I've already heard that racially condescending pun.

I'll reply to your latest post better if you explain something to me.

What do you understand the law of identity to be?

Firstly, science is always more focused on provably factual information than philosophy due to its nature. Philosophers are allowed to make more speculations than scientists.

Secondly, is that even the case? Science does make this assumption of consciousness in psychology and sociology, for example, but can't make it in the research of consciousness itself — BlueBanana

I don't understand what either of these points have to do with the argument. You said "Until it's possible to cause identical observations with identical qualia in different people and science is done by experiencing those experiences directly, it's not correct to say that any branch of science is dealing with consciousness directly." From which I took that because science could not ensure that the qualia in different people were identical, it could not proceed to investigate consciousness. I argued that the identicalness of qualia in different people needs to be assumed on the basis of external indications otherwise we could not even talk about them, could not even give them a name (language is a communal activity). You've then responded with this, which I don't see how relates to that line of argument. Are you saying that philosophy can guess that qualia are probably similar enough to talk about, whereas science needs to be more accurate? If that's the case, and the similarity is philosophy's most common guess, then philosophy cannot also dismiss scientific investigation on the exact opposite ground (that qualia are not similar between people). It must, to be consistent, guess that science probably can investigate because qualia probably are similar enough.

on what grounds are you saying the pattern of consciousness can't be identified? If you by identifying its pattern mean recognizing it and being capable of naming it, that's trivial just by being conscious. — BlueBanana

So, how come we're having this discussion then? How come the likes of Dennet, Hood, Churchland, Ramachandran, Seth all write what they do about consciousness and the likes of Chalmers, Nagel etc disagree? Are the former group lying? I've already stated that, in common with many of the former group, consciousness is, for me, the logging to memory of sensory stimulation events. I've been told that's wrong. Is there something wrong with my brain then, that I cannot see this obvious thing that consciousness is, that everyone else can?

Why couldn't a word refer to a thing that has certain relationships with other things, rather than the relations themselves — BlueBanana

I'm not saying it can't, I'm saying we can't then sublime that word to a concept which has other properties we simply imbue it with. If a word is used to describe some relationship among patterns, then "some relationship among patterns" is what that word refers to and nothing more. If consciousness refers to the relationship between phenomena we observe (but is not itself observable), then that is all it is. It is does not then magically become a thing which we can search for, just because we named it. Personally, I'm happy with my definition, but I'd be equally happy with a more nebulous definition to do with describing our feelings about sensory stimuli. What I object to is a nebulous definition describing our feelings, which is them magically sublimed into an objective concept but one which only philosophy can find out more about.

The very act of any investigation (of the sorts we're talking about here) is a communal one, we speak to others about it. We cannot communicate to others and yet use words whose terms refer to a different thing for each different person, the thing the term refers to must be shared. All shared things are identifiable by external perception/description (otherwise it would not be possible to agree on them - we cannot do telepathy), therefore all such investigation is at least amenable to science. That's not to say science mightn't have anything to say on the subject, but I just can't see the argument for ruling it out from the start.

You believe that philosophy is a disconnected mishmash of ideas, the irrelevant ramblings of amateur thinkers that can say nothing coherent — Wayfarer

Where have I made such a statement?

if, as you say, the meaning of words is fixed solely by convention, and nothing has inherent meaning, then science itself would be impossible and nobody would ever communicate anything. — Wayfarer

How so? This doesn't follow at all as far as I can see. Why would the communal agreement on terms make science impossible?

What do you understand the law of identity to be? — javra

Simply that a thing must be identical to itself - but... In order for the proposition to not be a tautology, the thing referred to must be a specific and the referring must be general. This requires object permanence which children (very young babies) do not seem to have. Without object permanence one cannot identify that X is X. The two Xs must be specfic/general, otherwise the statement is tautologous and trivial. If we treat X as a state of affairs at T0, then to say that the state of affairs at T0 is the state of affairs at T0nis tautology. To say that the specific, the identified subset of the state of affairs at T0 is the same subset we're referring to when identifying it at T1, is the law of identity. It only applies to logic because only logical objects can be said to have this permanence, unless you're a realist on forms (which is far from an agreed upon position among adults, let alone babies). There's no evidence at all that babies treat logical objects any differently than they do extended ones.

