If the information about the damage comes from tactile sensors rather than reflected light in its camera eyes, does that qualify as pain? — Harry Hindu

What do you mean by "information"? Are you referring to the chemical neurotransmitters like glutomate that are released and sent to the brain? They, themselves, are not pain. The experience of pain occurs when there is the appropriate neural activity in the insular and secondary somatosensory cortexes, which usually occurs in response to these neurotransmitters, but direct electrical stimulation of these cortexes without any preceding tactile sensor involvement also causes pain. — Michael

What I mean by information is the form pain takes and the form colors take and the form smells and tastes and sounds take in your consciousness. What I mean by information is the aboutness that your sensory impressions take in that your sensory impressions are not the pen or the injury, but ABOUT the pen and the injury. When you feel pain are you not informed that you have an injury? When you see the red of the apple are you not informed that the apple is ripe? You can be informed about being injured in other ways by sight as you pointed out, but the sensory impression you experience is dependent upon the type of sense that is being used - your nerve endings in your skin vs your eyes.

I should point out that when I stub my toe, I feel the pain in my toe, not my head. I don't confuse a stubbed toe with a headache. That is another point in that our senses also provide information about location relative the brain. The world appears located relative to the eyes, but we know that the world is not located relative to the eyes. The way the visual field is displayed - the form the visual information takes - as the world located relative to the eyes is what gives it the "first-person" feel.

Straw man. If the information about the damage comes from tactile sensors rather than reflected light in its camera eyes, does that qualify as pain? If the robot sees its injury does it experience colors? Your mental gymnastics isn't helping the discussion progress.

Heavy emphasis of "partially." Words aren't useless. They are massively important to communicate with one another. Words are an interpretation of mental states into symbols. The mental states stay behind and the symbols do the best they can to project one's thoughts to another. Much is lost in translation. — Hanover

You keep confusing what is lost in translation with what is irrelevant to the situation. I don't need to know about how you feel about your loss to know where to find where they are buried. I don't need to know where they are buried to know how you are feeling about losing someone you love because I have lost loved ones too, so I understand what you are feeling. Why do we even have words the refer to mental states if something is lost when using them? How do you even know what is lost, if anything, without knowing the contents of another's mind when telling them about your feelings?

If I made it to the grave sight after telling me how to get there nothing was lost in translation. If I say "I understand how you feel" when you tell me how you feel nothing was lost in translation.

Because you keep asking the hard question. We don't have an answer to it.

All I am explaining is what the science shows; that pain and colour are percepts that occur when there is the appropriate brain activity; they are not mind-independent properties of knives and pens. — Michael

I ask the hard question because he keep stating that pain and color occur with appropriate brain activity. If the hard problem isn't solved then it is a logical possibility that color and pain doesnt necessarily occur with brain activity. It might occur with any type of computational process, like in a robot.

I asked if a robot can experience pain if it is informed it is damaged. You avoided the question.

If another human experiences something completely different than you when they are injured, can you say they feel pain? This is why I ask the question about what pain and color are. If someone can experience a different feeling when injured and you still qualify that as pain then why not a robot with a working memory that stores information temporarily to work out a response. What FORM does that information take in its working memory? Conciousness is a type of working memory.

So the ultimate question you need to answer is does it really matter what FORM the percep takes if it is caused by an injury and the percept is not the injury but information ABOUT the injury? Does that qualify as pain?

Does it matter what FORM the percept takes if it is caused by an interaction of reflected light with a lens and a sensory information processor?

The case you are making implies that humans and their brains are special in that they have this special power to create colors and pain when science has also shown that humans are not so special in the grand scheme of things.

Do you never try to convey how you feel to others? If you do then you must have some degree of certainty that they will at least partially understand what you are saying because they can experience the same feelings but in different but similar contexts (they have lost a love one too, just not your loved one).

A percept that occurs when there is the appropriate neurological activity, often in response to electrical signals sent from nociceptors.

See for example Role of the Prefrontal Cortex in Pain Processing:

The main brain areas that are most consistently activated under painful conditions are the insular cortex and secondary somatosensory cortex, bilaterally. Electrical stimulation of these areas, but not in other candidate brain areas, is able to elicit a painful sensation. — Michael

This doesn't answer my question. It just bumps against the hard problem again and we are back where we started.

What is a percept?

You have given a visual model of the brain and its processes, yet have explained that colors and shapes are only in our head. If our visual experience is that inaccurate in that we are seeing things that are not there, then how can we trust the visual explanations scientists and neurologists provide us. When a neurologist says "the mind (color) is an illusion", they are pulling the rug out from under their own visual models and explanations.

How does a colorless process create color?

But it seems to me that you can describe to me where your loved one is buried so that I may find it and pay my respects without knowing any of that other stuff you spoke about, and would actually be irrelevant to that goal anyway. It seems that it's difficult to translate mental states, but not so difficult to translate other states of the world that we share. How can we be so good at describing "external" states when all we have to go by is our "internal" states which you seem to think is so difficult to translate? How can I make it to your loved one's grave with a high chance of success (much more than random) when you are describing your internal states of what it is like being in that location and what it was like to get there yourself?

So in other words it isn't known whether pain requires the appropriate neurological activity, and so it is possible that pain just ain't in the head? — Michael

What is pain?

Isn't pain information in that it informs you of some injury in/on your body? Can a robot be informed of damage to its body? If so, does it experience pain?

