Declaring that "X cannot give rise to Y" (or asking, rhetorically, "how can X give rise to Y") does not answer anything, or advance our understanding. It is like asserting that an iron boat could not float. Often, this rhetorical style is used as a way to avoid considering the issue.

Reductio ad absurdum is a valid move in philosophy. If materialism entails that consciousness can arise from people passing notes around with 1's and 0's written on them, I think we're very close to an "absurdity". I guess I can argue why it's absurd, if you like, but it seems prima facie very unlikely consciousness would arise that way. It's a short hop from consciousness arising from people passing notes with number on them to consciousness arising from shifting sand dunes, falling abacuses, and meteor swarms. Is panpsychism compatible with materialism? It's pretty popular these days. I don't think the two can co-exist, though.

The premise that consciousness can be simulated rests on a number of lesser premises, none of which are obviously false (at least if you put aside 'arguments' of the above form):

Consciousness appears to arise in physical brains doing physical things.
Physical systems can be simulated by a digital computer.
Something processing information in a functionally-identical manner to a conscious brain would have a conscious mind.

That's the appeal. None of them are obviously false. You have to tease out the absurdity that follows from such a set of premises. This is a great cartoon which does just that: https://xkcd.com/505/

I've had raging arguments with materialists who believe it's possible we're all being simulated by someone endlessly moving rocks around on an endless plain (see cartoon). To me, there's no difference between that and transubstantiation: in both cases, a miracle is assumed to happen- crackers become the flesh of Jesus; consciousness arises about from someone moving rocks around.

I like the way Scott Aaronson puts it: if you replaced each of my neurons, one at a time, with a functionally-identical silicon device, would there come a point where I stopped being conscious?

Yes, the transporter scares the hell out of me. Slowly replacing my neurons with functional equivalents while I'm awake wouldn't bother me much at all. The end result is the same. Perhaps our intuitions can't be trusted.

These are all premises, but not unreasonable ones. You might disagree with the conclusion, but that alone would not be an argument against it.

They're not unreasonable. What they entail, if you follow the chain of logic far enough, is an absurdity within the materialist framework of reality.

The justification is in multiplying the probabilities which lead to a technological civilization. You start off with some percentage for habitable planets, factor in some probability of life emerging, then the likelihood of that world being stable enough for life to stick around, then the advent of multicellular life, and finally some form of life that can create sophisticated tech.

On Earth, there's only been one species in 3.5 billion years which matches that. We also have a rather large moon that keeps the Earth from wobbling too much and generates larger tides, which may have played a role. And we have a Jupiter size planet farther out in the solar system which attracts or deflects a lot of large comets and meteors. Also, we don't live too close to the galactic core or a star about to go supernova.

There's a lot of factors that go into us or any complex, idiosyncratic species evolving. And consider one other thing. The principle of mediocrity doesn't change the fact that your birth was a very low probability event. If any one of a trillion things went differently, you probably wouldn't be here. But here you are instead of the countless other humans who could have existed.

Yes, the odds of this particular me existing are very remote. Everything had to work out right. But this particular me is pretty "average" and "mediocre", so there's a false equivalence there.

Like I said before, Rare Earth Hypothesis is fine, except for the fact it has to compete with other plausible hypotheses. If Rare Earth hypothesis stipulates that advanced intelligence is the product of countless events that have to go just right, the "specialness" problem still remains: why should we believe the conditions that made us possible are so atypical? This is a problem because there's a competing theory that doesn't violate the mediocrity principle and still answers the Fermi Paradox: this is all a simulation. Why shouldn't that be the preferred solution to the Fermi Paradox? It makes far less assumptions.

Can you quote what I'm saying, so I can properly respond to this?

Our habitable conditions may be "average" in some sense, but certainly not with respect to their habitability! Your framing of the problem is absurd: we are not dropped into a random spot in the universe, or else we would have found ourselves floating in empty space.

The habitable conditions here aren't "average" in any sense. If they were, the universe would be teeming with advanced intelligent life. Either the conditions here are/were extremely fantastically rare for intelligent, or there's some other explanation.

You're right when you point out we weren't dropped into some random spots. With all these planets around, we shouldn't be too surprised if it turns out advanced life is really rare and we happened to find ourselves in one of the few spots (anthropic principle).

The problem with the rare-earth hypothesis is that it has to compete with other hypotheses, and it seems more likely to me that instead of assuming we inhabit some very special place, we should assume there's nothing special about us at all. We're one of countless simulations, and the designers just didn't want to bother with anyone except us in this universe.

How can you NOT have a science of the mind? Minds exist, yes? Then there should be theories about how they work. We call that "psychology".

The apparent absence of aliens is pretty good justification.

There are other explanations for that. For the rare earth hypothesis to work, life like us would have to be vanishingly rare. That requires an extreme violation of the mediocrity principle.

