P is true is just fancy talk for P. This is the 'redundancy' theory. — Pie

But truth, like most things, is not binary. Sentences have degrees of truth. Absolute truth is an edge case.

Therefore, P cannot be the same thing as P is true. P in itself cannot express the range of degrees the truth property of P can take.

Truth is just one property of P. It's semantic contents, its aesthetic appeal, the number of words, the language and dialect, are other properties of P.

P is the proposition, 'P is true' is a comment on P's property of truth.

just as you who are experiencing them are also interpreting them
for yourself — Joshs

But this is the opposite process. My emotions are immediate to me, what you call interpreting is encoding them symbolically into language. This encoding is a necessary step to use the emotion in symbolic thought. If I can't encode then I can't think about them. In the same way, without my conscious intervention my body encodes my emotions into the symbology of expression and body language.

Whereas you immediately perceive only symbols of my inner state: my face, body, and words.

You see the symbols of my emotions, I encode my emotions into symbols.

and as a result we directly perceive ( without simulation) a version of the other’s intentions , — Joshs

This is the part of your account I find objectionable. We cannot directly perceive someone else's internal state. There is a layer of indirection between the other's state and our perceptions.

Facial expressions are not emotions, they are configurations of facial muscles. They are alsosymbols that point to emotions. A sneer is a symbol which has an emotive meaning, and is the English symbol "contempt" in another medium.

We can only "read" another's expressions and body language and spoken language, it is all reading. The fact that it seems immediate does not negate that it is an interpretive act. This interpretive facility must exist for it's failure as Autism to also exist.

But the religious don't even base morality on religion. Rather, they use religious text as a very motivated Rorschach test, and then stamp the resulting interpretation with the authority of that same text.

There are 10^183 planck length unit volumes in the universe. Might this be nmax?

it is an elaboration of organizational and functional characteristics of all living systems. — Joshs

This path ends in the absurdity of the conscious paramecium or Roomba, and furthermore cannot account for the fact that our own conscious awareness is just the tip of the iceberg of unconscious processes.

Calculations in physics. The Lorentz factor is unbounded. — jgill

The equation is unbounded. But is it unbounded in this universe? We cannot accelerate an object arbitrarily near to c, since that requires arbitrarily high amounts of energy, which is not available.

the observable universe is far too small to contain an ordinary digital representation of Graham's number, assuming that each digit occupies one Planck volume, possibly the smallest measurable space. But even the number of digits in this digital representation of Graham's number would itself be a number so large that its digital representation cannot be represented in the observable universe. Nor even can the number of digits of that number—and so forth, for a number of times far exceeding the total number of Planck volumes in the observable universe.

That last part... holy shit!
:strong: :wink:

:scream:

I don't see the difference. Sorry, I just don't. — noAxioms

I am truly, genuinely curious as to what is going on here. Is there a conceptual difference, so that we are talking past each other? Some kind of difference in cognitive style? Do you enjoy an intuitive clarity about consciousness most of us lack? Are you a p zombie?

Let's proceed in the spirit of inquiry, rather than rancorous debate.

A few questions:

Are you able to visualize? Can you create a picture of something, say a beach, on command in your head? Some people lack this ability entirely. I can do it, but the quality is poor.

Can you imagine sounds? I can do this quite well, with great clarity.

Can you imagine touch and other body sensations? I can do this, but here the imagination is easily confused with the real thing, this had lead to very serious psychosomatic problems when I was younger.

What about taste and smell? I actually cannot imagine these, at all.

How do you think? I think primarily by talking to myself. I "hear" my voice in constant dialogue with myself. This dialogue is supplemented with flickery images of poor quality, which are nonetheless a huge help. I was surprised to learn that this is not at all universal. Some people think exclusively with speech or images, some with emotions, some apparently do not use sensory media at all, and think in pure concepts. I think there are more ways I cannot remember.

