Hi Eli,

I’ve been at work too, one has to make ends meet! ;o)

Yes we all make the assumption that there is an objective reality that exists beyond our senses but I think it’s a valid one to make. The alternative is solipsism, which, although attractive, is really a dead end. It is impossible to argue against (believe me I’ve tried) but then it really doesn’t get you anywhere. In the end you have to go with an objective reality out there.

I like your comparison of a solipsistic viewpoint with that of a religious one. Nice.

I have a problem with your robot animal feeling pain argument though. Firstly, I can well imagine that if I knew that the "animal" was created in such a way that similar chemicals signaled the onset of the "pain" and maybe it even made a noise as if it were in pain when I pushed the button then I might well have qualms about pushing the button.

Secondly, however, looking at the way you are setting up this thought experiment, you seem to be deliberately pushing the boundaries. You are making the robot as near to as it is possible to get to being ‘alive’ and ‘conscious’ while at the same time defining it to be not alive or conscious. It’s an impossible set up and it’s designed to be so.

To me awareness and consciousness is a sliding scale, all the way from amoeba to man. You admit as much in your use of an animal suffering pain example. Now I can easily comprehend extending this to artificial intelligence and I don’t think it will be long before we have self aware machines (should we still call them machines in that case?) This too will be a sliding scale, we can already simulate the brain of a small insect. You talk about ‘instinctively knowing’ but our instincts can easily be misled. I can therefore easily imagine an artificial intelligence that is subjective, indeed what else could it be?

I’m not claiming for a minute that subjective experiences are not real. It seems you are the one trying to do that. To me they are physically caused and are sensed by the mind which is also physical in a similar way to a chess program running on computer hardware. If you are going to propose some sort of ‘other thing’ doing the sensing you need to supply more evidence than ‘it just feels that way to me’. We can all say that subjectively, but we need objective science to discover what is actually happening. Subjectively I would say the Earth is flat, it certainly seems that way but if we work together we soon find it’s not. I think the word ‘qualia’ is a word in search on a definition. It almost seems as contrived as your robot argument. Let’s stick to objectiveness to try finding more about the world.

I agree with your view of consciousness as being on a sliding scale. I have often espoused this to others, it seems to jibe with what my intuitive sense tells me is true. In fact, I am willing to go further than most in saying that all life probably has some subjective "awareness", however miniscule. Now I'm not going to turn into a hippie urging us to "feel the tree's pain," but despite the fact that a plant cannot have thoughts as we know them, some baseline awareness is not out of the question.

Perhaps, depending on the robot's construction, I too would hesitate to push that button. But if the degree of consciousness is simply some statistical measure within the robot's brain, perhaps we might say a given level of organization constitutes consciousness. Then what is to prevent us from saying all computers are conscious? Or any level of organized structures: buildings, playgrounds, patterned piles of rocks, goodreads discussion groups. Do these structures exhibit any kind of "consciousness" above the baseline? I think this is absurd, and if you do as well then you must have some semantic barrier devised to separate the conscious and the unconscious, and I'd like to know what it is. Certainly the consciousness we currently see in the world is an evolved trait unique to life, but if it is merely a physical trait then it should be measurable and definable in terms other than evolution or life.

I think the high degree of overlap we all have in agreeing to what is conscious and what is unconscious belies the fact that at the fringes the question becomes much less clear. "Consciousness on a sliding scale" solves this partially, but not completely. Virtually everyone will balk at causing a dog to suffer, but most of us are meat eaters who have put out of our minds the suffering of the animals we eat. No one I know has a problem with swatting mosquitoes or squishing ants underfoot, but a Buddhist monk might. If your sliding scale is based on measurable data then presumably we could assign all these organisms consciousness "coefficients," arbitrarily putting ourselves at 1.0 and a rock at 0, thereby setting up the scale for everything else. I think this sort of thing is destined to fail. It seems to me that the main basis we have of evaluating consciousness in others is through their level of similarity to ourselves, which is a subjective judgment.

My dad, who is an avid fisherman, once said that he had read in a fishing magazine about a study that had been done analyzing the nervous systems of fish. The study concluded that fishes' nervous systems are sufficiently simple that they do not feel pain. Setting aside questions of bias in such a magazine, I simply do not believe that we can get an insider's look at a fish in this way. We might say that their experience is qualitatively different, but what it is like, we do not know.

If you are going to propose some sort of ‘other thing’ doing the sensing you need to supply more evidence than ‘it just feels that way to me’. We can all say that subjectively, but we need objective science to discover what is actually happening. Subjectively I would say the Earth is flat, it certainly seems that way but if we work together we soon find it’s not.

The very nature of the subject defies evidence in the usual sense, at the very least evidence that can be communicated to others. And I think your flat Earth example is a poor one, since I freely admit we can use our objective power to analyze any other subject but our own subjectivity.

I’m not claiming for a minute that subjective experiences are not real. It seems you are the one trying to do that. To me they are physically caused and are sensed by the mind which is also physical

Let me put in a little shorthand.

A = cause of a subjective experience.
B = subjective experience
C = mind

So to translate what you have said using the words you have used:

A causes B, which is detected by C.

you have said A and C are physical. I have agreed with you multiple times. But you have refrained from calling B physical. I hope you do not think I am quibbling. B is what I am talking about, not A or C.