I agree that metaphysics/philosophy isn't a word game. In using language we are informing others of some state of the world which can include mental states, but not necessarily. Our perceptions inform us of what is there whether it be a pen or the scribble, "pen". I wonder does Banno think he is playing a word game when discussing religion or politics?

In other words, it isn't known whether color experiences require the appropriate neurological activity..., In other words it is possible that colors ain't just in the head.

No it doesn't. That colour experiences require the appropriate neurological activity, which requires neural connections ordinarily formed in response to electrical information from the eyes, does not entail that colours are mind-independent properties of light or a material surface that reflects such light. — Michael

What's so special about neurological activity that causes color? How does a colorless process cause color? How do we know that a robot with cameras for eyes connected to a computer brain that can distinguish between different wavelengths of light isn't experiencing different colors as those distinctions in its working memory? How do we know that any object isn't experiencing color (panpsychism)? What's so special about organisms when they are just another kind of physical object?

It seems to me that colors take certain shapes which is why it might be difficult to see a red pen on a red table and why camouflage works and is a useful survival trait.

It's true that I assume the listener understands me, but I don't think he fully understands me. This thread is evidence of that.

You seem to be trying to build an argument with these questions, so I'll keep answering you, but maybe move closer to the point because it's not apparent to me.

It may be the other person doesn't see what I see or know what I know. My expectation is that much of what I do experience I do not fully convey in words and that much of what the listener hears isn't accurate of what I meant. Maybe we have shared experience, maybe not. I'd find it hard to believe that two people would fully share an experience down to the last emotion or perception. — Hanover

You sure are making a lot of knowledge statements about what you know about others' experiences for someone that says

The noumena isn't known. — Hanover

Why is it hard to believe that two people wouldn't fully share an experience down the the last emotion or perception if you don't have some knowledge about other people? Does it have to do with how others are shaped and behave in different ways than you? But then there are many similar ways that others are shaped and behave similar to you, too. So, wouldn't it be more likely that while they may not fully share an experience they do share some experiences, and those reasons for those similarities and differences can be pointed out as similarities and differences in our physiology and prior experiences? It doesn't seem as complex as some people here are making it out to be.

I want to take this a step further. I suspect we will agree that you can be sure, at least sometimes, that we can be confident the colour people see is the same. Like when we both choose the red pen. But when we prefix the word "subjective", that colour becomes uncertain.

Why not avoid using the word "subjective", and keep your confidence?

That is, perhaps the notion of a subjective colour is a misapplication, and colours are not subjective. — Banno

Exactly. Subjective experiences are only useful to talk about when wanting to know about the state of other minds, not other pens.

Even if others don't experience red the same as I do, it is irrelevant to the goal at hand, which is drawing one's attention to a specific pen. As long as their experience is consistent (they always experience the same color when viewing certain wavelengths of light), then they will know which pen I am referring to.

This is no different than language in that as long as each user of language is consistent in the way they use certain words, we can understand what they say. Colors, shapes, sounds, feelings, smells, etc. are all words in a (private) language that you translate into your native language of scribbles and sounds that others know the rules for deciphering.

When viewing the words on this page, does it matter what color others see the letters as, or does it only matter that they see the same scribbles and use the same rules for deciphering the meaning of the scribbles? People that do not speak English will see scribbles on this page. English speakers see words.

What is the purpose of saying "The pen is red"? Why is that useful to say?
— Harry Hindu

You are reporting upon what you see. Maybe you want to be provided the red pen — Hanover

Why is it useful to report what you see?

The noumena isn't known. — Hanover

In reporting what you see, you seem to know there are other people with other minds that can perceive what you do, in the way that you do, or else what is the point of reporting what you see? Why use language at all?

The constitution of the pen is disputed, not the appearance. — Hanover

What is the purpose of saying "The pen is red"? Why is that useful to say?

Does a red apple and red pen have the same constitution? Could we mean more than one thing in saying "the apple is red" vs. "the pen is red"?

Nature = self-governed
Supernatural = over nature

supernatural is only meaningful in the light of the natural, then it would seem that everything is fundamentally natural including God and the domain God resides in.
— Harry Hindu

…supernatural is only meaningful in the light of the natural, then it would seem that everything is fundamentally natural including God and the domain God resides in.

The conclusion’s soundness seems to depend on the prefix “super-”, which of course means ‘over’. However, ‘over’ covers up two distinct concepts. Does it mean ‘above’ (over and not touching) or ‘on’ (over and touching)? If it means ‘on/connected to’ then supernatural just means artificial. Humans trick nature into doing things beyond their natural ends all the time. But at the same time, it is just human nature to do artificial things. Therefore, the difference is just direct and indirect. So, in this sense, we have a mutually arising relationship like the one you described.

On the other hand, Platonic monotheists have actively pushed the unconnected sense. Their God creates ex nihilo and is the unmoved mover. It is the radical other that by definition can not be embraced. It always sits outside any harmonization project like non-dualism.

In short, above all else it rests on ‘over’. — Keith

The only relationship between supernatural and natural I'm interested in is causal. It doesn't matter where God is relative to it's creation. God is the cause, the universe is the effect. Our actions in the natural determine where we end up in the supernatural after we die. It's all causal and temporal. Whether it be indirect or direct, it's all part of the same reality.

I (mostly) agree but, since the relevent context of this thread discussion implicitly concerns "religion" (and explicity and more broadly concerns metaphysics), I think anti-supernatural is more precise and specific than "anti-delusional" (or, as you said earlier, "rational/logical"). — 180 Proof

Don't limit yourself.

