This matters because I would put the "biology challenge" a little differently myself. I would suggest that the biggest unanswered question here is whether only living things can be conscious. — J

Gets my vote. I think the insuperable obstacle to such an idea is that the nature of life and of mind are inneffable, and, as such, it can't be defined. So you can't even know what it is that you're trying to synthesise. My friendly LLM suggested the following argument:

The Ineffability Argument Against LLM Consciousness

Premise 1: A defining feature of consciousness is the presence of qualitative experience — so-called qualia — which are irreducibly first-personal and, at least in part, ineffable.

Premise 2: What is ineffable cannot be exhaustively represented in language, computation, or any system of explicit specification.

Premise 3: LLMs (and any system based purely on computation or symbol manipulation) operate entirely by processing and generating explicitly specifiable structures — namely, language tokens and probabilistic relationships between them.

Conclusion: Therefore, LLMs cannot instantiate or reproduce consciousness, because they lack access to the ineffable dimension that characterizes subjective experience. — ChatGPT4o

So onward. Intentional attitudes.

Two things to think about. The first is Wittgenstein's observation:

Always get rid of the idea of the private object in this way: assume that it constantly changes, but that you do not notice the change because your memory constantly deceives you. — PI Page 207

Supose we come across someone who behaves as if they like coffee. They drink coffee, make it for themselves and others, and so on. From their behaviour we infer that they do indeed like coffee. But suppose that our inference is mistaken, that they actually are indifferent or even dislike coffee, but go along with a pretence, perhaps for social reasons, in order to "fit in", or whatever.

Is there dislike for coffee a private object in the sense Wittgenstein discusses?

They now say "I've always disliked coffee - my behaviour was all pretence". Wittgenstein might reply "But how could you know that? Perhaps you are misremembering. Perhaps yesterday you liked coffee - you apparently drank it with gusto - but now your recollection is mistaken."

Now I want to be clear as to the point of this argument. It's not that the misremembering has indeed occurred, but that it might occur - the point is the fragility of the belief that they do not like coffee. Since there is no public evidence that supports the contention, it has no grounding, no way to be confident that the person does or does not like coffee. It's ephemeral, changeable... and indeed, it seems wrong to count it as a thing at all.

What is being rejected here is a picture of mind as a set of objects - mental furniture, as "...meanings that are generated from noumenal inner states", that our feelings, beliefs, desires and so on are things in our mind to which our language points.

This is a continuation of the rejection of the meaning of a word as the thing to which it refers, found in the first few pages of PI. Our beliefs are not found in some metal object, but in what we say and do. An intentional state is not a mental thing that grounds our actions, but a bit of language that keeps what we do consistent.

This view aligns with Wittgenstein’s critique of private language, with Davidson’s rejection of inner “causes” for beliefs in favour of interpretation, and with Ryle’s dismissal of the "ghost in the machine" and the myth of inner objects.

And it constitutes a rejection of the first horn of 's dilemma, the

...swirl of language we see take place that is caused by the noumenal, but the best we can say is that the noumenal is there but talking about (it) doesn't help us — Hanover

What is rejected is this two-level picture, in which the visible behaviour and language is caused by a hidden noumenal world. Meaning is not hiding behind our language but consists in what we do with our words.

the insuperable obstacle to such an idea is that the nature of life and of mind are inneffable, and, as such, it can't be defined. So you can't even know what it is that you're trying to synthesise. — Wayfarer

A possible reply to this is that "ineffable" may be one of Chalmers' "temporary" obstacles, as opposed to a permanent one like biological composition. Even your chatty friend only goes so far as to say "ineffable at least in part." We should acknowledge the possibility that, in the future, this will become effable :smile: . I know that right now "irreducibly first-personal" seems like the end of the road, but let's wait and see.

Another reply is that consciousness will "just kinda happen," along the lines of a sketchy emergent property, if we put together the right ingredients. Therefore we don't need to know what it is or how to synthesize it -- it'll happen on its own.

Both these replies are respectable, but my money is still on the "no consciousness without life" hypothesis. If biologists find a way to create non-carbon-based life -- and can demonstrate beyond doubt that they've done so -- then we might get conscious "silicon systems," but they would be alive.

