• Is the real world fair and just?
    [1]So for some reason it is OK for you to use commonsense to make inferences about things you can’t directly know, but science as a formal method for making such inferences does not enjoy the same privilege? [2]It is defeated by the zombies in which you don’t believe? Curious.

    [3]So what does your commonsense tell you about the consciousness of the chair you are sat on? [4]Given the zombie argument that is so legit, how can you know it is either conscious or not conscious[?] It might be just keeping very quiet and still. It might be aware but suffering locked in syndrome.

    Your commonsense is this magical power that transcends mere scientific inference. Please clear up these deep riddles of Nature.     — apokrisis

    I'm not sure if these questions are rhetorical or not. I'll have go anyway, I'm a sucker for a quiz.

    1) You introduced commonsense and science, I was just going with your terms. The inference from analogy, which I suggested was done instinctively by most people (or maybe not, maybe people develop theory of mind some other way, it doesn't matter) might be called commonsense, or it might be philosophy. It doesn't matter. The point is that it isn't a theory of consciousness. It's a conjecture of which other things are conscious. Scientific theories of consciousness are typically functionalist ones, such as yours, the IIT, and others. They do make predictions about what other things are conscious based on the structure and function of those things (less so by analogy, although that may be part of it), but those predictions are not checkable except perhaps by reference to our instincts or common sense or philosophical arguments from analogy. It's entirely understandable that when commonsense and functional theories yield the same predictions, they are considered plausible. Neither are testable though, because we don't have a consciousness-o-meter. And the functionalist theories are wrong, and the inference to other minds is not taken far enough.

    2) The functionalist theories are defeated by the zombies in which I don't believe, yes, because the functionalist theories seem consistent with there being no experiences present. So they might be valuable in some way, but not as explainers of consciousness.

    3) That's an interesting question. My commonsense instinct is that they are not. Of course, what constitutes commonsense I suspect is somewhat culture-relative. I do think they are conscious though, just not in a way that particularly matters to me. I suspect that the content of the consciousness of my chair is so minimal to be of no interest to anything, possibly including the chair.

    4) Several reasons. I have rehearsed the argument for panpsychism from the non-vagueness of the concept of consciousness many times on the forum. There may be an argument from psychological causation and non-overdetermination of the physical, but I have yet to develop that. It's important to keep in mind the broad landscape of theoretical possibilities. Out of those panspychism is the least problematic of the three basic possibilities: panpsychism, emergentism and eliminativism. Eliminatism is false by introspection. Emergentism is extremely problematic for a number of reasons already rehearsed. Panpsychism is problematic, but less so.
  • Is the real world fair and just?
    Is it simply the case that idealists are able to accept more 'supernatural' claims because they have determined that nature is ultimately no longer limited by laws of physics? — Tom Storm

    Does idealism break physics?
  • Is the real world fair and just?
    But the larger problem here is that a genetic fallacy is still a genetic fallacy. Bad motivations don't make someone wrong. — Count Timothy von Icarus

    Sticky this please mods!
  • Is the real world fair and just?
    The Hard Problem pretends to have its ontic ground - zombies as a real possibility despite all that science and commonsense says - but it simply devolves to standard Humean epistemic issue that “we will never really know” that bedevils all rational inquiry and which became precisely the reason for pragmatism becoming standard as the way to move forward after that. — apokrisis

    The point is that what you call science does not rule them out, or indeed in. It has nothing to say on the subject of consciousness itself, although there's still plenty of interesting work to do peripheral to that, like scientifically studying the neural correlates of particular experiences. We don't doubt that other people are conscious because of commonsense (as you say), not science. We infer others are conscious because I am conscious and other people seem to be like me and do roughly similar things under similar circumstances. It's the best explanation of their behaviour. You don't have to do any science for this, and commonsense does it instinctively. So if we know that other people are conscious, but we can't derive that from their structure and function, then that is a clue that examining structure and function may actually be insufficient.