Is it not relevant in a thread discussing religion and metaphysics to assert that religion is a type of delusion? And does this assertion provide a non-dual "bridging" between theism and atheism in showing that applying logic to all beliefs, not just religious ones, is a monistic solution to the duality of faith vs. reason, and an attempt to get at the inconsistent (dual) application of logic/reason to some beliefs and not others (faith)?

Would the answer to the thread's question not provide some useful implications for other types of beliefs, like in unicorns, dragons, aliens, mutants, dark matter and energy, etc.?

The incessant attacks on every living being are inevitable.

In the beginning, when God created the universe, he decreed that everything in existence has the right to seek to perpetuate its own existence. What about me? Said the original nothing. Now that the universe exists, I have disappeared. Can I also seek to exist? The universal Lord responded: Yes. There are no exceptions to the law. You have the right to attack and destroy everything that exists in the universe in order to reappear, including every living creature.

The reason why the original nothing has the God-given right to attack and destroy us, is not an injustice. On the contrary, it is the consequence of divine justice. The original nothing is not doing anything illegal. On the contrary, he may be our enemy but he is also a faithful and obedient servant of the universal Lord. God could have chosen to be unjust to the universal nothing but he didn't.

Hence, creating a more moral universe than the one we live in today was not possible. Such universe would have been based on a glaring fundamental injustice. — Tarskian

Citations?

Really though, if God is eternal then there was never nothing to begin with. If nothing can speak, "What about me?" then how can you say that it is nothing as SOMETHING was said, or asked? These are the type of inconsistencies I am talking about. You make a claim without incorporating the other characteristics associated with God, like being eternal. You are compartmentalizing.

Because belief in the supernatural is one type of delusional belief. In being logical one rejects all types of delusion. My point was that consistency is a way of practicing monism in that one applies logic to all claims and rejects faith, not just those in the domain of religion. Theists do apply logic to some claims, but not consistently across all claims. Is there more evidence for the existence of the Abrahamic God than the Greek gods? If both claims have the same amount of evidence then why believe in one over the other? It has already been pointed out that theists are atheists when it comes to a majority of gods. This applies to all philosophical domains, including politics. If some theist claim has the same amount of evidence as some political claim made by some Democrat or Republican - none, then why would you believe one and not the other?

I could argue that the political parties have become like religions with their faithful followers that believe what their leaders tell them without question. Political parties should be abolished. I am as a-political as I am a-theistic (or anti-group-think).

What does theism mean by "separate from" if it still can affect its creation?
— Harry Hindu
Well, at best, theism is incoherent.

What type of connection is it between a cause and its subsequent effects - physical, idealistic, something else or none of the above?
"Idealistic" (i.e. supernatural).

Would it not be a naturalistic stance to take to say that because God has a causal relationship with its creation that God is natural?
Yes. However, theism posits a supernatural creator of nature, which is incoherent.

There simply isn't any valid evidence to support any of these claims .. reasonable/logical?
I prefer anti-supernatural (though absurdist (Zapffe-Camus) would do). — 180 Proof

I think that anti-supernatural is too restrictive. Maybe anti-delusion?

As for absurdism, I believe that meaning/information is the relation between causes and effects, so meaning is everywhere you care to look, hence my claim that information is fundamental, not mind or matter which are complex configurations of information.

What meaning/information is useful at any moment depends on ones present goal in the mind. This is why you may determine that some bit of information is irrelevant to your current goal but that does not mean it is irrelevant in all cases. It depends on what your goal is. Usefulness is a relation between some bit of information and your goal in the moment. One could say that it is process/relations all the way down (Whitehead).

That can be a problem in difficult times when what you need is hope while the situation looks utterly hopeless. There simply is no evidence that things will get better. It does not exist. Still, the only way to sit out a bad patch, is to believe it anyway in spite of having no evidence.

The rational person will reasonably give up, while the spiritual one keeps going. This phenomenon seems to be enough to explain why atheist societies do not last long enough to actually make it into the history books. — Tarskian

If God exists, then who created the circumstances of your hopelessness in the first place to then look to it for hope? God created childhood cancer, schizophrenia, our bodies that have the capacity to be tortured, etc. I can imagine a more moral universe than the one we live in today, but that doesn't mean that I don't want to live in this one. This one isn't all that bad, so hope isn't necessary for me to continue existing - just the curiosity to continue to see what happens next. As Christopher Hitchens once put it, death is like being told you have to leave the party when the party is still going on.

Insofar as theism posits a creator separate from, though affecting, its creation (duality), atheism means rejection of theism (non-duality), no? — 180 Proof

What does theism mean by "separate from" if it still can affect its creation? What type of connection is it between a cause and its subsequent effects - physical, idealistic, something else or none of the above?

Would it not be a naturalistic stance to take to say that because God has a causal relationship with its creation that God is natural?

When pressed for a quick label, I will use the label of “atheist”. However, it does give me pause when I do, because “atheist” is a parasite term. It needs “theist” to be defined before it is possible to be an “atheist”. For example, polytheists are justified in calling monotheists, “atheists” because they nowadays deny the existence of many gods. Or if your definition of God is the most powerful being then I might be a theist (Just depends on if you can prove power can be measured). So, in theist/atheist pairing, I can see one side of a non-dualistic relationship.