Eli,

My use of the flat earth was not an investigation of perception, it was to point out the nature of objective scientific enquiry i.e. people working together.

You agree with this up to a point “ I freely admit we can use our objective power to analyze any other subject but our own subjectivity”.

I would go further and say our own subjectivity is a subject for objective enquiry. Indeed amazing progress has been made on the subjects of neurology and perception – with do doubt more to come.

Also, re your A, B, C example. Maybe I phrased my comment unclearly. To me B and C are one, it is you that is making a distinction. Mind is (in analogy) the software that runs on the brain (hardware) but it is physical, in a similar way as a computer program in motion is physical.

I repeat “ If you are going to propose some sort of ‘other thing’ doing the sensing you need to supply more evidence than ‘it just feels that way to me.’”

Your only answer to this was ” the subject defies evidence”. Yet you are proposing something. How without evidence?!

The self is an illusion. It is a story we tell to ourselves after the event. We are made by evolution to think about and react to perceptions of the world. We are like that amoeba which dives under a rock if a shadow comes, only we have a bit more brain power and we can think before we act.

Still I think you are falling for the illusion of Duality.

Your only answer to this was ” the subject defies evidence”. Yet you are proposing something. How without evidence?!

I said evidence in the usual sense. The evidence is accessible to the observer as experience, but not communicable to others since experience is not experience to a third party, it loses its "experiential" nature. Black holes provide a natural analogy: Supposing an astronaut is trapped within the event horizon, but his ship is fast enough, and the black hole is large enough, that he can survive for quite some time before the gravitational gradient tears him apart. The astronaut observes light rays which have been orbiting near the event horizon for millennia. Among the photons he sees radio communications from an alien civilization. Now, the astronaut no longer has any way of communicating with the outside world. The knowledge he has gained is not communicable. Would you deny that it is knowledge?

I think a black hole is a good analogy for the subjective observer, as long as you don't take it too literally. All manner of things come in. Only Hawking radiation goes out. Subjective experience happens to all of us, but when we try to explain the experience to others it loses a piece of information, just as information is lost in Hawking radiation.

I can think of several reasons why, if we both have access to this evidence, I am acknowledging it while you are saying it doesn't exist. The most economical assumption I can see is that you are simply jumping past the level of direct sensory experience as a habit. I mean this as no insult, since I too am particularly guilty of getting overly "cerebral". But the history of mathematics shows us that some of the hardest and most long-lived questions have to do with axiom systems, that is, how we build the very base of our body of knowledge. What is more fundamental or axiomatic about how we view the universe than our senses?

Mind is (in analogy) the software that runs on the brain (hardware) but it is physical, in a similar way as a computer program in motion is physical.

Again, I agree with you, insofar as there are software-type patterns in the brain, which are physical, and which directly correspond to sensations and thoughts, which collectively could be described as a mind. And whereas computer software can contain all manner of information, how could it contain information to tell it what the experience of seeing is like, firsthand? The same reason that sensory experience cannot be communicated is the reason which most convinces me it is not physical.

I'd still like to hear what your basis is for evaluating the level of consciousness in others, and how you determine whether something is conscious or not.

Hi Eli,

"This is not dualism in the usual sense because there is only a one-way interaction between the physical and the non-physical. Physical mechanisms create non-physical phenomena (qualia), but non-physical phenomena cannot cause anything to happen in the physical world."

"A = cause of a subjective experience B = subjective experience C = mind"
"A causes B, which is detected by C."
"you have said A and C are physical. I have agreed with you multiple times. But you have refrained from calling B physical. ... B is what I am talking about, not A or C."

In the first quote you say that qualia can't affect the physical world but in the second you say that the physical mind is capable of detecting them. I believe that this is a contradiction. If the physical mind can detect qualia then they must be physical and we should be able to study them by studying their effects on the brain. On the other hand, if qualia aren't physical then they should be completely undetectable to the physical mind.

If qualia can't be detected by the brain then they can't have any effect on our thoughts, nor on our spoken or typed words. It follows that when you state that there must be some non-physical phenomenon to account for your perceptions, that statement itself must be the product of the purely physical processes of your physical self.

If this is the case then qualia are superfluous, and Occam's razor would suggest that we have no reason to think that they exist at all.

In the first quote you say that qualia can't affect the physical world but in the second you say that the physical mind is capable of detecting them. I believe that this is a contradiction. If the physical mind can detect qualia then they must be physical and we should be able to study them by studying their effects on the brain. On the other hand, if qualia aren't physical then they should be completely undetectable to the physical mind.

The second quote is my analysis of Stephen's statement. As such it doesn't reflect exactly what I am saying, and if it is unclear then it is my own fault for not better distinguishing my own argument from a line of inquiry into someone else's.

It follows that when you state that there must be some non-physical phenomenon to account for your perceptions, that statement itself must be the product of the purely physical processes of your physical self.

This is correct, though it doesn't prevent others from reflecting on the truth value of the statement, merely because physical processes produce them. As for Occam's razor I will answer this when I am not in a rush. =)

"The second quote is my analysis of Stephen's statement. As such it doesn't reflect exactly what I am saying..."