    It's not about unwarranted doubt. We don't doubt. It's about finding a plausible explanation for what we don't doubt.
  • Is the real world fair and just?
    ↪Wayfarer
    Very interesting! Thanks.
  • Is the real world fair and just?
    I'm skeptical of the idea that Daniel Dennett believes anything these days, but anyway, that appears to be gratuitious slander.

    From Wikipedia:

    Some physicalists, such as Daniel Dennett, argue that philosophical zombies are logically incoherent and thus impossible, or that all humans are philosophical zombies;[4][5]     — wonderer1

    I've just realised we may be talking at cross purposes. I've bolded the relevant bit. Eliminativism is exactly the view that nothing is conscious, so humans are philosophical zombies. Dennett oscillates (as far as I can tell) between eliminativism and perhaps a kind of functionalism. Not sure exactly. I only got about a third of the way through Consciousness Explained.
  • Is the real world fair and just?
    ↪wonderer1
    Yeah, I've never been able to get to grips with his stuff. I don't think I'm the only one.
  • Is the real world fair and just?
    And yet you think it is your gotcha… — apokrisis

    The point about zombies is not whether or not you believe in them (nobody except Daniel Dennett does), but whether a functionalist account like yours plausibly rules them out. Your account of an organism that models its environment and makes predictions based on that model is good, I like it. But the question of whether such a creature is conscious or not remains open. I see nothing in that account that rules out the creature being a zombie - it seems to me all the functions you have described could just as well occur in a creature with no experiences. Using the word 'zombie' is just a convenient and intuitively accessible way of making the point. And being lazy, I like that. As a theory of the self I think your account is much more plausible.
  • Is the real world fair and just?
    ↪Tom Storm
    @Wayfarer

    I should have just said ontological idealism generally instead of specifying Berkeley. Berkeley is just the original ontological idealist. Religious/spiritual views sometimes find their philosophical justificatory wing (almost exactly like Sinn Fein and the IRA) embracing ontological idealism. Not that I have anything against that.
  • Is the real world fair and just?
    What can you say to folk who claim to believe in philosophical zombies? — apokrisis

    No one believes in them.

    EDIT: except eliminatavists I guess
  • Is the real world fair and just?
    Just as Bert will complain neuroscience hasn’t answered the Hard Problem despite the vast insight we now have into the fine detail of cognition as a process. — apokrisis

    My complaint isn't that it hasn't. It's that people think it has.
  • Is the real world fair and just?
    ↪Tom Storm
    Probably. Sorry, I'm a bit careless
  • Is the real world fair and just?
    ↪Michael
    Sure, but when @Banno criticises idealism, he is criticising one kind of idealism, namely solipsism. And he often doesn't say this. I'm not defending idealism in this thread - it's way off topic. It just came up in responses to @Wayfarer.
  • Is the real world fair and just?
    @apokrisis @Banno

    Apo's approach to bridging the is/ought gap and his approach to the hard problem of consciousness seem very similar if not the same. But I may have misunderstood. His response to me regarding the hard problem is to say that he has met his burden of showing what consciousness is in terms of making predictive models, and that the burden is now with me to show how that is wrong. And I think he has said similar to @Banno in this thread regarding the is/ought gap. However I don't see the theoretical bridge in either case.

    An interesting topic might be "Is the is/ought gap and the hard problem of consciousness essentially the same problem?"
  • Is the real world fair and just?
    ↪Banno
    Thanks, I'm not sure if I read that debate with @Landru Guide Us or not, but your post makes your position clear. I think your position that idealism entails solipsism is very reasonable. I don't agree with it but I won't argue with it here. For myself, I am still undecided about idealism, I think it might be impoverished and insufficient to account for the world, but am not sure. What I would say is that every time you criticise idealism with arguments targeting solipsism, people like me @Michael and other idealist-sympathisers are going to keep popping up saying that you've mischaracterised idealism.