The question is the other side. Does theism need atheism to have meaning/exist? The best positive answer I can come up with is, “yes because without the denial (atheism) it quickly becomes pantheism”. If one cannot say this is not God then everything becomes God. And if everything is God, then “God” is functionally meaningless. Or it is a fun way to be a closet atheist. — Keith

Does "supernatural" need "natural" to exist or have meaning or is it the other way around? If its the other way around in that supernatural is only meaningful in the light of the natural, then it would seem that everything is fundamentally natural including God and the domain God resides in.

I wonder to what extent such a non-dualistic viewpoint offers a solution to the split between materialism and idealism, as well as between atheism and theism. — Jack Cummins

Information is both mind-like and physical-like. Information is fundamental, not mind or matter.

It also comes down to consistency in the way one accepts evidence for any claim. Theists, I would argue, are inconsistent because they require evidence for some claims to believe in them while others they depend on faith.

I, on the other hand, only accept any claim when there is sufficient evidence to support it. All claims with the same amount of evidence have the same amount of weight, regardless of the claim. Inconsistency is a type of dualism, in that you accept some claims based on evidence and some on faith with no logical reason as to why.

Non-duality would entail treating every claim the same in requiring evidence and dispensing with faith altogether. Claims for which there is no evidence are just that and not useful beyond making the claim.

This isn't to say that atheists are not inconsistent either. They make claims in other philosophical domains, like politics, for which there is no evidence or evidence to the contrary. I am talking about being consistent across all philosophical domains.

I don't consider myself an atheist anymore than I consider myself a non-believer in unicorns. There simply isn't any valid evidence to support any of these claims, but does that mean we need labels for every (potential or possible) claim for which there is not sufficient evidence to support it, or do we simply need one label - reasonable/logical?

At the clear-to-me risk, that in my insistence (as a courtesy) on brevity, I will repeat my failure, I may as well say something about this. It can happen because the physical, the only reality, is not really generating anything. That you think it is a new reality generated out of an existent utterly other reality, you are in the common human illusion. Or, you are, at least, mistaken. — ENOAH

I don't think a new reality is generated out of an existent other reality. I was referring to your use of the word, "generate". I didn't use the term. I initially responded to bert1's mention of the relations, "produces/causes/is-identical-with". I'm not a dualist. The dualist is the one with the hard problem, not a monist.

I don't see it as two realities. There is one reality and reality is a causally connected relationship. If there are multi-verses and those multi-verses have a causal impact with events in our universe, then the multi-verse is one reality. If they don't then there are multiple realities but we'd have no way of showing that and would be pointless to try.

I think traditional phenomenology, which addresses, as you raised, the problem of understanding objects as they "must be" vs as they "appear" to us; that is moving into new directions. One, is that the traditional did not throw its net out far enough. If it had, it would have left to Science how we sense red, or the aroma of coffee. The real question phenomenology is after is why we "experience" it as red. And this is the result of images, once constructed and saved in memory to trigger a feeling which in turn triggered a drive and action (like many sentient animal), now have developed into its own sophisticated system of constructing images (using neurons) to trigger ultimately feeling and action.

It is only because that once strictly organic system of conditioning responses for survival has evolved in humans into Mind, that "red" and "aroma" have meaning, a mechanism in the system wherein those once strictly organic feelings, are attached to Narratives--experiences.

And how does something physical generate these experiences? You rightly asked. It doesn't generate anything real at all. These are "codes" hijacking feelings to create this illusion of meaning and that meaning matters. It doesn't. Matter matters. — ENOAH

None of this explains how an illusion is created by something that is not illusory. An illusion is a misinterpretation of sensory data, not that the data itself isn't real.

A mirage is exactly what you'd expect to experience given the nature of light and how it interacts with your eye-brain system. In explaining the causes you don't dispel the illusion. Instead, you make it a real consequence of real causes.

The one thing that I am sure of is the existence of my mind. From there, everything else is unprovable. Yes, even solipsism could be true. I am not a solipsist because I wonder if there isn't an "external" world, then why does it seem like there is? The same could be asked about consciousness. If the mind is an illusion then why is it so brute?

We may not have direct access to the world but don't we have direct access to our "illusion"? My mind, illusion or not, is part of reality. There are causal forces at play where my mind is the effect of prior causes and my mind is the cause of subsequent effects. Culture is one of the effects of human minds on the world.

If the mind is an illusion then what does that say about all the scientific knowledge based on observations? If our observations of the world are not real, then does that mean our understanding of brains and neurons is not real? Asserting that the mind is an illusion, or not real, pulls the rug out from under all the scientific knowledge we've accumulated.

It seems to me that you do not mean by "reality" what most of us mean by it. Most of us mean by "reality" the kind of thing that we encounter in experience. When you say that reality does not generate real experience, you cannot possibly be using reality in this sense.

One test of whether something is real, is whether it can do something. Our experiences do many things. They inform us, modify our responses, etc. So, they pass the test. — Dfpolis

I agree. I define reality as a causally linked system.

As a theoretical physicist, I learned that whatever happens, happens for a reason, In physics, it is because there are laws of nature that make our observations turn out as they do. Over time physics has improved our descriptions of these laws -- call our descriptions "laws of physics". We do not try to explain the laws of nature, because that is not our remit, but that does not exempt them from also needing a reason for happening. Philosophy has the remit to provide that reason. So, what exempts your fundamental from the need for further explanation? — Dfpolis

If there is some fundamental aspect to reality then wouldn't it follow that there is an aspect of reality that does not need a reason for happening. I mean, what does fundamental mean if not that there is some aspect that "just is". If not, then there would be an infinite regress of reasons, or reality is an infinite causal chain with no beginning and no end, or another possibility could be a loop of causality.

