Is Consciousness an Emergent Property of a Master Algorithm?

[confutatis]

Perhaps they had a latent ability for language, but it doesn't follow that they literally had language.

This is not the right way to approach the issue. The issue is, we do have language, and to a good extent we do think and perceive the world in ways that can be expressed with language.

it doesn't make sense to refer to syntax in the absence of tokens to be ordered according to that syntax.

But it does make sense to refer to syntax as something which must already be in place before we attempt to order tokens. How would we order tokens if we had no predefined syntax? How would I know that the correct way to express today's date is "today is Wednesday" as opposed to "Wednesday today is"?

If you don't have the tokens, you don't have syntax.

If you don't have syntax, tokens are useless.

I agree that this is trivially the case. However, I maintain that my answer in this instance will be an abstract representation of the process by which I distinguish the colors, not the actual process itself.

Your answer is all I have to go by. Whatever the actual process is that your description of the process leaves out, I'm completely ignorant of it.

My word 'redness' refers to everything there is about redness in my subjective space. But not everything in my subjective space can be shared with other subjective spaces.

This is completely beside the point. You have a concept of 'redness', and you have something the concept refers to. All I said is that, for you, there's no difference between the concept and what the concept refers to. I'm talking about the personal relationship each of us has with language, not the relationships we have with each other through language. I'm not sure you can see the distinction.

Besides this, there is still a distinction between the word and the concept.

Of course there is a distinction, but the important issue is that the distinction has no bearing on what is true and what is false. As far as you are concerned, everything you say is true is perfectly equivalent with what you perceive to be true. If that equivalence is absent, that means you are lying about your perceptions.

Assume I use 'right' and 'left' the standard way, and you use them the inverted way. Say you, me, and another 'normal' English speaker are standing in a line playing Simon Says. The instruction comes, "Raise your left hand." I raise what I call my left, my normal partner raises what I call his left, and you raise what I call your right. An analogous situation holds for the command "Raise your right hand." The referents of these words have been exposed and made evident to all, and on this basis I can distinguish my meanings of 'left' and 'right' from yours.

That implies you have not understood what I was trying to say. Of course if I'm mistaken about what 'left' and 'right' mean, that mistake will eventually become evident. But if I'm born with some strange "disorder" which causes me to see the world as it appears to you when you look at a mirror, then that fact won't become evident in my usage of the words 'left' and 'right'. For instance, when you ask me to raise my right hand, I will raise what I have been taught to be my right hand, only the way I see it my right hand occupies a position in my visual field which, for you, is occupied by your left hand.

This is a classic inverted spectrum scenario and I'm not sure why you're missing my point.

 

[confutatis]

Hypnagogue seems to be having a similar issue ...

I hope my reply to hypnagogue makes things clear for you.

So here the referrent of the the words 'left' and 'right' isn't the actual external arm. It is the experience of right and left. Used in this way then we do indeed have the same problem that we have with color.

I'm glad you understood it.

So I'm not real clear which method is the correct one: The one Hypnagoue used or this one from you above. If it's the one from you, then I'm still having a problem with the symmetry concept, as I stated above. If I cannot know that my experience of 'left' is the same as your experience of 'left' and you may actually be experiencing what I would call 'right', then how is it that I know that your experience of 'left' isn't what I would call 'top'?

Actually, you don't know. As I said, 'left and right' are symmetrical with 'top and bottom'. Put in another way, 'horizontal' is symmetrical with 'vertical'. This is actually easy to verify: just tilt your head 90 degrees to the left, and your experience of the world immediately changes: what was 'left' is now 'top'. See what I mean?

Now, if after tilting your head you want to argue that 'left' remains 'left', then I urge you to wait, because I happen to think the same. However, asserting that is not easy matter, as it implies some interesting things about inverted spectrum scenarios. Again, please wait until we have cleared out any possible misunderstandings.

I'm just not understanding how the fact that 2 words are opposites, or symmetrical have anything to do with what I can know about your experiences.

