Materialists......

[UndercoverElephant]

Too bad, really. It is a very simple definition, and for someone who claims to be making no assumptions at all, I would think that it would appeal to you.

No, doesn't appeal to me. It's the wrong word for consciousness. It doesn't capture the essence of what conciousness actually is.

Obviously, you have not read the behaviorism tutorial I linked in other threads. Or did, but did not understand.

I didn't read it. I don't think I need to learn anything from behaviourism. Call me arrogant if you like....

Behavior is defined simply as "what you do". Period. Not "what your body does", or "what your mind does", or "what both your mind and body do".

Then you're gonna have to split it into two....

It does not require you to dissect yourself...it is simply what you do. No assumptions about nature of mind or body or any of that. It is what you do. Do you walk? Do you think? Assuming yesses to both of those, they both pass the test for behavior.

What if I am given a drug which totally paralyses me, but leaves me fully aware of everything that is happening. There are recorded cases of this happening when a general anasthetic goes wrong. Such people are completely incapable of doing anything at all. There is no more "behaviour" occuring than there is in a corpse, or in a person under general anasthetic. Do you think a person who is under a general anasthetic has "behaviour"?

I know it is a highly technical definition (sarcasm), but there it is.

Technical or non-technical isn't the problem. The problem is the definition doesn't work as a definition of what it is supposed be defining.

If you have problems with it, perhaps it is time for you to reexamine the assumptions your definitions hold.

No, I don't think so. Not in this case.

Ok, next you split your behavior in two. So does the behaviorist. You, however, assume that this split is between two completely different realms, perhaps (depending on your assumptions) mutually incompatible, perhaps independent, perhaps parallel, perhaps illusory manifestations of a single neutral entity...all depending on what you assume. So, let's take a look at the evidence. One thing we know for certain. There is a split between behavior that anyone can (at least in principle) observe, and behavior that cannot even in principle be observed by more than one person.

No, I don't see any such split. I cannot think of any behaviour that is private, as I already said. So far, nothing you have written has explained to me what "private behaviour" is, or how any sort of behaviour could in principle only be observed by myself. I genuinely do not have any idea what you could possibly be talking about, unless you actually mean "mind".

(You may quibble on the "even in principle", but oddly enough it is not important to the behaviorist. You'll see.) Here, let me put in one of your own sentences...All you are doing here is taking behavior from one (observable by only one) column to the other (observable by more than one)

Please give me an example of a behaviour that is only observable to one person. I still have no idea what you could mean.

this would be a problem if they were indeed different sorts of stuff, but if we don't make that assumption (and it is only an assumption--note that the evidence does not require us to make that assumption at all), all the silliness that comes from the assumptions dissappears. Again, for someone who claims not to make assumptions, you should love this. You say behavior is "always public"; this was the same dualistic assumption that Watson made, and which behaviorism abandoned when Radical Behaviorism came to the fore.
Ah, ok. This is a new definition of p-zombie, and this is the reason I suggested the m-zombie (which does have private behavior, but no "consciousness", whatever that is).

Now I truly have got absolutely no idea what you are talking about. We now have "private behaviour" AND "consciousness"?????

WTF are you talking about?

Problem #1: You haven't given an example of "private behaviour" and I have no idea what it means, unless it means "mind".
Problem #2: You have also introduced a new term "m-zombie" which has "private behaviour" but no mind.

You have already been shown a few examples of why this seems extraordinary: If, for instance, you show a p-zombie a red card and ask what color it is, it says "red". I would personally infer from this that the p-zombie had engaged in the private behavior of seeing, but maybe only an m-zombie would do that.

So "seeing" is "private behaviour"? Let's say our anasthetic paralysis victim can see the surgeon. Are you saying this person has "behaviour"? If so, why can't the surgeon see it? I don't understand why you are using the word "behaviour" in this case at all. "To Behave" means "to act" - if there is no action taking place then there's no behaviour. If "private behaviour" means "mental awareness" then I've some idea what you mean, even though its a stupid usage of the word "behaviour". But your definition of an m-zombie leaves me unable to know whether you mean "mental awareness".

