The flaw was not in any of the possibilities, it was in denying the same possibilities to a non-being as I gave a being. Since the ratio is now equal, this leaves the chance of a Being as a first cause versus a First Cause that is not a being at 50%. Of course this still holds a God is possible, just not as possible as my first conclusion held. — Philosophim

In fact, any event can be explained by an infinite variety of mundane causes, and an infinite variety of supernatural ones. And if your criteria is not mundane vs. supernatural but literally anything (i.e blue Ys vs any other colored Ys), you still get infinity on either side. Using this method, the probability is always 50%. Therefore, this method has zero predictive power, and discloses zero information about the world.

The real flaw is, this is not how probabilities are calculated. You don't just enumerate the possibilities and count them, you need to assign weights to them. Merely enumerating possibilities tells you exactly nothing.

Sure they will cite evidence until the cows come home. They show infinite creativity here.
But, the conclusion is what is all important. The "evidence" is just means to that end. Typically this "evidence" is easily dismissed, by experts. But conspiracy theories operate outside the domain of experts (otherwise I guess they would be "fringe theories"). Their audience is the lay public, and the quality of evidence must only be good enough to fool them.

True, I misspoke:
Russian collision was a conspiracy, to assist a hostile power to illegally affect the election. One can theorize about such conspiracies, without engaging in a conspiracy theory.

A conspiracy theory is something more than its name suggests: It is typically the work of amateurs, seeking to overturn expert opinion in favor of an outlandish alternative. Such "theories" require the complicity of the entire body of subject experts to cover up the truth the theory purports to expose. I think this is ultimately the "conspiracy" referred to. Facts and sound reason fall by the wayside, as every sophistic trick and duplicity possible is employed by the conspiracist to arrive at the desired conclusion.

BTW, Collusion happened, so it almost by definition is not a conspiracy theory. I wonder what conspiracy theory you employ to discount the findings of the republican controlled Senate Intelligence Committee?

It is probably true that declining quality of education increased the vulnerability of the population to conspiracies. A true conspiracy theory can only be believed when there are massive gaps in the believer's model of the world. I would contend that the balkanization of the media, taken to the extreme on social media, is a far more salient factor.


Great reply, very thoughtful, but not a conspiracy.


Great reply, very thoughtful, but not a conspiracy.

This is what we do when we "speak to ourselves". Typically we just borrow the existing language and speak to ourselves literally, but we can employ other perceptual systems: visual, spatial, musical, emotional.

Qualia themselves are symbolic, not linguistic, but we cobble together a kind of language out of qualia we use to communicate with ourselves.

And how is the Chinese room general more than the equivalent of a book I’m this thought experiment? — apokrisis

Books merely present information, they don't process it.

You seemed to be making the argument that the Chinese room does not "push against the world", therefore it is a simulation and cannot be conscious.

But my point is that any simulation can trivially be made to "push against the world" by supplying it with inputs and outputs. But it is absurd to suggest that this is enough to make a non-conscious simulation conscious.

... or something he's overlooked. — Mijin

But he seems to have overlooked it.

If neuroscience is able to isolate the mechanical process that gives rise to consciousness, then Searle grants that it may be possible to create machines that have consciousness and understanding — Searle

He presents a false dichotomy:
* Consciousness cannot be emulated by a Turing machine
* Therefore, it must be physical, not informational, and can only be reproduced with the right mechanical process.

But what if consciousness is informational, not physical, and is emergent from a certain processing of information? And what if that emergence doesn't happen if a Turing machine emulates that processing?

Any questions? — Daemon

I don't think this is the right approach. There is nothing special going on with observer dependence. Yes, a bit, or an assembly instruction, has no meaning in itself. But neither does a neuron. All take their meaning from the assembly of which they are a part (rather than an outside observer). In hardware, the meaning of a binary signal is determined by the hardware which processes that signal. In software, the meaning of an instruction from the other instructions in a program, which all together process information. And in a brain, the meaning of a neuron derives from the neurons it signals, and the neurons which signal it, which in totality also process information.

but that the brain gives rise to consciousness and understanding using machinery that is non-computational — Mijin

Thanks for the quote, this is precisely the point where I disagree with Searle.
There is a middle ground between Turning Machine and physical process.
Searle argues that a Chinese Program (a strip of magnetic tape processed by a Turing Machine) does not (necessarily) understand Chinese. He then pivots from this, to say that the brain therefore gives rise to consciousness using *non-computational* machinery.

