Sorry, I totally skipped this: "(Not really "knows", but is constrained thus.)"

Sorry!

Doesn't seem absurd to me. — Kenosha Kid

If we use the standard definition, how could a collection of switches have a justified true belief about anything? How would that work?

It "knows" kind of like a computer would know, but without a programmer (that we know of, unless you're a creationist). — Kenosha Kid

Can a collection of electronic switches be said to know anything? Doesn't that seem absurd?

There's a sound in my head? Are sights and smells in there as well? — Ciceronianus

Imo, the best objection to the theory that mental states are identical to brain states is simply that I can imagine a blue car, but there's no blue car in my skull. Same with songs; we can play songs "in our heads", but there's no music in our skulls. This is pretty off-topic, though.

suppose you are referring to computer simulations ... I also suppose that such a simulation is "playing" right now w/o anyone watching (observing) it. Well, for one thing the simulation does not exist (by itself, as such), anyway. What exists is a computer "playing" a simulation and w/o knowing it plays a simulation. It is us who call it a "simulation". As TV can "play a program" w/o anyone watching. It is us you call it a program

But this is too obvious.So you maybe mean something else? — Alkis Piskas

I think it's obvious, but I've seen raging arguments between people who think computers can simulate things with no one observing the computer vs. people who think that without an observer, a computer simulation is just a bunch of pixels and sounds. I fall in the latter category.

Shutting up and calculate was made the norm. — Cartuna

Sean Carrol talks about that. Why don't scientists want to get to the bottom of it?

I see what you did there!

If he's right that the physical universe doesn't count (and I think that's true), then presumably brains can't count (I also agree).

The physical universe doesn't count. There's nothing "out there" that calculates. It's us who do. — Alkis Piskas

I agree. Do you think simulations can exist without anyone observing them?

I think I was being kind of nitpicky. A lot of what makes up our knowledge comes from casual conversations with people and casual reading of books without any testing or verification. That's a fair point.

The US Republican-Trump party is now working to install loyalists in swing-state election-admin posts, so that they can manipulate the 2024 count to ensure he wins - all in defense of the stop-the-steal lie, which 2/3 of them still believe. — Tim3003

I was worried about this too, but a disputed election will be challenged in the courts, and ultimately SCOTUS, and none of the judges on there are morons. Will Republicans abide by what this particular SCOTUS says? Enough will so that our democracy will continue.

Isn't that sad? — RogueAI

:up: :100:

I like a good discussion, and I learn new things here, but a part of me loves it when someone puts a :100: next to something I've said. Isn't that sad?

What about chess programs that are superior to humans? Do they have minds?
— RogueAI

Certainly not. — apokrisis

I missed this. How do you know chess computers don't have minds?

Of course there are exceptions where we need to verify someone's account of things, but my point is, that there are many instance of knowing that don't involve the perspective of science. I'm saying that sometimes I have verification apart from science or experiment. — Sam26

That's true, but not applicable here. If I tell you I've solved the hard problem, you wouldn't just take my word for it.

But my life doesn't depend on guessing correctly, if it did then things would be much different in terms of what we know. — Sam26

I was pointing out that in certain circumstances, just telling someone what's in your back yard doesn't cut it as a good explanation. As the stakes go up, the need for verification increases.

If I explain what's in my backyard, isn't that most likely a good explanation of what's in my yard, or do you need to test it. — Sam26

What if your life somehow depended on guessing correctly that there is a tree in my yard? Would you just take my word for it if I said there wasn't, and my answer would get you killed? Wouldn't you want to verify my answer?

No. It is a simple enough materialist account. — apokrisis

If it was a simple enough account, we wouldn't be posting in yet another "problem of consciousness" thread, yet here we are.

Thank you for these tutorials in the philosophy of science. But you might want to check your facts. — apokrisis

This is not clear: "And do the tests claim the theory is true? Or do they make the more modest epistemic claim that the theory seems pragmatically reliable in terms of the purposes you had in mind?"

What does "they" refer to? Tests? Tests don't make claims.

Of course. In the same way that all theories have to be motivated by a counterfactual framing - one which could even in principle have a yes/no answer.

So are all minds the result of a mush of complicated neurology found inside skulls? As a first step towards a natural philosophy account of consciousness, does this feel 99% certain to you.

If not, why not? Where is your evidence to the contrary? — apokrisis

I'm strongly in favor of idealism. I think the explanatory gap is evidence that science can't solve the hard problem. The gap will grow and grow and people will eventually abandon the scientific approach to "solving" consciousness. There's nothing to be solved because matter doesn't exist.

Does poking this delicate mush with a sharp stick cause predictable damage to consciousness? Well ask any lobotomy patient.