    Some folk here (perhaps @Wayfarer is an example) have an interest in and sympathy for religious/spiritual metaphysics. I wonder if that sometimes engenders an uncomfortable loyalty to ontological idealist metaphysics of a Berkeleyan stripe. If so, it needn't in my view. Just as realism does not entail physicalism, even though they too are natural partners.
  • Is the real world fair and just?
    As biological creatures zombies, we only need to insert ourselves into our worlds in a semiotically constructed fashion. The task is to build ourselves as beings zombies with the agency to be able to hang together in an organismic fashion. — apokrisis
  • Is the real world fair and just?
    In any case, if your idealism claims that the world is inherently mental, it must respond to the three puzzles - other people, that we are sometimes wrong, and novelty. — Banno

    Those three puzzles are more of a problem for solipsism than idealism. But I think you think that idealism readily collapses into solipsism. Is that right?

    From my vague recollections of your views, sometimes you strike me as a kind of linguo-ist, such that the way the world is depends on our language use (as opposed to, say, Berkeley's perceptions). I may have misinterpreted you. But you are definitely a realist - that's your trademark if nothing else. You think there was a universe before language, no? Do you need some kind of (non Kantian) existence-without-categorisation for your own metaphysic?
  • Is the real world fair and just?
    ↪Banno
    You missed off the start of the second sentence! Try again. It matters.

    Nevertheless, I'm not clear what Wayfarer's position is either.

    Apo has nailed his colours to a mast, laudably, but those colours are in a part of the spectrum I'm struggling to see.
  • Israel killing civilians in Gaza and the West Bank
    Weak resentful men are often the most dangerous and are quite capable of evil — BitconnectCarlos

    Only to the extent that they have the power to. If a person is wholly weak, no matter how resentful they are, they are not dangerous at all.
  • Israel killing civilians in Gaza and the West Bank
    evil — BitconnectCarlos

    It's much easier and more tempting for the strong to be evil. Moral culpability can only attach to the strong. If it attaches to the weak, it is only because the weak use what little strength they have to cause harm.
  • Evidence of Consciousness Surviving the Body
    ↪180 Proof
    Haha!
  • Evidence of Consciousness Surviving the Body
    No doubt. — 180 Proof

    I'm learning to live with it
  • Evidence of Consciousness Surviving the Body
    If so, then what makes "consciousness" mine? — 180 Proof

    Nothing, I suggest. What makes you 180 Proof is not consciousness, but your body, history, emotions, etc. Consciousness bears subjectivity, but not character/individuation. But this is paradoxical, I concede.
  • Evidence of Consciousness Surviving the Body
    It was evidently highly coordinated, a social entity, an organism, a macroscopic brain. — Pantagruel

    Maybe, but one crow does not look out of the eyes of another, any more than when @180 Proof peers into his soul, I feel like an asshole.

    EDIT: I don't think @180 Proof really wants to be arguing for the privacy of experience, but maybe he does.
  • Is the real world fair and just?
    But no point taking it further. — apokrisis

    Coward!
  • Is the real world fair and just?
    plainly said — apokrisis

    !
  • Is the real world fair and just?
    Your one trick. Pretend there have been no answers so as to cover your own failure to respond in good faith. — apokrisis

    I often disagree with Banno, but not on this. I can't discern an answer in your posts.
  • Is the real world fair and just?
    Equality could mean either the closed system symmetry of one box for everyone, or the open system asymmetry of a 0,1,2 distribution of the three available boxes. — apokrisis

    But that doesn't tell us which one to prefer. Or even which one I prefer.
  • Is the real world fair and just?
    Non sequitur & category error. — 180 Proof

    No it isn't
  • A tough (but solvable) riddle.
    ↪flannel jesus
    I'm impressed you did it without a grid. I suppose there are other ways to record the information.
  • A tough (but solvable) riddle.
    Might this help?

