From: Dan Fabulich (daniel.fabulich@yale.edu)
Date: Mon Dec 13 1999 - 13:19:01 MST
'What is your name?' 'John Clark.' 'Do you deny having written the
following?':
> Dan Fabulich <daniel.fabulich@yale.edu> Wrote:
>
> >In fact, many (most?) philosophers of mind who believe in
> > qualia ALSO believe that zombies could exist,
>
> Many (most?) philosophers act as though we've discovered nothing
> about physics, biology, logic, or computer science in the last 100 years,
> perhaps 200, in fact some think nothing important has happened since
> Aristotle.
Sad, but true. Here, I want to quote a few passages from Waiting for Zed,
because it's good stuff, and deserves a second look:
Alf: With all your talk about parts and
the way things behave, you're forgetting
the most important thing. From my point
of view it really doesn't matter if
something acts like me or not, the
important thing is that something feels
like me. The continuation of my
subjective experience is what I want to
survive, it's what people mean when they
talk about immortality. A computer may be
able to act just like you or me but be
unable to feel anything. It could just be
a mechanical gadget that goes though all
the proper motions but with no more
awareness than a cuckoo clock. Can you
prove it's more than that?
[Does this remind anyone ELSE of the zombie? It does me.]
Bob: No, I can't prove that consciousness
would be preserved in a computer, the
only consciousness I can prove to exist
is my own, and that proof is available
only to me. We just have to assume that
when something--like other people, act
intelligently--they are conscious.
[Golly, we have to ASSUME it? It doesn't seem as impossible as you made
it out to be.]
Alf: That doesn't sound very scientific.
Why must we assume something that we have
not proven?
Bob: Because nobody can function if they
really think that they are the only
conscious being in the universe, we must
accept it as one of the axioms of
existence that intelligent behavior is
impossible without consciousness.
Basically that's the Turing Test. This
test is not a perfect instrument for
studying consciousness and it has not
been proven to work and will never be
proven to work, but it's the best tool we
have and the best we will ever have for
studying this question.
[The assertion that we can't get by without assuming consciousness exists
is false. You can be like me and say that "consciousness" is hogwash all
together, that we're "thinking" in the functional sense but not Thinking
in the spooky Cartesian sense.]
Alf: You surprise me Bob, you were just
telling me how foolish it is to assume
that a problem has no logical solution
because if you don't even try to solve a
mystery your chance of solving it is
zero, but now you throw up your hands and
say it's just too hard and we'll never
find a theory of consciousness.
Bob: Not so. I'm sure you could dream up
a really nifty theory about
consciousness, I'm sure you could come up
with lots of them. It's easy to invent
consciousness theories (but not theories
about intelligence!)because there are no
facts they must explain. How are you
going to tell which of the many theories
is correct? In the final analysis all
you'll have to work with are external
things like actions and the physical
state of a brain. That works fine for
examining intelligence but you can't
prove it's enough for consciousness. As a
practical matter we must assume that
consciousness and intelligence are
inter-linked so if something acts just
like you it is conscious just like you,
The Turing Test.
Alf: I think you're being much too
pessimistic, I don't see why
consciousness couldn't be put on a sound
scientific foundation someday. Before
long we will be able to record the
position of every atom in your brain,
surely that's enough information to
figure out for certain what consciousness
is all about.
Bob: Let's say you have a super
sophisticated brain analyzing machine.
One day you feel sad and analyze your
brain with the machine. You develop a
reasonable sounding theory to equate the
state of the neurons in your head with
your subjective experience. How do you
test your theory? Well, you try it on me.
You notice that the state of my neurons
is similar(but not identical) to yours
when you felt sad, and from this you use
your theory to conclude that I am
experiencing sadness just like you did.
As proof that your theory was successful
you point to the fact that I have tears
in my eyes and made a noise with my mouth
that sounded like "I feel sad".
