Personally I think it’s silly as hell. Qualia is obviously a biological component of experience… Not some weird thing that science will never be able to put in to words.
I’ve been listening to a lot of psychology podcasts lately and for some reason people seem obsessed with the idea despite you needing to make the same logical leaps to believe it as any sort of mysticism… Maybe I am just tripping idk
Qualia are what you perceive as a subjective experience, and you are able to relate that experience to other people because of human/animal input/output organs. We can measure brain activity associated with certain stimuli. But we don’t know how these things are related, and we don’t know what the requirements are for thoughts and experiences. Things without the ability to communicate may have thoughts that they can’t tell us about or that we can’t measure – how are we actually supposed to know?
In terms of experiences like ours, brains seem necessary, but what about the universe tells you we know about other toes of structures?
For example, we don’t even know the “minimum” number of brain cells to make a thought. 10? 100? 100,000? 10M? Is there a minimum? Do other organs produce thoughts as well but just can’t tell us?
Heck, people have hooked up robot arms to mycelium and it moves it around based on stimuli – what does the mycelium perceive when that happens? If someone hooked up a new input or output organ to you, would you start perceiving it internally as qualia, or would it always seem external?
Did you see the recent video on spider cognition research? Very interesting how they are able to perform complex behaviors with a very minimal set of neural bio matter.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=_QF6kaOAuYg
Your question about number of cells to make a thought brought it to mind.
For example, we don’t even know the “minimum” number of brain cells to make a thought. 10? 100? 100,000? 10M? Is there a minimum? Do other organs produce thoughts as well but just can’t tell us?
What do you mean “can’t tell us”? Who is us? I assure you your organs do indeed feed your thoughts. They are your thoughts in fact.
If someone hooked up a new input or output organ to you, would you start perceiving it internally as qualia, or would it always seem external?
We have real world examples of people gaining senses after they’ve developed consciousness. Again who is “you” and how do you “perceive” anything as external? I’ve never experienced anything externally at all. I can’t comprehend that thought process at all. If you plug a webcam into my USB port it would absolutely be within my subjective experience, I think.
Things without the ability to communicate may have thoughts that they can’t tell us about or that we can’t measure – how are we actually supposed to know?
They might also contain within them the divine spark… That would be fucking insane and world changing but I don’t have any reason to suspect it’s true…
That last one seems unlikely just off the weight of similarity to all other life. What’s the cutoff for a thing to have a soul? Only humans? Which protohuman met that threshold? Species are a social construct after all, biology is very happy to let humans and neanderthals breed viable offspring. Do all mammals have souls? Elephants perform funerary rites, but so do some birds. Is there a neuron count or brain structure that a soul lives in? Why wouldn’t a whale have a soul with those mega huge brains?
What I often think about are the human brainlet experiments, where they have 100s or 1000s of human brain cells in a dish and they use them to like compute math. They say that it’s ethical because brainless of that size don’t think or experience.
My thought on that is that nobody knows what thinking or experiencing is or means or emerges from. How can they know this?
Anyway, it’s not entirely relevant, but I think it’s related in a way to this discussion through the researchers’ certainty of what thinking is, when we don’t really have any clue.
Brain cells without the ability to predict future harm or remember past harm or even the ability to interpret harm are probably not suffering. At least it’s hard for us to imagine a state of suffering without those aspects.
My question is how do you know any of that? Nobody actually even knows what constitutes a thought, nor what a memory is or how they are stored, nor the capability of a small number of cells. How would you without assumptions?
The problem with that logic is it collapses in to solipsism. How do you know any other being in the universe is capable of any thought at all? If we assume that because of our biological nature we are wholly incapable from deriving the truth, we may as well have given up from the jump.
You’re making scientific assumptions about a topic where there is no science to back it up, and establishing the framework for the thought experiment. I feel like you’ve already made the assertion that only biological structures can think, so why bother even posing the question if not to just reinforce you’re already held belief?
The problem I’m pointing out is that nobody even understands how the actions of the biological systems you’re talking about even do the things you’re attributing to them (memories, thoughts, reasoning) - we don’t have a structure property relationship to show that there is a known relationship between the biology and the actions – except that we can ask humans. We can’t ask other things, or brainlets.
I feel like you’ve already made the assertion that only biological structures can think, so why bother even posing the question if not to just reinforce you’re already held belief?
What does it mean to “think”? Is the bundle of brainlets not biological in this scenario?
The problem I’m pointing out is that nobody even understands how the actions of the biological systems you’re talking about even do the things you’re attributing to them (memories, thoughts, reasoning) - we don’t have a structure property relationship to show that there is a known relationship between the biology and the actions – except that we can ask humans.
I may be misunderstanding you, but would a scan of the brain not demonstrate how the brain maps? I am pretty sure, that we are pretty sure, that the amygdala is responsible for your flight or fight response, the right half of your brain is responsible for creativity, the left objectivity (or vice versa, you get the point) and only showing data to one side of your brain has incredibly profound impacts on how you interpret said data. Is this not science to back up my beliefs? I guess I haven’t cited them, but nobody has cited their “consciousness is foundational” beliefs either.
I think its a grave undersell to state we have no idea how the biological systems at play interact… we have very very vague ideas. Much more than 0.
It really isn’t. One can very easily be presently in a great deal of pain.
Yeah but present pain only seems to really matter if it entails future pain as well. Thats a great Zen Buddhist trick I learned many years ago: you aren’t afraid of pain: you’re afraid of future pain. Current pain is already happening and you’re already bearing it.
If I am constantly feeling present pain, but completely incapable of acknowledging the past, I cannot ground my present pain in any relative sense.
Consciousness IMO isn’t a field of study for science. Science is based on the measurement of observable phenomena, and consciousness is the subjective experience. We can’t observe it in others, so how could we hope to form a testable theory? Utterly absurd.
Consciousness IMO isn’t a field of study for science.
People said that shit about the material world… So far the claim that “X isn’t a field of study for science” has been wrong every time.
Propose a falsifiable hypothesis that describes consciousness. Propose a test that could disprove the hypothesis
I like a synthesis of Global Workspace Theory and illusionism. Here’s my hypothesis:
Consciousness is a bundle of modular cognitive processes coordinated via a global workspace, with the sense of unity and richness partly illusory; even if experience is illusory or partially constructed, its functional and self-modeling properties are emergent and necessary for interaction with complex biological systems.
This can be proven false by demonstrating fully integrated conscious experience without the presence of a globalized workspace.
The illusionism part could be disproven if we ever map out the entirety of the human brain (mind reading effectively) and prove that qualia is not illusory.
I admit this doesn’t really counter the “hard problem” of why it feels like anything to experience… But I really do feel like that’s just a weird philosophy party question that doesn’t actually mean anything. What would it possible mean to not experience? We have no frame of reference for an actual, honest to goodness, p zombie
edit: actually it cannot be disproven with a fully integrated conscious experience without presence of a globalized workspace… that just means there are possibly multiple ways to develop consciousness (which I believe is already the scientific consensus) and GWT is one of those ways.
Lol, this reads like the white paper for an AI start up, and contains just about as much abuse of jargon.
hell yeah gimme that VC money dawg. Critics like you are what the silicon valley types consider “Winning:”!
Yep, the comparison to silicone valley vcs is certainly apt
This can be proven false by demonstrating fully integrated conscious experience
How do you demonstrate consciousness
That is certainly a good question, which is why I edited my comment. I imagine we will be able to do it at some point, the same way we can packet capture a network interaction, but for now… no clue.
We might pick up se sort of brainwave or similar, but we’re trying to identify the feeling of subjective experience through objective means, not merely identify a physical process. This is be definition impossible. An inherent contradiction
Subjective experience, at least how I think it occurs, is literally just those brain waves functioning.
