Do we have any ethical obligations to our future selves?

Are fields rational? Are fields meaningful? Does the sunset I'm imagining exist in a field in my skull? When I think of my favorite song, is there music playing in a field somewhere in my brain? The mind is definitely not a field. You could say it's caused by fields, but that is also a tricky claim. The simplest thing is to stop assuming there's any mind-independent stuff.

I think it's easier to ditch all the talk of fields and assume mind is primary. That seems to require less assumptions.

You'll be a lot happier if you give your marbles to someone else. I'm someone else.

1. What about the qualia of a sunset? What information message is being sent viz-a-viz being awed by a beautiful sunset or painting?
2. What biological advantage does qualia provide? Presumably, information about bodily injury could be sent without any qualia at all, so what purpose does the feeling of pain serve? Also, do robots that have sensory apparatuses that send information to a CPU have qualia?

The qualia of our inner conscious world are information messages. — Raymond

What about qualia associated with hallucinations? In the case of phantom limb pain, what information message is there? Is it a mistaken information message? What about the beauty of a sunset?

Just like processes in the physical world follow a path of least resistance, so do brain processes. — Raymond

So what else in the physical world is conscious besides brains? Rivers? Electric currents?

According to my description of consciousness: "I believe that the concurrent experience of these two perspectives (inner/external) is what we experience as consciousness. Our internal quasi-perceptual awareness combined with what we are able to perceive directly" I guess that any thing that can do this is conscious. — Brock Harding

That sounds very panpsychist.

we'd have to precisely know what consciousness is — Hermeticus

Therein lies the rub. Not only do we not have a precise definition, we have no scientific definition. We have to go by folk definitions. Science is also unable to tell us if a 6-month old fetus is conscious, or if the latest Boston Dynamics robot is conscious (or even Stockfish). I don't see science answering these questions anytime soon, so I think the continued failure of science to say whether machine x is conscious or not is catastrophic to the question of whether science will ultimately explain how unconscious matter can produce conscious states.

What things, besides us, are conscious?

This sounds like functionalism. Do you think mind is the program that the brain is running?

Walking is not as real as legs that do the walking.

Consciousness/mind, just like walking, is an activity. To think that consciousness/mind is an object, like legs are, is a mistake; this error gives warrant to Dennett's claim that consciousness is an illusion. — Agent Smith

If minds are brains, then minds are nouns.

If mind is a verb, why do we use it as a noun so often (e.g., my mind is made up)?

:up:

Thanks, I just bought his book: Philosophy of Mind, a Beginner's Guide.

I like that quote of Ed Feser a lot.

:up:

What else besides brains are conscious/can become conscious?

https://behavioralscientist.org/rethinking-consciousness-a-qa-with-michael-graziano/

Sounds a lot like computationalism. If computers can be conscious, how will we verify that? Which computers, exactly, are conscious? Are some computers already conscious? Why are brains conscious? Because they compute? Is anything that computes conscious?

I decide to imagine a blue elephant. As I do so my brain goes through a series of states dictated by my decision and its content. It's not so much that the mind moves physical things, rather the mind is physical things. There's only one world. — Daemon

If the mind IS a physical thing (i.e., mind=brain), then when you imagine a blue elephant in your mind, shouldn't there be a blue elephant inside your skull?

Do you think minds can exist on other stuff than a working brain in a living body? — Raymond

The only thing we know that exists for sure is our own mind. If minds come from brains, how do brains produce minds?

Good points. Also, if mind is what the brain does, why is it just the brain that does mind? Why doesn't the heart do mind as well? Why do only specific parts of the brain do mind?

Why would it look different? — khaled

Why would red to you look different than red to me? Maybe small changes in neural structure and brain chemistry. Who knows? My point is simply that looking at brain scans cannot tell you that red to me looks the same as red to you.

If I clone you do you think there is a chance that “red” to the clone will look different from “red” to you?