What do you mean by "justifies its conclusion"? Causes "justify" their effects. It just seems like a misuse of language here. I would say that causes determine their effects and vice versa. With reasons and conclusions being a type of cause and effect, reasons determine their conclusions and vice versa.

If determinism is true, people's behaviour is not governed by reasons, but by causes. — Ludwig V

Reasons are a type of cause.

Similarly, holding people responsible is never possible if determinism is true.
BTW, the empirical evidence is that what deters people from committing crimes is not the severity of the punishment, but the likelihood of getting caught. — Ludwig V

Yes. I should rephrase. The likelihood of getting caught is a reason to not commit a crime.

The likelihood of getting caught implies the punishment.

Risking getting caught is an option, but is it worth it? This is something that has to be decided on a case-by-case basis. For each person, in different parts of their lives, and under different circumstances it will be different. For some, it is a simple solution as they would never consider committing a crime, but it may depend on the circumstances, of which there are many that we can choose from in the many philosophical discussions on ethics.

Not every moment is the same. It seems to me that both determinism can be true and it also be true that each moment is unique. Even though each moment is unique each moment has similarities to past moments. We can make predictions of the future thanks to these similarities but they fail when the novelty of the situation isn't taken into account. Some predictions don't need to take into account the novelties because they are irrelevant to the prediction.

Have you never done something that you didn't want to do - sometimes something you had decided not to do?
You may have felt that you did it without deciding to do it.

it would feel natural to reach the decision you made
— Harry Hindu
If it felt like that, it was probably based on reason, as opposed to some causal chain. — Ludwig V

Reasoning is a causal process. It takes time to reason. Your reasons determine your decision. I don't see a distinction between "physical" and "non-physical" causation so the act of reasoning is just a type of causal chain.

In what way did you make a decision you didn't want to? I think you're talking about making a decision you didn't like, or wouldn't fulfill some imaginary future where everything works out to perfection. You may not always make the decision you want, but you always make the decision you need to. It seems to me that what you are actually saying is that when your options are limited you feel less free - the more options the more freedom. This is what I mentioned before. The options available at any given moment are determined depending on the situation and your current knowledge.

I agree with his claim that seeing ourselves determined in this reductive way by our past leads to more ethical, compassionate behavior toward those who commit acts of violence and other anti-social behaviors than religiously based notions of feee will, which tend to embrace harsh, retributive forms of justice. — Joshs

I still believe that we should hold people responsible for their actions. Holding others responsible has an effect on theirs, and others, future behaviors, which is more of the point of punishment, not necessarily to take revenge on past behaviors but provide reasons to behave differently in the future.

Yes, of course. That's why, when I do something for those reasons, there is no compulsion, no restriction of freedom - except in the sense of opportunities voluntarily foregone. — Ludwig V

I don't know. Does a decision that was determined based on prior circumstances necessarily have to feel like it was forced? It seems to me that if it was already determined based on existing circumstances that it would feel natural to reach the decision you made, and not feel forced.

What would a decision that was forced feel like compared to one that was freely chosen?

Here's what I don't get about determinism. That process may determine my decision. But how does it force me to do anything? What sense does it make that I might be forced to do the right or rational thing, when the right or rational thing is what I want to do? — Ludwig V

Why do you want to do the rational or right thing? Don't you have reasons?

I'm not sure I understand what you're saying or how your explanation describes exactly how neurons "generate "images"".

I just think that using terms like "physical" and "non-physical" isn't helpful because you have to define what those words mean and how something that is "physical" can generate something "non-physical". It seems to me that the solution would involve some sort of monism where the objects of thought are of the same type as any other object - information.

Even "images" invokes some kind of Cartesian theatre. "Sensations", I think, would be better and attention is the amplification of certain sensations over others.

How does a colorless neuron generate the sensation of color, or an odorless neuron generate the sensation of smell? Why is it that when you attempt to observe my mental processes you see neurons and a brain but when I observe my mental processes I am observing an experience of the world made of shapes, colors, sounds, smells, tastes and feelings, but not neurons?

When philosophers like Chalmers ask questions like "Why doesn't all this information-processing go on "in the dark", free of any inner feel?" they don't really mean 'why' in the sense of "what evolutionary benefit has it?" They're looking for a 'how', as in "Explain how, exactly, that information processing (or whatever function) somehow produces/causes/is-identical-with consciousness?" — bert1

But it leaves no evolutionary role for consciousness to play, which was wonderer1's point. — bert1

I agree with you. How do we know that blind sight patients, or those that disassociate their awareness from their consciousness aren't merely misusing language in describing their experience? It seems to me that only someone that assumes that their consciousness is something like a soul that can exist apart from their body (which I would argue most people believe) would say such things.

Think about it. Do we go about our lives with the conscious experience of focusing on each step that we take when walking from one room to another? No. One could say that our walking happens unconsciously, yet we don't disassociate our self from the act of our walking. Walking is something that we learned a long time ago and we have become so good at it that it happens almost instinctively in that we don't have to put much, if any conscious effort into doing it. But when we were toddlers and we were learning how to walk we had invoke a conscious effort into doing it. We had to focus on the intricacies of the placement of our feet, our balance, the surface we were walking on, etc.

Now that we can walk on auto-pilot we don't disassociate our walking from our self because we say things like, "I walked over from my house..." It is only in these special (mystical) circumstances of blind sight and drug use that individuals use language in such a (mystical) way as to disassociate their selves from their awareness.

