Can Everything be Reduced to Pure Physics?

[Les Sleeth]

1) that's utter bull****... now, patronize me again, and my next reply will be just as inpleasant in tone... you choose how we speak to each other...

Fliption isn't being patronizing. His is probably the most patient mind around here, and regularly sticks with rude and obtuse people long after the rest of us have given up on them.

He has humbly been trying to explain to you something which you clearly don't understand. Before going any further, let me add that I am not equating "agreeing" with "understanding" (i.e., I mean you don't have to agree with the concept of qualia before I acknowledge you understand).

How do I know you don't understand the concept? It would be like you trying to explain to someone that the rate of time is altered in a frame of reference when that frame accelerates. After explaining it to them they say, "oh, all that happens is the g-forces from acceleration inhibits the clocks' movement." In other words, the way he answers proves he doesn't understand relativity. Likewise, the way you answer about qualia proves you don't understand the significance of it.

Your complaint that the qualia argument is a nothing but a "word game" isn't quite fair. Actually it is a thought problem, and as you know scientists use them all the time. Einstein's twin paradox is one, as is Schrodinger's cat. If you'd tone down the outrage a bit and give this thought problem a fair look, you might see there is a genuine point in there.

However, I'll admit that personally I don't like the way the zombie argument is set up, and I don't like using qualia as the defining characteristic of consciousness. But let me defend it a little anyway by simplifying the argument.

Is it possible for someone without taste buds to act like they can taste? Or, can someone act loving without actually feeling love? If so, then taste and love involve something more than behavior -- there is an internal subjective aspect. The idea of using either a zombie or a robot in the thought experiment was to point out that consciousness isn't just functions or behaviors, but the heart of it is that experience of what a particular taste "is like" or what the experience of love "is like." You can get a robot to put food in its mouth, to chew, to go "ahhhhhhhh, so delicious," but the robot isn't really having subjective experience of taste, it is just imitating the external behaviors of taste.

My personal preference for describing what a robot/zombie is missing is to say they can detect taste or light or sound, but they don't "know" they are detecting anything. So like with Fliption's example of the security camera, it detects movement, but it is clueless that it does.

THAT subjective self-knowledge is what thinkers, physicalists and non-physicalists alike, are in a quandry to explain in the way of consciousness. Functionalist thinkers like Daniel Dennett wave off the problem saying he's confident "one day" we'll find a physicalistic answer, but no one in either camp believes we have it yet.

One quick comment on babies and experience. I think Fliption's point was that a baby is born with the potential to experience red is "like this." He doesn't need to learn how to have a subjective aspect of consciousness. Also, if you maintain that we don't need to experience a color to know the color, then you are disputing empiricism itself, which demands that researchers experience what they hypothesize to be true. If, as an empiricist, you were blind and hypothesized the new color Fliption talked about was a certain way, that is a theory, and will remain a theory to you until you can actually see the color. Even if your imagination can approximate the color, it still isn't the same information as sense experience.

Unless you want to agree with the rationalists that truth can be known by reason alone, then you have to admit that experience is a unique dimension of living awareness without which we cannot really know if what we imagine to be true is actually true.

Anyway, as of now physical processes can't account for the subjective aspect of consciousness, and that is why it, along with progressive organization, was on the list of what cannot currently be explained by physicalness.

 

[balkan]

like I've said, les: it is you and also fliption, that subjectively attribute something special to these qualia when there's nothing special about it...
i am quite aware of the camera/robot analogy and i understand perfectly what you mean... but the fact that these extremely simple machines register inputs, but aren't aware of it only proves something in your mind... not in mine... to me, it proves that we are unable to create a sufficiently sophisticated "brain" yet.
alot of those "qualities" when you look at things and feelings you get comes from chemicals in your brain... this includes fear, lust and love...
about "self awareness" - even in a simple machine... what if that was just part of the "program"? it didn't need much other than a few questions: "why am i here?" "where am i?" "what am i?" and the brain to try and calculate the possibilities. i mean, isn't that all we really have to go on?
you aren't "aware" that you exist... you "think" you exist.

the fact that you attribute something more to association, is proof to me, that you don't know dick about how the human brain works, you just really like to think you do.

edit: oh, and the fact that you once again attribute so much to our selfawareness also shows that you don't know how extremely dependant human behaviour is on our past experiences and learned "programs" (although it is not exactly a comforting thought for metaphysicists)... the self awareness is also something that evolves in the human mind through learning and thinking... it's not "just there", like you seem to think. imo (and many others, as there are great indications that it is in this agerange that selfawareness becomes prominent) it's caused by our increasing searching for questions in our first 4-10 years.

 

[Fliption]

1)
now, patronize me again, and my next reply will be just as inpleasant in tone... you choose how we speak to each other...

Holy crap! What did I do? Seriously, I wasn't intending on patronizing you. I think you've got me in the wrong bucket. It was late and I was very tired when I finished that post last night and I left out a few things but I've re-read it and I don't remember attempting to be patronizing anywhere. The last post was only step one of my goal to tweak the examples a bit and measure your objections so that, hopefully, I can begin to understand what your overall point of view is. I suspect that we have a different understanding of what some key terms mean and I was probing to verify that. After your last post I think I am correct. My apologies if you thought I was being patronizing. I appreciate the detail of your response despite the fact that you felt patronized. So many people would just huff and puff and leave. But this detail is the only way I can begin to understand your view.

that's utter bull****... like i said, the baby has experiences... feeling pressure and pain doesn't have to be learned, so what the bleeding hell are you on about?

This is where I probably left out some explanation. Let me see if I can explain my logic on all this. Your main objection to the Mary illustration was that the experience of color had to be learned as opposed to just being an innate ability. I was merely trying to probe a bit to see if there were other types of experiences that you felt were innate and didn't need to be learned. If so, then this particular experience can be inserted into the Mary illustration and it still works and your objection no longer does. You said above that "pain" doesn't have to be learned. So how could you ever explain what pain is to someone who has never experienced it?

