I remember Searle brought this point up in one of his lectures. He said someone once asked him if proof of the non-existence of free will was shown to him would he accept it. To accept it presumes the existence of free will because otherwise he couldn't "accept" it, it would already be determined whether he did or not.

Why would it be impossible to speak about consciousness if it were an epiphenomena? — Daniel Sjöstedt

Simply detecting your consciousness would be an effect of detecting consciousness making it not an epiphenomena.
You have to presume Zombies are real and someone can sit and talk about consciousness all day without having any inner experience for it to work.

Yes. — Daniel Sjöstedt

Okay the reason I asked is that some might consider them immaterial or simply an instrumentalist fiction. Many consider material the stuff we can see and touch.

.

Is your view that there is something immaterial about consciousness?

Or that there is at least something about it that does not follow the classical laws of mechanics? — Daniel Sjöstedt

I'm not an anthropic mechanist (in relation to humans) if that's what following the classical laws of mechanics means.
The main reason is that I find it difficult to believe we can speak and communicate about phenomenology/consciousness with them being a) epiphenomenal. b) mechanistic illusions that vanish when explained from a third person point of view.

And it depends on what material means. Are we assuming everything reduces to electron/quark interactions?

Neat question, an eliminativist would just say humans are big machines and that our notions of conscious planning, direct perception ect are confused pre-scientific notions. Although this is in contradiction which a lot of other science and naive realism ect.

And there are closet-eliminativists like Dennett who say consciousness, free will ect are only terms to cut down processing time. IE: we pretend we have these things because it makes things easier. So you could pretend a machine has free will to save looking at how it is wired up and we do the same for humans. (Because we can't account for the 86 billion neuron interactions).
This is where the Zombie problem arises from since there is really a phenomenological world (first person view) attached to it also that is really real.

The point of introducing QM is to give mind somewhere to move, to escape causal closure. Libet, Eccles and others used it to that end.

The point I'm making is that your 'skeptical' hypothesis isn't really skeptical enough since you are naively assuming that objects like human brains and machines that transmit electrical signals can exist independently of perception. — lambda

I agree with this.
Others have pointed out the "hallucinatory" explanation for mind always resort to positing macroscopic biological (neurological) causes.
(Never micro like quantum or something larger scale like social). It's probably because the biological places an anthropic living thing on it. I realize you would say those things do not exist independently of perception either but I wanted to get that point out there.

Of course consciousness has parts. When you close your eyes, you are still conscious but have removed part of the conscious experience. People who are deaf, or have lost feeling in certain parts of their bodies have also lost part of their consciousness. When you lose part of your consciousness, you lose part of your awareness of the world. — Harry Hindu

It gets its data from numerous sensory organs, yes, but is "presented" as a single part like a movie.
Movies are themselves illusions which is what eliminativists like Dennett argue consciousness is.

To be more thorough what I meant in my last reply.
I am referring to the phenomenological first person unity (what is known as the binding or combination problem in neuroscience) countered against the (new) mechanistic take on on the phenomena. There is an epistemic description of emergence existing in system science (new mechanism).
Roger Sperry's wheel is a good example of that: "Sperry cites a wheel rolling downhill as an example of downward causal control. The atoms and molecules are caught up and overpowered by the higher properties of the whole. He compares the rolling wheel to an ongoing brain process or a progressing train of thought in which the overall properties of the brain process, as a coherent organizational entity, determine the timing and spacing of the firing patterns within its neural infrastructure."

But ontologically they are just parts acting on each other in extremely complex interdependent ways, yet we (individually) have an ontological experience of unity (combination problem).
It may be possible to diminish consciousness gradually but that won't change the times it did exist as a single thing. Descartes only discovered the separation (mind - body separation) through meditation, not out walking or something.

I think you overlook a crucial detail. AI isn't a computer like your laptop or even a supercomputer for that matter — TheMadFool

I agree , there is a difference between machines and AI. The OP might be titled what will we do when machines do all the work.
If AI exists then there is no reason for it to do any work for humans at all.

Okay I watched it. Chomsky was very clear that there is no mental-physical distinction because there is no physical. He gave credence to mechanism though when describing the mind. I think more focus needs to be on what the very definition of a "mechanism" is and what it can't be.
Consciousness always appears singular and so by definition couldn't be a mechanism because it is without parts. The argument from the anthropic-mechanists (Dennett) would be that the appearance is an illusion, although the illusion can have causal effect which in new-mechanism isn't a problem since the produce of the mechanisms can alter them (new-mechanism accomodates system science).
I think the challenge then would be to discover other irreducible things in nature like the holistic 1st person pov, or accept consciousness as a special snowflake (which is close to original substance dualism).