The same can be said regarding riding a bike and driving a car. Can a blind sight person do such things? Could a blind-sight person tell the difference between a ripe and rotten apple by their sight alone?

If the answer to these questions is "no", then p-zombies are false. There is a use to consciousness, and this is what defines us as humans and different than other animals.

I think the primary role of consciousness is in our learning, as it takes conscious effort to learn anything. Blind-sight is in the domain of the instincts. Instincts are built-in learned behaviors based on limited stimuli. Consciousness provides a much more detailed model of our environment and as such has made us much more adaptable to sudden changes in the environment that instincts are not able to. Instincts are best for environments that change little and slowly.

Of course, none of this actually addresses the hard problem of how "physical" neurons are produces/causes/is-identical-with "non-physical" consciousness. But, IMO, the hard problem is based another faulty assumption of dualism. I believe a type of informational-monism could be the solution where the world is not physical/non-physical. It's all information.

As I pointed out before, you are speaking from a position of ignorance. You simply don't know what LD knows. As I said, LD has a "Law of Everything". You do not, yet here you are arguing what would be impossible for LD.
— Harry Hindu
And as I pointed, Laplace never talked about and LD or a "Law of Everything" that we don't know, but assumed if some extremely well informed entity could make the extapolation from the present (or past), into the future. Laplace wasn't speaking of any divine power. As I said, what he was talking about is simple "Newtonian" physics extrapolation. That should be clear.

However coming back to your idea of LD having the "Law of Everything":

Let's first discuss this as this is one crucial factor here and should be discussed. Actually you aren't the first to make this argument.

Your argument (and please, do correct me if I'm wrong) is basically the "Black box" argument with LD: we don't know what logic, information and laws which LD is using (that we don't know, which is the Law of Everything. LoE) and hence for LD solving the problem is easy, even if it's not for us.

Ok,

The first question is then: If LD solves this problem using LoE, is then LoE equivalent to our logic that we use? Well, when one situation is that the correct forecast is a forecast that the LD doesn't give, obviously it isn't so, or then we really have understood very wrong basic logic. — ssu

Let's go back over what Laplace said:

We may regard the present state of the universe as the effect of its past and the cause of its future. An intellect which at a certain moment would know all forces that set nature in motion, and all positions of all items of which nature is composed, if this intellect were also vast enough to submit these data to analysis, it would embrace in a single formula the movements of the greatest bodies of the universe and those of the tiniest atom; for such an intellect nothing would be uncertain and the future just like the past could be present before its eyes. — Laplace

The first sentence defines determinism.

The second sentence describes an intellect as having a Law of Everything. The Law of Everything is the law that defines all the forces that set nature in motion and all the positions of all items of which nature is composed...

The second part of the second sentence describes the intellect as being vast enough to submit these data to analysis, or logic.

In this sense, the LoE and logic are different things. Think of the difference between intelligence and wisdom. The former entails what you know. The latter entails how you use what you know. LD has both to such a degree that surpasses our capacity by factors reaching to infinity. LD has both all knowledge and access to all logical systems to the point where all of it's conclusions are valid. There could be more than one solution to a problem that ends up accomplishing the same result. Sure we can get to Pluto using our existing means of propulsion, but LD knows of other, more efficient ways of doing things.

I was really hoping you'd answer the question I posed earlier:

My question is, why did the NASA scientists not need to account for the solution to get to Pluto in the solution to get to Pluto and New Horizons still arrive at Pluto? Sure, it seems that if they tried to include the solution in the solution the New Horizons project would never moved past the planning stage, but it did by not accounting for it and the solution was a success. As I said before, some information is irrelevant to the forecast being made. NASA scientists also did not account for the speed at which the weeds in my yard grow to get to Pluto either. — Harry Hindu

I've never denied that determinism does not allow for free will. LD has no free will because it knows everything about everything in the present and can then extrapolate what it will do based on this understanding.
— Harry Hindu
Well, now you went ahead of me. Assuming that LD has no free will because it knows everything about everything and can extrapolate the future from the past with (LoE) is definately not something the Laplace had in mind. The point that LD would have no free will is quite a statement.

In fact, this is my point: One can say it that our free will limits this kind of simple extrapolation. Yet is this the correct way to state that theorem? Would it be perhaps better to say that simply there are limitations to what we can compute (or give a direct proof or), because we have free will? — ssu

It seems to logically follow that determinism and free will in the sense that most people think of it as being a decision that was not determined, are incompatible.

But decisions are made based on some reason and it is our reasons that determine a decision, or else we would say that we made an unreasonable decision.

To me, freedom entails options. The more options you have when making a decision, the more freedom you have, but this does not mean that you could have actually chosen another option because your actual decision was made based on certain reasons and you filtered those other options based on certain reasons to eventually arrive at the last option standing. You would have always made the same decision given the same options and the same circumstances. As I have said before, you only know that you made a mistake or could have made a different decision when you have more information (more options), but that is after the fact of your decision. Sure, if you had the other options you could have made a different decision, but at the moment of decision you didn't which is why you will always make the same decision given the same set of circumstances which includes the options you have at that moment.

Again your not getting the point. That turn hasn't happened yet, it's in the future. The pilot is flying the aircraft ordinarily, because the aircraft hasn't been attacked. He's looking at the potential AA site, but as the pilot observes he's not fired upon, no reason for evasive manuevers. Maybe the site is simply a fake or the gunners simply haven't observed him. The LD giving the firing solution and the firing of the gun only alerts the pilot to make evasive maneuvers. The LD solution is defined from the LD solution itself, you cannot get around it, sorry. — ssu

As I pointed out before, you are speaking from a position of ignorance. You simply don't know what LD knows. As I said, LD has a "Law of Everything". You do not, yet here you are arguing what would be impossible for LD.