Anyway, that was what I was attempting to do but let's not dwell on this because I see now that this won't convince you of anything. I now understand your response will be because a non-verbal part of the brain has to process it. So I'll just move on and try to deal with those things there.

2) fair enough... now i believe you believe in "something else" and that something else has to do with consciousness... take it or leave it...

Actually I don't. This would make you wrong on two topics now (This was a joke, ok?)

3) you cannot communicate it verbally or in writing! this isn't hard to understand... it's quite simple. this doesn't mean that physics cannot describe the event itself in full details, but the event cannot be induced verbally into the brain due to the fact that it resides in a different neural center, and that to "feel" this event, it has to happen directly... is this hard to understand?

Actually, it does appear to be a word game. I don't think you realize just how close we are to being in complete agreement. One question: What is it about some things that allow us to communicate them verbally and other things we cannot? Why does a brain use two methods to gain knowledge? A blind person can read all about the color red and understand every scientific fact. Another person with sight can understand what it "feels like" to see red but may have never read any of the scientific facts. Both of these people have a piece of information that the other doesn't have. Only a person that does both has all the knowledge. So in your opinion, why does it require two different processing methods to obtain all knowledge?

5) what you call qualia, is what every phychologist would call "association". these "qualia" are attributed to colors, shapes and things through experience... the baby doesn't have a qualia associated with the color "lavender" until it sees it... or do you object to this?

I agree with the last sentence but not the first one.

sometimes associations are attributed to things due to flaws in the neurological curcuit...

While I understand this piece, it doesn't seem relevant to me. I think it's because this is where our understanding of what qualia is is just different. Above I could agree that qualia is "associated" with the visual process of seeing a specific color. But the way association is being used here is more of what I think happens "after" qualia. I can associate all sorts of unrelated things to my qualia resulting in phobias. What else would I be associating these things to? Qualia is the only thing I can directly relate to and associate anything with. So in this sense, qualia is not the association. It is was I associate the unrelated events to. I think there's more clarification and work to do here on this word.

6) if it had all the abilities of the brain (every single one! including chemical reactions that make us feel comfortable, frigthened or sexually aroused... which would be equal to it having a human brain) and was exactly as sensitive in physical regards, and it had gone through series of impressions similar to that of a human, then yes, it would be conscious... why wouldn't it?

This very well may be but how will you be certain? How do you know that I am conscious? What brain process are you directing your proof to? Chemicals may arouse certain nerve endings but which chemical gives me the subjective qualia associated with that? Why does it "feel like" something just because a certain chemical has been produced?

the fact that you make a program that "acts" like a human, doesn't make it human... that makes it a program... the robot would have to have access to the same chemical influences like us and similar... which would be impossible with a conventional computer... that analogy is proof of nothing else than the fact that computers cannot replicate a human brain... impressive

LOL. Hypnagogue is probably laughing at me now. And casually tapping his stick against his hand preparing for its use on me. Balkan do you not see that this objection above is the very same one that I claimed is the reason Chalmers was forced to use the zombie illustration with beings who are identical in every single way? If you go back and look, I said the main reason he did this was because someone would claim that it is the difference between the two beings that is causing the consciouness. That is exactly what you just did above. So I've learned my lesson.

Don't you see that the reason you can make this claim is because you are assuming the brain is what produces consciousness? There is no brain process that has been identified as the one that produces the "feeling of being". This just isn't known. So the point of the exercise above was to show that if you gave a robot every single physical process and then you still aren't sure, then consciousness is not necessarily entailed by those processes.

"your machinery tells you nothing(and never willl) about what I'm actually experiencing. Why is this if it's just another physical process?"
if the above is not a totally subjective claim, then i don't know what is!
by monitoring your brain, scientists can tell you whether or not you experience fear, desire, sorrow or joy when seing something... that's how far brain research has come. they can even tell if you associate something with a direction... why do you claim they'll never be able to monitor what you are feeling? i thought you were objective.

You haven't said anything above that contradicts what I said. I agree that science can monitor the physical processes of my eyes and brain. So yes, it will be able to see that some activity is taking place. But it will NEVER know what the contents of my subjective world are. My qualia. It will never be able to know just what it feels like when I'm stuck with a needle or what I'm tasting when I taste brussel sprouts. It cannot even be sure that I have a subjective world to begin with. Brussel sprouts may taste to me like Pizza taste to you. Slapping me in the face may feel to me like a back rub does to you. Science can never ever know what the contents of my qualia are. If this is nothing but a physical process then why is this so? Why is this information off limits?

7) total bull****! it cannot verbally or otherwise[/i] be communicated! that doesn't mean it cannot be explained physically! i'd really like to see you back up your statement with other than word games.

For clarification, when I say something is "explained" that means that knowledge has been communicated. So what doesn't equate for me is how something can be "physically explained", yet it cannot be communicated the same way. This isn't really relelvant to this discussion but I think we just use these words a bit differently. In the end I suspect there would be agreement on much of this.

8) what are you talking about? subconsciousness? that can be monitored aswell, and the list of things that are triggered in the subconsciouss grows bigger every week, as scientists discover new things.
the human brain was a tool for survival...
and why wouldn't you be consciouss? what are you on about?

I'm really wondering if we even mean the same thing when we say consciousness. Throughout this whole post you speak of consciousness as if it's a well known documented concept in science; And even the professed physicalists here don't do this. Everyone concedes that consciousness is a knowledge gap. I'll just throw that semantic issue out as a possible reason for our difficulties.

So I'm not talking about the brain, bird wings or anything else like that. I understand evolution pretty well. What I'm talking about is consciousness. I can't think of one reason why anything needs to be conscious. If you can, then go ahead and take a stab at presenting one.