Yep. Its from a speech — Mongrel

Thanks, it looks fairly long (nearly 2 hours). I'll watch it and write my thoughts later. :)

I think most people who agree with materialism/monism are property dualists in that they see consciousness, the personality, the soul ect as emerging from the underlying brain processes. There are various issues with this view highlighted by Kim relating to the causal closure of the physical.

Mongrel, can you link Chomsky's piece here? I'm guessing this is one thing and not an overview of Chomsky's statements involving Descartes over time.

Interesting article (and comments afterward) about dissolving the ego. Disregard the psychedelic aspects if you wish for a purer description of the process. — 0 thru 9

I don't understand this dissolution of "self" when they are still writing in first person terms to describe the experience. Presumably the investigation was also carried out by people able to empirically discern what was happening to the brain and introspectively note which order they occur in.
Looking over the comments people who support this view still attach propostional attitudes to it ie: "I was afraid my self would not return." I suspect what they mean is the "habits" the brain creates and they exist, sure, but they are still local to the brain and not psychological traits being emailed from Venus.

Rupert Sheldrake's morphicgenesis theory does depend upon a hierarchy of morphic fields — Rich

Thanks, I'll try and look that up later.

There is no need to have boundaries. Individual minds are analogous to waves in the ocean, distinct but part of. Mind and body are a seamless continuum of substantially, the continuum that stretches from quantum to atom to molecules. — Rich

People don't know what someone else is thinking nor is there any visible change to anyone or really anything around them when they are.

I think the biggest argument against it has always been "where does your mind end and mine begin" what are the boundaries? Are they physical or mental? If they are mental they surely the boundaries could be broken down by other mental interaction. So far this has not been done, at least I don't think it has.

What the realization of no self is, is that the "self" you once thought you were basically isn't there at all. So people just call it "no self", when in actuality there is still an experience there which you could aptly call a self or more appropriately "higher self". — intrapersona

Okay, thanks, sure I see that. It fits a lot with my own meditation experiences. The thoughts do appear autonomous after a time and you can passively receive them.
My pet theory is that it may be due to evolution and needing to have a lot of it be automatic. I find when I'm out walking the thoughts come more freely and are specific to what I'm doing. The meditation thing is sort of like an artificial state so the thoughts are often random and give an illusion of being out of control.
The newer stuff like complex mathematics can't be completed in the same way. Answers don't just come to you, you have to (consciously) work them out.

Harris simply bites the bullet and acknowledges that he can't claim any responsibility for his own intellectual achievements. He is even handed about that. If people can't be held morally responsible for their bad deeds -- since they're mere puppets being moved around by the impersonal forces of the universe -- then they can't either be given any real credit for their positive accomplishments. — Pierre-Normand

Sorry, I wasn't talking about any acheivement (that's a separate discussion). I was speaking specifically about the (meta)physical ability for something that is without effects to be the corner stone of his entire philosophy. The very ability to do such a thing would suggest it is not epiphenomenal but in communion.
See this Dennett interview to see what I meant: https://youtu.be/oj858Vujb6g?t=57s

In a way it's like saying cigarettes have no psychological effects on you and then purchasing them everyday.

So, Harris's ethics (as expounded in The Moral Landscape) boils down to the affirmation of the intuition -- which he believes to be a self-evident a priori truth -- that it would be ethically good if all of the epiphenomenal "selves" being generated by biological brains in the universe were somehow being caused to have happy thoughts and pleasurable feelings. This is quite sophomoric, really. — Pierre-Normand

Thanks, so has anyone ever asked him how something can be epiphenomenal and yet cause him to still generate an entire philosophy based around it? I'm sure he must have considered it at least once.

This is why he also is pushing an utilitarian theory that has as its sole foundation the imperative to increase human "well being" regardless of the values people may endorse. — Pierre-Normand

Yep. But wouldn't this require a person/self to suffer to be correct? If the self is an illusion that vanishes on close analysis how can there be any suffering? I watched Dennett and Harris podcast when it was linked on the old forum here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vFa7vFkVy4g
I'm not sure what Dennett's current ontological stance is on self (a center of gravity, but I think it's not relevant to this discussion) but his response to Harris' thought experiment to plausibly remove Ayn Rand ideals from a human brain, was "why?" As in what is the point, the final end. Dennett is consistent. It seems it's Harris who posits theology by adding telelogy to the debate.

Harris' has come from a background in buddhist meditation where it is observed through meditative practices that your sense of identity is basically an illusion. — intrapersona

And these testaments are derived through introspection and a direct 1st person experience.
See the contradiciton? How you can recall an experience of "no self" without a self to reflect back on to?

Evolution selects for fitness not accuracy. If being ultra rational, emotionless allowed people to exist longer then that is how it will be. Although someone ultra rational, cold emotionless, may not see much point in existing as they could just see it as a series of mechanisms.