I know, however it seemed to me that your "shorthand" summation was more a restatement of your original assertions than a restatement of what Stephen had been saying. My mistake. In any case, I think we can agree that either the physical brain can detect qualia, or it cannot. If it can detect them then wherefore do we call them non-physical? If it cannot detect them then what purpose do they serve? Consider this sequence:

The brain senses neural input that informs it of an itch (that is, the physical condition that we label "itch," not the feeling of itching.)
The brain generates a qualia that is the sensation of an itch, and the desire to scratch.
The brain produces the nerve impulses that cause the body to scratch the itch.
The brain generates the qualia that are the sensations of willing the body to scratch, and the scratching itself.

Remove the steps involving the qualia and the situation is physically unchanged; their absence would be as undetectable as their presence. The qualia are voyeurs, "observing" the action, "experiencing" the delusion that they are in control, but in fact merely going along for the ride, every step of the way. One might imagine a scenario in which the qualia go "out of sync" with the body that generates them, in which they no longer "experience" the delusion of controlling that body. They would find themselves to be experiencing sensations (perhaps I should say "being sensations") but unable to take any action (perhaps I should say "being the sensation of taking actions"). Would such a situation even have any meaning? Would there be a sense of despair over this situation, without the body to create that emotion? And who would it be that was experiencing the condition (if indeed anyone or anything could be said to be experiencing it), and how would anyone else ever know that anything was amiss?

It follows that when you state that there must be some non-physical phenomenon to account for your perceptions, that statement itself must be the product of the purely physical processes of your physical self.

"This is correct..."

If you agree that your argument could be the product of purely physical processes then you should also agree that you would be making precisely the same argument whether that argument is true or completely false; the you that is typing your posts has never experienced the non-physical subjectivity of which that material you so earnestly speaks. That being the case, why propose the non-physical element at all? What function does the non-physical serve, other than to satisfy your incredulity that the physical suffices to account for subjectivity?

Rick, your argument was very persuasive. I had thought about those issues before, but the way you phrased it made me see that I had made a tacit assumption that knowledge of my "qualia" was indeed being fed back into my brain. Part of me is tempted to patch up the hole by saying that my physical brain only thinks it has knowledge of qualia, but that just becomes absurd. So perhaps you're right, I can see now that my position is untenable.

My hesitancy to become a full-fledged physicalist stems from the supreme "weirdness" of consciousness. There seem to be questions that we presumably can never answer, based on the way evolution created us, possibly, but possibly also intrinsic to consciousness itself. For instance, why are you you and not one of trillions of other organisms that have some degree of awareness? If we can never properly see into certain phenomena about the universe, then these phenomena are at least in one sense non-physical, which is not to say that they don't behave according to physical laws, only that they are untestable and unobservable.

Another example to illustrate my point that there may be some things that by our nature we can never know: let's say we created a machine that let us faithfully mirror another person's consciousness by creating a software model of it. We then had some way of experiencing it ourselves by overriding the neurons in our own brain... not necessarily restructuring the physical pathways, but interrupting the neural signals and redirecting them based on the pathways of the other person. In other words we have a consciousness "recording". Let's say, Rick, that you are the one who has been recorded, and I am the one "experiencing" your recording.

After I was done with the experience I would have no memory of it, since the process of storing memory had itself been overridden by the software, and during the experience I would have no memory or even knowledge that I was "really" Eli, since that would require new inputs added to the system while it was running, which would in turn change the "recording" of Rick. Presumably we all are dimly aware of our history at any moment of our lives, so we all access our memories continually on some background level, so it's not as if you could change the software to be "observable" without affecting the "recording". It would be like putting on an apparatus, blacking out, possibly feeling a momentary "zap" (or worse!) as I returned to consciousness and my altered brain state evened out with reality (or not!). Anyway this little thought experiment leads me to believe that there's no possibility of knowing what it's like to be someone else. I'm sure there are a few uninformed assumptions I've made about neurology so if anyone feels like correcting me please do so.

That being the case, why propose the non-physical element at all? What function does the non-physical serve, other than to satisfy your incredulity that the physical suffices to account for subjectivity?

As I use the word, it is closer to a lack of belief that everything can be examined or deduced, rather than a positive belief in some special non-physical "substance." Even Richard Dawkins admits something similar in The God Delusion. He sets up a scale of belief going from 100% sure there IS a God to 100% sure there ISN'T, but puts himself just short of 100%. In the same way I think there may be physical limitations to our understanding of the universe.

For instance, why are you you and not one of trillions of other organisms that have some degree of awareness?

Because you can't be all of them at once. The mistake is assuming that your being you is somehow special. Sure, the probability of you being you is astronomically low, but it's now lower than your probability of being any of those other trillions of beings. To read anything into it is a logical fallacy.

If we can never properly see into certain phenomena about the universe, then these phenomena are at least in one sense non-physical, which is not to say that they don't behave according to physical laws, only that they are untestable and unobservable.


I don't know how this means they're non-physical at all, unless you're changing the meaning of "physical" at your whim. If something is untestable, unobservable, etc., then one of two things could be true:

1. Our understanding of the physical world is complete, and our methods for measuring it are complete and perfect, therefore the unobserved phenomena are somehow other than and seperate from the physical world.

2. Our understanding of the physical world is incomplete, and/or our methods for measuring it are incomplete or imperfect.

Which seems more likely?

I say we agree that consiousness, self-awareness, etc. are evolutionarily advantageous, and leave it at that.

