RNG's recent activity
-
Comment on Former naturalists/materialists, what changed your view? in ~humanities
-
Comment on Turns out the Rabbit R1 was just an Android app all along in ~tech
RNG Link ParentThere's a growing trend of products that aim to replace your smartphone at least part of the time. Many folks think having a smartphone with you 24/7 isn't ideal/healthy and want something that...there is no reason for it not to be an app on the phone you already own.
There's a growing trend of products that aim to replace your smartphone at least part of the time. Many folks think having a smartphone with you 24/7 isn't ideal/healthy and want something that can still meet some of the core needs a smartphone fills. I, for one, love quirky hardware, and love a $200 price point for an experimental product over, say, the $700+ Humane AI Pin. Though products like Light Phone are more likely to get my money than some AI-powered thing (unless it's a local model...)
-
Comment on Turns out the Rabbit R1 was just an Android app all along in ~tech
RNG LinkThere are good critiques of the Rabbit R1, and I personally won't be purchasing one, but this is a strange criticism if you can even call it that. Does using AOSP as a base "cheapen" the product?...There are good critiques of the Rabbit R1, and I personally won't be purchasing one, but this is a strange criticism if you can even call it that. Does using AOSP as a base "cheapen" the product? Does being able to (unsuccessfully) emulate this device's software on another device reduce it's value? It's $199, this is not a premium product.
It's cheap, quirky, hacky, and has a few deal-breaking flaws, but I think it's use of AOSP is interesting, not a mark against it.
-
Comment on Former naturalists/materialists, what changed your view? in ~humanities
RNG Link ParentI think this entire line of thought may misunderstand the position of the argument. Whether or not memories can be physically encoded is not the hard problem, nor is the ability to recall said...If one had a total understanding of the brain, they could somehow inject a false memory of the experience of hearing, so that she can recall that sound without actually having experienced it. This is distinct from learning and recalling facts about sound and hearing. With that false memory, she won't learn anything new when her true hearing is finally restored.
I think this entire line of thought may misunderstand the position of the argument. Whether or not memories can be physically encoded is not the hard problem, nor is the ability to recall said memories. What's problematic is believing that experience itself is identical with physical matter.
If one had a total understanding of the brain, they could somehow inject a false memory of the experience of hearing, so that she can recall that sound without actually having experienced it.
Yes, in my view, providing her with this physically-encoded memory about a non-physical experience would allow her to experience sounds. Crucially, this would provide her information about hearing that is non-physical (the medium is physical, the data is not), and therefore something she did not know before, even though she knew all physical facts about the experience of hearing.
With the physical analogy: you can't claim a single water molecule has surface tension, but you could probably claim that a few dozen do. Surely it doesn't have quite the intuitive meaning there, but the molecules would tend to stick together and arrange themselves in certain ways. I still doubt you could claim just a few dozen molecules have viscosity or drag, though, certainly not in the intuitive sense. There's just not enough mass or volume involved for them to interact with a macroscopic object in that way. Add a few mole more water molecules though - pretty plainly it has viscosity and drag by any measure. The exact cutoff is arbitrary and depends on your definitions for those higher order properties.
Sure, it seems plausible to me that consciousness may combine in ways that result in more complex phenomenon, similar to surface tension, sound waves, etc.
Like, it's one thing to have the pure qualia of seeing blue. It's another thing to interpret that blueness as located somewhere in space, on a plane, or on some surface, etc. And it's yet another thing to reflect on that, and reference it against other information, and take meaning of what that blue object is.
That's a good distinction, the first is how I've been using consciousness, especially as we get to simpler and simpler things.
I'm saying a "useful definition" of consciousness needs those latter things, but you could have the former in isolation in a much simpler system. I haven't fully worked out what "those latter things" are exactly, but bear in mind this is how I'm drawing that line. It's arbitrary. So in the most permissive sense, yes, even the pure qualia is consciousness.
There are lots of "useful" aspects to consciousness as we experience it that may be explained by some theory that doesn't bear on the hard problem at all (e.g., IIT). The problem is getting experience out of the physical at all, not merely that physics can't yet explain human consciousness (which would be a "panpsychism of the gaps".)