Where have I made such a statement? — Isaac

Have they referred at all, even erroneously, to the actual empirical evidence, in an attempt to ensure their thoeries are not overwhelmingly contradicted by it? No, they have consisted almost entirely of a long-winded version of "David Chalmers says its a hard problem, so it is" — Isaac

if peer-reviewed, controlled, statistically constrained investigations are going to be taken with a pinch of salt because of their potential paradigmatic bias (something I agree with entirely), then the uninformed ramblings of some philosopher are somewhere between gossip and fairy-tale in the order of how much salt to take them with. — Isaac

This sort of nonsense only ever seems to get by in philosophy — Isaac

The whole argument so far has been a lot of "we know consciousness can't be..." followed by "Science doesn't have any means of identifying consciousness". Well if science doesn't, how come random amateur philosophers know so damn much about it? — Isaac

There’s a sample.

And the reason that the philosophical argument of the ‘hard problem’ seems absurd or meaningless to you is because you don’t understand it, and any attempt to explain it further meets with ‘you’re repeating yourself’. So I will no longer persist, but I do hope you get an insight into the ‘one-dimensional’ nature of your analysis of this subject.

There’s a sample. — Wayfarer

A sample of me saying...

that philosophy is a disconnected mishmash of ideas, the irrelevant ramblings of amateur thinkers that can say nothing coherent — Wayfarer

... was what I asked for. Not a sample of me talking about the arguments being presented here.

the reason that the philosophical argument of the ‘hard problem’ seems absurd or meaningless to you is because you don’t understand it — Wayfarer

Ah, and we're back to the classic "if you don't agree with me, it's because you don't understand my argument". What fact of the world is preventing it from being the case that your argument is wrong or incoherent? Are you familiar with Peter Van Inwagen's argument about epistemic peers? You do not have more knowledge than me, you have a human brain like mine, and yet you claim I don't understand. That proves that it is possible for someone with your knowledge set and brain power to not understand. Given that we have proven that, how do you know it's not you who doesn't understand?

Simply that a thing must be identical to itself - but... In order for the proposition to not be a tautology, the thing referred to must be a specific and the referring must be general. This requires object permanence which children (very young babies) do not seem to have. Without object permanence one cannot identify that X is X. The two Xs must be specfic/general, otherwise the statement is tautologous and trivial. If we treat X as a state of affairs at T0, then to say that the state of affairs at T0 is the state of affairs at T0nis tautology. To say that the specific, the identified subset of the state of affairs at T0 is the same subset we're referring to when identifying it at T1, is the law of identity. It only applies to logic because only logical objects can be said to have this permanence, unless you're a realist on forms (which is far from an agreed upon position among adults, let alone babies). There's no evidence at all that babies treat logical objects any differently than they do extended ones. — Isaac

This, then, is an important point of divergence. Now, I acknowledged the possibility of my being wrong, so I’ll ask you to reference where you obtain the affirmation that the law of identity specifies T0 = T1 in reference to X, or else that it necessitates a specific/general dichotomy.

Alternatively, explain these two points:

1) Given any semblance of process theory – wherein at least everything physical is in perpetual change (things such as laws of thought not being physical) – how can any physical given X be identical at two different times?

Object permanence, after all, basically has it that objects don’t miraculously appear and disappear out of / into thin air. It does not specify that physical objects do not change over time.