What is the paralysis victim under your scheme? An m-zombie?

No idea what you are talking about, Mercutio. And unlike the dishonest materialists who claim they have "no idea what minds are", I am telling you the truth. I genuinely haven't got a clue what you think you mean by these words.

Dictionary.com defines subjective (def 1) as "Proceeding from or taking place in a person's mind rather than the external world: a subjective decision."

WOW! You wrote something intelligable!

Experience (def 1) is "The apprehension of an object, thought, or emotion through the senses or mind: a child's first experience of snow." So, yeah, everybody knows that "subjective experiences" means mental (the adjective form of mind) stuff. And there we have, implicit in the assumptions, dualism.

Yes, our language and our concepts for describing our experiences of a world do indeed exhibit an implicit dualism. Since my version of the zombie argument starts from a recognition of this conceptual dualism, this is not news to me.

Note, your definition contains assumptions.

Oh no it doesn't. I didn't need to assume dualism was actually true in order to observe that our natural language is inherently dualistic.

Do not fall into making "Robin's fallacy" of claiming there are assumptions where in fact there are merely observations about the structure of natural language. Do you believe a linguist who claims that our language is split into two types of predicate has assumed that ontological dualism is true in order to make the claim?

What is it? How much of "what it is" is there, and how much is assumed to be there by your metaphysic?

"What is metaphysics?", says the linguist. "I don't know anything about metaphysics, I'm just analysing language!"

See the problem?

I hope by now you can see that it is a much better term than "mind", because it does not make the dualistic assumptions that "mind" does.

No, I can see a useless and confused set of definitions which are attempting to deny the nature of reality. "Mind" doesn't make dualistic assumptions. All our natural language is laced with dualism, but it isn't the result of an assumption. It is the result of our language having developed to describe our actual experience of reality, and our experience of reality is itself fundamentally dualistic. If you think that is an assumption then you've made Robin's fallacy.

Sure, after a lifetime in your language community, you don't see it as a loaded term, but it most certainly is.

Half a lifetime of living in a reality which seems dualistic to me certainly leaves me thinking that "mind" defined as "subjective experiences" is not a loaded term. It's simply a useful one.

Otherwise, you would have no problem with "private behavior". If you really made no assumptions, the two terms would be the same.

Are you absolutely sure that was what you meant to say?

 

[UndercoverElephant]

Say, what is the definition of begging the question? From http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/begging-the-question.html we have:

Doesn't that definition include every conclusion of a set of premises? Surely every conclusion is directly or indirectly assumed true in the premises.

~~ Paul

You've almost got it. A valid philosophical argument is a conclusion which FOLLOWS FROM its premises. You are trying to claim that if the conclusion FOLLOWS FROM its premises, that it must have "indirectly assumed the conclusion was true". By that reasoning, all valid arguments implicitly assume their conclusion. But that cannot be correct, can it?

So the difference between assuming your conclusion and not doing so is that people who assume their conclusion actually feed the conclusion itself ("The Bible is true", "Materialism is true") into the start of the argument rather than allowing the conclusion to follow naturally from the premises. This is either done quite explicity, or it is done implictly by saying something like "The Bible is the word of God". The theist in this case implictly means "the Bible is true", but hasn't quite said it.

 

[UndercoverElephant]

So we have:

1a) The Bible is all true.
1b) The Bible says all species were created in 7 days.
2) Evolution says all species evolved in billions of years.
C) The Bible is wrong.

The conclusion doesn't follow from the premises, does it?

Imagine you are a creationist. You come across the following argument:

1) Evolution says it took billions of years.
2) The Bible says it took 7 days.
C) Therefore the Bible is wrong.