Theoretically we could take brain A in a jar, take it’s exact conscious state, and apply it to Brain B in a jar and see what “qualia” transfers over.
Maybe this is just my compsci brain but I literally do this all the time with computers…
Let’s assume we had a raspberry pi sitting under a tree somewhere running Pong for the last three thousand years. Every scientist that has ever looked at that machine had thought it was magic, but we can clearly see otherwise through retrospect. We can capture the actual ones and zeroes being moved between different pieces of copper. We can take those ones and zeroes and figure out exactly what they’re for.
We can do this because we are the creator of said ones and zeroes, but to those scientists the last three thousand years, it is basically consciousness.
Without the spec doc you can never truly learn what that computer is doing… People would argue that while it may be playing pong it’s true goal is to deceive the viewer into thinking it’s doing nothing but playing pong. A P Zombie of a raspberry pi.
We can never capture the subjective experience of that machine… Whatever the hell that means… So we can never know what it’s actual goal was, without retrospect.
A P Zombie theoretically has no data running within the copper but I don’t think that is literally possible at all, which is why I think P Zombies are nonsense.
yeah this 100%, it’s always the frustration i run into hearing hard (and imo reductive) physicalist/materialist arguments around this stuff. it almost always reads to me as coming from an ulterior motive of wanting to expand science beyond its purview, and/or of wanting to shortcut out the at times difficult cognitive dissonance that comes from the inherent ambiguity/mystery around philosophical questions.
Exactly.
So no psychology either? Heals a lot of people though. But I agree, that science is not enough for every philosophical question about our minds and experience. It still has a place though.
We can see what therapies lead to specific results quite readily. If a certain therapy reduces suicides, that’s measurable and objective. Certainly there are elements of the field that aren’t good subjects for scientific method, but the field involves plenty of science
Yes, I agree. Also, I think I now got what you meant earlier and agree with that too.
Does it though? Despite the overwhelming spread of psychology, I don’t think people are on the whole ‘getting better’. Now, I don’t think that is exclusively psychology’s fault, but I do think that there are large elements of the human experience that are not addressed by psychology, and moreover, the replication crisis has shown that psychology is better understood as a roughly systemic discipline than a heuristic one.
Psychology is still bound to the material determinations that makes it a practicing profession.
One could say the same thing of meditation and zen, but that doesn’t mean it has a heuristic aspect to it.
i think a more precise version of what Dessa was trying to convey is more like: “the ultimate nature of consciousness isn’t a field of study for science,” which i agree with. you’re right re: psychology and neuroscience - that we can study how conscious experience seems to behave under certain conditions and contexts, and within certain baseline assumptions. and through that we find practical breakthroughs that can really help people.
“the ultimate nature of consciousness isn’t a field of study for science,”
Yes, I absolutely agree with that, some questions are metaphysical. I just think we shouldn’t discount the field of “talking to people about their subjective experiences and using the scientific method to see what effects them” as unscientific.
Consciousness must be a possible object of study, otherwise we are all reincarnations of Descartes!
It’s chemical soup animated by electricity. Everything our bodies do is in response to some preceding event. You’re alive because of an unbroken chain of life stretching back to the simplest natural chemical reactions. It’s been a nonstop craving for energy and resources ever since then.
Humans give themselves far too much credit. Everything living on the planet is equally just as alive as any of us. We share a massive amount of genetic similarities to not just animals, but also plants and fungi. I’m not saying we should sacrifice a human life for that of a fly, but rather that, to the fly, it’s life is just as meaningful and important as ours. Our existence is barely a blip in the planets history.
The dinosaurs spent millions of years dominating the Earth. How can we say, in our measly 200,000, that we are Gods favorite and uniquely bestowed a soul? What right have we to claim to be so elevated above all other life on Earth? We eat, breathe, die, the same as everything else in this world. The passage of time is unavoidable. “My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings…”
It’s been a nonstop craving for energy and resources ever since then.
That is actually a topic that interests me in terms of e.g. degrowth. I’d like reading suggestions from others on this, because if Life is hardwired to increase entropy, how do we manage global communism for any kind of “sustainability”? How can human civilization design itself to be within planetary boundaries? Maybe recognition of our “inability” to do so is all that’s required. A kind of consciousness similar to class consciousness.
Edit to clarify my idea a bit: One’s own class consciousness develops in part due to recognition that change which benefits your personal material interests is not possible alone but in a collective of your fellow class members. Maybe individually human beings are energy maximizers but can collectively develop “species consciousness” in order to align material interests (i.e. a human society which balances human liberation with ecosystem services, rights of the biosphere, etc)
Life is actually the counter to Entropy. Thats where we get the term Negentropy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negentropy
It fits so perfectly well into a Marxist dialectic fractal acid trip theory too… I love it.
Lots of process cause local reductions of entropy; it has nothing to do with life. And life massively increases global entropy.
It is not the counter to entropy. Life manages to get less entropy in a small volume by dumping magnitudes more in surrounding space.
Right I know that life’s increasing levels of complexity and organization are “counter” to entropy
But at the same time, the more complex the organism the greater the energy required to sustain it. The same can be said for the development of industrial civilization. So while I get what you’re saying I don’t think that really solves the problem at all…
Yeah philosophically it feels great but it either completely disrupts the laws of thermodynamics or it doesnt… I am leaning toward doesn’t. Maybe Lifes incredibly resilience is the key to its Negentropy. We will simply come up with a new means of living whenever the shit hits the fan. Thats what Bill Gates wants us to believe anyways.
I 100% guarantee theres some genius Chinese think talk talking about this right now and we will never fucking hear of it. Some dingus on Reddit told me Marxism is dead because Rawlsianism replaced it so I decided to do a deep dive on modern marxist theory and… they be cookin.
Please, for the love of God, learn what entropy actually is and what the laws of thermodynamics actually say before trying to wax lyrical about them. Learn what the term “closed system” means for a start
I actually wrote an entire masters thesis on Negentropy
Sure you did, I’m sure the person who proudly declared they don’t read arguments from people they disagree with wrote a masters thesis on negentropy without understanding the second law of thermodynamics and thinking that maybe life violates it.
I 100% guarantee theres some genius Chinese think talk talking about this right now and we will never fucking hear of it.
I will find this place and I will learn Chinese and I will get a job there and I will contribute to the realization of Sustainable Intergalactic Super Communism.
Every time someone at work compliments me for doing a good job I literally think “yeah but its all for nothing because I am not Chinese”
real sad world we live in. The Haves (Chinese) certainly make us Have Nots (everyone else) look like shit.
Yeah for real. Not gonna dox myself but I work in Science™ in the US and we are getting absolutely dabbed on it’s so pathetic. I guess it’s for the best that Empire is forgetting how to do The Science.
looping @BountifulEggnog@hexbear.net in on this subthread because I think it aligns with her interests based on comments i’ve seen on the bear. maybe im confusing her with another doomposter…
I am, broadly speaking, less interested in philosophy and more interested in science. I totally agree with Lurkmore’s statement that we are chemical soup and that all life has a nonstop craving for resources. I’m a materialist and panpsychism sounds like nonsense to me, I don’t know how one would even demonstrate such a thing.
I’m not familiar with the idea of negentropy, all I can really remember about life and entropy was someone explaining to me that life can temporarily create local order, but overall the system (including life) is still heading towards disorder. To get our local bit of order, maybe 1.1x the amount of disorder is caused to sustain us. Life is messy and especially our industrialized society.
Maybe individually human beings are energy maximizers but can collectively develop “species consciousness” in order to align material interests (i.e. a human society which balances human liberation with ecosystem services, rights of the biosphere, etc)
Yes, this is essentially what needs to happen. I think its hypothetically possible for that to happen, we overcome desires all the time. Especially with the consequences being so grave. Plus we’re talking a society that is already seeking equality, most good for the most people etc. I’m imagining a very selfless socialist/communist society being able to come together and degrowth and live sustainably.