-
Comment on Former naturalists/materialists, what changed your view? in ~humanities
RNG (edited )Link ParentOh okay, I get what you were driving at in the sound analogy. I did want to see what you thought about the argument, since it seems to derive a contradiction from the materialist perspective....In all cases the properties involved are entirely physical, even if they are not fundamental.
Oh okay, I get what you were driving at in the sound analogy. I did want to see what you thought about the argument, since it seems to derive a contradiction from the materialist perspective. Something like:
P1 She had total knowledge of all physical facts about the experience of hearing
P2 If materialism is true, all facts about hearing are physical facts
P3 When her hearing was restored, she gained new information about the experience of hearing
C Materialism is falseAh, I think I understand. If you place mental properties in the same category as acoustic properties, or hydrodynamic properties, then yes. They are not fundamental physics, but they are derived from and/or composed of fundamental physics.
Oh I see what you mean. Though I guess the problem of describing mental, experiential properties in terms of underlying physics is the problem we've been talking about. The value add of viewing systems like IIT through the lens of dualism is that you avoid the hard problem if mental properties are fundamental, but you are right, IIT isn't committed to this view.
For the philosophical question in this - I think with enough observation and correlations you'd eventually, in principle, identify which structures correspond with which concepts, and which interactions correspond with which kinds of thought based on the behavior. It's a decoding problem.
I know we're talking about the "PHP" as Chalmers referred to it, but I wonder if you'd agree that this wouldn't touch the hard problem. Yes, we will eventually understand how every structure/interaction correlates with different experiences. The problem for the materialist is that I don't think they can say "X" structure gives rise to or correlates with "Y" experience, but that "X" structure is "Y" experience.
Going down that rabbit hole, for me anyway, really makes me examine what experience really is; I conclude that some kind of read/write working memory is nessary to hold the "object".
This is certainly true of our experiences in daily life. I think it's still logically coherent to say that fundamental "stuff" is (has?) experience, though I agree that it differs greatly from our common day-to-day experiences, which involve far more complexity.
-
Comment on Former naturalists/materialists, what changed your view? in ~humanities
RNG Link ParentIf you think that physical stuff has mental properties that follow these psychophysical laws, you wouldn't be necessarily committed to cartesian dualism which posits that mind and body are...In this sense, yes, but I don't think "dualism" is the right word here.
If you think that physical stuff has mental properties that follow these psychophysical laws, you wouldn't be necessarily committed to cartesian dualism which posits that mind and body are composed of different substances. You'd believe that "stuff" has both physical properties and mental properties. The mental properties are defined as those which follow the psychophysical laws. I've heard of this described as substance vs. property dualism, of which Chalmers is the latter. I agree you don't have to interpret IIT or other systems through a naturalistic dualist lens; maybe there aren't mental properties at all, but then I don't think we've addressed the Hard Problem, I think you've only addressed the Easy Problem. This is even mentioned in Aaronson's criticism:
we can easily interpret IIT as trying to do something more “modest” than solve the Hard Problem, although still staggeringly audacious. Namely, we can say that IIT “merely” aims to tell us which physical systems are associated with consciousness and which aren’t, purely in terms of the systems’ physical organization.
<red herring>By the way, do you agree with Aaronson's assertion that consciousness is experimentally unavailable? And what do you make of his view that theories of consciousness should be working to solve the Pretty-Hard Problem which, best I can tell, simply maps the theory onto our seemings of what "should" be conscious and what shouldn't?
I'm not necessarily opposed to this methodology, things in philosophy do often bottom-out in seemings e.g., that's how most theorizing in moral philosophy works best I can tell. However, the criticism of moral theories also holds here: what value does a theory have if counterintuitive results count as evidence against the theory itself? Just accept the "seemings" axiomatically without a theory, since if one's credence in the model decreases every time it strays from the seemings, you ultimately are doing this anyway.
This debate strongly reminds me of discussions on morality regarding the is-ought problem. You can't get an ought from an is, nor phenomenological experience from the interactions of matter, and you have to smuggle some assumptions in to move the problem around (e.g., Harris assuming human flourishing is morally good axiomatically.)
</red herring>If you instead view consciousness as an continuous emergent property of a system, then there's no need to invoke dualism. I think that's the key that IIT and something similar does, but you could avoid the hard problem in any other framework compatible with that view.
