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.

If you're of the mindset that all mental states are brain states, then psychological solutions are material solutions.

OK, I was thinking more in terms of answers to questions, but in any case, "learning to accept my intrusive thoughts and not fight them" is a material change of behavior isn't it. I mean instead of sitting or lying there and ruminating, don't you go and do something else? — Janus

Distracting can help, but mostly it's a process of telling the intrusive thought (something along the lines of): hello irrational thought, I'm not going to fear you.

Learning to accept my intrusive thoughts and not fight them went a long way in solving my rumination problem.

If pain hurts, you're not a zombie.

All solutions to problems are material solutions. What other kind(s) of solutions can you offer an example of? — Janus

Psychological solutions, or are therapists completely worthless?

The point of course would be, how you could you tell the mental state apart from a programmed response? I don't think, in theory, you could. — Sam26

Maybe not but that's an epistemological point. It seems to me that P-zombies can exist iff there are no actions caused solely by mental states.

Yes, and this is why I said, "...they lack the internal subjective experiences of a real self," which was meant to mean they are not conscious. It's difficult to know if such a zombie would really act like a conscious being. It seems that you could in theory make them respond just like us. It would be like playing a game, say, World of Warcraft, and not knowing if you're talking with a real person or not. — Sam26

I don't think they could act entirely like a conscious being because conscious beings' actions are sometimes caused by their mental states.

If we're not conscious in the way that philosophers like Chalmers claim we are, then qualia would count as such a word in our universe. Idealism would be another. Platonism would be yet another. Not to conflate those three terms, but it demonstrates that if the world is physical, it doesn't prevent us from coming up with non-physical words. — Marchesk

Doesn't coming up with words for mere possibilities require imagination?

One possible answer, is that the zombie is just programmed to say these kinds of things. If, for example, our reality is a kind of program of sorts, then it's quite possible that some being (what we refer to as a person) might just be part of the program. They act like us, they talk like us, but they lack the internal subjective experiences of a real self. It's certainly possible, but unless you were able to remove yourself from the program, it would be difficult if not impossible to tell the difference. — Sam26

Except the zombie is supposed to be identical to me except for being conscious. I don't talk about my mental states due to any programming; when I talk bout being in pain, say, it's because I want to inform someone about my mental state.

Actually Chalmers touches on this because, if his zombie-twin has an "inverted spectrum" of any conscious experience, for example, (sees blue where the other sees red i.e.) then there necessarily will be different "causal histories" of that type of experience, even if the experiences themselves are the same. So isomorphic mapping of history can be problematic. — Pantagruel

I'm wondering how P-zombies could have a history that involves the development of words that refer to conscious experiences they don't have.

Would Chalmer's P-zombie twin also have the same evolutionary history as Chalmers?

:100:

This just anecdotal, but I see a lot more articles and videos on consciousness than I used to. I think materialism/physicalism is waning.

I'll say no. Will you answer my question now? — InPitzotl

A physical description of photons would suffice if physical stuff actually exists. If idealism is true, however, describing photons as physical things that exist independent of mind(s) would be false. A physical description of photons can only work if A) idealism isn't the case and B) they're not conscious.

You said that before. Do you mean something besides "pain is painful"? — Srap Tasmaner

Pain hurts. Do you agree? If you want to say pain is painful, I'm fine with that. When you unpack that, you're going to get something like: pain feels bad. So then, any definition of pain has to mention the fact that pain hurts/feels bad/is painful, otherwise it's incomplete. Agreed?