If we had overthrown the rich 100 years ago and had global socialism by say the 1970s, yea definitely. I am not optimistic at present that this will materialize in reality.
Yes, this is essentially what needs to happen. I think its hypothetically possible for that to happen, we overcome desires all the time. Especially with the consequences being so grave. Plus we’re talking a society that is already seeking equality, most good for the most people etc. I’m imagining a very selfless socialist/communist society being able to come together and degrowth and live sustainably.
I’m glad this makes sense to somebody else. I have the privilege of knowing Smart Science People in daily life who I can engage on these topics with to a certain extent, but they are not Marxists so it never feels like our conversations lead to dialectical “progress.” They are very smart but ultimately libs so trying to have these discussions is so utterly unsatisfying.
If we had overthrown the rich 100 years ago and had global socialism by say the 1970s, yea definitely. I am not optimistic at present that this will materialize in reality.
That is basically my position. It’s not that humans are incapable of solving the polycrisis, it’s that our present material conditions (and I am including a livable biosphere in this) are probabilistically determined. Our species needed to “get lucky” on many dice rolls in order to place itself in a competitive position at this very moment, and we failed basically all of them.
Thank you for responding to my @. I viewed your profile after doing so and was worried I shouldn’t have brought the topic up given your headspace. I know words on the internet mean shitall during the twilight of our species, but I am truly thankful for being able to engage with somebody on this topic.
So you wouldn’t consider it a bad thing if I tortured you to death? After all, you’re just chemicals, no different than a rock or a river or a printer.
So you wouldn’t consider it a bad thing if I tortured you to death?
Yes, I think causing suffering is bad. Why do you think its bad to torture someone to death, some non material “thing”?
no different than a rock or a river or a printer.
I am an intelligent creature capable of suffering.
Also, not evidence of anything outside of the material. Just wishes.
Yes, I think causing suffering is bad.
Sorry. What is “suffering?” How can a certain set of physical forces operating on a collection of cellular matter have a moral valence?
I am an intelligent creature capable of suffering.
What do you mean? We’re just talking about a grouping of elementary particles responding to the laws of physics in a deterministic manner. Exactly the same as a rock, river, or printer. How can electricity and soup have any kind of subjective or moral properties?
Also, not evidence of anything outside of the material. Just wishes.
Really? Because you seem to be assertion the existence of some non-material dynamic that makes certain collections of particles qualitatively different from others.
Sorry. What is “suffering?”
The state of undergoing pain, distress, or hardship.
How can a certain set of physical forces operating on a collection of cellular matter have a moral valence?
I, the inhabitant of this flesh suit, find it unpleasant. I value the experience of other fleshy bags of meat. Its just a choice. If you wanted different morality you could find it. I think my morality is pretty good though, I think it’d work out for a lot of us fleshy meat bags. Might be good for our collective experiences idk.
How can electricity and soup have any kind of subjective or moral properties?
I am giving you my best explanation of the evidence I have seen. If you have evidence we are more then electricity and soup by all means, share with the class. I honestly don’t care to argue morality back and forth, as I said earlier in the thread I’m more interested in science. There’s loads of evidence both chemical soup and electricity plays a significant role in me living and my inner experiences. I’ve taken drugs that bind to different neurotransmitters that make me feel different kinds of ways, I also had ECT done where they sent a lil shock through my brain to help me feel differently. Where is the evidence something non material impacts my thoughts, my subjective experience? Some soul, or whatever you are getting at.
Just because we do not know something does not mean we should fill in the gaps. I am open to a non material explanation for my inner world, by all means where’s the evidence? Until then I’m sticking with what we have evidence for. The evidence has only ever pointed to materialism.
Because you seem to be [asserting] the existence of some non-material dynamic that makes certain collections of particles qualitatively different from others.
I am qualitatively, materially different from a rock. There is no evidence a rock can think, can suffer, can anything.
The state of undergoing pain, distress, or hardship.
Sorry, what are those? What particles mediate them? I do not know of any mechanical process called “pain”
I, the inhabitant of this flesh suit, find it unpleasant
I thought you said it was all just biological soup and electricity. Now you’re claiming there’s some kind of ghost “inhabiting” it?
I value the experience of other fleshy bags of meat
How can a cloud of particles and forces have values or experiences? And if you do, why do you value some fleshy bags of meat but not others?
Its just a choice.
A choice? How can a deterministic set of mechanical interactions have a choice? It just responds to cause and effect according to the laws of physics.
I think my morality is pretty good though
Who’s this “I” and what does “pretty good” mean? It’s all just physics and chemistry right?
Might be good for our collective experiences idk.
Sorry, what’s an “experience”? And why would your arbitrary designation of some physical systems as having a valence be “good”
I am giving you my best explanation of the evidence I have seen. If you have evidence we are more then electricity and soup by all means, share with the class.
You have it the wrong way around; you’re the one asserting things beyond electrity and meat: things like “suffering”, “experiences”, “good and bad”, “‘inhabitants’ of the ‘flesh suits’”.
I honestly don’t care to argue morality back and forth
I suspect you would change that tone pretty quickly if someone decided to take seriously your assertion that people are just meat and decided to dissect you.
There’s loads of evidence both chemical soup and electricity plays a significant role in me living and my inner experiences.
“Significant role” is very different from “there is only meat and electricity.”
Where is the evidence something non material impacts my thoughts
Read this again and try to find the contradiction.
Just because we do not know something does not mean we should fill in the gaps.
I’m not. You are
I am qualitatively, materially different from a rock.
No. You aren’t. You are made up of exactly the same three particles, subject to the exact same physical forces.
There is no evidence a rock can think, can suffer, can anything.
There’s no evidence you can either: all we have is stimulus and response via physical mechanism. A mousetrap does that too
Since you want to pick apart my view and clearly do not agree, I am curious about yours. You seem to think there’s more to a person then chemicals, what else do you think there is? What is missing?
You have it the wrong way around; you’re the one asserting things beyond electricity and meat:
What really made me want to engage with you was this:
After all, you’re just chemicals, no different than a rock or a river or a printer.
And it seems pretty obvious to me you disagree with this view, that you are saying it in a sarcastic or mocking way. You’ve done you’re bit, I see that either my view is incomplete or I am not explaining myself properly. Maybe both, I am not a philosophy person. So could you please explain, even a hint, of what you think I’m missing so I can improve?
you’re referencing/quoting a different poster just for the record
I also don’t agree with most stuff I hear about qualia, but I don’t think refuting them is easy, because you need an alternative concept for what we seem to feel and experience subjectively. People who write and edit articles like this one aren’t dumb and have probably already anticipated every argument we could make against qualia.
Also, empirical science can only answer a limited set of questions. Many legitimate philosophical questions are meta-physical. For example the questions what distinguishes science from pseudo-science, what knowledge is, what is possible for us to know and what the scientific method should be. There is currently no consensus on any of these among philosophers/scientists. It might even be logically impossible to prove an answer to any of them.
Personally, I tend to agree with you. Or at least, I tend towards the view, that empirical science should in principle be able to one day lend strong support to a metaphysical explanation of qualia as emergent, that only invokes a minimum of new assumptions. I just don’t think it’ll be that easy.
i think it’s unfair to write off metaphysical idealism (which iirc panpsychism is under the umbrella of) as mysticism, it’s a philosophical position with various arguments for and against it, one you disagree with (which is fine) but simply asserting something seems like it’s obviously a byproduct of matter isn’t compelling. it strikes me as working backwards out of a faith-based desire to have physicalism as an unquestioned first principle.
fwiw, after a philosophy dual major in undergrad many moons ago, i basically emerged a soft skeptic about philosophical knowledge (with one or two basic, undoubtable positions) which is part of why i didn’t pursue it further (outside idly pondering those big universal questions for fun/to deepen my experience of the world from the comfort of my armchair). i also acknowledge i don’t live as a skeptic - it seems impossible to do so and to function - so like everyone i take various (at times contradictory) leaps of faith about the nature of reality.
