I emailed this to a famous philosopher of mind on the off chance she was bored and didn't have anything better to do. Apparently, she didn't. She said people would take issue with (3). She said:

"i think most people would deny 3. you can communicate about clark kent without communicating about superman"

And I replied that Clark Kent is not identical to Superman. They're the same person, but there are obvious differences between the two.

Cool. If mental states merely represent brains states, it isn’t contradictory for mental states to have a logic vocabulary while still allowing brain states their scientific vocabulary.

Again, my argument is strictly against brain state=mental state.

If mental states are representations of brain states A), what does that mean, exactly, and B) don't you run into the same problem? if mental states represent brain states, then two people who know nothing about brains shouldn't be able to meaningfully talk about representations of brain states. But they can, because even if they don't know anything about brains, they certainly know about their own mental states. So, if they can talk about their mental states without knowing anything about brains, and mental states are representations of brain states, they're talking about representations of brain states without knowing anything about brain states. How is that possible? Can you give me an example of two people not knowing anything about X able to meaningfully talk about representations of X?

Besides, nobody, not even scientists, think in brain state vocabulary terms, so either what we consider thinking isn’t real, or another vocabulary is justified because it is.

There is a definite scientific vocabulary when it comes to brains: neurons, synapses, receptors, potential, etc.

You've just got the relation backward: mental states are a kind of brain state, and talking about brain states can tell you things about mental states, but not necessarily vice-versa.

I'm arguing against the position that equates the two (identity theory). My argument doesn't work against dualists.

Like how a description of subatomic particles can tell you what's going on in chemistry, but you don't have to know anything about that deep physics to talk about chemistry.

Except no one thinks chemistry is identical to physics or subatomic particles. I'm arguing strictly against people who claim mental states are identical to brain states. If that's the case, then two people who know nothing about brains shouldn't be able to meaningfully communicate about their own mental states. But of course we know they can.

I think we're headed for a no true scotsman, where every example I give of religion and philosophy is going to elicit the same response from you: nope, not philosophy, not religion, not science. Until we get to whatever arbitrary definition you've come up with for these things. So, no thanks.

But what would morality consist in if not moral thinking and the actions proceeding therefrom? Or are you suggesting that moral thinking cannot be correct or incorrect, and that hence there is no morality, that is no good or bad behavior?

And the actions proceeding therefrom. Morality is not just "moral thinking". Morality has to do with the rightness and wrongness of actions. If free will is impossible, then talking about the rightness or wrongness of what a person does would make as much sense as talking about the rightness or wrongness of what a blender does. A machine is a machine and without free-will, we're just biological machines.

But again, to retroactively call tool-making and cave art "science" or animistic beliefs "religious discussion" is a just confusion.

Discussions of animistic beliefs aren't religious discussions? What an odd thing to claim.

I don't think we have anything either. Or, to put it more precisely, if we have alien stuff, then I think the zoo hypothesis solution to the Fermi Paradox is right, to the point that we're being deceived about the universe on a massive scale.

"Regardless of whether there is free will, whatever that is taken to mean, it is obvious that moral thinking goes on, from which it follows that there is morality."

Well, it follows that moral thinking is going on.

Solipsism obviously isn't true, so...

I don't see the obviousness, but I would certainly prefer it not to be true.

How would morality exist without free will?

I guess it would be. I completely misread your poll. I could have sworn there were two options: moral objectivism and moral relativism. Funny, how the mind plays tricks on us.

Maybe it's me. Maybe I'm too stupid to understand Goodman.

How would morality exist if solipsism is true? How could morality exist if free will is impossible?

There should be an option for "morality doesn't exist".

No, it isn't. Looking under a rock is not science. If we define that as "science," then apes do science as well. It's an absurd definition.

Looking under a rock CAN be science. It isn't always science and it isn't always not science. The scientific method wasn't codified until recently, but I don't think you can invent something without doing science. It might be really primitive science, but the essence will still be there: hypothesis, experimentation, analysis, and conclusion. How would one develop, say a canoe, without doing all that?