Dan said “Our understanding of the physical world is incomplete”.

I would say that our consciousness and self-awareness is also incomplete.

Evolution designed these things to let us survive and reproduce in the world, as with other ‘gifts’ from evolution these do the best job for the least effort. There is no claim that they ‘present’ ‘reality’ to us. They make a good job of it because it is useful but it is not reality.

Perception has a lot of pre-processing before we are aware of things. This is mostly at a subconscious level. Not only are the signals analysed before we are aware of them but they are also compared against memories. Our ‘awareness’ is often a story we tell to ourselves after the event.

Our subconscious is a big part of who we are and it is below awareness.

Because you can't be all of them at once. The mistake is assuming that your being you is somehow special. Sure, the probability of you being you is astronomically low, but it's now lower than your probability of being any of those other trillions of beings. To read anything into it is a logical fallacy.

I mentioned that I understood and went along with the "dice roll" idea in my very first and second posts. But how do you know that the chance of being an individual person is the same as the chance of being an individual bacterium? By what basis are you saying that the chance is no higher for one than for the other? And there are some other questions raised if you agree with the dice roll scenario: was there a single dice roll to go along with the big bang, that partitioned all possible conscious organisms at all times? I doubt anyone would say yes, given that would require a mechanistic view of the universe in which all was determined at the outset. Or are there dice rolls happening at every moment of the birth of an organism anywhere? In which case we run into other problems: what is being rolled against? And it still leaves the possibility open for "winning" another dice roll once we have died... albeit with a completely clean slate. You might say that I am making the assumption that I exist to have another dice roll, but your very idea of probability begs the question. If nothing exists before the dice roll, how is anything being chosen by the dice roll itself? I am not definitively saying any of these happens or does not happen, only that I think you haven't fully thought out the issue.

I don't know how this means they're non-physical at all, unless you're changing the meaning of "physical" at your whim.

dictionary.com lists this definition for physical pretty near the top of the page:

3. Perceptible through a bodily or material organization; cognizable by the senses;

Further I've not changed my definition; this was the same one I've used in multiple posts. In fact, relatively early on I gave a definition:

Any time i use the word physical you can assume i mean empirical / observable.

Your #1 and #2 options are a strawman argument. I think a third plausible position (and the one I hold) is #2 with a short addendum: the possibility that there are some things we will never know. We have already proved this to be the case for phenomena at the very base of both Physics and Mathematics: Heisenberg uncertainty and Godelian incompleteness. A parallel is by no means a proof, but I think it very reasonable to assume that the same claim can be made about consciousness.

Haha! Stephen I think that's the first post I can get behind 100%

Eli,

Thanks for the timely and thoughtful reply.

But how do you know that the chance of being an individual person is the same as the chance of being an individual bacterium? By what basis are you saying that the chance is no higher for one than for the other?

I think you're shifting the burden of proof here. By what rationale do you suppose that the odds of any one potential consciousness existing any different from any other potential consciousness? I still think you're committing a lottery fallacy here. You're looking at the probabilities from the perspective of yourself, not the perspective of the universe. I think the dice roll is a bad metaphor; a better choice would be pulling names from a hat. To ask, why are you you and not one of trillions of other organisms that have some degree of awareness? is like asking, "What were the odds of my name getting pulled from the hat?" without knowing how many names are in the hat, or how many pulls there are. You're implying that there's something special about you that makes your existence somehow noteworthy.

was there a single dice roll to go along with the big bang

what is being rolled against?

I think you're taking your metaphors too literally. Or else, I don't understand what you're saying here.

And it still leaves the possibility open for "winning" another dice roll once we have died... albeit with a completely clean slate. You might say that I am making the assumption that I exist to have another dice roll, but your very idea of probability begs the question.

You're trying to trick me into tacitly buying into your premise of dualism, but I'm not biting. Sure, there's a probability that all the molecules in the universe will arrange themselves in exactly the same way twice over, thus forming a second copy of "you" that will undergo the same experiences and develop a personality and self-awareness identical to yours. But that's not your argument. Your argument is that there exists a "you" in some non-physical plane who is waiting in the wings to come into physical existence, and that dice are being rolled for or against. This is obviously not how I look at it at all, and nowhere in my post have I said anything that opens the door to dualism. The molecules of the universe have become arranged in one of the infinite number of ways they could have been arranged, leading to the existence of a number of conscious beings. That is all.

Any time i use the word physical you can assume i mean empirical / observable.

Okay, fair enough. I don't do a good job of scrolling up to refresh my memory. But my basic point remains the same. Somewhere you're making the leap to conclude that if something is not observable, it is somehow supernatural. You're equivocating some word; if not "physical," then "observable." Perhaps you're reading "observable" to mean "observable by humans" or "observable using existing technology." The bottom line is that the fact that we aren't able to measure everything doesn't necessarily lead to dualism and qualia. These are just fancy words for "soul," as far as I'm concerned.

Your #1 and #2 options are a strawman argument. I think a third plausible position (and the one I hold) is #2 with a short addendum: the possibility that there are some things we will never know.

First off, not to be picky, but the thing you want to accuse me of is not a strawman, but a false dichotomy. ;) That said, I don't think I've made one; I just think I've phrased it poorly. Your addendum is implicit (I thought) in my #2.