I’ll admit it’s possible I just haven’t heard a good argument yet, but philosophical zombies, qualia, and Mary’s room all fall under the umbrella of “category errors that are fun to talk about at parties but easy to pick apart”. It also opens up an entire new can of worms that we can’t even test, which is always off-putting to me If the universe was capable of consciousness why wasn’t it already agential? If complexity is necessary for the consciousness to actual manifest into anything meaningful does the consciousness matter?
It’s funny because I find it impossible to live as anything but a skeptic… If I believed what I was told I’d be fucking homeless lol
philosophical zombies, qualia, and Mary’s room all fall under the umbrella of “category errors that are fun to talk about at parties but easy to pick apart”.
If you think that, then you straight up do not understand the be arguments being made, and frankly you should reflect on the arrogance of assuming that all the intelligent people who take these argument’s seriously are just dimwits who lack your galaxy brain. It’s one thing to disagree with these argument’s, but you’re not actually taking them seriously at all.
It also opens up an entire new can of worms that we can’t even test, which is always off-putting to me
Tough luck. “The possible implications of this being true make me uncomfortable” is not an argument for it being false.
If you think that, then you straight up do not understand the be arguments being made, and frankly you should reflect on the arrogance of assuming that all the intelligent people who take these argument’s seriously are just dimwits who lack your galaxy brain. It’s one thing to disagree with these argument’s, but you’re not actually taking them seriously at all.
I don’t just think that, I express that. As I have said previously in this thread, I don’t see how Mary’s Room is anything different than arguing whether a hotdog is a sandwich. Either she possesses the knowledge that the individual positing the question considers red, or she doesn’t. If she possesses that knowledge, she gains nothing by seeing red “for the first time”.
And to think I’ve argued with intelligent people on this is very loaded… I’ve argued with REDDITORS about this. Probs not even real people!
ah i should clarify, i meant “epistemic skepticism” rather than the general way we use the term skepticism, which is to say “there’s nothing (or very little) we can Truly Know” (i.e. i came to the conclusion that, while philosophy is often fun and enriching, these questions are by and large unanswerable). living as more general skeptics is i’m sure how a lot of us became socialists.
but the language around things being untestable as a way to dismiss them is kind of what i’m getting at, it seems you’re operating with “scientific method = direct path to philosophical knowledge” as an a priori truth, which i think misunderstands a lot of what philosophy is about and the distinctions between the two fields. tons of philosophical questions are untestable by scientific standards, and the benchmark of testability already rests on a lot of interesting assumptions about the nature of & trustworthiness of consciousness (since scientific experiments rely on observations through the mechanisms of consciousness).
tbf, the impression i get is that a lot of modern analytic philosophers do the same thing (taking certain presuppositions of science as a priori truths in philosophy), casting philosophy as a “handmaiden of science” as they say. my cynical theory is that this has at least as much to do with inter-academic politics as it does genuinely felt positions, given how much capitalism favors STEM over the humanities.
but the language around things being untestable as a way to dismiss them is kind of what i’m getting at, it seems you’re operating with “scientific method = direct path to philosophical knowledge” as an a priori truth, which i think misunderstands a lot of what philosophy is about and the distinctions between the two fields.
I see what you mean now with the skepticism. We are at an impasse. Either consciousness is emergent from the brain, and science can explain it. Or it’s foundational, and our complete lack of other higher consciousness beings leaves us wholly unable to further understand the foundational nature of it, which basically falls into solipsism.
Though I will say having an a priori assumption that the scientific method will pan out has paid off so far. Not sure that’s true for the a priori assumption that all a priori assumptions are shaky though :^)
Tangentially related, Anton just dropped this fascinating vid: Why Did Consciousness Evolve? Exciting Research on Bird Brains. TL;DW: Bird brains evolved with completely different brain structures than mammals. And not only do they display signs of consciousness (the example used is pointing a laser on the animal and seeing if they recognize that the dot is on them while looking at themselves in a mirror), but apparently they’re more efficient, being more capable than mammal brains for their size.
Hell yeah I’ll watch that in just a few.
Side note: people need to leave birds alone. I saw a video a few months ago of someone playing a sound file to a song bird and encoding data to it more or less… That should be illegal. Don’t do that.
Can you be more specific? Trying to understand what you mean.
Birds copy any old sounds that are interesting enough. Getting a bird to copy a steganographic noise just means the bird is really good at copying that sound, not that it’s being abused or used as file storage.
I don’t think it’s animal abuse I just don’t like the idea of someone potentially transmitting porn OTA via birds
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
I saw the video. Someone created a sound with a specific shape in its graph(?). They played the sound to a mimic bird and then recorded its mimicry. The sound file recorded from the bird contained a similar graph as the original.
Oh neat
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
Qualia is obviously a biological component of experience
Not very Leninist!!! The brain, per se, does not think. Trying to approach the subject from that purely biological perspective is doomed to failure. Human cognition is nothing without social labor.
well yes I am a physicalist which probably literally stems from my marxist leninist roots lol. Historical Materialism is how I understand reality… of course humans are beholden to their environment thats Marxism 101 baby.
No, physicalism is absolutely not dialectical. You’re completely discarding activity. Marx didn’t uncover the mechanics of money by studying gold, he studied the process of commodity exchange!
too stupid for this level of memes. Hopefully ill be there someday
Surely you are not?! You recall the commodity and money circuit, no?
The only thing I know about commodities is I am effectively one right now…
Google AI:
The General Formula of Capital: M-C-M’ Marx introduces the general formula for capital as M-C-M’.
M (Money): The capitalist begins with a sum of money (M). C (Commodities): The money is used to purchase specific commodities (C), which include the means of production (raw materials, machinery, etc.) and labor-power (L). This is represented as M-C(MP + L). M' (More Money): These commodities are then used in the process of production to create new commodities (C') of greater value, which are then sold for a larger sum of money (M'). M' is greater than the initial M (M' > M), with the difference (M' - M) being the surplus value or profit.There aint no fucking way Marx was like “Money plus Commodities Plus More Money = capitalism” LOL
That is what Marx formulated, yes. And that is the formula for what capitalist exchange is, and it is a pretty ground-breaking truth, so ground breaking that it feels like basic common sense, but nobody ever actually described this historical phenomena that way before him.
Traditional commodity money exchange under feudalism was C-M-C with the feudal lord being the primary consumer of commodities. M-C-M means that there is effectively no limit to the consumption, as it is driven not by an end goal of commodity attainment, but by the infinite accumulation of money itself.
mmm I love having smarter people around than I.
I have not read Vol 2 yet… I felt very satisfied with Vol 1 and use it constantly to dunk on libs on reddit… maybe i should read the rest. Or not, theres plenty of other bullshit to read.
All this talk of neurons.
As an idiot, I still think cytoskeletons within cells are the most interesting avenue of research. Microtubules are responsible for an awful lot of things that happen within cells, from movement to pulling chromosome copies apart in division. There’s some buzz that their structure gives may might maybe give them “quantum computational properties” and they appear to be what anesthetics affect. Although its all still early research and there’s a lot of "could"s "possibly"s and "maybe"s.
Isn’t this Penrose’s weird ether fume huffing thoughts?
Perhaps. It still strikes me as a better potential explanation than neurons = transistors, consciousness = computation.
Plus, if you aren’t rooting for at least one kind of kooky hypothesis, then whats even the point of spectating modern science?
