I challenge you: your best alternate to materialism

Belz... said:
Not really. Materialism isn't concerned with what things are, but how they behave, because it correctly surmises that you cannot, even in principle, determine what they are.
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Strangely that is naturalism as opposed to philosophical materialism.

Most sceptics here see them as the same.
 
punshhh said:
Ok ok. It's not cloning in the scientific sense. However the body produced by my mother is virtually identical, albeit with a mechanism for allowing genetic variation between generations. The same with your mother and their common ancestor. Certainly in terms of what in the human body generates consciousness, we are essentially identical.
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Well, here is the problem with this line of reasoning, go long enough back through time and you and I have common ancestors, which were not self-conscious. So you can't use ancestors as evidence of consciousness, because you have ancestors, which were not conscious.

punshhh, try to think through your arguments before you post them. :)

How do I know that any other so called self-conscious object is self-conscious and not a mimic, or automaton?
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Well, try for once and read the other posts about how we know that other entities are conscious.
I know you are conscious, because you exhibit behavior I have when I am conscious. So how do you know that we are conscious? You know this because you liken our behavior with your own.
 
Tommy Jeppesen said:
Well, here is the problem with this line of reasoning, go long enough back through time and you and I have common ancestors, which were not self-conscious. So you can't use ancestors as evidence of consciousness, because you have ancestors, which were not conscious.
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The person who you are replying to still is not conscious, though his parents may have been !-)
 
In addition to http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showpost.php?p=10437382&postcount=1405 and http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showpost.php?p=10435584&postcount=1388 let's understand better the relations between complexity and the ability of a given phenomenon to directly be aware of the simplest state of existence, and also to become an harmonious factor among diverse multiplicity.

In order to do it, let's use the following diagram (by looking at it from left to right, starting at the top\left figure and ending at the bot\right figure):

16349325752_4b542b4779_z.jpg

The simplest state of existence is marked by the center point, the increased degree of complexity is marked by decreasing redundancy and increasing the diversity among the shared components.

The increased degree of the ability to directly be aware of the simplest state of existence is marked by decreasing the number of short arrows and increasing the length of a single arrow that smoothly passes through all the diverse levels among the shared components of the bot\right figure.

The figures marked by CK1 to CK6 are called by me Cybernetic Kernels, where only CK6 in that diagram enables direct awareness of the simplest state of existence, because it does not interfere itself (which enables awareness to be developed all along the shared components).
 
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That is still not actually a meaningful picture, doron. It's new, at least, so that's something.

But it still doesn't mean anything.

EDIT: Also, "Cybernetic Kernels". Either doron has even less of a grasp on English than we thought, or he's actually a masterful troll.
 
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Nonpareil said:
That is still not actually a meaningful picture, doron. It's new, at least, so that's something.

But it still doesn't mean anything.

EDIT: Also, "Cybernetic Kernels". Either doron has even less of a grasp on English than we thought, or he's actually a masterful troll.
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I must say that I am very impressed form this profound and inspired reply.
 
doronshadmi said:
I must say that I am very impressed form this profound and inspired reply.
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Thank you. I was rather proud of it myself.

Of course, it can never hope to be as profound or brilliantly thought-provoking as arranging abstract colored shaped over a red circle and rotating them, then calling one of the results "the simplest state of existence". And coming up with "Cybernetic Kernels" for CK, apropos of nothing? Simply astounding.

I can only hope to think as clearly as you do some day.
 
punshhh said:
.. this is a non sequitur if it is possible for a mimic to replicate all the behaviour. Why would it not be possible to fashion an AI device which can replicate all the computation involved in a person?
Also if this device were made why would it be necessary for it to be conscious in any way? All that would be required is sufficient self referential computation.
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I don't see why it wouldn't be possible to create an AI that replicated the computation of a person, but computation isn't the point under consideration, which is conscious behaviour. If it behaves indistinguishably from a conscious person under all circumstances, it's conscious.

Also, in my opinion, if it exactly replicated the computation of a person, it would be as conscious as that person; but that wasn't the point in question.

If the mimic can perform all the behaviour of a person, what need would there be for self-consciousness? That would be entirely unnecessary. Does something magical happen once the level of computation reaches a certain threshold?
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Try to separate considerations of behaviour from those of computation. The argument is that if it performs all the conscious behaviours of a person under all circumstances, it's conscious. In other words, it can't behave under all circumstances like a conscious person unless it is conscious. Likewise, if it performs all the behaviours of a self conscious person under all circumstances, it is self-conscious.

Whether this can be done by computation alone or not is a different issue.

Once this point is reached all other more sophisticated forms of behaviour such as self-consciousness could be replicated or mimiked by increasing the computational power and processing of internal referential states. Again, there is no requirement for the kind of sentient self awareness found in a person.
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Are you saying that if it behaves indistinguishably from a sentient self-aware person in all circumstances, it isn't necessarily sentient and self-aware?

If so, what's the difference? how could you, in principle, detect that it isn't actually sentient & self-aware, if it behaves indistinguishably under all circumstances? This is the heart of the p-zombie problem. I say if its behaviour really is indistinguishable under all circumstances, it satisfies the requirement for sentient self-awareness, because that's what it means to be sentient and self-aware.

Yes, if the mechanism, the hardware, is identical to the hardware in a duck, it would be a duck.But why would it not be possible to construct an automaton which can replicate all aspects of the behaviour of a duck out of mechano for example?
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I don't know, probably not, given the limitations of meccano, but perhaps. If it could replicate all aspects of the behaviour of a duck, you'd be justified in calling it a mechanical duck. If it replicated the conscious behaviours of a duck under all circumstances, you could say that it had a duck's consciousness. So what?

You have to rule out in some way the possibility of mimicry? Can you?
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Why do we have to rule it out? didn't we agree earlier that a perfect mimic would have to be the thing itself? This implies that a perfect mimicry of consciousness is consciousness, and a perfect mimicry of self-consciousness is self-consciousness, and a perfect mimicry of sentient self-awareness is sentient self-awareness.
 
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abaddon said:
You just don't understand what that drawing means...

Nor do I...

Nor does Doron...

Nor does anyone.
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It's a demonstration of certain gear positions, I think. The shapes in the bottom-right (those labeled "CK") are the pieces of the gears, which are layered on top of one another and rotated to form the other images.

Gears, some sort of locking mechanism, or something of that sort is my best guess. No idea if it's correct, but there you are.

It's certainly not anything meaningful in the context of doron's arguments, though.
 
Belz... said:
So it's an analogy.

Typical.
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"Analogy" is being generous. It's more that it looks impressive but has little actual meaning, so it gives him something grand-looking to hide behind and claim intellectual superiority while others attempt to work out what he's actually saying.

Same thing as his binary trees and semicircles. Just enough basis in reality to make him look intelligent, but no actual meaning to anyone who actually understands what he's saying.

Which isn't hard, really. It's just too tedious for most to bother with. (Un)fortunately, my brain finds some sort of perverse enjoyment in picking this sort of thing apart.
 
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