Steve Nichols wrote:
> No, the point about the Athena Fallacy (my invention, so you can't say
> it means something different) is that consciousness & intellect did not
> emerge fully formed .... but arose over millennia, with intermediate phases.
> Philosophers IGNORE the evolution of consciousness and try to deal with
> what find through introspection (or verbal examination). However, you cannot
> fully explain the presenting phenomena without an understanding of the
> formative processes. For example, your analogy about the Turing machine
> has no precedents in evolution, or any basis in fact about the architecture
> of the E-1 brain. You are not alone, most philosophers make this error.
I suspect you're right that the mind has been evolving. But, of
course, since we can't see the mind evolving, only the brain and
behavior, there's no way to know this.
Anyway, I deny believing that the mind emerged fully formed. I also
deny believing the opposite. I just don't know.
That's the difference.
> >But if the phantom eye is a feeling, a mental object, then you're no
> >better off than when you started. We began by saying "I wonder how
> >the physical world is related to these mental objects!" if you reply:
> >"they're linked through the phantom eye!" and it turns out that the
> >phantom eye is, itself, a mental object, then you haven't answered the
> >question.
>
> I think that there is a recursive, or additional self-referential property
> owned by the illusion of the median eye that is not shared by other
> aspects/objects of consciousness, which is that the neurosignature
> associates it as being PART of the self, the physical body, rather than as
> externally originating. Muller's principal &c. links particular sensory
> signals to the nerve or special sense organ that carries the signal.
Another non-answer. HOW does the neurosignature associate anything
with the *phantom* eye, the eye that's not there? HOW does the eye do
what you say it does? You have no answer because the eye is either a
mental object, in which case it's unobservable, or it's a physical
"hole," (or missing physical function) in which case, you can't tell
me anything about its connection to the mind.
> The feeling of the phantom median eye, unlike visual sensations that go
> away when we close our eye, is pervasive and continuous (the archetype
> physical "mind/ pineal eye " had no eyelids or muscles of direction). So
> I have always said that the phantom "eye" is not a separate entity from the
> "phantom median vision" ..... my theory started as being called Phantom
> Eye hypothesis, but I changed it to MVT precisely to emphasise that
> what is important is that "consciousness" or mind is median-vision shaped,
> which tells more that median-eye shaped.
After MVT', how could you show that any of this is right? None of
this gets into MVT'.
> What about dreaming when the body is paralysed and there is no
> external physical stimuli?
There are no immediate physical stimuli, but the brain is still
responding to earlier physical stimuli; the brain is completely
physically determined throughout the dream process.
> >You're relying on the philosophical parts of MVT to defend this claim;
> >these are the very points which I reject.
>
> OK, I've only sold you on part of the package so far, but think that
> the conceptual stuff likely follows, even if I haven't yet developed a
> conscious machine on the MVT model, or a telepathy device to check
> for consciousness. There seems no reason in principle why a device
> could not me made that could sit in a shielded room, away from a
> subject looking at playing cards or visual stimuli, and arriving at correct
> predictions of what card the person is thinking of ... quantum physics
> allows this possibility, as does logic. Then your points about subjectivity
> might be rejected.
Arriving at what card the person is focusing on could be done using
MVT'. MVT would add that the person is THINKING about that card,
which you can't show scientifically, can NEVER show scientifically.
Got a telepathy machine that tells me how and what I feel? How do you
know it works correctly, or that it worked at all? How would you test
it? How would we know that we're not just testing for behavior and
physical phenomena, rather than mental phenomena?
The mind is unobservable, unverifiable on any physical test, even in
principle, because no test is available above and beyond a test for
behavior and physical phenomena.
> On the contrary, I identify with my primate brethren, and do not think I
> have any brain parts that E-1 animals such as cats have. But what value
> does your rock analogy have, we are nothing like rocks? You are really
> stretching this doubtful "all made of atoms" thing to absurd lengths.
> How is a rock intelligent, let alone conscious?
