They're begging the question. I have not argued here that minds are incapable of being or emerging from matter. I have argued that if the faculties such a mind possesses are the product of blind forces then they will not be able to give the mind any awareness of anything. So mental states could still exist, but none of them would qualify as states of awareness.

They're begging the question. I have not argued here that minds are incapable of being or emerging from matter. I have argued that if the faculties such a mind possesses are the product of blind forces then they will not be able to give the mind any awareness of anything. — Bartricks

Are you claiming that a Boltzmann brain would have a mind (but not be aware of anything) or would it be mindless? A P-zombie, in other words.

So mental states could still exist, but none of them would qualify as states of awareness. — Bartricks

Do you mean a subconscious mental event could be going on?

Ya was very disappointed in you myself. He’s well fed and he won’t go away if people keep feeding him. — DingoJones

The world is a boring place right now, do you remember how enjoyable it was sitting in the park feeding the pigeons or squirrels? I used to loving going to a park in Mobile where the squirrels would sit in your hand to eat the nuts.

I am actually beginning to think that one of these might be the problem with Fartrix:
1. He never read the book about the topic, he just skinned the covers and maybe the introduction. Or got the Idea from the Amazon review.
2. If he did read the book it was either in a foreign language and he used google to translate it.
3. If the book was in his mother tongue he had it upside down or read from back to front.
4. He went to classes drunk or high.
5. The most probable is that he just does not know anything and is blowing ideas from his ass.

The whole problem could be solved by opening the oven and looking to see if there is a pie in it. That would eliminate any need of information being passed through any message and therefore even if there are such things as representers they would not be involved in acquiring information.
If I can then confirm that the pie is in the oven, it would seem that in some way I would have received that information directly from my evolutionary developed senses.

Now maybe if Fartrix can show why I am wrong, maybe I will continue to try to explain why he is wrong.

I think he just has a personality disorder and doesnt really know anything. Standard internet jerkoff.

I think he just has a personality disorder and doesnt really know anything. Standard internet jerkoff. — DingoJones

That was possibility #6, but I am too polite to call people crazy even though it is possibly true. :lol: :rofl: :lol: :rofl:

Okay, I haven't read this entire thread - I had no idea it was quite as long as it turned out to be! - but I think it's pretty obvious that 'unguided evolutionary forces' is a contradiction in terms. Evolution is guided by external stimuli, the priority being that we live long enough to reproduce.

I don't think minds are material or created. Brains are. But that's beside the point, for here I am not defending immaterialism about the mind. I am defending agency about representation. So any process that is not being used by an agent to make representations or has not been designed by an agent to make representations, is not going to be able to create a mental state with representative contents. And as those are essential for awareness, no mind will be aware of anything if its mental states are the product of mindless processes - any mindless process, be it total chance or a process of blind natural selection.

Dunning and kruger

either our faculties are wholly the product of blind evolutionary forces, or they are not. That's exhaustive. — Bartricks

The "or they are not" part to you is agency but logically it's not singular but in fact can be anything else that can be considered the source of our mental capacities.
And although identifying a source is an interesting exercise why wouldn't direct observation that we possess mental faculties in general be sufficient?

I don't follow. The 'or not' makes it exhaustive. So, either our faculties are wholly a product of blind evolutionary forces, or they're not. I am arguing that the former is sufficient to preclude all awareness. It is necessary for a state to have representative contents that it have been produced by a process by means of which some agency was trying to represent something to someone.

Read the OP again. I say very clearly what I mean by unguided. I mean unguided by any agency.

Nope.

‘If our faculties of awareness are wholly the product of unguided evolutionary forces, then they do not provide us with any true awareness of anything (including that). As we are aware of some things, we are not wholly the product of unguided evolutionary forces.’

I think your original question lacks clarity, which makes it difficult for people to answer. What do you mean by ‘true awareness’? ‘Some things’? Why would you infer that if we were just the product of evolutionary forces, our senses would be unreliable or partial? Etc, etc.

Can you explain 3 to me above

no mind will be aware of anything if its mental states are the product of mindless processes - any mindless process, be it total chance or a process of blind natural selection. — Bartricks

Isn't a mind always aware of at least one thing, though? The Cartesian truth that it is a conscious mind? So if evolutionary forces can produce a brain that has mental states, that's going to result in some awareness, if only of the Cartesian sort, which is why I asked if Boltzmann brains are mindless or not.

Can you explain 3 to me above — Bartricks

Nope, if you are so freaking brilliant you should be able to figure it out all by your self.

If you can't do that, tough shit.