Nobody serious views brains as a computer. Anyone with any technical background in either computational theory or neuroscience knows they’re vastly different.
Don’t get confused by pop culture nonsense. People used to use clockwork or steam engines as crude analogy for the brain, wasn’t any more accurate then.
Not sure qualia is real or tangible thing
Try putting your hand on a hot stove and telling yourself the pain isn’t a real or tangible thing
what if I felt pleasure? would it be comparable to “what its like to feel pain”?
Yes
So you can feel pain, while in the same scenario it gives me pleasure, and you think that subjective experience is an objective “thing” that both of us are sharing? and we can know that? I am not saying that nothing is occurring, but I don’t think “qualia” is a falsifiable or useful way to describe what is occurring
that subjective experience is an objective “thing” that both of us are sharing?
Not exactly. We’re not sharing anything; we both have our own subjective experiences that are inaccessible to each other. The point is that the subjective experiences happen at all. Compare this to just putting a rock or a printer on a stove.
and we can know that?
We can’t know the other person has a subjective experiences for certain. But if you think you can’t know about yourself that’s the point of my comment: try putting your hand on a hot stove and convincing yourself you don’t know if you’re in pain or not.
but I don’t think “qualia” is a falsifiable or useful way to describe what is occurring
Again, try putting your hand on a stove and convincing yourself that this is no different than putting a rock on the stove.
What do you mean you’re not sure qualia is real? Are you a meat automaton acting entirely on instinct with no subjective experiences whatsoever? You’ve never felt pain or pleasure or experienced a flavor?
it is something that cannot be defined… like … by definition. That seems like a poor explanatory tool, and it also seems like a non-falsifiable heuristic . I don’t think whether it is real or not means we lack free will, and honestly I think conflating the two is a pretty spurious claim. Qualia is a subjective “thing” that sort of implies a dualism, but does not actually imply free will. You are assuming that free will = subjective experience and I never implied that. The brain is incredibly complex and we don’t really have a consistent understanding of consciousness, so qualia may as well be called “ether” or “impetus” … Its just as likely that the mind itself is something like an incredibly complex set of biological state-machines and consciousness necessarily implies the relationship between that organism and the environment it is situated in. But none of that necessitates a superimposed “what its like” phenomenon that is a particular object that is simultaneously inexplicable and necessary for “being”
I don’t hold this view, but it sounds like eliminativism or illusionism
Douglas hofstadter has some interesting writings on this topic that are worth exploring imo.
Gödel, Escher, Bach
And
I am a Strange Loop
GEB is a massive, rambling tone but I found it an enjoyable read, the other one came decades later and explored a smaller, refined subset of the ideas found in GEB.
When i was studying philosophy, panpsychism was treated a bit like skepticism in general. Fascinating and compelling arguments, but not practicable. It is true that logic is a closed system, so you can’t really determine a priori that the sun will rise tomorrow. No one actually lives like the sun isn’t showing up. We have no idea what the cause or mechanism of consciousness is, and as such there is no reason to assume that certain types of cell or an arrangement of them are related to it.
In the literature, the idea that the exact specific cells of your body make up your consciousness or that there’s a specific pattern of cells that make it up are variants of hard materialism, with respect to consciousness. They are also wrong (One’s cells replace themselves, so if consciousness was in the specific cells you’d get ship of theseus’ed. We also don’t act like many brain injuries change a person.)
With all that above in mind, the argument that there’s no inherent reason to treat of pile of wires as different from a pile of ganglia or neurons was one of those arguments that someone came up with as a counterpoint more than a real point. The only ‘professional’ philosopher that adheres to panpsychism is David Chalmers, and some people in the field think he’s doing a long running bit.
my personal view is that panpsychism claims that elementary particles (either the normal ones we know or some new ones) have a mental or proto-mental character. This is to stay that a bunch of particles together give rise to complex forms. This is another way of taking materialism (in philosophy of consciousness, zero relation to political theory) at its word and treating consciousness as something that developed from lava-cooked, meteorite-seeded primordial soup. We already think proteins and organelles and organisms are increasingly complex combinations of these particles, so if consciousness is an organic phenomenon, why wouldn’t it follow a similar path?
i think the point of this is to demonstrate that materialism (brain is conscious experience and changing one will definitionally change the other) is at least an incomplete picture. i definitely don’t agree with it personally, but i do think it’s an interesting idea in the contemporary philosophical conversation about the mind.
If all the cells in my body can create consciousness that I am experiencing then why couldn’t all the bodies on Earth create a consciousness that the planet would experience?
No mechanism for which to provide the data to make up said experience. No neurons.
I think this is insufficient. What do neurons have that the mechanical systems through which the motion of every particle on Earth influences every other particle don’t?
Neurons have a specific electrical function and interconnection that we can demonstrate experimentally.
Yes but that specific mechanism has never been demonstrated to have anything to do with consciousness beyond the fact that interrupting them also interrupts consciousness. If we’re positing that consciousness is something that belongs to each individual part of the biological system, but then a singular consciousness that corresponds to the whole being can arise out of their interaction, why should that part of the process be limited purely to electrical connections between neurons?
I’m not saying it has to be limited to only neurons, but until there’s a way to test whether or not entire ecosystems can have a consciousness like ours then I am skeptical of these claims
Neurons transmit information to the brain, the brain does the central processing of that information. There doesn’t appear to be means to encode and transmit data for Gaia the same way a neuron transcodes and transmits data for the brain.
The purpose of our neurons transcoding information seems to be directly related to a desire for homeostasis. Gaia may have some abstract form of homeostasis on an ecological entropy sense, but there is no central processing unit interpreting data.
There is nothing innately that the neurons “have” that makes this possible, the same way there is nothing an atom has that makes water wet, yet that property emerges from the atom.
There doesn’t appear to be means to encode and transmit data for Gaia the same way a neuron transcodes and transmits data for the brain.
Well, isn’t there? There’s a pretty massive amount of matter, particles flying around whose positions and velocities are all entangled because of their interactions, much like the particles in any mechanical system.
but there is no central processing unit interpreting data.
There isn’t exactly one in the brain, either. It’s like how in a computer’s CPU there’s not really any individual part that you can single out as “doing the computing.” There’s special purpose registers, general purpose registers, a control unit, a data path, an ALU, and so on. These things, by their interactions, cause computing to happen. As far as we know, a central nervous system is the same. There’s a huge number of neurons that are interacting with each other, some parts of the central nervous system appear to be linked to some specific function like long term memory, visual processing, etc; but you can’t really point to a way in which there’s a specific physical property of neurons that enables consciousness, as you said.
IMO I don’t think there’s a good way to dismiss the conclusion that very large physical systems like planet earth, or even the entire universe, interact in a way that’s not fundamentally different from how a brain interacts with itself, so unless there’s something other than the physical interactions between neurons at play, they must be able to experience the same consciousness.
but you can’t really point to a way in which there’s a specific physical property of neurons that enables consciousness, as you said.
There is no “enabling” consciousness. Consciousness is simply first person experience. The hum of the machine. It’s all calculations all at once aimed toward homeostasis. We can pick away every sense you have until there is no consciousness left.
Consciousness seems to be agentic. A unified experience that the universe obviously doesn’t have because we are subjectively experiencing it.
but you can’t really point to a way in which there’s a specific physical property of neurons that enables consciousness, as you said.
We can certainly point to specific physical properties that prevent consciousness from ever arising. If I snap froze your brain you would lose consciousness, if we snap unfroze you you would resume consciousness from the moment we unfroze you.
Are all computational devices conscious? If not, why not?
I do think we will recreate consciousness by computer means, our current computers are not conscious as we currently define it as they do not really attempt to achieve homeostasis.
