which resembles the subject’s 1st person perspective of conscious awareness “from the inside”. It is impossible in principle.

None of that follows necessarilly from epistemic principles.

True objectivity is the absence of any particular (literal and metaphorical) perspective, 3rd person, 1st person, or any other.

no, literal perspective doesn't matter.

How can any external observer profess to have an objective view of my conscious experience, when they have access only to a limited 3rd person perspective of my conscious experience – ie they do not (can not) know it from the inside.

The question is whether that claim is comaptible with physicalism. If physicalism
is true, nothing has an "inside" in any fundamenatal sense.

- everything in science (all experiments, all hypotheses, all explanations and interpretations of the results) is based on this perspective, ie that we measure entities "from the outside".

From the outside, taken literally is literal perspective. And literal perspective can be compensated for.

That’s the whole point – it can’t always be done.

If physicalism is true, it can always be done in principle.
if it can't always be done, physicalism is no entirely true.

How can you “compensate for” your 3rd person perspective (either literal or metaphorical) on my consciousness (you have access only to observations of my behaviour, and to the external (3rd-person observable) properties of neural processes in my brain) to achieve the unique 1st person perspective on my consciousness which only I have (which is accessible and knowable by definition only by me, from the “inside of me”)?

If it's a literal perspective, thenIi can comepnsate mathemaically. OTOH,
if it is a metaphorical perspective amounting to something
like qualia, then physicalism is wrong. There is a reason
why physicalists don't like qualia, and why qualia
are always being held up as a challenge to physicalism.

You are the one claiming that all perspectives can always be compensated for – so I welcome you explaining to us how it’s to be done in the example above?

The actual claim is "all perspectives can be compensated for in a physicalist universe".

Your hard-to-get-at quala might just mean we are not living in such a universe.

If we understand the difference between the two, we will understand that in order to achieve lack of bias (metaphorical perspective), we don't need any particual literal perspective. Any literal perspective is as good as any other, you get rid of bias by understanding its sources and compensating for them.
In principle yes one gets rid of bias in experiments by understanding the sources of bias and compensating for them. But you cannot compensate for this bias when the observer is inextricably bound up with the observed (as in the case of conscious experience).

The observer may be inextricably bound up with their own experience, but
not with other people's.

In principle there is no way to “compensate for” your 3rd person perspective (on my consciousness) in order to achieve my 1st person perspective (on my consciousness), because you cannot understand all of the sources of the 3rd person and 1st person bias, and compensate for them, from within the system (the “system” here is the entire experimental setup which includes observer, you, and observed, me). You literally “cannot get there from here”.

That may or may not tbe true. It depends on what kind of universe we live in. things like reducabiltiy and
self-similarity might sove the problem. Physicalists generally don't see a problem.

We cannot metaphorically get inside it either.
How can you (ie what is the process whereby you can) metaphorically get inside my head in order to get exactly the same 1st person perspective (on my conscious experience) that I have from within my head? It cannot be done – in principle – because my conscious experience is part of what makes me “me”, and it is impossible to substitute (either literally or metaphorically) another observer into that conscious experience and at the same time claim that this other observer has the same 1st-person perspective that I have.

You are just assuming that your first-person perpective is irreducible -- that
it can only be known form the inside. In a phsycalist univers,e
everything is knowable, in principle from the outside (like
lookig into the inner workings of an "agent" in life).

The question is whether you can still claim to be a physiclaist
after ahving also claimed there are irreducile first-person
perspective.

You cannot remove the subjectivity of 1st person perspectives on consciousness, because the person is part of the conscious experience.

You're part of *you* conscious experience. I'm not part
of your and your not part of mine. What you say is
no barrier to 3rd-person investigation. Talking
about "the observer" without specifying
who is observing whom is another equivocation.

Either moving finger experiences moving finger’s brain from the inside, or Tournesol experiences (if such a thing is physically possible) moving finger’s brain from the inside

Or Tournesol figures out what is going on in MF's brain from the outside. As phsycalism
suggests he should be able to. How does Tournesol figue out MF's qualia
from his neural correlates ? Physicalism doesn't tell Tournesol
how to do that. That is why Tournesol, and a lot of other people,
think qualia are a challenege to physicalism. That is why physicalists
are in the qialia-denial business.

– but these are and always will be two different (literal and metaphorical) perspectives on possible conscious experience within that brain.

