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moving finger
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PerhapsselfAdjoint said:If it were described as "pro-consciousness" or "pre-consciousness" perhaps you would find it more convincing?
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PerhapsselfAdjoint said:If it were described as "pro-consciousness" or "pre-consciousness" perhaps you would find it more convincing?
Correct. In this sense, we should in principle be able to make “conscious machines” already. But before we can recognise these machines as being conscious we also need to be able to communicate with them, to be able to ask them to report on their conscious experiences.Paul Martin said:This is a clear and easy to understand recipe. Any competent programmer could easily implement it. The virtual "observer" could be any conceivable combination of machine states and or processes, and the virtual "observed" could also be any conceivable combination of machine states, including information accessed from the outside world via transducers.
There is also no problem in defining this configuration, or any part of it you wish, as 'consciousness'. It is, or could easily be made to be, a unified process.
Agreed. But where is the law of nature which says that all forms of consciousness must be as you experience it?Paul Martin said:Nowhere, however, in this thought experiment, does the notion of consciousness as I experience it appear
Why would you disbelieve it? Would you think it is deliberately lying to you about it’s internal experiences and perceptions?Paul Martin said:You could implement the program in such a way as to have it adamantly declare that it has conscious experience, and even have it pound a metallic fist on a table, but it would not convince me.
“a sort of actual self…. remains”? But what is this supposed to be, the homunculus?Lars Laborious said:The feeling of self dissapears if we strip away the notion of “self” (since the advanced possibility to reflect on itself is gone), but a sort of actual self, that you could call the experience itself, remains.
Whereas I believe that (conscious) existence is nothing but experience.Lars Laborious said:The reason I believe this is that existence doesn’t necessarily equal experience.
Agreed. But this is not the same as saying that “no robot can have experiences”. In order to “have experiences” the robot needs to process information is a very particular way, a way that generates a virtual self.Lars Laborious said:We can imagine a robot without any phenomenal experiences. It would be able to interact with others as if it had a consciousness, but those actions would just be results of information prosessing - this particularly robot wouldn't experience.
How do you know that a child has any “experiences” before discovering (I would say creating) a “self”? In order to “have an experience”, the mind needs to relate that experience to “something having the experience”, and this is what creates the idea of self. To me it just seems nonsensical to suggest that an agent can consciously think that it is “having experiences” in the absence of the notion of “self’ which is having those experiences. They both get created together.Lars Laborious said:Conscious experience (as in experience where a relfecting process is happening), would be possible without the feeling of self, much like the experience a child would have before discovering a “self”.
We are perhaps more in agreement that we think. To me, the “creation of awareness” creates the idea of the virtual self at the same time as creating the experience.Lars Laborious said:But, a center of experience has to be there already, just as you suggest, but not only after a certain awareness has occured.
There is every reason to believe it. The alternative is to suggest that the “self” really exists, quite independent of experience, as some kind of homunculus. Is this what you are suggesting? Dualism?Lars Laborious said:There is no reason to believe that a center of experience just magically appear within information that are processed in the right way.
I fail to see the analogy with milk in a bottle (unless you are possibly suggesting that consciousness is something physical, which can be weighed and photographed?)Lars Laborious said:Again, phenomenal experience (or the possibility for conscious phenomenal experience) is not necessarily a part of information, or at least not the information itself. Stating that bare consciousness originates in an information process, is like saying that milk occurs in a jar.
What rational argument do you have to support this claim?Lars Laborious said:Claiming that phenomenal experience is the process, has no meaning, since an information process is simply a job happening to information, and phenomenal experience is not the same as either information or job, or the both put together.
I have never said that dualism is “not possible”. But the premise of dualism creates more questions than it answers, it simply “passes the buck” of explanation onto another level, it is explanatorily inadequate.Lars Laborious said:Also, arguing against qualia by stating that dualism is not possible, is setting a premis without first proving it.
