I challenge you: your best argument for materialism

[LarryS]

Who, says they are "abstractions of mind"?

I am not saying these collections are abstractions of mind, I'm saying I don't know if they are or not - I don't know what value mind adds to matter.


No, generally when I hold them it is in my hands (with perhaps some PPE). So much like you all I know is holding such collections that way evidently works. The rest I don't give a flying handshake about until it has some practical application.

Agreed, the reason Materialism works at my day job is because I'm not making any claims as to the nature of matter - my understanding of how things fit and work together keeps me from walking into walls. Am I willing to state that c-ness emerges from matter? Not yet.

 

[The Man]

Re your definition - is the phrase 'presence of the self' important or can we define c-ness as an agent in a narrative constructed from sensory input and associative memories, during said construction? What does the 'presence of the self' add?

I think the 'presence of the self' is in regard to the self-referential nature of the narrative and seems to be a key element of consciousness.

 

[Nonpareil]

Very clever - however if collectives such as rocks, molecules, atoms and particles and etc. are abstractions of mind, then to suggest mind emerges from these abstractions is circular.

It's a good thing nobody's doing that, then.

EDIT: To clarify against the inevitable response: no one who says rocks are abstractions of mind also claims that consciousness arises from matter.

I realize you hold these collectives exist independent of mind, but I'm not sure how we can know that.

Because they behave exactly, in every circumstance, as if they do.

This is literally the single most evidentially-supported hypothesis in the history of anything, ever. The only reason it can ever be considered anything other than entirely proven is because rationality rests on the fact that everything is open to counterevidence. But, at this point, there's really no way to argue against it.

 

[The Man]

Agreed, the reason Materialism works at my day job is because I'm not making any claims as to the nature of matter - my understanding of how things fit and work together keeps me from walking into walls. Am I willing to state that c-ness emerges from matter? Not yet.

I tend to be an irrelevantist myself (particularly when it comes to the fundamental nature of the universe), that is what I believe is, well, irrelevant. If the universe is fundamentally materialistic then what I believe in that regard is irrelevant to that nature. Similarly if the universe is fundamentally idealistic and the confabulation of some grand consciousness then again (not apparently being that grand consciousness) what I believe in that regard is irrelevant to that nature. If the universe is just my consciousness then my belief that my belief is irrelevant makes it irrelevant and, as in the other two cases, I’m left with just functioning in a universe where my belief is irrelevant to its fundamental nature.

 

[Myriad]

Re your definition - is the phrase 'presence of the self' important or can we define c-ness as an agent in a narrative constructed from sensory input and associative memories, during said construction? What does the 'presence of the self' add?

The self in this context is both the individual whose brain is doing the construction, and an agent in the constructed narrative. Other agents and elements in the constructed narrative (e.g. memories/sensory signals of what other people, creatures, objects, compound or abstract entities, etc. did/are doing) are not the same.

My wife, or Vladimir Putin, or Harry Potter, might figure as agents in the narrative, but that does not make them conscious.

(That said, I don't regard the self as necessarily and always singular; characters in my dreams, for example, seem in some cases actually be conscious if they subsume enough of the hardware to make them so. It certainly appears easy for my narrative point of view to shift from character to character during dreams. The figures often encountered by many people in mystical experiences are probably comparable in nature, as temporary partial selves. But that's getting a bit beyond the 101 level here.)

 

[Robin]

If your definition cannot help distinguish whether or not a robot is conscious without explicit provision within the definition, then it is not a very useful one.
...
But when you do any of those things, I experience nothing from it. Should I then conclude that you are not conscious?

I think you need to look up the meaning of ostensive definition, before commenting on an ostensive definition.

 

[The Man]

Couldn't he just point to it?

 

[Robin]

That's a very big if.

No, it is a perfectly ordinary if. I am not expressing an opinion that it is true or not true. I am simply pointing out the fact that if nausea is a computation then the equivalent register machine must also feel nausea.

Let's take a computation... such as a perfect (down to the subatomic particles) simulation of your brain experiencing the sensation of nausea.

Why to such a deep degree. If I have a computation that runs on a PA-RISC architecture then I can run an equivalent computation of an Intel chip without simulating the subatomic particles of the PA-RISC processor. So if the brain is running an algorithm then I ought to be able to run an equivalent algorithm on a register machine without doing it down to sub-atomic particle level, or even to neural level.

Now you have a computation that will feel nauseous just as you feel nauseous.

Yes, I know that is the claim.

So I asked a few questions about it. I have such an algorithm and I am running in on the register machine emulator. I click "Next" and it loads a number from a memory location into register A.

That instruction is now over, it is done with.

But somehow it is going to participate with a series of similar events which will happen in the future to be a sensation of nausea. What it in nature that will link this event in the past to events in the future to produce this sensation?

Why should this process do any more than we see it doing, placing a collection of encoded numbers on storage?