That is because most of what you know about other people's experiences you know by means of language. You know that people think stop signs are red because they say so. You know that, except for colourblind people, everyone perceives stop signs as being red. But those inverted spectrum scenarios imply that the reason we agree that stop signs are red may not have much to do with what stop signs really look like to different observers. The source of our agreement may have more to do with language than with the way we experience the world. For instance, the reason we all agree that stop signs are red may be simply because 'red' means 'whatever colour stop signs look to you'. That would throw hypnagogue's concept of redness to the category of 'illusion'.

If you understand that we can agree on the way we describe our perceptions even if we perceive in different ways, then the natural question to ask is, exactly what are the things we agree about the world which are independent of our perception of the world? Which, jumping a little bit ahead, is just another way of saying, how many of the things we think are true happen to be semantical truths rather than facts about reality?

I've been trying to raise those two questions ever since I wrote my first post here. So far no one seems able to understand the need to ask them.

 

[confutatis]

Perhaps you can find a better word to use than language. The way you are using it, we can easily speak of mice having language, but that doesn't square with the way the word 'language' is used.

It just occurred to me that what I'm referring to as 'language' could also be described as "having perfect isomorphism with language". I'm happy to use that term if you want, even though I can't see why it matters, since everything that is true about language is also true about anything that exhibits perfect isomorphism with it.

On a side note, if mice have subjective experiences, then their subjective experiences can be described with language - or something perfectly isomorphic with language.

 

[Fliption]

I hope my reply to hypnagogue makes things clear for you.

Yes it does.

Actually, you don't know. As I said, 'left and right' are symmetrical with 'top and bottom'. Put in another way, 'horizontal' is symmetrical with 'vertical'. This is actually easy to verify: just tilt your head 90 degrees to the left, and your experience of the world immediately changes: what was 'left' is now 'top'. See what I mean?

Heh. No, I don't. I mean I understand what your saying but I didn't get the point of it as it relates to this topic.

Again, please wait until we have cleared out any possible misunderstandings.

Ok

That would throw hypnagogue's concept of redness to the category of 'illusion'.

This, I'm not so sure about. It depends on what you mean by illusion. We may need to skip this for now as it seems to be a consequence of the view and not part of understanding the view itself. And I'm still trying to understand.

If you understand that we can agree on the way we describe our perceptions even if we perceive in different ways, then the natural question to ask is, exactly what are the things we agree about the world which are independent of our perception of the world? Which, jumping a little bit ahead, is just another way of saying, how many of the things we think are true happen to be semantical truths rather than facts about reality?

Well, there is no concept that I can experience that I can be sure I have communicated to you in such a way that it draws the exact same concept into your mind. There is no word that does not have this problem. We can get over this dilemma to the extent that a word directly refers to an external object. The truth of any statement about such an object should also be able to be verified externally. For example, a house is a concept that I can use and then point to a house. I can then say "A house exists here". Now I cannot say that my experience of looking at a house is the same as you're experience of looking at a house. But this doesn't affect the truth value of the statement "A house exists here".

It seems that we only get into trouble when we deal with words that are descriptors of experience. I'm not even sure that the color 'red' qualifies here. I can say that "the trafficlight is red" and you can agree that it is red. The truth value here is that we have agreed that the trafficlight is emitting at a very specific wavelength. We both use the word red and we have successfully communicated the wavelength of the light. The process by which we do this may be very different and we can never know how we actually perceive red. But why does this impact knowledge about the wavelength of light?

Now if you say "I love my dog". Then I have no idea how you really feel about your dog. That's because love is a descriptor of experience that doesn't directly relate to anything externally.

Notice that I haven't mentioned the word symmetry or asymmetry anywhere. As I said above, all words may conjure up different concepts in our minds. Every single one of them. I cannot understand how words being asymmetric changes this fact. Unless, I'm just not understanding how the concept of symmetry is being used in this view. Which, I obviously don't.