Or perhaps because they see the notion of dualism as being incoherent.Lars Laborious said:I also suspect that many avoid dualism in fear of being labeled as religious.
It is not a homunculus, but the single sensation itself.Originally Posted by Lars Laborious
The feeling of self dissapears if we strip away the notion of “self” (since the advanced possibility to reflect on itself is gone), but a sort of actual self, that you could call the experience itself, remains.
Originally Posted by moving finger
“a sort of actual self…. remains”? But what is this supposed to be, the homunculus?
Does this mean that you believe that raw sensations are fundamental properties of the physical? Or, do you define experience as something else?Originally Posted by moving finger
Whereas I believe that (conscious) existence is nothing but experience.
Agreed. I too believe that robots can be conscious. But you can still imagine robots that do not have phenomenal experience. The same goes for a world without phenomenal experiences. In such a world it’s hard to see how raw phenomenal experience/sensations could arise through physical movements (or a process, if you want).Originally Posted by Lars Laborious
We can imagine a robot without any phenomenal experiences [...]
Originally Posted by moving finger
Agreed. But this is not the same as saying that “no robot can have experiences”.
Because I remember when I first ”realised” that I have a “self”. Up to that point I had simply experienced the world without relating the experience to a “me”. It was all just sensations. I had an experiencing center, but not the feeling of “self”.moving finger said:How do you know that a child has any “experiences” before discovering (I would say creating) a “self”?
It sounds to me that you either see experience as something else than phenomenal sensation (perhaps just physical reactions), or that you in fact think that physical movements that lack sensations can create sensations that are being sensed. I find it hard to believe the latter on the grounds that sensations and the physical differ in that sensations are presentations of the physical. The “presentation-substance” would have to be there allready.moving finger said:To me, the “creation of awareness” creates the idea of the virtual self at the same time as creating the experience.
Self-experiencing sensations.Originally Posted by Lars Laborious
There is no reason to believe that a center of experience just magically appear within information that are processed in the right way.
Originally Posted by moving finger
There is every reason to believe it. The alternative is to suggest that the “self” really exists, quite independent of experience, as some kind of homunculus. Is this what you are suggesting? Dualism?
In a world where phenomenal sensations/experience were fundamental properties, I would agree to your analogy. But I suspect that you believe that phenomenal sensations are not real, only physical reactions. In that case, this would be as if I were having a discussion with a non-experiencing robot;-)moving finger said:I fail to see the analogy with milk in a bottle (unless you are possibly suggesting that consciousness is something physical, which can be weighed and photographed?)
A better analogy would be between “consciousness running on brain hardware” is analogous to “a program running on computer hardware”. The running program is simply a form of information processing.
I can’t prove that a real physical world exists outside qualia, but if it does, how can you avoid seeing that a physical job is different from phenomenal experience? Yes, the experience would be concrete, but not physical in the normal sense. The “physical” would be implemented in/sensed through phenomenal experience. The physical are a set of properties that follows categorical rules within phenomenal experience/qualia.Originally Posted by Lars Laborious
Claiming that phenomenal experience is the process, has no meaning, since an information process is simply a job happening to information, and phenomenal experience is not the same as either information or job, or the both put together.
Originally Posted by moving finger
If you think it is not a process, what are you suggesting that it is? Something concrete and physical like milk in a bottle?
I agree. But saying that sensations aren’t being experienced - that they are just physical processes - is equally explanatorily inadequate, since we base all our knowledge on phenomenal experiences. A self-experiencing sensation would stop the buck from being passed, but of course it raises other questions. “How is it possible?” “What does it mean?”moving finger said:I have never said that dualism is “not possible”. But the premise of dualism creates more questions than it answers, it simply “passes the buck” of explanation onto another level, it is explanatorily inadequate.
