Thought experiment refutes immaterialism!

[ceptimus]

Assume that in 100 years time, scientists have built a robot with a computer brain. The robot is able to function like a normal intelligent human. It can read, talk, argue, drive a car, play sport, appreciate art and literature, fall in love and so on.

Almost everyone agrees that the robot is conscious. It claims that it is 'just as conscious as everyone else' when you ask it, and is able to engage in the same sort of arguments and discussion that we do in these forums.

Does this thought experiment refute immaterialism?

 

[espritch]

Since immaterialism assumes that the immaterial world somehow interacts with the material to allow a conscious to reside in our brains, there is no good reason why it could not also interact in the same fashion with this conscious computer. So, no, I don't think it refutes immaterialism.

It is pretty much impossible to refute an idea that is based on no evidence to begin with.

 

[Pahansiri]

Assume that in 100 years time, scientists have built a robot with a computer brain. The robot is able to function like a normal intelligent human. It can read, talk, argue, drive a car, play sport, appreciate art and literature, fall in love and so on.

Almost everyone agrees that the robot is conscious. It claims that it is 'just as conscious as everyone else' when you ask it, and is able to engage in the same sort of arguments and discussion that we do in these forums.

Does this thought experiment refute immaterialism?

The problem is the base of your statement “ assume and that this assumption contains so many possibilities of variables.


I.e. things that are a mechanical response as in read, talk drive a car, play sport or even to a point appreciate art and literature 9 these 2 perhaps along with argue can be a programmed response.


But then you add the things that would indicate a sense of “self” or self awareness these being fall in love and so on. Emotions.

Almost everyone agrees that the robot is conscious. It claims that it is 'just as conscious as everyone else'

For me I could not agree something that may be is anything but “may be” and in such a case as to just my belief too many variables. I.e. programming could be the controlling and driving “force” data in data out.

Would “it” be arguing or would it be the arguing of the programmer?

when you ask it, and is able to engage in the same sort of arguments and discussion that we do in these forums.

Would “it” be arguing or would it be the arguing of the programmer?

Just what I believe.

 

[El Greco]

It claims that it is 'just as conscious as everyone else' when you ask it, and is able to engage in the same sort of arguments and discussion that we do in these forums.

I hope you are not talking about me again. It will be hard for me to vindicate my humanity.

 

[Interesting Ian]

Assume that in 100 years time, scientists have built a robot with a computer brain. The robot is able to function like a normal intelligent human. It can read, talk, argue, drive a car, play sport, appreciate art and literature, fall in love and so on.

Almost everyone agrees that the robot is conscious. It claims that it is 'just as conscious as everyone else' when you ask it, and is able to engage in the same sort of arguments and discussion that we do in these forums.

Does this thought experiment refute immaterialism?

No, how would you know the robot isn't effectively a p-zombie? You see you beg the question by equating function with consciousness

 

[ceptimus]

Ian, are you saying that there is (even in principle) no test that will allow us to determine whether or not something is conscious?

Do you think I am conscious? How can you tell?

 

[Interesting Ian]

Ian, are you saying that there is (even in principle) no test that will allow us to determine whether or not something is conscious?

Do you think I am conscious? How can you tell?

I think anomalous cognition (ESP) plays a role in addition to the totality of ones behaviour.

 

[ceptimus]

Re: Re: Thought experiment refutes immaterialism!

The problem is the base of your statement “ assume and that this assumption contains so many possibilities of variables.

I know. I really started the thread as a sort of wry comment on Ian's thread, where he suggests that the 'Newcomb's paradox' thought experiment might 'prove' something about dualism and souls. Personally, I don't see how thought experiments can show anything fresh about religious/philosophical questions of this type.

But this thread might be interesting in its own right. We'll see.

 

[ceptimus]

I think anomalous cognition (ESP) plays a role in addition to the totality of ones behaviour.

So lets add the assumption that you can meet and talk to this robot, and you get the 'feeling' that it is conscious. What would this mean?

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

And let's also say that some psion comes along and claims to have a telepathic communication with the robot.

~~Paul

 

[Interesting Ian]

So lets add the assumption that you can meet and talk to this robot, and you get the 'feeling' that it is conscious. What would this mean?

It would mean that there doesn't seem any good reason to suppose people are conscious but robots aren't. But since robots are purely mechanical, and we know how they work, then its consciousness must be equated to its functional states. We should then note that it would be peculiar for the origin of the robot's consciousness to be different from our own (given that the robot's and our consciousnesses are "similar"). Hence our consciousnesses also should be equated to our functional states. This then implies functionalist materialism is the correct position in the mind/body problem.

If one wanted to escape such a conclusion one could of course adopt solipsism. One wouldn't necessarily need to deny the existence of an external world, or even physical world, but there would be no consciousnesses in such a world (apart from, of course, your own).

 

[WinAce]

The split-brain experiment alone refutes immaterialism.

 

[Interesting Ian]

The split-brain experiment alone refutes immaterialism.

Just to clarify. It refutes the notion that there is no material world at all? That's what immaterialism means although no-one on this board seems to understand this Or do you mean it refutes any non-materialist position?