You completely misunderstood, this is all just background I made up for my hypothetical question. No scientists in question, no such structure has been discovered. — hypericin

Damn, I wish I added, "I would not care because I am a p zombie"

Are you making this up or did the scientists in question actually say this? Did they actually say this structure is responsible for the kind of consciousness that the dualists are talking about? — noAxioms

You completely misunderstood, this is all just background I made up for my hypothetical question. No scientists in question, no such structure has been discovered.

You suggest that some people are zombies, but balk when I suggest I'm probably one of them since I don't see the problem that others do so clearly. — noAxioms

In reality I would be very surprised if zombies existed. I think it is much more likely that there is a cognitive difference which makes this concept more difficult for some people.

A device with a camera sees red if it in any way reacts to the data instead of just storing it like a camera does. — noAxioms

A digital camera doesn't just store it, there are a multitude of processes which must occur before the light can be stored digitally. Correcting for red eye is just another transformation.

By what definition? It's not human, sure, and that's the usual definition. — noAxioms

That is not the usual definition. The usual is something more like "private internal perception". A camera or a computer can respond behaviorally to it's red sensors in essentially the same way you can to yours. But (we presume) only you have an accompanying subjective experience of red.

Try to describe what it is like to experience red to a blind person. You can use adjectives like "warm", "excitable", etc, but that is about as far as you can go. The internal experience is completely private, and completely incommunicable.

If indeed you lack this, this must sound like gibberish.

Ah, but I'm behaving differently, and true zombies apparently must lie about this sort of thing. — noAxioms

People cite this "no behavioral difference" as if it were some kind of iron law of p zombies, instead of a completely arbitrary stipulation in Chalmers's own thought experiment. In reality, if p zombies did exist, you would expect a behavioral difference of some sort, even if it were the kind of impairment that would only reveal itself in testing.

Exactly what evidence was collected to suggest this conclusion? — noAxioms

Even though behaviorally it makes no difference, subjects might report a difference who have this structure temporarily knocked out. Perhaps there is a lapse of phenomenal memory. This is not really the point of the OP however.

I've never been able to figure out what people have that a machine cannot. — noAxioms

It's always weird to me when someone makes this claim. A digital camera sees red, and processes the data coming from it's red sensors. But it has no experience. A computer is no different.

would thoroughly enjoy abusing them, although I'm not sure I would enjoy it actually, knowing that they aren't actually suffering. — bert1

Are you a sociopath then?

People tend to treat others as if those others don't really exist, as if they are merely shells with no inner life, other than the one stipulated by other people. — baker

I do not. Is this projection?

That basic awareness should be absent while memory and identification is fully functional simply makes no sense to me. — unenlightened

Computers have memory, and they identify themselves, but they have no awareness. Think of a p zombie as a perfect computer simulation of how a human behaves, without any of the internal stuff.

I neither claimed nor implied that color-signedness "serves no function". — 180 Proof

How else can I interpret

Sentience" may be epiphenomenal and serve no more of a function than color-sightedness. — 180 Proof

Also, what you say about "love" is a non sequitur with respect to the question posed in the OP. — 180 Proof

My OP was about "Loved Ones", so really it was your talk of loving teddy bears and sports teams that was a non sequitor.

You did stipulate what you wished, and it ended up implying dissent is lies and consensus is truth. I would wear a tinfoil hat and cardboard sign if it meant I didn’t have to agree with such absurdities. — NOS4A2

Not necessarily lies, I apologize. I left out other possibilities.
"Dissent" from universal expert consensus, i.e. climate deniers (are you one?), is either lies, or Dunning-Kreuger idiocy. Of course there is always the theoretical possibility of "Maverick Genius", but for our purposes we can ignore that one.

However, you have taken it one step further. I say, "Let X be true...", and you immediately raise your finger and say "I dissent! This contradicts my experiences and intuitions!". I don't know what to say, other than you must have been a joy to teach.

What is the size of the set of possible states of the universe? I suspect this is the true nmax. Would this be a number best expressed as x^y^z?