I’m not sure, but I think we agree on this one. If all melted into each other as one during the process, then you don’t have dualism since it’s all the same. Perhaps you thought I was saying that such a “melted one" could not be, while I in fact believe that one could not separate experience from the experiencer.Rade said:During my existential moment many years ago my consciousness as a thing experienced the I of me as a thing, and during the process all melted into each other as one such that I knew that I existed. So, my experience would appear to falsify your belief, unless I do not understand your comment above.
I was responding to this statement you made--Lars Laborious said:I’m not sure, but I think we agree on this one. If all melted into each other as one during the process, then you don’t have dualism since it’s all the same. Perhaps you thought I was saying that such a “melted one" could not be, while I in fact believe that one could not separate experience from the experience.
What I am saying is that during my existential moment "something" that exists [e.g. my consciousness] did experience "something else" that exists [e.g., the holistic me], and during the process a "unity" emerged from the interaction [e.g., my knowledge of my existence--that is, epistemology and metaphysics merged into the oneness of me]. Thus, while I agree with your statement that one cannot "separate" experience (object) from experiencer (subject), I find that each has veiled identity within a dialectic reality formed by their correspondence. My philosophy is not of dualism (the poles), nor of monism (the middle), but of dialectics, of the reality of the transcendence of opposites that emerges from the union of things that exist with identity <A> and <not-A>.Lars Laboriuos said:Originally Posted by Lars Laborious...I actually mean I don’t believe that something can experience something else, because the connection point between an observer and the observed would have to melt into each other and so be one.
A sensation needs both the subject and object of experience in order to “exist”. How can one have an “experiencer” who experiences nothing at all; and how can one have an “experience” which is not being experienced by someone?Lars Laborious said:It is not a homunculus, but the single sensation itself.
I agree that “sensations need to be sensed to exist”. This is precisely why I think it makes no sense (it is irrational) to suggest that a “sensation” can exist in absence of “something doing the sensing”, just as much as it is irrational to suggest that “something which is doing any sensing” exists in absence of a “sensation”. It’s like the “heads” and “tails” of a coin, one cannot have one without the other.Lars Laborious said:Sensations need to be sensed to exist.
“raw sensations” (qualia) are virtual entities which have no objective existence outside of the virtual world created inside consciousness. The information processing that is consciousness creates a virtual subject (the conscious self) and a virtual object (the raw sensations as you call them) which exist as entities only in relation to each other, within the information processing of consciousness.Lars Laborious said:Does this mean that you believe that raw sensations are fundamental properties of the physical? Or, do you define experience as something else?
Agreed. A world in which there are no conscious agents would be a world without phenomenal experiences (no qualia, no self, no experiences).Lars Laborious said:Agreed. I too believe that robots can be conscious. But you can still imagine robots that do not have phenomenal experience. The same goes for a world without phenomenal experiences.
I don’t see that at all.Lars Laborious said:In such a world it’s hard to see how raw phenomenal experience/sensations could arise through physical movements (or a process, if you want).
I think it comes down to a definition of terms.Lars Laborious said:Because I remember when I first ”realised” that I have a “self”. Up to that point I had simply experienced the world without relating the experience to a “me”. It was all just sensations. I had an experiencing center, but not the feeling of “self”.
I see qualia as being a virtual creation within an information processing system, a system which simultaneously also creates a virtual self.Lars Laborious said:It sounds to me that you either see experience as something else than phenomenal sensation (perhaps just physical reactions), or that you in fact think that physical movements that lack sensations can create sensations that are being sensed. I find it hard to believe the latter on the grounds that sensations and the physical differ in that sensations are presentations of the physical. The “presentation-substance” would have to be there allready.
That is precisely what Metzinger’s paper is all about.Lars Laborious said:Self-experiencing sensations.
