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Split Thread Science cannot explain consciousness, therefore....

To those who propose something called qualia exist, have you ever had the experience of "redness" without it being tied into perception of something that is red?
 
RecoveringYuppy said:
But the aspect of consciousness we are talking about isn't a behavior.
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It absolutely is.

One wonders why consciousness exists at all. As far as we know now it provides no benefit.
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It absolutely does, and we see that benefit every time the topic of consciousness comes up: individual human believe that they are super special and distinct from the rest of the universe to a great degree. It's a survival instinct: if you believe that, you're even more incentivised to fight for your own survival.
 
Darat said:
It is a set of complex behaviours, it something us humans do.
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No, it isn't.

Darat said:
And no advantage? Us having this conversation is pretty much showing the advantage, it has enabled humans to modify their environment to an incredible degree. We are perpetuating a huge number of genes thanks to consciousness.
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But you claim to be a p-zombie so this isn't an example of the advantage of consciousness since you have said you are non-conscious person.

If you are correct about being a p-zombie you might have trouble understanding this since your experiences would mean the only conscious vs. non-conscious transition you experience is awake vs. sleep.

Do you think chat bots are conscious? When they past the Turing test will they necessarily be conscious?

Darat said:
And how did you become aware?
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Don't know.
 
Belz... said:
Haven't you been on this forum long enough to know that p-zombies are logically inconsistent?
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Well, no I don't know why you think they are logically inconsistent. But you'd probably be better off taking that up with the people who are claiming to be p-zombies. I tend to assume that every human I meet and quite a few animals I meet are conscious.
 
RecoveringYuppy said:
Well, no I don't know why you think they are logically inconsistent.
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It's quite simple, but I should've clarified that it's inconsistent under materialism. The p-zombie construct is a philosophical device that behaves exactly like a normal human, but is not conscious. The issue is that under materialism consciousness is a behaviour. Any p-zombie that exhibits the exact same behaviours as a normal human is, by definition, conscious.

I'm not great at explaining things but you can look up the p-zombie and read about that. Here's a starting point:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophical_zombie
 
RecoveringYuppy said:
But the aspect of consciousness we are talking about isn't a behavior. In fact, as the blindsight examples shows, the same behaviors can result from both conscious and non-conscious thought. That's the main reason some of us are sure it can't be tested for.

One wonders why consciousness exists at all. As far as we know now it provides no benefit.
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Non-conscious, unconscious and subconscious are not the same thing. As I understand it blind sight is subconscious.
 
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baron said:
If you like, the point is that this person navigated the hall in a mechanical manner, perceiving the obstacles but all the while consciously seeing nothing.
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But all the while subconsciously seeing everything. The information bypasses the visual cortex, but it still goes into the brain subconsciously and can be recalled (as I understand it).

baron said:
And that's worth stressing. It's not that they didn't believe they were seeing anything, it's that consciously they were not seeing anything, something that was proved objectively in the study by various pre-experiment brain scans.
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But subconsciously receiving and seeing everything?

baron said:
The difference between how the subject navigated the hall and how you or I would navigate the hall is purely that of conscious awareness, and qualia is a part of that. Outwardly there is no difference in the act, it's the subjective perception that's different.
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Are you saying that they navigated the hall by some means other than by information that their brain received (regardless they aren’t conscious they received it)? If so what is that means?
 
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Darat said:
I did and I don't see what blindsight has to do with your qualia. It does not require qualia to explain what is happening to the person, as indeed is seen in the very quote you used.
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The person can see perfectly well but doesn't have the experience of seeing. If you examine that with more granularity you get to the qualia.

(This in reply to the post above too).
 
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RecoveringYuppy said:
No, it isn't.
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How is consciousness not something humans do? Like running?

RecoveringYuppy said:
But you claim to be a p-zombie so this isn't an example of the advantage of consciousness since you have said you are non-conscious person.
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No I didn't, I am a p-zombie if qualia exist, which is a quite different thing.
RecoveringYuppy said:
If you are correct about being a p-zombie you might have trouble understanding this since your experiences would mean the only conscious vs. non-conscious transition you experience is awake vs. sleep.
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Not following that, I've - according to those that claim to have qualia - never experienced consciousness!
RecoveringYuppy said:
Do you think chat bots are conscious? When they past the Turing test will they necessarily be conscious?
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I believe my dog and newly acquired kitten are conscious just to a different degree than I am, can't see why we wont eventually be able to create other entities that display some of the behaviours of consciouness .
 
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baron said:
The person can see perfectly well but doesn't have the experience of seeing. If you examine that with more granularity you get to the qualia.

(This in reply to the post above too).
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Or simply that the areas of the brain which were damaged by the strokes are no longer integrated like they were previously. Therefore there is no longer any experience of seeing.

If you think about it a bit more you will see that your example is evidence of what we would expect if qualia do not exist.
 
Darat said:
Or simply that the areas of the brain which were damaged by the strokes are no longer integrated like they were previously. Therefore there is no longer any experience of seeing.
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Well, exactly.

Darat said:
If you think about it a bit more you will see that your example is evidence of what we would expect if qualia do not exist.
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I've thought about it for decades and never came to that conclusion.
 
Darat said:
Or simply that the areas of the brain which were damaged by the strokes are no longer integrated like they were previously. Therefore there is no longer any experience of seeing.

If you think about it a bit more you will see that your example is evidence of what we would expect if qualia do not exist.
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Having no conscious experience of seeing doesn't mean having no subconscious experience of seeing. No philosophically theoretical "qualia" required.
 
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If qualia exist what practical function do they perform? What problem do they solve? What do they add to anything? What’s the difference between qualia existing and not existing?
 
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