 

[hypnagogue]

That is because most of what you know about other people's experiences you know by means of language. You know that people think stop signs are red because they say so. You know that, except for colourblind people, everyone perceives stop signs as being red. But those inverted spectrum scenarios imply that the reason we agree that stop signs are red may not have much to do with what stop signs really look like to different observers. The source of our agreement may have more to do with language than with the way we experience the world. For instance, the reason we all agree that stop signs are red may be simply because 'red' means 'whatever colour stop signs look to you'. That would throw hypnagogue's concept of redness to the category of 'illusion'.

If you understand that we can agree on the way we describe our perceptions even if we perceive in different ways, then the natural question to ask is, exactly what are the things we agree about the world which are independent of our perception of the world? Which, jumping a little bit ahead, is just another way of saying, how many of the things we think are true happen to be semantical truths rather than facts about reality?

I agree that red, in public usage, loosely means "whatever color stop signs look to you." This does not deflate my personal usage of the term. They can coexist. Intersubjectively, red means "whatever color an observer associates with light of wavelength 600nm." Subjectively, red means "the specific color that a specific observer associates with light of wavelength 600nm." Colors observed as a result of 600nm light striking the retina may vary from individual to individual, but they can nonetheless be categorized under the same category since they are produced on the same basis.

Say the objective world can be arbitrarily labeled according to numbers, and subjective experience can be arbitrarily labeled according to letters. The role of the brain is essentially to provide a mapping between the two sets. So say we let the number 600 = 600nm light, r = this color, and g = this color, and we have two observers whose brains interpret stimuli according to f(x) and h(x) respectively. Then it may be the case that f(x) = r and h(x) = g if and only if x = 600 for both cases. So there is a systematic difference between f and g, but also a systematic similarity. For f, the word 'red' = r and for h the word 'red' = g. But a fundamental property of these systems is that f cannot directly compare his red to h's red, and vice versa. As a result, when they converse about redness they are essentially conversing about that component of redness that can be shared amongst them in public discourse, and that is precisely the objective input element, 600. Essentially, they systematically agree about redness because given that f = r and h = g, it must follow (discounting hallucinations) that x = 600 in both cases, and since x is the only piece of information about redness that they can publically share, it seems that their concepts of redness pick out the same thing when in fact they do not on a different level of analysis.

 

[Fliption]

Subjectively, red means "the specific color that a specific observer associates with light of wavelength 600nm."

This is what I was getting to in my post above. It's similar to 2 computers being given the exact same inputs and then calculating a problem. They may order and perform the calculation in different ways but they will come to the same conclusion. In this case, the problem has been solved and there is no need to question whether we really know the answer simply because they performed the calculation differently.

 

[confutatis]

Well, there is no concept that I can experience that I can be sure I have communicated to you in such a way that it draws the exact same concept into your mind. There is no word that does not have this problem.

I think we're digressing from the original issue, which is that many true statements about the world are true by virtue of something other than observations of the world. For instance, I don't have to make any observation of the world to assert that "two plus two equals four".

Once you understand that, you realize that many things you think are true about the world may not be statements about the world at all. That is the issue I'd like to talk about.

For example, a house is a concept that I can use and then point to a house. I can then say "A house exists here". Now I cannot say that my experience of looking at a house is the same as you're experience of looking at a house. But this doesn't affect the truth value of the statement "A house exists here".

That's all fine with me, but beside the point.

I can say that "the trafficlight is red" and you can agree that it is red. The truth value here is that we have agreed that the trafficlight is emitting at a very specific wavelength.

People agreed on the meaning of 'red' long before they knew light was electromagnetic radiation. "600-nanometer" adds nothing to your understanding of what 'red' means that 'the color of stop signs' doesn't. It's just another way of stating what you already know.

The process by which we do this may be very different and we can never know how we actually perceive red. But why does this impact knowledge about the wavelength of light?

It doesn't. Knowledge about the wavelength of light belongs in the category of things that are true by virtue of something other than observations of the world. That is why even a blind man can know it.

Notice that I haven't mentioned the word symmetry or asymmetry anywhere. As I said above, all words may conjure up different concepts in our minds. Every single one of them. I cannot understand how words being asymmetric changes this fact.