It is not logically necessary that there are two fundametnally diffeernt perspectives,
because qualia-denying physicalism is logically possible. it might
atually be the case that the the split in perspectives is a natural
necessity

In the case of conscious experience, the observer is always inextricably convolved with the observation, which makes the observation subjective by definition.

Whether or not the convulation can be unravelled in principle depends
on the (meta)physics of the system. Being subjective in principle
does not support your case, unless you can show that it is
an irreducible-in-principle kind of subjectivity.

As an external observer, you have complete information about what is going on in the Life world. Since already you have complete information, there is nothing you can learn by projecting yourslef into the Life world. All you would gain is a merely literal perspective, a set of epistemic limitations which were predictable from your outside-observer stance ITFP.

How do you know (ie what is the evidential justification to support the belief) that you have complete information?

Because I have understood, played, and programmed the GoL. What is you evidence
for the GoL, uniquely amongs deterministic computer programmes,
having unpredictable in principle features? Isn't "determinsitic,
but unpredictable in principle" a contradiction in terms?

All the information you have is limited to 3rd person perspective information about properties of the GoL as viewed from the outside of the GoL.

Which is all the information.

You don’t know (you cannot know) what the properties of the GoL are from the perspective of an agent which is within the GoL.

I already have all the information. Agents within the GoL cannot
have information I do not have.

In the same way you might claim to “have complete information about what is going on” in moving finger’s conscious brain by examining my neural states from the outside – but you would be wrong. Because you would have no idea of the internal properties of my conscious experience (ie my consciousness as viewed by an observer inside that consciousness, ie by me) simply from studies of the external properties. It cannot be done.

If you have qualia, I would not have information about them. uif GoL
agents have qualia, I would not have information about them (although they would
be idle qualia, since the evolution of the Life world can be rpedivted without them).
Bu why should I believe Life agents have qualia ? You are arguing in circles;
you have to assume irreducible subjectivity in order to prove it. What you
should be proving is that qualia will necessarily emerge even in
a highly reductive, physicalist universe. But you never have proved that.
It isn't proven by the (apparent) existence of qualia in our universe. It isn't
proven by the existence of "perspectives" or "convolvement"
in Life-like worlds, because they are reducible in principle.

If you are dealing with a Life world, the way in which you would change the experiment are themselves predictable.

Predictable by whom?

By an observer of arbitrarilly large resources. That's what the "in principle" clause means.

Since an external observer has no access to the internal properties of such a world (ie properties as detected by an internal observer),

An external observer has complete information. There is no "extra" information avaiable
within the world. Life agents might well have less information than external
observers, they certainly don't have more.

no external observer can predict those internal properties.

You have zero evidence that there are such properties within Life.

Just as Tournesol cannot predict the properties of moving finger's conscious awareness that are detected (experienced) by moving finger, because Tournesol is limited to a 3rd person perspective view of moving finger’s concsiousness, ie from the outside.

What is true in our world is not necessarily true of the GoL world. it is known - -designed --
to be entirely mathematical and reductive.

How can you (ie what is the process whereby you can) either literally or metaphorically get inside my head in order to get exactly the same 1st person perspective
(on my conscious experience) that I have (on my conscious experience) from within my head? It cannot be done – in principle – because my conscious experience is part of what makes me “me”, and it is impossible to substitute (either literally or metaphorically) another observer into that conscious experience and at the same time claim that this other observer has the same 1st-person perspective that I have.

According to physicalism , everythig is understandable in principle from
on an objective basis. Trying to preserve 1st-preson feesl
ins't an issue, because they can be comprehended objectively
too -- they are reducible, secondary phenomena. It doesn't
matter "where" you are when you make the reduction. (resources
matter, but that is taken care of by the "in principle" clause).

You might well insist that I cannot get at your qualia
by that kind of procedure, and I might well agree.
My conclusion would be that the existence of your
qualia, and the consequence failure of physicalist
reduction, shows that this is not a physicalist universe.

You cannot remove the subjectivity of 1st person perspectives on consciousness, because the person is part of the conscious experience. Either moving finger experiences moving finger’s brain “from the inside”, or Tournesol experiences (if such a thing is physically possible) moving finger’s brain “from the inside” – but these are and always will be two quite different (literal and metaphorical) perspectives on possible conscious experience within that brain. In the case of conscious experience, the observer is always inextricably convolved with the observation, which makes such observation subjective by definition. There is simply no way to achieve an objective perspective on conscious awareness “from the inside”.