This then ties consciousness to biologic process or machines which can emulate the same physical process.

But there is a middle ground which Searle seems to overlook: computational machines which are not Turing machines, and yet are purely informational. Such a machine has no ties to the matter which instantiates it. And yet, it is not a Turing machine, it does not process symbols in order to simulate or emulate other computations. It embodies the computations. Just like us.

So then would Searle agree that it is possible to build a machine that thinks? Either via replicating nature (the thought experiment of replacing each brain cell one by one with a functionally equivalent replacement), or, by a novel design that just fulfills the requirements of conscisiousness (whatever they may be)?

But then it is no longer just a simulation, is it? — apokrisis

Really? As soon as you attach inputs and outputs to the robot brain, it is no longer a simulation?
So, if the Chinese room simulated a famous Chinese general, and it received orders which the laborers laboriously translated, and then computed a reply, and based on this orders were given to troops, it is not a simulation? Seems absurd.

directly pushing emotional buttons — Pfhorrest

But then you are not explaining how music is able to "directly push emotional buttons". The last time you were saying that it is explained by our responses to recognizing patterns. This time, it seems like you are saying music somehow has direct access to emotions.

Simulations have no real effects on the world. — apokrisis

This is just not true. You can plug a simulation into the world, for example a robot, feed it inputs, and it could drive it's body and modify the world.

How do you know this? Why not percussion first? Could we have g before we gave meaning? If not, why not? — Benkei

Good point, I didn't think about percussion. Note that percussion also serves a spiritual function in primordial cultures. Also it is hard to imagine percussion without at least chanting.

It seems highly unlikely song as we know it came first. We would expect to observe this behavior in at least one nonlinguistic animal.

I really like this elaboration of the predictability theory.
Note that it is not exclusive with mine: they can both be true, and modulate each other.
I also don't think this theory can stand on its own. This way, music might be as much as a fascinating novelty, but no more. It cannot explain how the most dramatic and exalted emotional states we can experience can be evoked by music.

I've experienced this :I write black metal music, and my dad heard a song. He knows nothing about the genre, but he said it made him think of a burning red sky. That is exactly what I experienced when I wrote it,(I can only get lucky, I can't deliberately embed an image like this), hence the name, "Extinguish the Sun".
I thought that was great, but I don't think these images are truly "inside" the music. That seems as absurd as saying the concept (ice) is contained in the word "ice". But least within a culture, the emotional piano which music plays in us is similar. And the emotions we feel when contemplating the planets or an apocalyptic red sky are also similar. Therefore, it is possible, but not easy, to communicate images in music.

All I have to do to tell them apart is to put the real one in my left pocket, and the counterfeit, fresh from the counterfeit machine, in my right.

I would answer the same way if the information were merely irretrievable, since the information does still exist. — Andrew M

But if it were irretrievable, from our perspective the situation is identical with that where it doesn't exist.

It doesn't matter if they are indistinguishable, so long as they can be individiually tracked.

Exactly. Suppose there was a universe that consisted of a computer and a super battery. The computer continuously overwrites its hard drive with random 1's and 0's, and runs effectively forever. Where does all the information go? Quantum or no, at some point the universe will run out of room for it.

It doesn't have to be an identical copy. Merely close enough so that for any conceivable test of genuineness that the real dollar passes, the counterfeit passes as well.

I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around the no hiding theorem. Right now I'm thinking of a 10 digit number. I'm not repeating it, and there's no way I will remember it in 5 minutes. Could a sufficiently clever alien, arriving on a venus like earth 10 million years from now, retrieve it?

Would you answer the same way if the no hiding theorem turned out to be false? Or true, but information can still be irretrievably, in principle as well as practice, lost and inaccessible?