My understanding is that consciousness is either continuous or emergent. The view that consciousness is continuous seems to just be panpsychism. I don't see how a purely physicalist interpretation of IIT would avoid the Hard Problem (or maybe even the "Pretty-Hard Problem".)
Sound is not a fundamental property of matter. How many particles are required to carry a sound wave? At what point do we stop talking about particle motion and start talking about pressure and flow? Yet sound is not immaterial. It is described completely by the physical state of its medium.
We have to be careful here; there is the physical nature of sound and the experiential nature of sound. The former can fully be derived from the physical interactions of matter and (I would argue) the latter cannot.
Imagine a neuroscientist who is congenitally deaf. She understands the totality of how sound works: how air pressure changes move parts in the ear, how signals are sent to the brain, even how these signals cause a behavioral change in the person. She knows how different wave lengths cause different results in the end behavior of physical matter in the brain. She has total, perfect knowledge of the physical interactions of the system. Imagine a cure becomes available for her deafness, and she goes out in the world and hears for the first time.
The question is, did she learn anything new about hearing? As a matter of definition, we stated at the beginning that she knew everything there is to know about the physical interactions of the experience of hearing. If the totality of the experience of hearing is physical, we have a logical contradiction, since this would entail that what she just learned was physical when she already knew everything there is to know about the physical nature of experiencing hearing.
I have a few socratic questions based on our discussions around the "object" and around that point 6 in the IIT deep dive. These kinds of questions are why I conclude that the "object" is necessary for qualia, and that qualia occur only in the interaction between the system and the "object".
Maybe this is a problem for IIT, but I don't think it's necessarily a problem for panpsychism, especially views such as cosmopanpsychism (the view that the universe is a unified object that is ontologically prior to its parts.) I still need to do work on this though, since this is not the view of panpsychism I've defended in this thread or the one Goff defends.
-
Comment on Former naturalists/materialists, what changed your view? in ~humanities
RNG (edited )Link ParentI've been defending dualism and panpsychism for the sole purpose of better communicating "The Hard Problem", even though I don't necessarily assent to either worldview. I've now taken time to both...I've been defending dualism and panpsychism for the sole purpose of better communicating "The Hard Problem", even though I don't necessarily assent to either worldview. I've now taken time to both read further about and wrestle with various theories of consciousness, and have read Philip Goff's book "Galileo's Error" in hopes of doing a better job of both representing The Hard Problem and panpsychism.
I consider myself a materialist, although this three-part view certainly isn't the mainstream one. You could easily lump the three parts together, and use more traditional reasoning about it. The critical aspects are emergent ones.
This sounds like the position of a naturalistic dualist; one who is a naturalist but also a mind/body dualist (naturalism being the idea that only natural laws and forces [as opposed to supernatural ones] operate in the universe). There is a view very similar to what you've described here called Integrated Information Theory (a free deep dive is here). IIT posits that consciousness arises from the ability of a system to integrate and differentiate information, and doesn't view consciousness as something that emerges in a system at some particular point, but exists on a measurable spectrum (based on the degree to which a system can integrate/differentiate information.) In cases of naturalistic dualism, there are the physical laws of nature as well as psychophysical laws (e.g., those that map the integration of information to conscious states in IIT or maybe even your three-part model) which determine whether a system is "conscious" or to what degree a system is conscious.
I'd be willing to concede that IIT or something similar probably escapes The Hard Problem when viewed through naturalistic dualism (The Hard Problem was posited originally by the naturalistic dualist David Chalmers), but strictly speaking there does seem to be a difference between this specific view of naturalism and materialism.
-
Comment on Former naturalists/materialists, what changed your view? in ~humanities
RNG Link ParentI'm putting this here at the top; it's how I'm using the word consciousness throughout this comment. I don't think this consciousness entails intelligence, self-awareness, understanding, etc....There is also experience, verb. The act of perceiving (creating? interacting with?) qualia. This is the hard problem. I'll call that consciousness - understand that, for the rest of this comment, this action is what I'm referring to.
I'm putting this here at the top; it's how I'm using the word consciousness throughout this comment. I don't think this consciousness entails intelligence, self-awareness, understanding, etc. Though one maybe meaningless change: this isn't "creating" or "interacting" with qualia, but is the perception of qualia or qualia itself.