Convolvement can be reduced away in a physicalist universe, too.
Showing the necessay existence of convolvement doesn't show the necessary existenxce
of irreducible-in-principle convolvement.

(NB throughout, physicalist means "everything has only
mathematically describable poperties". The sense in which Chalmers is not a
physicallist -- althioguh he thinks everything supervenes, at least naturally,
on the physical )

 

[Tournesol]

It sounds like you also would like to argue for some kind of panpsychism because you're supporting a first person perspective for such things as the GoL and any computational system in general.

Panpsychism is an explcitly metaphsyical position. I think
MF is trying to get something with the look
and feel of metaphysics out of purely epistemological principles.

He might even be trying to get real metaphysics out of purely epistemological principles. which would be a kind of magic.

 

[Tournesol]

Even if the HUP did not exist as a limitation to epistemology, there is no way any agent within a finite universe could know all the details of that universe. Let's say the universe comprises N particles. To record the positions and momentum of each of those particles in 3 dimensions at one moment in time would require 6 real numbers, that's 6*N real numbers for a system of N particles. Leaving aside the problem that a real number might not be fully specifiable with a finite number of digits, where/how do you store those 6*N real numbers if you only have N particles in your universe? It cannot be done.

You are assuming there is no informational redundancy in the
system of particles. That is equivalent to assuming there are
no laws. Physicsis all about redundancy.

 

[Tournesol]

Originally Posted by Q_Goest
Undeducible truths are facts about properties which we have no way of deducing.

Imho “undeducible truths” is (in this context) just as incorrect as undecidable truths. Both terms imply there is a truth, which is simply inaccessible to us. This is not necessarily the case. If a question is meaningless, it has “no answer” not because there is a true answer and we simply do not know what it is (which would be an epistemic limitation), but because there simply is no right or wrong answer (an ontic limitation).

It might have an answer, which we know, but are nonetheless unable to deduce in any mathematical
or logical way. That appears to be the case with qualia.

To put it another wat, if we should reject the undeducable tout court, we should
reject strong emergnece (see OP). Yet you claim to be arguing in favour of strong emergence.

 

[moving finger]

Most people think science is an objective unbiased enterprise,
and that is based on a 3rd-person (literal) perspective.

Either they are confused, or you are.

I agree that 3rd person science often approximates to an objective unbiased perspective, but it does not follow that it is always objective. Measurements in QM may be fundamentally subjective.

1) Science uses a 3rd-person perspective
2) Perspective is subjective bias
3) Science is subjective and biased.

Science assumes 3rd person perspective always entails objectivity – the results of QM suggest this is not always the case.

Something has to be wrong with it because "science uses a 3rd-person perspective"
is very much part of scientific objectivity, which is denied in the conclusion.

Scientific objectivity is an assumption which may not always be valid.

everything
is exactly predicatble including perspectives

I have asked previously how it is that you know there are no internal properties of the GoL which are inaccessible from the 3rd person perspective (ie from outside the GoL). Can you defend your claim, or is this belief of yours simply an article of faith? Still waiting for an answer.

The question is whether that claim is comaptible with physicalism. If physicalism
is true, nothing has an "inside" in any fundamenatal sense.

Physicalism does not entail that “nothing has an inside”.

If physicalism is true, it can always be done in principle.
if it can't always be done, physicalism is no entirely true.

Once again a misunderstanding of the claims of physicalism.

My conclusion would be that the existence of your
qualia, and the consequence failure of physicalist
reduction, shows that this is not a physicalist universe.

Based on your strange personal definition of physicalism, you may be correct. But since physicalism is not defined the way you claim (except in your own private language), this conclusion is irrelevant for the rest of us.

physicalist means "everything has only
mathematically describable poperties"

Not in my book. Where do you get this definition from?

With respect, Tournesol, I have pointed out your misconception about physicalism before, and it seems you simply ignore your error. We are once again going round and round in circles, with apparently no communication between us. You are entitled to your own private definition of physicalism of course, but there isn’t much point continuing the discussion if this is the case, since we are not using the same language.

Best Regards

 

[moving finger]

That is equivalent to assuming there are
no laws.

Invalid inference. The existence of the law of gravity does not reduce the number of variables we need to specify the instantaneous positions and momenta of an N-particle system.

Best Regards

 

[moving finger]

It might have an answer, which we know, but are nonetheless unable to deduce in any mathematical
or logical way. That appears to be the case with qualia.