Asymmetry does not make a concept easier to communicate, it only makes the concept more meaningful. Statements about asymmetrical concepts convey more information than statements about symmetrical ones. A statement such as "left is the opposite of right" tell you very little about what 'left' and 'right' really are.

Think of 'matter' and 'space', for instance. What is matter but simply the absence of space, and space the absence of matter? It seems correct to say "the universe is made of matter", but taken by itself the statement really says nothing about the universe. You could as well say "the universe is made of space". Unless you can tell something about 'matter' that makes it asymmetrical with space, the difference between the two statements can't be decided. And in fact there is asymmetry between matter and space: we observe more space than matter. That is one of the things that allow you to understand what people say by 'matter', and why it is different from 'space'. Assuming, of course, there is no symmetry between 'more' and 'less', in which case you are back to the original problem.

Ultimately, the point of this whole exercise is to realize that 'mental' and 'physical' are perfectly symmetrical. There is nothing you can say about 'mental' that makes it clear that 'mental' is anything but the opposite of 'physical', and vice-versa. And that makes materialism, the notion that "physical precedes mental", just a meaningless exercise in rhetoric. The opposite, "mental precedes physical", could be just as valid. Materialism is a powerful notion because people tend to think it's possible for the physical to exist without the mental, therefore breaking the symmetry. But that is a misperception.

 

[confutatis]

I agree that red, in public usage, loosely means "whatever color stop signs look to you." This does not deflate my personal usage of the term. They can coexist.

Actually, there's more to 'red' than just a particular color. The important thing about 'red' is that it is a color like no other; it's not 'green', 'blue', 'yellow', and so on. Even for you, I believe what red looks like is far less important than its uniqueness.

Say the objective world can be arbitrarily labeled according to numbers, and subjective experience can be arbitrarily labeled according to letters. The role of the brain is essentially to provide a mapping between the two sets.

How does the brain know the difference between the objective world and subjective experience?

The objective world is just a theoretical construct. Insofar as it is supposed to be different from our observations, it can't be observed; insofar as it is supposed to be the same, the distinction is meaningless.

This is a tricky issue. The answer to "how does the world look like when nobody is looking?" has only been approached in the recent past, in the field known as Quantum Mechanics, and so far all that physicists know about objective reality is that they don't know what it is. One thing is certain though: it's not what we think it is.

 

[hypnagogue]

Actually, there's more to 'red' than just a particular color. The important thing about 'red' is that it is a color like no other; it's not 'green', 'blue', 'yellow', and so on. Even for you, I believe what red looks like is far less important than its uniqueness.

I agree, though this does not allow us to avoid the problem of redness in itself.

How does the brain know the difference between the objective world and subjective experience?

The objective world is just a theoretical construct. Insofar as it is supposed to be different from our observations, it can't be observed; insofar as it is supposed to be the same, the distinction is meaningless.

This is a tricky issue. The answer to "how does the world look like when nobody is looking?" has only been approached in the recent past, in the field known as Quantum Mechanics, and so far all that physicists know about objective reality is that they don't know what it is. One thing is certain though: it's not what we think it is.

You're ducking the issue. Yes, the notion of objectivity is a tricky one. Nonetheless, we can coherently refer to 600nm light. 600nm light can be dissociated from subjective redness to the extent that, eg, a physical measuring device will read off '600nm' whenever we perceive redness, but will not literally appear to be red. There is thus some sort of underlying, functional, measurable entity behind both my perception of redness and a measuring device's detection of 600nm light, which is not equivalent to phemonenal redness. To the extent that this entity can reveal itself in a variety of forms distinct from phenomenal redness, it can be dissociated from phenomenal redness.

 

[confutatis]

I agree, though this does not allow us to avoid the problem of redness in itself.

I don't think there is a problem of redness as such. First because it's impossible, even in principle, for me to know what your experience of red is besides what you can tell me. Even if I could get inside your brain it would still be my experience, not yours. So it is a fact of life that there's nothing to your experience of red that I can know about, other than what we can communicate. But second, and even more important, is that however it is that you experience red, it has no bearing on anything I know. If God tells me, "hypnagogue experiences green objects the same way you experience red ones", I would turn to God and ask, "so what?".