No, this is completely wrong.

Logic is a branch of philosophy, which is what the above poster is talking about. Philosophy has not been going on since humans "created art" -- that's as meaningless as to say science was going on. All we know with high likelihood is that there was creativity present, that these early people (say 100,000 years ago) had language, and that thinking was going on.

To say this equates to "philosophy, science, and logic" is pure confusion.

I don't see any reason to assume the homo sapiens of any given time period were any less intelligent than we are. I'm sure, at the very least, they had metaphysical discussions about the nature of reality, religious discussions, and ethical dilemmas to sort out.

Well, the explanation for that seems straightforward: a) ETI's have only been able to emerge in a durable way relatively recently in cosmological time b) not enough time has elapsed to see the emergence of a Type II civilization, given the time-lag in communication between us and Andromeda (much less galaxies further out).

Andromeda is too close away for that to be an issue. Stars like our sun have been around for billions of years, and for most of our own history, life was unicellular, so there's been plenty of time for someone to be ahead of us. I see no reason to suspect that the window for reaching technological advancement is so narrow, that nobody has done it yet. Nobody? Out of all the billions of life-permitting planets in this galaxy alone? Nobody is, say, a million years ahead of us? And out of all the galaxies in our local group, nobody is, say, 20 million years ahead of us?

I just don't think we have reason to believe we're that special. I think there's a competing theory that doesn't violate the mediocrity principle so badly: this is a simulation, and the creators want to save on computing power, so it's just us in the universe.

Of course, a Dyson Sphere might seem to an advanced ETI like Steampunk seems to us; a quaint way of extrapolating about the future. Essential to the history of our species has been the discovery of more and more efficient ways of generating energy; we may be on the cusp of (another) energy revolution, one that makes the need to capture the energy of a star much more trouble than it is worth...

But it's not trouble to capture a star's energy, that's the thing. If you're figuring on some fantastic new energy source, then you must also figure on miraculous advances in other areas, like nanomachines. It would take almost no effort at all to swarm a star with solar collectors if you have advanced enough self-replicating machines. Under no scenario is it plausible for an advanced civ to let its star's energy radiate out into space if it has the means to easily gather it, store it, and/or use it for computation.

Computation is the big thing. We can already see how no matter how much you have, it's nice to have more, and computation requires energy, so if there are advanced civs, they're going to harness as much energy as possible. That means harnessing whatever future energies there are (if any) AND all the current energy sources, and that means we should see Dyson Swarms.

also it's worth pointing out, that we won't need energy to keep pace with an expanding population, since the demographic transition strongly suggests that the total species population will go into a permanent reduction sometime this century. The ratio of energy available per person may soon be off-chart. It makes sense further to say that "we" biologicals might never engage in interstellar exploration & conquest, instead that will be left up to Homo Superior who will replace us.

We will always need computation, so we will always need energy.

My rule of thumb has always been that good philosophy is immediately clear and understandable: Plato's allegory of the Cave is perfect, so is Nagel's experience machine, "what it's like to be a bat", Thomson's violinist analogy, Rawls "veil of ignorance" and Hume's Riddle of Induction. Here's what I consider "bad philosophy" (Goodman's modern riddle of induction):

"For some arbitrary future time t, say January 1, 2030, for all green things observed prior to t, such as emeralds and well-watered grass, both the predicates green and grue apply. Likewise for all blue things observed prior to t, such as bluebirds or blue flowers, both the predicates blue and bleen apply. On January 2, 2030, however, emeralds and well-watered grass are bleen and bluebirds or blue flowers are grue. The predicates grue and bleen are not the kinds of predicates used in everyday life or in science, but they apply in just the same way as the predicates green and blue up until some future time t. From the perspective of observers before time t it is indeterminate which predicates are future projectible (green and blue or grue and bleen)."

What a mess. This, to me, gives philosophy a bad name.

Philosophy can always help, specifically the branch called epistemology (study of knowledge).

