I challenge you: your best alternate to materialism

[Nonpareil]

Please explain more

Your entire post is nonsense.

Aside from the fact that your grammar issues - including, I'm certain, leaving out several critical words - render much of it illegible word salad, what you say is almost entirely nonsensical. You seem to be laboring under the misinformed notion that abstract concepts like "no" provide some sort of impenetrable mystery for a materialistic view of consciousness, because a materialistic consciousness is just the sum total of sensory perceptions.

This is incorrect for a number of reasons, possibly the most obvious (other than it being a complete straw man) being that truth values - the simplest form of abstract reasoning - are extremely easy to process in even the most pathetically weak computers. AND, OR, XOR, NOT, TRUE, FALSE, and so on are actually the least mysterious of all the things that the brain is capable of processing. We can build logic gates to do it for us trivially easily. We know how that's done.

Beyond that, your characterization of materialist arguments on consciousness is just a series of straw men.

And your complaints about objectivity are just false equivocations between objective and subjective truth as opposed to objective and subjective experience. It's also moving the goalposts so far back that no one, not even you, can meet your claimed standard of evidence, and leaves you with nothing but solipsism to hide behind.

And with this, we have come full circle.

 

[MRC_Hans]

If all we know, is empirical, then is the only form of experiences you have tied to the five senses or more precisely - are all your experiences external sensory experiences?

No. Since we are in posession of a quite powerful computer, a lot of our experiences are inferred. For instance, if you drop a cup, and it breaks, you are able to compute that objects of the class cup are likely to break when dropped; you don't have to drop every cup you have to find out.

It is very simply and it has to do with these 2 different meanings of see - see as see/observe/look and see as understand/makes sense.
The short, brutal version is this - can you tell us what the meaning of a no looks like? I could ask you to observe, describe and point to e.g. a cat, but you can't observe, describe and point to a no.

Following the example of the cup, I can ask myself: "Since a cup tends to break when dropped, does a rock also break in the same way?"

I can then try, and from my sensory input infer: "No" ... a rock does not have the same tendency to break when dropped.

I can infer this from my observations. Note than none of this would be even hard to recreate in a computer program.

Now this is a part of it and connects to this:

Now if you accept physicalism/materialism and think you can explain everything through observation, then I simply ask you to describe the observation of a no.

Strawman, sorry. Physicalism/materialism does NOT imply that everything can be explained through observation. The vast majority of our experiences are inferred. Even those based on observation do not imply our own observation. Since we can communicate with other humans, we base a lot of experience/knowledge on other people's observations.

There are words we can't understand through observation, therefore they are not physical.

Materialism does not imply that everything is physical. Just that our ability to perceive everything is physical.

Hans

 

[Fudbucker]

I totally agree. That does nothing to address my question: why does one particular arrangement of neurons (or valves or transistors or lightswitches or arrangement of rocks) produce the subjective experience of pain, while another arrangement produces the subjective experience of eating a turkey sandwich?

The question does not make sense. Our particular arrangement of neurons etc. eneables us to process sensory input. We then store categories of similar sensory input so that we can later react properly on it.

The sense of pain and the sense of taste come from different sets of sensors, which alone makes it easy to distinguish the categories.

It is possible that very basic experiences are inherited, that is, while we are probably born hard-wired to avoid pain, taste is certainly an acquired skill.

Cats are conscious.

OK. How about fish? Flatworms? (All have some reaction to pain).

Do you believe a person moving rocks around in the right way can simulate a universe like ours?

No.

Is there a possible world where that comic is true?

Personal opinion.

How do I know that people are talking about their feelings and not their brain states? Really, you have to ask?

You don't.

Because the robot scientist studying pain won't know what pain is until it experiences it.

So it can't experience something it hasn't got sensors for. Just like a blind person cannot experience sight. Does that make either of them more or less counscious?