I have a lot of objections to the linked essay, but I assume it's given here more for illustration and not as a focal point for us to critique specifically. — Efram

Sort of, the thread title comes from it and it was linked in the original forums.philosophyforums.com thread. Feel free to make objections to any part of it.

we can't say so certainly whether a computer would be capable of experiencing qualia, for example. — Efram

Well machine-functionalists like Dennett deny the existence of qualia. They say it is the function of the machine that has an abstract "I" function and he uses experiments like "change blindness" to show qualia concept isn't clear. Abstractions are real because physics is "nifty" like that. (The nifty quote is from a recent google talk).

If you're convinced of this why waste your time convincing others it is not real?
What use would it bring?

If that is so easily done why would eliminativism exist?

They freely consented to abide by those instructions and to push a button at a randomly chosen time. — Pierre-Normand

.

You're right. For some reason I didn't think of that part. Guess it takes philosophy to unravel that bit. Although it does put some parts of philosophy in question, mainly the brain identity stuff. Patricia Churchland wrote an essay on that but that probably needs a separate thread.

So I am a brain, my brain (or my body), I can understand that but in this case, why am I that brain in particular ? — Julian

I wouldn't use the expression brain. Since there are holographic theories of mind and other things where the mind is not contained just to brain. Also assuming materialism is true, then the brain is just a macroscopic term for a massive network of quantum information.

What I meant was your mind must be one of its kind. Otherwise as you type you would also be experiencing being a bird in the Amazon rainforest, or Britney Spears, or President Trump. It's isolated and singular. So I would say it's unique in some way and not easily recreated. IE: there are not new "yous" being continually created through natural processes.

Searle also commented that the big problem with panpsychism is that it does not explain where one mind ends and the other begins.

I think the answer to that is that each mind is a special snowflake (to use a modern expression) so it can only be one place at one time.

I think the voluntary/involuntary acts (the phenomenal feeling of them) are at the crux of the argument. That's where the controversy of the Libet experiment extends from since it suggests all acts are really involuntary and the feeling between the two is some form of illusion (plausibly put there by evolution). Although how we can express knowledge of the "illusion" is beyond me. There somehow seems room for metaphysical (non deterministic) free will in there somewhere. The compatibilists ignore this and focus more on the social aspect which is probably where the frustration comes from.

I see it as an attempt to bridge the Leibniz's gap. From wet nerve cells to experience there is a gap. You can't open up a head and see flying unicorns ect.
So once they have the computational language they attempt to recreate it artificially, perhaps with ideal modifications so it recognizes faces better than humans can or whatever.

It exists as a working model but the map is not the territory, hence why mistakes occur when modelling real things. But computer systems (afaik) are more predictable and successful since they are based on the language being true.

I'm still not entirely sure what absolute idealism means. I haven't read Hegel myself directly yet (life is short). If we're going down this line where altered states of consciousness (which dreaming is) is proof then why isn't being drunk vs being sober also evidence? There is an obvious phenomenal difference between the two.

I think dreams are evidence the waking experience is not we think it is. I believe it is just a continuation of the same ontological sort but with the sensory inputs combined into it. The reason it feels different is due to evolution (if you believed you were still dreaming you could jump off a cliff to fly away or something), but if you focus on the between the waking moment or going into sleep you can actually feel the change first hand.

More here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IZefk4gzQt4

Could individuals thrive without understanding that which would enable them to do so?", in which case I would argue they couldn't because they would no longer hold the mastery needed to advance themselves. — Noblosh

Yep, individuals would become overly reliant on AI. So it would look similar to communism (or the closest thing to equal skill-set) with everyone having equal talents assuming all of the AI is of the same software.

But they all reject, or at least deeply question, the fundamental tenet of his life's work: — Wayfarer

Dennett's views on consciousness are odd and border on the metaphysical. From what I get, his view is that consciousness reduces to its job and its functional role within the brain (teleofunctionalism). It models the brain data so the body can known what to respond to. But how does the model make itself known? Is there a secondary model? And why do abstract functional roles have a phenomenal first person pov?
His own theory falls into his homunclus fallacy he is always throwing around. But I made this thread mainly to discuss the black box science stuff. With this said, his theory of consciousness does relate and connect to this. See my reply to John below...

I think Dennett is exaggerating in saying that in the past the best minds could understand almost everything. Perhaps it might have been true regarding the sciences, but not also literature, the arts, history, philosophy, metaphysics, languages, and so on. And even if a very few of the very best minds could understand "almost everything"; what import could that have for the rest of 'ignorant' humanity? — John

This is a good point so this is why I was asking. Dennett seems to think this is a use it or lose it scenario. That we will plunge back to the 19th century since eventually no one will understand anything. His solution is that we train the AIs to model themselves and so be able to tell us what will happen. However this (Dennett believes) will make the machines conscious and so they will need human rights which will overly complicate everything. Dennett thinks creating conscious machines is bad and so we need alternate solutions.

you and I, — Dawkins

But what is the you and I? The genes themselves which switch on and off over the course of a life anyway. Also many modern conceptions of the universe, like many worlds, might entertain all of them being realized anyway.