You don't like this, because you are trying to avoid concluding (C). Is it valid to then say "But if the Bible is true, then (1) must be wrong"? Does (1) contain a hidden assumption that the Bible is false."? The creationist has no case. In order to make the accusation that the argument assumes its conclusion, it is he who has to assume his conclusion - and he does so explicitly when he says "If the Bible is true then...."

Are you saying Robin did this? Where?

Imagine you are a Robin. You come across the following argument:

1) Zombies are physically identical to humans but mindless.
2) Humans have minds.
C) Therefore minds are non-physical.

You don't like this, because you are trying to avoid concluding (C). Is it valid to then say "But if materialism is true, then (1) must be wrong?" Does (1) contain a hidden assumption that the physicalism is false."? Robin has no case either. In order to make the accusation that the argument assumes its conclusion, it is he who has to assume his conclusion - and he does so explicitly when he says "If physicalism is true then...."

By the way, you're claiming that you can arrive at "zombies are possible" without consideration of metaphysic. But actually you are talking about "conceptually possible," which has some unclear connection to "conceivable." Nothing I've read in the past few days discusses these ideas without talking about metaphysic.

This is the issue I have been discussing with LW. I'm going to address the second paper next.

 

[UndercoverElephant]

You don't care?

That's right Mercutio. I couldn't give a flying faggot what label you apply to "subjective experiences". I can't see what is wrong with "mind", personally. But if you want to call it "floobleboggle", that is fine by me just so long as we all know that "floobleboggle" means subjective experiences and not something vague which attempts to straddle the subjective/objective divide by not being clearly defined.

And yet you rejected "private behavior", which is neutral about monism/dualism, in favor of any of the terms (save "floobleboggle") you list which each are associated with dualistic baggage. If you insist upon that sort of term when proving that subjective experience is not physical, then yes, you will be guilty of circularity.

No, I will be innocent of circularity and I will accuse you of making Robin's fallacy.

 

[Ichneumonwasp]

Do you think a person who is under a general anasthetic has "behaviour"?

What type of general anaesthetic, again? Do you mean a paralytic agent? If so, then, yes, of course a person given a paralytic agent has "behavior". The problem is that you are privileging a certain type of behavior and calling it something else -- a category of being. You create two categories, physical and mental. But this amounts to taking the physical and its behaviors and privileging one of them into a whole other category. Why not privilege "running" or "skating"? These are behaviors as well. They are externally verifiable behaviors rather than "internal behaviors", but all of these activities are behaviors (stuff we do). I happen not to like the word "behavior" in this context (though it describes beautifully what goes on) and prefer to use the idea that "mind" is a "verb" because I think much of linguistic problem that we have in discussing these issues revolves about the way we conceptualize nouns as opposed to verbs.

This is an old argument. Everyone in this very long series of threads is simply rehashing 17th century debates, which probably rehashed 6th century B.C. debates.

I think Hyparxis identified one of the primary issues, however, in the remark about the scarecrow. S/he seems concerned over the impact of "material" explanations, which seem to amount to a story of atoms hitting one another and nothing else. I don't think anyone really thinks that way, though. We all prefer the story with the tiger in the boat. I know I do. Mercutio clearly does -- just look at his sig.

 

[Mercutio]

No, doesn't appeal to me. It's the wrong word for consciousness. It doesn't capture the essence of what conciousness actually is.

Nor does any definition you have given.

I didn't read it. I don't think I need to learn anything from behaviourism. Call me arrogant if you like....

Well, no. The more accurate word is "ignorant".

Then you're gonna have to split it into two....

Why? This is an assumption on your part. You do not see it.

What if I am given a drug which totally paralyses me, but leaves me fully aware of everything that is happening. There are recorded cases of this happening when a general anasthetic goes wrong. Such people are completely incapable of doing anything at all. There is no more "behaviour" occuring than there is in a corpse, or in a person under general anasthetic. Do you think a person who is under a general anasthetic has "behaviour"?