Let me put it this way: if we don't know something, it is either because it is fundamentally unknowable, as it exists in some other, non-physical, supernatural plane, or because it is knowable but we don't know it. I see no reason to assume that the "unknowable" exists. I like Rick's example of the itch. Of course, you're free to argue that we can't know the unknowable doesn't exist, beacuse it's defined to be untestable, but what's the point?

You're implying that there's something special about you that makes your existence somehow noteworthy.

You misunderstand me. I don't think there's anything special about happening to be in this organism, but it still makes sense to ask the question of why this one, not for the purpose of fueling our egos or assigning spiritual meaning or anything of the sort (I don't assign any kind of qualitative meaning at being born a human in the 20th century rather than a jellyfish in the 12th), but in order to better understand the logical possibilities inherent in the assignment.

Somewhere you're making the leap to conclude that if something is not observable, it is somehow supernatural.

Nowhere have I made that claim. I think what is happening here is people see "non-physical" and alarm bells go off in their head.

First off, not to be picky, but the thing you want to accuse me of is not a strawman, but a false dichotomy. ;)

I saw #1 as your strawman representation of my argument. Maybe not, but then why include it? I don't think anyone here believes it.

You're trying to trick me into tacitly buying into your premise of dualism

Blast! Foiled again! Haha, no but I want to pin down your premise on how we end up in our particular selves. If the dice roll does not do it for you and the names in a hat thing is more your style, then so be it. I want to get your position clear. And to be honest the names in a hat thing is throwing me for a loop because it seems very dualistic... it seems to imply that the name is in the hat just waiting to be pulled, that it exists before it is pulled. I take it this is not what you mean, please clarify.

Let me put it this way: if we don't know something, it is either because it is fundamentally unknowable, as it exists in some other, non-physical, supernatural plane, or because it is knowable but we don't know it.

I'm not sure what you mean by supernatural... are you saying there IS a supernatural plane? I can think of several counter-examples. We can't know the nature of everything that went into a black hole. There is physical information that can't be retrieved. We can't know both the position and velocity of a particle exactly. This too is physical. My point is we can PROVE the unknowable exists.

And it seems as though you contradict yourself. You agree that my addendum is implicit and then say we shouldn't assume the "unknowable" exists... so which is it? Anyway I have to say I was very confused by your post.

I want to pin down your premise on how we end up in our particular selves.

It's easy: we don't end up in our particular selves. We are our particular selves. I don't know how better to answer a dualistic question like this without accepting the dualistic premise.

I'm not sure what you mean by supernatural... are you saying there IS a supernatural plane?

What I'm getting at with terms like "supernatural" and "fundamentally unknowable" is this idea of the non-physical that you propose. I think of the "physical" as anything consisting of matter and/or energy. In this sense, anything physical is knowable, even if it's in the middle of a black hole; it's unknowable by humans because we'll almost certainly never develop the technology to fly into the middle of a black hole, but it's not fundamentally unknowable.

At this point I'm going to not directly respond to the rest of your points because I'm very tired and almost certain to once again be unclear and inarticulate. In fact, I just deleted a whole bunch of stuff that I don't think clarified anything, and relied on a bunch of assumptions about your position. So let me back up and start from scratch. These qualia, these "non-physical" selves, are they made of atoms?

It's easy: we don't end up in our particular selves. We are our particular selves.

OK, so you are backing down from your claim that it is a probability of some sort?

In this sense, anything physical is knowable, even if it's in the middle of a black hole; it's unknowable by humans because we'll almost certainly never develop the technology to fly into the middle of a black hole, but it's not fundamentally unknowable.

I strongly disagree. This is not a matter of technology. These are things unknowable in theory, not just in practice. By the very fact that we are part of the system of the universe, it is impossible to know everything about the universe. But more specifically we can't know everything about even a single particle. Heisenberg uncertainty tells us that the more we hone in on the position of a particle, the more we sacrifice knowing its velocity, and vice versa. Again, this is not a question of getting better microscopes; it's a theoretical principle. I'll admit to not knowing the details, but certain forms of quantum theory and string theory predict that there is a certain miniscule length beyond which nothing can be known. This is referred to as the Planck length, at about 10^-35 meters. This is also theoretical and not just a matter of practicality. While I don't know enough about physics to say how set in stone this limitation is, I've followed the reasoning behind analogous theoretical limitations to our knowledge in both Mathematics and Computing (Godelian incompleteness and the Halting Problem, respectively) to understand the fact that it IS possible to PROVE something is unknowable. We already have a good body of evidence showing many larger-scale physical processes depend sensitively on initial conditions, so that we have a theoretical cap on knowing the full history of something as simple as a cockroach's heartbeat -- even on the macro level -- from present measurements. None of these theoretical caps make any of the phenomena they describe "supernatural."

It seems to me what you're saying is that "if we just had the right tools, tools so advanced we probably will never have them, we would be able to track every molecule in a system and predict the entire future of that system," but this will never be true. That way of thinking went out in the early 1900s.

These qualia, these "non-physical" selves, are they made of atoms?

Like I said, Rick's argument convinced me to abandon the epiphenomenalist viewpoint. But what led me to that viewpoint are certain aspects of consciousness which I have mentioned before, and which I still believe require allowing for phenomena which cannot be observed.

