From: Dan Fabulich <daniel.fabulich@yale.edu>
Subject: Re: extropians-digest V5 #355
Steve Nichols wrote:
S> So what you think is that MVT' is as good as it can get .. that
S> claims about 'mind' are always going to be unverifiable ... even if
S> mind-transference or telepathy was possible .... end of story?
S> Unless I enforce my views on you my new hypnosis developed from MVT
S> .... and not just threaten it.
>Well, yes, and that would be cheating,
But we are continually writing the rules ... as soon as I declare myself
free of academic and conventionalist philosophical procedure (*not*
submitting to any academic publications & *not* engaging in events
run by conventionalist philosophers) ... then "rules" is substitututed
for "what we can all do in practice" or similar.
Who knows what will happen in this new, post-human era.
>since you wouldn't actually
>answer or refute my objections: I'd just ignore them, or forget about
>them.
Anyway, regardless which tactics are "allowed" (depends on
the referee, if any, I suppose) or not .... my argumentative objective
HAS worked .... because you are accepting the primacy of the mental!
Perhaps we have *already been* hypnotised to believe certain things
and to forget others ......... (a variation of the Cartesian "how do we
know we aren't dreaming" argument).
S> OK, do you take a Rylean view that "mind" is a category mistake and only
S> seems a thing because language exists that describes it as an 'object?'
>No, but I reserve "category error" to refer to a very particular kind
>of logical error. I think the notion of a "mind" and "mental events"
>makes logical sense, that there's nothing logically contradictory
>about them. I think one can be a consistent epiphenomenalist.
So you reject Ryle's general approach, which is behaviourist
in much the same way that yours seems to be?
The cost of being a purist epiphenomenalist includes adopting
a very anti-intuitive view involving some absurd denials.
>But
>why? :) Why not be an anti-realist instead? ;)
A matter of taste and cognitive style ... as I said previously.
>To the extent that I agree with Ryle, I take him to be telling a
>plausible story about what led us to conclude that consciousness is
>really out there, that we shouldn't reinterpret "consciousness" to
>refer to non-mental entities.
OK. I also think that language is faulty and misleading in general,
which I why I am starting to develop a word-free visual philosophy
(some examples at www.extropia.net vis phil sector).
S> There seems some mileage in this, but I happen to think that if MVT
S> accounts for all types of animal intelligence/ conscious behaviour
S> and (observable) cognitive patterns ... then it does permit me to
S> postulate an extended "analogous" stronger version that take in
S> consciousness as well ... if only for the sake of aesthetic
S> completion ... and because some people will be able to find use in
S> accepting the MVT structure (to replace faulty supernaturalist and
S> lingoistic competing theories of 'consciousness' such as Berkeley's
S> Mind of God Idealism).
>Yes and no. In fairness, until Foucault's Pendulum rolled around,
>there really was no "scientific" way to settle the debate as to
>whether the sun revolved around the earth or the earth around the sun;
>after all, relative to the earth, the sun moves, and relative to the
>sun, the earth moves. Only by invoking the added principle of
>elegance and explanatory simplicity did the Copernican astrology gain
>an advantage.
Yes, a shorter or more elegant proof in maths is better than one
using more terms. I claim MVT is the simplest and most elegant
account. MVT also explains more phenomena, and reduces several
other theories in science (and philosophy) to a more basic account.
Of course these extra principles are subjective rather than empirical.
>After the fact, we now regard these to be normative
>scientific values, principles which guide our scientific beliefs.
Are "principles" physical then? Otherwise your determinist position
starts to come apart ... What about "desires" ... didn't you say that
our beliefs only come from desires (or was it vice-versa)?
>This is literally philosophy which BECOMES science, not by virtue of
>new discoveries, but via a change in scientific paradigms.
Reprogramming of the scientific metaprogram, or mass hypnosis?
>You might well get away with postulating that you've nailed
>consciousness as well as conscious behavior. I take it that our
>CURRENT scientific values, our current beliefs about what claims are
>scientifically grounded and which are not, do not allow you to make
>this move, except via an oblique invocation of elegance as a
>scientific principle.
No, I allow conscious phenomena, so I can accept elegance as
a "concept." I don't think all principles have to be scientific ...
I am a bodhisattva and magus, after all, and use subjective principles.