The "shut in syndrome" people are indeed capable of private behavior. They think. They see. They remember. They are incapable of public behavior (or most, anyway--some may be able to blink, or control very few other publicly observable behaviors). You say they are "completely incapable of doing anything at all"; this is incorrect. That would be the definition of a dead person. The paralyzed person can do many things. Your ignorance of the definition of behavior is the problem.

Technical or non-technical isn't the problem. The problem is the definition doesn't work as a definition of what it is supposed be defining.

No, the problem is your preference for dualistic language.

No, I don't think so. Not in this case.

and your closed-mindedness in maintaining that ignorance.

No, I don't see any such split. I cannot think of any behaviour that is private, as I already said. So far, nothing you have written has explained to me what "private behaviour" is, or how any sort of behaviour could in principle only be observed by myself. I genuinely do not have any idea what you could possibly be talking about, unless you actually mean "mind".

Thank you for illustrating my point.

Please give me an example of a behaviour that is only observable to one person. I still have no idea what you could mean.

Thinking. Seeing something. Hearing something.

Now I truly have got absolutely no idea what you are talking about. We now have "private behaviour" AND "consciousness"?????

It is an extension of the p-zombie argument, explicitly including private behavior. It is you who denies that consciousness is private behavior. So what is the difference between an m-zombie and a human? I am merely trying to figure out what you mean by consciousness.

WTF are you talking about?

Problem #1: You haven't given an example of "private behaviour" and I have no idea what it means, unless it means "mind".
Problem #2: You have also introduced a new term "m-zombie" which has "private behaviour" but no mind.

"Mind", though, implies a different "stuff" than "body" does. All that dualistic baggage which you claim you are not assuming.

So "seeing" is "private behaviour"? Let's say our anasthetic paralysis victim can see the surgeon. Are you saying this person has "behaviour"? If so, why can't the surgeon see it? I don't understand why you are using the word "behaviour" in this case at all. "To Behave" means "to act" - if there is no action taking place then there's no behaviour. If "private behaviour" means "mental awareness" then I've some idea what you mean, even though its a stupid usage of the word "behaviour". But your definition of an m-zombie leaves me unable to know whether you mean "mental awareness".

You are so close here. If you only will get rid of the dualism and fiction, you'd have it. Why do you assume that thinking is not an activity? (whatcha doin?--just thinkin'...) Why do you assume that remembering is not an activity?

What is the paralysis victim under your scheme? An m-zombie?

A paralysis victim. Period.

No idea what you are talking about, Mercutio. And unlike the dishonest materialists who claim they have "no idea what minds are", I am telling you the truth. I genuinely haven't got a clue what you think you mean by these words.

Again, the word is "ignorance". I am happy, though, that you are secure enough to know that your ignorance is not "dishonest".

WOW! You wrote something intelligable!

Did you understand it? It was from the dictionary, and showed that the language you use is dualistic.

Yes, our language and our concepts for describing our experiences of a world do indeed exhibit an implicit dualism. Since my version of the zombie argument starts from a recognition of this conceptual dualism, this is not news to me.

I thought you did not make assumptions. Now you start with apparent dualism as a given? And it does not occur to you that you might doubt it?

Oh no it doesn't. I didn't need to assume dualism was actually true in order to observe that our natural language is inherently dualistic.

Ah, ok. But rather than use more accurate language, you wish to bend your version of reality around prescientific language. Good luck with that.

Do not fall into making "Robin's fallacy" of claiming there are assumptions where in fact there are merely observations about the structure of natural language. Do you believe a linguist who claims that our language is split into two types of predicate has assumed that ontological dualism is true in order to make the claim?

As a friend once said, "I am listening to your words, but I am watching your feet." You claim not to be defending dualism, but you certainly act like a dualist.

"What is metaphysics?", says the linguist. "I don't know anything about metaphysics, I'm just analysing language!"

See the problem?

Yes. Straw-linguists don't pay attention to the things they analyze.

