A question for scientists: Primary and Secondary qualities

[Stimpson J. Cat]

Ian,

Stimpy, it seems from your posts that you agree that consciousness is not an illusion ie emotions etc really truly exist. What you seem to be denying is that although awareness, thought, memory, perception, and emotions and so forth do exist, they are not had by any self so to speak. The sensory perception of "X", the thought of "X", the subsequently induced emotions about "X", do not belong to a self but rather they are "free floating" existents without an author. Would this be a correct characterisation of your position?

No, that is not what I am saying. They are "had" by a "self". That "self" just is not what we intuitively imagine it to be. The thing which is aware, which thinks, which remembers, which perceives, and which has emotions, is the brain.

There is no self independent of the brain. Our intuitive preconception that there is, is simply wrong. There is no awareness, thought, etc... independent of the brain. Those things are all brain processes. They are things the brain does.

I don't see how this position could be any more clear. You may not agree with it, but I do not see how you could possibly misinterpret it.


Dr. Stupid

 

[Dancing David]

Ian stated in response to Option One:

"If we do not have a self, or if we have a self which is in a continous state of change or flux, then we cannot say we are the same self as we were when we were 7 years old, or the same self as when we're drunk, or the same self when we are in a good mood as opposed to a bad mood. Indeed, from one moment to the next the self changes. But this means that what we think of as an enduring self, is simply a sequence of differing selfs, with each self ceasing to be and another self springing into being from one moment to the next. This then has the consequence that planning for the future has no purpose since it will not be literally you that will benefit from carefully laid out plans made now, but rather a differing self, indeed a self which might differ in quite a marked way from your current self. If you deny this then you're still thinking in terms of an enduring continuous inner self which crucially makes you you. But this option you have already denied. Now although I cannot logically refute this position it nevertheless is an absolutely extraordinary position to hold."
------------------------
This is the position that some materialists hold, the buddha elborated it quite well.

There is no eternal self, there is no self,
there is the body: it is most likely to be confused with the self, but except for memory , we are not the self that we were when we were seven. But the body is fluid, the atoms and molecules which make it change over at a counter intuitive rate. it is mush like the river that we can not step in twice.

As to wether the future has a purpos, it never has except in living life, there is no purpose at all. We take care of our future 'self' because it is wise, and this entity which holds our consiousness benifit from it.

But the self does not exist, it's constituent parts exist for a fleeting time, but the self is an illusion. the material world is real, the self is an illusion.

 

[Dancing David]

Re: Re: Re: Direct subjective experience does not equal direct external perception

Please, what has demonstrated consciousness for you other than the fact *you* think?

I believe and think that test coulkd be devised to show that dogs and cats and rats and even some very primative life forms are consious.
I believe that do to the cahanging nature of your posts Hamme, that you are consiuos and not a Turing machine.




Yup, screw with what *you* & *I* perceive as the machinery, and odd things are perceived next. What makes you have faith that *you* changed?
I think you might misunderstand my train of thought, I said that consiousness is oraganic because organicity has an effect on it.

 

[69dodge]

Originally posted by Interesting Ian
In other words can physical facts (ie that which any observer could potentially verify) somehow logically necessitate conscious experiences? Would you say for example that the relationship of consciousness to matter is rather like one of water to H2O?

Why do you require logical necessitation?

The chemical formula H₂O doesn't logically necessitate wetness, or a density of 1 kg/L, or any of water's other properties, unless the laws of quantum mechanics are taken as a given. But those laws are not mathematical theorems; they are merely a description of how the world is observed to behave.

Similarly, if things with brains are conscious, and things without brains aren't, then that's just the way the world works. By experimentally investigating the details of the relationship between brain processes and conscious experiences, we will end up with a better understanding of the fundamental nature of consciousness, I think, than if we initially take as our goal the achievement of such an understanding, especially since it might then appear that the goal is achievable simply by thinking hard about the issue. I doubt it can be achieved that way.

 

[Loki]

Ian,

(Paul wrote) : Did you see my question up above? Can you make a list of what goes on in my mind that a p-zombie would lack? I don't think you can. That's what I mean when I say that qualia are brain processes.

Can you answer this question, Ian? Can a PZombie say "Of course I have qualia - what, do you think I'm some sort of PZombie!"? Can a PZombie say "I remember my last restaurant meal - I loved it."?