You're ducking the issue.

I'm not.

Yes, the notion of objectivity is a tricky one. Nonetheless, we can coherently refer to 600nm light. 600nm light can be dissociated from subjective redness to the extent that, eg, a physical measuring device will read off '600nm' whenever we perceive redness...

The point I was trying to get is that when you remove subjective experience from the world, all you're left with is a linguistic description of abstract entities. Without experience, instead of light with a certain color and certain brightness, all you're left with are abstract notions. Ironically, what you call "objective reality" is completely abstract and therefore not "real". You don't seem to be taking this important issue into account.

So when you say the brain's job is to match subjective experience to objective reality, what you are really saying is that the brain must match experience to abstract notions that the brain itself comes up with. Hardly the idea of objective knowledge people usually have in mind - there's nothing objective about objective knowledge!

 

[hypnagogue]

I don't think there is a problem of redness as such. First because it's impossible, even in principle, for me to know what your experience of red is besides what you can tell me. Even if I could get inside your brain it would still be my experience, not yours.

That's like saying "I can't know what your computer is like, because if I used it then it would be my computer." It would be 'your experience' in some technical sense, but that only confuses the issue. The point is, if you could really get inside my brain as you say, you would see the world the same way I do, even if those experiences in some sense would belong to you. And that's the issue. The only way for you to know if you see the world the same way as I do is to literally see the world the same way as I do, then somehow compare that to the way you are accustomed to seeing it.

But second, and even more important, is that however it is that you experience red, it has no bearing on anything I know. If God tells me, "hypnagogue experiences green objects the same way you experience red ones", I would turn to God and ask, "so what?".

And God would say, "well, now that you know for sure that you two see opposite colors, you can have the visual pathways of your brain analyzed and see what analogous differences exist in the way your brains function. This will give you the beginnings of a theory on how consciousness is systematically tied to the activity in your brain. If you're smart enough and careful enough, this may give you the insight you need to formulate a complete theory of consciousness. A complete theory of consciousness would answer one of the oldest, most troubling philosophical problem to have plagued humans and would have have practical applications for predicting which physical systems have consciousness, and what kind of consciousness these systems have. Aside from undreamed of technological innovations and personal modifications that might follow from this knowledge, an entire host of hotly debated ethical issues would suddenly become tractable. Proper administration of this knowledge would cease unnecessary suffering and unnecessary conflict. And this would only be the beginning."

The point I was trying to get is that when you remove subjective experience from the world, all you're left with is a linguistic description of abstract entities. Without experience, instead of light with a certain color and certain brightness, all you're left with are abstract notions. Ironically, what you call "objective reality" is completely abstract and therefore not "real". You don't seem to be taking this important issue into account.

This is a problem of how we can know objective reality. Regardless of how you choose to characterize it (concrete or abstract), the simple fact remains that there is some entity associated with redness that can be dissociated from phenomenal redness-- some kind of causal agency that underpins both phenomenal redness and other, distinct phenomena, like a measuring device's measurement of 600nm. Systematic agreement about the existence of redness can be attributed to the systematic existence of this causal agency whenever phenomenal redness exists. If two different representations of this causal agency exist such that the representations themselves cannot be compared, then the only basis for comparison is that causal agency itself.

So when you say the brain's job is to match subjective experience to objective reality, what you are really saying is that the brain must match experience to abstract notions that the brain itself comes up with. Hardly the idea of objective knowledge people usually have in mind - there's nothing objective about objective knowledge!

Strictly speaking, you should not be allowed to refer to the brain by your own reasoning. After all, the brain is just an abstract notion that your mind has come with, isn't it?

