incorrigable private evidence

[_Tarski]

It depends on what you mean by consciousness. If you suspect that a robot could never be conscious (without somehow gaining some new thing along the way to complexity) then you need to read Dennett.

I'm uncertain whether a robot could be conscious.

And by awareness do you simply mean our ability to navigate the world and talk about it?

No. I mean our experience of a world, or of anything at all. While our experience certainly provides us things to talk about, and information we use to navigate the world, the experience itself, the awareness, consciousness, is a distinct and very basic phenomenon.
Don

Distinct and basic?
I flatly deny that. (And I am not alone)
It is true however, that at one time in my life I thought that such a denial was madness and it mad me angry. So I sympathize.
Did you read the link: http://ase.tufts.edu/cogstud/papers/quinqual.htm
Of course, this article by itself will not convince you.

[_Tarski]

This may be a bit off topic, but I was wondering about the inverted spectrum problem. We often ask what if my red was your blue. However, since our brains consist of two hemispheres, what would it mean if my left hemisphere's red were my right hemisphere's blue? Perhaps a mad scientist rewired my right eye.

Does this question have any implications for whether our subjective experiences of qualia are certain?

Hmmm. It might be something you could leverage to argue that the idea of qualia/(the-ways-that-it-looks) is nothing but our folk theoretic fuzzy concept for the complex of reactions and attitudes we have for sensory input.

[_DonBradley]

Hi Tarski,

I'm really using this topic to express my recently acquired distaste for much of present-day (and past) academic philosophy. Although I have done a good deal of reading and university study in philosophy, I am disenchanted with what I would see as a great deal of philosophistry, particularly in metaphysics and epistemelogy. Much of philosophy is rational and perhaps useful (e.g., the philosophies that are intended to be lived, like that of the Stoics; formal logic; much of ethical philosophy; etc.). But much is sheer claptrap as well. The history of philosophy is littered with pet entities like timeless Forms, monads, the Ground of Being, the Will to Power, etc., etc., ad nauseam.

I'm aware that consciousness has proved a particularly knotty problem in philosophy, and am also quite aware of recent research in psychology suggesting that our awareness of our own emotional states is quite limited, that the brain appears to arrive at decisions before we are aware of consciously "making" them, etc. All is clearly not as it seems. But to deny that we are conscious is to deny that we have experience; and however cleverly constructed any counterarguments, we know prior to examining them, and as we examine them, that we do have experience. To say that it only "seems" we have experience would be logically incoherent, since to have something "seem" a certain way just is to experience it that way--that's what it means for something to "seem."

Are you, and those you're reading, using some other definition of "consciousness" than "subjective experience"? Is the argument that our emotional states are not uniquely knowable to us? If so, then this is quite plausible given present research in psychology. But it is a different question than whether we are "conscious" in the basic and overwhelmingly used sense of the word.

I certainly could[/] spend hours reading arguments that I'm not conscious in this sense. And I could also invest that time reading about how God is three and yet one, without contradiction; or about how we don't really exist; or any of a number of other mind-numbing propositions. But why would I and why should I? Why should I regard such propositions as even [i]as worthy of my time as the study of the historical Zelph, Atlantis, or the faking of the moon landings? These latter topics, however unlikely to yield accurate information, seem vastly more likely to reveal it than would abstract arguments against the very foundations on which thought is based.

I'm certainly interested in exploring what scientific exploration reveals about the human mind, however much this contradicts my preconceptions. But when the much airier and dubious method of philosophical abstraction claims to bring the great truths that there is no truth, no reality, no causation, no consciousness, I fail to see why I should take these claims seriously enough to even explore them. The method on which they are based is not self-correcting in the way the scientific method is--we have little reason to believe philosophy will "progress' over time. The method has produced absurdities of all sorts in the past. And, in these cases, the method falls into self-contradiction by denying the grounds on which inquiry is based. How could a nonexistent thinker think? And what would it mean for a nonconscious being to "contemplate" or "philosophize"?