 

[Les Sleeth]

the fact that these extremely simple machines register inputs, but aren't aware of it only proves something in your mind... not in mine... to me, it proves that we are unable to create a sufficiently sophisticated "brain" yet.

LOL. Isn't that what we've been saying . . . it can't be explained with physical processes? Hey, I didn't say it "proved" anything positive, stop putting words in my mouth please. The closest I've come to a positive statement about what is, is to say the failure to explain progressive organization or the subjective aspect of consciousness leaves the door open for "something more."

about "self awareness" - even in a simple machine... what if that was just part of the "program"? it didn't need much other than a few questions: "why am i here?" "where am i?" "what am i?" and the brain to try and calculate the possibilities. i mean, isn't that all we really have to go on

Right, "what if." That's all you or anyone has, so the question is still open isn't it. But you act like you "know" that is all it is, while I say it may be that or it may be something more. Now who is most open to having the truth be whatever why it turns out to be?

And if subjectivity is the result of complex programming, then we should be able to recreate that don't you think? So, I will wait for that event before making up my mind programming can create consciousness.

you aren't "aware" that you exist... you "think" you exist.

Do you believe because you can't stop your mind from thinking none of us can? According to your theory, if I stop thinking then I will lose awareness that I exist. But just an hour ago I sat with my mind perfectly still, absent of a single thought, and I was very aware of my existence. How do you explain that?

the fact that you attribute something more to association, is proof to me, that you don't know dick about how the human brain works, you just really like to think you do.

Why, that's brilliant! What a piece of logic that is. You conclude my openness to something more means I don't understand "dick" about how the brain works? I am up on my brain studies, if only you had one I could converse with we might have an intelligent exchange of ideas. Your vocabulary certainly suggests the class of education you've acquired, and your logic suggests you forgot to take your medication this morning.

edit: oh, and the fact that you once again attribute so much to our selfawareness also shows that you don't know how extremely dependant human behaviour is on our past experiences and learned "programs" (although it is not exactly a comforting thought for metaphysicists)...

The way you draw conclusions is giving me nightmares. By the way, being "physicalist" is a metaphysical position, so you are a metaphysicist yourself. Are you in discomfort?

 

[Fliption]

After posting that last post I've since read the post from Les and Balkans response. I'm saying this to save some space and time but Les' post summed this up pretty well. He said it better than I could. His even references the physicalists like Dennett who all recognize that this area requires attention.

So if the post from Les did nothing but solicit the response above from you Balkan, then don't bother responding to mine because I can't do any better than that. It'll save us some time and frustration.

 

[balkan]

Originally Posted by balkan
the fact that these extremely simple machines register inputs, but aren't aware of it only proves something in your mind... not in mine... to me, it proves that we are unable to create a sufficiently sophisticated "brain" yet.

response: "LOL. Isn't that what we've been saying . . . it can't be explained with physical processes? "

i like your logic aswell.. just how the hell did you derive that from the above sentence? you must be a magician.

i've stated it time and time again... I'm not attacking your beliefs. I'm attacking the ridiculous "evidence" that you present...
and of course it's only bad when i generalize or put words in someones mouth... not when you do it... no...

i've said it before, les: I'm quite fond that you haven't definitively decided (although you've mentioned several times that you do have some beliefs, and even a theory, but who's counting?)... that's fine, but your socalled evidence still reaks of ignorance, subjectivity and flaws...

as for fliption:
why can't we "make" a brain some day? because you say so?

why can't we measure everything that's going on in peoples minds some day? because you say so?

and furthermore: if "something else" deals with consciousness and selfawareness, then why doesn't it activate until a certain age? and why isn't the human brain just a sensing device like your computer in the analogy is? why is it more than that, when your "something else" could be taking care of all the rest? why is it so big? and why can a lot of our emotions directly be monitored to stem from different neural centers and chemicals? is "something else" selective, and needs a lot of physical space to exist?

 

[Fliption]

as for fliption:
why can't we "make" a brain some day? because you say so?

I think it's pretty clear that I believe a computer/robot can, in principle, be given every single process that the brain has. My only claim is that once we do this, we will not know if it is conscious. If you claim that it has to be consicous then you are assuming that the physical process of brains produce consciousness and I have pointed out to you that no one can point to that process. Even physicalists admit this is not known. Only you seem to know this with such certainty. Which brings us to the next question.

why can't we measure everything that's going on in peoples minds some day? because you say so?

So it's conceivable to you that one day science will be able to know exactly what it is that I am tasting when I eat pizza? Since what pizza taste like is one of those things that cannot be verbally communicated, as you say, and can only be "felt", I'm not sure how this can ever happen. How exactly does the scientist taste what I taste? Can you explain?

and furthermore: if "something else" deals with consciousness and selfawareness, then why doesn't it activate until a certain age?

You aren't hearing me when I say that you cannot possibly know when consciousness begins. You cannot know whether I am even conscious at this moment. Besides, I thought you said that babies experienced pain without learning it and this is a conscious action so how is it that they aren't conscious until a later age?

and why isn't the human brain just a sensing device like your computer in the analogy is? why is it more than that, when your "something else" could be taking care of all the rest? why is it so big? and why can a lot of our emotions directly be monitored to stem from different neural centers and chemicals? is "something else" selective, and needs a lot of physical space to exist?

"Why is the brain so big?" I'm not sure I understand these questions. They seem to be a bit subjective and relative. When is a brain considered to be "big"?

 

[loseyourname]

This seems like a misuse of the word conscious. I don't see how "consciousness" as we speak of it here in the philosophy forum has any benefit to survival. If you can actually prove such a thing then you can prove that a being is conscious and eliminate the philosphical debate that's been going around on this for centuries.

To say that an animal has to be conscious to notice a particular aspect of its surroundings is somewhat like saying that a security camera is conscious of its surroundings because it turns a light on by detecting movement. So either this camera is actually conscious or animals don't need to have "awareness" to sense their surroundings and compute the appropriate response.