There is a clear dichotomy we can draw. Public phenomena and private phenomena. The quality of my subjective experience is completely private, but it has a certain structure that can be communicated by various means (speech, body language, etc). The structural/functional aspects can thus be shared publically, and in this sense they are objective. If you prefer, substitute "intersubjective" for "objective," but the point stands. Some things admit themselves to public observation, analysis, and mutual confirmation (structural/functional aspects) and some do not (qualitative aspects).

 

[Fliption]

I think we're digressing from the original issue, which is that many true statements about the world are true by virtue of something other than observations of the world.

It may appear to be digressing because I didn't connect my points quickly enough but the point I was trying to make is that all words have this problem which doesn't allow me to know what experience you are referring to when you use that word. It isn't a matter of whether or not the word is symmetric or not. I had understood you to make the claim that this situation only existed when there was symmetry. And only when there is asymmetry can we really have any knowledge. So I went into all this to illustrate how "symmetry" doesn't connect to the issue to me at all. However, from the rest of your post I see how this might be considered digressing as I now think I know what you mean when you say symmetry.

People agreed on the meaning of 'red' long before they knew light was electromagnetic radiation. "600-nanometer" adds nothing to your understanding of what 'red' means that 'the color of stop signs' doesn't. It's just another way of stating what you already know.

I was under the impression that you were claiming I couldn't know anything about red because when we all use the word we could be referring to different experiences. I'm simply suggesting that the experience is simply the process by which we identify 600nm. Whether we know it is exactly 600nm is not really relevant to me.

Think of 'matter' and 'space', for instance. What is matter but simply the absence of space, and space the absence of matter?

Ahhhh, so this is what you mean by symmetry! Ok, now this I can understand. To interpret this I'd say that 2 words have symmetry when their definition refers to each other without referring to some other external concept as a distinction. I wouldn't have called this symmetry. This is just what I call circular definitions. And imo, circular definitions are a different issue from inverted spectrum scenarios.

Ultimately, the point of this whole exercise is to realize that 'mental' and 'physical' are perfectly symmetrical. There is nothing you can say about 'mental' that makes it clear that 'mental' is anything but the opposite of 'physical', and vice-versa. And that makes materialism, the notion that "physical precedes mental", just a meaningless exercise in rhetoric. The opposite, "mental precedes physical", could be just as valid. Materialism is a powerful notion because people tend to think it's possible for the physical to exist without the mental, therefore breaking the symmetry. But that is a misperception.

Ok if the claim is that mental and physical are circular definitions, then I can just drop all this inverted spectrum scenario business and this becomes much simpler to discuss.

As info, materialists like Mentat wouldn't agree with what you have written above because they don't see it as "physical precedes mental". To Mentat, mental IS physical. There is no distinction and therefore there is nothing to have symmetry with.

As for my opinion on this, I disgaree that mental and physical are circular definitions. I would say the distinction has to do with whether information is public or not. I see Hynagogue is going in this same direction. This reminds me of that long thread on defining materialism. I spent 20 pages trying to convince people that the distinction between materialism and it's opposing views has to be about the nature/origin of the contents of the mind as it relates to things outside the mind. Or another way of saying subjective/private versus objective/public. To define it the way they were trying to made the term meaningless. So I agree that some of the usage of these terms has been messy and circular but it is because people don't understand the proper philosophical definitions of them.

(As info: They were trying to define 'matter' as "everything that really exists". If this were the real definiton then how could anyone not be a materialists? Why would anyone believe in something that does not really exists? You have to watch these guys. They're sneaky )

 

[confutatis]

There is a clear dichotomy we can draw. Public phenomena and private phenomena. The quality of my subjective experience is completely private, but it has a certain structure that can be communicated by various means (speech, body language, etc). The structural/functional aspects can thus be shared publically, and in this sense they are objective.

I won't comment on most of your reply because it is beside the point I'm trying to make, and I'm short of time today. The above though is an interesting point.

You say we can communicate the structural aspects of the world, but you don't make it clear if we can communicate what is not structural. That is exactly the issue I'm trying to discuss. I don't know if there are non-structural aspects of reality that can be communicated; that depends on the existence of at least one fundamental "asymmetry", which makes at least some aspects of the world look unequivocally identical for every observer. I don't know if that asymmetry exists or what it could be; I take it on faith that there are several, but I don't know what they are.