This issue doesn't have to do with cherry-picking properties (what you've termed subsets?) of objects to compare at different times - e.g., the green of a apple tree leaf is as green as that of a ripe apple on the tree, so, therefore, the green is identical. It has to do with the entire physical object itself.**

2) How can one arrive at the conclusion of T0 = T1 in reference to X in the complete absence of the conclusion that T0 = T0 in reference to X, as trivial and tautological as the latter might be?

Given examples such as (1) just aforementioned, it seems to me that T0 = T1 in reference to X does not hold a mandatory ubiquitous application (a newly bloomed flower is not identical to a wilting flower) **. Whereas T0 = T0 in reference to X does seem to hold a mandatory ubiquitous application, thereby having the latter being properly termed a law of thought. But not the former.

** Please note, we have been addressing laws of thought - and not metaphysical issues of what identity (as in sameness) is - which are still much contested among philosophers (not so much scientists). But such metaphysical enquiries into what identity consists of, after all, require laws of thought in order to proceed - and among these is the law of identity (A = A).

Where this system goes wrong, the problems of philosophy Wittgenstein was trying to dissolve, is when people reify words. They make a word (like consciousness) and then say because we have that word, there must be an accompanying concept. They search for the pure concept attached to the word, but there is none, the word was just doing a job, and a different job in different contexts. There's no sublime concept attached to it. — Isaac

You have to hand it to "consciousness", though... it keeps getting up and distinguishing itself from near-synonyms.

How about glossing it as "somebody-at-home-ness"? And unconsciousness as "nobody-at-home-ness"?

As a way of reassuring the dualists (who are legion) that we (if you can excuse the presumption) do at least share their intuition of something going on, something deserving of proper description and explanation. And of that thing not going on, crucially, with rocks and calculators.

(Even if we can't yet define what is going on precisely and uncontroversially. And even though we shall decline the invitation to dualism which is implicit in these glosses.)

I appreciate that users of self-aware might complain they already had this idea. But I tend to think that version fails, since I can easily enough imagine calling a thermostat aware and a larger system containing it self-regulating or (at a pinch) self-aware, even though I also see both as unquestionably unconscious (i.e. clear cases of nobody-at-home).

As regards attempting to define the something-going-on more precisely... I love this,

the logging is of the fact that some logging of sensory data has occurred. Ie logging the logging event. If a computer did that, then, yes, I would say it was self-aware. If it could make use of those logs in its computation I would say it was conscious. — Isaac

... but mainly because of this,

Logging and storing are two different things. Memory is not like a hard drive. A lot of the confusion around consciousness, I think, arises from this. — Isaac

Me too. (And ideas aren't inner words or pictures...)

Still, you set the bar too low, for me. I can easily believe that nobody is at home in any state of the art neural network. I'm waiting for them to start playing the social game of pointing (actual) words and pictures at things in the real world, and I assume that will be a long time coming, e.g. well after they've started playing at pointing sticks and balls at things in the real world.

I’ll ask you to reference where you obtain the affirmation that the law of identity specifies T0 = T1 in reference to X, or else that it necessitates a specific/general dichotomy. — javra

Firstly, this is a really weird way of putting it that makes me wary of continuing, but as I've not read many of your posts, I'll give you the benefit of the doubt. The weirdness though - you're asking me for a reference which affirms the nature (or in this case that which is not the nature) of a law of thought you're claiming even 1 year old babies have. Did I miss the bit in my theology class where Aristotle created the world? I don't personally agree with the distinctions, but if a feature is a law of thought a priori, then it does not require an authority to affirm what it is or is not, that would be a posteriori synthetic by definition.

I'll presume for now you mean to ask if there's any writer who goes into my argument in more detail. If so, then to be honest most seem to, but I'm no Aristotle scholar, I've read mainly Ellwood Wiggins.

As to the general specific distinction, that's from Moore's objection. "When we say, ‘This is identical with itself’, the truth of which we are thinking seems to belong to the class of truths of which the general form is, ‘This is identical with that’, and it seems as if in all such cases ‘this’ and ‘that’ must have some difference from one another, and therefore that, in this case, the thing must be different from itself in order to be identical."