Before we can agree on the answer, we need to understand just what is the question you are trying to answer?

To put it another wat, if we should reject the undeducable tout court, we should
reject strong emergnece (see OP). Yet you claim to be arguing in favour of strong emergence.

I don't "reject the undeducible" - I reject the notion that we can answer meaningless questions.

"What would moving finger's conscious experience be like from Q_Goest's perspective?" is such a meaningless question. Even Q_Goest now seems to agree with this (which is why the discussion has moved on from "what is the computer experiencing?" to "is the computer experiencing anything?")

Best Regards

 

[Q_Goest]

Hi MF.

Imho “undeducible truths” is (in this context) just as incorrect as undecidable truths. Both terms imply there is a truth, which is simply inaccessible to us. This is not necessarily the case. If a question is meaningless, it has “no answer” not because there is a true answer and we simply do not know what it is (which would be an epistemic limitation), but because there simply is no right or wrong answer (an ontic limitation).

I think this takes the entire argument out of context. To say there are undeducible truths means that under certain assumptions, the something that we call subjective experience can't be deduced from what we can measure about the device allegedly harboring this experience. I think you've misconstrued this point. I don't see the point in suggesting that asking questions about how we can possibly detect conscious experience on some level is meaningless.

What do you mean exactly by “deduce the computer’s experience”?

Can we deduce if a computer is having an experience simply by observing the actions of it's components? The answer is yes if you accept strong emergence per Chalmers, no if we use most other assumptions.

If you are now watering down your requirement and instead of wanting to “deduce the computer’s experience” all you want to do is to answer the question “is the computer having any experience at all?” then that’s a completely different question.

Yes. I'm not "watering down" anything though. This is the idea I'm trying to get across. Depending on what assumptions you make, you may come to the conclusion there is no way to know from examining the actions of a computer, if it is experiencing anything or not. Weak emergence says we can't. Strong emergence, depending on how you define it, either says you can (Chalmers) or no you can't (other, less well defined concepts of strong emergence).

1st person subjective properties are by definition NOT necessarily measurable from any other perspective.

This depends on what assumptions you want to make. I believe if you follow down this road of not being able to detect from examining the states of the computer, that the machine is experiencing anything, then we are led to concluding panpsychism is true. We can't say one thing is cognizant and another is not if we have no way of proving it. Note also this statement suggests the Turing test is not acceptable as proof, which would be a good discussion for a separate thread.

I would agree with Chalmers in that consciousness is a strongly emergent property, but I disagree that we "need new laws of physics" - basically because such laws would be in principle inaccessible from a 3rd person perspective, hence asking what these laws are is completely pointless.

How do you define "strong emergence" then?

 

[Q_Goest]

Hi Tournsel,

I already have all the information. Agents within the GoL cannot
have information I do not have.

I think that's an excellent point. But a computationalist would suggest the GoL is experiencing the information, and you are not. So the information must be experiencing itself. Would you agree this leads to panpsychism? What other conclusions could you come to given the assumption that we might have the same information, but no way to know if that information is experiencing anything? Are there any other ways to resolve this paradox and still maintain computationalism other than what Chalmers has come to?

Panpsychism is an explcitly metaphsyical position.

Regardless of what position it is, would you agree or disagree that computationalism leads to panpsychism if we have no way of detecting whether a machine is conscious or not?

 

[moving finger]

To say there are undeducible truths means that under certain assumptions, the something that we call subjective experience can't be deduced from what we can measure about the device allegedly harboring this experience.

To say that there is an undeducible truth behind a question implies (imho) that the question has an answer, but we simply cannot know what that answer is. In the case of questions such as "what is the largest natural number?" there IS no answer, because the question is meaningless. Thus there is no inaccessible "truth" behind the question, thus claiming there is an "undeducible truth" in questions such as this is incorrect.

I think you've misconstrued this point. I don't see the point in suggesting that asking questions about how we can possibly detect conscious experience on some level is meaningless.

You seem to misunderstand the point I am making. I am NOT saying that "questions about how we can possibly detect conscious experience on some level are meaningless", I am saying that questions such as "what would moving finger's phenomenal consciousness be like if Q_Goest were to experience that phenomenal consciousness?" are meaningless.

Can we deduce if a computer is having an experience simply by observing the actions of it's components? The answer is yes if you accept strong emergence per Chalmers, no if we use most other assumptions.