I think your original question lacks clarity, which makes it difficult for people to answer. What do you mean by ‘true awareness’? ‘Some things’? Why would you infer that if we were just the product of evolutionary forces, our senses would be unreliable or partial? Etc, etc. — Ignatius

He has no idea, and he will just tell you that it is in the OP and to read it again.

By the way, if you want to quote someone's text, just select it then click on the QUOTE button that appears.

Thanks, Sir2u - duly noted!

It's just that even your insults don't really make sense. You proposed that I have read relevant philosophical works (can you tell me some of those, incidentally - ones that are not on an SEP page?) upside down or backwards.
That would require some skill. Leonardo da Vinci was capable writing backwards and so could presumably read backwards too. And he was a bright lad. So that's why it puzzled me. Why in a list of lame insults would you include the possibility that I have an extraordinary skill?

Descartes point is that the belief 'I exist' is incapable of being false.
What I am arguing is that if all of our faculties are bot-built, then they won't create any beliefs, just 'beliefs' (where a 'belief' is introspectively indiscernible from a belief, but nevertheless isn't one). So, I am not denying what Descartes says. I am denying the existence of what Descartes is saying it about. If we are bot-built, then we never believe we exist, we just 'believe' we exist. And though it remains true that the belief 'i exist' is incapable of being true - and thus were we ever to have it, we could know ourselves to exist - the 'belief' I exist is not capable of being true (by hypothesis, it lacks representative contents). Thus if we are bot built we will not know anything.
We do know we exist and a whole lot else, of course.

What I am arguing is that if all of our faculties are bot-built, then they won't create any beliefs, just 'beliefs' (where a 'belief' is introspectively indiscernible from a belief, but nevertheless isn't one). — Bartricks

A purer form of True Scotsman fallacy I have never seen.

Thus if we are bot built we will not know anything.
We do know we exist and a whole lot else, of course. — Bartricks

Of course not. By your own admission you cannot even introspectively tell if you know things. So how could it possibly be obvious enough to say "of course"?

This seems unworkably incoherent. Maybe you should rephrase something.

I agree with that and the easiest way for me to see it is in the case of simulations. The computer running a simulation is nothing but a collection of electric switches, and no matter how you arrange those switches, no matter how many there are, how complex the configuration, how much current you use, the claim that a collection of switches could know anything is absurd. A collection of electric switches isn't the sort of thing that can have beliefs. There's a category error going on there. And, of course, if that applies to collections of switches, it's going to apply to collections of neurons as well.

it is important to see that I am saying a conscious mind in a state that is introspectively indiscernible from a belief with the content 'I exist', would not know that it existed if that state was the creation of faculties that had been bot built. It would be subject to no states of awareness at all. We ourselves could in principle be in that situation, though I don't think we can coherently take ourselves to be.

So as we clearly do believe some things, and know some things, and perceive some things, we are sometimes in states that have representative contents. And as that would only be possible if the mechanisms that created those states in us were designed by some agency to do so, we can conclude that they have been. Thus we are not wholly the product of unguided evolutionary forces.

I am not, however, denying that bot built things can have minds or be in mental states. I would argue that too, but that's not what I am arguing here. I am, if you like, assuming an agnostic position on what it takes for minds to exist.

Where did I say that I am not introspectively aware of things? I don't think you're following the argument. Everytime i desvribe what 'would' be the case if our faculties were bot built, you read that as me saying that that's what is actually the case. No. I am arguing the exact opposite, as the OP makes clear.

It's just that even your insults don't really make sense. — Bartricks

Oh dear, did I give you the impression that the list was of insults? Terribly sorry about that old chap, maybe I should have explained better. That is nothing more than a list of possible reasons for your "mistaken" (read as "Fucked up") ideas.

You proposed that I have read relevant philosophical works (can you tell me some of those, incidentally - ones that are not on an SEP page?) upside down or backwards. — Bartricks

That would be one way of explaining why you have these mistaken ideas.

That would require some skill. Leonardo da Vinci was capable writing backwards and so could presumably read backwards too. And he was a bright lad. So that's why it puzzled me. — Bartricks

No one said that you were/are capable of doing it. I think that you missed the point.
Penny will drop in 10 seconds from now, 9, 8,7..................................

But getting back to the rest of that post.

The whole problem could be solved by opening the oven and looking to see if there is a pie in it. That would eliminate any need of information being passed through any message and therefore even if there are such things as representers they would not be involved in acquiring information.
If I can then confirm that the pie is in the oven, it would seem that in some way I would have received that information directly from my evolutionary developed senses.