Your thesis does not square with the reality of an absence of army barracks full of peace loving tie-died hippies.

It is odd that Christians tend be on the right, while those with no god to care for them, tend to be on the left. — Athena

Not odd at all. I define the right as a "Tribalistic fealty to power". A spiritual hierarchy of Immigrants < Unbelievers < Believers < Wealthy Believers < Priests & Anointed Politicians < J-Man & G-Man holds appeal for those with this kind of disposition.

Quite a lengthy reply from someone who didn't trouble to read past my first sentence!

There is utterly a culture war. I place the blame squarely at the feet of the DEMOCRATIC PARTY.

At some point, some democratic strategist had a bright idea. It made so much sense! If the party moved to the left, what would that gain them? They were already the party of the left, and all votes to that side of the spectrum were effectively won. But what if they moved to the right? The left had nowhere else to go, the logic of winner takes all makes the emergence of a third party challenger unlikely. But suddenly, a whole universe of "reasonable republicans" would become accessible to their ballot boxes. They could only win!

The Republicans might have responded by moving to meet them in the center. But they were cannier than that, they understood their side better: the right is not really about ideals, unless a tribal fealty to power is an ideal. So then, they moved to the right, and took their whole party with them. The democrats didn't gain shit. But, being morons, they chased after the republicans, left their whole base behind them, and became the party of nothing. The republicans, happy to oblige, moved themselves ever further right, straight into the abyss.

Now we have a left which is abandoned, incohate, powerless, bewildered, and despairing, and a right, still delirious with their monumental upset in 2016, which has evolved into a full blown fascist clown cult. Media algorithms have further segregated the two sides to the point where they don't share a common frame of reference, they both walk the earth, but live in entirely separate worlds. They are entirely separate cultures, and entirely opposed. In such a situation, the "culture" war may plausibly be a prelude to plain, war.

Haha, OK. Way to white knight poor helpless old Dennett. I'll tell you what buddy, I'll spare him my sympathy if you spare him your "help". Really, he's fine, he doesn't need your help, even if it were not worthless. In fact, as a working philosopher, I'm sure he would quite resent this honorary rocking chair you want to place him on. These are not exactly new ideas of his, so I doubly don't understand what his age has to do with anything.

I think of perception as a kind of mathematical transformation, from the raw sensory data received and processed by cells into the purely symbolic domain of qualia. This transformation is done so that higher level computation can be performed within this symbolic domain. Our everyday conscious experience takes place within, or in terms of, this symbolic space. I *think* we are in agreement here, this is more or less a restatement of what you said above.

Where I cannot follow you is your denial that this symbolic domain is experienced by us as " ineffable deeply personal qualit(ies)". They are deeply personal: each of has access to our own symbolic space, and no other. And they are certainly ineffable. Language is just not equipped to transmit them directly, it can only refer to them. Red would be incommunicable to a blind person, and so on.

What is really confusing to me is that you seem to be saying that this first part, which I think we agree with, somehow implies a denial of the second part.

So we all have blue experiences but they aren't really phenomenal qualities, no matter how much we like to say they are. — Graeme M

By "not really phenomenal qualities", you seem to mean that they are not qualities of the world. I think most here would agree, they are contrivances of our minds. But nonetheless they are phenomenal in the sense of phenomenalism, and in this sense they are real. They are the elementals of our inner lives.

There isn't anything that is an experience of red such that we could say it is your blue. It's meaningless... the phenomenal aspect of red... — Graeme M

But my "phenomenal aspect of red" is exactly that which we could say is your phenomenal aspect of blue.

As long as we discriminate, that's it. — Graeme M

So if "that's it", and a robot can sort red and blue cards as well as you, must the robot have the same experience?

If today the phenomenal aspect has a particular quality, then we'd recall all previous examples as being the same — Graeme M

Why do you believe this? Why wouldn't your memories of previous phenomenal experience remain intact?

Of course you would experience the world as "blue", that is, you'd have a concept of the colour blue that you could use to describe your experience of this world. — Graeme M

You are equating two things with a verbal equals sign that are entirely separate : "experience of the world", and "concept used to describe your experience". The fact that this distinction seems to elude you makes me suspect that you are, in fact, a p-zombie.