You say that but the Earth experiences vast and slow movements in its magnetohydrodynamic inner layers, and through the distribution of momentum via force of gravity alone out to the moon and in from the gentle tugs of the other planets and the sun. If we assign a will to the universe, building consciousness seems to be a side effect of wanting to collect all matter in neat spheres.
I wouldn’t asign a will to the universe as that seems to be sneaking in teleological thinking. There is no apparent mechanism for the earth or universe to collect diagnostic data, but I am willing to admit maybe there is a giant magical brain we have yet to discover really far away. If we find that brain I’ll change my tune.
How exactly are you defining “collecting diagnostic data” without sneaking in teleological thinking?
I am not sure what this means. Are you suggesting an agent collecting diagnostic data is teleological? Or are you suggesting that the need for an agent to collect diagnostic data is teleological?
I can imagine plenty of things that collect data that aren’t teleological but I am probably just not understanding your question.
A universal will is inherently teleological. An individual will that developed randomly within the universe doesn’t have to be.
It seems as though you’re taking a “I’ve experienced thinking this one way (neurons) and therefore it could never happen any other way”. Really, you have a dataset of 1, though. It’s hard to build a theory off of one datapoint
the pacific ocean is a neural gap and I am throwing fistfuls of potassium into it to communicate with my friend in Japan
I think of it as consciousness modeling the internal/external states of being. Qualia might be a black box, but it has interfaces. I think sensory deprivation hallucination provides some backing to this interpretation. Without the sense data reaching the interfaces, the internal states and external states diverge in unpredictable ways because the consciousness has no way to continuously relate them over time. I’m probably leaning on the computer metaphor a bit much here, but it’s the best reference frame I could think of right now.
Exactly. I’ve read of people who have medical alienation where they mentally feel like they aren’t the ones controlling their own body. This is a neurological condition and can be treated. Some people have an extremely prolonged sense of deja vu after having a TBI, yet we intuitively think of deja vu as some woo woo stuff.
Heck, I read today that you can diagnose someone with aphantasia by seeing if their eyes dialate when they are told to picture a bright light.
All of this suggests, to me at least, that all of our sensory inputs combine to make the illusion of experience, which is useful for homeostasis
isn’t deja vu short term memory shortcircuit where your brain reorders events as they are currently happening to give you impressions that you know stuff before it happens? (or cognition lapse while event happens, where short term sensory inputs are not cognized but are processed all the same, so when you catch up cognitively you get impression you knew that already)
in other words, had anyone had exact written description of event before deja vu episode?
(because i think i managed to catch my brain in this act one time, it’s a very surreal feeling, **it’s like sleep paralysis of thought, you can feel your thought being railroaded/moving in slow motion, sounds you hear being predetermined, your own voice being predetermined, you cannot imagine anything to act differently or can’t act on impulse to do so, and then you catch up to real world and that’s exact moment deja vu ends, leading me to believe it’s some sort of disconnect there between short term memory and higher thought, because i could try to consciously remember stuff from childhood in the moment (so in long term memory), and it was different than deja vu remembrance in feeling)
I think what you are describing in your last paragraph is the medical alienation I was talking about. I dont know if thats the right term… people seem to love that word lol
kinda sorta? but for me deja vu was always (mainly) auditory (with thoughts sprinkled in, so i “remember” thoughts and feelings “again”), e.g. i perceive words i’m hearing and my own words as an exact match to “long forgotten memory/dream” and start to know what would happen (audiotorily, with matched tone/voice etc) exactly but don’t know where my hands would be, for example, and don’t feel that strong deja vu of “this is where my hands would be” according to this “memory” when i see them. Actions and visuals are not primal in experience, compared to third person body experience, where you concentrate on actions and hands (at least i think so?), where it’s puppet like/are these my hands type dealio.
*(i do have a funny deja vu story, where i was alone at work, started feeling deja vu from some sounds and guess what i “remembered” hearing?)
spoiler
ringing in the ears. stellar work brain, fucking thanks. if deja vu was real woo-woo shit, i would have abandoned it right then and there, what kind of prediction is this.
(i don’t know if it’s quirk of my perception of focusing on sounds/thoughts, but people usually sharply separate those two phenomenons, where deja vu is as you said woo-woo shit, while third person view is scary as shit typically. although people observing their own operations in the out of body type thingy usually describe extreme calmness and fatalism, which seems very close to third person phenomenon on description, maybe it’s due to drugs/dreams vs actual reality?)
The illusion that is being experienced by what?
The illusion being experienced by the same agent that created it.
So experience is illusory, but there’s an agent that experiences that illusion? So experience isn’t illusory then
Experience isn’t totally illusory, as stated in one of my previous comments. But we can certainly see illusion take shape by the fact that I can’t see my nose right now, or any other of those “fill in the blank” tricks our mind plays to make our “consciousness” a seamless experience, but if they were the sum total of our experience we wouldn’t have much need for experience at all now would we?
Experience isn’t totally illusory, as stated in one of my previous comments.
Ok. Then what exactly is the purpose of arguing that some of it is? You’re back to square one.
What do you mean? Can you see your nose at all moments? If not, illusion is filling in the gap to provide a biological advantage to those who do not. A snake biting you within the FOV of your nose is bad. Making a fake snake where your nose is (based on previous snake data) seems logical.
There’s a new study that seems to indicate octopuses can experience the fake limb illusion. I’m not sure the quality of the research and methods, but the fake limb illusion definitely seems like an interesting example case for this discussion.
To provide some info to those unaware:
Pansychism is the philosophy that consciousness is at the root of the universe in the same way matter is. Everything has consciousness innately built into it, our brains just have the capabilities of harnessing that consciousness in particular ways.
This philosophy is popular because it helps address “the hard problem of consciousness” which is basically the question of why do we have subjective experience at all? If we are simply biological machines bumping against our environment why do we have subjective experience and why is that subjective experience so… Subjective?
Biology seems to explain this pretty simply: consciousness is the systems ability to take external and internal diagnostics and use it to make decisions that will help achieve homeostasis within the system, assuring system stability, improving evolutionary success…
To me, that explanation seems to cover all the bases. Why is my red different than yours? Because we are different physical constructs in different places in spacetime. We are different variables in the equation, we will have different outputs.
Why can’t we locate that red in the brain? Because red isn’t real, it’s your experience piecing together a whole heap of sensory data and presenting it in an identifiable way, because being able to distingiush different wave lengths gives you an evolutionary advantage.
Pansychism is the philosophy that consciousness is at the root of the universe in the same way matter is. Everything has consciousness innately built into it, our brains just have the capabilities of harnessing that consciousness in particular ways.
I agree, that is seems like either a cheap way out and/or a simple play with words about how to define consciousness.
Biology seems to explain this pretty simply: consciousness is the systems ability to take external and internal diagnostics and use it to make decisions that will help achieve homeostasis within the system, assuring system stability, improving evolutionary success…
That’s not nearly enough as a definition. A simple mechanical feedback loop can do it without any biology. It would totally have conciseness with this definition, which would pretty much amount to panpsychism, which you reject (and I agree). Anyway, it’s also only a teleological definition (starting from the outcome) and not an explanation at all.
I think a good explanation of consciousness should involve an emergent process to explain the gradual scale of consciousness. Thoughts about thoughts about thoughts and so on. This should also explain unconscious mental states as simple thoughts without much meta states going on.
Why is my red different than yours?
Thats not the usual question. It’s: “Is my red different than yours? And how could I ever know if and in what way?”
Why can’t we locate that red in the brain?
We totally can and again, not the point that people who talk about qualia make. It’s:“Can we objectify what it feels like to experience the red?”
it’s your experience piecing together a whole heap of sensory data and presenting it in an identifiable way
It’s your experience of what it feels like to be piecing together a whole heap of sensory data. It’s not presented by anything to anything else.