Name me a camera that can comprehend a potential suitor's personal tastes and tailor its personality to this suitor. I have no doubt that I am conscious. I also have no doubt that by being conscious of the way my behavior and personality affects another human being emotionally, I increase my chances of mating with this other human being. Quite often I am preoccupied with other things and become temporarily unaware of actions of mine that are detrimental to a human relationship. When this happens, the sex life often suffers.

I would imagine consciousness is helpful in making creative leaps of abstract thought as well. As proficiently as computers can solve math problems, have you ever heard of one developing a new theorem? You can't honestly tell me that you experience no advantage in performance (of any kind) when you are more fully aware of yourself and your surroundings.

I'm guessing you'll probably come back and say that it might very well be possible to design a computer program that could do anything just as proficiently as a human without the need for consciousness. Well, that is beside the point. I'm sure there is more than one way to solve a great deal of the problems that evolution has solved. That doesn't take away from the fact that being conscious helps us.

 

[balkan]

1) I think it's pretty clear that I believe a computer/robot can, in principle, be given every single process that the brain has. My only claim is that once we do this, we will not know if it is conscious. If you claim that it has to be consicous then you are assuming that the physical process of brains produce consciousness and I have pointed out to you that no one can point to that process. Even physicalists admit this is not known. Only you seem to know this with such certainty. Which brings us to the next question.

2) So it's conceivable to you that one day science will be able to know exactly what it is that I am tasting when I eat pizza? Since what pizza taste like is one of those things that cannot be verbally communicated, as you say, and can only be "felt", I'm not sure how this can ever happen. How exactly does the scientist taste what I taste? Can you explain?

3) You aren't hearing me when I say that you cannot possibly know when consciousness begins. You cannot know whether I am even conscious at this moment. Besides, I thought you said that babies experienced pain without learning it and this is a conscious action so how is it that they aren't conscious until a later age?

1) I've said many times I'm not certain... there might be something else, but there's just no indication of it whatsoever... I'm attacking the arguments against physicalism in order to get the objectivity and not subjectivity in first priority, I'm not defending it...

2) no, the experience cannot be induced into other people by communication alone. only experience.
you are trying to stack "explain" and "communicate" into one barrel. By monitoring your brain while you were eating, scientists could probably some day see what physical processes were activated. Then they could, by activating the same physical impulses in another humans brain, induce the impression of eating a pizza, even though the person isn't eating it.
that would be a way of "communicating" the experience. verbally doing it is impossible, but that doesn't mean we can't explain the process and everything that creates the impression.

3) being capable of responding to input isn't the same as being "aware". babys are only consciouss of their imidiate desires, and this is all they have in their minds. pain = unpleasent. hunger = unpleasent. and in this case, "unpleasent" is followed by an instinctive response, since they do not yet have the capability of rationally responding to it.
the selfawareness doesn't come into play until later, when they begin to need it.
are you saying that a cockroach is self aware? no. it is a "machine" that responds to impressions primarily by instinctive reactions and very few random reactions that are caused by quantum probability.

you can go on an on about how "if you were to build a machine that was only a sensory device, would it be consciouss?"...
no. it would be a sensory device. but the above analogy only proves something in your mind, because you are biased towards the mind not consisting of physical processes. in my mind it's just an argument that the brain is something more than a sensory device, which in no way indicates that it shouldn't be physical...
now, the fact that this makes sense to me, is that I'm biased towards a physical explanation. I'm thinking:
"the brain is more than a sensory device, it might be due to "something else" but there's absolutely no indication of it in the evidence, so i'll stick to physics for now"
but at least I'm no hipocrite, cause i admit to it. you call yourself "objective" even though your arguments only makes perfect sense if you are of the same conviction as you are.

i'll gladly say it again for the 100th time: I'm not attacking "something else" in any way. I'm attacking the people that call themself "objective" while stating one subjective argument after another, and I'm attacking the "arguments".

 

[Fliption]

Name me a camera that can comprehend a potential suitor's personal tastes and tailor its personality to this suitor.

I would imagine consciousness is helpful in making creative leaps of abstract thought as well.

Are you suggesting that consciousness allows you to gather information that your 5 senses cannot gather on their own? I still say that the way you are using consciousness you simply mean to be aware. A video camera is aware of the type of input it is designed to receive. The only reason it can't "comprehend a protential suitors taste" is because it has no brain to do such a thing. I see no reason, in pinciple, why all of the functions you speak of cannot happen in the dark. I suspect you are opening up a philosophical can of worms here.

 

[Fliption]

2) By monitoring your brain while you were eating, scientists could probably some day see what physical processes were activated. Then they could, by activating the same physical impulses in another humans brain, induce the impression of eating a pizza, even though the person isn't eating it.
that would be a way of "communicating" the experience.

But this gets you no where. This only launchs the physical processes of the "other" persons brain and makes them taste pizza the way they would normally taste it. This tells us nothing about what it feels like for the first person's brain to run through these physical processes.

We have no direct casual connection between the physical process and the resulting qualia. My blue may be your green. I don't see how we can ever resolve that fact. And no physicalist ever argues that we can.

3) being capable of responding to input isn't the same as being "aware". babys are only consciouss of their imidiate desires, and this is all they have in their minds.

are you saying that a cockroach is self aware? no. it is a "machine" that responds to impressions primarily by instinctive reactions and very few random reactions that are caused by quantum probability.

Who said anything about self awareness? This is not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about qualia. We have agreed that babies have qualia. I can agree that self awareness may come later but that is not the phenomenon I'm talking about.

no. it would be a sensory device. but the above analogy only proves something in your mind, because you are biased towards the mind not consisting of physical processes. in my mind it's just an argument that the brain is something more than a sensory device, which in no way indicates that it shouldn't be physical...
now, the fact that this makes sense to me, is that I'm biased towards a physical explanation. I'm thinking:
"the brain is more than a sensory device, it might be due to "something else" but there's absolutely no indication of it in the evidence, so i'll stick to physics for now"
but at least I'm no hipocrite, cause i admit to it. you call yourself "objective" even though your arguments only makes perfect sense if you are of the same conviction as you are.