The clone would occupy a different point in space, would physically diverge from me right after the cloning process. These are very small changes, but who's to say whether they result in different mental states. Since the contents of my mind are a black box to you and vice-versa, you can't get around this problem. You will never know if red to me is the same as red to you. It's an insolvable problem.

If you can see them, yes I think. — khaled

But the reverse isn't true. You couldn't reverse engineer a mental state by observing brain states. Even if you were looking at the brain states of someone you were convinced is seeing red, the inverted spectrum problem would pop up. Is the person with brain states "seeing red" really seeing red, or does red to them look blue to everyone else?

Try it. Open up the motherboard and tell me what the first 10 switching operations for the Windows Kernel is.

Of course, there are devices that can detect binary code. You can't do so with your eyes however. Similar to how you can't see feelings when looking at a brain without the use of special tools. — khaled

But it is possible to see the switching operations. For example, the first computers were the size of rooms and made of vacuum tubes. Could you "reverse engineer" the code from the switching operations, if you had the right tools?

I didn’t say you can’t see code. I said you can’t see code by simply looking at a computer. You can bust open the motherboard and look at it all you want (like looking at a brain) and you won’t see what’s happening in there. — khaled

Wouldn't you see a set of particular switching operations? That's what code ultimately is.

Sorry, I totally skipped this: "(Not really "knows", but is constrained thus.)"

Sorry!

Doesn't seem absurd to me. — Kenosha Kid

If we use the standard definition, how could a collection of switches have a justified true belief about anything? How would that work?

It "knows" kind of like a computer would know, but without a programmer (that we know of, unless you're a creationist). — Kenosha Kid

Can a collection of electronic switches be said to know anything? Doesn't that seem absurd?

There's a sound in my head? Are sights and smells in there as well? — Ciceronianus

Imo, the best objection to the theory that mental states are identical to brain states is simply that I can imagine a blue car, but there's no blue car in my skull. Same with songs; we can play songs "in our heads", but there's no music in our skulls. This is pretty off-topic, though.

suppose you are referring to computer simulations ... I also suppose that such a simulation is "playing" right now w/o anyone watching (observing) it. Well, for one thing the simulation does not exist (by itself, as such), anyway. What exists is a computer "playing" a simulation and w/o knowing it plays a simulation. It is us who call it a "simulation". As TV can "play a program" w/o anyone watching. It is us you call it a program

But this is too obvious.So you maybe mean something else? — Alkis Piskas

I think it's obvious, but I've seen raging arguments between people who think computers can simulate things with no one observing the computer vs. people who think that without an observer, a computer simulation is just a bunch of pixels and sounds. I fall in the latter category.

Shutting up and calculate was made the norm. — Cartuna

Sean Carrol talks about that. Why don't scientists want to get to the bottom of it?

I see what you did there!

If he's right that the physical universe doesn't count (and I think that's true), then presumably brains can't count (I also agree).

The physical universe doesn't count. There's nothing "out there" that calculates. It's us who do. — Alkis Piskas

I agree. Do you think simulations can exist without anyone observing them?

I think I was being kind of nitpicky. A lot of what makes up our knowledge comes from casual conversations with people and casual reading of books without any testing or verification. That's a fair point.

The US Republican-Trump party is now working to install loyalists in swing-state election-admin posts, so that they can manipulate the 2024 count to ensure he wins - all in defense of the stop-the-steal lie, which 2/3 of them still believe. — Tim3003

I was worried about this too, but a disputed election will be challenged in the courts, and ultimately SCOTUS, and none of the judges on there are morons. Will Republicans abide by what this particular SCOTUS says? Enough will so that our democracy will continue.

Isn't that sad? — RogueAI

:up: :100:

I like a good discussion, and I learn new things here, but a part of me loves it when someone puts a :100: next to something I've said. Isn't that sad?

What about chess programs that are superior to humans? Do they have minds?
— RogueAI

Certainly not. — apokrisis

I missed this. How do you know chess computers don't have minds?