“If someone tells me there is a horse in the field behind their house, I won’t need any more evidence to believe them than their word… but, if they tell me there is a unicorn, I wouldn’t believe it even if they showed me photographs”.

This is an example of "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence", which you may have heard. The claim that unicorns (mythological creatures) exist is extraordinary for obvious reasons. Extraordinary claims tend to not be true because they usually turn out to be mistaken ordinary claims (e.g., UFO claims). So if a claim is extraordinary, it can usually be safely dismissed unless the person making the claim provides really compelling evidence. Sometimes it's wrong to dismiss extraordinary claims. "The Earth is round" was probably an extraordinary claim for much of our history. It certainly doesn't look round. Same with the Earth going around the sun. Quantum mechanics makes a lot of extraordinary claims. Quantum physicists still can't agree on what's going on in experiments that have been around for decades (e.g., Many Worlds Interpretation vs. Copenhagen Interpretation).

Another thing that's helpful to do is assign degrees of belief to claims. The claim "there's a unicorn in the backyard" would be assigned a very low degree of belief (percentage). The claim "the sun will rise tomorrow" would be assigned a very high percentage. Claims that have a high degree of belief are "safe" claims to believe in- you probably won't be wrong. Claims with low degrees of belief require evidence to "safely" believe in.

When Davis is quoted as saying "we couldn't make it ourselves," I think the "we" he is referring to is the United States military, not humankind.

If the U.S. military couldn't make it, who could?

Explain why "it would make no sense" for interstellar travelers' "system" not to be "filled with space habitats and energy collectors" or other such megastructures.

So they're going to do interstellar travel, but they're not going to colonize or build space habitats and solar collectors? That, right there, is silly. But here are reasons:

1. You don't put all your eggs in one basket. Existential threats exist.
2. You don't leave energy lying around if you can cheaply collect and store it (this goes back to the implication that if interstellar travel is possible, efficient antimatter production and storage is possible). Spare energy is never a bad thing to have.
3. You increase available computing power.
4. Population pressures (possibly mitigated by population controls)
5. Convenience (there are benefits to space habitats)

Of course the Elder-hypothesis is highly unlikely, but it rises in probability as we eliminate alternative explanations. I don't think the "Rare Earth" hypothesis is viable. Almost certainly there are civilizations advanced beyond us in other galaxies, but at inter-galactic distances (esp with an expanding universe) there is not even the theoretical possibility of Contact with them.

That's true. Given enough galaxies, it's not too improbable that we might be the first in this galaxy. The problem is that we can see all these other galaxies. We've surveyed about 100,000 now, looking for large-scale megastructures, chunks of "missing galaxy" because of Dyson swarm activity, other stuff like that. But we haven't seen any evidence of any of it. That would mean we're either the "elder" race out of all the galaxies we can see (highly unlikely), or there's a filter or limiting factor that kicks in that stops a civ from colonizing and building Dyson swarms. I can see hitting a wall on the colonizing front- maybe there's insolvable tech issues. But on Dyson swarms? We're already in the early (early early) stage in building ours. There doesn't seem to be any limiting tech factor in swarming a star with tons of solar panels. Unless you just don't need that much power, and that would mean a tech great computing filter in our near future, because if there's a way to compute, and a convienent power source, you're going to push your computation power as high as it will go, and that would mean swarming the system with solar collectors to the point where it would be very obvious to us.

Ironically enough, I think a future-Filter explanation is part of the reason why we are (probably) among the Elders. I've read that earlier in the history of our galaxy, the neutron-star collisions needed for trace-element nucleosynthesis were more frequent than they are today; and the gamma-ray bursts associated with just those energetic events would wipe out existing life anywhere within a considerable portion of the galaxy that was in the vicinity of these events. It might well have been the case that complex life and even civilization arose in the relatively recent cosmological past, that was dispatched in this way. Just as in the way that life on Earth emerged soon after meteor-impact abated enough to make it possible, intelligent life emerging now and hereafter has a more stable cosmological environment to develop in.