1) Given any semblance of process theory – wherein at least everything physical is in perpetual change (things such as laws of thought not being physical) – how can any physical given X be identical at two different times? — javra

It can't. Not literally. That's why the law of identity is a rule by which we think efficiently, not a fact about the way the world is. Nothing can be identified at all because of process theory, we treat objects as discernibles for pragmatic purposes, not because that's what they are.

2) How can one arrive at the conclusion of T0 = T1 in reference to X in the complete absence of the conclusion that T0 = T0 in reference to X, as trivial and tautological as the latter might be? — javra

We don't need to. As I said, the conclusion that T0=T0 is a rule by which we think. It's a very popular rule because it woks pragmatically well, as in the example you give above, it would be difficult for me to talk about anything T0 is equal to without assuming it's equal to itself (has some properties which discern it and no other), but that doesn't mean that such laws exists outside of our making them up. That the identification of objects (including objects of thought) is a useful prerequisite to forming any theories about those objects is one of the first things we learn as very young children, it may even be hard-wired into our brains. There's no reason at all to believe it exists prior to us learning/evolving it.

** Please note, we have been addressing laws of thought - and not metaphysical issues of what identity (as in sameness) is - which are still much contested among philosophers (not so much scientists). But such metaphysical enquiries into what identity consists of, after all, require laws of thought in order to proceed - and among these is the law of identity (A = A). — javra

I'm still, to be honest, struggling to see the distinction you're making here. All of my reading about the law of identity has been around objects (even if they are objects of thought). To say A=A is to instantiate an object 'A'. The law of identity relies on the concept of objects.

You have to hand it to "consciousness", though... it keeps getting up and distinguishing itself from near-synonyms.

How about glossing it as "somebody-at-home-ness"? And unconsciousness as "nobody-at-home-ness"? — bongo fury

That people can distinguish it does not mean it is distinguished in reality (by which I mean all that is actually the case). People can distinguish unicorns, or different varieties of dragon. To be honest, I think you're pretty close to the mark with "somebody-at-home-ness" being the feeling most people want to defend when they fear neuroscience investigating the issue. I think "somebody-at-home-ness" is an entirely fabricated story we tell ourselves post hoc to string together our disparate desires and actions into a coherent whole, and people are (perhaps quite rightly) frightened that neuroscience will find this out.

I appreciate that users of self-aware might complain they already had this idea. But I tend to think that version fails, since I can easily enough imagine calling a thermostat aware and a larger system containing it self-regulating or (at a pinch) self-aware, even though I also see both as unquestionably unconscious — bongo fury

Why? Apart from prejudice against non-humans (or non-living). Are you not falling into the trap of presuming that what you can or cannot imagine is an adequate guide to what is actually the case. You've no reason to believe it is, and in fact, if the history of our advancing knowledge has taught us anything it might well be that the exact opposite is true.

I can easily believe that nobody is at home in any state of the art neural network. I'm waiting for them to start playing the social game of pointing (actual) words and pictures at things in the real world, and I assume that will be a long time coming, e.g. well after they've started playing at pointing sticks and balls at things in the real world. — bongo fury

Here is the issue that Wittgenstein raised about forms of life, which I have already mentioned. You're describing a human 'form of life', and your definitions of things like consciousness necessarily are embedded in that, they can't not be. But if we allow a definition of consciousness to be so embedded in human forms of life, then we cannot imbue with any awe the revelation that is is unique to humans (or similar animals). Afterall, we have just defined it thus.

That people can distinguish it does not mean it is distinguished in reality — Isaac

No, sure. Do you think there is anything to be distinguished, however vaguely? I might have lost track and missed that you are a zombie-denier / pan-psychist? So that you think that the "suffering" of an overheating thermostat circuit deserves some (presumably tiny but non-zero) degree of human sympathy?