I identify three parts: a data representation that needs to be complex enough to allow a particular qualia to emerge; a system that needs to be complex enough to allow a particular capability to emerge; and interactions that need to be complex enough to facilitate experience.
Why think any of these parts necessary for consciousness? Also, unless I'm misunderstanding something, it seems like you're affirming that consciousness is emergent and has a minimum necessary configuration in order to exist. I think we maybe agree that materialism entails this?
What do you mean by "object" here? A part of speech? The substrate that encodes it? Something else?
You said this in your previous comment:
But then it, by definition, requires two distinct entities to interact and is not perfectly simple.
While I am skeptical about your data model of consciousness, it does seem that consciousness is dependent on some entity (being experienced?) which I called the "object". I don't really have much to add here at the moment, and still need to think this through.
Right. The point is that one can confidently exclude p-zombies.
So my argument for the non-physicality of consciousness under materialism rests in part upon the metaphysical possibility of p-zombies. Even if I grant that we can have 100% confidence that no such thing has ever been instantiated, this wouldn't have a bearing on my argument.
-
Comment on Former naturalists/materialists, what changed your view? in ~humanities
RNG (edited )Link ParentThe problem is that in one [EDIT] worldview the property is fundamental, and in the other it is composite and emergent, which is where the trouble for me is. I don't want to say that qualia is a...I'm still confused by this. If one system has some property, and another system has a different property, then there is necessarily something about each system that determines those properties.
The problem is that in one [EDIT]
systemworldview the property is fundamental, and in the other it is composite and emergent, which is where the trouble for me is.There is an experience, singular noun. A particular thing which can be experienced. Blueness. Roughness. Anger. I'll call that qualia - and please correct me if your understanding of that word is different.
There is also experience, verb. The act of perceiving (creating? interacting with?) qualia. This is the hard problem. I'll call that consciousness - understand that, for the rest of this comment, this action is what I'm referring to.
Critically, qualia is a state and consciousness is an action.
I don't want to say that qualia is a thing which can be experienced, but is the state of experiencing itself. My thinking of qualia is closer to a subjectless verb than a noun (I think the self is illusory, but panpsychists aren't necessarily committed to this view). Words fail me here because I think qualia are ineffable (ironically because nothing is more readily accessible.)
I'll call that consciousness - understand that, for the rest of this comment, this action is what I'm referring to.
But yes, I think we are on the same page using consciousness this way.
That interaction is probably closer to the typical definition of qualia. But then it, by definition, requires two distinct entities to interact and is not perfectly simple. It requires sufficient complexity in both of these entities and in their interactions.
Wow, you got me there, I agree that this refutes my claim that qualia are simple. (This may be a red herring, but I don't think qualia require a subject, though panpsychists aren't committed to this view.) Though as to whether all qualia require an object is something I may need some time to think about. Maybe I can message you later if I can work out a more coherent view?
The model I described has some overlap here. If you consider the fundamentals to be a substrate (data storage), qualia (data on that storage), and some system that interacts with it - then plenty of systems fit that description.
If I'm understanding this correctly, is this drawing the line between conscious and unconscious matter in terms of whether the matter is arranged in a way that fits this model?
As the complexity of a substrate increases, so does our confidence that it may encode more sophisticated qualia.
As the complexity of a system increases, so does our confidence that it has more sophisticated capabilities. If we are confident that the substrate of the system encodes certain qualia and are confident that the system is capable of awareness, then we can be confident that the system is conscious, experiencing those qualia.
I see. These seem to speak to a related but entirely different problem that is epistemic rather than ontological. The problem of other minds is epistemic; the hard problem of consciousness is ontological.
-
Comment on Former naturalists/materialists, what changed your view? in ~humanities
RNG Link ParentIt's the only one I've ever heard of, and it seems the materialist is logically committed to this view. If consciousness isn't an emergent property of unconscious matter, then where does it come...I don't think that's an accurate representation of the materialist - or, if it's the generally accepted one, I don't think it's the only one.
It's the only one I've ever heard of, and it seems the materialist is logically committed to this view. If consciousness isn't an emergent property of unconscious matter, then where does it come from? If it is an emergent property, then that would entail that there is some minimum configuration of matter that gives rise to consciousness, where anything less than that minimum configuration would not result in this emergent property.
