Comments

  • Can a computer think? Artificial Intelligence and the mind-body problem
    ↪Corvus
    And you have something better that you're basing the "everyone" claim on? What better information than statistics is that? Please source the "everyone" claim for me.
  • Can a computer think? Artificial Intelligence and the mind-body problem
    ↪Corvus
    Beautiful cop out. You now have data to demonstrate unambiguously that not everyone thinks what you say "everyone knows", and instead of acknowledging that fact, you just stick to your guns, head in the sand.
  • Can a computer think? Artificial Intelligence and the mind-body problem
    But you bring out some minority folks — Corvus

    https://survey2020.philpeople.org/survey/results/4874

    It's not some tiny minority. Only 51-52% of professional philosophers are physicalists about the mind. That means up to 48% of philosophers might not think the mind emerges from the brain.

    It's not senseless, 52% isn't "everyone" by any reasonable definition.

    Are 48% of people 'noone'? If I killed 48% of people in your town, would you say "he didn't kill anybody"? "Everyone survived"?
  • Can a computer think? Artificial Intelligence and the mind-body problem
    ↪Corvus
    And I suppose you're defining "reasonable" as "people who agree with me", which makes it tautologically true, not meaningfully true.

    Everyone believes in Islam.

    How do I define Everyone? I mean Everyone Reasonable.

    How do I define "reasonable"? I define it as "people who are muslims".
  • Can a computer think? Artificial Intelligence and the mind-body problem
    ↪Corvus
    You just did explain it, and I understand your explanation - I fully agree with you about loosening on the definition of 'everyone' in colloquial speech, you can loosely say "everyone" without meaning "100% of everyone, no exceptions" - I'm fine with that, let's loosen up on the definition - and you're still wrong. Even for reasonably loosened definitions of 'everyone', you're not correct.

    You now know that not everyone thinks minds emerge from brains, so you have no reason to make the claim again.

    Do you still think "everyone knows that"?
  • Can a computer think? Artificial Intelligence and the mind-body problem
    People use "Everyone" "Anyone" to say the majority of people or really anyone in the figure of speech all the time. — Corvus

    but if you meant the majority of people, (a) you would have said that when I invited you to say what you meant, and you didn't say that, and (b) that would still be incorrect. The majority of people are religious and believe in souls.

    If we want to be loose with the word 'everyone', it should still mean something stronger than '51% of people'. It should mean a VAST majority, at the very least - no less than like 95% of people, maybe 90% if we're pushing it. Nowhere near 90% of people think consciousness emerges from the brain, not even 90% of philosophers.
  • Can a computer think? Artificial Intelligence and the mind-body problem
    ↪Corvus
    And you still can't just say "yes, not everyone knows or believes that". How easy would that be to say? You already know it's true.
  • Can a computer think? Artificial Intelligence and the mind-body problem
    I was trying get this point across, but ↪flannel jesus kept on insisting that he could not understand and accept what the word "Everyone" means. Obviously he is incapable of communicating and discoursing in ordinary linguistic level — Corvus

    Sure, let's ask
    ↪RogueAI
    :

    If someone says 'everyone knows the mind emerges from the brain', do you think that's true, and what do you think that claim means? Corvus said that, I'm curious what you think is the most natural interpretation of that claim.
  • Indirect Realism and Direct Realism
    No. An experience of heat on my skin is direct, not because it doesn't have an external cause (there may be a match an inch from my skin), but because the experience has direct phenomenological content, and is not subject to doubt. — hypericin

    Right, experience itself - regardless of it's source, be it reality or hallucination or whoever is pulling the levers on the brain in the vat - is the most fundamental thing available to us. We know our experience more immediately than we know anything else, including the cause of the experience.

    The word "direct" and "indirect" don't really seem to apply to experience itself to me - experience is experience, it's fundamental, it's nothing else other than itself. Direct and indirect can be words we use to categorize casual chains that lead to experience, but not experience itself.
  • Ancient Peoples and Talk of Mental States
    ↪RogueAI
    I think that while all of those things are interesting questions, they have no bearing on the argument you made about ancient people. Ancient people not knowing how brains work shouldn't be any kind of signal that brains don't do the things we suppose they do - ignorance of ancient people isn't an argument for anything.
  • Ancient Peoples and Talk of Mental States
    but my argument is not about mental states being reduced to physical states. It's attacking the notion that mental states are identical to brain states. — RogueAI

    I don't see the distinction
  • Ancient Peoples and Talk of Mental States
    ↪RogueAI
    The argument makes it sound like you haven't taken into account ancient people's ignorance.

    Sound is waves of compressed air. Ancient people currently talked about sounds without talking about compressed air. Therefore sound isn't waves of compressed air?