I do not believe they are physical reactions. Phenomenal sensations (can we please try to agree on one name for these things – either phenomenal sensations, or qualia, or raw phenomenal experience?) are virtual entities, just as real or unreal as the virtual objects in a computer game. This does not mean that consciousness is virtual, and it does not mean that “I” am not having experiences of “qualia” (because “I” and the “experiences” and the “qualia” are together part of the creation of my consciousness).Lars Laborious said:In a world where phenomenal sensations/experience were fundamental properties, I would agree to your analogy. But I suspect that you believe that phenomenal sensations are not real, only physical reactions. In that case, this would be as if I were having a discussion with a non-experiencing robot;-)
I would suggest that you cannot even prove (to anyone else except yourself) that qualia exist. But think about it - Isn’t this exactly what one would expect if “you” (ie your conscious idea of self) were a “virtual” entity experiencing “virtual qualia” within your brain? It would look just as you have described – the qualia would “seem” real to you, and you would think that there is nothing else apart from qualia which you could prove existed, but at the same time other agents would deny that your so-called qualia have any physical existence and insist instead on using the so-called objectively real world as a basis for communication.Lars Laborious said:I can’t prove that a real physical world exists outside qualia, but if it does, how can you avoid seeing that a physical job is different from phenomenal experience?
Whereas I think it is just the other way around.Lars Laborious said:Yes, the experience would be concrete, but not physical in the normal sense. The “physical” would be implemented in/sensed through phenomenal experience. The physical are a set of properties that follows categorical rules within phenomenal experience/qualia.
I am not saying that sensations are not being experienced.Lars Laborious said:I agree. But saying that sensations aren’t being experienced - that they are just physical processes - is equally explanatorily inadequate, since we base all our knowledge on phenomenal experiences. A self-experiencing sensation would stop the buck from being passed, but of course it raises other questions.
“How is it possible” is a question which can be asked about anything and everything, and it is a question to which ultimately we have no answer.Lars Laborious said:“How is it possible?”
Need it "mean" anything?Lars Laborious said:“What does it mean?”
This is precisely what I am also saying….Lars Laborious said:I in fact believe that one could not separate experience from the experiencer.
I'll call it qualia. But I do not just refer to phenomenal experience, but also the experiencer. I believe it's the same thing.moving finger said:[...] can we please try to agree on one name for these things [...]
They are united.moving finger said:A sensation needs both the subject and object of experience in order to “exist”. How can one have an “experiencer” who experiences nothing at all; and how can one have an “experience” which is not being experienced by someone?
No, you believe that it’s possible to separate them, but then they would both go away. Whilst I believe you simply can’t separate them because they are the same.Originally Posted by Lars Laborious
I in fact believe that one could not separate experience from the experiencer
Originally Posted by moving finger
This is precisely what I am also saying….
Claiming that qualia are virtual entities is not solving the problem. Here’s why: Virtual entities are mental, and mental is qualia. Virtual entities do not exist without an experience of them. So saying that qualia are virtual entities is saying qualia is qualia. That doesn't entail any new knowledge.moving finger said:“raw sensations” (qualia) are virtual entities which have no objective existence outside of the virtual world created inside consciousness.
You can make it appear conscious, but "the developed sense of 'conscious self' within it’s processing routines" would not arise if it didn't already have an experiencing mind. It cannot have subjective impressions with it's virtual self since a virtual entity doesn't exist without an experience of it.moving finger said:Imagine we create a robot with visual colour receptors, linked to an image processing unit, a memory where it can store information about images it has previously processed, a developed sense of “conscious self” within it’s processing routines (so that it thinks it is an agent which is actually “looking” at images via it’s visual colour receptors), an ability to form subjective impressions based on the quality of images, and the ability to interpret and report on the images that it is processing.
Neither do I.moving finger said:The question is whether the “conscious self” exists independently of any “conscious experience”. I believe it does not. And you?