As the complexity of a system increases, so does our confidence that certain aspects of experience are present.
So this seems to be addressing an epistemic problem of when we can know that consciousness has emerged, and to what degree we can be confident in that knowledge. I'm focused on the ontological problem of consciousness emerging from unconscious matter at all.
Certain aspects of experience have useful definitions that are binary; but listing real constraints is difficult to impossible.
I'm very glad we got here! The impossibility of listing real constraints is essentially the Hard Problem of Consciousness. The path here is very difficult since every single term used in this discussion is woefully overloaded. Like the Monty Hall problem, it took me sitting with this for a long time to fully grasp what this problem is driving at.
Now, I don't want to put words in your mouth, but we probably still disagree about the nature of this impossibility. I think you are saying that there actually are constraints that exist that determine whether a collection of matter is conscious or unconscious, but it is epistemically impossible to know when a collection of matter crosses The Line.
I hold the position that on materialism it is problematic to believe any such constraints could exist at all.
Each aspect is itself an emergent phenomenon.
Qualia (first person experiences) are perfectly simple and aren't necessarily composed of aspects or parts. You don't need self-awareness, intelligence, or reason just to have the mere experience of anything at all.
I agree, but I've been specifically trying to avoid these words to avoid the baggage and preconceptions that come with them. Apologies if I've confused anything as a result.
I think we've done well in this conversation to navigate around all of the billion definitions of consciousness to get at the core issue. I like avoiding philosophical jargon (like qualia) until it's absolutely necessary in a discussion, because the improved precision comes at the cost of accessibility to some bystanders.
-
Comment on Former naturalists/materialists, what changed your view? in ~humanities
RNG (edited )Link ParentI just want to interject here and say that I greatly appreciate your replies. This subject and our conversation about it is meaningful and a ton of fun for me. The drawing of a line at all is...I just want to interject here and say that I greatly appreciate your replies. This subject and our conversation about it is meaningful and a ton of fun for me.
We could debate about where exactly The Line is, but it's probably somewhere around the level of an infant.
The drawing of a line at all is problematic. As we discussed before, drawing a line anywhere is both arbitrary and unjustified.
but the fact you're trying to reduce it to this binary yes it is or no it isn't.
The panpsychist is not committed to the view that experience is binary, the materialist is. The materialist is committed to the view that consciousness is an emergent property of unconscious matter; that there is a necessary minimum configuration of matter required to bring about experience, before which consciousness does not exist, and after which consciousness is present.
Experience is this huge, complicated, multi-faceted thing. Does it experience emotions? Which ones? Can it suffer? Can it reason? Is it aware of its surroundings? Is it self-aware? When you try to classify something, say this thing experiences or that thing does not, you're accidentally blending all these facets together.
We're moving into the territory that makes using philosophical terms like qualia useful. Emotions can be described purely in physical terms absent a subjective experience or qualia of them. Reason, self-awareness, and awareness of surroundings are not necessary components of experience. Infants can lack some of these attributes and computers can have some of these attributes. To the panpsychist, qualia isn't composed of parts; it is a simple property of reality.
Something may be aware of its surroundings, but not of itself. Something might simply not have the ability to suffer. Are these things experiencing? On which side of The Line do they sit?
That's a good question for the materialist who believes that consciousness is an emergent property of unconscious matter. A panpsychist isn't committed to The Line; it is a perfectly smooth spectrum from the incomprehensibly simple to the complex.
So, yes, when you adjust your thermostat there might be some "experience" happening, but given the level of complexity involved it can't be anything substantial. It's not aware of its surroundings, and it's certainly not aware of itself.
I think the panpsychist would fully agree with this statement. The thermostat's qualia would be like my perception of blueness: it doesn't require a theory of self, an understanding of the things around me, or reason. It's just experience itself; though the experience is just so simple for the thermostat that it is almost humorous to compare it to my own.