First define what you mean by "having an experience" (this is what I asked in my previous reply to you) :

Before we can discuss possible answers to the question "is the computer having any experience at all?" you will first need to define precisely what you mean by "having an experience".

….then explain how you would go about confirming that the computer is “having an experience” assuming we accept Chalmers' version of strong emergence.

Depending on what assumptions you make, you may come to the conclusion there is no way to know from examining the actions of a computer, if it is experiencing anything or not. Weak emergence says we can't. Strong emergence, depending on how you define it, either says you can (Chalmers) or no you can't (other, less well defined concepts of strong emergence).

Ditto above.

I believe if you follow down this road of not being able to detect from examining the states of the computer, that the machine is experiencing anything, then we are led to concluding panpsychism is true.

Can you show how you arrive at this conclusion (because I believe your logic is faulty, but I cannot show you where you have erred unless you explain your premises and inferences in clear logical steps)?

We can't say one thing is cognizant and another is not if we have no way of proving it. Note also this statement suggests the Turing test is not acceptable as proof, which would be a good discussion for a separate thread.

Inability to prove whether an agent is cognizant or not is NOT proof that cognizance does not exist - it is simply an indication that we cannot detect it.

How do you define "strong emergence" then?

I would use a definition similar to the one you attribute to Chalmers in the OP :

A phenomenon P* is strongly emergent with respect to another set of phenomena P when P* arises from (ie is supervenient on) P, but some properties of P* are not deducible (even in principle) simply from knowledge of the properties of P.

Best Regards

 

[Q_Goest]

MF said: I am NOT saying that "questions about how we can possibly detect conscious experience on some level are meaningless", I am saying that questions such as "what would moving finger's phenomenal consciousness be like if Q_Goest were to experience that phenomenal consciousness?" are meaningless.

That's fine, let's get away from the discussion about "what would moving finger's phenomenal consciousness be like if Q_Goest were to experience that phenomenal consciousness?" and let's discuss questions such as "questions about how we can possibly detect conscious experience on some level".

MF said: First define what you mean by "having an experience"

By "having an experience" or when we say "consciousness" I'm referring to any of the many subjective experiences such as the phenomenon of unity, or of self awareness, or any experience that occurs in a human, but not in a rock for example.

MF said: ….then explain how you would go about confirming that the computer is “having an experience” assuming we accept Chalmers' version of strong emergence.

Chalmers is suggesting there are "new physical laws" which need to be discovered. For example, stone age man didn't understand fire to the degree we do. They couldn't understand how molecules interacted. They had new physical laws to uncover, so for stone age man, fire was a phenomena which they had no way of explaining. Similarly, Chalmers is suggesting that we need to uncover new physical laws to explain the phenomena of consciousness. If we knew what these physical laws were, we'd then be able to apply them to anything and deduce if that something was conscious or not. For example, stone age men may have believed the sun was a ball of fire. We now know that not to be the case because we know more about the physical laws that govern fire. The two look the same, the sun and fire, but they aren't the same phenomenon. Similarly, Chalmers is suggesting that if we had physical laws to apply to conscious phenomenon, we might be able to deduce if something is conscious or not.

Q said: I believe if you follow down this road of not being able to detect from examining the states of the computer, that the machine is experiencing anything, then we are led to concluding panpsychism is true.

MF said: Can you show how you arrive at this conclusion (because I believe your logic is faulty, but I cannot show you where you have erred unless you explain your premises and inferences in clear logical steps)?

If we assume that we can't know from examining something if it is conscious or not, then given there are a myriad of systems which go from the most simple to the most complex, all of which are equally capable of manipulating information (or performing calculations if you like that phrase better), we have no criteria for determining which of these systems is conscious and which are not. If we have no criteria on which to base a judgment on whether or not something is conscious, and we still claim the more complex ones are conscious, then we must also claim the less complex ones harbor some amount of this phenomenon as well. Conclusion is that every 'thing' is cognizant to some degree or other.

Any small system can be thought of as part of a larger system. A computer as we know it is simply a large number of switches. It could equally be made from water buckets, valves and pipes, or all the Chinese people shaking hands. Here's another example - A coffee pot is part of the galley, and the galley has mechanisms to manipulate coffee pots such as water spigots, electric switches, and people. The galley is part of an aircraft, and the aircraft has mechanisms to manipulate various parts of it. The aircraft is part of an airport, which has mechanisms to manipulate various parts of it, the airport is just part of a larger structure. Each level is shown to have parts which are being manipulated by the whole. Thus, at some level, we have a highly complex system of interactions.