 

[hammegk]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Direct subjective experience does not equal direct external perception

I believe and think that test coulkd be devised to show that dogs and cats and rats and even some very primative life forms are consious.

Er, yes: me too. What does that have to do with our discussion?

We had a poster here who had faith that consciousness begins at the graviton level. I have no data pro or con on that idea.

I believe that do to the cahanging nature of your posts Hamme, that you are consiuos and not a Turing machine.

I'm very certain I'm conscious (or to stop the quibbling on this point, "something" is, and *thinks*) -- it's the only fact I have actual first-person knowledge of -- but it's deciding whether everyone else is conscious; that's my concern. I base my worldview on the faith that *you* think, as *I* do (and as do all of us).

 

[Dancing David]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Direct subjective experience does not equal direct external perception

Er, yes: me too. What does that have to do with our discussion?

that there could be a test defined to delineate consiousness, which some have claimed could never be done, I think that a series of conditions could be met that would determine that consiousness is likely.


We had a poster here who had faith that consciousness begins at the graviton level. I have no data pro or con on that idea.

I suppose that the boy gravitons can tell themselves apart from the girl gravitons, but what about the gay gravitons.



I'm very certain I'm conscious (or to stop the quibbling on this point, "something" is, and *thinks*) -- it's the only fact I have actual first-person knowledge of -- but it's deciding whether everyone else is conscious; that's my concern. I base my worldview on the faith that *you* think, as *I* do (and as do all of us).

So in priciple we could devise a test for it, which I know Ian has disagreed with in the past.
Which brings us back to another thread, what characteristics define consiousness?
[/B]

 

[Suggestologist]

Originally posted by Suggestologist


S: Well, can you hear a voice in your head that has no external correlate? I certainly can. Most people can. I don't need to alter my brain chemistry to do it.

DD: Ah, this is where I claim that there are already useful words in the lexicon, that can add clarity to the discussion, first off, when someone living with schizophrenia hears a voice that others do not, they hear it as though it is external. That is the useful definition of hallucination, as applied to someone living with schizophrenia.

DD: It might add clarity and be more useful to resort to cognitive language when refering to the sensation of 'hear a voice in your head that has no external correlate'. When you make reference to this it could be many defined cognitive processes, such as thought, or memory.

But I submit that the particular responsible underlying process makes no difference to the resulting hallucination; -- it only makes a difference to the context or connotation through which the person sees/senses the hallucination.

S: No, it has a definition in that context. But other contexts use the same term.

DD: definitly agreed, but there is a wealth of defining language which can be used to clarify what people mean on this board. Often the argument revolve around the semantic interpretation of words and certain parties insistance that only they know the meaning of said words. Which does not apply tou you. Just background to why I suggest that we use the already existing language to extend clarity of communication.

S: Using alternate language would not make the point I'm making: that hallucination happens all the time. The only difference comes from context cues. If you heard the same voice in your head that you usually do when you talk to yourself; but attributed that voice to someone other than yourself -- then you would call that a hallucination. But the essence of the hallucination has not changed at all between the two situations. You always hallucinated the voice, you merely changed that attribution to create what YOU would call a "hallucination".

DD: And this is where that I feel clarifying language is useful because there is a wide variety of experience that can be discussed and clafied using conventional cognitive referent language.

DD: To make something clear: in mental illness or brain disorders, there is not a mistaken attribution of the thoughts as being external to the self. There is an actual experience of the vioce as 'heard' external to the body.

Well, I disagree. Since I prefer to give someone the experience, rather than (or in addition to) the explanation, could you please conscientiously perform the following introspective experiment: Closing your eyes may help. 1) Say something to yourself in your mind; and notice where the voice seems to come from. It seems to come from the middle of your head (for most people). 2) Move the voice to your left shoulder; and say something to yourself with the voice seemingly coming from your left shoulder. How does that feel different? 3) Move the voice to just behind your right ear; say something to yourself with the voice seemingly coming from that position. How does that feel different? 4) Move the voice to just an inch above the very top of your head. Say something to yourself with the voice seemingly coming from that position. How does that feel different?

S: If I refer to the 'voice' I hear in my head when I think then I would refer to that as thinking. For clarities sake.

Are you saying that you can't think nonverbally in pictures, at times? Many people can.

DD: I agree that there is a great amount of perceptual experience that is taken from cognitive clue and settings. I in fact hold the belief that our brain manufacters most of the 'irreducable qualie' that certain people are so beloved of. They don't exist, our whole sensorium is an interpretation of the receptor signal, there is no dirct perception.