I think you need to learn the definition of 'objective'. Objective simply means to lack emotion and to make decisions based on objective facts. The first thing you have to realize is that I haven't stated that I believe in "something more". So what is it that I'm being subjective about? The only thing I have tried to do is to make you appreciate the topic a bit more than your very first response on this topic indicated. That response insults hundreds of prefessional, credible people who have particpated in this discussion for many years, on BOTH sides of the issue. You've been told on several occasions that you do not understand the terminology being used. I have pointed out several semantic issues(self awareness from a qualia discussion?). This alone could be the reason the things people say appear to be subjective and make no sense to you. But it seems you would rather just wing it based on 1 day's study and just assume everyone else is a hypocrite. If I ever saw you move a little and begin to see the issue, you might be surprised what I might actually argue in the end :surprise: .

So you admit that you are biased to the physical when I know there are very good arguments to the contrary. You may actually be correct in the end. Or you may not be. I am open to both possibilities.

 

[Fliption]

Here is a link to an article in Scientific American. It's a good summary of the topic and it doesn't get too technical. This article is written by David Chalmers but he references and includes an article from neurobiologists. Both parties even speak about a derivation of the "Mary" illustration. I think you'll find that one interesting and you may even enjoy the responses.

This isn't meant to convince anyone of any particular view, as there are many views on this. But it should show that a gap has been acknowledged, the topic is credible and alive & well and that a respectful dialogue among the various views is taking place.


http://jamaica.u.arizona.edu/~chalmers/papers/puzzle.pdf

 

[balkan]

But this gets you no where. This only launchs the physical processes of the "other" persons brain and makes them taste pizza the way they would normally taste it. This tells us nothing about what it feels like for the first person's brain to run through these physical processes.

We have no direct casual connection between the physical process and the resulting qualia. My blue may be your green. I don't see how we can ever resolve that fact. And no physicalist ever argues that we can.

Who said anything about self awareness? This is not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about qualia. We have agreed that babies have qualia. I can agree that self awareness may come later but that is not the phenomenon I'm talking about.

now we're getting somewhere...
if every process going on at the time of eating was copied, the other guy would feel the same when eating the pizza, rigth? that means, that the experience is either:
1) totally physical, which would make it explainable and calculable.
2) physical, but "something else" is what's "feeling" the impression...

in case of 2, this "something else" would either be:
1) capable of being directly influenced by physical processes, and directly influence the physical processes back (otherwise, why can we measure the feeling of fear, love, pleasure, anger in the brain?). If this is true, then it would have to be something you could measure and explain.
2) totally disconnected from the physical world. it only experiences and cannot influence the physical world, which would make it unmeasurable. Unfortunately, this would make it totally unneccessary for the human system, which would go through those reactions on its own anyway.

so it's either 1) something that can be physically measured and influenced or 2) something that cannot do anything at all, which would rule out the ability to will even simple things such as movement.
what's it going to be?

and exactly what qualia does a baby have?

 

[Fliption]

now we're getting somewhere...
if every process going on at the time of eating was copied, the other guy would feel the same when eating the pizza, rigth?

Not necessarily. This is correct only if you assume consicousness is physical to begin with, which sort of defeats the purpose of even discussing this. We cannot know whether the other person will experience the same qualia. As I said above, you cannot ever know what "it feels like" to have the physical processes running through the first persons brain. You only experience what it feels like when those processes run through your brain.

1) (otherwise, why can we measure the feeling of fear, love, pleasure, anger in the brain?).

We cannot do this. We cannot measure the qualia associated with these things. We can only measure the chemical processes that we associate with that qualia. These are key distinctions to understanding the issue with consciousness.

and exactly what qualia does a baby have?

You said earlier that babies do have experiences. Pain was mentioned as one. In my mind, an experience without qualia is not possible by definition. Qualia is the way we experience.

 

[loseyourname]

Are you suggesting that consciousness allows you to gather information that your 5 senses cannot gather on their own? I still say that the way you are using consciousness you simply mean to be aware. A video camera is aware of the type of input it is designed to receive. The only reason it can't "comprehend a protential suitors taste" is because it has no brain to do such a thing. I see no reason, in pinciple, why all of the functions you speak of cannot happen in the dark. I suspect you are opening up a philosophical can of worms here.

All right. You're missing the point here. I see no reason, in principle, why you can't design a zombie with an extremely advanced computer for a brain that could perform every function a human performs. So what? I'm sure we could also, in principle, design an organism that is identical to a human in every respect except that it uses echolocation instead of sight. This doesn't take away from the survival value of human sight.

Think about what we use our own consciousness to do, for the most part. It gives us a mechanism by which we can scan and focus on certain thoughts, emotions, memories, sensory inputs, and utilize them as they are needed. Now in principle, all of these functions could be performed just as well, perhaps better, without us being conscious of it. That doesn't matter. This is the mechanism we were given, and it does work. You cannot second-guess evolution.

 

[Fliption]

Now in principle, all of these functions could be performed just as well, perhaps better, without us being conscious of it.

Thank you.

I think I should point out that I realize some definitions of consciousness may include some useful functions. This complex definition is why Chalmers felt it useful to split things into easy and hard problems. So to be clear, the feature I'm referring to is illustrated by claiming it is the dfference between a conscious human and a non-conscious robot that is programmed to do the exact same physical processes. That difference is that the human "knows" he is doing it. The robot is performing every function just as the human does but "knows" nothing. Why is "knowing" of any value? So when you keep saying that this is the way that evolution chose to do it, you're assuming that it is doing something useful.