I think there's a better explanation: we're in a simulation, and they're saving computing power. It's just us. There's no other plausible explanation for why every galaxy, including our own, looks absolutely pristine and totally untouched.

Government and authority has utterly failed so far to deal with any of the things you mention.

One of the reasons our rivers don't catch on fire anymore is because of government environmental regulations. Also, look up the Montreal Protocol. And also the Paris Climate Agreement, which was ineffective and non-binding, but was still better than nothing at all.

An end to government seems likely too.

No, the need for government, particularly a centralized world government with actual authority, is stronger than ever. There are existential global threats that have to be dealt with:
Climate change, A.I., nanotechnology, nuclear weapon proliferation, gene editing, etc.

I don't have much hope for us. We'll have to walk between raindrops to navigate the minefield. Without a centralized authority, it's totally hopeless.

Absolute truth: there is at least one mind that is conscious.

That's one of the reasons I'm an idealist. We know absolutely mind(s) and ideas exist. We don't have the same surety regarding physical matter.

Scientists should be aware that certain kinds of data will be weaponized by hate groups.

You said

No I'm not, you were talking about things for which we have zero evidence...so was I.

That sure sounds like you're lumping orbiting tea pots and alien life together, since both have zero evidence.

Anyway, it sounds like you admit the possibility of aliens and orbiting tea pots belong in different categories.

No I'm not, you were talking about things for which we have zero evidence...so was I. [/quote]

Yes, you are. There are things we have zero evidence for that are possible, even plausible (alien life), and there are things we have zero evidence for which are not remotely possible (the flying spaghetti monster, orbiting tea pots, etc.).

In other words, you're equating the possibility of alien life existing with the possibility of a tea cup orbiting Jupiter. That's a ludicrous comparison. I certainly expect us to eventually find alien life. Don't you? I certainly don't expect us to find any orbiting tea cups. I assume you agree with this?

Well "as far as we can possibly tell" there are giant silver teapots orbiting all planets beyond our own solar system and entirely invisible moncupators in the back right hand corners of all our fridges. Just because we can't rule something out doesn't mean we have to rule them in.

You're making a category error. The possibility of teapots orbiting planets isn't in the same category as the possibility of advanced alien life or simulation theory. Oribiting teapots aren't taken seriously by anyone. Simulation theory and advanced alien life are certainly taken seriously by many experts.

True, but if it leads to infinite causal regress why not just admit that we have no clue what caused it and focus on attempting to understand what we know exists?

I don't think directed/managed panspermia leads to an infinite regress. An alien race could have taken a much different evolutionary path that avoids these issues entirely. No causal regress needed.

Simulation theory certainly doesn't lead to an infinite regress. It ends at some physical universe where the simulation creators exist. Their evolutionary path could be inconceivable to us, and so again, these issues wouldn't even apply. You would have to wonder why they programmed it in, but that's just a mystery, not an infinite regress.

And infinite regress-like problems certainly hasn't stopped inflation theory from taking off. An infinite ensemble of causally disconnected universes that's impossible to prove? That makes intelligent design look positively pedestrian.

As far as we can possibly tell, the universe has been doing what the universe does for about 14bn years or so - what is the basis for assuming that at some entirely arbitrary point something very extraordinary happened when as far as we can possibly tell, most things are reasonably adequately explained by nothing extraordinary happening (Copernican prinicple)?

Key phrase: "as far as we can possibly tell". As far as we can possibly tell, simulation theory is possible, maybe even plausible (see Nick Bostrom's argument). As far as we can tell, advanced aliens exist and mess around with habitable planets. We're certainly going to do it if we don't destroy ourselves and I don't see why we would be special in that regard.

I don't think they answer anything - there is absolutely zero evidence for intelligent aliens interfering in biological evolution

The chain of logic is fairly straight-forward: given all the planets in the galaxy, it's pretty likely some alien life exists. From that, it follows that advanced alien life possibly exists. The possibility has to be taken seriously, at least. From that you need only posit that advanced alien life might interfere in evolutionary processes. We would, and in another thousand years, we'll probably be doing it.

and how does it help anyway?

It's an explanation for irreducible complexity. Aliens did it.

If it were true then the big question becomes not where did we come from but where did they come from?

Yes, it does beg that question. That does not mean, however, that directed panspermia can't happen. Or didn't happen. Perhaps their evolutionary path was much different than ours.

Ditto, simulation 'theory'...who or what is the simulator?

Again, just because a hypothesis begs a question does not mean that that hypothesis isn't true. Physics and Cosmology posit theories that beg all sorts of interesting unanswered questions (possibly unanswerable).