Let's just remember how the LD makes the forecast in general. It knows everything at the present, and it can then extrapolate perhaps one nanosecond at a time to the future to millions of years from now. But this isn't anymore a simple extrapolation: here the correct model of future has to take into consideration the model itself. The LD solution happens partly because of the LD solution. That's circular reasoning. And here we come to the interesting philosophical issue at hand: here the LD has to make a subjective decision. It cannot be just an objective observer here. If it would be, then it wouldn't give any LD solution, the anti-aircraft gun wouldn't be fired and the pilot could perhaps fly aircraft in a straight line through the airspace where the AA gun could reach the aircraft. The gunners would angry at such fire control. — ssu

Which would certainly be a possible (non)action by LD as it knows more than the gunner. Let the gunner learn his lesson by firing at the pilot and never hitting them. If LD's goal was to bring down an incoming bomber then his knowledge would have given him some other options that you and gunner could not comprehend, much less think of yourself.

Maybe you should make a flowchart of how LD would make the decision. I think that the only thing that matters is what LD knows the pilot will do. LD's solution is based mostly on that.

Again, the pilot alters his flight if the aircraft is attacked (sees the muzzle flashes), that happens only after the LD's firing solution, so LD cannot just extrapolate from the present something that isn't yet done. — ssu

Yet here you are without a Law of Everything predicting that the pilot would perform evasive maneuvers in the future. Now, expand that to an infinite level of precision as LD would have and would you be able to say the same thing about what LD can forecast?

Here's the most important issue: LD just cannot extrapolate from the past, it has to make a choice when to give the firing solution and what firing solution. That's different what Laplace had in mind. There's many ways to do this, but it isn't simple extrapolation. — ssu

How so? Isn't that how we make any decision in that we must choose what and when to do it? We have to choose how and when to launch a space probe to Mars and we've done it multiple times successfully, more than just random chance would allow.

My question is, why did the NASA scientists not need to account for the solution to get to Pluto in the solution to get to Pluto and New Horizons still arrive at Pluto? Sure, it seems that if they tried to include the solution in the solution the New Horizons project would never moved past the planning stage, but it did by not accounting for it and the solution was a success. As I said before, some information is irrelevant to the forecast being made. NASA scientists also did not account for the speed at which the weeds in my yard grow to get to Pluto either.

This actually is very crucial to our usual way of looking at this: if there's determinism, can there be free will? That's the typical way to look at it. The LD example gives another way to look at this: here the LD has to make a subjective decision because it cannot be just an objective onlooker. And once it does, so, then not all computations can be done as earlier. A lot sure, but not all.

Perhaps in a way our free will simply limits our ability to calculate/prove/extrapolate everything about the future, if it is deterministic. — ssu

I've never denied that determinism does not allow for free will. LD has no free will because it knows everything about everything in the present and can then extrapolate what it will do based on this understanding. Sure, it must account for it's own actions and decisions which makes it exponentially more complicated, but that just means it is impossible for you, not LD.

Certainly, the macro physical universe is deterministic. We can calculate a whole lot of what's going to happen in the future. We know when Haley's comet will be back again. We know when the next high tide will be on any beach. We can shoot a moving target with a gun, drive cars, play baseball, and any number of other things.

Even if the quantum world is truly not deterministic, it's probabalistic to a very predictable degree, making the macro deterministic. — Patterner

The observer effect in QM seems to indicate that we might be confusing the map with the territory, or the measurement with what is being measured. It appears that the events on the atomic scale are indeterministic, but it is actually our measurements (consciousness is an act of measuring and what we experience in our mind is really a measurement of the world, not the world as it is) that are incompatible with what is being measured. We are trying to use macro-scale measurements on quantum objects.

Forecast = an accurate model of future
interaction means simply that LD or someone interacts with something in the universe. This means that an accurate model of the future (the forecast) has to take this action into account. — ssu

What would an inaccurate forecast be called? A weatherman's forecast is not always accurate. It seems to me that a forecast is simply a mental model of the future in the present. Whether it is accurate or not is a different matter.

Regarding "interact", LD is part of the universe it is forecasting so it's actions aren't any different than any other action it needs to account for in making an accurate forecast.

As I've said, there is absolutely no problem for LD when it isn't making the firing decision. But if it would be assisting the gunner, do notice that the equations isn't what Laplace was talking about: LD has to take into account his own firing decision. After all, the pilot will correct his flight path when he see's the muzzle flash, and then LD has had to give the firing solution. So when does the pilot alter his flight path, when the gun is fired and when LD has made it's firing solution. So the correct forecast is dependent of the forecast made itself. — ssu

With LD the solution would have included where the pilot would turn when they see the flash because the pilot is no different than any other obstacle, conscious or not, that might change the forecast between the moment one makes the forecast and the time the event that was forecasted to happen. The further ahead in the future the event is forecasted the more information you need to make an accurate forecast.

For a non-LD gunner, missing the pilot informs them what they missed in their prior forecast. You only know you made a mistake when you have more information.

But here's the point: the LD having to take it's actions into account already refutes Laplace's idea. Laplace wasn't talking about game theory. — ssu

How so when all of LD's actions that occur is part of reality that it is forecasting? Knowing everything about everything with infinite precision is knowing everything about itself too. If it has a causal relation with reality it is effectively part of reality and it's actions are no different than any other action, conscious or not, that must be accounted for in their forecast.