Can you tell me anything about blue that doesn't depend on using a blue object to describe it? — Graeme M

Of course not. I'm just an ape pressing buttons which somehow show you symbols representing grunts which I would grunt at you if you were here. Anything can symbolically represent anything else, nothing better than language. But how on earth, given this very crude system, am I supposed to communicate the actual*content* of blue?? All I can do is symbolically represent it. You are asking way too much of abstracted grunts.

Since consciousness is internal, not observable, I cannot answer that. I can only infer. I think my dog is conscious. But lacking first hand experience, that is all I can say.

What IS the phenomenal experience of blue? I suspect nothing at all, beyond the distinctions it tokens. — Graeme M

A-Ha! Another Zombie shambles forth from the shadows! :P

Again, I am confronted by three possibilities:

1: I'm not getting it.
Always an option, and here the most appealing and interesting one to me. I *almost* want to follow your reasoning. The notion that qualia *are* the "distinctions they token" (I like that). But at the end, this thought crashes against the bedrock of qualia.

2: You're not getting it.
Always a salient possibility on philosophy forums. You have philosophically blinded yourself to what is obvious. The least interesting option, and IMO the most likely.

3: You are a zombie.
Eerie, sad, somewhat terrifying. The world as divided into the souled and soulless. It would make for great sci-fi. But could it be real?
The article and thread linked by @csalisbury is fascinating. There are a class of people who either:
a. Lack the mental machinery for visualization. Sure, the brain is deeply flexible and can compensate for much, but wouldn't this be crippling? For instance, in driving?
b. *Possess* this machinery, but are Zombies wrt it! And if we open that door... what if some of us are zombies to all of it!

A few questions:
There is a common thought experiement: suppose my experience of blue is your experience of red. This seems consistent and plausible. But in your view, the distinction is meaningless: we both discriminate, so there can be no difference. But why is this thought experiment so compelling?

For you, the problem of building a machine with qualia is trivial: it just has to discriminate. So if I code up something with an arduino, BASIC, and a color sensor, is that thing experiencing qualia? Seems absurd, no?

Let me offer a thought experiment. — Graeme M

If you were to plop me, a creature evolved in this colorful world, into that one, I would no doubt experience everything as blue. Perhaps that would fade over years. Natives of that world would have no experience nor concept of color, and would be baffled when I tried to communicate this chromatic monotony to them.

Colour as some ineffable deeply personal quality isn't required. — Graeme M

That seeming not-required is part of the mystery!

Technology will stop the day that humanity does.

Even if desires are ancient and unchanging, they are filtered through cultures, which are not.

But even more important, technology doesn't happen in isolation, it exists in an environment. And environments are always changing, often as the result of technology itself.

Much of the technology of the last 200 years evolved around breakthroughs surrounding the extraction and utilization of massive energy resource, fossil fuels, which were previously exploited only in minor ways. As this resource depletes, and as it effects the environment in ways that are inimical to life, new technology will have to develop to exploit new energy resources if we are to maintain even our present state of development.

These new technologies, if can even be developed, will in turn undoubtedly affect the world in ways that will have to be remedied with more technologies. And so on.

As this happens, biological technologies of terrifying complexity and cleverness are ceaselessly being developed, to exploit the food energy so much technology has been devoted to producing.

I.E. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/04/03/science/coronavirus-genome-bad-news-wrapped-in-protein.html

To combat, technologies of equal cleverness, such as vaccines, have to be endlessly developed, along with the technologies for producing and deploying them en masse.

It is a technological arms race, much like actual arms races, which are also technological arms races. Millitary technology is developed in the milieu of competitors military technology. If successful, it then reshapes or disrupts that milieu, and so creates a new one, in which new technology is in turn developed. There is no end to such a process, except annihilation.

I think the puzzle illustrates the breakdown of the concept of self as transcendent and persistent, absent a soul.

If you admit to souls, the problem is merely theological: does the soul find the new, teleported body, or doesn't it?