-
Comment on Utopian Scholastic in ~design
RNG LinkThis website is a ton of fun. I've just been going through the categories and discovering that there are aesthetics I have encountered, but never knew had a discrete style and name. Some are very...This website is a ton of fun. I've just been going through the categories and discovering that there are aesthetics I have encountered, but never knew had a discrete style and name. Some are very nostalgic, others somewhat cringy. There are:
Some I liked:
Some I hate:
And some that stand out for me:
-
Comment on Former naturalists/materialists, what changed your view? in ~humanities
RNG Link ParentThis is correct, but this is not strictly materialism. This view (panpsychism) is one such possible response to the hard problem of consciousness. In panpsychism, it wouldn't be possible for...If you say a thermostat, a microbe, a cat, an infant, an adult all sit on some spectrum of consciousness - then you're really saying that p-zombies cannot exist.
This is correct, but this is not strictly materialism. This view (panpsychism) is one such possible response to the hard problem of consciousness. In panpsychism, it wouldn't be possible for p-zombies to exist, because experience is a fundamental property of the system.
If the system is complex enough you'd call it a p-zombie, then it's also complex enough to have an experience
This would be true under panpsychism, but under materialism, there doesn't appear to be any level of complexity that would justify a complex system having first-hand experience. I can make a seemingly super-intelligent AI that has sensors that can process colors and detect temperature, but there's no level of complexity under materialism where I'd be justified in saying the AI has first person experiences like seeing color and feeling temperature.
My whole stance on AI is that, knowing how the thing works, I have to think its experience - if you want to call it that - is much closer to that of a fly or an ant than to a cat or a human.
I guess my whole stance is that if we assume materialism I don't think we are justified in saying the AI has experience at all.
Even if I grant that AI is anywhere on the consciousness spectrum, then it seems like the door is cracked open for other sorts of software to have even simpler, yet completely real first person experiences; we wouldn't be justified in drawing The Line right there. I'd agree that a neural network has more complex experiences than a script, but we'd also expect that other things like complex Minecraft Redstone machines and perhaps thermostats would have very real though admittedly very simple experiences. It seems like this view, when taken to its logical conclusion, is panpsychism.
And I can spend a bunch of time trying to figure out where The Line™ is that separates the experience of a rock or a goldfish or myself, but it's a fool's errand. Any decision you make is arbitrary.
We are in total agreement; we cannot justify drawing The Line at any particular point, because doing so would be as unjustified and arbitrary.
-
Comment on Former naturalists/materialists, what changed your view? in ~humanities
RNG Link ParentAgreed, and this would be true of p-zombies as well. I think it is possible that the totality of human behavior can be explained as deterministic interactions of matter rather than consciousness....Human behaviour, and other complex systems, are emergent properties of the arrangement of matter and energy in our bodies
Agreed, and this would be true of p-zombies as well.
and much of our behaviour is dependent on consciousness
I think it is possible that the totality of human behavior can be explained as deterministic interactions of matter rather than consciousness. Neural network weights updated, hormones, action potentials, the total sum of these systems can explain how a human works without ever entailing that there is some sort of qualia or phenomenological experience of the system itself.
I cannot conceive of a single behavior that is truly dependent on the way we are using the word consciousness here: qualia or phenomenological experience. All of it can be explained by soulless material interactions.
-
Comment on Former naturalists/materialists, what changed your view? in ~humanities
RNG Link ParentBy definition, p-zombies function identically to other humans. I'm not arguing for solipsism; I'm merely demonstrating that the "problem of other minds" isn't a physical/metaphysical problem, but...What justification is there to suspect that another human, that is generally similar to other humans, happens to function radically differently?
By definition, p-zombies function identically to other humans. I'm not arguing for solipsism; I'm merely demonstrating that the "problem of other minds" isn't a physical/metaphysical problem, but an epistemic one. I'm using the fact that it is epistemically possible for a p-zombie to exist as a thought experiment to draw a distinction between information processing (like what software or AI does) and what some philosophers call qualia or first-hand experiences (like experiencing "blueness", not merely storing data about the wavelength of light.)
To completely close the door on the epistemic possibility of p-zombies in my thought experiment, it would need to be demonstrated that p-zombies are a physical or metaphysical impossibility, which I don't think there's good evidence for.
-
Comment on Former naturalists/materialists, what changed your view? in ~humanities
RNG Link ParentI'm not committed to the position that a p-zombie is necessarily physically identical to some specific instance of a person, rather that they are merely biologically human. It doesn't follow that...I'm not committed to the position that a p-zombie is necessarily physically identical to some specific instance of a person, rather that they are merely biologically human. It doesn't follow that because one human has property "X" (in this case conscious experience) that it is impossible for any human to lack property "X".