Let me ask you, is it possible to explain sight to a person blind from birth so that they know what seeing is? Do you believe that if you could just explain "seeing" the right way, the person blind from birth would know what a sunset looks like? If no explanation exists, then the person would have to experience seeing in order to know what it is.

Lets put it this way: To have the experience, you must be able to experience it.

Therefore, experience itself conveys information and mental states are not the equivalent of brain states.

Why? What else, apart from sensory organs, are you using to store an experience.

If they were, then studying brain states would be sufficient to understand what seeing is. Clearly, that's not the case.

Well, we don't really know, do we? Let me give you an example: If you press your fingers against your closed eyes (WARNING: Excessive pressure might lead to eye damage), you will experience a display of light. If you send electrical impulses through the right parts of a blind person's brain he/she will experience light.

So clearly, we can in fact recreate the sensation of sight by simulating brain states.

It is? You think experience happens after a memory is formed?

No.

I'm pretty sure the converse is true. Experience is independent of memory. You might remember an experience, you might not. Certainly the experience had to happen first, in order for a memory of it to form.

Obviously. And?

Hans

Hans, how can a question be a person opinion? See, this is one of the reasons I didn't want to discuss this with you. You have a habit of responding to stuff I didn't say.

 

[The Man]

Yes and behind that is some form of reasoning.

Eventually, though I would expect initially just some observation, like what happens when your parents say "NO!".

 

[Apathia]

Yep.

These consciousness threads inevitably turn out the same (although no one has asserted they're a P-zombie yet).

I'll do it! I'll do it this time!
I'm a P-Zombie. I only appear conscious to myself.

 

[Tommy Jeppesen]

No. Since we are in posession of a quite powerful computer, a lot of our experiences are inferred. For instance, if you drop a cup, and it breaks, you are able to compute that objects of the class cup are likely to break when dropped; you don't have to drop every cup you have to find out.



Following the example of the cup, I can ask myself: "Since a cup tends to break when dropped, does a rock also break in the same way?"

I can then try, and from my sensory input infer: "No" ... a rock does not have the same tendency to break when dropped.

I can infer this from my observations. Note than none of this would be even hard to recreate in a computer program.



Strawman, sorry. Physicalism/materialism does NOT imply that everything can be explained through observation. The vast majority of our experiences are inferred. Even those based on observation do not imply our own observation. Since we can communicate with other humans, we base a lot of experience/knowledge on other people's observations.



Materialism does not imply that everything is physical. Just that our ability to perceive everything is physical.

Hans

What ever floats your boat
Now compare what you claim with this claim:

Several questions about consciousness must be resolved in order to acquire a full understanding of it. These questions include, but are not limited to, whether being conscious could be wholly described in physical terms, such as the aggregation of neural processes in the brain.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_problem_of_consciousness

Now we will go round and round about what physical terms mean in practice and whether all you know is based on external sensory observation and inference.

So in practice everything you know are about other things and your inferences about those things, right?

 

[MRC_Hans]

Hans, how can a question be a person opinion? See, this is one of the reasons I didn't want to discuss this with you. You have a habit of responding to stuff I didn't say.

"
Is there a possible world where that comic is true?
"

Could we agree that the wording makes it a rather loeaded question?

Thus, while indeed formed as a question, it certainly conveys an opinion (and I assume it was yours).

Hans

 

[MRC_Hans]

Now we will go round and round about what physical terms mean in practice and whether all you know is based on external sensory observation and inference.

So in practice everything you know are about other things and your inferences about those things, right?

Everything I know is either information I receive (from my own senses or from communication with others) or my inferences about that information.

Yes, we can agree on that.

.... Seems I am not smart enough to see why that is a hard problem.

Hans

 

[Tommy Jeppesen]

Everything I know is either information I receive (from my own senses or from communication with others) or my inferences about that information.

Yes, we can agree on that.

.... Seems I am not smart enough to see why that is a hard problem.

Hans

So all of your senses are about things which are not you???

