I challenge you: your best alternate to materialism

[MRC_Hans]

This is different to a discussion of primary knowledge. The problem with primary knowledge(if it is a problem) is that all else is secondary to it. So it cannot be reduced into secondary terms. This is presumably the reason why there is this whole issue of a dichotomy between materialism and idealism.

Please define 'primary knowledge'. Specify how it is qualitatively different from other knowledge.

Hans

 

[MRC_Hans]

. . . and now we know that that claim would be false . . . and how do we know that the claim is false?

We know it is false, and we knew it quite some time before Kittyhawk, because we could identify the basic requirements for flight, and could find none that required any property specific for living organisms.

Hans

 

[LarryS]

let's detail the requirements for consciousness - What's the hold up?

 

[punshhh]

Still noting evidence of the bolded part (bolding by me).
Other than speculation the evidence for 'spiritual world, or God like beings' is what?
Thanks

Anecdotal.

This is no reason to dismiss it, it's not as if it's consideration cannot be afforded.

There is an intellectual route, but the logic can't get you any further than a maybe.

 

[punshhh]

That's one claim.

You'll have to be more specific, I still can't see one.

Why only "perhaps" plants?
You are suggesting that having a "personal experience of being" does not require a thinking brain, so why are you unsure about plants?

I don't have proof of it.

Can you please identify for me any aspect or your "personal experience of being" which does not require your thinking brain?

As humans live so much via their brains, it's difficult to tease out what is not experienced via the brain. You only have to consider what we have in common with our primitive ancestors, who had barely developed brains.

I predict you will ignore the question, or not provide any direct answer.

When have I not answered a question?

Again, "experiences just like us". Please enumerate what experiences you have which do not require your thinking brain. I suspect that you cannot name a single one.

Have you ever had a fright where your hair stood on end? Like seeing a ghost?

I cannot think of any experience you have which does not require your sense organs and your cerebral circuits. Please identify something you experience which you believe does not involve your brain.

Again, humans utilise their brains so much they probably don't experience an discernible experience via any other route. I was talking of life forms in which a brain is barely developed. Are you saying that these beings have no experience of existing?

Because all of a human's experience does require the sensory organs and brain, we consequently have NO knowledge of what your term "experience it physically" could be, whether it exists, or whether instead you have simply made it up. This is the bare assertion without evidence you are making.

As I said our highly developed brains are a recent evolutionary development. Are all life forms which don't have such a brain Zombies, automata?

If you are unable to identify an aspect of human experience which is is not based on the activity of the human brain, then your CLAIM that that there is some "experience" not based on brain function is BARE ASSERTION (as pointed out by MRC Hans).

It is a consideration, do you not consider such things, things indicated in the empirical data?

 

[punshhh]

Please define 'primary knowledge'. Specify how it is qualitatively different from other knowledge.

Primary knowledge is something in our experience which cannot be doubted.
All other knowledge may be illusory or distorted.

By the way, I will be absent for 10 days due to a holiday. "See" you when I get back.

 

[Dancing David]

Anecdotal.

This is no reason to dismiss it, it's not as if it's consideration cannot be afforded.

There is an intellectual route, but the logic can't get you any further than a maybe.

Nope, anecdotes are not evidence of spiritual beings.

They may be evidence of hallucinations and other things, so where is the evidence?

 

[MuDPhuD]

You'll have to be more specific, I still can't see one.





I don't have proof of it.



As humans live so much via their brains, it's difficult to tease out what is not experienced via the brain. You only have to consider what we have in common with our primitive ancestors, who had barely developed brains.

When have I not answered a question?





Have you ever had a fright where your hair stood on end? Like seeing a ghost?

"Fright" is fear, which is an emotional response of the brain. It does involve your cerebrum interpreting (misinterpreting in the case of a ghost) sensory input and generating a motor response. You experience "being afraid" because of the involvement of your cerebrum, and it generates a variety of autonomic responses.
You are then aware of the prickling skin, pounding heart, and wet seat of your pants, all through the action of your sensory organs and interpretation by your cerebrum.