-
Comment on Former naturalists/materialists, what changed your view? in ~humanities
RNG Link ParentThat's still a pretty strong claim, how do you justify this position?But I do think that they are physically impossible; i.e., impossible within the laws of the actual universe.
That's still a pretty strong claim, how do you justify this position?
-
Comment on Personal reflections on Quaker retreat, community, and worship in ~life
RNG (edited )Link ParentYou've been more than generous, thank you for taking the time to reply to me, this is really interesting stuff. Epistemologically or ontologically? Also, would you consider your view to be an...You've been more than generous, thank you for taking the time to reply to me, this is really interesting stuff.
or at least non-static. Bendable.
Epistemologically or ontologically? Also, would you consider your view to be an apophatic approach to the divine, as is common in other mystical traditions?
You'll need to forgive me, I'm not well-read in this stuff, so I'm trying to understand how hyperreality works in pre-modern cultures who's populations had little access to media. What would be a pre-modern simulacrum? An idol maybe? I can imagine people of every historical era have confused maps with the territory. I am also struggling to understand how I should connect this to your view on the relationship between the Earthly and the divine, so I may need an ELI5 :)
Among Friends who attend liberal and unprogrammed meetings, and again among young Friends, there is perhaps more emphasis on the light before us (as a piece of and/or within people) than in an overpowering supernatural force which happens to take a human-esque (with personality) or parental aspect as demonstrated in the Bible.
So in the sense that liberal Quakers don't really have a creed, and thus lacking an enforced "orthodoxy," a particular belief can't really be "heterodox." Faith and Practice is not a Bible.
I know this is really disconnected from the rest of our conversation, but what is the relationship between Quakers and scripture? Do Quakers believe in Sola scriptura? If you have a sort of inner revelation, how does this relate to scripture?
-
Comment on Former naturalists/materialists, what changed your view? in ~humanities
RNG Link ParentWhile this is a valid objection (if one can justify it), I'm skeptical that p-zombies are metaphysically impossible. I think if one makes this objection they have a burden of proof to justify why...one can assert that P-zombies are physically impossible (or, if you balk at the word "physically", then impossible within the laws of nature of our universe), and that imagining a P-zombie is essentially the same as imagining Superman.
While this is a valid objection (if one can justify it), I'm skeptical that p-zombies are metaphysically impossible. I think if one makes this objection they have a burden of proof to justify why a p-zombie couldn't possibly exist.
-
Comment on Former naturalists/materialists, what changed your view? in ~humanities
RNG Link ParentThis sounds quite reasonable to me, and is similar to an idea I've been considering called panpsychism, which holds even systems like a thermostat have incomprehensibly simple experiences, and...and that all things with the ability to make complex decisions experience some form of consciousness. Perhaps every time someone executes a lines of code, a thread of consciousness is created and then dies away.
This sounds quite reasonable to me, and is similar to an idea I've been considering called panpsychism, which holds even systems like a thermostat have incomprehensibly simple experiences, and that experience itself is a fundamental property of reality.
Does this differ from what humans do all day most of the time? We regularly make extremely complex decisions (e.g., coordinating millions of cells to manipulate our appendages, using these appendages to manipulate a vehicle with a fine degree of control and timing, processing subtle variations in light to identify the environment we are driving in and moving obstacles within it, and recalling a complex set of distances, angles, and sights that we have memorized in order to drive to a specific destination) on autopilot.
This is precisely what humans do all the time. Both "conscious" humans and p-zombies can be accurately described by this. What differentiates these two is that so-called "conscious" humans have first hand experiences and p-zombies function more like how most people think of software or LLMs: no personal first hand experiences.
For example, in the process of writing this comment, there are some seemingly subconscious processes going on. I am not consciously moving my fingers to type (they feel like they are moving on their own) and I am not consciously selecting the precise words (it feels like they are just appearing to me out of nowhere, and my conscious brain has only to review them after my fingers have typed them). I am certainly having a conscious experience here as well, but its job (to have a notion of what I want to communicate and to double-check that what I am writing gets that idea across) feels so small compared to all the other things my brain is doing in the background. Is it possible that the part of my brain that chooses words is fully conscious, but it is equally mystified about how itse writing prompts are chosen and how its output is ultimately either accepted or sent back for a re-write? Perhaps it feels like the reviewing task is done subconsciously, and its role is the only truly conscious act in the whole production.
