Why the Hard Problem is so Relevant to Axiology and Ethics

schopenhauer1

If you break a random common rock you find, you don't much care. If you break a living person's arm, you do. The reason being that the arm is not just an object but a part of a living person. What makes the difference? Well, clearly consciousness. Some sort of first person perspective that the person possessing the arm has. Some sort of feeling of what it's like to be that person (ouch!!!).

Cause and effect seem to be not just part of logic but part of the material universe. That is to say, a leads to b leads to c. This may be something we input on it (Hume), but that is not the main point I'd like to focus on. The main point is, in the development of the universe, cause and effect creates all sorts of events- world's exploding, atoms breaking apart, chemicals combining and recombining, explosions, compactions, collisions, you name it. However, applied to an entity with a first person perspective and you have "ouch!" "fear!" "excitement!" and so on. Nature doesn't care what object is being ripped apart and recombined. However, the fact that some of those objects have a first person aspect runs up against this general agnostic trend of universal laws and unfolding.

The nexus between an object being bombarded by effects of the universe and and an object being bombarded by effects that matters is consciousness. That is why the hard problem becomes ever so much more than just a hard question. It is the dividing line between an event and an experience.

And experiencing is where all the problems (literally) are generated from. The universe has no problem with heads being ripped off. The universe (that is to say, all the laws that unfold in the universe) are just following the laws. Gravitation is gravitating, EM is electromagnetizing, the strong force is strong forcing, and the weak force is breaking atoms apart. Mass is massing, etc. A rock breaking apart or a head being ripped apart from its body is of no consequence. It is just events eventing. The problems (literally) start with experiences, and mattering. I am not being literary. There are no problems before consciousness.

A p-zombie's head getting ripped off, would only matter in as far as there is an experience of a head getting ripped off. If there is none, it is like a rock being broken, nothing more or less. Rather, it is cultural and habit to care for something that looks like it feels something. It is not actually happening though in the sense of an internal feeling to that p-zombie though.

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Well, clearly consciousness. Some sort of first person perspective that the person possessing the arm has. Some sort of feeling of what it's like to be that person (ouch!!!). — schopenhauer1

This is plausible but not obvious.

I suggest that the training is much deeper than that. If pushed, then (if we are philosophers) we rationalize this training.

I hope and trust that adult humans would find it difficult to damage an extremely realistic babydoll. I suspect that, even if they rationally knew it wasn't alive, there would be resistance.

In reverse, a computer that passed the Turing test (etc) would be easier to 'kill' because it lacked a lovable relatable mammalian body.

All this makes sense in the light of evolution. Our fancy concepts came last ?

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There are no problems before consciousness. — schopenhauer1

Before life perhaps. Problems are in the way, a way. Life is directed toward food and reproduction. [ Don't plants hurt ? I don't know. We don't hesitate to cut and burn them. ]

schopenhauer1

I hope and trust that adult humans would find it difficult to damage an extremely realistic babydoll. I suspect that, even if they rationally knew it wasn't alive, there would be resistance.

In reverse, a computer that passed the Turing test (etc) would be easier to 'kill' because it lacked a lovable relatable mammalian body. — plaque flag

As I stated here:

A p-zombie's head getting ripped off, would only matter in as far as there is an experience of a head getting ripped off. If there is none, it is like a rock being broken, nothing more or less. Rather,it is cultural and habit to care for something that looks like it feels something. It is not actually happening though in the sense of an internal feeling to that p-zombie though. — schopenhauer1

I suggest that the training is much deeper than that. If pushed, then (if we are philosophers) we rationalize this training. — plaque flag

Don't know what this means exactly.

Before life perhaps. Problems are in the way, a way. Life is directed toward food and reproduction. [ Don't plants hurt ? I don't know. We don't hesitate to cut and burn them. ] — plaque flag

If plants aren't conscious, do they have "problems"? Does reproduction and fitness not occurring present a problem or another event like a rock breaking? Either way, if the plant doesn't have the first person perspective, what's the "problem" exactly? Something indeed will happen to the plant without food and reproduction. What about reproduction, eating, and death but without a first person perspective makes something valuable or invaluable. I mean, we evaluate it from the perspective of someone who experiences. Does the plant experience no water, or is it simply not having enough water?

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Rather,it is cultural and habit to care for something that looks like it feels something. — schopenhauer1

Yes, I should have quoted this and worked from it, sorry.

The issue is, in my view, that we don't very well know what we mean by feels something --- except for that (public / external ) cultural habit of doing stuff, of treating stuff kindly. [ Beetles in boxes and all that jazz. ]

It's as if the thought of interior hurt is a mere byproduct of the bodily training, derived from it as a false cause of it.