Even in this thread, you report your own experience of having been upset and maddened by the claim that we arent conscious. And you respond based on certain perceptions and contemplations and while hypothesizing my own experiences and mental states. Without consciousness, there would be no meaningful contemplation of whether we are conscious, since contemplation is a form of consciousness, and since without the "seeming" of consciousness, the experience or consciousness of it, there would be no reason to suppose oneself conscious, and therefore nothing to discuss. We either have experience or seem to, which amounts to the same thing.

But I'm going on too long. My point isn't actually to extend such discussions, or even dignify them by taking them seriously. Quite the opposite. This post is my farewell to such intellectual shell games altogether.

See you on other threads,

Don

[_Tarski]

Hi Tarski,

I'm really using this topic to express my recently acquired distaste for much of present-day (and past) academic philosophy. Although I have done a good deal of reading and university study in philosophy, I am disenchanted with what I would see as a great deal of philosophistry, particularly in metaphysics and epistemelogy. Much of philosophy is rational and perhaps useful (e.g., the philosophies that are intended to be lived, like that of the Stoics; formal logic; much of ethical philosophy; etc.). But much is sheer claptrap as well. The history of philosophy is littered with pet entities like timeless Forms, monads, the Ground of Being, the Will to Power, etc., etc., ad nauseam.

You forgot the claptrap called "consciousness" "awareness itself!". Itself??
The issue matters because someday there msy be machines that ask for rights and claim to be conscious. Meanwhile some will say that "those are only machines" and so we may torture them for fun if we like. They only act conscious but they aren't.

It's way in the future but it may take even longer to clear up the issues to everyones satisfaction so we may as well get started.

Perhaps you don't yet see what is being claimed. Did you read "Quining Qualia"?
http://ase.tufts.edu/cogstud/papers/quinqual.htm

I'm aware that consciousness has proved a particularly knotty problem in philosophy, and am also quite aware of recent research in psychology suggesting that our awareness of our own emotional states is quite limited, that the brain appears to arrive at decisions before we are aware of consciously "making" them, etc. All is clearly not as it seems. But to deny that we are conscious is to deny that we have experience; and however cleverly constructed any counterarguments, we know prior to examining them, and as we examine them, that we do have experience. To say that it only "seems" we have experience would be logically incoherent, since to have something "seem" a certain way just is to experience it that way--that's what it means for something to "seem."

As long as by experience you only mean something describable in terms of neural function then OK. In this case, fancy robots experience too.

Are you, and those you're reading, using some other definition of "consciousness" than "subjective experience"?

Well, I claim the various meanings of subjective awareness and consciousness are ambiguous but common intuitions lead people to think that there is something nonmaterial that we are in absolute direct contact with -the "seeming" as such. The mind. Awareness itself. The "redness of red", "the painfulness of pain" as something clear and ontologically distinct from brain states and behaviors. It is thought to be something beyond neurological or material explanation--somehow "spiritual" in a sense.
This is what is being denied. There is no such thing as "real seemings" only seemings in the sense of judgments about things that may or may not be correct or useful.

I certainly could[/] spend hours reading arguments that I'm not conscious in this sense. And I could also invest that time reading about how God is three and yet one, without contradiction

Except that there is surely no contradiction in claiming that we are simply biological machines that make judgements, achieve rediness (awareness) etc. There is no logical contradiction in the claim that the experience just identically [i]is some set of prominant brain activities.

I'm certainly interested in exploring what scientific exploration reveals about the human mind, however much this contradicts my preconceptions. But when the much airier and dubious method of philosophical abstraction claims to bring the great truths that there is no truth, no reality, no causation, no consciousness, I fail to see why I should take these claims seriously enough to even explore them. The method on which they are based is not self-correcting in the way the scientific method is--we have little reason to believe philosophy will "progress' over time. The method has produced absurdities of all sorts in the past. And, in these cases, the method falls into self-contradiction by denying the grounds on which inquiry is based.

Inquiry is based on intelligence and the desire for knowledge. Wouldn't even "unconscious" knowledge count as long as it helped modify my behavior in desirable ways?

Even in this thread, you report your own experience of having been upset and maddened by the claim that we aren't conscious. .