And in any case, even if we are in a simulation, evolution would appear to be helping us to understand how the simulation unfolds - which, if that's what it is, is what we need to know. Whether it truly is a physical reality or a simulation, our goal is to find out how it unfolds and where we fit into the greater scheme. I don't find either of these ideas particularly useful in terms of elucidating how evolution unfolds, even if they were true.

It's an explanation for problems of irreducible complexity: the programmers did it.

Why don't you take those seriously?

What do you mean "off the hook"?

So should we also have a cancer-denying field of study to counter-balance mainstream cancer research?

No, but if we're going to take seriously the hypothesis that advanced aliens exist, we're going to have to take seriously the idea that ID might have taken place here. Ditto if we're serious about simulation theory.

Those are not hard questions to answer.

I take on board your interest in embodiment, and I admit that I was over generalizing with my comment 'all religions are nonsense' (I should have said deism). It was stylistically useful to take a devils advocate stance when presenting the thesis, but other than scepticism, I don't think there is much that 'philosophers' can say against 'advances' in neuroscience, and I'm a sceptic myself !

Correlation is not causation. Neuroscience is great at finding neural correlates. But as to the causal explanation of why/how brains are conscious, we're no closer than we've ever been.

The "most immediate primal thing we have" is the sensed world, especially other people and our bodily, emotional and linguistic interactions with them, of course including our own bodies and their sensations and feelings. What we might call "conscious experience" is only a tiny part of all that.

You're making some assumptions here. That there is a "sensed world" (I take it you mean "external world"?), that there are other people, and that we have bodies.

But even granting all that, to say conscious experience is "only a tiny part" A) isn't true (it's the most foundational thing we have. It permeates our every waking moment), and B) even a tiny bit of conscious experience has to be explained, and we're back to the same problem: how does interacting matter give rise to conscious experience?

Good post.

Conscious experience is the most immediate primal thing we have. There is nothing nebulous about stubbing your toe or an orgasm. The materialist explanation (or lack thereof) of how neurons give rise to conscious experience is what's nebulous. The explanations are all terrible.

Yes, the alleged corruption between Biden, then vice-president of the US, and his son was committed in and with Ukraine during the Obama administration. The alleged crimes occurred in Ukraine and with the Ukrainian government. I know you’re smart enough to see the problem here.

There IS a prima facia problem there. The NY Times and New Yorker have been covering it for about a year now.

But you seem to have missed the point: WE (America) are perfectly capable of investigating our own politicians. We have credible justice institutions that go back a long long time. Ukraine is barely a country. WHY would we EVER outsource an investigation to a country like Ukraine?

The answer is simple: we wouldn't. You don't have to defend everything this guy does. You realize that, right?

It seems to me prudent to want to investigate the possible corruption of the US government.

By Ukranians??? Uh, no. America is perfectly capable of investigating it's people. Trump wasn't asking for Ukranian help in an ongoing U.S. investigation. He was pressuring Ukraine to do an investigation. On someone who happens to be the son of his political opponent. I know you're smart enough to see the problem here.

And if there was a quid-pro-quo involving military funding, the Democrats will impeach. They might anyway, just if the WSJ reporting is accurate. And this isn't something that's hard to get to the bottom of, like the Mueller fiasco. The transcript of the call and the whistleblower's report will tell us everything.

Biden was the vice-president of the United States during when the alleged corruption occurred. The notion that he is doing it to “investigate a political opponent”, and not the corruption of which his political opponent and former vice-president might be guilty, is invented whole cloth without evidence.

That's why we have a DOJ. We don't outsource our investigations to countries like Ukraine. This Biden story has been around for years. You think a Republican DOJ wouldn't pounce on a chance to nail someone like Biden? Of course they would. If there was anything there, we would have heard about it by now.

Which is why I have trouble with this story. If Trump really did use military funding as a quid-pro-quo, we're just hearing about it now? Wouldn't that have been leaked to the press by a bunch of people?

You have more faith than me.

I don't know. Maybe they would be that craven. I have my doubts, though. I think a lot of these Republican Senators are at the end of their rope when it comes to Trump and are looking for a good reason to bail. This would be that reason.

The problem with this is, if Trump really did use military aid that way, wouldn't his whole administration have ground to a halt? I can't believe someone like James Mattis or Dan Coats would be silent about something like that. And yet we have this whistleblower, who, according to the IG, has a serious complaint. Fascinating.

It's being alleged by the the Wall Street Journal (and others) that Trump "pressured" (their word) Ukraine eight times to investigate Joe Biden's son. That alone, had it happened under any President's watch, would be a presidency-defining scandal.

IF it's the case that Trump dangled military-aid as a carrot or stick to get Ukraine to investigate a potential political opponent, Trump will be impeached and convicted in the Senate. This isn't some murky campaign finance violation nobody understands. This would be using tax-payer dollars to pressure another country to investigate a political opponent. That's easily understandable and also happens to be indefensible. There might be a few Senators who would go on record in an impeachment trial saying that that behavior is OK, but there aren't 30 of them.