Rocks are like us in that we are both physically determined. This
discussion has gone on so long that we're forgetting the context in
which our quips originated. ;)
> So you accept that there are non-physical objects, and further accept the
> difference between "hole" and "gap" although both may be indistinguishable
> at the time of examination? Do you accept that holes are completely
> PSYCHOLOGICAL (contents of consciousness) and not at all physical?
Ah, no. Holes are not "objects" at all. They denote places where
certain objects aren't, though I'm willing to extend the analogy to
complex systems which have a missing component or a missing function.
A hole in the earth is not psychological. One might be led to think
so the fact that holes acquire NAMES by virtue of the fact that we
name them, think about them, and have a psychology in which that is
possible, but that doesn't make holes psychological entities.
> I raised the hole point to illustrate that non-physical entities can exist.
> There is an analogy between holes and the abstract median eye.
> But what is additional regards the median eye is that its FUNCTIONS
> as well as its form have been lost. There is an abstraction activity in
> place of the original median eye input activity .. nature abhors a
> vacuum!
Still no explanation. You don't explain how physical input is
communicated to the mental eye, though it is obvious how it gets to
the place where the eye was, and how the absence of a certain function
is necessary for intelligent behavior. You don't explain how the eye
or any other part of the mind influences the world in any way at all,
though it is obvious how the brain alone performs physical activity.
> OK, but questioning how I can prove it is not questioning that it is true.
Right, but I'm making a considerably stronger claim than that: I'm
claiming that MVT is not scientific, whereas MVT' is. Just as physics
is scientific whereas the Fairy theory is not.
> I can triangulate, and use evidence from several independent fields
> (physiology, evolutionary, psychological, conceptual/ philosophical &c.
> that all point towards MVT as having solved consciousness, but as you
> have realised, the empirical data alone only makes a probabilistic case
> since measurability of subjective experience is (not yet, and maybe never)
> possible.
It doesn't even make a probabilistic case, except to the extent that
different philosophical theories "might" be correct. We sometimes say
things like "a deontological moral theory *might* be true, but I think
utilitarianism is probably the right answer," but we don't mean by
that the same thing that we mean when we say "These dice *might* come
up snake eyes, but I think they probably won't."
When you're making claims about unobservables, there is no "might" or
"might not."
> This does not make MVT any less true. We must evaluate competing
> theories and go with our best judgement .... name ANYTHING that can
> be proven to absolute certainty. Deductive logic and mathematical
> proofs rely on the identity statement (1 + 1 or a = a) and so can be
> denied.
True. But we don't take it that 1 = 1 or a = a is true on some
probability or other. Claims like 1 = 1 or a = a are unverifiable,
even in principle. Perhaps this is tolerable because they are
analytic, but the point remains that we don't ever TEST for them.
MVT is wildly far from analyticity, so it's just not scientific
(though MVT' is).
> S> Also, the point with parallel computing is that things happen in
> S> PARALLEL, not in serial lockstep.
>
> >True, but this can be emulated by a Turing machine: in a given quantum
> >of time, it updates the first part, then the second part, then the
> >third part, ... and finally the Nth part. Then it updates the next
> >quantum of time, etc. Thus a Turing machine is functionally
> >equivalent to any parallel machine.
>
> Are you appealing to the reduction to statistical mechanics when you
> make this claim? Even if you are, you are still wrong because the
> parallel brain works in REAL TIME, not in simulation. Furthermore,
> the neural computers exhibit graceful degradation and can re-route
> and self repair. The grandmother cell claims have been widely
> rejected, memory and information is distributed and associated with
> weight-states, so what experts are you citing to back your claim
> that the mammalian brain resembles a serial computer?
You're right about the real time objection, but the claim that "A is
functionally equivalent to B" just means that A yields the same
answers, the same results, as B, not that it does so as fast. While
you might call something unconscious if it exhibited intelligent
behavior at the speed of a glacier, you wouldn't do so if it was only
marginally slower, and certainly not if it did so as fast as you.
As for graceful degradation and self-repair, these things can be
emulated. Emulated damage can be re-routed and automatically
repaired by emulated neurons.