Please excuse the incredulity and name-calling, but I guess my suggested glossary is intended to establish common ground by excluding zombie-denial as well as consciousness-denial. If we (or anyone) can agree some clear cases of zombies as well as of consciousness then our discussion of how to characterise the transition is less likely to polarise and end in mutual incredulity. Is always my hope.

I had assumed we had that common ground, but maybe not. So... do you see any clear cases at all of nobody-at-home?

I think "somebody-at-home-ness" is an entirely fabricated story we tell ourselves post hoc to string together our disparate desires and actions into a coherent whole, and people are (perhaps quite rightly) frightened that neuroscience will find this out. — Isaac

Yep, and the danger is that dualists would sense mockery in this glossary. But maybe the eventual scientific story (e.g., dare we suppose, yours about logging of logging, or mine about pointing at pointing) needn't simply disappoint, and 'find us out' to be zombies. It could explain our conscious states so that we understand our experiences more exactly.

Not in terms of homunculi, obviously. And I guess most people have always sensed the potential absurdity (as well as the genuine puzzle) of the somebody-at-home talk, anyway. So they wouldn't be in as much danger of disappointment as you (perhaps) suggest. I.e., we aren't necessarily beholden to a persistent error or illusion. That (alienating and polarising) assumption is unnecessary. Haha, sorry if that is holier than thou. I can't help spreading peace and goodwill. :Saint Homer of Hippo:

you're asking me for a reference which affirms the nature (or in this case that which is not the nature) of a law of thought you're claiming even 1 year old babies have. — Isaac

Um, no. I was asking you to reference the bit about the law of identity being what you've purported it to be.

I'll agree to disagree at this point.

Hard to get the drift of a lot of what you're saying I'm afraid, but I'll have a go.

Do you think there is anything to be distinguished, however vaguely? — bongo fury

Yes, there must be something to distinguish, otherwise we'd have to argue that all that is the case was completely homogeneous and and I can't reconcile that with the consistent role symmetry breaking seems to have in physical process. The point is two-fold. Firstly, the thing we actually do distinguish is not thereby any more real than alternative options we've chosen to overlook. Secondly, saying something is not the same as having a referrant for that something. We could both agree now to include the word 'Jabberwocky' in numerous conversations. We'd both be using the same term but it would be without an agreed referrant.

So that you think that the "suffering" of an overheating thermostat circuit deserves some (presumably tiny but non-zero) degree of human sympathy? — bongo fury

I'm not sure why "suffering" has crept into this. Suffering seems to be about pain, the anticipation of pain and perhaps the recognition of cause. None of these things are attributable to a thermostat, but if they were I'd have no problem with describing it as 'suffering'.

to establish common ground by excluding zombie-denial as well as consciousness-denial. — bongo fury

I'm not sure what you're referring to by zombie-denial. If you're referring to p-zombies, then their only distinguishing feature is consciousness. If we can neither define consciousness, nor be sure that it is unrelated to other observable signs, then we cannot say whether p-zombies could exist or not.

Like has many uses, listed in many dictionaries. Look here, and see how many different uses the Cambridge English dictionary lists. — Pattern-chaser


Well, that's a great start. Which of those definitions did you mean when you said "will it give us any understanding at all of what it's like to be a conscious human being?" — Isaac

I think I meant the one that any accomplished English speaker would understand from my words, unless we alerted them to look for hidden alternative intended meanings.

I think I meant the one that any accomplished English speaker would understand from my words — Pattern-chaser

Great, well, you've got the dictionary right there (literally the compendium of accomplished English use), so indulge my lack of linguistic accomplishment and let me know which of the uses listed was the one you had in mind.

Which of those definitions did you mean when you said "will it give us any understanding at all of what it's like to be a conscious human being?" — Isaac

What exactly did you mean by it?

know what it is (like) to
to be familiar with how it feels to be or do something — Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary & Thesaurus


Full dictionary entry here. — Pattern-chaser — Isaac

In this case, "to be familiar with how it feels to be" "a conscious human being", as I said.