You may claim that this knowing process is what influences some behavior therefore it influences some of the physical processes themselves but I can see this same "reasoning" process going on in the robot. The only difference is that it doesn't know it's doing it.

 

[Philocrat]

Some Useful Source Materials for the understanding of Consciousness

Functionalist Account of Consciousness

1) [PLAIN[/URL] ][URL]http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/Functionalism%2(philosophy%20of%20mind)[/URL] [/URL] (The Dictionary Introduction to Functionalism and the immediately related issues…..probably the best point or place to start.)

2) http://www.philosophyonline.co.uk/pom/pom_functionalism_introduction.htm (A brief Introduction and the Main Thesis on).

3) http://www.iep.utm.edu/f/function.htm (The Main definition and the consequence of it ……..that is, what functionalism means and what it is attempting to achieve and the developmental consequence of it. One of such consequences is that, functionalism renders consciousness independent of its means of production. It is not only the human brains alone that may be capable of producing consciousness, computers and other intelligent devices are now believed to be potential candidates. And if you took upon route of the improving the functionality of the productive mechanism, you may end up with multiple levels of consciousness that get more and more sophisticate or smarter and smarter. But is such improvement possible even at the physical underlying level?)

4) [URL]http://www.arrod.co.uk/essays/functionalism.php[/URL] (A more detailed assessment of Functionalism, looking more closely at the relation between Input, function and output as a gap-bridging for the problematic behaviourist thesis)

5) http://ww2.coastal.edu/rsmith/Phil309/309-10%20Functionalism%20I.doc (A schematic account aided by illustrative diagram, and followed by several classifications and counter-arguments.)

6) [url]http://www.def-logic.com/articles/silby014.html[/url] (The problem with Qualia - a schematic assessment of the problems faced by the functionalist / Physiclist theory of consciousness with regards to qualia. A closer look at the arguments for and against Functionalism and Phsyicalism.)


[U][B]The Identity Theory Account of Consciousness[/B][/U]

(1) http://www.philosophyonline.co.uk/pom/pom_identity_what.htm (Introduction and the main thesis)

(2) [url]http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/mind-identity[/url] (Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy gives a more formal and detailed definitions and classification of the key arguments and counter-arguments for and against Identity Theorist account of consciousness.)

(3) [url]http://web.gc.cuny.edu/cogsci/guttnpln.htm[/url] (A formal approach and classification of the main arguments and counter-arguments).

(4) http://www.philosophyonline.co.uk/pom/pom_identity_dualism.htm (Identity Theory and Dualism……Identity theory taken not only as simpler and less-complicated than dualism but, by all means, also as a solution to dualism)

(5) http://www.philosophyonline.co.uk/pom/pom_identity_technology.htm (Modern Technology and Identity Theory…….many years of researches in neuroscience and cognitive science has lead to clear identification many areas of the brains being linked to different brain states and different types of the human behaviour.)


[U][B]Representationalist Account of Consciousness[/B][/U]

1) http://www.imprint.co.uk/online/Qualia_globus5.html (Argument for and Against the claim that both the functional brain states and qualia are representational).

2) http://www.hbcse.tifr.res.in/Data/Objects/jram_cogdev_1/node24.html (The classification of mental states and the distinction between ‘Propositional Attitudes and ‘Qualia’)

3) [url]http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/consciousness-intentionality[/url] (Detailed definition and classification by Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy…..putting all the arguments and counter-arguments in proper contexts.)

4) [URL]http://psyche.cs.monash.edu.au/v4/psyche-4-03-carruthers.html[/URL] (Detailed assessment and Classification of Representationalist accounts of consciousness)

5) http://web.mit.edu/abyrne/www/what_phen_conc_is_like.pdf (Distinction between Intentionalism and Phnenomenism and some arguments for and against representationalism.)


[U][B]The Dualist Account of Consciousness[/B][/U]

1) http://www.str.org/free/studies/natural.htm (Argument for and against the existence of the immaterial substance or non-physical aspect of consciousness. The document also looks at the materialists’ denials of the existence of the ‘universals’, and the fight to restore the Christian belief and acceptance of ‘immaterialism’)

2) http://www.imprint.co.uk/pdf/searle-final.pdf (Biological Naturalism - John Seale thinks that his notion of this term is confused with Property Daulism. In this paper, he not only makes a clear distinction between the two, but also he distances himself from property dualism.)

3) [URL][/URL] (The claim that certain aspect of the human consciousness extend beyond explainable physical realms is not limited to philosophical refutation alone. In fact, eminent mathematicians and physicists also provide a more sophisticated refutation using a combination of mathematical logic and scientific arguments. Roger Penrose is one such candidate. In his book ‘The Emperor’s New Mind’, he launched a relentless attack on the claim that AI can replicate consciousness in purely functionalist terms thereby undermining the dualist account of consciousness. This links provides readers’ reviews of the book and gives an introductory but clear insight into the content of the book. WARNING: the opening top page of this links contains invitation to buy the book. Don’t blame me if you do. The readers’ reviews are on the bottom part of the page – just scroll down the page.)


[U][B]Online Papers and Interviews On Consciousness[/B][/U]

1) [URL]http://jamaica.u.arizona.edu/~chalmers/online2.html[/URL] (A comprehensive compilation of Online Papers on Consciousness by David Palmer……a one-man crusade to keep philosophy alive!)

2) [url]http://www.imprint.co.uk/jcs.html[/url] (A list of online papers on consciousness in the Journal of Consciousness Studies)

3) http://www.stanford.edu/group/dualist/vol4/pdfs/searle.pdf (Interviews of some philosophers and their opinionated responses to major questions about consciousness….a dualist perspective)

4) http://www.stanford.edu/group/dualist/vol9/pdfs/tamir.pdf (The problem of Freewill and Consciousness is looked at in this paper)

5) [URL]http://www.arrod.co.uk/essays/biological-naturalism.php[/URL] (Biological Naturalisation of Consciousness distinguished from the computationalist account such as functionalism above.)