I believe you are attempting to argue that an autonomic reflex is itself an "experience" which, say, a scallop could have. Disturb the mollusk and it will activate it's siphon pump and "swim away". The scallop has no episodic memory, no cerebral processing, no central nervous system, in fact. It's nervous system consists of sensory organs, ganglia, and motor outputs which have been proven to function as a system by evolutionary survival. It reacts in a functional way but has no "experience". Unless you want to argue that a rock also has experience?

Again, humans utilise their brains so much they probably don't experience an discernible experience via any other route. I was talking of life forms in which a brain is barely developed. Are you saying that these beings have no experience of existing?

As I said our highly developed brains are a recent evolutionary development. Are all life forms which don't have such a brain Zombies, automata?

So you agree that you, as a human, have no basis to say that an organism such as a scallop has any "experience" at all. The very concept of experience itself implies some memory function.

My own experience as a human (and yours as well I believe) actually gives evidence that even life forms with a brain (myself) do not actually have any "experience" outside of my own conscious awareness. If I drive my car home along a well known route, while I am engaged in some distracting thought process ( that is, my conscious awareness is not focused directly on driving), when I arrive home I may have no memory of actually driving home at all. It is as if I (my conscious awareness) was not even present while my brain and it's sensory organs and motor appendages drove the car to its destination. I know this is not a unique experience to me, because almost everyone has had similar experiences. Actually as I get older I find that short stretches of time occur, where I know my brain and body was present and active, but I have no idea, for example, how the car keys got into that place where I found them. This is also a universal occurrence in humans my age.

This is what life is like without an engaged conscious mechanism, for me, for you, or for a scallop. It is a big ZERO, nothing, just an emptiness. There is no experience, outside of our conscious bubble of awareness.

So yes, a tree, a jellyfish, the scallop, the ant: they are complex self reproducing self constructing automata. Without a memory and a sense of time there is no "experience". They are complex arrangements of atoms and molecules, more complex, but fundamentally no different from a piece of granite. I consider myself (and you btw) to be the same: a complex automata, with a superimposed limited self aware executive function. The executive's bubble of awareness is so limited that most of what my body and brain does goes unnoticed, and therefore un-experienced.

It is a consideration, do you not consider such things, things indicated in the empirical data?

I do not see any data which indicate that an "experience" exists outside of complex brain function.

 

[LarryS]

I do not see any data which indicate that an "experience" exists outside of complex brain function.

Most flavors of Idealism would agree with this: the brain is an organ that generates experience, and a nervous system is required to have experience.

 

[Nonpareil]

I'm back.

I don't have proof of it.

You also lack any reason to even think that it's possible, other than the standard garage-dragon nonsense and outright denial of the fact that all evidence we have points, rather conclusively, to a brain - or at least a nervous system of some sort - being the source of consciousness.

As humans live so much via their brains, it's difficult to tease out what is not experienced via the brain.

Everything is experienced in the brain. The brain is what does the experiencing. Nothing else in the organism has the capacity.

You only have to consider what we have in common with our primitive ancestors, who had barely developed brains.

Barely developed brains are still brains.

Have you ever had a fright where your hair stood on end? Like seeing a ghost?

The brain is required for this.

I was talking of life forms in which a brain is barely developed. Are you saying that these beings have no experience of existing?

Do they have a brain or nervous system, whether barely developed or wholly sapient? If so, then yes, they do. If not, then no, they don't.

It is a consideration, do you not consider such things

Consider, yes.

And then discard, because this:

things indicated in the empirical data?

...is entirely false.

 

[barehl]

The experience generated by computation in the brain is virtual. This is an abstraction of physical experience.

First of all, the brain doesn't function by computation. Secondly, claiming that computational virtualization is an abstraction of experience is gibberish. I'm quite familiar with virtualization and it has nothing to do with abstraction or experience.

All that is required is to regard mind as a subtle material.

So, we are back to vital essence and bad humor theory?

It relies on the verifiable results of experimental apparatus and doubts the validity of more philosophical approaches.

This doesn't make any sense. What approach could you have that isn't verifiable? Or what would prevent an infinite number of approaches all equally valid that are not verifiable?

