The simulation hypothesis does not suggest that any physical planet (Earth) was created as an approximation of some design/model/real-planet. — noAxioms

Oh good.

It is nothing but a hypothesis of something akin to software being run that computes subsequent states from prior states. — noAxioms

So, a simulation as a description or theoretical model, distinct from any real or imaginary structure satisfying the description. A map, distinct from its territory, real or imagined. Good.

That was very serious. — noAxioms

Gosh. This?

That means that yes, even the paper and pencil method, done to sufficient detail, would simulate a conscious human who would not obviously know he is being simulated. — noAxioms

I have to say this appears to confuse the two senses of "simulate". Otherwise why the fascination with some amazing level of detail? This is generally a sign that the hypothesiser has allowed themselves to confuse map with territory.

A novel or a computer game can perfectly well describe or depict a conscious human that doesn't know he is being imagined, and it can equally well describe or depict a conscious being that does know. Detail is neither here nor there.

... I am not supporting the simulation hypothesis in any form. I'm looking for likely ways to debunk it, ... — noAxioms

Surely the problem is the one frequently pointed out, with the word "simulate" being ambiguous between "describe or theoretically model" and "physically replicate or approximate".

So the question occurs, are you holding this

That means that yes, even the paper and pencil method, done to sufficient detail, would simulate a conscious human who would not obviously know he is being simulated. — noAxioms

up for ridicule, or serious consideration?

I guess I'm intrigued. For example?

To identify the phenomena as being a perfectly attainable goal of science is hardly to debunk the noumena as being a necessarily unattainable goal of science.

If so:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unconscious_inference?wprov=sfla1

If not:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecological_psychology?wprov=sfla1

Hence my suggested rewording.

Hence my suggested rewording.

It’s out of Hume. — Jamal

Not with

unperceived existence of what we perceive

Also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Object_permanence?wprov=sfla1

Perhaps they meant "perception-independent" rather than "unperceived"?

22% of people believe that eating meat is immoral and 88% don't. — Michael

10% are confused.

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/14873/what-could-solve-the-hard-problem-of-consciousness/p1

With or without neuroscience we have the Chinese Room to thank for explaining that a proper semantics (skill in pointing words and other symbols at things in the world, as opposed to merely co-ordinating them with each other) is what makes the difference between a neural network having or not having consciousness. (I.e. between it tending or not tending to think it has a theatre in the head.)

That just leaves unsolved those other, truly hard problems of philosophy that you allude to. Time and so on.

So, the latter?

1. A p-zombie is physically identical to us except that it has no consciousness — Michael

So, physically identical except in respect of its lacking consciousness, possibly physical?

Or, physically identical but different non-physically, in respect of its lacking consciousness, presumed non-physical?

Everybody seems to think we're all the same. It's really hard to grasp that we aren't. — frank

Touche.

I get subtle movements, which could be described as shivers as you say. Is this what they mean by thinking in words or an inner monologue, where neither the act of speaking nor any actual words are involved? — NOS4A2

It's what they mean by "sub-vocalisation", at least.

There is nothing occurring that I could call a voice. — NOS4A2

Why not, if it resembles speech in respect of its graph of intensity against time?

Only some people have it. — frank

I think they are either confused by the unwarranted emphasis on sub-monologue to the exclusion of sub-dialogue (far more typical I expect) or they are reacting consciously or otherwise against the unwarranted inference to actual internal speech.

Don't you have brain shivers that appear to rehearse likely conversations with other speakers?

I mean, don't you find your brain rehearsing the kinds of shivering by which it might recognise and respond effectively to other speakers' likely comments about views you hold? Shivers that tend to proceed with time-intensity envelopes fairly analogous to word-sounds?

So, I mean, monologues aside, don't you even have quote internal dialogues unquote? (Not actual ones, agreed. Probably.)

As those cats would no doubt advise: the best possible method of learning is play, but at the same time it's crucial that newly acquired knowledge be consolidated through sleep.

Do you believe that billiard balls experience impacts in the same sense that football players experience impacts? — petrichor

In the more mundane of the two senses which you are right to separate, yes. (The sense of "undergo".) Balls and players both.

Are you sure that sense is irrelevant? Couldn't it be the ground of your incredulity here?

I can't imagine how, if there is actually no experience, there could be a situation where it nevertheless seems that there is an experience. — petrichor

That sense removed, aren't we left with

I can't imagine how, if there is actually no [theatre in the head], there could be a situation where it nevertheless seems that there is [a theatre in the head]. — petrichor

?

I have a hard time with eliminativism or illusionism. I can't imagine how, if there is actually no experience, there could be a situation where it nevertheless seems that there is an experience. — petrichor

Experience is undeniable, yes. But unconscious billiard balls can experience impacts, and unconscious computers can experience changes in state or configuration, analogous to our messier brain shivers.

What is deniable is that a shiver experienced by the brain is ever actually accompanied by a corresponding picture in the brain, or world in the brain.

:100: :snicker:

Well neither of these pages,

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Is%E2%80%93ought_problem?wprov=sfla1

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_nativism?wprov=sfla1

has the other in its See Also list, but I feel there might be a connection.

More generally, there is a literal world of difference between a matrix world in which real humans are immersed in a digital world that they believe is real, and a simulated world with simulated humans - — unenlightened

Then again, it's conceivable that simulated humans could be real AI's, immersed in a virtual digital world. Conceivably, they might be fooled.