[U][B]The Multi-dsiciplinary Projects on Consciousness?[/B][/U]

1) http://www.imprint.co.uk/pdf/Holland_Introduction.pdf (Will machines possesses or have consciousness? This link reports a multi-disciplinary conference that lead to a unanimous answering of yes to this question)

2) [url]http://noosphere.princeton.edu[/url] (Global Consciousness – a project investigating the ‘Extended nature of Consciousness’, that is, the claim that we may have direct communication links with each other, and that our intentions can have effects in the world despite physical barriers and separations. This project tends to suggest that there may be a tension between our individual conscious attention to our private daily concerns and another aspect of our consciousness, which outwardly extends to be connected to a ‘global consciousness’. The website also contains projects data globally collected in over 52 data collection centres and processed and derived results to date

 

[loseyourname]

You still seem to be missing the point, Fliption. Even if the advantages of being conscious could be attained through some other means, there is still an advantage in being conscious. Show me an unconscious human that has as good a chance of surviving and reproducing as a conscious human.

 

[loseyourname]

Philocrat - You should probably move those links to the philosophy napster thread in General Philosophy.

 

[Philocrat]

Philocrat - You should probably move those links to the philosophy napster thread in General Philosophy.

Are the links too elementry? I just thought they might be useful for the faint-hearted like myself who knows very little about philosophy? Should I really move them?

 

[Philocrat]

By the way, I am following the debate very religiously and I think I like what u guys are doing so far. But don't blame me if I only occasionally merely watch.

 

[balkan]

Thank you.

I think I should point out that I realize some definitions of consciousness may include some useful functions. This complex definition is why Chalmers felt it useful to split things into easy and hard problems. So to be clear, the feature I'm referring to is illustrated by claiming it is the dfference between a conscious human and a non-conscious robot that is programmed to do the exact same physical processes. That difference is that the human "knows" he is doing it. The robot is performing every function just as the human does but "knows" nothing. Why is "knowing" of any value? So when you keep saying that this is the way that evolution chose to do it, you're assuming that it is doing something useful.

You may claim that this knowing process is what influences some behavior therefore it influences some of the physical processes themselves but I can see this same "reasoning" process going on in the robot. The only difference is that it doesn't know it's doing it.

it is valuable because it enable us to step out of the box and adapt to our environment... humans are the most ingenious of all creatures, since they no longer require evolution in order to do that...
how can that not be usefull? of course it isn't neccessary just like a dog could just as well be a bacteria and survive, but the "dog concept" works, and so does the "human concept".
noone is assuming that "evolution is doing something usefull" it's doing just as much damage as good. look around you and observe how many geniouses and really gifted people there are, and how many there are below the average...
if evolution had its way, those below the average would have a small chance of surviving, but once again, we don't really need evolution anymore in order to survive... that's what our consciousness is good for...
and pay notice, that we invented the ideas of taking care of the lesser privilidged, so you really can't make the robot analogy there once again without looking desperate or foolish...

 

[Fliption]

You still seem to be missing the point, Fliption. Even if the advantages of being conscious could be attained through some other means, there is still an advantage in being conscious. Show me an unconscious human that has as good a chance of surviving and reproducing as a conscious human.

But what I have been saying is that there are no advantages of being conscious so this point doesn't mean much to me.

 

[Fliption]

it is valuable because it enable us to step out of the box and adapt to our environment... humans are the most ingenious of all creatures, since they no longer require evolution in order to do that...

I can't really effectively discuss these points with you because it has become obvious that you don't have the same understanding of the concepts that I am referring to. The statement above is another indicator that we aren't talking about the same things.

Everything that you consider to be useful behaviour of humans is derived from physical processes in the brain. None of those physical processes can be attributed to "consciousness" or the part that allows a conscious being to "know" that they are performing physical processes.

if evolution had its way, those below the average would have a small chance of surviving, but once again, we don't really need evolution anymore in order to survive... that's what our consciousness is good for...
and pay notice, that we invented the ideas of taking care of the lesser privilidged, so you really can't make the robot analogy there once again without looking desperate or foolish...

This assumes that evolution values only those that can meet their "physical" needs. This is largely a semantic issue but I think that people assisting those less fortunate is evolution at work as well. Perhaps we could argue that the value has shifted to put more weight on preservation of the "variety of life" as opposed to just the ones that can hunt the best.

But consciousness has nothing to do with these changes. It is largely the development of a brain that can reason. A robot can do this too.

 

[Les Sleeth]

But what I have been saying is that there are no advantages of being conscious so this point doesn't mean much to me.

Not everyone grasps that there is something which most defines consciousness (self-awareness), and which is more fundamental than mentality (or emotions).

You are correct in saying we don't need the self-aware aspect of consciousness to survive. We could be smart zombies whose programming just gets smarter (say, the way a computer does) as we adapt to the environment. So there really is no explanation for why it exists. If we didn't have the self-aware aspect of consciousnes, we wouldn't have have free will; and if we didn't have free will, we wouldn't be destroying the environment and each other. So I'd say we might be more likely to survive as zombies.

One of my pet theories is that certain people don't recognize the significance of the self-aware aspect of consciousness because they aren't that self-aware. If someone spends most of their time involved in cogitating, then they might come to see themselves as the computing aspect of consciousness and never really get to know that part of themselves that is aware of all it does. That's why Dennett, IMO, thinks consciousness is "busy-ness" of the mind -- because that's all he pays attention to.

 

[loseyourname]

But what I have been saying is that there are no advantages of being conscious so this point doesn't mean much to me.

There are no advantages over this hypothetical zombie robot human, but there are huge advantages over an actual unconscious human. This is what you seem to be ignoring.

 

[yesicanread]

Say these zombies were colinear in perimeter perception. This was the key to their harmony, and them being zombies.