 

[barehl]

It depends who one is talking to.
Do you know that an ant does not have awareness?

I can prove with cognitive theory that no Turing/Von Neumann architecture machine can become conscious. And, yes, I do know that insects are not aware.

A robotic replica of an ant, even if it contains an electrical computer, does not have cellular life. Cellular life may be the cause of awareness, rudimentary consciousness.

Cellular life is absolutely not the cause of consciousness. However, it is possible that only a cell based neural configuration can produce consciousness. This does seem to be the case in evolutionary terms but it has not been proven for all other technological cases.

 

[barehl]

Why wouldn't a sufficiently complex, programmed electronic consciousness be a reasonable proposition; are you familiar with futurist Ray Kurzweil's considerable work in this area? He seems to think it inevitable.

Kurzweil is a sharp guy but his assertions about AI have to do with size and this is not correct. He doesn't seem to know anything about cognitive theory.

I'm not saying that an electronic conscious is impossible. I haven't proven or disproven that yet. I have made some progress in terms of disproving mechanical consciousness but this isn't robust enough for electronics. What I am saying is that you don't get consciousness just by building a larger computer.

Or perhaps you are just generalizing his statement. For example, suppose you already had an AI of human intelligence. The obvious assumption would be that you could expand the architecture and get something of greater than human intelligence. If this is your assertion then it is far more complicated.

 

[barehl]

The system of materialism can be evidenced without science. Experiencing physical life is sufficient, likewise with the system of idealism. It is only the philosophical interpretations and conclusions which differ.

No, I'm pretty sure I can refute Idealism with cognitive theory.

 

[barehl]

That's a fun one. The problem with electronic consciousness is it leads to an absurd conclusion.

If a machine can become conscious, then it's possible for a system of electronic switches, transformers, rheostats, etc. to become conscious (if it's sufficiently complex and everything is arranged a certain way).

Which LEADS to the inevitable conclusion that if you move rocks around in the right way, you can produce a simulation of the entire universe, conscious beings and all.

Actually, this doesn't follow. This is what I've been working on for more than a year. Your assertion is correct in terms of naive philosophy but falls apart under any rigorous structure. Any functional system needs an energy source. Your rocks don't have that.

 

[barehl]

No more absurd than consciousness emerging from brains made of meat, surely?

I can assure you that meat will never develop consciousness.

 

[barehl]

It's the "how" that is the problem. How do neurons sending and receiving electrical impulses produce the feeling of being conscious?

Yeah, that's what I'm still working on.

And if neurons can do it, then anything functionally equivalent to a neuron should be conscious, if you arrange them in a way that is functionally equivalent to a working brain. There are all sorts of odd substrates that can be the functional equivalent of a working brain: ropes and pulleys, water and valves, lightswitches, etc.

No, this doesn't follow. No existing computer architecture can become conscious. I've already eliminated ropes, gears, hydraulics, etc. but I have not eliminated electrical functionality. I'm still working on that.

 

[barehl]

The possibility of a conscious landslide seems very woo-ish, and not something we should consider plausible unless there is very good evidence for it.

It IS entirely implausible. Just not impossible.

No, it's entirely impossible.

 

[barehl]

Experience is what occurs to a living entity.

No, this isn't true. Not all living things have experiences. Fungus don't experience anything nor do single celled organisms or things like jellyfish or plants.

 

[barehl]

"If you were to build a computer that has the same circuitry as the brain, this computer would also have consciousness associated with it. It would feel like something to be this computer."

This is technically true but only because it references its own assertion. It's like stating that if a bush flew like a bird then it would have to have feathers. So we've skipped the question of whether a bush could fly at all. Is it possible to build a computer with "the same circuitry as the brain"?

It is a matter of computation involving integrated information in a manner similar to what the brain does that will produce consciousness.

This is true under computational theory. However, computational theory is insufficient.

If the binary computation involving moving rocks carried out the same computational functions as the brain it would generate a consciousness.

Again, this is true except for the fact that you can't build a brain using only binary computation.

I think there may be some confusion about what "simulation" means.

It's a reasonable assumption based on computational theory. It just happens to be wrong.