Not at all. Where have I said this?Lars Laborious said:you believe that it’s possible to separate them
moving finger said:To me it just seems nonsensical to suggest that an agent can consciously think that it is “having experiences” in the absence of the notion of “self’ which is having those experiences. They both get created together. (post #38)
moving finger said:the “creation of awareness” creates the idea of the virtual self at the same time as creating the experience. (post #38)
moving finger said:it makes no sense (it is irrational) to suggest that a “sensation” can exist in absence of “something doing the sensing” (post #42)
moving finger said:one accepts (like Metzinger) that the two are inextricably bound up together, and one cannot exist without the other. (post #42)
moving finger said:consciousness creates a virtual subject (the conscious self) and a virtual object (the raw sensations as you call them) which exist as entities only in relation to each other (post #42)
If you believe they are the same (ie identical), why do you use two different terms to describe them (ie “experiences” and “the feeling of self”), and how is this belief that they cannot be separated consistent with your claim that as a child you had “experiences” without a feeling of “self”?Lars Laborious said:I believe you simply can’t separate them because they are the same.
Lars Laborious said:I remember when I first ”realised” that I have a “self”. Up to that point I had simply experienced the world without relating the experience to a “me”. It was all just sensations. I had an experiencing center, but not the feeling of “self”.
What problem?Lars Laborious said:Claiming that qualia are virtual entities is not solving the problem.
No. The relationships between virtual entities are the substance of the experience, there can be no experience without them. It is not the case that “first there is experience, and then this experience creates virtual entities within itself”.Lars Laborious said:All virtual entities exist only within already experiencing minds.
Qualia are virtual entities. Virtual entities do not exist “inside qualia” as you are trying to suggest. Virtual entities are pure information, they cannot be dissected to yield more fundamental parts. Have you tried dissecting the virtual buildings that exist within a program such as SIM city?Lars Laborious said:Dissecting a virtual entity would leave only the physical processing equipment, but the qualia in which a virtual entity can exist, still remains.
And that “a virtual entity does not exist without an experience of it” is exactly what I am saying – please read again :Lars Laborious said:It cannot have subjective impressions with it's virtual self since a virtual entity doesn't exist without an experience of it.
moving finger said:To me it just seems nonsensical to suggest that an agent can consciously think that it is “having experiences” in the absence of the notion of “self’ which is having those experiences. They both get created together. (post #38)
moving finger said:the “creation of awareness” creates the idea of the virtual self at the same time as creating the experience. (post #38)
moving finger said:it makes no sense (it is irrational) to suggest that a “sensation” can exist in absence of “something doing the sensing” (post #42)
moving finger said:one accepts (like Metzinger) that the two are inextricably bound up together, and one cannot exist without the other. (post #42)
moving finger said:consciousness creates a virtual subject (the conscious self) and a virtual object (the raw sensations as you call them) which exist as entities only in relation to each other (post #42)
Lars Laborious said:I in fact believe that one could not separate experience from the experiencer.
Lars Laborious said:I remember when I first ”realised” that I have a “self”. Up to that point I had simply experienced the world without relating the experience to a “me”. It was all just sensations. I had an experiencing center, but not the feeling of “self”.
You got it all wrong, I'm not talking about "the feeling of self", but simply the experiencer. I see the "the feeling of self" as the consciously awareness of a "self" and the experiencer as the “centre of virtual gravity”, as you call it.moving finger said:If you believe they are the same (ie identical), why do you use two different terms to describe them (ie “experiences” and “the feeling of self”), and how is this belief that they cannot be separated consistent with your claim that as a child you had “experiences” without a feeling of “self”?
Originally Posted by Lars Laborious
Claiming that qualia are virtual entities is not solving the problem.
What problem?
A computer game is not virtual without someone already experiencing it. The virtuality of the game happens in your experiencing mind. One can dissect the computer and your mind will still be, waiting for annother game experience. If no one is there to experience the game, SIM city doesn’t exist, it’s all just computer parts.moving finger said:Qualia are virtual entities. Virtual entities do not exist “inside qualia” as you are trying to suggest. Virtual entities are pure information, they cannot be dissected to yield more fundamental parts. Have you tried dissecting the virtual buildings that exist within a program such as SIM city?