Which means that the important part, the behavior, CAN be emulated. I
could have a Turing machine that behaved exactly like you, down to the
level of giving interesting dream reports. How would you know it
wasn't actually dreaming?
> >Ah, but verbal cues, while they aren't *chemical*, are entirely
> >*physical*.
>
> I think I have you on the run here. Say the verbal cues are written on a
> page ... together with a load of meaningless scribble .... and further
> say that you are dreaming of seeing the words. Maybe they are shocking,
> something like "The Writing is on the Wall" and you wake up, shocked.
>
> Which part of the verbal cues are physical here?
They happened by virtue of earlier and on-going physical stimuli.
Just as the weather is completely physically determined, even though
there is no one-to-one relationship between various important
meteorological events and their physical causes.
The brain IS a complex and largely chaotic system, we agree. But
still physically determined.
> >Right. So: a red-wavelength beam of light hits my eye. It hits
> >red-receptors in my eye, which send electrochemical signals up to the
> >brain. How does this signal make me have the conscious sensation of
> >red? All I can see it doing is causing more physical activity in the
> >brain. The fact that there's no medial eye there doesn't seem to help
> >this explanation out.
>
> Yes, a key question .... we can see that the original red wavelength
> is translated into action potential signals by the rods and cones so
> that the information can be carried along the optic nerve. There is
> no actual red light anymore, but the end perception is of a red
> light, not of an electrochemical buzz.
Right.
> The abstract/ illusory sensor (locus of awareness) is the part of
> the brain made of the same type of information, and allows the new
> signals to be reintegrated as meaningful experience ...
No it *isn't*. The phantom eye is NOT a part of the brain. It's a
*feeling*. "Holes" (including missing functions) might be part of the
brain, but holes aren't feelings. Holes aren't even LIKE feelings.
> (1) It is generic, the pineal eye predates special senses and of course
> the electrochemical medium is the same (generic) whether the
> original information is auditory, visual or olfactory.
Irrelevant. Non-explanatory.
> (2) I don't like Dennett's Cartesian theatre case, but do think that the
> conceptual space vacated by the old physical sensor(gan) does give a
> structure for the mass of generic neural information to be
> interpreted against. The TV screen decodes signals (via the aerial/
> nerve channel) into a moving picture and sound that can be observed
> by the viewer ... the phantom median eye provides a virtual screen
> (shape and place) to reintegrate experience.
Not an explanation. HOW does it reintegrate experience? How does it
receive any physical input at all? How, given physical input, does it
create an experience?
On a TV, I can explain how purely physical components react to
electronic signals to affect an electron beam which strikes phosphors,
which then glow in a manner which is structurally similar to the light
that struck the camera lens. You can give me nothing like this as to
how the median eye does this to light and gives out experience.
> (3) There is a neurocomputational account based on the deep pathways of
> the limbic brain associated with median eye data processing in early
> information that underlies more recent pathways, for instance in the
> visual cortex. Gibson gives a gestalt account of your red light
> example ... and would say it actually is seen IN the eyeball .. but
> the organism reacts as a whole entity (eg. if the light is a car
> about to hit you, your whole body instinctively takes evasive
> action.
Do you see at all what is unsatisfactory about this? HOW does this
happen?
> >Similarly, suppose my consciousness has made a decision. It wants to
> >send a message down to my hand to type the word "red". How does this
> >signal get to my brain? Once again, the fact that there's no pineal
> >eye doesn't answer the question. And, not coincidentally, no signal
> >from my consciousness is necessary: my brain seems to be doing all the
> >work *already*: that signal from my eye triggered a purely physical
> >complex system, which sent the message back down to my hand to write
> >the word "red." How did the consciousness help this process? Once
> >again, the non-existence of the eye doesn't help.
>
> Sure, much background processing is going only unaware to you ... but
> we have an ability to "focus our mind" or concentrate, and to make
> decisions.
Focusing our mind is the easy part. How do those decisions translate
into actions?
