The relationship between science and materialism

[hammegk]

I wasn't aware I was addressing any use of "illusion" in my post. I thought you were questioning hammegk's statement that he is 100% sure thought exists and stating that an assumption must be made here. Is that correct? For arguments sake, I am regarding "thought" as "qualia".

Although please note the leap to "*i* think" and "*you* think" is one requiring faith.

Just to clarify, I do not think I see the redness of the ball, but just simply "redness". It doesn't really need any particular label since it is quality. The phenomenal character of this (or any) experience is impervious to doubt. That is what I think hammegk meant. I can't see how this can be denied except by averting your eyes!

Agreed, and thanks for the clarity of that statement.

 

[chriswl]

No, they are exactly the same sort of thing. One is X and the other is a collection of X's.

Yes, it is a collection of X's. It wouldn't be physicalism if we needed a new kind of stuff for mind. But it isn't merely a collection of X's. As I keep saying, in the case of computation/computers, this is shown by the fact that the same computation can be realised on multiple physical substrates. Thus it has a kind of conceptual independence from the world of physical things.

You are trying to say...

No I wasn't "trying" to say anything of the sort. Disregard all the thoughts you had from this point on

 

[hammegk]

... you first have to believe that there is reason to be an immaterialist or dualist (ideas long since put in the trash can), ....

Interactive Dualism never makes logical sense. Immaterialism is a different problem, and all of those I've chatted with or read who think they've put it in the trash, don't know what they're talking about.

I'll be pleased to hear a rational proof immaterialism makes no sense. Do you have one you'd care to share?

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Those two definitions conflict. They are different uses of the word "objective". The second usage is the same as mine. The first one means something slightly different - it means to do with objects of experiences. I already said that there are subjective experience of objects. That's not the same as "an objective experience". See the difference?

Well, it's good to know that we don't have to take dictionary definitions at face value.

~~ Paul

 

[UndercoverElephant]

Yes, it is a collection of X's.

The statement "My mind is a collection of neuronal processes" is no different to "minds are brain processes". This new attempt at an explanation has changed precisely nothing. You are still left with an unexplained relationship between subjective experiences and brain processes. I makes not one iota of difference whether you mean one brain process or all your brain processes. It is totally irrelevant to the question of how subjectivity arises from brain processes at all.

It wouldn't be physicalism if we needed a new kind of stuff for mind.

Sounds like you think I'm defending dualism. Not sure where you got that notion from.

But it isn't merely a collection of X's. As I keep saying, in the case of computation/computers, this is shown by the fact that the same computation can be realised on multiple physical substrates.

Then it becomes nothing but an abstraction. A logical construct. That doesn't explain subjectivity either. Not even close. Still zero progress toward your goal.

Thus it has a kind of conceptual independence from the world of physical things.

That's not enough to explain subjectivity. Logical abstractions aren't minds. If you want to claim that minds are mere logical abstractions then put your hands up and be counted as an eliminativist and stop trying to defend every incoherent non-eliminative form of physicalism you can think of. There is only one strategy which works : deny there is any such thing as a mind.

Geoff

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Chris, there is no difference between a computation and computer process. These terms are synonyms. Unless one of them is a purely abstract logical description of the process, in which case it's irrelevant - unless you think minds are purely abstract logical descriptions.

No, come on, now. I perform computation in my head, but I am no computer. Computation is an abstract concept, rather like mind.

~~ Paul

 

[UndercoverElephant]

No, come on, now. I perform computation in my head, but I am no computer.

~~ Paul

And there's two sides to the computation. There's the experience of thinking the problem through in your mind, which is entirely subjective. There is also a process going on in your brain, which could theoretically be monitored in fine detail and turned into an objective description. But there is no overlap between the two apart from some functional/logical equivalence.

Geoff

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

And there's two sides to the computation. There's the experience of thinking the problem through in your mind, which is entirely subjective. There is also a process going on in your brain, which could theoretically be monitored in fine detail and turned into an objective description. But there is no overlap between the two apart from some functional/logical equivalence.

So we have:

Computer is to computation what brain is to computation.

Now we certainly agree that some computation in the brain has no corresponding conscious experience, while some does. All we have to figure out is whether the conscious computation is a result of some other computation going on in the brain.

~~ Paul

 

[hammegk]

If you believe a sufficiently powerful and sophisticated computer program that exactly models your brain processes is as conscious as you are, no problem. That's eliminative materialism.

 

[UndercoverElephant]

So we have:

Computer is to computation what brain is to computation.

Now we certainly agree that some computation in the brain has no corresponding conscious experience, while some does. All we have to figure out is whether the conscious computation is a result of some other computation going on in the brain.

~~ Paul

No. When you say "conscious computation is a result of some other computation going on in the brain" you've just gone straight back to trying to defend some sort of non-eliminative materialism. It's emergentism in this case. We already know the that the content of the "conscious computation" is being determined by the brain computations. We also already know that it is logically impossible to defend the claim that the subjective experiences are just more computations. They are something else entirely. They are subjective experiences.

 

[69dodge]

They are exactly synonymous.