I'm sympathetic to that hypothesis. But, like I said, we can see other galaxies, and we don't see any evidence of anyone else around. Everywhere we look, the universe looks pristine and untouched. How can that be? Are we the first in the observable universe???

If I was a materialist, I would believe the solution to the Fermi Paradox is that we're in a simulation, and in the world of the simulators there are limits on computing power. The simulators don't want to waste computation on alien races. I also expect us to hit a wall on computer progress. That would be another way to save on computing power. But maybe not. If we're the only intelligent things in the simulation, they may have computing power to spare to let us continue improving our computers. But anyway...

It's likely of course that we are not the very first; as I said, we can say that notionally we have one to two dozen ETI's roughly contemporary with us in the The Milky Way. Just as in the case of the Age of Exploration in the history of Earth, those civilizations that become interstellar space-faring civilizations first will have the ability to subject the entire galaxy to an imperial conquest.

This should already have happened in other galaxies.

All this suggests that we are probably "alone" (though we may have a couple dozen rough contemporaries elsewhere in the galaxy) - meaning, we are Elders, we're the ones who can strike out into the undiscovered country of the galaxy and make its real estate our own.

Yeah, that's possible, but it's highly highly unlikely that we would be the first "Elder" race. Stars like the sun and planets like Earth have been around a long long time. Someone else should be ahead of us by now, if not this galaxy, then other galaxies, and then it would be a very short time (as far as the universe goes) to completely colonize a galaxy. Since we don't see this in any of the galaxies we've looked at, I think a filter hypothesis is more likely.

Hi. So, is this the evidence you've come to believe should happen if they exist? [/quote]

Hi! That is the evidence I believe should happen if they exist AND have the technology to cross interstellar distances. Yes, their system should be filled with space habitats and energy collectors. It would make no sense for it to not be.

Your use of language was wrong. I don't think it's semantically nitpicking in these kinds of identity questions.

That doesn't follow. It depends on how you define "you" in this context.

I'm going by the definition we've all agreed on for "you" and "me" and "I". Those are singular pronouns. They can't refer to more than one person (well, "you" can, but not in the context we're using it).

Thanks for the link! I have to read up on this. It's been 20 years since I was in class.

Something about meat is special.

That's very ad hoc. It's much simpler to avoid the special pleading and just go with idealism.

I agree with you that consciousness isn't computable. That would be another case of special pleading: series XY...Z of switching actions/q-bit whatevers produces a conscious experience but series AB...C doesn't? That makes no sense. What's so special about XY...Z? Why should the order in which switches are pulled have anything to do with consciousness?

No. Both have equal claim to be "me" (thereby leading to disastrous moral and practical consequences)..

That can't be right because "me" and "you" are singular pronouns. One of the transporter people could be you, or none of them could be you, but logically, they both can't be you. For example, they could both make a claim to be "John Smith", but the only way they could have equal claim to being John Smith is if both of them are John Smith (impossible) or neither of them is John Smith (probably also impossible).

This is an issue I've wondered about when people talk about simulation theory. Are they simulating my reality as in Descartes' deceiver? If so, then my "I" is still separate from my vat programmers. Do the simulationists instead mean that the computer not only creates my reality, but also somehow creates my "I"? So that my I is an illusion too? And Descartes was wrong? That's the argument for simulating a mind. That Descartes was wrong about the primacy of his I.

Simulation theory runs into the same problems materialism does wrt consciousness: how does opening and closing switches (or q-bits) in some special order produce conscious experience?

I have a direct experience, that's an ultimate proof. Anything trying to prove it more or deny it it's simply a waste of time.
— Eugen

Well I have direct (personal) experience of the 17 gods who created our world. Is that an 'ultimate proof' of my 17-god theology?

All of them with some success for the easy problem and 0 success on the hard problem. Again, the hard problem has been avoided and even denied, but ultimately it has remained untouched by materialism.
— Eugen

The hard problem is understood by some precisely so that progress can't be made (so that nothing could count as progress.)