So I think we are reaching the limits of how useful the word "consciousness" can be in this conversation. In philosophy circles, the term qualia is used to differentiate mental processes from phenomenological experiences themselves. It seems we can argue that intelligence, specifically human intelligence, is given rise to by complex systems, but we'd predict p-zombies would have these same systems. Qualia, or your first hand experiences of things isn't a necessary part of these systems; words are generated, letters are typed, but why should there be an experience or qualia of such?
Okay, so now I'm going to go off-track from our conversation for a little bit, and nothing in this paragraph is part of my argument, but it seems wholly relevant to your comment. Meditative practice is probably the best way to get at the base of what parts of your cognition are the "conscious" parts and which parts are the helpful but non-conscious structures that you referenced in your typing example. The answer to which parts are conscious and which parts aren't is fully knowable, but is quite literally ineffable. But I'll do my best: when you are trying to think of an actor's name and can't remember it, it feels like you are interfacing with some intelligence system that is distinct from "you" that isn't functioning correctly. When I type a sentence, this intelligence system generates a word at a time; I don't know what the final word of the sentence is before I type it (turns out the last word was "it", huh.) I experience each word as it is in the process of being typed. At the ground of consciousness, there seems to only be experiences, qualia. In these examples there is no conscious "intelligence"; only the conscious experience of a non-conscious intelligence. Qualia seems to be the totality of what...I? am experiencing, maybe even tautologically. All that can be experienced is experiences themselves.
Callosum syndrome is caused by severing the connection between the two halves of the brain (which is sometimes done to alleviate severe symptoms of epilepsy) and effectively results in the patient having something akin to two separate brains inside the same head. Do both of these hemispheres experience consciousness? Maybe. It certainly seems plausible to me, and if this is the case, maybe all kinds of things experience consciousness in weird and disconnected ways.
This point seems compelling to me, and seems to really get to something like panpsychism: experience is either the floor of reality or a fundamental property of it, and as you build up more complex systems, more complex experiences become possible.
I'm sorry for any confusion, this is how I understood we were using the term.
I don't think the argument relies on memories of facts and memories of experience being identical. I don't think the phenomenological properties of recalling different types of memories play a role here at all. It centers on information: did she gain information she didn't have before? The classic version of this involves sight rather than hearing. If you suddenly could see color, could you tell blue from yellow if you knew all the physical facts of sight? It seems like this information about experience isn't something you learn from knowing all of the physical interactions of light/cells/neurons. This is generally known as "the knowledge argument" and as you state, this is fundamentally a problem related to information.
I think the question of whether information itself is real is a debate between realists and nominalists and doesn't impact here. It's not my view that information must be physically real on the physicalist view. The issue for me is that there seems to be information about non-physical experience that is learned when hearing is restored, when she already had all of the information about the physical interactions related to experience. The medium where information is stored and the nature of information itself has no bearing on the argument.
I'm a nominalist; I don't think that "5" exists objectively, or is a property of reality. To me, it is a human construct that helps us make sense of reality. You could take the late Daniel Dennett's approach and say that consciousness is an illusion and doesn't exist either, but that's a really tough pill to swallow.
Yeah, I think one valid approach is dualism, and holding that there must be psycho-physical laws out there that determine to what degree various structures (Boltzmann Brains, humans, insects, etc.) have consciousness. Bertrand Russel thought that panpsychism was more parsimonious since it involves assuming less laws, but regardless this completely solves the hard problem.
I think this is what makes property dualism preferable to substance dualism. It seems more parsimonious, and avoids invoking a bunch of stuff that doesn't increase the explanatory power of the theory, while increasing its intellectual commitments. It also avoids panpsychism's combination problem.
From your comment on my other thread:
This seems to be perfectly compatible with naturalistic dualism, if among those laws are psycho-physical laws that act on the mental properties of stuff to determine whether stuff is in a conscious configuration or not (or to what degree the configuration is conscious.)