Yah, whatever. Do the introspective experiment and report your results. Take only as much time as you think you need to fully understand what you think I'd like you to understand from that experiment.

 

[Interesting Ian]

Ian,


Can you answer this question, Ian? Can a PZombie say "Of course I have qualia - what, do you think I'm some sort of PZombie!"? Can a PZombie say "I remember my last restaurant meal - I loved it."?

Yes a p-zombie can say it. But of course they don't have qualia since there is nothing more to them than their behaviour.

 

[Interesting Ian]

In other words can physical facts (ie that which any observer could potentially verify) somehow logically necessitate conscious experiences? Would you say for example that the relationship of consciousness to matter is rather like one of water to H2O?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Why do you require logical necessitation?

Because otherwise it is not reductive materialism.

The chemical formula H2O doesn't logically necessitate wetness, or a density of 1 kg/L, or any of water's other properties, unless the laws of quantum mechanics are taken as a given. But those laws are not mathematical theorems; they are merely a description of how the world is observed to behave.

Similarly, if things with brains are conscious, and things without brains aren't, then that's just the way the world works.

Be more precise. Are you defending reductive materialism?, epiphenomenalism? What?

 

[Interesting Ian]

Ian, could you make a list of the things that go on in my mind now that wouldn't go on if I were a p-zombie? ~~ Paul

Everything. P-zombies are not conscious.

 

[Suggestologist]

Everything. P-zombies are not conscious.

I know I must seem ignorant, but what is a P-Zombie?

 

[Interesting Ian]

I know I must seem ignorant, but what is a P-Zombie?

Short for philosophical zombie.

The `zombie problem' is the problem of consciousness, stated in a particularly provocative way. Given _any_ functional description of cognition, as detailed and complete as one can imagine, it will still make sense to suppose that there could be insentient beings that exemplify that description. That is, it is possible that there could be a behaviourally indiscernible but insentient simulacrum of a human cognizer: a zombie.
http://www.rpi.edu/~brings/moody.zombies.html

Speaking for myself I do not necessarily agree that p-zombies are possible, and even if there were we could distinguish them from normal human beings by anomalous cognition.

 

[Mercutio]

Yes a p-zombie can say it. But of course they don't have qualia since there is nothing more to them than their behaviour.

Thanks, Ian, for this clarification. I'm sorry, but I must ask for one more (sorry, I'm an experimental psychologist, so these are specific terms for me)...do you mean "behavior" to follow, say, Watson's definition--anything objectively observable (close enough, anyway, for this thread), or Skinner's definition--anything you do, public or private? By Skinner's definition, behavior includes thinking, seeing, hearing, remembering, feeling...all the "things" we do, whether publicly observable or only privately observable (that is, even in principal no spy could observe this behavior--thus he includes thinking, remembering, seeing, etc.)

The currently accepted definition of behavior would be Skinner's, or some molar extrapolation of it (depending on your learning theorist)--thus, if there is nothing more to a p-zombie than their behavior, fine, but that behavior includes seeing red and remembering a restaurant meal, as well as saying that they do so. Is this the definition of behavior you are using in your p-zombie clarification? (how odd that even such an intuitively obvious word like "behavior" has more than one definition, even among behavioral scientists...)

edited to add...(BTW, I see your commentary on your belief in the possibility of p-zombies--this post is honestly looking for a clarification, and not intended as any sort of trick. I am not trying to say that you are the one believing in p-zombies or whatever...)

 

[Interesting Ian]

Thanks, Ian, for this clarification. I'm sorry, but I must ask for one more (sorry, I'm an experimental psychologist, so these are specific terms for me)...do you mean "behavior" to follow, say, Watson's definition--anything objectively observable (close enough, anyway, for this thread), or Skinner's definition--anything you do, public or private? By Skinner's definition, behavior includes thinking, seeing, hearing, remembering, feeling...all the "things" we do, whether publicly observable or only privately observable (that is, even in principal no spy could observe this behavior--thus he includes thinking, remembering, seeing, etc.)

All behaviour whatsoever. A p-zombie is functionally equivalent to his real person twin. He will say he experiences red, that he has memories, that he is very angry and frustrated that I think he's merely a p-zombie, and will act accordingly. And if we could measure the activity in his brain when apparently he feels angry and frustrated, we would see the same activity as we would do if we were to measure the activity in the brain of his real person twin when he is feeling angry and frustrated. He is in everyway identical to a normal person except s/he does not have phenomenal conscious experiences. Not any whatsoever. There's nothing inside, nothing at home.