 

[confutatis]

from the rest of your post I see how this might be considered digressing as I now think I know what you mean when you say symmetry.

Good!

I was under the impression that you were claiming I couldn't know anything about red because when we all use the word we could be referring to different experiences.

I didn't say that; I said there are some things you can't know. But you can still know that stop signs and firetrucks are red. You can also know that red and green are different colors.

Ok, now this I can understand. To interpret this I'd say that 2 words have symmetry when their definition refers to each other without referring to some other external concept as a distinction. I wouldn't have called this symmetry. This is just what I call circular definitions.

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

I disgaree that mental and physical are circular definitions.

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

I would say the distinction has to do with whether information is public or not.

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

This reminds me of that long thread on defining materialism. I spent 20 pages trying to convince people that the distinction between materialism and it's opposing views has to be about the nature/origin of the contents of the mind as it relates to things outside the mind. Or another way of saying subjective/private versus objective/public. To define it the way they were trying to made the term meaningless.

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

So I agree that some of the usage of these terms has been messy and circular but it is because people don't understand the proper philosophical definitions of them.

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

As info: They were trying to define 'matter' as "everything that really exists". If this were the real definiton then how could anyone not be a materialists?

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

You have to watch these guys. They're sneaky

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

 

[hypnagogue]

You say we can communicate the structural aspects of the world, but you don't make it clear if we can communicate what is not structural. That is exactly the issue I'm trying to discuss.

My position is that we can't communicate what is not functional/structural. 'Redness,' insofar as I can converse with you coherently about it, is a purely structural/functional concept-- as characterized by physical laws, its propensity to create certain measurements in certain devices, and so on. (Whenever we say "this light is red," a measuring device will read off "600nm.") Thus red, in this sense, is identical to what scientists call light with a wavelength of 600nm (or thereabouts).

However, we cannot communicate about the subjective aspects of redness-- what it looks like to me vs. what it looks like to you. Red, in this sense, is identical to what philosophers call phenomenal redness. Phenomenal redness is not structural or functional, but rather is an intrinsic property. As a result, it is not expressible in language, and for the same fundamental reasons, a purely physically reductive science must either remain silent on the issue or deny its existence.

We seem to disagree about what 'red,' in general usage, means. Your position seems to identify red with the scientific concept of 'light of 600nm,' or at least characterizes it in the same spirit, insofar as you have claimed that red is a purely linguistic (extrinsic) concept and does not refer to perceptual experiences-- that red is exhaustively characterized by its relationships with other things. I claim that 'red' refers to the phenomenal aspect (which may vary from person to person), which is intrinsic and hence is not exhaustively characterized not by its relationships with other things-- there is something about red above and beyond its extrinsic relationships, some inherent property. On this view, people agree as to what is red on the basis of the common causal chain precipitating their phenomenal experiences. Basically, I am saying that one's language refers directly to one's phenomenal experiences, but that in public usage the only common element among such experiences that is available for comparison (and hence available for discussion) is the underlying structural/functional causal chain leading up to those experiences.

 

[confutatis]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

[hypnagogue]

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

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

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

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

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

 

[confutatis]

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

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

In essence it appears as if we agree.

Could be. It's hard to tell sometimes.

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

[hypnagogue]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

[confutatis]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

[hypnagogue]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

[Fliption]

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

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

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

Sure they are. You just said this:

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

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

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

The moon is purple!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

[Mentat]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

[hypnagogue]

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

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

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

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

 

[confutatis]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

[hypnagogue]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

[Fliption]

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

 

[confutatis]

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

Thanks for clarifying that.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

[Mentat]

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

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

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

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

 

[confutatis]

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

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

 

[hypnagogue]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

—

(3) No physical account can explain consciousness.

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

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

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

 

[Fliption]

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

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

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

 

[hypnagogue]

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

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

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

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

 

[confutatis]

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

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

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

 

[hypnagogue]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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