Since a virtual entity does not exist without an experience of it, comparing qualia with virtual entities is not explaining how qualia get to be. When you suggest it appears in consciousness, and that consciousness is as a process in the same way that a running computer program is, that does not tell us how qualia arise. The software of a running computer program exposes itself to already experiencing minds.moving finger said:And that “a virtual entity does not exist without an experience of it” is exactly what I am saying […]
Qualia and self are virtual constructs within the information processing system that we call consciousness, and conscious experience is the relation of virtual qualia to virtual self within that consciousness.Lars Laborious said:Claiming that qualia are virtual entities is not solving the problem.
moving finger said:What problem?
Lars Laborious said:The origin of qualia.
I never suggested that “a computer game is virtual”. It seems you have an incorrect understanding of the argument.Lars Laborious said:A computer game is not virtual without someone already experiencing it.
The mind has nothing to do with it, the computer game and the creation of virtual entities within that game do not rely on any external mind to bring them into being.Lars Laborious said:The virtuality of the game happens in your experiencing mind.
Again it seems you have the wrong conception. Ignore any “external mind” or “external player”, this is not required. You can dissect the computer as much as you like and you will never find the virtual buildings that the program has constructed, except as patterns of information. But a “virtual entity” within the program could “see” the “virtual buildings” from its perspective within the information. Neither the virtual entity nor the virtual buildings have any external reality except as information, they appear as virtual objects only in relation to each other, inside the running program.Lars Laborious said:One can dissect the computer and your mind will still be, waiting for annother game experience. If no one is there to experience the game, SIM city doesn’t exist, it’s all just computer parts.
Virtual entities are produced as part of the information processing that takes place, either within a computer program or within a consciousness. That is how they “get to be”.Lars Laborious said:Since a virtual entity does not exist without an experience of it, comparing qualia with virtual entities is not explaining how qualia get to be.
When you suggest it appears in consciousness, and that consciousness is as a process in the same way that a running computer program is, that does not tell us how qualia arise.
Clearly you have misunderstood the analogy.Lars Laborious said:The software of a running computer program exposes itself to already experiencing minds.
Agreed.moving finger said:A computer program (game) is very real. What I am suggesting is that the entities within (invoked by) the game are virtual.
Again, "virtual" is a potential state that is imagined to be. Take away this (phenomenal) imagining, and the "virtual entities" or qualia cannot arise. So, by starting with non-experiencing equipment, it's not logical to say that qualia arise as "virtual entities" - the computer cannot imagine (Note: I'm not saying that it's impossible to make an imagining computer).moving finger said:In the same way, consciousness is very real. But the entities within (invoked by) consciousness (qualia and self) are virtual.
Agreed.moving finger said:Ignore any “external mind” or “external player”, this is not required. You can dissect the computer as much as you like and you will never find the virtual buildings that the program has constructed, except as patterns of information.
There is absolutely no reason to believe that the program can “see” the “virtual buildings” the way you and I see the “virtual buildings”. The program just is. Doing it's job. It has no perspective; nothing appears to it. Of course it doesn't need an external mind in order for the program to run, but for virtual entities to exist, it does. If the program really do have phenomenal experience, then the question still remains, how?moving finger said:But a “virtual entity” within the program could “see” the “virtual buildings” from its perspective within the information. Neither the virtual entity nor the virtual buildings have any external reality except as information, they appear as virtual objects only in relation to each other, inside the running program.
Lars Laborious said:Again, "virtual" is a potential state that is imagined to be. Take away this (phenomenal) imagining, and the "virtual entities" or qualia cannot arise. So, by starting with non-experiencing equipment, it's not logical to say that qualia arise as "virtual entities" - the computer cannot imagine (Note: I'm not saying that it's impossible to make an imagining computer).
selfAdjoint said:On the contrary I claim the interactions of a mechanical system with part of it hidden behind a Metzinger Wall (aka "horizon" or "interface") and the rest interacting through high level aggregate variables available from the wall does exhibit what we can legitimately call virtual agents. Padmanabhan has discussed this in the context of general relativity physics. Once again you resort to petitio principi, by demanding imagination, which is part of what you want to demonstrate.