They couldn't conspire. Could they ?

 

[balkan]

1) Everything that you consider to be useful behaviour of humans is derived from physical processes in the brain. None of those physical processes can be attributed to "consciousness" or the part that allows a conscious being to "know" that they are performing physical processes.

2) This assumes that evolution values only those that can meet their "physical" needs. This is largely a semantic issue but I think that people assisting those less fortunate is evolution at work as well. Perhaps we could argue that the value has shifted to put more weight on preservation of the "variety of life" as opposed to just the ones that can hunt the best.

3) But consciousness has nothing to do with these changes. It is largely the development of a brain that can reason. A robot can do this too.

1) i highly disagree. the ability to be conscious of what you are doing is quite essential to making innovations that would enable you to adabt to present and future environment... a brain that only responded and reasoned couldn't do that... you don't "react" a bow or clothes due to impulses... an idea like that comes from being aware of what you need and how you feel, and how you would feel if you took clothes on.

2) you don't seem to understand what evolution does... evolution is random, taking care of "the variety of life" is a choise.. so it can't be evolution, it's human.

3) according to whom? you? a merely reasoning brain would surely let the weak ones die. they're an expense and quite unneccessary for the human race to survive... on the other hand, if you have empathy and understand that they have feelings and lives too, then you wouldn't... but that has got nothing to do with reason.

 

[Rader]

2) you don't seem to understand what evolution does... evolution is random, taking care of "the variety of life" is a choise.. so it can't be evolution, it's human.

While Balkans defending, is now swaying to ontological terms, of the way the world out to be, self interest, ethics and religion.

But what I have been saying is that there are no advantages of being conscious so this point doesn't mean much to me..

It seems that Fliption is defending, this position of why we should even be conscious, on a epistemological terms of the what is of the world, properties relations and change.

Please go on.

 

[Fliption]

There are no advantages over this hypothetical zombie robot human, but there are huge advantages over an actual unconscious human. This is what you seem to be ignoring.

Please tell me what these advantages over the hypothetical robot are and I won't ignore them. I honestly don't know of any.

 

[balkan]

Please tell me what these advantages over the hypothetical robot are and I won't ignore them. I honestly don't know of any.

well... like I've personally said many times:
consciousness isn't a necessity... like wings aren't necessary for a bird either, it didn't have to take that evolutionary step (it didn't, evolution did), it could have survived in other shapes...
but it's working... the bird survived, and so did we... it doesn't matter whether or not it is necessary. our appendix isn't necessary either. that doesn't mean (or even indicate) that it wasn't at some point an advantage or that "something else" deals with our our appendix, now does it?

 

[Fliption]

1) i highly disagree. the ability to be conscious of what you are doing is quite essential to making innovations that would enable you to adabt to present and future environment... a brain that only responded and reasoned couldn't do that... you don't "react" a bow or clothes due to impulses... an idea like that comes from being aware of what you need and how you feel, and how you would feel if you took clothes on.

Again, everything you speak of can be attributed to a physical process in the brain. You are aware of your emotional and reasoning processes. That doesn't mean they would function differently if you were not aware of them.

2) you don't seem to understand what evolution does... evolution is random, taking care of "the variety of life" is a choise.. so it can't be evolution, it's human.

This is just a minor semantic point but humans are part of evolution to. I don't understand it when people suddenly think that humans can somehow override the evolutive process. Because as soon as we override it, then overriding it becomes simply a part of evolution.

3) according to whom? you? a merely reasoning brain would surely let the weak ones die. they're an expense and quite unneccessary for the human race to survive... on the other hand, if you have empathy and understand that they have feelings and lives too, then you wouldn't... but that has got nothing to do with reason.

The post from Les above said that people are confusing feelings/emotions with consciousness. Every single emotion that you have is the result of a physical process in the brain. The only difference between a conscious person and a non-conscious one is that the conscious person "knows" that they are feeling it and acting on it. None of the actions would be impacted by this fact.

I'm really surprised that there are people arguing this point when a major view of philosophy called Idealism/Solipsism is dependent on the fact that we cannot ever know whether anyone is conscious other than ourselves. That's why I keep asking for examples because I think I can make a lot of money ending Solipsism once and for all.

 

[Fliption]

well... like I've personally said many times:
consciousness isn't a necessity... like wings aren't necessary for a bird either, it didn't have to take that evolutionary step (it didn't, evolution did), it could have survived in other shapes...
but it's working... the bird survived, and so did we... it doesn't matter whether or not it is necessary. our appendix isn't necessary either. that doesn't mean (or even indicate) that it wasn't at some point an advantage or that "something else" deals with our our appendix, now does it?

Fine. Tell me what it "could" have been useful for. It's still the same exercise. Let's end solipsism once and for all.

 

[balkan]

usefull for:

innovation, building a more advanced social structure than any other animal on the planet...
the ability to express ourself in more depth than any other animal, and the ability to reason oneself out of an instinctive reaction... not usefull at all
yes, a robot could do that... because we would have programmed it.

you tell me why consciousness is indicative of "something else" because it isn't necessary, if it is not the same case with the appendix...

 

[balkan]

The post from Les above said that people are confusing feelings/emotions with consciousness. Every single emotion that you have is the result of a physical process in the brain. The only difference between a conscious person and a non-conscious one is that the conscious person "knows" that they are feeling it and acting on it. None of the actions would be impacted by this fact.

I'm really surprised that there are people arguing this point when a major view of philosophy called Idealism/Solipsism is dependent on the fact that we cannot ever know whether anyone is conscious other than ourselves. That's why I keep asking for examples because I think I can make a lot of money ending Solipsism once and for all.

i'm not confusing anything... what comes with this knowledge is the ability to know you're having these feelings, and not act on them... the ability to analyze and take advantage of those feelings and thoughts...
that is tremendously helpfull in a society.