My take on why indeed the study of consciousness may not be as simple

[Robin]

So I looked, and it still confuses me, the p-zombie if poked with a stick feels no pain, but says "Ouch" but if it has no qualia, it can't see the stick or tell it was poked with a stick, so either qualia are defined as something other than perceptions or I am tottaly confused.

But can't you at least see a distinction between a perception and a quale?

If I build a robot with a camera on it and a touch sensitive body then it might recognise colours and shapes and even go "ouch" when I poke it with a stick.

I was thinking along these lines
"A behavioral zombie is behaviorally indistinguishable from a human and yet has no conscious experience."

Basically the poor old p-zombie changes to fit the argument at hand.

Sometimes he is physically and behaviourally identical to a human and sometimes not.

Sometimes he has no conscious states and sometimes has different conscious states to the associated non-zombie.

They are swapped in and out to suit the argument.

And by Chalmers explicit definition of "conceivable" it is not enough that we can conceive someone is a p-zombie.

We have to imagine a coherent situation in which we could conclude that our conscious looking neighbor is a zombie.

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

But if I read and understood your post and the information for all of it scattered in unconnected devices - how did I understand the whole thing?

Remember, no one device has sufficient information for even an instant of consciousness.

Right, which is why I say that it is the overall sequence that represents consciousness, not any individual probe. The overall behavior is conscious behavior, not the data in any individual probe. The overall sequence of horses shows running-ness, not any individual horse.

You can read my post by scanning the disjoint post-probes in the appropriate order. No one post-probe is sufficient for you to be able to understand the post.

~~ Paul

 

[AkuManiMani]

If by "superfluous" you mean "grammatically redundant", then sure. This does change the fact that humans still have no knowledge of how to generate it.

You say this as if there is something to generate rather than something you can't prevent happening.

I say this because there a physical requisites to conscious experience that must be satisfied in order to bring it about. Unless you mean to imply that conscious experience is universal

 

[Robin]

I notice you didn't counter what I said. Derision can be fun, but it doesn't mean a thing. So...

1. P-Zombies are incoherent.
2. If I were a P-Zombie, you couldn't tell the difference.

So why should you accept 3, namely that _I_ could tell the difference if I were a P-zombie ?

If I were a p-zombie in denial, I would think I have consciousness but really would not.

Therefore consciousness would be something I don't have.

Therefore consciousness would be something that I know nothing about whatsoever, it would be irrelevant if it was even anything at all.

So if I am a p-zombie in denial then I have this - what I am seeing, hearing, touching etc - this apparently qualititative experience.

So that is what I am calling consciousness. Maybe "real" consciousness is this other unrelated unknowable thing, but what I call consciousness is this experience that I think is consciousness.

By the way, do you have chtuich?

 

[Robin]

Right, which is why I say that it is the overall sequence that represents consciousness, not any individual probe. The overall behavior is conscious behavior, not the data in any individual probe. The overall sequence of horses shows running-ness, not any individual horse.

You can read my post by scanning the disjoint post-probes in the appropriate order. No one post-probe is sufficient for you to be able to understand the post.

~~ Paul

But how could there be an overall experience if they are unconnected?

How could I scan the disjoint post-probes if I could only ever see one of them? Because if I am "seeing" one of them then I am by definition unable to "see" any of the others. There is no information pathway. Even if they are not light years apart.

It would be fine if they were connected - but they are not.

So how does the overall experience come together?

If there was a sequence of horses but you could only see one of them then there would be no runningness.

If every horse in the array were kept in isolation from any other horse in the array then where would the runningness be?

By the way, do you have chtuich?

 

[PixyMisa]

But can't you at least see a distinction between a perception and a quale?

Yeah, qualia are magic and don't exist, while perceptions are physical processes.

If I build a robot with a camera on it and a touch sensitive body then it might recognise colours and shapes and even go "ouch" when I poke it with a stick.

Yes. Which is just what humans do.

Basically the poor old p-zombie changes to fit the argument at hand.

Yeah, agreed. The argument makes no sense from the get-go, so whoever is trying to use it has to keep changing it to try to duck the problems.

 

[cyborg]

I say this because there a physical requisites to conscious experience that must be satisfied in order to bring it about.

Yes - you must be doing the computational things that conscious beings do.

Unless you mean to imply that conscious experience is universal

No - I can't be much clearer: doing is being. Not everything is "doing" "concious" so not everything is "being" "concious".

 

[PixyMisa]

But how could there be an overall experience if they are unconnected?

Very simple: You put it there.

 

[Dancing David]

This is the problem if you call experience behaviour.