A computer on the other hand is not really "computing" per se, it is merely manipulating parts of itself. We have granted an interpretation to the action of a switch or the filling of a bucket of water, or the lifting of a flag. In each case, we have granted that symbolic gesture some meaning. We have granted this symbolic gesture a computational meaning. We've said this filling bucket of water means a 1 and empty it means a 0. A filled coffee pot could mean a 1, a valve position could mean a 0, fluid in a hydraulic circuit above 1000 psi could mean a 1, the flaps on an aircraft being down meaning 0, a person in location A can mean 1, etc… We can grant a meaning to anything, it does not need to be a computer switch because even a computer switch does not truly mean a number. We simply grant it that right to be a number. We say it's a number because it is manipulated in some way that represents a number to us. We've assigned that manipulation a numerical value, but we could equally assign any action a numerical value.

The aircraft systems similarly are highly dependant on what is causing them to be manipulated. A coffee pot doesn't get filled unless a person turns the water on. The hydraulic circuit doesn't reach 1000 psi unless some valve is in the proper position. Each action can be 'mapped' to its cause and effect. And each of these cause and effects are inter-related. They are not independent of each other. In fact, they are SO inter-related, that from a classical perspective, the interactions are every bit as deterministic as the switches in a computer. So we can't say a coffee pot on an aircraft is independent of the airport because it can't be turned on or even be there unless there are causal relationships which provide for the coffee pot to be in the aircraft and the aircraft at the airport. From the classical level, these are all deterministic, causal relationships which we could assign numerical values to just like a computer. The two systems, the world's aircraft transportation network, and an allegedly conscious computer, are equivalent forms of computational networks except the aircraft transportation network has a tremendous amount of additional mass, a tremendous potential additional computational power is needed to describe it thus it has tremendous more computational power, and thus the transportation network is much more complex computationally than an alleged conscious computer.

So there is no good definition of computation. A computer is not computing, it is manipulating symbols. The airline industry is not computing, it is manipulating symbols. Both are doing similar things, both can have their actions mapped to numbers and we can say these things are calculating, but either neither of these is calculating or both are calculating. We can't say one is calculating and the other is not, because they are both manipulating symbols through causal relationships.

If we say a system is manipulating symbols through causal relationships, and some of these systems are conscious, then we must grant that all of them are potentially conscious. Thus panpsychism. I believe Searle and Putnam have then taken this concept a step farther and argued that we can map any FAS to any system, or something along those lines. Long story short, this additional argument shows that any allegedly conscious computer is equivalent to any other system.

- I don't think anyone can argue that computers are not symbol manipulators. Thus we can argue that we can map any actions of any system into any numbers we want and thus suggest any given system is manipulating symbols along the lines of a computational device and thus everything must be assumed to be computational. If everything is computational, we can't simply say "this subsystem here is conscious but this one isn't" unless there is a distinction that can be made. The problem with computationalism right now is that it lacks any significant and meaningful distinction.

The question then for a computationalist, is "How do you define a computation?", and "What is the system needed to implement that computation such that the system can create the phenomena of consciousness?". Chalmers side steps the issue by suggesting there are other physical laws which might answer more succinctly these problems. Saying consciousness is created by "strong emergence" without describing how that type of emergence physically differs from weak emergence leads to panpsychism.

 

[Tournesol]

Iagree that 3rd person science often approximates to an objective unbiased perspective, but it does not follow that it is always objective.

Yes it does: that "objective" means "unbiased".

Measurements in QM may be fundamentally subjective.

There is no evidene that they are.

Science assumes 3rd person perspective always entails objectivity – the results of QM suggest this is not always the case.

What results?

Scientific objectivity is an assumption which may not always be valid.

I have asked previously how it is that you know there are no internal properties of the GoL which are inaccessible from the 3rd person perspective (ie from outside the GoL).

As have explained, I know that because I have complete information about the GoL.

Can you defend your claim, or is this belief of yours simply an article of faith? Still waiting for an answer.

The actual situation is that you have offered
no support for your extradordianry claim tha
tthe pixels in "Life" have qualia.

With respect, Tournesol, I have pointed out your misconception about physicalism before, and it seems you simply ignore your error. We are once again going round and round in circles, with apparently no communication between us. You are entitled to your own private definition of physicalism of course, but there isn’t much point continuing the discussion if this is the case, since we are not using the same language.