 

[Mercutio]

Thanks, Ian.

BTW, did you see the reference to the Calkins paper a while back? Could you find it? If not, are you interested? (I may be wrong, but I really think you'd love it--I just only want to go through the hassle of posting it somewhere if I really need to.)


edited to add...ok, that probably should have been a PM. sorry, all.

 

[Mercutio]

All behaviour whatsoever. A p-zombie is functionally equivalent to his real person twin. He will say he experiences red, that he has memories, that he is very angry and frustrated that I think he's merely a p-zombie, and will act accordingly. And if we could measure the activity in his brain when apparently he feels angry and frustrated, we would see the same activity as we would do if we were to measure the activity in the brain of his real person twin when he is feeling angry and frustrated. He is in everyway identical to a normal person except s/he does not have phenomenal conscious experiences. Not any whatsoever. There's nothing inside, nothing at home.

Cr@p, sorry, one last thing (I hope just one last thing). You use the phrase "he will say that he experiences red" rather than "he experiences red". Skinner would include "seeing (or experiencing) red" as a behavior. (again, Watson would probably not, but that is irrelevant.) You say the brain activity is the same--I suppose that is useful to know, but oddly enough Skinner wouldn't care, since that is no more behavior than your height is (again, by his definition). Do you make--sorry, does the concept of p-zombie make a distinction between simply saying something (which is public behavior) and feeling frustration, or seeing red, which are private behaviors (not subjective, in Skinner's view, but merely private--long story, but a very meaningful distinction). Sorry to lean on you for this, but I'm considering using this example in my class, and I want to be sure to get it right. I know Skinner, but I don't know p-zombies.

edited to add...I know the p-zombie is a philosophical construct...but is it meant to be known only from outside, so that we simply cannot know its private experience, or do we define it with full knowledge from both external and its own perspective?

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Ian said:

Yes a p-zombie can say it. But of course they don't have qualia since there is nothing more to them than their behaviour.

So what is redness like to a p-zombie?

Everything. P-zombies are not conscious.

Ian, come on man. I asked "Could you make a list of the things that go on in my mind now that wouldn't go on if I were a p-zombie?" Because your definition of "mind" is so loaded, you interpret my question in your context and say that nothing would go on in my Ian-definition-of-mind. How about I reword the question:

Could you make a list of the things that go on in my brain/mind/head that wouldn't go on if I were a p-zombie?

He is in everyway identical to a normal person except s/he does not have phenomenal conscious experiences. Not any whatsoever. There's nothing inside, nothing at home.

Give us an example of a "phenomenal conscious experience" that the p-zombie doesn't have.

~~ Paul

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Ian said:

Speaking for myself I do not necessarily agree that p-zombies are possible, and even if there were we could distinguish them from normal human beings by anomalous cognition.

Oh, so if I put five people on beds behind screens, one of whom is brain-dead but alive, could you tell which one?

Hold on just a durn minute! Are you saying after all these months of discussing consciousness, that the only way to detect your brand of it is through telepathy?

~~ Paul

 

[Interesting Ian]

Cr@p, sorry, one last thing (I hope just one last thing). You use the phrase "he will say that he experiences red" rather than "he experiences red". Skinner would include "seeing (or experiencing) red" as a behavior. (again, Watson would probably not, but that is irrelevant.) You say the brain activity is the same--I suppose that is useful to know, but oddly enough Skinner wouldn't care, since that is no more behavior than your height is (again, by his definition). Do you make--sorry, does the concept of p-zombie make a distinction between simply saying something (which is public behavior) and feeling frustration, or seeing red, which are private behaviors (not subjective, in Skinner's view, but merely private--long story, but a very meaningful distinction). Sorry to lean on you for this, but I'm considering using this example in my class, and I want to be sure to get it right. I know Skinner, but I don't know p-zombies.

edited to add...I know the p-zombie is a philosophical construct...but is it meant to be known only from outside, so that we simply cannot know its private experience, or do we define it with full knowledge from both external and its own perspective?

Mercutio,

I know very little about p-zombies, but I've just read that essay I linked to before, and it is brilliant!. It should answer all your questions.

Read it http://www.rpi.edu/~brings/moody.zombies.html