Without souls, it all seems to become a matter of opinion. Either you call the teleportee the same as the teleported, or you don't, it is just an intellectual preference.

But this does not fit with the ontological stakes of the problem. My personal persistence seems to be an ontological question. If it is not ontological, if it is merely a matter of opinion, then this ontoloigical sense of self must be an illusion.

You seem to have mistaken Occam's Razor for something authoritative. :chin: It's just a rule of thumb, a way of guessing when we can think of no better way to proceed with our reasoning.

There is nothing more authoritative available. As this theory is consistent with any given set of evidence, evidence cannot disprove it. With sufficient imagination an unlimited number of "theories" can be generated to explain any phenomenon. What if gravity was ultimately caused by invisible demons shoving things? And what if every cell in these demons bodies is in fact another universe? And what if in one of those universes reside the beings who have your brain in a vat?

But these theories have no explanatory value, they merely add vast amounts of unwarranted complexity to our model of the universe. And so they can be ignored, whether or not you deem the authority to do so sufficient.

And it asks: how should we deal with such speculations, logically? — Pattern-chaser

I told you how. If BIV was a simplifying explanation of the way things are, it would be compelling. In fact, it is radically complexifying. The world it proposes is inconceivably more complex than the non BIV world. It necessitates beings of godlike sophistication and power, technology hundreds of orders of magnitude more advanced than ours. All of the complexity of the seeming-world is merely a microcosm manipulated by entities whose information processing capabilities are on par with our entire (observable) universe's.

In short, It falls to Occam's razor.

After considering these responses I would like to weaken my claim.

Qualia are abstract symbols. They represent the endpoint of a transformation of sensory data into a purely abstract plane. But it is too much to say they are a language. After all, we don't interpret these symbols, we operate in our day to day lives in this world of symbols, as if the symbols were reality itself. It took centuries of difficult work to discover what these symbols refer to.

It seems likely that qualia exist to enable us to process information efficiently, at the symbolic level.

The Brain in the Vat is that it doesn't actually explain anything new. It doesn't answer any questions. It just proposes a scenario which is theoretically consistent with any set of observations.

The problem is, the world it proposes approaches infinitely more complexity above a world which is not really a brain in a vat. And as the additional complexity approaches infinity, the likelihood approaches zero.

The smell of vanilla is the quale of smelling vanilla, not some separate thing indicated by the quale. — Dfpolis

You misunderstand me. The smell of vanilla is the qualia, which is a symbol. It signifies the airborne vanilla molecules giving rise to the odor. We have no access to the reality, only to the symbols representing it: qualia.

(1) qualia are not symbols, (2) qualia are not conventional and (3) we have no idea if they are shared or not — "Dfpolis

(1) They certainly are. The vanillin molecule has nothing to do with the vanilla smell. The smell is purely symbolic, it points to the molecule.
(2,3): This is an internal language, the body speaking to itself. But the body itself is a multiplicity, and if there is sharing and convention, they exist at that level.

In your example, it would also be relevant to compare the reporting of this typhoon hitting Japan vs. one with a comparable impact in say the Philippines.

My basic point is, to do "news", you must select facts (or make them up) among the infinite available, and emphasize them. But there can be nothing objective about this, this basic act of telling a story (true story, or not). This is the realm of narrative, not objectivity.

Why is a religion so good at commanding people to behave a certain way — Posty McPostface

The answer is obvious. Religion operates on the basis of authority; philosophy, reason.

That is why people find religion noxious. It is the poster-child of illegitimate authority.

Could a quantum computer not complete a supertask? Does this imply that the notion of discrete space is not required for motion, only that quantum reality prevails?

Hi Phillip, welcome, I hope you stick around!

My question is this: if experience is the intrinsic nature of brains, then wouldn't it be just as simple, and certainly more parsimonious, to say that elementary particles have no intrinsic nature?

We either suppose that the intrinsic nature of fundamental particles involves experience or we suppose that they have some entirely unknown intrinsic nature. — Philip Goff

This would seem to be a false dichotomy; "nothing" is neither experience nor entirely unknown.