    No, I don't think this holds.
  • Can a computer think? Artificial Intelligence and the mind-body problem
    ↪RogueAI
    I don't think he's saying that, I think he's taking the standard physicalist position, which is that human consciousness happens in human brains, which usually implies to most physicalists that consciousness is also possible in other physical circumstances.

    He's then adding onto the standard physicalist position the bizarre statement "everyone knows this is true", which it turns out means something entirely different from what you might think that means.
  • Indirect Realism and Direct Realism
    There's a difference between my position and indirect realism. As I understand it, indirect realism asserts that we perceive representations (of objects). My position is not that we perceive representations (or some other intermediary), so my position is not indirect realism. My position is that perception involves representations. — Luke

    It sounds like you think the difference between indirect and direct realists is just semantics. It sounds like the person you're replying to believes the difference is in *more than just semantics*.
  • Can a computer think? Artificial Intelligence and the mind-body problem
    That's been the question since all the way back here:
    — flannel jesus

    No     — Corvus

    Uh... yes, I clearly was inviting you, all the way back there, to tell me what you do mean. You refused to do that, for many many many posts - as if you were scared of what might happen if you made your thoughts clear.
  • Can a computer think? Artificial Intelligence and the mind-body problem
    Yes, this is the question you should have asked. — Corvus

    That's been the question since all the way back here:

    Why are you wasting your time telling me what it CAN mean, instead of what you DO mean? — flannel jesus

    Right? Lmao.

    "Everyone" means "everyone i came across in my reading and listening" lmao. That's an absolutely absurd way to use that word.
  • Can a computer think? Artificial Intelligence and the mind-body problem
    ↪Corvus
    At this point in the conversation, the only thing that matters is what you mean.

    You said everyone knows the mind emerges from the brain.

    That's clearly not true for the standard interpretation of "everyone", and you've suggested that you're using a more loose definition of the word 'everyone', so... what more loose definition are you using? What did you mean by your claim?

    When you claim "everyone knows the mind emerges from the brain", what does everyone mean to you in that sentence? I clearly can't read your mind, so if you want to communicate your thoughts, now's the time to do it.
  • Can a computer think? Artificial Intelligence and the mind-body problem
    "every" is the opposite of vague. It's one of the most well-defined concepts in existence. If you don't mean the normal meaning, please let me know what you mean instead.
  • Can a computer think? Artificial Intelligence and the mind-body problem
    ↪Corvus
    I'm not insisting anything, I'm asking you what you mean. Asking you what you mean is not an insistence, it's a question.
  • Can a computer think? Artificial Intelligence and the mind-body problem
    ↪Corvus
    Yeah, I've read it, it doesn't contain the answer to what you mean by 'everyone'.

    If you don't want to communicate your thoughts, why bother learning how to write?
  • Can a computer think? Artificial Intelligence and the mind-body problem
    ↪Corvus
    So you don't want to say what you mean. You said "everyone knows X". I said "not everyone knows X". Instead of saying "oh my mistake, you're right, not everyone" you said "when I say everyone, I don't mean everyone" - and now you won't even say what you mean instead of "everyone".

    What are you doing? What's the point of any of your words? If you don't want to communicate your thoughts, why bother learning how to write?
  • Can a computer think? Artificial Intelligence and the mind-body problem
    ↪Corvus
    Why are you wasting your time telling me what it CAN mean, instead of what you DO mean? What an inefficient way to communicate. Just get to the point, say what you think. Don't be afraid to share your thoughts, that's presumably what you're here for. Don't tell me all the things you might mean, tell me what you do mean.
  • Can a computer think? Artificial Intelligence and the mind-body problem
    ↪Corvus
    Well, you've already admitted that "everyone" doesn't mean "everyone" when you say it, so that's a good start.
  • Can a computer think? Artificial Intelligence and the mind-body problem
    You shouldn't be too naive to presume that "everyone" strictly means the whole population in the universe anyway. "Everyone" is a pronoun with the universal quantifier "every", which implies "everyone" that I know, "everyone" who are sensible, "everyone" with common sense, "everyone" who are logical ... etc.

    You shouldn't be too judgemental or restrictive in understanding and interpreting "everyone" in unreasonably narrow way insisting it must be "everyone" in the whole world or universe.     — Corvus

    There's no reasonable interpretation of "everyone" where "everyone knows the mind emerges from the brain" is true. Not everyone in the world believes it, not all philosophers believe it, not all neuroscientists or cognitive scientists believe it. But I'll take your reply as a sly way of admitting you were incorrect. Perhaps you're just one of those people who can't say the words "I was incorrect."
  • Pascal's Wager applied to free will (and has this been discussed?)
    D. If free will exists and you don't believe in free will, then you are wrong, and worse, deny your obligations. — QuixoticAgnostic

    This doesn't seem like a necessary conclusion to me. Do you think the majority of people who don't believe in free will, in reality, are "denying their obligations" in any important ways more than people who believe in free will?
  • Can a computer think? Artificial Intelligence and the mind-body problem
    There are also a lot of computationalists out there, and they would object to Corvus's statement that I quoted. — RogueAI