I click "Next" and it loads a number from another memory location to register B. What in nature has registered that these two events are linked?

This sensation of nausea which will be produced, somehow, maybe over millions of years by this processing being completed by others, maybe being moved to different computers - what is it exactly? Is it the output of the computation? Or something to do with the details of the computation itself?

I still don't really understand the claim.

 

[Pup]

No, it is a perfectly ordinary if. I am not expressing an opinion that it is true or not true. I am simply pointing out the fact that if nausea is a computation then the equivalent register machine must also feel nausea.

How are you defining nausea? How could you tell, for example, that a machine is or is not feeling nausea? How could you tell if a "locked in" person, who was conscious but paralyzed and unable to communicate or move, was feeling nausea?

 

[Belz...]

Am I willing to state that c-ness emerges from matter? Not yet.

You might want to do some introspection on that: why would you assume that souls exist, if that's what you are doing ?

 

[Belz...]

No, it is a perfectly ordinary if. I am not expressing an opinion that it is true or not true. I am simply pointing out the fact that if nausea is a computation then the equivalent register machine must also feel nausea.

In order to feel nausea, a machine has to have all the components of nausea.

 

[PixyMisa]

If I am a complex being - which I assume is required to be conscious - then I expect a material universe (from which I arise) to be similarly complex. Since I am both complex and limited (under a materialism scheme), it is expected that I will be unable to capture all the multitude of interactions in my head: the "calculation" is too big to fit the calculator. So, I expect to be surprised at some results and some of the things that emerge. I expect limitations.

That's a very good point. Under materialism, a computer must be more complex than its computations - it cannot simulate itself.

And this is, of course, what we observe.

 

[tsig]

Agreed, the reason Materialism works at my day job is because I'm not making any claims as to the nature of matter - my understanding of how things fit and work together keeps me from walking into walls. Am I willing to state that c-ness emerges from matter? Not yet.

The thing about matter is that you don't have to make any claims about it it's just there WYSIWYG.

 

[PixyMisa]

Why to such a deep degree.

It's a boundary. It demonstrates that a computer can feel nausea.

So I asked a few questions about it. I have such an algorithm and I am running in on the register machine emulator. I click "Next" and it loads a number from a memory location into register A.

That instruction is now over, it is done with.

State.

But somehow it is going to participate with a series of similar events which will happen in the future to be a sensation of nausea.

State.

What it in nature that will link this event in the past to events in the future to produce this sensation?

State.

Why should this process do any more than we see it doing, placing a collection of encoded numbers on storage?

That's the state. Now you're ignoring the process.

I click "Next" and it loads a number from another memory location to register B. What in nature has registered that these two events are linked?

State.

This sensation of nausea which will be produced, somehow, maybe over millions of years by this processing being completed by others, maybe being moved to different computers - what is it exactly?

It's information processing, exactly as it is for you.

Is it the output of the computation?

It's the process.

Or something to do with the details of the computation itself?

It's the process.

I still don't really understand the claim.

It's the process.

 

[PixyMisa]

Robin, what you are asking is: If I take my dog for a walk, and then shoot it with a disintegration beam and reduce it to atoms, where did the walk go?

Do you understand why this is not a useful question?

 

[LarryS]

You might want to do some introspection on that: why would you assume that souls exist, if that's what you are doing ?

I am not making any positive assertions, I'm certainly not assuming there is a soul . . . whatever that is.

 

[LarryS]

The thing about matter is that you don't have to make any claims about it it's just there WYSIWYG.

that's pure begging the question

 

[Belz...]

I am not making any positive assertions, I'm certainly not assuming there is a soul . . . whatever that is.

Physicalism is the default. It doesn't posit extra entities or other forms of existence.

 

[Robin]

Robin, what you are asking is: If I take my dog for a walk, and then shoot it with a disintegration beam and reduce it to atoms, where did the walk go?

Do you understand why this is not a useful question?

The sad thing is that you don't understand that the question does not have anything whatsoever to do with anything I have said. Not even tangentially, or remotely.

As I pointed out the last time you tried to say this a different way, I have not shot the computer with a disintegration beam and reduced it to atoms after the computation has finished.

It is very much alive and well and in mid thought when I am examining it.

And 'walking' is something I can easily describe in terms of the physical process.

 

[Robin]

How are you defining nausea?

Have you ever felt nauseous? That.

How could you tell, for example, that a machine is or is not feeling nausea? How could you tell if a "locked in" person, who was conscious but paralyzed and unable to communicate or move, was feeling nausea?

It does not matter for what I am saying whether you know or not. I can look at any computation and see that there are a series of events resulting in some numbers written to storage. I have reason to believe that those numbers are the result of some computation. But I have no reason to believe that anything else has happened here.

I certainly have no reason to believe that the machine has felt nauseous as I feel nauseous.