Right. Which brings us back to the beginning of our conversation. My comments (which you responded to) were about the meaning of the word 'like'. The word whose inclusion in the sentence you're referring to has so little effect on its meaning that it is in parenthesis. So I'm struggling to see how your objection to my definition of a word can be evidenced by a sentence in which the word plays no semantic role whatsoever.

Furthermore, the expression in question was "will it give us any understanding at all of what it's like to be a conscious human being?"

So presuming 'know' and 'be familiar with' are synonymous here we can directly transpose the remaining terms. This gives us "will it give us any understanding at all of how it feels to be a conscious human being?"

I can't make any sense at all of understanding how it feels. Your dictionary only gives either - "knowledge about a subject, situation, etc. or about how something works", or an unspoken contract. How do either of those things apply to a way something feels?

"If I take this anesthetic, then I will lose consciousness."

When said by a third party, this is an empirically verifiable and empirically contingent proposition - for the loss of consciousness in a third party has a behavioral definition.

But what about in my own case when I take the drug? Here, I do not have a behavioral definition for loss of my own consciousness. All i can have in this case, is a wakeful sense of amnesia in relation to memories I have of previously ingesting the anesthetic.

Here, to refer to my sense of amnesia as being equivalent to an earlier loss of my own consciousness would be a tautology.

Yes, there must be something to distinguish, otherwise we'd have to argue that all that is the case was completely homogeneous and I can't reconcile that with the consistent role symmetry breaking seems to have in physical process. The point is two-fold. Firstly, the thing we actually do distinguish is not thereby any more real than alternative options we've chosen to overlook. Secondly, saying something is not the same as having a referrant for that something. We could both agree now to include the word 'Jabberwocky' in numerous conversations. We'd both be using the same term but it would be without an agreed referrant. — Isaac

Yes. And yet, couldn't someone have understood all of that perfectly well, and still wanted to ask whether you saw any use in the "conscious/unconscious" distinction: a division, however vague and provisional, among all of the potential (but actual, factual) referents of our discourse that are to be found moving about on the surface of our planet?

I suppose it's clear to me now (but do correct me) that your answer to that person would be no, unless the supposed distinction were reformed by smearing it out into a spectrum, a gradual scale of increasingly vivid consciousness, going by degrees from barely conscious at all at one end of it, along and up to (at least) the full consciousness of, say, a young adult human after morning coffee at the other end. My slight disappointment (though not total surprise) is that you would have the 'lower' end of the spectrum reach so close to my thermostat circuit as to virtually include it, and thereby undermine any clear intuition of complete unconsciousness, or zombie-ness, or nobody-at-home-ness. There would be no clear cases of such a state, as is indicated by your cheerfully feeble assurance about the thermostat:

None of these things are attributable to a thermostat, but if they were [...] — Isaac

Well I think I could persuade you that they are. Don't you think I could? (The circuit anticipates and conveys pain in the sense of being 'triggered' to send signals about damage and the cause of it, doesn't it?)

Or perhaps I couldn't, and your intuition of complete unconsciousness is firm after all. By the same token, your intuition of where consciousness begins, or what kinds of things (e.g. what kinds of feedback circuits or logging circuits) to call conscious in a minimal degree, will then also be relatively clear and informative.

What is the use of any such clarification, though? As you point out, things are looking circular...

if we allow a definition of consciousness to be so embedded in human forms of life, then we cannot imbue with any awe the revelation that it is unique to [in this case, feedback loops (or similar circuits)]. After all, we have just defined it thus. — Isaac

So I won't be surprised if your assurance about the thermostat was disingenuous, and you soon admit that you don't really care whether we call it conscious or not.