From special relativity, the Lorentz factor is unbounded as v approaches c. — jgill

If all the energy of the universe were somehow marshalled to accelerate a single particle, what would its Lorentz factor be? I have no clue, but I suspect it wouldn't come near 23^2017^3138934, let alone a real monster like 10^10^10^10

That doesn’t make it true, either. Your stipulation is just that, a stipulation, like they stipulated phlogiston or a pantheon of gods. — NOS4A2

In my imaginary scenario I have the power to stipulate whatever I wish. But please, "dissent" away. Is that you I see with the tin foil hat and cardboard sign?

betrays my intuition and experience — NOS4A2

That does not make it false.

I am stipulating that p zombies are real in this scenario, and you still won't accept it. This is lying to yourself, just as "dissenting" from overwhelming scientific consensus, unless you truly have the expertise to do so. You should have chosen 'a'.

We love people we do not have a "connection" with e.g. celebrities, authors, leaders, the dead, etc. We also love inanimate or abstract objects e.g. stuffed animals, our country / city, our sports team, vehicles, cultural objects, power, wealth, etc — 180 Proof

Try telling your partner you love them like you love your teddy bear or your sports team. These are not the same relationships, even if the word "love" can be used for all of them.

"Sentience" may be epiphenomenal and serve no more of a function than color-sightedness. — 180 Proof

This possibility is what the p zombie thought experiment suggests. I've never heard the suggestion that color sightedness serves no function.

Not care. It's about my "sentience", not theirs. — 180 Proof

Doesn't love require connection? How can you connect with someone you know isn't there?
Why the scare quotes?

An innocent person also deserves happiness and fulfillment, which the world offers, would you deny them this?

Sophmoric argument.

Worries about zombies is a vestige of the Christian idea of a soul. — Jackson

No, p-zombies are a thought experiment, not the kind of thing that keeps most people up at night.

If I had to put my "philosophy question" baldly, it would be: "are relationships, especially loving ones, contingent on the sentience of the other party?"

That makes no sense. P zombies resemble us in every outward way — Bartricks

Yet, p zombies are thoughtless, as are you.

An asinine reply worthy of a p zombie.

One difference between philosophy and science is that philosophy insists on logical certainty, which is a category error when applied to the empirical world. This is why progress is so scant.

It just has to do that thing about another 100,000,000,000,000,000,000 (hundred quadrillion) times, and by that time it can expect one to have appeared! — hypericin

Oh dear, I misread. Boltzmann brains are not expected to appear every 10^500 years. Nope, that's not even scratching the surface of scratching the surface. They are expected to appear every 10^10^50 years, which is quite another matter.

Our poor god hasn't even begun, after all. I don't even know how to do this one. It is a quantity of time that is not just beyond conception, it is beyond description at all.

We can't be, that's the problem. — Michael

And yet, if for every passing year a god were to count one atom in the (observable) universe (there are between 10^78 and 10^82 of them), by the time it had counted all of them it wouldn't have made the slightest perceptible dent in its waiting time for a single Boltzmann brain to appear. If for every atom, it begins anew the entire yearly enumeration of every atom, still, not the slightest sliver of progress, it's waiting would have not even begun.

If,
for every atom, it starts the process of,
for every atom, it starts the process of,
for every atom, it starts the process of,
for every atom, it starts the process of,
for every atom, it starts the process of,
for every atom, it starts the process of,
counting one atom every year,

Then, great! That's progress!
It just has to do that thing about another 100,000,000,000,000,000,000 (hundred quadrillion) times, and by that time it can expect one to have appeared!

Infinity is a hell of a thing.

So both M (Boltzmann brains) and S(M) (common sense life) are extraordinarily unlikely, but given that S(M) is less likely than M, what greater explanatory power does it have? — Michael

I looked through it again, this is the argument I was looking for: "In a single de Sitter Universe with a cosmological constant, and starting from any finite spatial slice, the number of "normal" observers is finite and bounded by the heat death of the Universe. If the Universe lasts forever, the number of nucleated Boltzmann brains is, in most models, infinite; "

This is not a problem specific to my post, it is a problem for everything! It sounds silly, but I don't know how to counterargue without insisting on specific physics that rule it out. Assuming the above conditions, how can we be confident we are not Boltzmann brains?