> Our ancestors' attention (during reptilian phase) was the
> unavoidable spotlight of the pineal eye/ median spectral field,
> which reacted hormonally in response to light, and the hormones
> governed muscle action and behaviour directly. We now act
> indirectly, but the attentional "space" or pervasive illusion of
> self, is where the pineal eye/ median spectral field would have
> been, the same centres in the brain are activated (I think the
> reptilian, limbic structures and brain stem, hippocampus and
> amygdale and still fundamental in formulating our emotional,
> reactive responses to information received).
None of this even BEGINS to answer the question I've asked. When you
spout off like this it makes me think that you're just writing to see
yourself on the screen.
> So I think we can focus in on particular information of importance
> .... rather like the reading head of your Turing machine perhaps
> (?) because of this singularity (in Leibnitz' monad sense, the
> undivided "structure" in the brain) and make Descartes' "sens
> communs" out of the chaos, the diverse sense- information ..... an
> illusion or simulation of the outside world represented on the walls
> of our internal cave (Plato) seen by a sense-organ that itself is an
> illusion or hallucination of a structure that no longer juts out of
> our skull.
So what? Focusing your mind is not enough. How does a mental event
cause a physical event?
I want to call attention to the fact that this isn't like the way a
child will ask "Why?" or "How?" to successively fundamental
explanations. Rather, you haven't even begun to give me a first-order
explanation of how red light gives us a red sensation or of how our
decisions affect the brain.
> Now you can compare your prediction against my somewhat fuller
> answer, I hope it is a bit clearer to you, and that you might see where
> your Turing notion comes from?
No; your fuller answer didn't answer the question *at all*.
> >Conscious behavior IS a trick of nature. But what about consciousness?
>
> I am not sure that I agree with your behaviourist distinction. Consciousness
> is a clumsy, blanket term, I agree. "Mentation" or "mental events" are
> not "behaviour" in the same way that having a pee is behaviour. I happen
> to think that we are in "trance" to some degree or other all of the time,
> after all, even you seem to accept that we only experience red light
> indirectly
> via the medium of electrochemical signals, and thus can never know the
> world "directly."
>
> In this analysis, there isn't any "behaviour", just awareness of behaviour.
> So the question is not 'what about consciousness' which is a given, but
> "what about BEHAVIOUR?"
A common move in arguments of this kind. But you REALLY don't want to
commit yourself to positions like this, because you've backed yourself
into holding a phenomenological theory: that all we're in touch with
is our sensations and that everything else that isn't a sensation is
suspect.
To be a consistent phenomenologist, one ought to be uniformly
skeptical of the whole scientific enterprise. Granted, if you give
scientific statements a strong anti-realist reinterpretation ("when
you say voltmeter, you mean voltmeter-like sensations...") you can
salvage much of science, but even then you still have no explanation
for the link up between sensations-of-brains and consciousness. No
help in providing a link-up.
Attacking the mind-body problem from the mind side instead of the body
doesn't help you a bit.
> >This is like replying to the claim that the earth spins and revolves
> >around the sun with the claim "this is not my experience." From here,
> >it looks the same either way! It looks the same whether the sun goes
> >around the earth or whether the earth goes around the sun. Only when
> >we attempt to do some scientific inquiry does the correct view come to
> >the foreground.
>
> My experience is shared by most people, and even most philosophers,
> in that I can find not the slightest shred of evidence to support the wild
> epiphenomenalist claim that everything would be EXACTLY the same
> if no consciousness or feeling had ever happened. You accept this
> logical extension of your position presumably ... it is standard philosophy.
The evidence is this: mental objects are non-physical, and the world
is physically closed. You have yet to even begin to explain how a
feeling can affect the physical world. (Sometimes I think you're so
enamored of technical jargon that you've forgotten how we're supposed
to be fixing the referents of these terms.)
Observing physical closure is to look through Galileo's telescope.
We know the mind is non-physical, and we can see that they can't
affect the physical world because of this. One, two, three.