It is true that I use the word experience but I might also use the word spiritual and other folk psychological concepts. But, what do I really mean? Should I let language tell me what is real?
I mean that I had certain reactions, behaviors, speech acts and attitudes. I was not referring to “seemings” or “qualia” in my immaterial mind.

And you respond based on certain perceptions and contemplations and while hypothesizing my own experiences and mental states. Without consciousness, there would be no meaningful contemplation of whether we are conscious, since contemplation is a form of consciousness, and since without the "seeming" of consciousness, the experience or consciousness of it, there would be no reason to suppose oneself conscious, and therefore nothing to discuss
Why do I need "seemings". What are those? Why not just reasons (of the kind a super-complex computer/robot could understand?)

I am sorry that you feel that you can't dignify any of the thoughts of Quine, Rorty, Dennett, Churchland, JJC Smart, and dozens of cognitive scientists and other philosophers.
Its OK to not be interested of course.
Perhaps you might like it better if I said not that consciousness doesn't exist but rather that it is nothing like what most people think it is being an entirely material/computational/behavioral phenomenon.

I don't claim to be sure of this but only that dennetts arguments are strong and not obviously false after all.

[Guest]

Tarski,

If Dennett, et al. do argue that there is no such thing as subjective experience, then, yes, I don't consider it worth my time to explore their arguments on this particular matter, much as you--perhaps--may not feel compelled to explore the theological arguments of such brilliant minds as Augustine, Maimonides, Aquinas, and William of Ockham. Their thoughts on other matters might still be of great interest to me, however. I'm quite interested in how consciousness arises (though not in the moot and absurd question of whether it exists), and I certainly find Dennett in particular interesting.

It sounds as though we're not disagreeing as much as I would have thought. I find it surprising that Dennett, et al. would deny that we are conscious, if this is, in fact, what they say, if what they really mean is that consciousness is identical to certain brain processes.

I find it likely that consciousness "is" a brain process. I don't believe that consciousness is some supernatural immaterial substance apart from the brain or interacting with the brain. Consciousness seems clearly dependent on brain processes, and is likely identical to them. I doubt that there is such a thing as consciousness without an object--i.e., "pure" consciousness. I suspect that consciousness is always consciousness "of" something--the experience or perception of a particular sensation or the like. But I fail to see why this would mean that it doesn't exist, or, that, from within the organism, it would have no experiential quality. How would this follow?

Solving the riddle of consciousness is one thing. Denying its existence is another.

Don

[_Tarski]

I would be surprised if the view that there is no such thing as subjective experience is as common as you imply

by the way, telling me that the reason I seem to have experience is because there's no such thing as seeming doesn't really work for me.

Don

No such thing as real seeming. That is, something that exists in any important sense simply by virtue of the fact that it seems to.
that's the idea anyway.

I wonder if at least this question might spark a real philosophical concern with you.
Suppose you wonder whether a very subtle sophisticated robot with human like behavior really has a subjective inner world.
How would you tell? Just ask it?
Could there occasionally be humans born that behave exactly like ordinary people but don't really have an inner life (nature and nurture program them to say so but is that enough?)

[_DonBradley]

Hi Tarski, I edited my post while you responded to it. You may want to reread it.

I don't know how we'd know if or when a robot is conscious. I can imagine one being conscious, but don't know how we'd know when it was.

But, on your end, can you imagine a computer providing the same repertoire of responses as does a human being without being conscious?

Or should we simply define a machine as conscious to the degree that it offers these same responses, according it the same moral status as a human being once we can no longer distinguish its behavior from that of a human being?

In the case of humans, we know what it's like to be a human being. We know that it is like something. So, when we see others structured as we are and created as we are offering the same set of behavioral responses we would in a situation, we are justified in inferring their consciousness. How is the case the same with robots, and particularly with robots purposely designed to mimic human behavior?

Don

[_KimberlyAnn]

What doesn't she know?

Your intuition about this is almost universal. But......

What am I missing, Tarski?
KA

A lot!

Try reading this to get a flavor: http://ase.tufts.edu/cogstud/papers/quinqual.htm

By the way, yes Mary would know her colors. She knows more about why people say blue when they look at blue things than you or I. She knows the whole light, brain, word production, emotional reaction story in detail.