 

[Yahweh]

Re: Re: Thought experiment refutes immaterialism!

No, how would you know the robot isn't effectively a p-zombie? You see you beg the question by equating function with consciousness

Well, if it acts like a person, walks like a person, quacks like a person, and is indistinguishable from a person, then it is a person.

If the "zombie" exhibits all the symptoms of consciousness, then the "zombie" is not a zombie; for to exhibit all the symptoms of consciousness is to have consciousness, which the zombie is denied by definition


Random Inquery: I step into a futuristic machine. It scans all the atoms in my body (position, spin, etc.). As if by a miracle of Quantum Mechanics, the machine zaps into place all the atoms in the proper place with spin. My material body is recreated exactly, will the Yahweh Copy be conscious?

 

[RussDill]

All you would need to do is let the robots on their own (maybe just in a computer, why all the parts) and let them come up with the notion of conciousness on their own rather than telling them about it.

 

[Yahweh]

All you would need to do is let the robots on their own (maybe just in a computer, why all the parts) and let them come up with the notion of conciousness on their own rather than telling them about it.

If for any reason those robots invent a religion, I'm putting the blame square on your shoulders

 

[metacristi]

ceptimus

Does this thought experiment refute immaterialism?

Thought experiments never qualifies as proofs,there is no necessity that logical conclusions,even correctly derived from a set of premises considered true,experimetally derived,must also hold experimentally.Not even in the case when is proved that the conclusion is unique.Only if immaterialism were proved inconsistent internally or incompatible with observed facts would we have a more solid base,inductively derived,to consider it as refuted.Not the case I'm afraid.

But it would certainly represent a sufficient reason to consider that consciousness is entirely material and that relations between physical 'entities' (known or not) are enough to give rise to the consciousness based on observed facts if such a robot will be built in practice.Moreover if the architecture of the brain is macroscopic and computational (using switches and logic gates,not depending on quantum effects) the argument would represent a sufficient reason to consider that the computational emergentist theory of consciousness is much more than a simple open conjecture.

Indeed since the observed facts are the basis of all 'objective knowledge' [not some possible 'hidden reality' acting behind the scene,potentially unknowable-even if it existed ontologically the burden of proof is upon those who make the positive claim that it exist] and given the lack of any serious scientific alternative this is the only rational conclusion which can be derived from the current variant of the scientific method.

Of course this does not imply certitudes since all we can do is to make the constatation that the external behaviour of the robot is indistinguishable from that of a human being,a fact exploited by the 'zombies' argument.Even if we constructed a perfect clone (experimentally indistinguishable at the level of 'architecture') of a human being from raw material.

Anyway even if such a robot will ever be built,giving us a high degree of confidence that consciousness is entirely physical certified by the best method of establishing the truth,it is far from giving sufficient arguments that we and our reality are not in the 'mind of God' as simple 'information'.Depends therefore of what you mean by 'immaterialism'.If immaterialism merely means that consciousness is,at least,not entirely physical (stuff we can potentially probe) then yes the construction of a robot whose behaviour is indistiguishable from that of a human being does represent a sufficient reason against (Berkeleyan type or matrix type, where minds belong to a higher-up level different from the world we observe around,included).If immaterialism is extended to mean the existence of transcedental entities such a Creator (we and our reality being mere information or existing in the 'mind of God') or the existence of 'substances' which cannot interact with the physical then the construction of such a robot cannot qualify as a sufficient reason against.

 

[metacristi]

Overlook it.

 

[Interesting Ian]

Re: Re: Re: Thought experiment refutes immaterialism!

Well, if it acts like a person, walks like a person, quacks like a person, and is indistinguishable from a person, then it is a person.

If the "zombie" exhibits all the symptoms of consciousness, then the "zombie" is not a zombie; for to exhibit all the symptoms of consciousness is to have consciousness, which the zombie is denied by definition

I'm not sure you understand what Dennet is saying when he says this. He's not just simply saying that if it walks like a person etc that it is extremely likely it is conscious. Rather if it walks, talks, behaves like a person, then it is a person by definition. But then he's defining our mentality exclusively in terms of behaviour. Basically then he is saying consciousness doesn't exist. And if were ever to build an android, then it would be conscious by definition.

Random Inquery: I step into a futuristic machine. It scans all the atoms in my body (position, spin, etc.). As if by a miracle of Quantum Mechanics, the machine zaps into place all the atoms in the proper place with spin. My material body is recreated exactly, will the Yahweh Copy be conscious?

You'd get a corpse.

 

[BillyJoe]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Thought experiment refutes immaterialism!

Ian,

Whose the chick?

I'm not sure you understand what Dennet is saying when he says this. He's not just simply saying that if it walks like a person etc that it is extremely likely it is conscious. Rather if it walks, talks, behaves like a person, then it is a person by definition. But then he's defining our mentality exclusively in terms of behaviour. Basically then he is saying consciousness doesn't exist. And if were ever to build an android, then it would be conscious by definition.

And I thought you were never going to read Dennett?

You'd get a corpse.

Yes, we've done this one to death haven't we?