Interesting – so you think the current form of our dreams is different than our caveman ancestors? Do you think our caveman ancestors believed their dreams to be real? — woodart

Not cave folk, I'm thinking older than that.
What I mean is that some of the information would obviously be adverse. Let's say one dream has a predator killed and a few days later they mix up the dream and believe the predator is dead only for it to later kill them. This is what I mean when I say they are odd in evolutionary terms. All I can think is that dreams were different back then (had a different function) or the truth does not matter so much because it gave a fitness (encouragement?) that was beyond fact.

Yes, people can act on dreams now because we are all have an intuitive understanding of semiology and can differentiate information through self reflection. I do not know if the earlier animals were able to do that.

What are the benefits of lucid dreaming? Is there a downside? — woodart

I do not know. I was interested in occult AP stuff at that time.

Artificial Intelligences and aliens can sit there and declare they are humans until hell freezes over. Their beliefs do not make it so. — Bitter Crank

The heart was at one time considered the essence of a human. Yet it's possible to envision a completely artificial heart that exists functionally in a way that is identical. The physical processes necessary to reach the higher level (wherever it is we exist) were never relevant before. It seems overtly reductionist. As the classical example goes, how is a world war defined? Obviously it must be unrelated to its scientific physical constitution(?)

I might like to believe that I am a god, but telling everybody that I am a god isn't going to make it so, just because I believe it. — Bitter Crank

But being human is an achievable social status just like WW3 is a future achievable title. Being a God is not achievable at all really unless it is a title for a person who creates simulated reality/artwork. In which case maybe someone might market computer/ art products to you because it is pragmatic to take your belief as being true.

Would you have any problem with other things like say AI and aliens assuming the title of Human if they behave in a way undiscernible from humans? In Aristotelian terms the body in itself could be seen as the accident whereas the personality/soul/identity is the essence. (I'm using the chair example here rather than the hylomorphism stuff tho that is also derived from platonism).

This is not new culturally. It's the subject of most possession stories. Also there is a problem in the ethics part of your OP. It's possible to imagine removing the title of human through scientific racism (the classical example was Craniometry).

I meant they would have had greater evolutionary value than their current forum. The reason I say this is because dreams present adverse information that overtime could be confused as being something that happened. Perhaps they are evidence that evolution selects for what creates fitness rather than what is true but that seems to fit in with the evolutionary argument against naturalism. This fact about dreams is something I've wanted to discuss for some time. They are very odd in their current form.

I've tried Lucid dreaming techniques and they worked for a time. Eventually the prompts become ineffective. It's weirdly exhausting so I keep putting it off.

They are unusual from an evolutionary perspective since they appear to present false information which could endanger the animal itself. All I can think is that perhaps before we were saturated with culture, and our minds were more limited, they were useful predictive devices.
I actually enjoy a lot of my dreams more than real life and the more I write them down the more real they appear when I sleep. I hope to gain greater control over them at some point.

Well, integrated information theory is really a version of panpsychism isn't it? So first (according to it) there is only consciousness but then there is its integration and separation.

From Koch's confessions of a romantic reductionist (an interesting read):

By postulating that consciousness is a fundamental feature of the universe, rather than emerging out of simpler elements, integrated information theory is an elaborate version of panpsychism. The hypothesis that all matter is sentient to some degree is terribly appealing for its elegance, simplicity, and logical coherence. Once you assume that consciousness is real and ontologically distinct from its physical substrate, then it is a simple step to conclude that the entire cosmos is suffused with sentience. We are surrounded and immersed in consciousness; it is in the air we breathe, the soil we tread on, the bacteria that colonize our intestines, and the brain that enables us to think.
The Φ of flies, let alone of bacteria or particles, will be for all practical purposes far below the Φ we experience when we are deeply asleep. At best, a vague and undifferentiated feeling of something. So by that measure, a fly would be less conscious than you are in your deep sleep.

A Cartesian-style homunculus is out of date — darthbarracuda

Really? https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-imprinted-brain/201407/come-back-homunculus-all-is-forgiven
Anyway how can pain or anything be realized without reflecting back to a "self"? It is realized and expressed by the (whole) person surely? I don't distinguish between the emotions/dreams/imagination it is all something being reflected upon and understood.

Also hi everyone, I had an account on http://forums.philosophyforums.com/ last year.
Is that place dead forever now?