makes me think minds don't emerge from matter. — RogueAI
? Well...isn't there something called "quantum mechanics" that requires a different approach to particle physics? (not to mention reality itself) — GLEN willows
In principle, a complete material rendering of this process of a body with a brain walking in the world can be given, but such rendering will never be able to explain the intrinsic matter features which can only be felt on the inside. — Hillary
will eventually be just empty descriptors. Like saying "he's got some balls" as a descriptor of a man's bravery, not the simple physical fact. — GLEN willows
I believe that we will eventually build robots with consciousness. Do you really think that's impossible? — GLEN willows
It's not because consciousness is something that lies outside purely mechanical processes, but rather it's because consciousness is a muddled notion to begin with, Boolean logic consists of all true statements, inanimate objects have no emotion, emotion is part of thought and belief, and consciousness includes an ability to suspend one's judgment as well as change one's mind about things previously held true. That's just skimming the top of the problems involved with any claims of artificial 'intelligence'(scarequotes intentional). — creativesoul
...if consciousness and the material brain are not literally the same thing, how do we avoid dualism? — GLEN willows
But seriously - the problem with the Churchlands and Daniel Dennett is actually simple. It's just a matter of perspective. The point of David Chalmer's famous paper Facing Up to the Hard Problem of Consciousness, is the impossibility of accounting for the first-person reality of experience in third-person, objective terms. — Wayfarer
Some think intelligence is a function of human biology — Jackson
If the term means anything at all, it must include biological machinery. — creativesoul
It's our intelligence that forms the basis of our understanding. We must get it right prior to attempting to attribute it or something like it to something else. Wouldn't you say? — creativesoul
:fire:[A]ccounting for first person experience in third person terms does not equate to giving a first person account of experience in third person terms; which is an obvious contradiction. It may be possible to come up with a coherent physical theory that explains why we have first person experience, but that account will not be a first person account of experience, in other words, and just in case you missed the distinction. — Janus
:roll:The point of David Chalmer's famous paper Facing Up to the Hard Problem of Consciousness, is the impossibility of accounting for the first-person reality of experience in third-person, objective terms. — Wayfarer
Chalmers doesn't claim that science cannot possibly explain consciousness (otherwise he would name it Impossible Problem rather than Hard Problem) — Janus
We are part of nature, aren't we? — creativesoul
We are part of nature, aren't we?
— creativesoul
Exactly. So, "artificial" intelligence is just an extension of natural intelligence. — Jackson
Artificial intelligence is not even close to being the same sort of thing that human intelligence is. Not even close. The point here is that it is a misnomer that renders the term intelligence meaningless. — creativesoul
I believe that we will eventually build robots with consciousness. Do you really think that's impossible?
— GLEN willows
I do. It's not because consciousness is something that lies outside purely mechanical processes, but rather it's because consciousness is a muddled notion to begin with, Boolean logic consists of all true statements, inanimate objects have no emotion, emotion is part of thought and belief, and consciousness includes an ability to suspend one's judgment as well as change one's mind about things previously held true. That's just skimming the top of the problems involved with any claims of artificial 'intelligence'(scarequotes intentional). — creativesoul
Surely Chalmers would be aware that we already have a first person science: phenomenology. — Janus
I suggest that a theory of consciousness should take experience as fundamental. We know that a theory of consciousness requires the addition of something fundamental to our ontology, as everything in physical theory is compatible with the absence of consciousness. We might add some entirely new nonphysical feature, from which experience can be derived, but it is hard to see what such a feature would be like. More likely, we will take experience itself as a fundamental feature of the world, alongside mass, charge, and space-time. If we take experience as fundamental, then we can go about the business of constructing a theory of experience.
Where there is a fundamental property, there are fundamental laws. A nonreductive theory of experience will add new principles to the furniture of the basic laws of nature. These basic principles will ultimately carry the explanatory burden in a theory of consciousness. Just as we explain familiar high-level phenomena involving mass in terms of more basic principles involving mass and other entities, we might explain familiar phenomena involving experience in terms of more basic principles involving experience and other entities.
In particular, a nonreductive theory of experience will specify basic principles telling us how experience depends on physical features of the world. These psychophysical principles will not interfere with physical laws, as it seems that physical laws already form a closed system. Rather, they will be a supplement to a physical theory. A physical theory gives a theory of physical processes, and a psychophysical theory tells us how those processes give rise to experience. We know that experience depends on physical processes, but we also know that this dependence cannot be derived from physical laws alone. The new basic principles postulated by a nonreductive theory give us the extra ingredient that we need to build an explanatory bridge.
Of course, by taking experience as fundamental, there is a sense in which this approach does not tell us why there is experience in the first place. But this is the same for any fundamental theory. Nothing in physics tells us why there is matter in the first place, but we do not count this against theories of matter. Certain features of the world need to be taken as fundamental by any scientific theory. A theory of matter can still explain all sorts of facts about matter, by showing how they are consequences of the basic laws. The same goes for a theory of experience.
This position qualifies as a variety of dualism, as it postulates basic properties over and above the properties invoked by physics. But it is an innocent version of dualism, entirely compatible with the scientific view of the world. Nothing in this approach contradicts anything in physical theory; we simply need to add further bridging principles to explain how experience arises from physical processes. There is nothing particularly spiritual or mystical about this theory - its overall shape is like that of a physical theory, with a few fundamental entities connected by fundamental laws. It expands the ontology slightly, to be sure, but Maxwell did the same thing. Indeed, the overall structure of this position is entirely naturalistic, allowing that ultimately the universe comes down to a network of basic entities obeying simple laws, and allowing that there may ultimately be a theory of consciousness cast in terms of such laws. If the position is to have a name, a good choice might be naturalistic dualism.
I suggest that a theory of consciousness should take experience as fundamental.
Of course, by taking experience as fundamental, there is a sense in which this approach does not tell us why there is experience in the first place.
I sometimes think consciousness is like the old theory of ether. Consciousness is the ether through which thought takes place. Of course there is no ether. — Jackson
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