> You persist with this belief-desire hypothesis ... there is plenty
> of turgid response to this in the literature. Suffice to say
> (actually replying to your earlier point that I can't dropMVT
> because of my desire to have that belief ... which I reject because
> my desire is to find the TRUE or most true possible answer ... MVT
> isn't a particularly desirable scenario in some ways, I would prefer
> that there is a benign God who will see me safely through life to a
> blissful eternal afterlife .... but unfortunately the evidence
> persuades me of MVT and not areligious belief, (sob, weep).
Yes, quite the shame. So you ARE physically determined, see?
I've heard the argument that your beliefs have nothing to do with your
desires, but, if so, then you REALLY aren't in control of them. And
maybe that's right. But either way, you're physically determined.
> >It's only "defeatism" if you're giving up on the possible. Is Godel's
> >Incompleteness Proof pessimistic about the possibility of designing a
> >formally complete arithmetic? No. It shows that it's impossible.
> >Every optimist should accept "defeatist" arguments of that kind.
>
> You must ditch the possible if it contradicts the probable!!
>
> Free-will is a much more fruitful stance than determinism, and does allow
> that many aspects (genetics &c) are determined. Utility must decide here.
Free-will is only "fruitful" to the extent that it doesn't entail
fatalism. But determinism doesn't entail fatalism either.
Determinism also suggests that we might be right about the connection
between Turing machines and brains, which Cognitive Science
departments around the world seem to have found, ah, rather fruitful
indeed!
> > S> Perhaps I should develop new and irresistible hypnotic applications
> > S> from MVT and enforce belief in it ... would this satisfy you?
> >
> S> This example was deliberately crafted because it underlines the
> S> pre-eminence of consciousness ... and goes against epiphenomenalism.
> >
> S> How do you answer this method of "proving" MVT?
>
> >MVT' may well have some useful applications. You would not prove MVT,
> >but only MVT'. You still would not show how holes affect
> >consciousness, and would not have shown that consciousness can affect
> >holes.
>
> For the sake of argument, I am using a powerful new hypnosis
> developed from MVT that enforces amnesia if necessary of your qualms
> about consciousness (forget holes ... they are for illustrative
> purposes only to defeat your physicalist/atomist claim, it is the
> functional abstraction that explains self-referential
> consciousness). So assume that my hypnotic suggestion works, just as
> a thought-experiment, and answer whether or not I have proven MVT to
> your satisfaction ... after all, you now believe what I tell you,
> and I tell you it is proved!
Well, of course, if you convince me that way, I will be convinced, and
satisfied with the answer. But does the fact that you COULD do this
satisfy me? No. Because you'd be using MVT' to do all of this. None
of the philosophical parts are required.
It'd be like building a space shuttle on the Fairy theory of physics
and saying: "See? Fairies really DO dance on the particles!"
> >Progress can march on. Why, if we never talked about consciousness
> >ever again, we'd lose nothing at all. Intelligence is all that
> >matters. Consciousness is a joke.
>
> And sentience, awareness, mentation, mind ....? I agree with you to
> a point, but if you think that there is only conscious behaviour,
> and further think that MVT solves it (animal intelligence or
> whatever you want to call it) then why are you persisting this
> dispute?
"Look, if you don't believe that there even ARE fairies (but how could
THAT be?) but you think that the Fairy theory explains everything
about physics we need, why are you persisting in this dispute?"
"Because you should take your Fairy theory and get rid of the
fairies. Because one theory is scientific and the other is not."
Same with MVT and consciousness.
Anyway, when I'm a good scientist, I'm agnostic about fairies and
consciousness, and when I'm a philosopher, I believe that fairies and
consciousness are nonsense, that we have no need of these hypotheses,
and should therefore reject them. As a good scientist, you should
remove the "consciousness" bits from MVT, leaving MVT', since you
admit that, today at least, you have no evidence at all for it. As a
philosopher, you may hold that MVT is right, so long as you concede
that you make the argument purely on the basis of plausibility
arguments grounded on controversial intiutions. But either way, MVT
should not be considered a "scientific theory of consciousness."