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Does the plant experience no water, or is it simply not having enough water? — schopenhauer1

~~Most~~ Some of us tend to treat plants without much care, but my wife is sad when a plant dies though, and she sometimes feels guilt for not watering or sunning it properly.

schopenhauer1

Most Some of us tend to treat plants without much care, but my wife is sad when a plant dies though, and she sometimes feels guilt for not watering or sunning it properly. — plaque flag

Granted, but doesn't answer the question :).

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If plants aren't conscious, do they have "problems"? Does reproduction and fitness not occurring present a problem or another event like a rock breaking? — schopenhauer1

I'd say a problem within a teleological projection.

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What about reproduction, eating, and death but without a first person perspective makes something valuable or invaluable. I mean, we evaluate it from the perspective of someone who experiences. — schopenhauer1

I think we agree that giving-a-damn is central to human being-there. We are temporal because we want stuff, fear stuff, seek stuff. 'Want' and 'fear' are like projections of an interior. So we can say we seek and avoid. We learn from getting hurt, getting food. We 'remember' (find shorter, safer paths, etc.)

180 Proof

The nexus between an object being bombarded by effects of the universe and and an object being bombarded by effects that matters is consciousness. — schopenhauer1

Both objects and subjects (i.e. phenomenally self-referring/reflexive objects) are emergent "effects of the universe" ... neither of which "matter" on the cosmic scale. "Consciousness" seems the phenomenal illusion of being 'more than an object', even somehow separate / alienated from the rest of universe of objects – more bug than feature; I think, instead of "consciousness", adaptive intelligence (by which knowledge of the universe is created) is the property, or functionality, that distinguishes mere objects from mattering objects.

schopenhauer1

I'd say a problem within a teleological projection. — plaque flag

Do teleological projections have problems, or do agents have problems? Are they agents if there is no perspective there? A machine can be coded thus as you indicated to replicate...

schopenhauer1

I think we agree that giving-a-damn is central to human being-there. We are temporal because we want stuff, fear stuff, seek stuff. 'Want' and 'fear' are like projections of an interior. So we can say we seek and avoid. We learn from getting hurt, getting food. We 'remember' (find shorter, safer paths, etc.) — plaque flag

There is a subject this is happening to.. a perspective in the first place.

schopenhauer1

Both objects and subjects (i.e. phenomenally self-referring/reflexive objects) are emergent "effects of the universe" ... neither of which "matter" on the cosmic scale. — 180 Proof

Correct (doesn't matter on a cosmic scale). That is why I said, to the universe a rock breaking and head rolling doesn't matter (obviously).

"Consciousness" seems the phenomenal illusion of being 'more than an object', even somehow separate / alienated from the rest of universe of objects – more bug than feature; I think, instead of "consciousness", adaptive intelligence (by which knowledge of the universe is created) is the property, or functionality, that distinguishes mere objects from mattering objects. — 180 Proof

Does changing the word to adaptive intelligence change much? The hard problem lies in the slippery word "created". That is the hard problem that needs explaining itself. Are we getting diamonds from coal here? Enough computation = subject? What is the dividing line other than what we know on either side of that line (plant / primitive animal perhaps).

A planet exploding matters not to the planet. A black hole sucking in matter matters not to the matter. Space warping matters not to space. A subject however, is where "matter" and "value" come into play. The universe is full of explosions and destruction of objects. It only matters once there are subjects. No problems occur until subjects. Nothing matters in the universe other than some relation to a subject.

180 Proof

Nothing matters in the universe other than some relation to a subject. — schopenhauer1

And this "matters ... to a subject" doesn't matter.

Does changing the word to adaptive intelligence change much?

Obviously I think it does. Consciousness =/= adaptive intelligence, especially in the context in which I've used these terms.

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Do teleological projections have problems, or do agents have problems? — schopenhauer1

It's just hard to speak for plants. From the outside we can think of their code trying to replicate, colliding with obstacles (rival plants, not enough water,...)

Are they agents if there is no perspective there? — schopenhauer1

As humans we tend to associate agents and perspectives. We hold agents responsible for claims as well as (other, less explicitly symbolic) deeds.

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There is a subject this is happening to.. a perspective in the first place. — schopenhauer1

As I see it, there is a body which is trained into being something like a subject. The world is 'there' for this creature. That's how we tend to understand it --- without having much of a grip, seems to be, on what it means for a creature to be or have its thereness.

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A subject however, is where "matter" and "value" come into play. — schopenhauer1

We can take an external view and look at patterns that stubbornly resist being erased. The pattern doesn't 'want' to die. It'll sacrifice instantiations. Schopenhauer's insect is ready to die, having laid its eggs.

