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Do (A entails B) and (A entails notB) contradict each other?

man-made brains-in-a-vat. — Michael

I see.

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". — bongo fury

You know, map vs replicated territory.

This

high-fidelity ancestor simulations — Michael

being a good example. Amazingly detailed descriptions/theoretical models of ancestors; or physical replicas/approximations of them?

Or something else?

I'm inclined to say than that a thing's effects are signs of it. Directness then should probably be looked at from a phenomenological perspective. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Only if semiotics implies phenomenology.

Photography has almost no reality; it is almost a hundred per cent picture. And painting always has reality: you can touch the paint; it has presence; — perhaps

This corresponds to Scruton's sliding scale of degree of pornographic-ness, if I recall: the greater our interest in what is pictured and the less our interest in the picture for its own sake, the more pornographic. (I think he claimed.)

I once took small photographs and then smeared them with paint. That partly resolved the problem, — perhaps

Interesting. Goodman would probably deny the alleged problem, or see it not as inherent in the medium of photography but rather as a failure to see and interpret the photographs with enough discernment and discrimination. But then he would acknowledge the potential efficacy (just not the necessity) of the proposed solution.

Funny how thus doctoring the photos doesn't necessarily reduce their evidential/trace value. While the apps mentioned by @Jack Cummins probably do?

Anatomical diagrams are a good example here, — Count Timothy von Icarus

Yes, excellent. Especially in pressing Goodman's point that

a thing's properties, "what it is." — Count Timothy von Icarus

is relative to the scientific or other purpose.

Things are phenomenologicaly present in pictures. — Count Timothy von Icarus

But here you're back in the other thread.

Isn't this kind of side-stepping the debate and saying "You have your truth, I have mine" — AmadeusD

Haha, not if @Michael can help it. And good for him.

As he says, and I admitted in the first place, I may not be addressing the usual problem, and certainly not in the usual terms.



Yes, you raise some relevant points about aesthetic notions and doctrines concerning photorealism, which might help expose the subtext I mentioned.

What would a "broken" chain be? — Michael

If conveyance of a physical trace is the criterion, the chain is broken by any link that fails to convey an actual physical trace from one link to another.

An artist's or AI's visual image might be richly informative, and even be considered a true picture of the reported scene or event, but it would break any chain of supposed forensic connection with that scene. Just as a verbal description would break that chain, even if true.

Is seeing my face in a mirror an "unbroken" chain and so "direct" perception of my face? — Michael

If you mean, is your retinal image, or the array of reflectance in the glass, a physical trace of the light reflecting off your face, obviously yes. And the process is direct in the sense of an unbroken chain of conveyance of physical properties and patterns and effects, but indirect in the sense of the properties being transformed and the patterns distorted.

Is watching football on TV an "unbroken" chain and so "direct" perception of a football match? — Michael

I expect most fans of TV football hope that the displayed picture completes an unbroken chain of conveyance of physical traces from the light and sound reflecting off players and scenery at a particular place and time. They would be displeased to learn that the chain began or (restarted) at a different place and time, perhaps in an AI.

So would I. Sometimes a direct, I mean unbroken, connection with reality is important to the epistemic value of audiovisual footage. Although it doesn't guarantee any such value. And it isn't always needed.

I'm not even sure which properties you're claiming to be "presented in and constitutive of the photo". — Michael

Visual ones.

I guess, the same work as "actually"? — bongo fury

But also, the hidden subtext of "forensic" and "physical trace". Which I think Goodman would argue is skewing the debate.

What is the word “directly” doing here? — Michael

I guess, the same work as "actually"?

I'm not defending direct realism on that basis.

Direct and indirect then both apply, in different senses: direct because connecting in an unbroken chain; indirect because involving links and transformations. — bongo fury

Do you mean that some part of the computer running the game would need the detail?
— bongo fury
It would need to simulate the NPC down to the biochemical level. The NPC would need to be conscious to believe anything, and not just appear to believe stuff. — noAxioms

How isn't this as confused as saying "the computer would need to simulate the weather event down to the level of water droplets. The weather event would need to be wet and windy, and not just appear to be wet and windy."

The NPC in the computer game would need that amazing level of detail to actually believe stuff (like the fact that he's not being simulated), and not just appear (to an actual player) to believe stuff. — noAxioms

Do you mean that some part of the computer running the game would need the detail? Then you're talking about an AI, a simulation in the unproblematic sense of a working model: a physical replication or approximation. You might consider subjecting it to an elaborate deception, of course, but then you would be in what you have rightly demarcated as a different set of problems: the VR ones.

Or do you mean that a fictional character described and depicted in the game would need the detail? To actually believe stuff, like the fact that he's not fictional?

A simulation is a running process, not just a map. — noAxioms

A running process isn't just a succession of maps? Does magic happen?

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...