The idea of objectifying a subjective experience that is entirely bound by time seems impossible on its face. We would have to simulate the universe forward and back, which isn’t physically possible, let alone theoretically.
Can we objectify what it feels like to experience red?
What red? The Redness of Mars that only applies from certain positions in the universe? The redness of other galaxies that only applies based on the slight speed of your head movement at the moment of observation? Mars isn’t Red on Mars.
There is far too much baggage loaded with the word Red to ever objectify it.
I’m not asking this question, so no need to answer it. I’m just correcting you on three wrong statements you made about the discours about qualia. About what questions are and aren’t involved in the discours. Because you invented your own strawmen questions, and tried to answer those. Anyway, from your answer here and to other comments, it seems, like you completely accept everything that proponents of qualia say about them. They would answer the same way. Do you even have any critique of the concept as such?
I hope I didn’t sound to critical, like I said, I mostly agree with your conclusions, I just think they need more careful arguments.
Oh yeah this aint no thesis paper or anything, I came here for discussion not preaching to the choir. I assume I am wrong but steelman my own beliefs, thats how you grow baby.
But in general I just think asking someone to objectively define red is nonsense. Any subjective agent is incapable of objectivity. Does this undermine my entire argument? Probably? Thats the fun of it.
Ah, I get it. Yes it’s fun 😊
We would have to simulate the universe forward and back, which isn’t physically possible, let alone theoretically.
It literally is possible theoretically
Okay I am going out on a limb here… but i feel like the laws of thermodynamics disagree. To perfectly simulate our universe would require the same amount of energy that is put in.
because being able to distinguish different wave lengths gives you an evolutionary advantage.
The problem with this argument is that consciousness is not required for distinguishing between wavelengths. To the extent that we understand consciousness, we can conclude that it’s likely that butterflies don’t have a conscious experience - they’re capable of seeing and responding to red light, but they probably don’t think about it. So the question becomes “what is the evolutionary benefit of being able to experience ‘redness’?” The response there is that not everything has to be evolutionary advantageous. Consciousness could be a spandrel. If it is, what was the selection process that originated it? Abstract reasoning? Theory of mind?
what is the evolutionary benefit of being able to experience 'redness
Evolution isn’t teleological, so random shit just happens. If that mutation is beneficial it would lead to increased prosperity for the creature with said mutation. Some creature down the line developed eyes and it helped them get their fuck on and that’s why we have consciousness.
Butterflies do fine without consciousness, but humans do a lot better (proof hexbear.net)
I legitimately cannot imagine a p zombie that would do okay in the modern world. You need consciousness to adapt.
Evolution isn’t teleological, so random shit just happens.
And yet you’ve already defined being part of an evolutionary dynamic as the thing that causes consciousness; literally implying that evolution causes teleology in the first place
Some creature down the line developed eyes and it helped them get their fuck on and that’s why we have consciousness.
Well that’s the most unjustified leap of logic I’ve ever seen.
Butterflies do fine without consciousness, but humans do a lot better
And ants do a lot better still. Are ants conscious? Is algae conscious? How are you even defining “better” here without makeing a teleological argument?
I legitimately cannot imagine a p zombie that would do okay in the modern world.
The whole bloody point of the p-zombie is that it’s behaviour is identical to a regular person! It would by definition do exactly the same as anyone else. Maybe you should actually make a token fucking effort to understand an argument before you arrogantly dismiss it.
You need consciousness to adapt.
Source: it came to me in a cryptic dream. So all. Adaptive systems are conscious? Computers are conscious? Rivers are conscious?
And yet you’ve already defined being part of an evolutionary dynamic as the thing that causes consciousness; literally implying that evolution causes teleology in the first place
Evolution furthers complexity, and furthering complexity seems like a universal constant as we have theoretically started from the neutral point of “a fuck load of useless heat” and got here.
Well that’s the most unjustified leap of logic I’ve ever seen.
A creature with eyes has an evolutionary advantage over one that doesn’t as they can interpret new stimuli. A creature with consciousness can do the same thing by interpreting theoretical stimuli.
And ants do a lot better still. Are ants conscious? Is algae conscious? How are you even defining “better” here without makeing a teleological argument?
Historical Materalism applied to an evolutionary timeline.
Time self selects for the superior by nature of it being superior. Superiority is only relevant when you apply temporality. You could theoretically say time is teleological but like… idk
Evolution furthers complexity
So does geology. So does stellar fusion. So does planet formation.
and furthering complexity seems like a universal constant
Lol. And you were seriously trying to claim you had a masters in physics. You’re literally now setting that the second law of thermodynamics is wrong
we have theoretically started from the neutral point of “a fuck load of useless heat” and got here.
Literally the opposite of what happened.
Historical Materalism applied to an evolutionary timeline.
I like how you quoted me even though you clearly didn’t read what I said.
Time self selects for the superior by nature of it being superior.
No it doesn’t. This is spiritual mumbojumbo
Superiority is only relevant when you apply temporality.
Incoherent.
hey man, I am too drunk, too incorherent. Sorry for maybe questioning your world view? Sirry for being incogerebt, Wghat I possess is surely not useful long term an d activerly detrimnetal. The fact that I can acknowledge that while drunk maybe proves the point? Maybe the fact that I can prove the point while drunk proves the point that what we are experiencing (what I consider to be consciousness)is maytbe inhorent is PROOF that consciousness isnt real. Its all real time. Anyways I am sorry. either to my past self for proving me wrong, or my current self for arguing with myself
Evolution isn’t teleological, so random shit just happens.
Yeah, hence my use of the term spandrel. Not all mutations have to have a selective benefit to persist, but given that consciousness has (apparently) arisen, at least to some degree, multiple times, we can conclude that it may have arisen from something that had direct selective benefit.
Some creature down the line developed eyes and it helped them get their fuck on and that’s why we have consciousness.
This is a teleological assumption because there are critters out there with eyes but not any apparent consciousness, so there’s no reason to assume that the subjective experience of “redness” is an inevitable consequence of vision development.
Butterflies do fine without consciousness, but humans do a lot better (proof hexbear.net)
Butterflies have been around doing their thing for considerably longer than humans and, at the rate we’re going, will probably outlive us, so I think you may be using an anthropocentric set of scoring criteria.
I legitimately cannot imagine a p zombie that would do okay in the modern world. You need consciousness to adapt.
The nature of a p zombie is such that if one existed, you’d have no way of knowing if it was one (but you might have a strong suspicion; looking at you, Mark Zuckerberg). The second part is clearly wrong. Behavioral adaptations are observable in creatures as simple as nematodes, so, while a nematode will probably never be able to experience the glories of Microsoft Excel, there’s nothing saying that consciousness is a requirement for remaining extant - in terms of both numbers and biomass, nematodes have us handily beat. In a human example, Peter Watts references the phenomenon blindsight in his novel of the same name; some folks lose access to vision processing and are functionally blind, but their brains are still capable of responding to visual input. All I think we can currently say is that human-level complex behavior does not appear to be possible without consciousness, but that take might be challenged by future developments.
The nature of a p zombie is such that if one existed, you’d have no way of knowing if it was one (but you might have a strong suspicion; looking at you, Mark Zuckerberg). The second part is clearly wrong. Behavioral adaptations are observable in creatures as simple as nematodes
When I say I don’t think they can exist I mean I don’t think they can exist in our actual reality. The thought experiment is usually that someone is literally a 1:1 copy of you but without consciousness: how do you figure out they’re a zombie. My argument is that it is literally physically impossible to have my 1:1 brain and not have consciousness, as consciousness is derived from your brains processees.
When I say a p zombie could not exist because they need to adapt I am talking about a human p zombie in a modern city. They literally could not function. They would very quickly die.