If LD knows everything about everything with infinite precision, then by definition "everything" includes human behaviors.
— Harry Hindu
No. that is incorrect. It's not almighty God. It doesn't know the future. It knows only the past. — ssu

That's not how I interpreted what Laplace said. What it knows is basically the "Theory of Everything" in the present. It is not defined as knowing the past. The past is something it has to extrapolate from the present state of the universe and it's Theory of Everything, just as it has to do with the future. For LD, it wouldn't actually be a "Theory" of Everything. It would be the Law of Everything.

But that is the question we are tying to answer. Ssu's "veto" and "free will" need to be defined. Even then our understanding of the brain is incomplete and we simply don't know how the brain makes decisions and what role the mind plays, or its relationship with the brain (the hard problem). The definition of LD seems to indicate that it knows the answers to the hard problem and fully understands how the brain works and what a mind is, and we don't, yet here we are asserting what LD knows or doesn't know from our own point of ignorance.

The quote can be found on anything number of sites...
We may regard the present state of the universe as the effect of its past and the cause of its future. An intellect which at a certain moment would know all forces that set nature in motion, and all positions of all items of which nature is composed, if this intellect were also vast enough to submit these data to analysis, it would embrace in a single formula the movements of the greatest bodies of the universe and those of the tiniest atom; for such an intellect nothing would be uncertain and the future just like the past would be present before its eyes.
— Laplace
I believe this is saying that LD knows everything about everything IF everything about everything is deterministic. That, I believe, is the point of Laplace's thought experiment.

But if all of reality is not deterministic, LD's calculations would not be able to figure everything out. Comparing what, based on its calculations, it says the universe would look like at any given point with what the universe actually looks like, there would be discrepancies. I suppose LD would say, "Something non-deterministic took place at that spot." — Patterner

And that would be perfectly accurate for LD to say because once you assert an event was non-deterministic it requires no further explanation. Only in asserting determinism does one either need to further explain what initial conditions existed that determined the subsequent conditions and so on ad infinitum, or until you arrive at some non-determined condition that has always existed or something comes from nothing.

Then LD isn't really useful in determining whether or not the universe is deterministic. It is assumed that it is, hence LD. We would need to determine whether or not the universe if deterministic ourselves to then determine the validity of LD, but LD was never useful in allowing us to discover that fact.

The question then is if the universe is not deterministic, then why does it appear that it is? How are we able to make consistent predictions and when our predictions fail we can point to some information we lacked in making the prediction. We only know that our prediction failed when we have access to new information.

But there's the catch: that isn't interaction.

And even worse: that isn't a forecast. — ssu

Then define "interaction" and "forecast". It seems to me that every thing (atoms, molecules, cells, organs, organisms, societies, planets, solar systems, galaxies, and universes) is an interaction of smaller parts and technology is based on the science it is built on, and science is based on forecasting based on existing observations. Every time you use technology you are testing the forecast science has made regarding how the universe works.

Hope you see the point why you could not give an accurate forecast here. And it's likely that people don't bother to make a forecast when the game is told to them. First they'll think it's a 0.5 chance of getting it right or something. — ssu

Actually, I predicted that you would type 1 based on the conditions you provided, so I was able to give an accurate "forecast". I wouldn't really call it a forecast as you told me what you would do. :meh:

But this problem does come around in real world implications: — ssu

Then what use is it? A problem that does not come around in real world implications seems to be just a misuse of language.

When you think about, the problem is really similar: you can have all the flight data and tracking data of the target aircraft, know the perfomance specs of the aircraft and get a firing solution a the present for the future location some seconds in the future. If the aircraft isn't aware that it's shot and and follows the same line, it likely will get hit. But if the pilot has noticed your AA gun and will change the course after you have fired the artillery projectile, then no matter how accurate your targeting data and fire control was, you will miss or it's just a lucky chance you will hit the aircraft. — ssu

You're missing a key point of LD, and that is it knows everything about everything with infinite precision. The pilot and the gunner are both part of the everything about everything with infinite precision, so by definition LD would know how the gunner and pilot will react. LD would have predicted that the ability to evade the shot from the AA gun would have been the catalyst to develop new technology that cancels out the pilots ability to evade.

All you have done is explain how certain events in the world whether they are acts of humans, stars, disease, etc. can have an impact on our predictions of the future. I don't disagree with that as that is what I have been saying as well. It is you that is making a special case for human behavior, as if it has some special power to throw a wrench into our predictions where other events do not. It seems like you are basically begging the question of free will by implying that humans have this special power of freedom that disrupts potential predictions. If LD knows everything about everything with infinite precision, then by definition "everything" includes human behaviors.

The problem here isn't that we don't have all the relevant information, it's that you can use that relevant data even make an extrapolation and then do something else. That is basically negative self reference. — ssu

Yet we do it all the time. We use past experiences and an understanding of physics and calculus to make accurate predictions in getting to Pluto, using a computer, driving a car, riding a bike, etc. Even using our body parts in walking, holding, etc. is using our learned knowledge to be able to do these things. You don't remember but it took an effort to learn to walk and use your hands and only by repeatedly trying, observing the effects and trying again (a sensory feedback loop) do you become proficient. We use past information to acquire knowledge of the present and future. If all you can point to is some anthropomorphic notion of events in making a special pleading for human behaviors as a critique of using information to make predictions, then your argument is flawed.