Now maybe if Fartrix can show why I am wrong, maybe I will continue to try to explain why he is wrong. — Sir2u

Don't you have anything to comment about it?

Where did I say that I am not introspectively aware of things? — Bartricks

In the quote I underlined. This one: ======vvvv

(where a 'belief' is introspectively indiscernible from a belief, but nevertheless isn't one). — Bartricks

^^^===== It's right there. It's underlined.

Introspectively indiscernible means not able to discern introspectively... in English at least.

Everytime i desvribe what 'would' be the case if our faculties were bot built, you read that as me saying that that's what is actually the case. — Bartricks

There's no other reasonable meaning of "introspectively indiscernible" except that one cannot discern using introspection.

No. I am arguing the exact opposite, as the OP makes clear. — Bartricks

Don't care. If you are so bad at communicating that you say opposite things, that's not on me. Introspectively indiscernible means one cannot discern using introspection.

We ourselves could in principle be in that situation, though I don't think we can coherently take ourselves to be. — Bartricks

You're saying the following is false? "For any x, if x is conscious, x has a justified true belief that x is conscious." Is your claim that if x is the product of chance (or bot-built), x can't have a justified true belief about anything, even its own consciousness?

Christ, you are either very stupid or you can't read. Quote the whole sentence. It says 'If'. What does that mean? What's the difference between saying "If p, then q" and "q"? Have you got this far in life without knowing?
If the light is green, you can go.
InPenetrablyS: "so I can go"
What? No, the light is red.
InPenetrablyS: "But you said I can go. I go. You stupid shit talking farting person"
No, I said if the light is green you can go. I didn't say you can go. The light's red. Christ! And why are you calling me stupid? I am a highly qualified driving instructor and you are trying to learn to drive".
InPenetrablyS "You know nothing about driving. You have just seen some driving, probably backwards driving and you think you are knowing about driving. I am knowing about driving and you said "go!!"

If that person's faculties - all of them - are bot-built, then yes. They will not be capable of having beliefs, as beliefs are mental states with representative contents. And so such a person will have 'beliefs' and not beliefs.
'Beliefs' can't be true or false, so they can't have any knowledge (as knowledge requires having a justified true belief, whatever else it may involve).
In effect, all of their apparent states of awareness will be fake states of awareness.

You don't seem to understand the argument. Visual sensations cannot tell us about the world unless they have representative contents. That is, unless they are telling us something. And they will only have those, if the faculty that created them in us was designed by an agent for that purpose.
It's pointless arguing with you, but anyway, in the hope that someone somewhere will get the point - imagine a portrait artist paints a picture of you. That's a pictorial representation. Now imagine a monkey in a room randomly flinging paint at a canvas. And imagine that by some pure fluke the image the monkey's mad antics create exactly resembles the portrait painter's painting. Is it a portrait of you? No. It's just some random monkey-flung paint on a canvas. It's indistinguishable from the portrait of you, but it's not a portrait of you.
Our visual sensations are random monkey-flung paintings if our visual faculties are bot built. And thus lookingin the oven is not something one can do with bot built faculties. All one can do is 'look' in the oven.

Christ, you are either very stupid or you can't read. — Bartricks

Have you got this far in life without knowing? — Bartricks

There's the gaslighting that has zero chance of working...

InPenetrablyS: "so I can go" — Bartricks

...and the fantasizing, right on cue.

Might I suggest an approach that would work a tad bit better... just rephrase your statement to mean what you mean.

But, let's do this.

Quote the whole sentence. — Bartricks

Sure. Here's you're whole sentence:

What I am arguing is that if all of our faculties are bot-built, then they won't create any beliefs, just 'beliefs' (where a 'belief' is introspectively indiscernible from a belief, but nevertheless isn't one). — Bartricks

It says 'If'. — Bartricks

Indeed it does.

What does that mean? — Bartricks

"If" introduces an antecedent.

What's the difference between saying "If p, then q" and "q"? — Bartricks

That's irrelevant, because in the "full quote" above, the antecedent (p) is "all of our faculties are bot-built", and the consequent (q) is "they won't create any beliefs, just 'beliefs'". "(where a 'belief' is introspectively indiscernible from a belief, but nevertheless isn't one)" is a parenthetical phrase. That parenthetical phrase is not part of the consequent.

But, of course, you know that. Your reply has nothing to do with my being stupid, or incompetent in English. It is, rather, a doomed-to-fail strategy to try to avoid doing something very sane and simple... rephrasing your statement to mean what you mean.