The Hard Problem of Gravity

yy2bggggs said:
This is wrong. Here are some things I can say about what it's like for me to see red:
  • It's closer to what it's like to see orange than what it's like to see blue.
  • It's more like what it's like to see blue than what it's like to hear middle C
  • It seems impossible to see red without extent and location
There are things we can say about experience. Just dissect them--break them up, and analyze them, and you'll see that experience is comprised of categorizations with aspects under which they are similar to other categorizations and aspects under which they differ.

In other words, experience is, in itself, a form of reasoning.
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All that can be told from something like this is that there were computations in your head that physically caused your fingers to type those sentences, so the problem remains.
 
BabyHeadedMan said:
All that can be told from something like this is that there were computations in your head that physically caused your fingers to type those sentences, so the problem remains.
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What? You don't believe we experience? Or did you severely misinterpret my post?

I quoted exactly what I was addressing too.

ETA: Consider this, BHM. You know the classic, "do you see red as I see blue", thing? Well, do you see red as you see blue?
 
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Mercutio said:
How, precisely, are we observing a cognitive process causing a behavior? At best, the cognitive process is part of the mechanism of the behavior, not the cause. How, not why.
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It's your preference if you want to look at the chain of events beginning with an outside stimulus or if you want to start with the cognitive process itself. Changing between the two perspectives would have no effect on what I've said so far.
 
yy2bggggs said:
What? You don't believe we experience? Or did you severely misinterpret my post?

I quoted exactly what I was addressing too.

ETA: Consider this, BHM. You know the classic, "do you see red as I see blue", thing? Well, do you see red as you see blue?
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I make the assumption that people experience and then do so in a particular way to keep from completely losing my mind, but from an epistemological point of view, I don't think anything can be shown about experience.

As for your question, any report a person makes can be explained without the concept of a sensation.
 
BabyHeadedMan said:
I make the assumption that people experience and then do so in a particular way to keep from completely losing my mind, but from an epistemological point of view, I don't think anything can be shown about experience.
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The question remains. Do you see red as you see blue?

Forget me experiencing, and typing things on my keyboard, and focus only on you. I'm going to show that either you're dishonest, or you can say something about experience.
 
yy2bggggs said:
The question remains. Do you see red as you see blue?

Forget me experiencing, and typing things on my keyboard, and focus only on you. I'm going to show that either you're dishonest, or you can say something about experience.
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I would have to answer "no" to your question, but I could then explain my answer in the way I explained yours.
 
BabyHeadedMan said:
What can I say other than that reality is quite a strange place?
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Assuming it exists at all. The problem I have is that your position is a non-starter. There are no axioms or first principles. Only recursive doubt of everything. The position seems at best pointless. It's like a solipsist starting a club. To what end?

"Nihilists! **** me. I mean, say what you like about the tenets of National Socialism, Dude, at least it's an ethos." --Walter Sobchak, The Big Lebowski.
 
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BabyHeadedMan said:
It's your preference if you want to look at the chain of events beginning with an outside stimulus or if you want to start with the cognitive process itself. Changing between the two perspectives would have no effect on what I've said so far.
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Actually, it makes a huge difference; your view essentially posits the self as a prime mover, rather than an effect. As an explanation, it's a bit like assuming the cue ball moves on its own toward the other balls, rather than recognizing the existence of the cue.
 
Mercutio said:
Actually, it makes a huge difference; your view essentially posits the self as a prime mover, rather than an effect. As an explanation, it's a bit like assuming the cue ball moves on its own toward the other balls, rather than recognizing the existence of the cue.
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I never claimed cognitive processes spontaneously arise from nothing.
 
BabyHeadedMan said:
Well, that's the HPC for you.
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No it's not. The HPC is about accounting for a particular aspect of experience, not proving that we experience at all.

In fact, I don't believe the HPC has been discussed in this thread. (A lot of people used those letters, but they weren't talking about the same thing Chalmers was talking about).

See hard problem of consciousnessWP, or here, and please don't drag me into that discussion. I'm more interested in what we can say.
 
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yy2bggggs said:
The literal difference is that you don't need a die to select. The figurative difference is that not all selection (e.g., natural selection--and yes, that's bona fide selection) is random.
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Yes. And what would you call the thing that isn't random?

Because I call it an algorithm.

Can't just call something a "selection" and have done with it.

Note that rolling a 30^8000 sided die is an algorithm.
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No, it is not. You can't algorithmically produce randomness.
 
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cyborg said:
No, it is not. You can't algorithmically produce randomness.
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Sure you can. Random.org uses an algorithm to generate random numbers. You can also use an algorithm to generate passwords. The best such algorithms not only rely on randomness, but rely on them in such a way that each symbol's probability of being selected is the same. This is possible because we live in a universe where true randomness manifests (assuming QM is true).

But what does calling non-random selection an algorithm have to do with anything? It's still selection. Also, are you suggesting that creation or choice is random? Or non-algorithmic?
 
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yy2bggggs said:
The best such algorithms not only rely on randomness, but rely on them in such a way that each symbol's probability of being selected is the same.
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That's news to me, and I've got to say it's news to John Allen Paulos. Someone should let him know (an appeal to authority I confess but it's a good one).

Pseudo-Random vs True Random (um, not John Allen Paulos but coincedently has the name Allen as a last name. go figure).

Once upon a time I stumbled across Random.org, an awesome true random number generation service. The difference between true random number generators (TRNGs) and pseudo-random number generators (PRNGs) is that TRNGs use an unpredictable physical means to generate numbers (like atmospheric noise), and PRNGs use mathematical algorithms (completely computer-generated). You can read more about this at Random.org and Wikipedia.

Bottom line, algorythims are not TRNGS.
 
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yy2bggggs said:
No it's not. The HPC is about accounting for a particular aspect of experience, not proving that we experience at all.

In fact, I don't believe the HPC has been discussed in this thread. (A lot of people used those letters, but they weren't talking about the same thing Chalmers was talking about).
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On the contrary I definitely had Chalmers in mind when I asked:
robin said:
Can you show me where the hard problem of consciousness has been defined rigorously, rather than just vague "why is there a what it is like to be me?" questions or "it seems objectively unreasonable that consciousness can arise from physical processing"?
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The last part were almost exactly Chalmer's words. I have read much of Chalmer's words on this and I am still no closer to knowing that the HPC might be.
 
Robin said:
The last part were almost exactly Chalmer's words. I have read much of Chalmer's words on this and I am still no closer to knowing that the HPC might be.
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The reason you are having trouble finding a coherent definition of HPC is that there isn't one.

From the Wikipedia article on Chalmers:
Chalmers argues that consciousness is a set of emergent, higher-level properties that arise from, but are ontologically autonomous of, the physical properties of the brains of organisms.
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Which is self-contradictory. And, regarding p-zombies,
He argues that since such zombies are conceivable to us, they must therefore be logically possible.
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Which is the usual nonsense.
 
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