Replace S(M) with common sense life and M with Boltzmann brain. — Michael

But here S(M) does possess explanatory power above M. With M we wonder how this extraordinarily unlikely event happened.

That is what I was asking you earlier, I don't fully understand the thrust of the theory. Boltzmann brians are phenomenally unlikely, so why is that a viable theory?

That is far more complex than just a brain forming in a void. — Michael

But I never proposed that complexity be the sole criterion for choosing a theory. That leads to absurdities like this.

Interestingly, the article cited a calculation that a Boltzmann Brain should be expected to appear once every 10^500 years. Truly an unfathomable duration, if any stock is to be placed in calculations like this. And still hard for me to believe this should happen with even that frequency. I wonder how often say a molecule of water is expected to appear.

Is math something we discovered, or something we invented? — Count Timothy von Icarus

But this is a different question than whether the math is instantiated in the world. For instance, I believe the Mandelbrot set was discovered: after all, it has an endless capacity to surprise. But it is not instantiated in the world. At best, tiny fragments are echoed in computer programs. Similarly, numbers like 10^100000000000000000000 are numbers, but we needn't believe that magnitudes of this scale exist in reality.

How does our limited cognitive power offer up a finer grained (indeed, infinitely finer grained) reality than that which seems apparent? — Count Timothy von Icarus

It seems straightforward to me. From our perspective, reality is so fine grained it appears to be continuous. Real numbers are a mathematical abstraction of the seemingly continuous quantities that present themselves to us. Whether or not reality itself is continuous at its fundamental level is an entirely different question.

In this related argument, 3D space and time are illusory, a sort of hologram created by 2D information theoretic structures. — Count Timothy von Icarus

3D space and time are the built in models our brains build from the 2D perceptions it receives. Does it follow that the model is wrong? It is hard to see it's survival value if so.

3D space-time might actually be an error compressing code that evolution hit upon, an effective means of encoding fitness information, rather than the structure of reality. — Count Timothy von Icarus

This seems tangential to the original argument. This is not S(M), rather it is suggesting suggesting an alternate, unspecified M to 3D space and time.

Reason being that a simulator would only need to simulate the areas you're currently looking at, not the entire universe. It could be analogous to video games, which render the world around them based on the players' line of sight. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Even here it is not obvious to me. Simulations of the caliber of our actual waking lives are so far beyond us, we might never achieve them, even if technological progression continues uninterrupted for a million years. It may be beyond our universe's capacity to compute that much. Or beyond our intellect to create them. So already, this presupposes beings of godlike technological prowess, and a whole other unrelated real universe to house them, on top of all the apparent laws and objects in the simulated world. This is my basic intuition, that S(M) is never a good theory, in the absence of extraordinary evidence.

Help me understand, why should a brain spontaneously materializing be more likely than one evolving naturally?

Thier case might be the more parsimonious actually, — Count Timothy von Icarus

Not at all. It is only a superficial parsimony, as you subtracting some constants, while adding a whole additional universe. It is like theism, "because god wills it" is only superficially parsimonious, when in reality it adds a whole new class of entity to the universe that makes laws, rather than follows them. How does that work? Is there a whole new set of laws that govern god's behavior?

We have an issue because mathematics tells us we should be able to have continuous things, but instead we only have discrete things — Count Timothy von Icarus

Mathematics doesn't "tell us" this. Just because reality sometimes follows structures predicted in math doesn't mean that the existence of a mathematical construct is any kind of argument for it's instantiation in reality.

I don't know if there is a drug that can sustainably alter brain homeostasis for the better.

Trite — Banno

Yours, not mine

I am the only moral agent. — Banno

Disagreements in ethics are either disagreements over the terms... — hypericin