Chalmers uses "my" definition. perphapsit is your that is private...

 

[Tournesol]

Invalid inference. The existence of the law of gravity does not reduce the number of variables we need to specify the instantaneous positions and momenta of an N-particle system.

Best Regards

It certainly can do. Allow the particles to fall
towards the centre of graivty and they will
all end up with the same position. Laws are
all about redundancy.

 

[Tournesol]

It might have an answer, which we know, but are nonetheless unable to deduce in any mathematical
or logical way. That appears to be the case with qualia.

Before we can agree on the answer, we need to understand just what is the question you are trying to answer?

What-it-seems-like questions.

To put it another wat, if we should reject the undeducable tout court, we should
reject strong emergnece (see OP). Yet you claim to be arguing in favour of strong emergence.

I don't "reject the undeducible" - I reject the notion that we can answer meaningless questions.

Some of the questions you reject as meaningless are
answerable -- and therefore meaningful.

"What would moving finger's conscious experience be like from Q_Goest's perspective?" is such a meaningless question. Even Q_Goest now seems to agree with this (which is why the discussion has moved on from "what is the computer experiencing?" to "is the computer experiencing anything?")

The problem with that question is not a problem
of perpective alone. In a universe of purely
gemoterical
perspective, it would be quite possible
to predict someone else's observationes.

We might not exist in such a universe, but that is fact
over and above the existence of observers and (literal) perspectives.

 

[Tournesol]

think that's an excellent point. But a computationalist would suggest the GoL is experiencing the information, and you are not.

Computationalists aren't required to believe any programme is
conscious.

The deeper prolbem is that any programme is entirely
knwoable, form the outside, in principle, which
is incompatible with the idea of qualia as intrinisically
unknowable from the outside.

So the information must be experiencing itself. Would you agree this leads to panpsychism? What other conclusions could you come to given the assumption that we might have the same information, but no way to know if that information is experiencing anything? Are there any other ways to resolve this paradox and still maintain computationalism other than what Chalmers has come to?

I can't think of any. It is all something of
an argument against computationalism IMO.

Regardless of what position it is, would you agree or disagree that computationalism leads to panpsychism if we have no way of detecting whether a machine is conscious or not

We can detect wether a machine reports
on its internal states and so on. It is only
phenomenal consciousness that is problematical.
Chalmer's point is that where you have the one
(funtional/behaviourial consciousness), you can
expect to have p-consciousness.

 

[moving finger]

That's fine, let's get away from the discussion about "what would moving finger's phenomenal consciousness be like if Q_Goest were to experience that phenomenal consciousness?" and let's discuss questions such as "questions about how we can possibly detect conscious experience on some level".

I suggested that already a few posts ago.

By "having an experience" or when we say "consciousness" I'm referring to any of the many subjective experiences such as the phenomenon of unity, or of self awareness, or any experience that occurs in a human, but not in a rock for example.

How do you know whether it occurs in a rock or not? (I am not suggesting it does, I am asking how you can substantiate your claim that it does not)

Chalmers is suggesting there are "new physical laws" which need to be discovered.

I understand that, and I am saying that the physical properties of phenomenal consciousness which you call "having an experience" are by definition inaccessible to 3rd person investigation, hence asking "what are the laws which describe these properties" is a meaningless question.

For example, stone age man didn't understand fire to the degree we do. They couldn't understand how molecules interacted. They had new physical laws to uncover, so for stone age man, fire was a phenomena which they had no way of explaining. Similarly, Chalmers is suggesting that we need to uncover new physical laws to explain the phenomena of consciousness.

It cannot be done, because phenomenal consciousness is a 1st person subjective experience, it is a category error to think that the "laws" which describe the 1st person perspective properties of subjective phenomenal consciousness can somehow be known or described from a 3rd person perspective.

If we knew what these physical laws were, we'd then be able to apply them to anything and deduce if that something was conscious or not.

Therein lies your problem, because by definition we CANNOT know what these laws are, the properties they describe are inaccessible to the 3rd person perspective.

If we assume that we can't know from examining something if it is conscious or not, then given there are a myriad of systems which go from the most simple to the most complex, all of which are equally capable of manipulating information (or performing calculations if you like that phrase better), we have no criteria for determining which of these systems is conscious and which are not. If we have no criteria on which to base a judgment on whether or not something is conscious, and we still claim the more complex ones are conscious, then we must also claim the less complex ones harbor some amount of this phenomenon as well. Conclusion is that every 'thing' is cognizant to some degree or other.