Or we can try to talk about what it feels like. FWIW, I think I get your point and agree, so I'm only being difficult on the level of emphasizing the slipperiness of these concepts.

schopenhauer1

And this "matters ... to a subject" doesn't matter. — 180 Proof

It matters to the subject.

Obviously I think it does. Consciousness =/= adaptive intelligence, especially in the context in which I've used these terms. — 180 Proof

Doesn’t explain how or why that answers the hard problem or explains it away etc.

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It is just events eventing. The problems (literally) start with experiences, and mattering. I am not being literary. There are no problems before consciousness. — schopenhauer1

I like events eventing. It's like the world worlding.

What you are saying is almost tautological, which doesn't mean it's not worth saying. We could also just talk of the possibility of feeling hurt. Feeling is first. But feeling is 'under' or 'other than' concepts. So it's difficult to say it. Maybe this is why Schopenhauer claimed we knew the heart of reality directly.

schopenhauer1

As I see it, there is a body which is trained into being something like a subject. The world is 'there' for this creature. — plaque flag

Magical “thereness” generated like the engine that could something out of nothing. Illusions that are not explained etc.

schopenhauer1

We can take an external view and look at patterns that stubbornly resist being erased. The pattern doesn't 'want' to die. It'll sacrifice instantiations. Schopenhauer's insect is ready to die, having laid its eggs. — plaque flag

A replicating thing that has patterns has a thereness (as in a point of view?). What makes it different than other events in the universe if it is just patterns without an internalness to it?

schopenhauer1

What you are saying is almost tautological, which doesn't mean it's not worth saying. We could also just talk of the possibility of feeling hurt. Feeling is first. But feeling is 'under' or 'other than' concepts. So it's difficult to say it. Maybe this is why Schopenhauer claimed we knew the heart of reality directly. — plaque flag

Yes true. He does put primacy on the internal aspect. The subject for object, object for subject etc.

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↪schopenhauer1

I get what you are trying to say and mostly agree. It's because we give a fuck that we have problems.

What makes it different than other events in the universe if it is just patterns without an internalness to it? — schopenhauer1

Things tend to fall apart, but here we are, strange primates, increasing in complexity, godlike cyborgs, now creating synthetic brains better than our own. Even from the outside, we are not drifting spacerock.

schopenhauer1

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Slightly more complex enduring patterns. Why give primacy to photosynthesis over the strong force? What did electromagnatism and gravity and basic elements and molecules ever do that make them less than photosynthesis?

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Illusions that are not explained etc. — schopenhauer1

Even here we are mostly on the same page. The hard problem is interesting, but I think there's a semantic problem which gets taken for granted : people don't know what they mean by 'consciousness' in a metaphysical context.

...it is nonsense to say that I wonder at the existence of the world, because I cannot imagine it not existing. I could of course wonder at the world round me being as it is. If for instance I had this experience while looking into the blue sky, I could wonder at the sky being blue as opposed to the case when it's clouded. But that's not what I mean. I am wondering at the sky being whatever it is. One might be tempted to say that what I am wondering at is a tautology, namely at the sky being blue or not blue. But then it's just nonsense to say that one is wondering at a tautology.

schopenhauer1

Even here we are mostly on the same page. The hard problem is interesting, but I think there's a semantic problem which gets taken for granted : people don't know what they mean by 'consciousness' in a metaphysical context. — plaque flag

It's a hard problem in that we know that there are things that don't sense the sky as "blue" or sense at all and we know there are things that sense. Barring p-zombies and behaviorism, we think that needs something that explains it.

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Slightly more complex enduring patterns. Why give primacy to photosynthesis over the strong force? — schopenhauer1

Interesting question. I'm not a physicist, but I think it'd be about drawing a thermodynamic boundary. So it's hard to call the universe an organism, because it has no environment. Life climbs a ladder. It 'shits' more disorder than it creates. We are flowers of the death of the sun.

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It's a hard problem in that we know that there are things that don't sense the sky as "blue" or sense at all and we know there are things that sense — schopenhauer1

I don't think we know this, but most of us feel/think it in some sense. We nurture our young. Our doings are deeper than our rationalizations.

schopenhauer1

Life climbs a ladder. It 'shits' more disorder than it creates. We are flowers of the death of the sun. — plaque flag

No I get that this may be a definition of life, but I mean, what makes it have more primacy than any other event?

schopenhauer1

I don't think we know this, but most of us feel/think it in some sense. We nurture our young. Our doings are deeper than our rationalizations. — plaque flag

This is obfuscating. What do you mean we don't "know" this?

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No I get that this may be a definition of life, but I mean, what makes it have more primacy than any other event? — schopenhauer1

We say it does because it matters that our babies get milk and are kept warm. We also love puppies and squirrels.

Why the Hard Problem is so Relevant to Axiology and Ethics

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