Well, yes, as more and more the brain correlations to qualia are getting tracked.

But the story on causation hasn't move an inch. There is no coherent story. Materialism hits a brick wall when it tries to explain how interacting matter can give rise to conscious experience.

I'm not a materialist either, and I know enough about the ole "hard problem of consciousness" schtick to know we can't come to any agreement. And, yes, I really loved the comic you linked to.

Schtick?

You've already stipulated that an electronic device, a computer, can simulate mental processes. What is a computer? It is a device with many connections. If I may be allowed to drastically oversimplify, the action of the computer is to pass signals back and forth through those connections. Those signals transmit information. How is that different than passing notes, i.e. signals containing information, back and forth. I recognize that the computer will be much faster. For logistical reasons, there is no possibility that any but the simplest computer consisting of people passing notes can ever be implemented, but we are in the world of hypotheticals, so we can ignore practical considerations.

This chain of logic is one of the reasons I'm not a materialist. Materialism leads to absurdities like:
Pushing rocks around on an endless plain in some "special" way can simulate a universe of conscious beings.
https://xkcd.com/505/

He said with no justification. — T Clark

Well, let me put it this way: if you claim that people passing notes back and forth (in a certain way, I assume) will give rise to a conscious moment, you're going to have to have an explanation for it. I think you're also committed to panpsychism, because if people passing notes can instantiate consciousness, then other things can as well. A falling abacus, if it's large enough, and the air moves the beads in just the right way?

If you're claiming that people passing notes back and forth CAN give rise to a conscious moment, I need an explanation for why I should consider that a plausible possibility, instead of something that is near impossible.

Anyway, how is that different from pulleys and ropes?

It's not. I think a conscious system of pulleys and ropes is as absurd (and is based upon as much logic and evidence) as transubstantiation.

I remember reading about a hypothetical computer made with people passing notes back and forth. There's have to be a lot of people. I guess 100 billion, which is about the number of people who are living or have ever lived. It would also be very slow.

People passing notes back and forth aren't going to create an instantiation of consciousness.

I think any account of consciousness arising from severally non-conscious stuff is conceptually doomed.

Yes, I think you're right about that.

And we don't need such an account, there are other, more fruitful ways to think about consciousness, namely panpsychism. But by all means carry on and see if you can figure something out. I remain interested in the project.

Panpsychism has been en vogue lately. Max Tegmark thinks the universe might be made of math, and that sounds very idealistic. I think materialism's days are numbered.

I would think consciousness also requires a body. Much current AI research seems to be brain focused and disembodied, which really isn’t the case with human consciousness.

It certainly seems to require SOME kind of substrate, in the materialist model of reality. Although I remember reading some scientist postulate a consciousness field that permeates the universe.

I think the bigger problem is explaining how a brain can process sense-data and produce a sense of awareness of our surroundings, whereas that same brain, when put through a blender, can't produce a thing. This same problem pops up in simulation theory- a simulation is essentially a series of switching operations, and how is it that one sequence of switching operations can (supposedly) simulate consciousness, while a different sequence of switching operations doesn't produce anything? Is there something "special" about the combination of switches that produced the simulated consciousness? If so, what is it, and why is it special?

Replace "combination of switches" with "specific neural activity" and you have the same problem:

"I'm not exactly sure, are you wondering now?"

About every event having a cause? Yeah. If the event in question was the beginning of time and space...

"Clue: physical science theories' always use synthetic propositions because they make statements about the facts of nature that can be tested. In layman's terms, isn't that a sense of wonderment?"

I guess, but it's not a necessary condition for doing science. I can have no sense of wonder and still make statement about nature if my life depends on it.

Cosmology is going through a similar crisis. It seems that the universe might be unnatural, might be part of an infinite multiverse, and if that's the case, there's not a whole lot we can do with that. There are also worries about physics: if the energies required to advance particle physics can only be achieved in colliders the size of the solar system, we're not going to see anything new from that branch of science for a long time.

"Of course you are joking right (or maybe I misunderstood)? Here's an easy one for you: every event must have a cause."

Are you sure about that?

RA, I think you may be overlooking the obvious. Would you not agree that raising the ' scientific question' in itself is a necessary part of the evaluation process?

And if so, is that not called human wonderment? But if not, then why choose to evaluate at all?

You don't need a sense of wonderment to raise a scientific question. Military necessity does quite nicely.

Maybe. Maybe with more cognition, some of the stuff that stumps us may be answered. Although the problem would then be (from the point of view of the superior intellect) if you have the right answer, it may be impossible to explain it to simpletons like us. It may just be something like an A.I. telling us: "yes, you have free will, and no, we can't dumb it down that much. Just take our word for it. Also, the universe is conscious."

They would be smarter?