Idealists: What does 'physical' mean to you?

[HypnoPsi]

How do you know you are not a p-zombie? Perhaps you only think you're conscious, when in reality, all your "thoughts" are just information being passed up from a subconscious level over which you have no control whatsoever.

You know, Pixy. I honestly wonder about you... First there is your claim that toaster ovens are aware - and modern ones are self-aware - then there is response to AkuManiMan in this thread (post #600) and now there's this response to Malerin.

How can you not see that the very notion of an "I" that is aware of it's own existence as a conscious being removes any notion of the observer in question being a p-zombie?

~
HypnoPsi

 

[paximperium]

How can you not see that the very notion of an "I" that is aware of it's own existence as a conscious being removes any notion of the observer in question being a p-zombie?

Except for being completely and utterly wrong, yeah right. More hand waving using vague semantics in an attempt to dodge the question.

How do you know your notion of "I" isn't an artificial construct of Bob's dreams? How do you know any of your thoughts and awareness are your own and not someone elses?

I could give you drugs and completely dissociate yourself from everything you consider "I". I could give you a seizure and make "I" and everything dissolve away. So your "I" is nothing and can be easily taken away.
Go read the article provided by Dr. Ramachandran and you'll see how "I" falls apart all the time once you're brain is damaged...oops but that'll be too materialistic for your woo.

Try again:
How do you know you're conscious and not a p-zombie?

 

[HypnoPsi]

Toasters exist.

Yes....

Toasters are aware of its internal temperature and time.

No. Toasters are not aware of temperature or the passing of time at all. Toasters mechanically (in software or hardware) respond to signals. That's it. Nothing more. The core processor and software kernel in a toaster does not know what temperature and time are at all. It responds to nothing more than binary input.

Toasters are not like us at all. We have the ability to translate ones and zeros into the qualia of temperature and time. Computers do not have qualia. They are mechanically operated chinese rooms (as in John Searl's analogy) with nobody home.

Toasters are zombies.

Expensive toasters are able to determine the exact crispiness of the toast, the type of toast or if it is bagel, crossaint, the type of heat to use, the length of time to toast it. etc.

See above.

A toaster has sense data and is able to act upon it and even make judgements on it. Yes it is self-aware in a very limited sense but it has senses and abilities superior to yours.

This is absurd. It doesn't even have qualitative senses and abilities in the first place let alone ones that are superior to human beings.

~
HypnoPsi

 

[HypnoPsi]

Originally Posted by HypnoPsi
How on Earth is it an advancement for the world to think that toaster ovens (and now fridges) are conscious and self-aware?

~
HypnoPsi

To approach neurobiology as a field of science; mechanisticly and functionally view thereby gaining new knowledge on brain function and treatments for disease instead of relying on superstition, delusion and magic.

No. You are just deluding yourself by using a common language to describe both computation and cognition (subjective experience).

There is absolutely no reason at all to believe this works in either direction. Dennett, for example, can describe thermostat "behaviour" as "thinking" about 'too hot', 'too cold', and 'just right' all he wants. It simply doesn't make it true. Similarly, you can describe cognition in computational terms as much as you want without that making it true.

Why do you think it's true?

~
HypnoPsi

 

[paximperium]

This is absurd. It doesn't even have qualitative senses and abilities in the first place let alone ones that are superior to human beings.

So the qualia of anything has to be the same as humans to be considered consciousness on your part?

Do expand on this issue. Let me see how you define consciousness using your arbitrary moving goalpost.

 

[HypnoPsi]

It's like a 12th century peasant laughing at the concept of tiny little life forms causing disease.

No it is absolutely not like this in the slightest. We can see bacteria under a microscope. Computer consciousness is pure theory that requires blind faith.

The germ theory of disease (at least some diseases) is testable. Computer consciousness isn't.

~
HypnoPsi

 

[Z]

But how do you know that, HP? For all I know, you lack these qualitative senses, as well.

Unless you're claiming some new form of psi that lets you feel the senses of machines, I claim foul.

That a machine is as yet unable to express the fact that it has qualitative states is without a doubt. That a machine lacks qualitative states is deeply in doubt. After all, we're nothing more but software and hardware as well.

 

[articulett]

I think you are confusing "feelings" for consciousness. It is but one aspect of our consciousness. Feelings evolved because they are a good way to facilitate the survival and reproduction of the genes which code for such things.

They are not necessary or useful in a toaster. Neither is self-reflection. But these are just feedback loops-- not magic.

An infant doesn't think the words "too hot" or "too cold" either...

 

[articulett]

Feelings are part of our feedback loop--they provoke our actions and thoughts.

 

[Ichneumonwasp]

No. Toasters are not aware of temperature or the passing of time at all. Toasters mechanically (in software or hardware) respond to signals. That's it. Nothing more. The core processor and software kernel in a toaster does not know what temperature and time are at all. It responds to nothing more than binary input.