So on to the other horn. It's seeing the only alternative as to

deny entirely this talk of consciousness and declare it ontologically non-existent and say language is all there is. — Hanover

Rejecting intentional attitudes as private objects does not entail rejecting intentional attitudes altogether. It is instead to reconceptualise them. Not being objects, they are not how things are in a hidden noumenal world, but normative constraints on how we want things to be. They are not objects we detect, but commitments we recognise and undertake.

All that stuff I've written elsewhere about direction of fit, goes here.

A possible reply to this is that "ineffable" may be one of Chalmers' "temporary" obstacles, as opposed to a permanent one like biological composition — J

Another of Karl Popper's promissory notes, I'm afraid. But it's informative, and slightly scary, the ease with which it is assumed that consciousness (and therefore, life, and being) can be or might be conjured up out of man-made devices. I strongly suspect there's a much deeper issue here than is apparent. (Incidentally, I've mentioned a video presentation a few times recently, actually presented in a conference organised by Sana.ai, How the Universe Thinks without a Brain, Claire L. Evans. Quite a deep consideration of some of these issues.)

Rejecting intentional attitudes as private objects does not entail rejecting intentional attitudes altogether. It is instead to reconceptualise them. Not being objects, they are not how things are in a hidden noumenal world, but normative constraints on how we want things to be. They are not objects we detect, but commitments we recognise and undertake. — Banno

I'm not sure how this comes in for a landing in the real world. I don't think of pain as an object, but I regularly ask people to rate their pain and/or difficulty breathing. I even ask them to rate how it was two hours ago, and how is it now? I need to know what they're perceiving. I assume they're perceiving something, and it's not a normative constraint or commitment. It's something consciousness is doing with nervous discharges. It's something the brain stem is creating. They're feeling it.

The issue left hanging is how to sort out the inconsistency in our coffee drinker. We want ot know, do they really dislike coffee?

But that is to presume to much. Life is complex and dirty, and that while coherence might be a worthy goal, it is not always possible. Messiness is a feature, not a bug - a very Wittgensteinian point. There need be no "fact of the matter", but rather a series of interactions in which our coffee drinker makes decisions amidst conflicting normative demands for social harmony and good taste. They behave as if they like coffee for the sake of social harmony, which is a consistent position.

The question "do they really dislike coffee?" presupposes there's some determinate inner state that could settle the matter, which is precisely the picture Wittgenstein is rejecting.

See the post just above this.

The discussion of relative levels of pain is what decides your next actions. The doing is the thing.

Incidentally, the pain stuff fits well with Ramsey's account, beginning at a point of indifference - neither pain nor pleasure - and looking to how the present state differs from that point, and what is to be done to resort equilibrium.

But that point of indifference is not a mental object, nor is the pain.

I will say this, Banno, you're expert at dragging the carkeys back under the streetlight. :wink:

Why, thank you.

Your drunk is not wrong. If the keys are outside the light, he has fuck all chance of finding them, then if he must search, he is in the right place.

I've pointed out a few times that you keep searching when you probably ought stop... :wink:

The discussion of relative levels of pain is what decides your next actions. The doing is the thing. — Banno

Their act of rating their pain is not the same thing as what I'm going to do with the information. They have no idea what I'm going to do with it. So whatever the pain is (kind of a weird question), it's definitely not identical to any portion of my behavior.

Maybe. And?

Your behaviour is dependent on their behaviour. Presumably. That's why you ask, isn't it?

...whatever the pain is (kind of a weird question) — frank

Isn't it? Point is, you do not need an answer to "what pain is" in order to do whatever it is you do. You just need the comparison to indifference. I hope that you are seeking to return the folk you are talking to, to that state of indifference, but then I don't know what your job is... :worry:

My basic objection is that if they are private experiences then they are unavailable for discussion, and if they are available for discussion then they seem to be just what we ordinarily talk about using words like "red" and "loud".

So not of much use. — Banno

I'm not really making an argument here, but comment (and on the two parts of the above quote separately).