This is a portion of a reply I put on the thread in the Celestial Forum. It seems we've got some of the same issues going on in two forums right now.

Tarski, I read the article you linked me to, well about three-fourths of it (that's all I needed to know that I don't buy it), and I still maintain that to deny human beings are conscious is absurd. I can't see how humans can reason, which you assert we do, without consciousness. Are we all simply biological machines who's subjective, sensory experiences are hallucinatory? Do you maintain that there are no qualia at all? Are all our subjective experiences invalid? I posit they are not.

As I mentioned earlier in the thread, the very fact that we are able to consider whether or not we are conscious and engage in this discussion is evidence that we are indeed conscious.

KA

[_Tarski]

What am I missing, Tarski?
KA

A lot!

Try reading this to get a flavor: http://ase.tufts.edu/cogstud/papers/quinqual.htm

By the way, yes Mary would know her colors. She knows more about why people say blue when they look at blue things than you or I. She knows the whole light, brain, word production, emotional reaction story in detail.

This is a portion of a reply I put on the thread in the Celestial Forum. It seems we've got some of the same issues going on in two forums right now.

Tarski, I read the article you linked me to, well about three-fourths of it (that's all I needed to know that I don't buy it), and I still maintain that to deny human beings are conscious is absurd. I can't see how humans can reason, which you assert we do, without consciousness. Are we all simply biological machines who's subjective, sensory experiences are hallucinatory? Do you maintain that there are no qualia at all? Are all our subjective experiences invalid? I posit they are not. KA

Counterintuitive but not absurd. Are guys like Daniel Dennett (and Paul Churchland and and and...) just insane?
Maybe they are not conscious?
What role do qualia play? What function? How do they effect your lips and tongue to get you to defend them and assert thier existence? Do they affect the brain somehow? What do they do that can't be done by a brain all by itself?
Where is the causal link connecting a qualia to your speaking tongue and typing fingers?

What has reason got to do with qualia? Couldn't a sufficiently subtle computer reason (without thereby growing qualia)?

[_DonBradley]

No surprise here, but I agree with the brilliant (as well as lovely) KA.

One thing I'm curious about: if what we describe as consciousness just is our behavior, without any genuine "experience," then why don't we regard ourselves as conscious of all our behavior? One of the brain's behaviors, of course, is to run the heart. But no one reports being conscious of making their heart beat. And work over the past few decades by psychologists like Timothy Wilson and Daniel Gilbert has uncovered the role of what Wilson long ago dubbed "the cognitive unconscious"--they've shown that most of our cognitive processing occurs without our awareness, and often in ways quite contrary to how we perceive our minds to work. But if "consciousness" just is our brain's behavior--the things it does, why is only some of what it does perceived as conscious. It would appear, per Dr. Wilson's coinage, that we are conscious of part of our cognition, and unconscious of the remainder (and majority). So, consciousness then becomes, not just our brain's behavior, but the part of our brain's behavior of which we are conscious--which sounds just a bit circular.

And, building on the discovery of the cognitive unconscious to turn your repeated question on its head, Tarski; why couldn't the behavior of even the best human-mimicking machine be unconscious, like most of the workings of the human brain itself?

One problem with cognitive reductionism is that it often declares by fiat that there is nothing that hasn't already been reduced--nothing left to explain, however much most cognitive beings find themselves and what is most significant about them yet unexplained.

Another problem with it is that it relies on the most recent useful metaphor. Anciently, consciousness was understood by analogy with light. More recently, it was understood by analogy with an industrial machine. Now, the metaphors are computers. Is the current reductionism somehow "the truth"--the whole truth even--about consciousness; or will it be supplanted by other metaphors as these become available?

The problem of consciousness is a holy grail of philosophy; and the commonalities of the mind and computer processing may make it tempting to prematurely claim to have seized the grail by reducing the former to the latter. But the human brain isn't digital; and we are not mere information processing devices, as a consideration of both the brain's actual operations and the process of its "design" by evolution show.

Don