I, on the other hand, don't see the clarification as arbitrary, such that it might as well show consciousness beginning anywhere, or indeed nowhere and be just an all-inclusive spectrum. I share with many ordinary folk and dualists too the assumption that ordinary usage of "conscious" correlates with other important distinctions, one such being the question where to and where not to strive to prevent suffering - the answer being, usually, where the suffering would be conscious suffering, and not where it wouldn't. Obviously a car in a crusher suffers catastrophic damage, and quite possibly processes "pain" signals about this; but just as obviously (to some of us) it doesn't suffer consciously (nobody is home), and so it isn't a cause for ethical concern.

Since your intuition of nobody-at-home-ness is so fragile you may want to question my carelessness about the car's plight. On the precautionary principle I may concede. If I resist, though, and get involved in a tug-of-war about whereabouts on a rough scale of processing-complexity we can surmise that consciousness begins, it won't be for lack of sympathy towards lower creatures but because, unlike you, I take ordinary usage of "conscious", aided and abetted by near-synonyms, to be capable of marking important distinctions in human psychology: so that defining consciousness isn't an arbitrary matter.

Searle's Chinese Room, for example. For you (but correct me?), it's an arbitrary matter, merely one of definition, whether the Room is conscious, depending simply on whether or not consciousness is so defined as to apply in that case. For me, we learn from the example that language use can be conscious, as for us, or unconscious as for the Room (despite Searle's role as syntactic clerk). So the example serves by requiring a refinement of the supposed model of conscious processing. (To have it include a genuine semantic component.)

I generally expect to find unconscious as well as conscious examples of all manner of cognitive and behavioural tasks. And I assume the contrast will point in the direction of useful theoretical revision. I don't think I could have any such expectation if, as you apparently do, I found the very idea of a sophisticated but completely unconscious machine to be problematic.

couldn't someone have understood all of that perfectly well, and still wanted to ask whether you saw any use in the "conscious/unconscious" distinction — bongo fury

"Useful"? - yes.

But no one here was arguing about 'useful'.

The claim was that neuroscience could not fully investigate consciousness, at all. Not that neuroscience is using one definition but other definitions might prove equally useful. That is a claim I would entirely agree with.

... thereby undermine any clear intuition of complete unconsciousness, or zombie-ness, or nobody-at-home-ness. — bongo fury

Yeah, we've seen this crop up a disappointing number of times in the forum recently. "Clear intuition" is just a cover for "I really feel strongly that this is the case, but need a better sounding argument than 'I reckon'".

So I won't be surprised if your assurance about the thermostat was disingenuous, and you soon admit that you don't really care whether we call it conscious or not. — bongo fury

Yes, that is correct. I don't care if we call it conscious or not. I don't see why that makes my claim that it doesn't seem to suffer pain disingenuous. I know what pain looks like when expressed by myself and others. The thermostat doesn't seem to express that, nor can I think of any reason at all why it should.

Obviously a car in a crusher suffers catastrophic damage, and quite possibly processes "pain" signals about this; but just as obviously (to some of us) it doesn't suffer consciously (nobody is home), and so it isn't a cause for ethical concern. — bongo fury

But this is begging the question. If the purpose of ethical action is to avoid some category of suffering (what you're calling 'conscious suffering') then it is an ethical duty to correctly assign incidents of suffering to that category. Yet you're saying we trust our (clearly disputed) instincts as to what does and does not belong in that category for... What reason? Is it ethical that we invent a sub-category of suffering simply because it would be inconvenient to prevent all suffering and we have to narrow it down a bit?

I don't think I could have any such expectation if, as you apparently do, I found the very idea of a sophisticated but completely unconscious machine to be problematic. — bongo fury

You're conflating 'sophisticated' with 'conscious'. I would not. For me, consciousness is simy a specific type of self awareness, the logging to memory of mental events for future use, the identification of a single processing unit with a history, and properties which apply to it rather than it's parts. That requires a great deal of 'sophistication' but it is perfectly possible to have even greater sophistication without introducing that particular aspect.