HypnoPsi

What do you mean by "aware"? What do you mean that toasters do not know what temperature and time are? What do you mean by "know"?

Without clear definitions there is no getting off the merry-go-round.

 

[paximperium]

No. You are just deluding yourself by using a common language to describe both computation and cognition (subjective experience).

There is absolutely no reason at all to believe this works in either direction. Dennett, for example, can describe thermostat "behaviour" as "thinking" about 'too hot', 'too cold', and 'just right' all he wants. It simply doesn't make it true. Similarly, you can describe cognition in computational terms as much as you want without that making it true.

Are you done deluding yourself by attacking a strawman? Be careful, it is quite flammable.

I never claimed that the study of the brain and computers are the same, I am saying that by removing all the useless magic dogmatic fantasy that you espouse from the study of the brain and consciousness, we have made more progress that your forebearer's "demons cause mental disorder" BS. Approaching the study of the brain as a materialistic organ has lead to more progress in this field of study in the last few years than all the dualistic garbage out there.

Why do you think it's true?

About what? Approaching brain science as a materialistic organ? Because it's been shown to be true by all the research out there. Consciousness is a product of brain function. Full stop. No god or magic there.

 

[HypnoPsi]

In order for something to qualify as an evolutionary explanation, all it has to do is have a demonstrable survival benefit under certain environmental conditions.

Why would some master program or other not suffice. Why do you think evolution would have to produce subjective awareness as a survival benefit?

To rephrase what I said before, consciousness in this sense is essentially a mental illusion or construct based on the centralization of sensory input from environmental stimuli.

Reframing nonsense does not make it any less nonsensical. A "menal illusion" to whom? And what for?

One of the brain's main functions is to process information. Damage parts of the brain and the consciousness suffers, as we see in lesion studies, Alzheimer's patients, and those suffering various mental illnesses. Cause enough damage and the consciousness shuts off, often irrevocibly.

Processing changes when you change the processor. That doesn't say anything about consciousness. The brain is like a TV set or radio for consciousness, that's all.

Can you give any examples of laws and information causing themselves to exist?

I assume this translates into your asking me to prove that matter causes itself to exist, which is an absurd request because it's based on the assumptions of your theistic model that do not translate into any other models.

No. You're just trying to avoid the question. However you choose to describe it, it the Universe is uncreated it is therefore self (or auto) sustaining (or perpetuting or generating or whatever).

You have yet to prove that consciousness is self-sustaining,

I have never claimed that consciousness is self-sustaining.

~
HypnoPsi

 

[Z]

Processing changes when you change the processor. That doesn't say anything about consciousness. The brain is like a TV set or radio for consciousness, that's all.

So what is it a brain is designed to receive? What is consciousness composed of, that it can be transmitted and received? And where is the transmitter? Is it possible to tune two or more brains into the same consciousness? Can consciousness be blocked by placing a brain into a lead case or some other barrier? Why is one consciousness generally associated with one brain, and no other whatsoever?

Unfortunately, the answers to these questions have been researched over the centuries, and the idea that 'the brain is a radio or tv for the consciousness' long ago tossed out by intelligent men.

Sadly, until you let go of your 'ghost in the system', your understanding of human intelligence and thought can go no farther.

 

[Ichneumonwasp]

Why would some master program or other not suffice. Why do you think evolution would have to produce subjective awareness as a survival benefit?




HypnoPsi

God, that's easy. Evolution is parsimonious -- remember that word -- arriving at the easiest solution based on previous solutions to problems. We need feelings and motivational states -- those bits that primarily comprise qualia -- because they provide the means to assign value. Without valuation, we have no reason to do one or another thing. Valuation has to show up somehow. What's wrong with emotional experience?

 

[HypnoPsi]

As I've said, I believe in the evidence for a low level of psi ability in humans and that some NDE accounts are genuine.

And all such evidence is behavioral. Try again.

Here is what wikipedia says about behavior. Do you disagree with this?

Behavior or behaviour (see spelling differences) refers to the actions or reactions of an object or organism, usually in relation to the environment.

That's fine about behaviour. Psi experience is subjective experience that may or may not alter behaviour somehow.

Can you give me even a single example of an aspect of your consciousness that is not behavioral? Just one?

Subjective experience is not behavioural. You're just playing with language again thinking that if you can define it in behavioural terms it becomes nothing more than behaviour and, subsequently, in short order, we're back to self-aware toaster ovens.

Here is a clue -- an "action" is not just a physical action. It is anything an organism could be said to do. Any verb at all.

And again, just because you can use the same language to describe two very different things does not make them equivalent.

What leads to them both being *almost* the same thing is the fact that nobody can provide a logically coherent reason for why they should be different other than identity. And identity is trivial.