Lars Laborious said:Also, arguing against qualia by stating that dualism is not possible, is setting a premis without first proving it. I know that many physicsists reject dualism on the grounds that we can’t observe anything that do not follow the rules of physics - like a spirit. But qualia would manage to logically escape our observations, as an observer’s instrument, (or, one could say, in disguising itself as physical projections). I also suspect that many avoid dualism in fear of being labeled as religious.
When I say I don’t believe in dualism, I actually mean I don’t believe that something can experience something else, because the connection point between an observer and the observed would have to melt into each other and so be one.
vanesch said:I'm 100% in agreement with your contributions here, Lars.
Actually, (as some know), this viewpoint you (and I) hold is even essential for my beloved Many Worlds Interpretation of quantum theory (oh, no, not again )
However, I don't understand your statement that you are not a dualist. I thought that stating that qualia are NOT physical in themselves (but maybe induced by physical processes) is the exactly what it means, to be a dualist, no ?
selfAdjoint said:I think that if you and others want to explore dualism, you should start a new thread. It is completely OT from Metzinger's apprach.
The question “how do virtual constructs originate?” is answered by “they originate within a particular form of information processing”. Asking for a deeper explanation than this is meaningless.Lars Laborious said:MF, simply saying that qualia are virtual constructs within the information processing system that we call consciousness, doesn't explain how qualia originate.
Not circular at all. You seem to be stuck in the notion that “if it’s virtual, then there must be an external human mind which is imagining it”. This is not the case. Virtual does not entail human imagination. Virtual entails only that an entity is interpreted by an agent as directly representing some form of physical reality when it does not. Such interpretation can take place within an information processing system which represents virtual entities internally “to itself” by creating (also internally) the notion of a virtual “self”. There need be no external observer nor external mind nor human imagination involved.Lars Laborious said:Yes, it might arise within such a process, but you cannot explain how that can be by comparing it to virtual entities. "Virtual" is a potential state that is imagined to be, and you can't have (phenomenal) imagining without qualia. It's a circular problem.
I agree – but again please try to set aside the notion that virtual entities can exist only in a human mind (via imagination). Virtual entities (I am suggesting) can be created within any suitably complex information processing system which conforms to Metzinger’s conditions. The “phenomenal imagining” as you call it is then a part of the total creation, the system creates virtual self, virtual qualia, and when combined the virtual self experiences the qualia by “imagining” that the self is real and the qualia are real. No human mind is required.Lars Laborious said:Again, "virtual" is a potential state that is imagined to be. Take away this (phenomenal) imagining, and the "virtual entities" or qualia cannot arise.
You are not suggesting that it’s impossible to make an imagining computer – good!Lars Laborious said:So, by starting with non-experiencing equipment, it's not logical to say that qualia arise as "virtual entities" - the computer cannot imagine (Note: I'm not saying that it's impossible to make an imagining computer).
Within existing computer programs - I agree completely.Lars Laborious said:There is absolutely no reason to believe that the program can “see” the “virtual buildings” the way you and I see the “virtual buildings”.
Yes, I agree it does. Thus the program needs to construct a “virtual self” within itself, as well as the “virtual buildings”, such that it can “think to itself” that it is seeing buildings. In just the same way, I believe the human brain “tells itself” that it is an agent which is seeing/hearing/feeling/smelling some kind of “real physical qualia” when in fact those qualia are virtual.Lars Laborious said:The program just is. Doing it's job. It has no perspective; nothing appears to it. Of course it doesn't need an external mind in order for the program to run, but for virtual entities to exist, it does.
selfAdjoint said:I think that if you and others want to explore dualism, you should start a new thread. It is completely OT from Metzinger's apprach.