What you are asking me to do is comment on the constituent makeup of something that is unobservable, or at the very least which I have never observed. Why? I very much doubt they are made of atoms. But what does that prove? There are loads of phenomena and particles in the universe not made of atoms, and getting weirder by the decade. Some, such as the conjectured graviton, have never been observed.

I posed a question a while back that no one has taken a swing at: how do you determine if something else is conscious, and if you believe consciousness is a sliding scale then how do you measure the level?

My answer is that it's all destined to be guesswork.

OK, so you are backing down from your claim that it is a probability of some sort?

No. I'm simply saying that I don't share your dualist view. For anything that exists - you, me, the rock I use to prop open my door - there is a probability of its existence. But I don't believe, and have never claimed, that "we end up in our particular selves," because "we" and our "selves" are not two separate things.

As for the physics stuff, well, I don't know nearly enough about physics, and I don't disagree with any of what you said. I think we're just using the word "unknowable" differently. When I see that word, I think of things that literally have no properties relating to the physical world, things that exist entirely on some sort of spiritual plane.

Anyway, I don't want to get bogged down in a physics debate because I think it's beside the point. I was getting at something with the atoms thing, but I've since forgotten. Sleep deprivation. The thing I'm trying to get at is this: Why speculate on the existence of a non-physical "self?" How is it any more useful than speculating on, say, whether or not your whole life has been a dream?

Eli,

If it can make decisions about its environment rather than just reacting to it.

At each end of the scale it's easy, only in the middle does it get difficult.

Stephen said: If it can make decisions about its environment rather than just reacting to it.

How do you know YOU make decisions about your environment rather than just reacting to it in a very complicated way? Many people believe in free will but it is by no means proven.

The difficulty in even measurably defining what consciousness is is evidence to the fact that there are aspects of it that are probably not measurable.

For anything that exists - you, me, the rock I use to prop open my door - there is a probability of its existence.

Forget whether it's possible to exist as another person. I'm sure you have the capability of imagining yourself as another actual person who currently lives in this world. You have the human capacity for empathy. So at least one part of your brain is saying that it is not logically incoherent that you would have been born in a different body, grown up under different circumstances and become an entirely different person. If you have picked a real-life person as your subject, then how is this imaginary world different from our own current one? It isn't, in any physical way, different at all. Dan still exists, though you are not him, and he still lives the same life. It isn't physically different, but the location of "you" has changed. So it is different in a subjective sense.

My reason for imagining this is not to say that it would be possible to swap selves, only that it doesn't violate logic to imagine it as a different way things might have been. But though we perceive it as different, it isn't measurably different. So there must be something about consciousness that is immeasurable.

Anyway, I don't want to get bogged down in a physics debate because I think it's beside the point.

And yet you are talking about properties of the physical universe? I'll be the first to admit I understand very little of quantum mechanics, but in many of its variants the physical state of the universe depends on the presence or absence of an observer. Enter consciousness into the fray. Some of these versions have hidden variables, that is, variables which affect the system but can never be known. Quantum physics, in my estimation, seems to have a lot to say about the act of consciously observing the universe.

Why speculate on the existence of a non-physical "self?" How is it any more useful than speculating on, say, whether or not your whole life has been a dream?

The "whole life is a dream" thing is pointless, because it can never be proven, and even if it is true, it does not stop it from being a damn important, consequential and long-lasting dream. So it has no relevance to life.

But what I am doing goes beyond speculation. I am taking observable facts and extrapolating from them through thought-experiments.

And I do this online because if I make a cognitive error I want to be corrected. I want to get to the truth of things.

Wow, you guys have really put a lot of thought into this discussion. I kind of blew it off at the beginning, which I regret, as it is hard to catch up now.


And I do this online because if I make a cognitive error I want to be corrected. I want to get to the truth of things.



The answer is 42.

Eli,

“How do you know YOU make decisions about your environment rather than just reacting to it in a very complicated way? ”

Are you conscious? If you are then I am (apart from the dream thing).

I think you are too tied up with the definition of the word. It’s just a word and people try and define it in different ways but the way I think of words is that they are only there to convey information or ideas, they have no intrinsic or hard and fast meaning.

So if you think you are conscious then so I am.

Eli,

I address some of these things in post 146, but I'll try to clarify/reiterate here.

So at least one part of your brain is saying that it is not logically incoherent that you would have been born in a different body, grown up under different circumstances and become an entirely different person.

Yes, your brain is capable of imagining it, but that's because your brain operates in dualism. It's the language of your consciousness. That doesn't make it so, though. You're extrapolating the existence - or at least the possibility - of a non-physical self from vocabulary. The entire train of thought is based on the presupposition that duality is truth, so it becomes circular.

There is no me to have been born as/into another person; and, meanwhile, the person as/into which I was born, as/into which another person could have been born. There is simply me: I could have not existed.

Sure, the dualistic point of view could be true. There could be non-physical selves, but there is no evidence (outside of our vocabulary) for them, and there is no way to measure or test for them. Instead of two planes, there could be three, ten, a hundred. But there's no reason to imagine that there are, no evidence, nothing to gain by believing that there are, and no measurable effect that these other supposed planes of existence have on the one plane of which we are aware: the physical.