If qualia are private experiences, we can still talk about them. It is a total non-sequitur to suggest otherwise. Pain is a private sensation, differing almost universallly between subjects. But we discuss it ad nauseum. Usually to our detriment (this comes into play in a moment..). We can discuss our private experiences. That qualia is the category in which these occur (presuming they are 'some-thing'). Doesn't seem to change this. We can discuss pain the abstract too. What's the difference with catch-all qualia (as opposed to more specific internal sensations) that you're seeing to preclude us from discussing it (if private)?

If qualia are available for discussion, it just means someone brought up their internal sensations. Approximation is a pretty nifty tool.

But that's all we get. Approximation. Might even be quite close approximation, but ultimately, qualia is not helpful for understanding consciousness. It is helpful for presenting which questions are(might be?) apt for exploration. Facts are no one has solved these problems, so on we go..

I've pointed out a few times that you keep searching when you probably ought stop... — Banno

It's more likely I'm seeing something that you don't. But that your eyes have to adjust.

I'm seeing something that you don't — Wayfarer

Seems so. But is it an hallucination?

If qualia are private experiences, we can still talk about them. — AmadeusD

Sure, Then they are 'just what we ordinarily talk about using words like "red" and "loud".'

But there is more going on on here.

Sure, Then they are 'just what we ordinarily talk about using words like "red" and "loud".' — Banno

I wish, if you might entertain me, just for a moment, to frame this argument in a different light. Let's say, mankind never developed the ability to see color. Meaning, we see the world as dogs and flies do, black and white.

Now, imagine, another place, that not only developed the ability to see color. but to see, how shall we say, "emotions". Allow me to explain. When one is anxious or nervous, one, usually, sweats. So, this is an understandable concept in of itself that doesn't require much... addendum, shall we say. But. My argument here is, say, a person who can see such evidence, if the person does not happen to sweat when nervous. I.E. simply, when a person is nervous or deceptive, it becomes clear as day. So, in this fictional place, they would say they have an additional level of consciousness. But do they? How can you prove that? Surely "consciousness" is much more than color recognition (let alone inability to adequately explain such). But is the root and generally accepted "defining quality" of "qualia" (specifically the so-called "Hard Problem") really more than "I can't describe colors, therefore, all hope is lost?"

What of the hypothetical society who can "see" emotions, and thinks the same of us? That we are somehow not able to experience or grasp the notion of consciousness, at least, not in the same level they are? It's valid, or so it seems, which makes every hinged upon definition of "qualia" as "consciousness" invalid. Can you not see that?

We are interested in that we might better call the intentional state, the beliefs and desires and so on that supposedly exist and yet are not directly accessible to others. — Banno

From a PoV of a software engineer that coded in LISP back in 1973 when P.Winstons book "AI" came out it is easy to classify both the intentions, beliefs and desires as "easy problems" of the consciousness.

To search for transposition mechanism that converts neural processes into subjective experience, we need first delineate what is the essential or minimal feature of consciousness upon which all the rest of the easier conscious processes are attached to, like of emotions, will, thoughts etc.

The very essence of consciousness is the ability to have aware perception of qualia, i.e. sensing of the contents of the brain's ever-adapting modelling machine.

Namely, the known part of the brain's mechanism depicts the outer world in its neural network and builds models that it uses for beliefs, desires, intentions that drive this cybernetical meandering machine towards the realisation of the goals that biology requests from it: mostly feeding & reproduction.

But to be more than a neural network that processes information as a p-zombie, the brain-machine has to be able to create a vivid, aware, subjective qualification as a feel, a qualia that represents its model-state.

And it does this through the EM field that it spends 20% of bodily energy to create, almost 20 out of 95 Watt - pulsating stroboscopically to literary reflect on the "way the things are".

We already know that brains EM field that we measure as EEG is the NCC - neural correlate of consciousness. It is just less know HOW the EM field does produce the subjective awareness.

(if interested, you can find my videos and docs on exactly this subject in other posts of mine..)

We already know that brains EM field that we measure as EEG is the NCC — Ulthien

No, we don't.

No, we don't. — Banno

even in greater detail, we know which frequency band of EM field does which part of conscious experience, too.

(3am in EU, zzZZz -- to be continued)

I'm not going to countenance such claims. So we won't progress here on that basis.

Cheers.