    2d564bd5e2862354b86a41e000b35ba0.jpg
  • A question for panpsychists (and others too)
    ↪RogueAI
    How could you show, even to yourself, that your behaviour is caused by your feelings?

    Why can't both feelings and behaviour, in parallel, be caused by brain activity?

    I'm not rejecting intuition as a bad reason, I'm just wondering if you have any other reasons?

    EDIT: and just to be clear, feelings and behaviour being caused in parallel by brain states is not physicalism, it is a kind of dualism. Epiphenomenalism is a dualist position of some kind.
  • A question for panpsychists (and others too)
    Wouldn't you agree? — RogueAI

    No, the behaviour is the same, no? Behaviour is public.

    EDIT: for the avoidance of doubt, I agree with you. I'm arguing the opposite, I forgot why.
  • A question for panpsychists (and others too)
    That's not how we work. — RogueAI

    There are more sophisticated, less crudely mechanistic accounts, like those involving top-down causation by emergent characteristics of whole systems. Is that any more plausible?
  • A question for panpsychists (and others too)
    Why would it do something so dangerous if not for the feels? — RogueAI

    For the same kind of reason that a ball rolls down an incline.
  • A question for panpsychists (and others too)
    ↪RogueAI
    I agree with you, but others argue, somewhat plausibly, that all the actual causal stuff happens in the brain, and your feeling of such and such just accompanies it. This is the epiphenomenal view. Could epiphenomenalism be true? If you gave a zombie the same drugs a regular human, would it behave the same way?
  • A question for panpsychists (and others too)
    I've found an article by Goff which might be relevant. Haven't read it yet, but it seems to address the revelatory theses and mentions causation in relation to consciousness.

    https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11245-018-9594-9

    From the abstract:

    "Revelation is roughly the thesis that we have introspective access to the essential nature of our conscious states. This thesis is appealed to in arguments against physicalism. Little attention has been given to the problem that Revelation is a source of pressure in the direction of epiphenomenalism, as introspection does not seem to reveal our conscious states as being essentially causal."
  • A question for panpsychists (and others too)
    But if there's the assertion that physical matter exists, and minds and consciousness emerge from it, there has to be an explanation for how that happens. — RogueAI

    It would be helpful, yes. To be fair, some attempts have been made, and the most plausible are all functionalist reductions. But as functionalist reductions, they are open to the objection "Why can't that function happen without consciousness?" Which is just another way to notice that consciousness is not a function.

    The Ai's are approaching human-level. Science is going to have to say something about whether they're conscious or not, isn't it? — RogueAI

    It doesn't have to, but it would be philosophically satisfying if it did. And it really doesn't have to - science has got on well without the concept of consciousness doing any heavy lifting for quite a while.
  • A question for panpsychists (and others too)
    I don’t know what electric charge is. — Greene

    @Patterner Yes, but electric charge is something out there that we come to know about. Consciousness is not like that, it's in here, not out there. We know about consciousness because consciousness is itself knowing, we know that we know, and we know the nature of knowing by being a knower. Electric charge is not the same concept as knowing, so knowing about knowing doesn't reveal the nature of electric charge. We are a system of electric charge as well perhaps, but as electric charge is not the same thing as knowing, the electric charge does not immediately reveal its own intrinsic nature to us as knowers. Does this make any sense? I'm sure other philosophers have had this thought before and probably expressed it much better than I have. I think Goff might have done, I'll look it up.
  • A question for panpsychists (and others too)
    I can't imagine he is ever going to stop trying to figure out what those features are. Newton could not figure out what gravity is. He only figured out what it does. Einstein kept at the mystery, and figured out its intrinsic nature. — Patterner

    That's interesting. Isn't the situation almost the converse with consciousness? We know what it is, but we don't know what it does. Consider epiphenominalism. That's exactly the view that consciousness doesn't do anything. It's not causal. By epiphenominalists agree that consciousness is that by which such-and-such has experiences.
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