> >No, claims can be analysed into parts. MVT is a compound claim about
> >observable facts and unobservable facts. I accept MVT's observable
> >claims and reject MVT's unobservable claims.
>
> OK, I know that there is a weak and strong version of MVT, but if you
> accept all the empirical premises of MVT is is difficult to reject the
> conclusions or come up with different ones. Proof positive may be
> forthcoming, but will it be in your lifetime, and what are you going to
> believe in the meantime?
Isn't the answer obvious? You say, like a true scientist: "I don't
know the answer. There is no evidence."
> I accept this except that I think the conclusions about unobservable
> parts of MVT do fit the facts well and are not absurd like your fairy
> example.
No, but it is unscientific either way. Saying that maybe we'll be
able to have evidence for this some day is not to have a scientific
theory.
> >The illusionary body part isn't there *at all*.
>
> It persists as a trace, archetypal (embryonic even) memory or engram
> and as a phantom or "felt" part of the body matrix.
You've overloaded "illusionary body part." We use the term to refer
to both the feeling of the missing limb, and there's the "hole" where
the limb was. These are not the same, though they are linked. But I
don't know how.
> >that the world of consciousness can interact with non-existent objects
> >because consciousness doesn't exist in the first place.
>
> We have an overloading of the word "existence" here. Let us stamp
> out mere verbal triviality and stick to the phenomena where possible,
> please.
No, it's relevant. See, the mind can't affect the "holes." So it
can't affect the brain.
> >Yes, but his nerves did the rest, unconsciously. I rarely think very
> >hard about breathing, but it's rather complex.
>
> But admitting that your Deep Blue doesn't have nerves or unconscious
> processes undermines your case that human and computer are the same!
Nerves don't matter. I'm saying that they're alike despite the fact
that one has nerves but the other doesn't, because, in a few important
respects, they both act the same way.
As for unconscious processes... I just don't know about that.
> >I'm saying that it's a coincidence that programmers were needed to
> >program Deep Blue while none were needed for Kasparov. Deep Blue was
> >designed by people. Kasparov looks designed because he evolved. Deep
> >Blue could have evolved, if the evolutionary pressures went the right
> >way, but they didn't, so we got us instead.
>
> Exactly "they didn't" ... so the two things are entirely different
> types, and you cannot use deep blue as even an analogy for animal
> intelligence, let alone consciousness!
Behavior. They're alike in *behavior*. One more complex than the
other, but otherwise, alike. They're not alike in origin or
substrate. They're alike in behavior.
> But you have said that consciousness is stupid, and doesn't exist
> because there is only "conscious behaviour" .. so you cannot put
> forward a "theory of consciousness" without contradiction.
I didn't want to muddy the point with my anti-realism about
consciousness because anti-realists about consciousness rule out
theories of consciousness in one step.
But I go on to say that even mental realists (who accept physical
causal closure) must accept a very mysterious epiphenomenalism, unless
they can provide some means by which the brain interacts with the
mind, or the mind with the brain. Indeed, it's obvious that the
non-physical mind doesn't affect the brain at all: if it did, it'd
violate causal closure. As for the brain affecting the mind, while I
can see no way in which that might happen, I can't show that it
doesn't happen. I certainly don't know HOW it would happen. Thus,
epiphenomenalism.
> I think that computers can't be like us only because even if they had
> self-referential consciousness it would be DIFFERENT from ours,
> because the self they would be aware of would be a (silicon) entity
> and not a human or posthuman entity.
It is a difference, but what difference does that difference make?
> I also happen to think that self or self-organisation, independent
> decision-making, is not a feasible concept in a world that is wholly
> determined. Even you backtracked and allowed that in NLP
> psychotherapy an individual could modify their metaprogramming
> (degree doesn't really matter, you have breached your deterministic
> principle in that previous mailing).
No, I haven't at all: that was an argument that, even when you can
modify your metaprogramming, you are DETERMINED to modify your
metaprogramming, and thenceforth DETERMINED to follow your new
(meta)program. Always following the program, you are determined.
-Dan
-unless you love someone-
-nothing else makes any sense-
e.e. cummings
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