I can't make much at all of that. Sorry.

I can't make much at all of that. Sorry. — Banno

That's fine. And I doubt that.

Is "qualia" not fundamental to what is considered to be defining, if not relevant, to the "Hard Problem of Consciousness?" Yes or no. If you please.

Good post.

I baulk earlier in the paper, at

In my colleague Thomas Nagel’s phrase, a being is conscious (or has subjective experience) if
there’s something it’s like to be that being. Nagel wrote a famous article whose title asked “What
is it like to be a bat?”1 It’s hard to know exactly what a bat’s subjective experience is like when
it’s using sonar to get around, but most of us believe there is something it’s like to be a bat. It is
conscious. It has subjective experience.

I'm not sire this framing works.

It might just be that I am hung up on the thing in something. But is there something it is like to be a bat?

Compare: What is it like to be in love? Well, it's not any one thing. In a very real sense there is not a thing it is like to be in love.

I hope it's clear how this relates directly to my hesitancy concerning qualia.

That's how some (Chalmers?) set out the issue.

Are they correct?

I don't know.

That's how Chalmers sets out the issue.

Is he correct?

I don't know. — Banno

That's also fine. I don't know who that is. Not that I can recall, at least.

How would you set out the issue. No Chalmers, no this and that referencing other people. Just you. You have the entire English language at your disposal. Your unlimited arsenal, as far as defeating my (and that of many other's) ignorance of the concept you clearly must (at least somewhat) understand. Go on. Explain it.

Yes, I agree with that. I think that's possibly where you and I have fallen out on this topic previously. We don't agree on what's also going on there. There's reportage happening, and I think we disagree on what's being reported.

Regarding Chalmers and the couple of notes above, its clear that Qualia is the Hard Problem (or, explanation thereof). I think what's happening is similar to with Austin(with sense-data) - we want to ignore the Hard part, instead opting for descriptions that don't require them. That is often hard (i.,e you need to be truly clever to make sense) and takes some seriously doing in terms of getting others on board (from outside, it looks a little like hiding the ball, but I know that's not the intent, or the claimed result). But simpler descriptions with less room for disagreement or error are generally preferable so those two outcomes (i.e removing Qualia ala Dennett and removing sense-data ala Austin) are totally reasonable, and almost certainly preferable intellectually speaking. If the case is that consciousness is somehow magical, we're kind of fucked, intellectually, in understand much of anything from there.

The problem is descriptions can be wrong. In these two cases, there seems no adjudicator. So I think what Outland is asking might be the correct way to go about theorizing on this subject.

Compare: What is it like to be in love? Well, it's not any one thing. In a very real sense there is not a thing it is like to be in love. — Banno

Hmm interesting. I'm unsure this says much about the premise there though. I'd say "What it's like to be..." something is a bundle of sensations which cohere, in some way - rather than a specific state that can be distilled into a direct description. "What it's like to be in love" for Amadeus Diamond is, presumably, quite qualitatively different to "What it's like for Sir Bannock to be in love". I don't think that tells us anything besides our qualia differ, and have common features. Its common for several, unrelated films to include explosions, but they occur very different depending on the whole of the preceding detail.

This is all to say: Its not clear to me how that post (or, from memory, related comments elsewhere) supports hesitancy around Qualia. Not that there aren't good reasons, It's just not clear to me how this does it for you.

I've been setting out out for years. Not doing it all again. Read my posts if you are that interested.

You really should find out about Chalmers.

Hu?

Sorry, I can't make out what you and are doing.

I apologize, I appear to have made a momentary lapse in judgement. The secondary question, now that you've suggested such is: "is the inability (or rather ability) to reliably and methodically describe 'color' (or 'sound') to another person (perhaps specifically one unable to process that one specific experience attributed to one or more of the given five human senses) definitive or otherwise largely significant to the idea and definition of "qualia", specifically as it relates to the "Hard Problem"?

You really should find out about Chalmers. — Banno

Oh I intend to. Worry not about that. But, of course, surely one has the ability (perhaps even an enhanced ability) to engage in the works (or at least pondering) of philosophy without knowing every single "celebrity in the business", as it were. After all, they certainly weren't.