No it is just a different usage, now the terms of behaviorism are inconsistent but applicable. Skinner said interanl events/behaviors are redundant to the study of psychology but other behaviorists disagree.

Now the issue is one of usage again, a behaviorist would say that breathing is a behavior as is the heart beating. In that "that is the way the heart behaves" and so it goes on down the line, "that is the way the calcium channel of the neural membrane behaves", "that is the way the potasium ion behaves' and so on.

Now this is confusing because it goes and takes a perfectly good muddled concept of behavior which commonly involves the usage of volition or intent and adds the other part of 'behave' back into it.

So in the sense of 'experience seems to be the result of the actions of the neural, sensory, perceptive pathways of an organism', there is not always the implied volition or intent but the experience under that usage is the way that the neural, sensory, perceptive pathways of an organism behaves.

But I did not realize that the term p-zombie specifically excludes internal behaviors of perception. Which again still begs the question, how does the zombie know you poked it with a stick, or how does it respond?

 

[AkuManiMani]

Unless you can explain why this is just more of your basic, "this is how it feels," assertions.

I'm having a hard time fathoming how some of you can write of your own experience as "superfluous" and "assertions" when thats the very subject of this discussion. The capacity to experience some as some subjective quality is what it means to be conscious and is the fundamental basis of empiricism. Without conscious experience there would be no science.

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Of course, if when we reassemble the components, they're not in sync, your mind ends up scrambled. Best not to do that.

But if there is a resynchronization mechanism, then it's just a short seizure. Not too bad.

~~ Paul

 

[Robin]

Very simple: You put it there.

How could I access the overall experience in the first place if there is no connection between any two devices? What mechanism would I use to "put" it and where would I put it?

 

[cyborg]

The capacity to experience some as some subjective quality is what it means to be conscious

No, it isn't.

The question of "why is red like red and not like loud?" doesn't come into conciousness.

If the subjective quality was completely different but the behaviour the same would that have any bearing on the consciousness question?

If I see red as blue but behave like you behave to red?

If I hear red as loud but behave like you behave to red?

If I feel red as hot but behave like you behave to red?

What relevance is the quale to this question?

 

[AkuManiMani]

Yes - you must be doing the computational things that conscious beings do.

What is the difference between the "computational things" conscious beings do and the "computational things" unconscious things do?

No - I can't be much clearer: doing is being. Not everything is "doing" "concious" so not everything is "being" "concious".

Again, what distinguishes between being and not being conscious, cyborg?

 

[Robin]

Yeah, qualia are magic and don't exist, while perceptions are physical processes.

Qualia are not magic and they don't exist, but they do happen. They are descriptive of our observations.

 

[Dancing David]

But my consciousness might have started right now if I am a simulation.

Well , if you are just an agglomeration of organic stuff in states of transition and flux it seems likely that that is the fact of consciousness, each event of consciousness is discrete in most ways and the illsuion of continuity is provided by memory and conditioning. I know I am not the same me I was a minute ago but I sure feel that I am the same me.

 

[cyborg]

What is the difference between the "computational things" conscious beings do and the "computational things" unconscious things do?

I don't know - I guess there is no difference between Microsoft Windows kernel and Microsoft Word. They are both computational so obviously exactly the same sort of thing.

Again, what distinguishes between being and not being conscious, cyborg?

Doing or not doing consciousness.

 

[Robin]

Of course, if when we reassemble the components, they're not in sync, your mind ends up scrambled. Best not to do that.

Yes, there would be no problem if we assembled the components. But you are simply changing the thought experiment.

They are unassembled, scattered, there is no communication or connection between any two devices.

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

But how could there be an overall experience if they are unconnected?

The experience is the sequence of steps.

How could I scan the disjoint post-probes if I could only ever see one of them? Because if I am "seeing" one of them then I am by definition unable to "see" any of the others. There is no information pathway. Even if they are not light years apart.

It would be fine if they were connected - but they are not.

So how does the overall experience come together?

It doesn't; it's spread throughout the universe. The coherency of the experience is guaranteed by the fact that each probe has all the inputs it needs from the previous step.

If there was a sequence of horses but you could only see one of them then there would be no runningness.

If every horse in the array were kept in isolation from any other horse in the array then where would the runningness be?

I'm not entirely convinced that the array of horses does have running-ness. But supposing it does, then the running-ness is spread throughout the array of horses no matter where they are. It doesn't matter that an outside observer can't see them all together.

By the way, do you have chtuich?

Google fails me.

~~ Paul

 

[AkuManiMani]

Yeah, qualia are magic and don't exist, while perceptions are physical processes.

While self-referential processes are magic AND they exist!