No, it's not only about identity. It's about the subjective experiences the experiencer has.

Since consciousness perceives in terms of thought it it not more rational to assume that objective phenomena must somehow have the same fundamental basis?

I don't understand this statement.

We subjectively experience things qualitatively as things - not as one's and zeros. This is best explained by things themselves being qualitative in the first place.

Atheism only denies a theistic God. You know, the omniscient, omnibenevolent, eternal, outside of space and time, gray hair, hates fags and women, and kills firstborn children type?

I care nothing for this model of "God".

Just using computational language for cognition and computation is not enough.

Correct, except for the fact that there is zero evidence that consciousness is not computational.

If you disagree, feel free to give us an example. Just one example, HypnoPsi. Put your money where your mouth is.

You're belief that there is no evidence against consciousness being computational, even if we entertain the idea, does nothing to prove that it is computational. And, again, I have no intention of proving a negative. How does money come into this?

Again... and again... and again... how does this show that consciousness is not computational?

And again... and again... and again... I have no intention of proving a negative. NDE's are experiences while consciousness is separated from the brain. Either look up the evidence or don't. Just don't expect me to spoon feed it to you or hand-hold you through the process of interpreting it correctly.

~
HypnoPsi

 

[HypnoPsi]

I'm not saying there is no consciousness. I'm asking how you justify it, and how you determine whether something is conscious.

You're question to Malerin above is actually two questions; namely 'how does he know he is conscious' and 'how does he know others are conscious'. Why do you expect an answer that proves his experience of his consciousness (or other consciousnesses) to you when that, again, is yet another question altogether.

In particular, since a philosophical zombie would answer all the questions with the same answers, how do you know you're not a zombie? Zippie the Zombie thinks it's just as ludicrous to deny that he is conscious.

If zippie is conclusively known to be a zombie then zippie isn't conscious. How can something be both?

~
HypnoPsi

 

[HypnoPsi]

Really? Are you sure all your thoughts, memories and very existence are yours and not Bob the Dreamer?

Unparsimonious theorising. Pointless.

Do you have any evidence that OOBE's are anything more than products of a dysfunctional brain since we can reproduce these OOBE with chemicals?

Can these chemicals induce psi or allow OOBE'rs to return with information they could not have accumulated with their senses?

~
HypnoPsi

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

I'm torn between worndering here if you either just don't really understand what it means to construct a theory parsimoniously or if you just can accept the conclusion. It may be a bit of both...

Look, both theories are trying to find the missing piece of the puzzle ("why does the Universe exist?") Your atheistic solution to the missing piece is based upon something you've never encountered - either self-sustaining information or some self-sustaining substance. The theistic soloution is based on consciousness - something we have encountered.

The theistic solution is based on human consciousness that is transitory and temporary and certainly not sufficient for mainaining a consistent world. So you have to add god to the model, something you've never encountered.

Why don't we just agree that the world is self-sustaining and be done with it?

This is a baseless and futile accusation. The God theory almost certainly has it's basis in the sense of the Other (than Self) in consciousness.

What? Now there is a sense of the Other? Why can't it just be a sense of the other, without a capital letter?

I don't care what attributes you or anyone else insists God must be endowed with. That's solely a private hobby of yours as far as I'm concerned.

Oh for crying out loud. You're the one endowing him with attributes. Memory, for example.

I'll define "God" as and when further evidence becomes available. You want to play with possible definitions talk to Paul.

What the hell? Of course you've defined him. He creates and maintains the universe using memory he doesn't have. He splits consciousness into billions of individual ones. He is everlasting.

If all you say is "I use the word god for whatever it is that maintains the world," then we would have no disagreement. Of course, we would be saying exactly the same thing using different terminology.

~~ Paul

 

[Z]

Can these chemicals induce psi or allow OOBE'rs to return with information they could not have accumulated with their senses?

~
HypnoPsi

Since psi doesn't appear to exist, chemicals certainly can't induce it - any more than chemicals can induce magic or the ability to walk through walls.

As to the second part of your question - certainly. If a chemical reaction can induce the conditions that people call 'OOBE', obviously it induces all the same conditions. Besides - you should never underestimate the ability of one's senses to operate strangely under strange conditions.

That, and never underestimate just how horribly poor the controls were in these experiments...

 

[HypnoPsi]

My opinion is that your suggestion to funnel resources into NDE and medium research betrays your ulterior motives.

What ulterior motives??? I want to know more about it. What's ulterior in that?

You keep asserting that the only alternative to God-mind is "self-sustaining" or "uncreated." What, exactly, do those terms mean?

They mean exactly what they mean. That the atheist Universe inherently and without purpose provides for it's own capacity to exist.

Because according to materialism, every result must have a cause.

So, what causes the Universe to exist according to materialism then?

~
HypnoPsi