No, I can see a useless and confused set of definitions which are attempting to deny the nature of reality. "Mind" doesn't make dualistic assumptions. All our natural language is laced with dualism, but it isn't the result of an assumption. It is the result of our language having developed to describe our actual experience of reality, and our experience of reality is itself fundamentally dualistic. If you think that is an assumption then you've made Robin's fallacy.

Wow. You believe this? Even after the "sunrise" example? Language reflects reality? Accurately?

Half a lifetime of living in a reality which seems dualistic to me certainly leaves me thinking that "mind" defined as "subjective experiences" is not a loaded term. It's simply a useful one.

Useful to one trying to prove a non-material mind. Simply misleading to one seeking truth. And which reality did you live the other half of your life in?

Are you absolutely sure that was what you meant to say?

I said what I meant. After this post, I am not certain you are equipped to understand it.

 

[Jeff Corey]

...I didn't read it. I don't think I need to learn anything from behaviourism. Call me arrogant if you like....

Tempting, but...I really think you might be surprized if you actually learned more about the radical behaviorist position. In my experience with members of our Philosophy Department, psycholinguists and cognitive psychologists, many have mistaken or outdated notions about the position. You might not learn anything from behaviorism, but you might learn more about behaviorism.

 

[Mercutio]

That's right Mercutio. I couldn't give a flying faggot what label you apply to "subjective experiences". I can't see what is wrong with "mind", personally. But if you want to call it "floobleboggle", that is fine by me just so long as we all know that "floobleboggle" means subjective experiences and not something vague which attempts to straddle the subjective/objective divide by not being clearly defined.

"Paint the Model T any color you want, as long as it is black."


ETA: Good to see you again, wasp!

 

[Ichneumonwasp]

Thanks, and the same to you, Merc.

There is simply too much activity in this thread to process. The only chance I have of keeping up is for it to slow down. But as for the thread itself, I will repeat Voltaire's lesson again:

Let us cultivate our garden.

 

[Apathia]

Why can't the p-zombie utterly behave as if it had "selfhood"?

Behaving utterly human requires selfhood, self-awareness, self-consciouness. It is a very much more nuanced thing than a mere stacking on Simon Says and Monkey See, Monkey do. If an android is consructed with a brain that can do personal intimacy, then that brain entails a self-consciouness and selfhood. The android will ascribe to itself a sense of being a self.

You don't get the quality of personal behavior without a system that involves self-consciousness. Subjectivity is essential to being a fully functional human being.

How Subjectivity comes about or whare we get the sense that we are subjects (I's not as a contraction of it) is a big story on its own. In another post I expressed my opinion that I has no inherent existance.
Here I just want to say that if the android has all the bells and whistles to behave fully like you and me, Mr. Android is going to have an accompaning sense of his own self. The superficiality of an artificial human without self-consciouness would very soon be appearent, for amoung other things creativity and the ability to appriciate art and music would be absent.

We can posit a P-Zombie only if we keep it at a distance and don't humanly interact with it. And as long as we compartmentalize away our own Subjectivity and talk about a human behavior rather than a human being, it might seem plausible. Just don't get too close to it or yourself.

 

[Apathia]

All this is true for something we would think of as an "automaton". When people claim to be able to conceive of p-zombies I think what they are doing is imagining such an automaton, which is obviously not the same as a human, and then assuming that it could be "improved" so that it would be indistinguishable from a human in its behaviour, while assuming that this would change nothing about its having or not having consciousness.

Now, as this is only a thought experiment we don't need to worry about whether such "improvements" are practically possible, but they appear to be logically possible. The human brain is a purely physical system and thus it should be theoretically possible to perfectly simulate it, that is to perfectly recreate its behaviour. The question is, should we continue to think of such a thing as an "automaton" even after we have successfully given it fully human behaviour? As its behaviour is now a perfect copy of human behaviour it would be able to act with compassion (or malice) and be able to handle intimate relationships as well as any human. What reason do I have to think that it is now missing anything that normal humans have? We have tried to create a p-zombie and ended up creating a human.