'I demand an objective explanation for stuff that only I have access to or am.'

I'd argue toward a philosophical explanation of consciousness. The word 'materialistic' tends to mislead people into equally useless assumptions (of ineffable stuff we can't be objective about).

Materialism (and materialists) make very bold claims about reality. They should have a causal explanation for consciousness by now.

The world is not sensations or noemata.

It's debatable whether there's an outer physical world. It's not debatable there's an "inner" mental world that is composed of sensations and noemata. Now, are you going to say this inner/mental world isn't part of "the world"? That's absurd. So it would seem that at least part of the world IS sensations and noemata.

Other than that, I enjoyed your post.

Well, that's a pseudo-question so ... and "idealism" is (mostly) just woo-of-gaps. :roll: The more interesting (less speculative) question is: how does non-consciousness arise from consciousness (e.g. sleep, auto-pilot habit) and yield consciousness again (e.g. waking-up, novelty)?

Yes, that's interesting as well. As there's no agreed explanation for how consciousness arises, you can't get much more speculative than "how do brains produce consciousness?".

I don't see anything "wooish" about idealism. It never strays from first-principles. There are things we know that exist (mind(s), thoughts, ideas, sensations), and reality is made of this mental stuff. Since materialism posits the (unproveable) existence of non-mental stuff, it's far less parsimonious.

It's the "something from nothing" problem. "How does consciousness arise from non-conscious matter?" How does something (consciousness) arise from nothing (non-conscious matter ( (although the "nothing" here doesn't refer to the noun "matter", but rather the adjective: non-conscious))? Idealism makes this a non-issue, although it begs some obvious questions.

I agree that its a judgment call, but the idea that we've been running in circles (i.e. in philosophy) for 400 years since Descartes and that literally everything written since then has no value or has contributed nothing to the philosophical discussion strikes me as completely ludicrous... not least because of the fact that some of that work includes credible critiques of Descartes himself- Descartes own account of the mind is far from perfect or unassailable, that would be quite depressing if we have made no progress from that. I mean really, Descartes of all people is where you identify our philosophical accounts of the mind as having plateaued? And this is all granting the highly implausible notion that none of the results of the scientific study of the brain (and especially its relation to the mind) have any philosophical significance at all. If that's what you sincerely believe, okay, but good luck actually defending or supporting any of that.

We've made tremendous progress in identifying brain state/mental state correlations. I see no progress on the causation front. When it comes to how non-conscious matter gives rise to conscious experience, we're still completely flummoxed.

Well said.

Who gets triggered by discussions about consciousness?

That is an excellent piece of writing by Nagel. He's always been a great writer. He's also right. Dennet tries to dress it up, but he's essentially denying consciousness, which is stupid and a non-starter with anyone who's not emotionally invested in materialism. Any "ism" that ends up denying conscious experience is doomed from the start.

If people "shrink down to electrons", then they behave exactly like electrons

You misquoted me. If X is shrunk to the size of Y, X does not turn into Y. In the thought experiment, people shrunk down to the size of electrons would not "behave exactly like electrons". They would behave like people.

What would that tiny person experience as they go through one at a time if the MWI of QM is correct? If the Copenhagen Interpretation is correct?

Is imagination dead here?

Assume a miracle happens and people shrink down to electrons and are shot at some double slits.

Given that all extant cosmological evidence indicates that it had a planck radius at "the beginning", the universe is a very-far-from-equilibrium "macroscale" effect of a primordial "microscale uncaused event" (i.e. quantum fluctuation) it seems to me, and, therefore, not a(n act of) "creation".

Yes, you have an easy to understand causal chain for any normal event, all the way back to the beginning of the universe, and then at some point, the causal chain ends at some uncaused cause? That's going to be a hard sell. I don't think invoking planck raiduses is very convincing. Science has so far succeeded wildly about explaining things. We should expect that to continue in cosmology, not end with an uncaused cause.