And so we can continue - led by the hand - to where neuroscience has actually got to in terms of its detailed theories, and the evidence said to support them. — apokrisis

There's an idealist explanation for why poking a brain causes changes to mental states. If you poke a dream brain, the dreamer alters the dream. That's clunky, I admit, and begs the question of why a dreamer would modify their dream when their dream brain is poked, but it IS a non-materialist explanation for why changes to brains results in changes to minds: it's all part of the dream. And as evidence for my assertion that it's all a dream, I'll keep pointing out that we keep running into the hard problem and science keeps not solving it. It's not even close to solving it. There's not even a coherent framework for what an explanation for consciousness will look like. Neuroscience can keep piling up neural correlates to mental states, but that hasn't solved the hard problem, and it won't in the future. There's not going to be an Aha! moment where we get x amount of neural state-mental state correlations, and suddenly grasp the answer to the mind-body problem.

All good moral questions. How do you answer them? — apokrisis

I can't. But then, idealists are very much the minority. Nobody expects idealism to solve anything. I think there's a day of reckoning for physicalism, though. Science has been solving these technical problems for a long time now. But it's going to fail people in this area (machine consciousness), and it's really going to come as a shock to a lot of people. This is still a society very much in love with scientism.

I thought it was because we all act the same way. Roughly. Within engineering tolerances.

You might need a neuroscience degree, along with an MRI machine, to tell if a person is indeed built the same way.

You know. Verified scientific knowledge and not merely social heuristics. — apokrisis

Maybe. But we all also have brains, hearts, lungs, etc. A liquid nitrogen cooled computer the size of a room that passes a turning test is not going to resemble a person at all. People aren't going to assume it has a mind. Getting people to go along with machine rights isn't going to be easy, esp. when the scientists just shrug when people ask them if the machines are conscious.

And do the tests claim the theory is true? Or do they make the more modest epistemic claim that the theory seems pragmatically reliable in terms of the purposes you had in mind? — apokrisis

Tests and observations are evidence. Evidence is used to confirm/disconfirm theories.

Which of these standards do you want to hold mind science to? — apokrisis

The same standards for all theories. Relativity theory has been confirmed to the nth degree at this point. I expect a physicalist theory of mind to also make testable predictions that result in it being highly confirmed. Why should a theory of mind be any different? Are minds special? Do theories of minds somehow run into an epistemic wall? I think minds are special, and I think science will continue to have nothing to say about the mind-body problem, and the failure of science so far to explain how matter can produce consciousness doesn't surprise me. I predict it will continue. Science will never be able to explain consciousness. It can't even define it.

Science promises pragmatism. And so one suggested test of artificial consciousness is the Turing proposal. Interact with the machine and see if it behaves exactly like all the other meat puppets that surround you - the people you might call your family and friends, and to whom you pragmatically grant the gift of being conscious. — apokrisis

The Turing Test is not a test for consciousness, but let's say it is. If something passes the Turing Test, we should assume it's conscious? OK, does it then have rights? Can you deactivate a machine that passes the turing test? Beat it with a sledgehammer when it malfunctions? Degrade its performance so it can't pass the test anymore and then do what you want with it? Recycle it? What obligations do we have to things that pass the Turing Test?

You will never know whether it is actually true that you Mom has a mind. But for all practical purposes, I'm sure you act as if you believe that to be the case. — apokrisis

We assume each other are conscious beings because we're all built roughly the same way. That assumption doesn't cut it with machines. At what point should we assume machines have minds? Do you think anything that passes the Turing Test should be assumed to have a mind? What about chess programs that are superior to humans? Do they have minds? What about an AI that passes Turing Tests 90% of the time? 75%? 50%? If we don't develop a theory of mind that makes testable predictions (and we won't), we're going to be in trouble before too long.

Does science, in principle, verify or falsify its hypotheses? — apokrisis

It certainly tries to. Good theories make testable predictions.

And would neuroscience talk about the feelings of insects in terms of them being composed of similar matter to humans - some matching proportion of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, phosphorous, other trace elements? Or would the arguments have to be made in terms of having significantly similar "neural structure"? — apokrisis

Any physical theory of consciousness is going to have to make claims regarding whether certain arrangements of matter are conscious or not. Claims of that nature (that arrangement of matter a,b,c has property x) are testable. If the claim that some computer has property "is conscious" can't be tested, that would be a problem.

I saw this article today:

"For decades, the idea that insects have feelings was considered a heretical joke – but as the evidence piles up, scientists are rapidly reconsidering."
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20211126-why-insects-are-more-sensitive-than-they-seem

The problem for this (and any theory that posits that some assemblage of matter can have subjective experience) is how do you test it? How do scientists verify that insects can in fact feel things? They can't. Theories of consciousness are, in principle, unverifiable. This seems an insoluble problem.