You're not really talking about p-zombies here but imperfect copies of humans that can't manage fully human behaviour. It's quite possible that they would not be conscious in the way humans are althought I would be careful about saying they had no consciousness. After all we usually grant even animals some degree of consciousness. But it doesn't follow that what they are lacking is non-physical.

To qualify I'm not talking about soul as being some spirit essence apart from the physical world. Selfhood, Subjectivity, Inwardness, isn't an objective thing you can slap down on a lab table in the same sense Love isn't. That's the sense in which I mean it.

Currently my opinion is, even after reading Penrose, that an artificial intelligence with self-consciouness is possible. But this isn't going to happen from mere programming of comparble hardware. We are selves because we are bodily organisms interacting with our physical and social environments.

 

[UndercoverElephant]

LW:

For starters, the author gives three natural language propositions that come from Searle:
1. Brains cause conscious mental phenomena.
2. There is some sort of conceptual or logical connection between conscious mental phenomena and external behavior.
3. The capacity of the brain to cause consciousness is conceptually distinct from its capacity to cause motor behavior. A system could have consciousness without behavior and behavior without consciousness.

I'm not a philoshopher but from what I understand, the idea is that computationalism implies proposition two.

Well, if you type “define: computationalism” the only hit which comes back is a definition of the website of the COGS department at my own Uni:

http://www.informatics.susx.ac.uk/books/computers-and-thought/gloss/node1.html

“Computationalism: The notion that the [operation of the] mind can be explained entirely in terms of the formal, or functional, properties of a computational system.”

Computationalism implies (2) because it attempts to equate consciousness with behaviour. If you are a computationalist, or a behaviourist, then there has to be a necessary logical connection between consciousness and behaviour. What is for sure is that computational systems can cause motor behaviour. What is not certain at all is that they can cause consciousness. Yet (2) suggests some sort of logical/conceptual connection between the two. Effectively, if you can conceptually separate behaviour from consciousness then both behaviourism and computationalism are shown to be false. So it is (3) which matters, and this is Bringsjords version of Nagel’s linguistic/conceptual argument. Instead of starting from the distinction between subjective and objective predicates, he is establishing a conceptual distinction between the capacity of a system of cause motor behaviour (3rd person, objective, public) and the capacity of a system to cause consciousness (1st person, subjective, private).

When I read these the first time I wondered why he fixed the system to 'a' in (3) instead of using quantifiers and variables as in (2). Because now he only says that there exists one specific brain whose external behavior may be separated from the consciousness. I'm not a native English speaker but how I understand 3. is that it speaks of the brains of all fully functioning human beings.

The formalised version does indeed seem to say “There is A brain where……” I am guessing the reason he is doing this is because there is only one brain that any particular person can be sure causes conciousness – his own. And one is enough.

Now, this set of modal formulas is inconsistent under the modal logic M (or T as it is called in the paper). The proof is in the paper, it is nothing really important. However, it is important to note that inconsistency comes from (2) and (3) together, and (1) has no function in it.

Agreed. (2) contradicts (3).

Next, Bringsjord sets to resolve this inconsistency by proving that (2) has to be false. He does this by using the thought experiment where a persons neurons are replaced one by one by their functional equivalents. He states that Searle has identified that there are at least three possible results from it:
• V1: Everything goes smoothly and nothing strange manifests itself.
• V2: The person loses his conscious experience but the body keeps on working as usual.
• V3: The person maintains his concsiousness but the body stops working.

Bringsjord formalises these propositions (well, the latter two, he is not interested in the first case) by simply using propositional letters V2 and V3. He doesn't stop to wonder if the thought experience and its result even can be expressed using his logic and he certainly doesn't express it. [Side note: I would go for option V4: the operation is so involved that he dies under the knife losing both consciousness and the body functions.]

V4 just ruins the thought experiment, like trying to escape the Schroedingers cat paradox by positing that the cat dies of natural causes before the poison in released.

Personally, I’d go for V2.