>And who knows, maybe in the future, science
>will look back and say of those who denied that we had solved the
>puzzle of consciousness that we have overlooked an important
>scientific value. But for now, as I use the term "science,"
>consciousness theory is not science, whereas intelligence theory is.
That's true.
S> Your stricter aesthetic does not permit you to find merit in the
S> stronger conclusions of MVT, but does help in answering the
S> important questions about the evolution of animal "conscious
S> behaviour" .... so everybody should be happy.
>Just so! But before I admit this, I want to call attention to an
>important philosophical move, one about which I will probably write my
>senior thesis.
>To say that "everybody is happy" requires us to remain blissfully
>ignorant about the aesthetic/philosophical question of the mind/body
>problem. It requires us to not know or care the answer to the
>question: "is this really a theory of consciousness or not?"
>We might be sceptical about our capacity to answer that question. We
>might be sort-of pragmatic anti-philosophers and say: "that question
>cannot be answered" or, even better, "do not ask that question."
>Those who refuse to ask the question cannot be coerced into asking it,
>and may remain consistently sceptical about any answer you put
>forward. To the extent that we answer it, it seems, we engage in
>philosophy, which may or may not be "scientific" philosophy.
That may be true if words are your ONLY medium of communication.
The "questioning" idea might not be problematic if we commune using
touch signals, or visual display predominantly. "Questioning" might
translate to a "feeling of puzzlement" of a particular grain. I might
want to say that we can rely on and trust our *feelings* (that MVT
is the true account) more than lots of us currently do. Or I might
appeal to pattern completion and recognition, and suggest that our
judgement be based on a satisfactory visualisation of the matter.
>
S> The category of a particular area of space as a "hole" is indeed
S> psychological ... the hole can only be demarked independently of its
S> (physical) substrate by the naming of it (seeing it, pattern completion,
S> and formulating it as a linguistic/ conceptual entity). It has no
"matter"
S> so isn't physical ..... but is observable ... an observer-related effect.
>Yes, but we must be careful not to overload the term "psychological."
>Feelings are psychological, and so are "holes," but they're
>psychological in very different ways. Sadness, for example, has no
>physical place at all, by virtue of its purely mental character.
I don't disagree with this. We have infinite-state potential to experience
and feeling imaginable.
>Holes are physical bits of space (or functions/components, ...) that
>we use our minds to demarcate.
Let me understand this correctly ... you claim that "space" or "void"
is physical ... although it just has location and not any matter/ physical
stuff? I think "location" is a dimension, much like "time" .. and as such
isn't necessarily (or maybe isn't either probably, or even *possibly*)
physical. Matter, time and space are assigned as different variants
in physics ... so can these things be identical?
I include "possibly" because of the possible that all is mental, and space,
physical stuff, atoms and all the rest of it are just concepts combined
with conscious perceptions (real virtuality in MVT-terms) plus
self-generated
imagination. Anyway, you are not consistent saying that "we use our minds
to demarcate" if your system does not include "minds" ... conscious organs.
I can use "minds" of course, because I think they are phantom pineal senors!
>The NAME of the hole has a mental
>component, but the hole itself, the referent, has no mental component
>at all, despite the fact that its edges are mentally determined.
>Feelings, on the other hand, have nothing BUT mental components.
S> This seems at least as "sensible" as the epiphenomenalist claim.
S> Again, I think the issue might be as much to do with aesthetics and
S> cognitive style as to which side of this (ultimately pointless)
S> divide you choose. I prefer to concentrate on the empirical matters
S> and observable phenomena, and think this conversation has been a
S> prime example of the ultimate futility of philosophical analysis.
>Well, yes. It's a philosophical problem which we resolve by pondering
>our intuitions on the matter, or which we refuse to resolve, since
>it's pointless.
Why don't you do your Senior thesis (?) on MVT ... much less boring.
I have a mass of publications on it.
S> The link between phantom (ex-) limbs and sensations in the previously
S> physically occupied space is well documented in medical science.
>Right, assuming science exists in the first place, uses real
>equipment, consists of real researchers... This is why I find
>phenomenology worrisome.
I believe in scientists, and have even seen some, what's the problem?
This isn't asking you (poor sceptic) to believe in fairies .. you can go
see (touch, smell, have sex with) the scientists for yourself.