(Though, more realistically, they would probably need to interact with a real environment in order to develop a proper semantics, and be fooled about anything, in what we ought recognise as a conscious, and hence relevant, way.)

I do agree that a literal world of difference remains, though, between that conceivable scenario, and simulation hypothesising (Bostrom et al), in which fictional worlds with fictional humans magically become real.

There can be no escape from the simulation for simulated persons, if such are possible, and since for them it is their only world, for them it is reality, and the programmer is God. — unenlightened

:100: :lol:

(you don't have to agree, I'm just giving shape to the way the axioms work with a familiar example.) — unenlightened

I get a different shape? More like, axiom 1 is about saying a thing (e.g. "Romeo!")... which, if you do it again, is only to reinforce that first statement (or state-naming!).

While, axiom 2 is about changing sides on the issue ("rather, thou art some other, that smell as sweet")... which, if you do it again, is only to undo that first change. And probably end up where it started.

Assertion and negation, basically?

Sure, but also,

$P(y = x) = P(z = 2y = 2x) = {1\over2}\\P(y = 2x) = P(z = {y\over2} = x) = {1\over2}\\\\E(z) = {1\over2}2y[where\space y={1\over2}z = x] + {1\over2}({y\over2})[where\space y=2z = 2x]\\\\E(z) = {1\over2}({2x}) + {1\over2}({2x\over2}) = x + {x\over2} = 1.5x = E(x)$

So a more accurate formulation is:

$E(x) = {1\over2}({2x\over2}) + {1\over2}({2x\over2}) = {x\over2} + {x\over2} = x$ — Michael

Don't you mean:

$E(x) = {1\over2}({2x}) + {1\over2}({x}) = 1.5x$

?

Think I saw this in a GCSE paper...

A semantic grammar is a semantic syntax. So not necessarily a true semantics. Not necessarily joining in the elaborate social game of relating maps to territories. Not necessarily understanding. Possibly becoming merely (albeit amazingly) skilled in relating maps to other maps.

whether or not we should describe perception as "seeing representations" or "seeing the external world stimulus" is an irrelevant issue of semantics. It's like arguing over whether we feel pain or feel the fire. — Michael

So it's a crucial issue of semantics. Should the psychology admit internal representations, as well as external representations and internal brain shivers?

See also: https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/12417

Yes. The broken leg is the trauma. The brain activity (or the mental phenomena it causes) is the pain. — Michael

Ok. The broken leg is trauma. The brain activity (the recognising the broken leg as an instance of trauma) is the feeling pain.

And yet as I said we can recognise trauma without "feeling pain" (e.g. congenital insensitivity to pain) — Michael

Sure. The associations effected by merely intellectual recognition of the trauma hardly overlap at all with the associations we are inclined to call "feeling pain", which are informed directly by stimulation of nerves in the site of the trauma.

and we can feel pain without recognising trauma (e.g. headaches). — Michael

Sure. We can recognise wrongly.

Hmm so you were distinguishing neural alarm from bodily trauma?

We don’t just associate pain with trauma; we feel pain in response to trauma. They are two separate things. — Michael

I'm suggesting the pain is the recognition of the trauma as an instance of a kind of thing, e.g. of trauma. It is the association. Sure it's separate from the trauma. It might be caused by the trauma. But not from or by the pain. It is the pain.

I don’t need a language to be in pain. Pre-linguistic humans had headaches. — Michael

They suffered the trauma. My car suffers trauma. And pain, but only metaphorically. They, though, probably also had enough symbolic ability to associate it with trauma in general. Which is how we suffer pain literally. Perhaps. Plausibly.

Sure. I'm not totally averse to saying that mental phenomena just is brain activity. What I'm averse to is the claim that being in pain has something to do with me saying "I am in pain" — Michael

But then, applying that to the snooker balls, you're averse to saying that seeing the ball as red has something to do with associating it with red surfaces generally? For example by reaching for the word "red". I thought you might be. Slightly surprised that you reply with "sure".

If you're not totally averse to that, though, how about that being in pain is associating the bodily trauma in question with bodily trauma in general? For example by reaching for the word "pain".

would that be tantamount to accepting that gravity is mystical? — frank

There's mystical and there's mystical. There's an invisible pull between two bodies proportional to their masses, and there's a picture show in the head.

As for SDR, I'm not at all sure I'm on side with any brand of realism, inasmuch as they mostly seem to discuss the possibility of some kind of inner ghost making contact with the outer world.

You don't have to think of experience as a collection of ghosts, though. You can just note that you do see red, and leave it unexplained exactly how. — frank

That seems tantamount to accepting the ghost as ghost? Which could turn out to be appropriate, of course. I'm just pointing out an alternative.

You put a red ball and a blue ball in front of me. I can see that one is red and one is blue. I don't need to do or say anything that you can interpret as me "seeing red" or "seeing blue". — Michael

But perhaps you need to have brain activity that succeeds in associating the red ball with red surfaces generally, and the blue ball with blue surfaces generally?

Having red or blue mental images in the brain, to meet that purpose, is kind of having a ghost in the machine.

Having the brain reach for suitable words or pictures, isn't. And, even better, it suggests a likely origin of our tendency to imagine that we accommodate the ghostly entities.