The "whole life is a dream" thing is pointless, because it can never be proven, and even if it is true, it does not stop it from being a damn important, consequential and long-lasting dream. So it has no relevance to life

Neither does dualism. It can never be proven, true or false. It doesn't affect anything. As Rick demonstrated: remove it from the process, and nothing changes. Imagine a seven-plane self: the six non-physical planes are all superfluous.

The only "observable fact" from which you extrapolate all of this is the observation that some things cannot be observed. This is essentially the same fact from which the "life is a dream," "life is the Matrix," etc., scenarios are drawn. They're possible because they're non-falsifiable, unobservable and untestable.

The only additional support for the dualistic viewpoint is that it already exists in our vocabulary. But using this is proof of anything is like a creationist criticizing evolution because Archeopteryx can be classified as a "bird."

As far as empathy goes, it's an interesting point, but we evolved empathy because it's useful. We think of ourselves as "selves," of others as "selves," and of the possibility of our "selves" being inside of others because it's useful shorthand to get us to act with empathy, defend against attackers, etc.

We also evolved the ability to see patterns where there are no patterns. This does not mean that there are patterns everywhere. We evolved the ability to anthropomorphize. This does not mean that inanimate objects have personalities. These are simply side-effects of some evolved traits.

How do you know YOU make decisions about your environment rather than just reacting to it in a very complicated way?

This is an interesting point, but I'm with Stephen in that I think it's fundamentally useless. The argument could be made that you have no free will because, your brain chemistry and neural pathways being what they are, when presented with a certain set of options, you're going to arrive at a particular decision, even though to you it seems like you're weighing options and freely making the decision. But if you establish the architecture of brain as the context, then within that context, you have free will, consciousness, etc.

I guess I would say that if you have the ability to think of yourself as conscious, then you are conscious. Of course, there are unanswerable questions, still. You can't necessarily test for whether or not a rabbit has this ability, unless you speak rabbit, and you can speculate as to the consciousness of a comatose person. However, what we can do is determine what parts of the brain are associated with those types of self-reflexive thoughts, and determine which lifeforms have developed and use those parts. It's still somewhat inconclusive in that it doesn't close the door on speculation, but it's probably a pretty good approximation. It's an interesting question, but seems to only be of practical purpose to vegetarians and SkyNet employees.

Good post Dan.

I'm currently travelling with limited internet access for the next few days, but I'd at least like to respond to a couple points. The "if you think you are conscious then you are" definition doesn't work as an observational tool for consciousness in others. Sure, words are tools; I am not trying to pin down a definition because I think it has mystical meaning, I am trying to use it as a starting point for your claims that consciousness is nothing more than certain observable, physical properties. If no part of consciousness is non-physical (again, read non-observable), then there should be a good definition to use that allows us to make claims for the consciousness of others. A reasonably simple computer program can state that it is conscious and pass the Turing test. So this is not a good definition. And other definitions of the word tend to be equally slippery. I don't think it is unreasonable, given the fact that science is very careful about most of its definitions, to expect that if it were physical processes alone it would have a rigid and clear definition.

We also evolved the ability to see patterns where there are no patterns. This does not mean that there are patterns everywhere. We evolved the ability to anthropomorphize. This does not mean that inanimate objects have personalities. These are simply side-effects of some evolved traits.

These counter-examples don't work because they could be easily disproved. A mathematician could analyze a book like The Bible Code and give statistical proof that you can find similar "messages" in any random string of comparable length. A scientist can demonstrate that whatever we are anthropomorphizing does not in fact have human traits by a series of controlled experiments.

Further, you've missed my point entirely about the empathy example. No one said that empathy wasn't an evolved trait. But you would never say, "Stop telling me to use my eyes to see things about the universe, they are merely an evolved trait." And even though I said it before, it appears I need to say it again: the point of the example was not to speculate whether or not I really could have been born in another body, only what such an imagining might tell us about the nature of consciousness.

Sure, the dualistic point of view could be true. There could be non-physical selves, but there is no evidence (outside of our vocabulary) for them, and there is no way to measure or test for them. Instead of two planes, there could be three, ten, a hundred. But there's no reason to imagine that there are, no evidence, nothing to gain by believing that there are, and no measurable effect that these other supposed planes of existence have on the one plane of which we are aware: the physical.

No one said anything about planes of existence. Maybe I should stop saying "non-physical" because it opens peoples' imaginations up to the whole treasure box of dualist fantasy, so that I end up appearing to back up claims I don't really hold. The Planck length is non-physical in that things within it can never be observed. So when you get down small enough the whole universe is "non-physical"... I've stated the definition that I'm using multiple times, but somehow it keeps swinging back to fairies and unicorns. So maybe I'll let you all come up with a substitute that is more friendly to this board =).

Eli,

I think you are trying to have it both ways.

You claim (and I agree with you) that consciousness is a hard problem, very difficult to analyse and pin down. The only way we will make objective progress is with scientific method and the latest scientific tools.

But you then seem to be trying to pin it down yourself with thought experiments and by just trying to think through the logic of it.

You agree that words are just tools but then you talk about their definitions, however, words can only be defined by other words!

Only with scientific tools that give repeatable results can we approach the problem objectively.

From a subjective perspective we use what works. I wouldn’t disregard the Turing test so quickly and I will also (not least from the evidence of your posts) regard you as a conscious entity (as a first approximation of a working hypothesis that is.)