Next, comes his argument A1 that is the actual proof that in his opinion refutes computationalism (well, he doesn't spell it out completely, I add the missing steps. Possible mistakes in missing steps are mine). His idea is to prove that (3) is true, and then from that conclude that (2) has to be false.

And I have to agree with this. (3) is true, and forms the basis of my own version of the zombie argument. This is also why Mercutio’s position is wrong. Mercutio is desperately defending the claim that we cannot distinguish mind from “behaviour”. But we actually have no difficulty at all in distinguishing between motor behaviour and consciousness. They are completely different things! And if (3) is true, 2 must be false.

His justification for premises P3 and P4 are really "clearly" and "just as clearly" in the paper. This is the first case of Proof by Blatant Assertion that I see in the wild.

P3 means : “It is possible to have a brain and motor behaviour, but no consciousness.”
P4 means: “It is possible to have a brain and consciousness, but no motor behaviour."

P4 is obviously true. I already gave the example of somebody paralysed by anaesthetic in an operating theatre, but at the same time fully conscious.

P3 is more contentious, because it’s our zombie. Bringsjord is arguing that it is clearly a conceptual possibility. I agree with him. Because our concepts of brains and consciousness are so clearly distinguishable, it is indeed possible to conceive of zombies (clearly). P-zombies are conceptually possible.

Bringsjord's view is that everything that can be conceived is logically possible.

Do you have a reason for rejecting this view?

This "clearly" is just as justified as his two instances were. He said that "it is possible that a person loses his mind while body keeps working" implies one half of statement (3). So it should be equally clear that the formula that states that minds and external behavior are equivalent implies that it is not possible for a person to lose only one of them. And we get the conclusion that (2) is false.

Summarised:

Computationalism/behaviourism imply that minds should be conceptually/logically inseparable from behaviour. They aren’t, so computationalism/behaviourism is false.

NB: I’m still thinking about this, I may have made a silly mistake. Do you think this summary of the argument is fair?

It looks like we are left with an argument about what the word "possible" means, and what the implications are of the conceptual possibility of zombies.

 

[Mercutio]

Behaving utterly human requires selfhood, self-awareness, self-consciouness. [snip]

Behaving utterly human is selfhood, self-awareness, self-consciousness. To say that it requires these things is circular. We have no evidence for them other than our behavior (public and private). There is no need to invent some fictional "requirement".

 

[hammegk]

Behaving utterly human is selfhood, self-awareness, self-consciousness.

Either you believe that at 100% as a logical materialist, or at bit less than 100% as an illogical dualist pretending materialism is correct, or as a logical idealist (objective idealism for me, thanks).

You, and Jeff Corey, continue to not address this little problem. It isn't going to disappear no matter how you 'behave'.

There is no need to invent some fictional "requirement".

Like the assumption objective perceived reality is in essence intentless matter?

 

[Jeff Corey]

What "little problem"? I see none.

 

[Apathia]

I think Hyparxis identified one of the primary issues, however, in the remark about the scarecrow. S/he seems concerned over the impact of "material" explanations, which seem to amount to a story of atoms hitting one another and nothing else. I don't think anyone really thinks that way, though. We all prefer the story with the tiger in the boat. I know I do. Mercutio clearly does -- just look at his sig.

My issue at the moment is that Subjectivity is more subtle than the P-Zombie argument understands, and more subtle than what can be pinned down in an objective behaviorist model.

 

[UndercoverElephant]

What type of general anaesthetic, again? Do you mean a paralytic agent? If so, then, yes, of course a person given a paralytic agent has "behavior".

Right....it's just that they are completely motionless and doing absolutely nothing? Sorry, I don't know what you mean. A completely paralysed person exhibits no behaviour at all. Certainly no "motor behaviour" - and it's looking like this term is about to make it's presence felt in this thread...

The problem is that you are privileging a certain type of behavior and calling it something else -- a category of being.