I can't make any sense at all of understanding how it feels. — Isaac

You are human, as most of us are. You are mostly conscious, as most of us are. Having experienced consciousness for yourself, you have an understanding of what it is like (i.e. how it feels).

Having experienced consciousness for yourself, you have an understanding of what it is like (i.e. how it feels). — Pattern-chaser

The only thing I've experienced is my life. I've just experienced eating an apple, which involved tastes, memories, me being aware that all that's going on, all sorts of automatic actions, and probably quite a lot of stuff I haven't even registered.

Nothing tells me which of that lot is 'consciousness'. We decide that when we use the word. I'm simply asking which of those aspects you're referring to when you use the word 'consciousness'.

All of them, I think. :chin:

Edited to add:

...and probably quite a lot of stuff I haven't even registered. — Isaac

This is probably the important bit. The bit we're not conscious/aware of. Current understanding is that unconscious processes are at least as significant as conscious ones.... So although the topic is consciousness, I don't think we should let it stray too far from its own context, and its intimate connection with our unconscious minds (not with "unconsciousness" :smile: ).

me being aware that all that's going on — Isaac

That's the 'part'. Someone watching you eat the apple, say. They would be aware of other things, like some guy eating an apple. But not the taste of the apple. So, all the stuff the third party might guess at, if they've had the same experiences, but wouldn't experience. Sure, you and they might see your hand move, but from a different angle.

And someone watching the guy watching you....

That's the 'part'. Someone watching you eat the apple, say. They would be aware of other things, like some guy eating an apple. But not the taste of the apple. So, all the stuff the third party might guess at, if they've had the same experiences, but wouldn't experience. Sure, you and they might see your hand move, but from a different angle. — Coben

Nice. :up:

Two views of consciousness:

• one which Mr Data (or any external observer) might gain from long-term and in-depth (but passive: non-participatory) observation, and
  
• one which any and every human derives from the experience of being a conscious human.

Only the second view includes what's it's like to be a conscious human.

That's the 'part'. Someone watching you eat the apple, say. They would be aware of other things, like some guy eating an apple. But not the taste of the apple. So, all the stuff the third party might guess at, if they've had the same experiences, but wouldn't experience. — Coben

OK, but none of that is 'spooky' stuff. Me being aware of the fact that my taste receptors have just started neural chain reaction is no less a sensory stimuli response than the apple tasting. Its just the stimuli I'm sensing is my brain working.

If I log the image of a red square to memory, how come me logging the fact that I just logged a red square to memory suddenly becomes deeply mystical and inaccessible to science? Or are you guys trying to argue that neuroscience can't really study the brain at all?

"Useful"? - yes.

But no one here was arguing about 'useful'.

The claim was that neuroscience could not fully investigate consciousness, at all. — Isaac

I think you are simply confusing my posts with other people's? Not sure who's.

Not that neuroscience is using one definition but other definitions might prove equally useful. That is a claim I would entirely agree with. — Isaac

Good. I think they should use mine. :wink:

Are they using yours? Links welcome.

But this is begging the question. — Isaac

Or just checking agreement of premises / what we reckon.

you're saying we trust our (clearly disputed) instincts as to what does and does not belong in that category — Isaac

No, I'm just hoping some cases are clear and undisputed, as premises / what we reckon.

Is it ethical that we invent a sub-category of suffering — Isaac

I don't know, but I don't think we invent it. We find it delineated (vaguely, but with clear cases) in common usage.

For me, consciousness is simply a specific type of self awareness, the logging to memory of mental events for future use, the identification of a single processing unit with a history, and properties which apply to it rather than it's parts. — Isaac

I know, and I'm interested. And if "awareness" and "mental" don't beg the question but cover unconscious as well as conscious processing, then I can imagine you turning out to be right. One test would be whether your recipe can produce processing that we think could easily be unconscious. If so, then more work to do.

You see it differently, I appreciate that.