 

[MRC_Hans]

So all of your senses are about things which are not you???

No. Obviously, I can sense my own body, too. Also, my perceptions are influenced by my peronality.

Hans

 

[Tommy Jeppesen]

No. Obviously, I can sense my own body, too. Also, my perceptions are influenced by my peronality.

Hans

Okay, sensing is not just seeing and all things are not just "dead" things.

• A cup
• A stone
• A bird

Drop all 3 and 3 different things happen Biological life is physical but there are physical process which can only be found in living things.

 

[marplots]

Okay, sensing is not just seeing and all things are not just "dead" things.

• A cup
• A stone
• A bird

Drop all 3 and 3 different things happen Biological life is physical but there are physical process which can only be found in living things.

A stone, a metal coin, a superconductor.
Apply a current to each and three different things happen.
Electrical charge is physical, but there are electrical processes which can only be found in super conductors.

Do you see the problem?

 

[Tommy Jeppesen]

A stone, a metal coin, a superconductor.
Apply a current to each and three different things happen.
Electrical charge is physical, but there are electrical processes which can only be found in super conductors.

Do you see the problem?

Yes, it is one big cluster **** of regularities and variations. Gravity and electricity is a part of everything, but it is not everything. The Devil is in the detail

 

[MRC_Hans]

Okay, sensing is not just seeing and all things are not just "dead" things.

• A cup
• A stone
• A bird

Drop all 3 and 3 different things happen

Obviously.

Biological life is physical but there are physical process which can only be found in living things.

Really? Mention one.

Hans

 

[Nonpareil]

Drop all 3 and 3 different things happen Biological life is physical but there are physical process which can only be found in living things.

Stop the presses!

 

[Tommy Jeppesen]

...
Really? Mention one.

Hans

Stop the presses!

I am confused. It seems you two don't agree so you two figure it out.
Hint - can two stones disagree?

 

[Nonpareil]

I am confused. It seems you two don't agree so you two figure it out.

You seem to misunderstand.

On a macroscopic level, there are physical processes that only occur in living organisms. You won't find non-living entities conducting photosynthesis, for example.

On a microscopic one, on the other hand, nothing happens in living organisms that doesn't happen anywhere else. It's just a matter of arrangements and levels of complexity.

Before you try offering hints, you might try understanding what has actually been said.

 

[Tommy Jeppesen]

You seem to misunderstand.

On a macroscopic level, there are physical processes that only occur in living organisms. You won't find non-living entities conducting photosynthesis, for example.

On a microscopic one, on the other hand, nothing happens in living organisms that doesn't happen anywhere else. It's just a matter of arrangements and levels of complexity.

Before you try offering hints, you might try understanding what has actually been said.

We agree. Now does that matter to you? Good!

Objective: expressing or dealing with facts or conditions as perceived without distortion by personal feelings, prejudices, or interpretations.

Now that good is physical, but it only has subjective meaning. That is the game we are playing in the end. You can observe and describe a brain physically in quantitative terms, but you can only understand such words as good for their qualitative meaning in qualitative terms.
Everything is physical/perceived physically, but whether that matters can only be understood subjectively.

With regards

Edit: BTW the replication of the fittest genome is such a case.

 

[MRC_Hans]

You can observe and describe a brain physically in quantitative terms, but you can only understand such words as good for their qualitative meaning in qualitative terms.

So, what is special about qualitative terms? "Good" is just a class of experiences or inferences. I can identify something as "good" because I have experienced or can infer that it will bring some advantage.

Hans

 

[Nonpareil]

Now that good is physical, but it only has subjective meaning. That is the game we are playing in the end.

You can observe and describe a brain physically in quantitative terms, but you can only understand such words as good for their qualitative meaning in qualitative terms.
Everything is physical/perceived physically, but whether that matters can only be understood subjectively.

With regards

Edit: BTW the replication of the fittest genome is such a case.

But has anyone really been far even as decided to use even go want to do look more like?