    You don't think computationalists think consciousness emerges from the brain? But isn't... isn't that where the majority of computationalists think mental computations *happen*? Computationalists seem like a perfect example of agreement, not disagreement. Except for, I suppose, the rare computationalist who thinks some of the mental calculations happens somewhere other than the brain.
  • Can a computer think? Artificial Intelligence and the mind-body problem
    ↪Corvus
    it doesn't matter if you agree with them or think their ideas make sense, the point is *not everyone believes the thing you said everyone believes*.
  • Can a computer think? Artificial Intelligence and the mind-body problem
    ↪Corvus
    no, I think they're talking about all consciousness, including human.

    People who believe in souls are of course another great example of people who don't think minds emerge from brains. They think minds are in souls.
  • Can a computer think? Artificial Intelligence and the mind-body problem
    What is your evidence for the claim? — Corvus

    Some people are panpsychists who believe consciousness is fundamental rather than emergent. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panpsychism

    Then there's the wide array of people who, for various reasons, think physical stuff is insufficient to explain conscious experience. Just Google anti physicalism to see people who argue for those positions. They abound, they're potentially even a majority among amateur philosophers (and physicalism is only barely a majority among professional philosophers)
  • Can a computer think? Artificial Intelligence and the mind-body problem
    I can see the problem very clearly. There is no complications here. You seem to try to conclude that everything unclear for some reason, when it is not. As I said, it is not the central point of the OP. We can just accept the situation and move on, and try to discuss the OP - can computers and AI think? — Corvus

    I think it is very much part of the central point of the op - you said everyone knows consciousness emerges from the brain, and if that were true, then everyone would have a very good reason to think that it's at least in principle possible for AI to be conscious.

    But not everyone knows, or agrees, that consciousness emerges from the brain, and not everyone agrees that it's possible for AI to be conscious.

    Do you accept that not everyone knows / agrees that consciousness emerges from the brain?
  • Can a computer think? Artificial Intelligence and the mind-body problem
    ↪Corvus
    no, it's even more unclear than before. I didn't write that they're connected, someone else wrote it, and then you agreed with it. Everythings entirely unclear now.

    Why are you agreeing with some guy saying they're connected, and then complaining that connected is vague?
  • Can a computer think? Artificial Intelligence and the mind-body problem
    Nobody would contradict this and the close connection between brain and consciousness.
    — Pez
    Yes, that was my point against ↪flannel jesus.     — Corvus
  • Can a computer think? Artificial Intelligence and the mind-body problem
    "The bran is connected to consciousness." sounds even more vague. — Corvus

    Then... why did you agree with it and say it was your point when Pez said it?
  • Can a computer think? Artificial Intelligence and the mind-body problem
    Yes, that was my point against — Corvus

    But that's not a point against me. Saying "the brain is connected to consciousness", which probably nearly everyone agrees with, is ENTIRELY DIFFERENT from saying "consciousness arises from the brain" or "emerges from the brain" or whatever, which is what you said everyone knows.

    Everyone knows the brain is connected to consciousness, that's the weak position. NOT everyone knows that consciousness emerges from the brain - that's the strong position. Whether deliberately or by accident, you're pulling a motte-and-bailey here.
  • Can a computer think? Artificial Intelligence and the mind-body problem
    If mind is not in brain, where would it be? — Corvus

    You're not familiar with Dualism? With the concept of souls?
  • Can a computer think? Artificial Intelligence and the mind-body problem
    ↪Corvus
    The majority of philosophers, yes. The vast majority of scientists, yes. But possibly not the majority of posters here, probably not the majority of people in the world, or even the US. And certainly not "everyone", which was the initial claim.
  • Can a computer think? Artificial Intelligence and the mind-body problem
    ↪Corvus
    I'm not referring to ancient people, I'm referring to people today, people in this forum even. Only a slight majority of professional philosophers are physicalists about the mind, something like 48% are non physicalists which means they think some significant portion of what a mind is does not emerge from the physical brain.
  • Can a computer think? Artificial Intelligence and the mind-body problem
    everyone knows the mind emerges from the physical brain, — Corvus

    I certainly think that, but I don't think EVERYONE knows it. Many many many many people do not agree that the mind emerges from the brain.
  • Indirect Realism and Direct Realism
    The sensation is distinct from and different to the stimulus. This is easier to understand with other senses such as smell and taste — Michael

    Fully agreed, though there are people in this thread who have disagreed about smell, which I find... peculiar. Like, really? You don't think the sensation you have when you smell perfectly seared beef, or maple syrup, or a pile of shit, is entirely arbitrary? You think those smells just -smell- like that in reality?

    I can't relate.
  • Indirect Realism and Direct Realism
    ↪Mww
    what are you on about?
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