A) A description of X :

"B D V G" is the description of X

B) A description of a description of X:

"B D V G" is a description of the description of X

B) A description of a description of a description of X:

"B D V G" is a description of the description of the description of X

Can you tell me what is non-synonymous about these things? Do you think that every time you describe the description you are adding any new information to the description?

Do you program in C? (I think I remember you saying you did.)

Your list should look something like this:

"abc"
"\"abc\""
"\"\\\"abc\\\"\""

Etc.

 

[UndercoverElephant]

Do you program in C? (I think I remember you saying you did.)

Your list should look something like this:

"abc"
"\"abc\""
"\"\\\"abc\\\"\""

Etc.

Yes. I was technically wrong on this one, but I've explained my error to wasp.

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

No. When you say "conscious computation is a result of some other computation going on in the brain" you've just gone straight back to trying to defend some sort of non-eliminative materialism. It's emergentism in this case. We already know the that the content of the "conscious computation" is being determined by the brain computations. We also already know that it is logically impossible to defend the claim that the subjective experiences are just more computations. They are something else entirely. They are subjective experiences.

Oops, that's right. I can't say "conscious experience" or "conscious X" at all, can I? What do I call a conscious experience under eliminative materialism?

~~ Paul

 

[Mercutio]

Oops, that's right. I can't say "conscious experience" or "conscious X" at all, can I? What do I call a conscious experience under eliminative materialism?

~~ Paul

See, that is a huge problem, and why the initial challenge to "define these terms and I'll show how it's false" was a faulty question. The terms themselves are dualist. When you start there, defending either monism leaves something out. There are better constructions of the problem.

 

[chriswl]

The statement "My mind is a collection of neuronal processes" is no different to "minds are brain processes". This new attempt at an explanation has changed precisely nothing. You are still left with an unexplained relationship between subjective experiences and brain processes. I makes not one iota of difference whether you mean one brain process or all your brain processes. It is totally irrelevant to the question of how subjectivity arises from brain processes at all.

I'm not quite sure what you mean by explaining "how". I don't think we explain "how" a computer can compute, we just demonstrate it, go through the motions and watch computing behaviour emerge. Demonstrate it in our heads if we haven't got a computer in front of us, but it's still not really a direct understanding. That's not something you can generally have with emergent phenomena.

Anyway, that's why I think supervenience is not absurd. Let me give you a positive reason for why I believe in it. Basically, it all follows from this: I reject the idea of p-zombies. If I am in the presence for long enough of a person that acts as if they are conscious then I cannot really believe (without lying to myself) that they don't have consciousness. This would also be true of a simulation of a person, if the simulation was good enough and detailed enough, therefore I have to say that they would be conscious too. Of course I could be tricked by a machine that could give a convincing performance in a very narrow area of interaction so couldn't really be considered to be conscious and I might not realise it until I asked questions outside of it's specialised area. But given time to fully "get to know" someone (or, theoretically, something) I feel we can know for certain that they are conscious. Thats why we don't take solipsism seriously.

But if we can, in theory, create consciousness, just by simulating physical behaviour, how can it be anything more than something that emerges from the physical?

 

[chriswl]

If you believe a sufficiently powerful and sophisticated computer program that exactly models your brain processes is as conscious as you are, no problem. That's eliminative materialism.

Belief that something is conscious can be eliminative materialism? I think you need to rephrase that.

 

[UndercoverElephant]

Oops, that's right. I can't say "conscious experience" or "conscious X" at all, can I? What do I call a conscious experience under eliminative materialism?

~~ Paul

You can't call it anything. It is a meaningless concept.

 

[UndercoverElephant]

See, that is a huge problem, and why the initial challenge to "define these terms and I'll show how it's false" was a faulty question. The terms themselves are dualist. When you start there, defending either monism leaves something out. There are better constructions of the problem.

I have no idea why you think there is anything faulty about asking someone to define their terms and defend their position. They can define any terms they like. If they cannot define a coherent set of terms in order to defend their position then their position is incoherent. Period.

Let's see your "better construction". You've seen mine.

 

[UndercoverElephant]

But if we can, in theory, create consciousness, just by simulating physical behaviour, how can it be anything more than something that emerges from the physical?

We cannot, in theory, ever tell we had created consciousness - even if we had done it.

And as I keep telling you, the reason we can be sure that emergentism is wrong is because it is logically incoherent.

 

[Mercutio]

You can't call it anything. It is a meaningless concept.

Only as meaningless as "sunrise" is to a heliocentrist. We use the term as a label for something we agree to call "conscious experience". Face it, the people we learn the term from have no access to our "conscious experience", nor we to theirs, so the whole idea of some accurate referent for the phrase is silly. The term is useful in so much as we can communicate. It fails to be useful in that it leads to pointless discussion about its mechanism. Do we still argue about the mechanism by which the sun climbs in the sky? Does it do so of its own power, or is it drawn in a chariot?

That which we commonly refer to as conscious experience is a horrifically ill-defined thing. Still, we have those saying that the definition is somehow chiseled in stone and immutable...no.