I think this would be very good evidence
that your theory is correct, but a
>>> skeptic could correctly point out that
the state of my neurons were not
identical to yours, only similar, we are
after all different people with different
brains. The differences could be crucial,
you really felt sad but it's different
with me, I get tear production elevated
and the nerves in my mouth stimulate my
tongue to make a noise like " I feel sad"
but really I feel nothing. The only way
to know for sure what it's like to be me
is to turn your brain into an identical
copy of mine, but then you wouldn't be
you, you'd be me.
-- John Clark, Waiting For Zed
http://www.extropy.org/eo/articles/zed.htm
[Ahem. What you've just said here is that there is a problem of other
minds, and that everyone else, despite all of your super analyzing
equipment, could turn out to be zombies. That's merely the technical term
for people who are just like Thinkers in every way, except they have no
consciousness. For all you want to poke fun at me for using the zombie
example, HERE YOU ARE USING IT. I hope you don't challenge me for quoting
out of context or anything.]
The only difference here is that you make an exception for yourself, and
all identical copies of yourself. It's THAT idea that I'm trying to deny,
on EXACTLY the same grounds as the previous skeptic.
Heck, suppose we made use of the magic copying machine. You could use your
super-analyzing equipment and see that your copy had all the same brain
states as you, and observe all the same behaviors. But a skeptic could
correctly point out that the problem of other minds extents to your copy,
as well. How would you prove that he's conscious? After all, your
"proof" that you're conscious is available only to YOU.
Don't tell me that we have to assume it. We don't. I reject it, and I'm
arguing that you should, too.
> >or, at least, that they are conceptually coherent.
>
> Huh? If something is impossible yet the idea is coherent in your belief
> system then your belief system is wrong.
Yes. Yes, indeed. But I've just given a name to something which YOU
think is conceptually coherent, and THAT'S my challenge to YOU. You claim
that it could very well be the case that everyone except you is a zombie,
that "a skeptic could correctly point out that" other people "SEEM"
conscious in every way, but aren't. I challenge you further that, on the
same grounds of the previous skeptic, YOU could be under the mistaken
"impression" that you have qualia as well. Before you even start, I know
that you "think" that you're Thinking, I know that you "think" you have
qualia, it's my assertion that you are "fooled," and that we can't/don't
Think at all. Nor do we Think we have qualia, though some of us "think"
we do. (again "think" in the functionalist sense, Think in the Cartesian
sense)
I don't really think zombies ARE conceptually coherent, to be honest, but
that's because I don't think qualia and consciousness are conceptually
coherent. If you force me to assume that consciousness is somehow a
coherent idea, then I'll be forced to say that we're all zombies, but I
take that to be a pretty silly way of saying it.
> Well yes but there is nothing unique in that, it need not have
> anything to do with consciousness. I don't care what it is if you keep
> asking "why" after the statement "X happened because of Z" you will
> after about 6 or 7 questions be talking about quarks and the geometry
> of space- time, and after that all you can say is I don't know.
Ahem. You missed the relevant argument of Chalmers where he backs that
assertion up. He does so by using the zombie argument! Here, I'll
quote it again, because I'm fond of quotation:
"At the end of the day, the same criticism applies to *any* purely
physical account of consciousness. For any physical process we specify
there will be an unanswered question: Why should this process give rise to
experience? Given any such process, it is conceptually coherent that it
could be instantiated in the absence of experience. It follows that no
mere account of the physical process will tell us why experience arises.
The emergence of experience goes beyond what can be derived from physical
theory."
-- Chalmers, Facing Up to the Problem of Consciousness
http://www.imprint.co.uk/chalmers.html
That instantiation in the absence of experience is just the same thing as
your man who cries and claims to be sad but feels nothing. That
instantiation is a zombie. So don't go running about claiming that
zombies are nonsense, because a skeptic like yourself could correctly
point out that zombies may not be nonsense at all.
-Dan
-unless you love someone-
-nothing else makes any sense-
e.e. cummings
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