China is just starting to act like we do. Yes, that could be a frightening prospect. — T Clark

This is what scares me about China:
https://www.businessinsider.com/china-social-credit-system-punishments-and-rewards-explained-2018-4

The argument "science has failed to explain consciousness" against science's ability to explain consciousness is common enough, although I don't think that's Chalmers' argument. — Kenosha Kid

How long should science get a pass on failing to explain consciousness?

I guess in a nutshell it is hard for a country or superpower to get as big as the US without being a bit corrupt/"evil" in when dong so. — dclements

The EU is not that far behind the U.S., economically. If the EU suddenly transformed into one large country with a government similar to Germany's, and started spending a lot of money on its military, and it's economy grew by 1/3 (to rival ours) do you think Americans would feel threatened by it? I don't.

Also, while I have a lot of problems with America, I wouldn't trade its government for China's. Would you?

If things get bad enough, we'll pump a bunch of sulphur dioxide into the air.

I already explained how and why the US military and her allies follow something along the lines of the "Hitler doctrine" where they very aggressively (or even over aggressively) seek to hinder the expansion of power of ANY country that might be a threat to them. — dclements

This is hard to prove since the two countries that have made serious bids at rivaling U.S. power have had governments Americans consider (with good reason) "evil".

Almost zero. Both sides have too much to lose.

Roger Ebert's take on Ayn Rand's philosophy: ""I’m on board; pull up the lifeline."

It my intuitions are to be trusted about these cases, then, it seems that if you (in an epistemically responsible way) acquire stolen goods but then do something to them that destroys their original value, you do not owe the original owner anything. — Bartricks

That's my intuition too, but is there a problem where if we codify that we create unintended consequences?

The thief doesn't have that right but it doesn't necessarily mean ownership isn't vested by the new buyer as long as he can demonstrate good faith and it doesn't concern a registered good.

Children cannot enter in valid contracts because they do not have the necessary will for offer and acceptance.

And there's no problem, it's been working fine for at least two centuries. — Benkei

What if the a buys something at the store, and has it stolen from them? The person who got the stuff that was stolen from the kid would be receiving stolen goods, right? And there would be a legal obligation to return the stolen stuff to the kid?

A lot of unintentional hilarity here:
https://thefederalist.com/2021/11/04/how-covid-vaccine-coercion-drove-me-out-of-west-point/

This is a common mistake found in posts in perception/phenomenology threads.

Try to be clear about what it is you're referring to. — Caldwell

I'm saying there is a class of things (mental states) that cannot be described by observers other than oneself.

Do first person experiences count as phenomena or are they experiences of phenomena? — Janus

Are first-person experiences a thing? I think they are. If they are, then you are admitting there is some thing in the universe that cannot be described by another observer.

Is that an actual quote from Dennett: did he actually say that?

If he did say exactly that, then the obvious critique would be that a third person account is not a first person account; so by definition a third person account cannot include a first person account without being something more or other than just a third person account. So, I cannot see how Dennett could be claiming that a third person account could include a first person account; I doubt he would claim something so obviously absurd, so I conclude that he must mean something else, and we would need to see the context to find out what that is. — Janus

Do you agree then that there are phenomena in the universe (first-person experiences) that cannot be described by an objective third party?

'Pain' seems to be a word reserved to describe the experience of had by the experiencer of a human. It would be a lie to say that I feel pain, in the context of this topic, so lacking an experiencer, I cannot by definition feel pain any more than can a robot with damage sensors. Again, I may use the word in casual conversation (outside the context of this topic) not because I'm lying, but because I lack alternative vocabulary to describe what the pure physical automaton does, something which by your definition cannot feel pain since it lacks this experiencer of it. — noAxioms

How far does you skepticism go? Do you think there's a strong possibility you're the only mind in existence?

I don't feel pain. I'm a zombie, remember? — noAxioms

Are you pretending for the thread, or do you actually think you're a p-zombie?

We do not postulate anything. If you can see and touch a thing you have to be far off to even think about the possibility that it might not "exist". That is the problem with undirected reflections and witty, but mindless, efforts. If e.g. social constructivism tells us that we can construct the "reality" of things it is clear that we can construct an idea of things that makes it impossible to say anything about
it. Given we can - why should we do it?
Where is step B? Where is the negation of the negation? What should be the difference between empirical science and philosophy be, if it loses itself to it's objects (e.g. "truth")? — Heiko

This would be more compelling if materialists had some idea of what consciousness is and how brains produce it. Let me ask you: suppose science is still stumped on consciousness 1,000 years from now. Would you still think all there is is matter?

Instead of mental state = physical state, you would have mental state = mental state, which would commit you to either idealism or dualism.

Who says it's unsolvable? — frank

I think it is. I think scientists can study this for a thousand more years and still not know how minds are produced by brains. This is because there's no way to verify other minds exist. You can only be certain that your own mind exists. So, if a scientific theory predicts that that clump of matter over there is conscious, how are we going to verify it? That seems like an insolvable problem.