Er, no. I simply label "behaviour" as something that can be viewed "from the outside". Conciousness simply isn't "behaviour" at all.

You create two categories, physical and mental.

I did not create those categories.

But this amounts to taking the physical and its behaviors and privileging one of them into a whole other category.

No, it is merely an observation that we can distinguish between behaviour and consciousness. Calling consciousness "behaviour" is just an abuse of the word "behaviour".

Why not privilege "running" or "skating"? These are behaviors as well.

That's right - running and skating are behaviours. Conscious experience isn't. It's that simple. What's the problem?

They are externally verifiable behaviors rather than "internal behaviors"......

What is an "internal behaviour"? Is that the latest new word for "mind"? Can you clearly distinguish between the concepts which describe "internal behaviours" from the concepts which describe external ones? If so, you've just got a new word for "mind", and the logical games can start once more. If not, I haven't got a clue what you mean by "internal behaviours".

, but all of these activities are behaviors (stuff we do). I happen not to like the word "behavior" in this context (though it describes beautifully what goes on) and prefer to use the idea that "mind" is a "verb" because I think much of linguistic problem that we have in discussing these issues revolves about the way we conceptualize nouns as opposed to verbs.

Do you think computers have "internal behaviours"?
Do you think computers have "minds"?

This is an old argument. Everyone in this very long series of threads is simply rehashing 17th century debates, which probably rehashed 6th century B.C. debates.

Yep, and so long as the stream of people coming along and trying to defend materialistic transcendental realism continues, we will continue to have 17th century debates. When, and only when, this board finally catches up with Kant can these debates finally be laid to rest. You just don't get it, do you? It is the materialists that are dragging us back to the 17th century, not me. As soon as people stop trying to defend a position that was debunked by Kant, I will stop giving pre-Kantian replies.

 

[Jeff Corey]

Right....it's just that they are completely motionless and doing absolutely nothing? Sorry, I don't know what you mean. A completely paralysed person exhibits no behaviour at all. Certainly no "motor behaviour" - and it's looking like this term is about to make it's presence felt in this thread...



Er, no. I simply label "behaviour" as something that can be viewed "from the outside". Conciousness simply isn't "behaviour" at all...

First of all, a person with no behavior is dead. Heart muscles are not contracting, EEG shows no neurons firing. These are all behaviors.
Secondly, you may simply label behavior as something that can be viewed from the outside, but your view is not shared by the scientists that study behavior. I think the key word is "simply".

 

[hammegk]

What "little problem"? I see none.

Yes, I recall your 100% is "virtually 100%". If dualism as a worldview suits you, it's your "choice" so to speak.

An acceptable 'explanation' for a dualist is to say 'goddidit' if interaction is implicit.

Non-interactive dualism can be postulated, but has no particular interest to this universe so far as I can see.

 

[UndercoverElephant]

To the behaviourists in this thread:

I'm not sure it is worth my while taking the time to respond to your attempts to defend behaviourism. As I already said, behaviourism with respect to philosophy of mind is so far beyond the pale that it has effectively become irrelevant. It was already in serious decline well before Searle's attack on computationalism - which, IMO, completely finished it off. It finished it off sufficiently that nobody who matters is left to defend it. So it's not a serious threat. Furthermore, any person who has seriously managed to convince themselves that conciousness is indistinguishable from behaviour is too far gone for me to be able to say anything to change their minds.

The real argument here has got nothing to do with behaviourism, for the reasons given above. The real argument is to do with the relationship between conceptual possibility and nomological possibility and arguments about the validity and applicability of various modal logics to the zombie hypothesis. The behaviourists aren't interested in such things, because they haven't even got as far as accepting the original conceptual/linguistic divide which provides the foundation for claiming that p-zombies are possible. I am therefore much more interested in the debate I am having with LW. That is real philosophy. Behaviourism is an outdated materialistic fantasy. It's not where the real action is.

Plus there seems to be no shortage of other people here who are willing to provide answers to our trio of behaviourists, so I don't have to.