And to use your example of “why consciousness”. The p zombie paints the picture. Put a p zombie in a busy street in a busy city and they get hit by a car and die. The exact same person with consciousness can interpret the situation and avoid getting ran over. That’s why consciousness came to be evolutionarily.
Imagining a p zombie is like imagining a computer that is supposedly running without an operating system… The operating system IS the computer… It can’t run
My argument is that it is literally physically impossible to have my 1:1 brain and not have consciousness, as consciousness is derived from your brains processees.
That’s not an “argument”, that’s literally the most text book example of begging the question that I can imagine.
And to use your example of “why consciousness”. The p zombie paints the picture. Put a p zombie in a busy street in a busy city and they get hit by a car and die. The exact same person with consciousness can interpret the situation and avoid getting ran over. That’s why consciousness came to be evolutionarily.
They are literally behaviorally identical to a regular person. Jesus fucking Christ, this is such Reddit tier pseudo intellectualism. "I never bothered to actually comprehend the argument, but it’s dumb and irrational anyway. Fucking no investigation, no write to speak, you self important chud
Imagining a p zombie is like imagining a computer that is supposedly running without an operating system…
No. Imagining a p zombie is like imagining a computer that isn’t conscious but still works. You know, the thing nobody has any problem doing!
They are literally behaviorally identical to a regular person.
How? Your behavior is literally dictated by how hard I hit you five minutes ago. Is that P Zombie the same as then? Or now?
A P Zombie is not real. Its anime shit. I am DETERMINED BY MY PAST, yet a ZOMBIE with no SEMBLANCE of my past determines the same thing? That doesn’t make sense.
How? Your behavior is literally dictated by how hard I hit you five minutes ago. Is that P Zombie the same as then? Or now?
Read the paper.
A P Zombie is not real. Its anime shit. I am DETERMINED BY MY PAST, yet a ZOMBIE with no SEMBLANCE of my past determines the same thing? That doesn’t make sense.
Read the fucking paper
I don’t think you’re honoring the thought experiment as originally proposed, which stipulated that p zombies are behaviorally identical to ordinary humans, so they would react to and avoid the car. Even without that stipulation, we should assume that p zombies would still exhibit reflexive behavior, given that people can react to danger without first consciously processing it. This gets us back to my original observation that a lot of non-human animals are able to exhibit complex behaviors without apparently having consciousness, so the question is still whether the conscious experience is actually doing something or if it’s just a byproduct of certain cognitive processes.
I don’t think you’re honoring the thought experiment as originally proposed, which stipulated that p zombies are behaviorally identical to ordinary humans, so they would react to and avoid the car.
Thats what I am saying: they can’t. The P-Zombie you have invented in this thought experiment is question begging. We cannot have a behaviorally identical Pzombie because humans are driven by consciousness, which P-Zombies are incapable of. Category error. An unconscious human gets hit by a car if they’re in the middle of the road.
This gets us back to my original observation that a lot of non-human animals are able to exhibit complex behaviors without apparently having consciousness, so the question is still whether the conscious experience is actually doing something or if it’s just a byproduct of certain cognitive processes.
This question only works if you believe in the P-Zombie. Its a non-starter if you don’t.
Its the same problem I have with Mary’s Room. If Mary has all knowledge of color she can perfectly imagine that color in her mind, because I am capable of doing so with my incredibly small knowledge of color… to say Mary would “learn something new” when she sees color for the first time is a category error. We are making semantic mistakes over the definition of “knowledge”, not asking anything truly groundbreaking.
The P-Zombie you have invented in this thought experiment is question begging.
I didn’t come up with the idea; blame David Chalmers. All I was saying that is that if you want to use p zombies as they were proposed, you have to accept the conceit that they’re behaviorally identical to regular humans. If you don’t think it’s possible for p zombies to exist, that’s fine; I never suggested they were a thing (except you, Mark Zuckerberg). But to say that they can’t exist because you need consciousness in order to exhibit human qualities is also question-begging, or potentially argument from incredulity depending on how you’re framing it.
because humans are driven by consciousness, which P-Zombies are incapable of. Category error. An unconscious human gets hit by a car if they’re in the middle of the road.
You’re conflating two definitions of “conscious” here, “awake” and “capable of subjective experience,” while I’m assuming the p-zombie argument addresses only the latter. Awake humans are capable of (and routinely engage in) behaviors that are not consciously driven. I’ve provided multiple counter-examples, including blindsight and ordinary reflexes. A human who is not consciously aware of a car can still avoid a car, it’s demonstrable.
This question only works if you believe in the P-Zombie. Its a non-starter if you don’t.
Is it your contention that all animals are conscious, then?
If Mary has all knowledge of color she can perfectly imagine that color in her mind, because I am capable of doing so with my incredibly small knowledge of color…
I believe the original framing was that if Mary had knowledge of the physical properties of color but has never experienced seeing red, she won’t be able to know the sensation of seeing red until she’s actually exposed to red light. Which seems fine to me. You can imagine red because you have prior experience of the color red, so we can conclude that the experience of redness is independent of your knowledge of what causes redness. Likewise, I could give you a wavelength of light (say, 375 nm) and you’ll probably be unable to imagine what it looks like without seeing it first (or at all, because 375 is in the UV range). I think the argument becomes silly when it’s claimed to be incompatible with a standard materialist conclusion that all subjective experience has a physical basis. But it also seems like it’s beside the point here - the question isn’t whether the sensation of redness exists (I thought we were aligned on that), it’s whether being able to experience the sensation of redness is somehow essential to something, or if it’s a byproduct of something else. I’m just questioning your conclusion that conscious experience has a demonstrable evolutionary benefit.
The P-Zombie you have invented in this thought experiment is question begging.
📽️
We cannot have a behaviorally identical Pzombie because humans are driven by consciousness, which P-Zombies are incapable of
Literally question begging.
Category error.
Thought terminating cliche.
An unconscious human gets hit by a car if they’re in the middle of the road.
This is so fucking stupid. So if a robot can avoid traffic, it’s conscious then.
This question only works if you believe in the P-Zombie. Its a non-starter if you don’t.
Or, you know, if you don’t believe literally all animals, plants, and computers are conscious.
I am capable of doing so with my incredibly small knowledge of color…
Name one color you’ve never seen but can perfectly imagine.
consciousness is the systems ability to take external and internal diagnostics and use it to make decisions that will help achieve homeostasis within the system, assuring system stability, improving evolutionary success…
So viruses are conscious? Prions? Stars?
You really didn’t think this definition through
This just sounds like idealism with a scientific veneer papered over it
One issue is science lately is taking a strong metaphysical idealist approach because its being done under capitalism and that’s what the bourgeois scum funding it want, you tell your patrons what they want to hear and until that changes, its going to be a mysterious black box since our relation interpretation to it is either so mechanically materialist and behaviorally deterministic that we stack overflow into full metaphysical idealism.
On the other hand being dia about it don’t throw the mystics out since using some of their hackery you can do neat things like oobes using mirrors and some concentration, imposition by Buddhist monks and the Wim Hoff sorts has something to tell us, the valuable gold kernel of truth in the metaphysical shit. Then more dia on a psych-neuro front there’s the famous rubber hand experiment from top-down, from down-up if things like the temporal parietal junction/angular gyrus get messed with for some reason like oxygen deprivation in ndes or simply a tumor, the sense of embodied self is more best nervous system conjecture than actual representation of hard truth.
Back when I got out of school HOT was big but it had so many logic and case holes you could drive the van from Inception through.
From personal experience being out of your body is quite fun when you want to be out of it, and when you want to go back just slide back inside like a deck of cards. No one can tell neither, so its a great way to pass time as a retail worker looking around as customers haggle about their used underwear return.
dia
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Dialectical, also lazy.