Does not logically follow.
To say that "X may be conscious" (and we simply cannot tell whether it is conscious or not) is not the same as saying that "X is necessarily conscious".

If you believe we can tell the difference between a conscious and a non-conscious entity from the 3rd person perspective, please explain how you think it can be done.

Saying consciousness is created by "strong emergence" without describing how that type of emergence physically differs from weak emergence leads to panpsychism.

You have still not shown how you arrive at this conclusion (indeed, I have shown above that your logic is faulty - saying "X may be conscious, we have no way of knowing" is not the same as saying "X is necessarily conscious")

Best Regards

 

[Q_Goest]

Hi Tournsel

We can detect wether a machine reports
on its internal states and so on.

Not sure what that means. How does a machine "report on its internal states" in any meaningful way?



Hi MF

How do you know whether it occurs in a rock or not? (I am not suggesting it does, I am asking how you can substantiate your claim that it does not)

The point being, IFF we don't want to accept panpsychism, then we will make the assumption that a rock is not conscious. I didn't mean to infer that we can know if a rock is conscious or not, only that we preclude this possibility if we want to exclude panpsychism as a possibility.

I understand that, and I am saying that the physical properties of phenomenal consciousness which you call "having an experience" are by definition inaccessible to 3rd person investigation, hence asking "what are the laws which describe these properties" is a meaningless question.

What is the meaningless question? I believe what you're trying to say is that it is meaningless for a 3'rd person to investigate whether or not some system is "having an experience". Is that correct? But that's not a "question" so you have me confused.

If that is correct, then what evidence do you have to base this statement on (ie: that it is impossible for a 3'rd person to determine if a system is "having an experience")? I don't believe there is any. We can't say there is no evidence simply because computationalism precludes the possibility that something is inaccessible to a 3'rd person investigation. What you're saying is that computationalism precludes any evidence of experience by a 3'rd person, so you conclude there is no evidence.

It cannot be done, because phenomenal consciousness is a 1st person subjective experience, it is a category error to think that the "laws" which describe the 1st person perspective properties of subjective phenomenal consciousness can somehow be known or described from a 3rd person perspective.
…
Therein lies your problem, because by definition we CANNOT know what these laws are, the properties they describe are inaccessible to the 3rd person perspective.

Can you provide any logical reasoning to show what you say is true regardless of the assumptions used to base the phenomena of consciousness on? If this is only based on the concept of computationalism, the statements are only valid for computationalism and may be invalid for other theories.

Does not logically follow.
To say that "X may be conscious" (and we simply cannot tell whether it is conscious or not) is not the same as saying that "X is necessarily conscious".

I agree. But I don't need to prove that the aircraft industry is necessarily experiencing something. I only need to prove that there is no differentiator between one computational structure which isn't conscious and another which is allegedly conscious given the concept of computationalism. I only need to prove there is a possibility given the theory on hand (computationalism) that panpsychism is not ruled out. There is no differentiator for computationalism, as you can see. Thus, we can't preclude panpsychism given the assumptions computationalism is based on. If we can't preclude panpsychism given this theory, there is a problem with the theory which needs to be addressed. Although I've attacked this from a slightly different angle, others have already pointed out this problem. The reaction from the computationalists has not provided a firm foundation yet on which to generate a meaningful response to this type of attack.

If you believe we can tell the difference between a conscious and a non-conscious entity from the 3rd person perspective, please explain how you think it can be done.

That's not the point here. It isn't my intent to prove that there is some theory of consciousness that shows from a 3'rd person perspective that a system is conscious. In fact, I don't know of one. But that's not important. Computationalism is the primary theory under review in this thread.

Edit: I'll admit my aircraft argument doesn't prove that computationalism necessarily leads to panpsychism. It only shows we can't preclude panpsychism. What I need to prove is what Putnam has stated, that "every ordinary open system realizes every abstract finite automaton." I'll see if there's a better way of putting this into the aircraft example. Regardless, Putnam claims to have proven this, or at least many people in the philisophical community believe he has. It's the reaction from the philisophical community that's interesting, as it shows how much needs to be done to the concept of computationalism to maintain it as a vaild paradigm for the mind. Food for thought.

 

[Tournesol]

Not sure what that means. How does a machine "report on its internal states" in any meaningful way?

How does a human ?