;o)

I think you are trying to have it both ways.

We can approach the problem from both ways, and we should do so and use every avenue of understanding. I am not making hard claims about consciousness; I am analyzing others' hard claim that every aspect of consciousness is observable. I guess you could consider mine a hard claim but for me it is more of a temporary position based on intuition and lacking evidence to the contrary. For those saying it's non-falsifiable, well, I hope not. That may be true, or I simply may be too dumb to think up the right experiment. String theorists are in a similar bind.

You agree that words are just tools but then you talk about their definitions, however, words can only be defined by other words!

Well no offense but that seems kind of defeatist! Why use words at all then?

I will also (not least from the evidence of your posts) regard you as a conscious entity (as a first approximation of a working hypothesis that is.)

Hah, Likewise. This hypothesis is so reasonable that for all intents and purposes we can call it fact. I don't think anyone would disagree. I'd like to move beyond this point since I think we are all probably quibbling about a smaller difference of opinion than initially appears. I hope no one will think I am dodging anything, and I am willing to stay with this discussion but perhaps we should move on to more productive matters. Also, since this has all gotten pretty far removed from the initial purpose of the thread we might want to start a new one. But I've stuck with this thread till now because the high atheist concentration makes it nice not to have to deal with the religious viewpoint on top of everything else. I'm torn.

It seems to me that you could, at least in principle, give a rigorous, mathematical definition of intelligence simply by looking at structure. SETI is based on this. So what is the difference between intelligence and consciousness, if there is one, and how are they related?

Eli,

It’s not a defeatist position at all, words are a wonderful, poetic and beautiful way to communicate and convey subjective meaning. It’s just that they are not the best tool to use for science because they are self referential and fluidic in definition.

I agree that our differences are probably small and I understand your subjective awe of consciousness.

Re the difference between intelligence and consciousness, they are both on a sliding scale and I think it is where the two come together you get the sliding scale of awareness.

Eli,

The "if you think you are conscious then you are" definition doesn't work as an observational tool for consciousness in others.

I agree, and I thought I said as much. But what we can do is, through repeated experiment, come to a pretty good understanding of which parts of the brain are associated with consciousness, and look for those structures and activities in others. I agree that consciousness is a difficult problem. We can only be really aware of it in ourselves.

As for robots, this raises interesting questions. In the near future, we'll have robots with at least rudimentary self-awareness. It's not hard to imagine robots with sophisticated "consciousness," although who knows when and if they'll actually exist. Would this consciousness be real? Is it not real just because it isn't "natural"? In one sense, these are interesting questions. In another sense, they're pointless or futile, because they're trying to pin reality to a word rather than the other way around.

No one said anything about planes of existence. Maybe I should stop saying "non-physical" because it opens peoples' imaginations up to the whole treasure box of dualist fantasy, so that I end up appearing to back up claims I don't really hold.

Then I guess maybe you need to re-clarify your position on dualism. I was under the impression that you endorsed this idea. I talk about "planes of existence" just to distinguish between the physical and non-physical. You speak of two sets of selves. As I only appear to exist once, in order for me to exist twice simultaneously, I must exist on two planes of existence. I'm not going out of my way to make it sound supernatural.

It seems as though you're shifting the meanings of words to suit a particular argument. Things seem to simultaneously be non-physical and not-not-physical, natural and supernatural, etc., to the point where I'm not even sure what you're saying and therefore what I'm refuting or agreeing with. I'm not trying to be hostile, I'm just having difficulty finding a way to see your two sets of selves as anything other than supernatural, a gussied-up version of the soul.

I thought I'd been clear that I maintain that duality is the language of the mind, the language of consciousness, but that there aren't actually two entities; that empathy, etc., function better when the brain subdivides itself this way. And I think this is interesting enough, that virtual dualism is the language we have evolved to use with ourselves about ourselves. If you agree or disagree with this, don't understand it or want to add to it, let me know.

If you do hold a dualistic viewpoint, and you maintain that this is in no way supernatural, then how is this so? You talk about our multiple layers of self, but don't say much about what they are, just what they're not and what they're not not.

Don't be mistaken, though: I am enjoying this conversation, especially in contrast to my daily battles with teenage evangelicals over "transitional forms."

Then I guess maybe you need to re-clarify your position on dualism.


1) Subjective awareness (consciousness) exists in ourselves and in others.
2) There is no way of confirming it except in ourselves.
------------------------------
3) There is something non-measurable about consciousness.

Now I'm not really sure if this viewpoint above is "dualist" and I really don't care. But by using that word you connect my relatively simple premises with a huge conglomeration of philosophies, pretty much all of which are patently false.

I could have used one or two other things I've mentioned in place of #2 above but they've all pointed to the same #3.

You've said I'm trying to pin reality to a word. I've done just the opposite. I don't care what phrase you use, be it "the subjective", "subjective awareness", "consciousness", etc., etc. I doubt you'll debate there is a reality these words correspond to. Claiming my argument is simply a matter of semantics is just silly. Of course words are limited, but we have to start somewhere to even have a discussion, and it makes sense to standardize and define the words we use in order to be talking about the same things.

So from here on I'm going to go to a more conventional usage of "physical": Of or relating to matter and energy or the sciences dealing with them, especially physics.