S> Likewise the neurosignature and gateway theory of pain strongly
S> supports this linkage. In practice (as a therapist) we do not have
S> the luxury of engaging in philosophical quibbles, but must act
S> positively to alleviate the symptoms according to our best
S> judgement.
>Of course.
S> Your "consciousness isn't real" posture just doesn't cut it in workaday
S> reality.
>It works just as well as its opposing view, so long as one
>pro-actively reinterprets consciousness claims into something else.
>"When you say you're in pain, you mean that your E fibers are firing,
>and that's a bad thing; better get you some ibuprofen." In practice,
>we simply don't decide whether to re-interpret consciousness claims or
>not, since their reinterpretation does not affect our decisions about
>what to do about "pain," whether pain is mental or purely physical.
But our senses, through which we interpret the world .. and our common
sense, or "how we" combine and interpret sense data, can recognise
the "feel" experience of *pain* because we KNOW what it is like ourselves.
A torturer can soon change someone's mind (though not as elegantly as
my new system of hypnosis arguably!)
S> But you have conceded the priority of the mental by your admission that
IF
S> my MVT hypnotic persuasion works, then you agree with my stronger claims
S> for MVT. We only ever *experience* the world as filtered through ideation
S> and our senses.
>No, you misunderstood. I simply granted that I'd believe you if you
>hypnotized me, which follows directly from the fact that I'd be
>hypnotized. I'd believe that there were fairies in my garden if you
>hypnotized me into believing as much.
Yes, so are there some truth or empirical grounds which reinforce even the
hypnosis, or make the hypnosis easier to take if experience is in
agreement? And given that we could already be in trance or working on
post-hypnotic suggestions, how do you make any truth claims for your own
beliefs in determinism, epiphenobblyism and all that Turing machine rubbish?
S> No Turing machines of the sort you discuss have ever, not will ever,be
S> built.
>.Perhaps not, but only on account of their being too cumbersome, slow,
>expensive, and hard to build, not by virtue of their being different
>in principle.
Yes, or in other words the idea of building them is daft! So why would
evolution (infinitely pragmatic) have used such a daft design?
Evolution sculpted the experiencing brain out of neural components which
also work together as (interchangeable) circuits directly from contact with
natural and survival demands ... (not designed by a team of mad scientists).
The circuits could only function in a self-organising, reconfigurable,
intelligent
way after the pineal eye (equivalent of external clock in a silicon circuit)
went
and left a (*functional* .. not primarily a physical gap, though there is
the
foramen gap &c.) atrophied. Self-generated representations of the
environment
(illusionary or imagined external environment) becomes possible extra to
the input from the externally directed senses.
S> So you would be convinced by the practice, but not by the theory
S> ... a fair comment. I adhere to certain psychotherapeutic ethics
S> that might inhibit me using such techniques on you involuntarily,
S> but I might consider doing this experiment if you consent ......
>Again, you misunderstand. I'd be convinced, but only by virtue of my
>hypnosis, not by holding better beliefs. Your capacity to hypnotize
>me doesn't prove your philosophical point.
OK .. this point is dealt with above ...
> > Isn't the answer obvious? You say, like a true scientist: "I don't
> > know the answer. There is no evidence."
>
S> Neo-Darwinian evolution remains a "theory" and religious creationist
S> fundamentalists will never accept it as fact ... but in practice most
S> scientists (as opposed to quibbling philosophers) accept it in practice
S> since the circumstantial, explanatory and utility case for is
overwhelming.
>Well, yes. Ultimately, the biologists and the creationists disagree
>about what may legitimately be called "science." I think it's
>adequately established that evolution is in and creation is out; I'd
>add that consciousness theory is out too, though it might get in if
>our views of science changed or if we just leaned more heavily on
>elegance than we do now.
Even in my lifetime I have seen different academic themes go in and
out of fashion ... this is how the human-beens conduct their business.
For instance, Logical Positivism went completely out, though it said
the same thing all along. At one point the humans liked it, then, fed up.
I guess that means it is up to be to change minds and convince people ..
S> The SHAPE of the brain effects its function, the shape evolved, and
S> (gestalt) can be described in terms of foreground OR background
S> (holes), or both.
>But holes are different from sadness; different in kind and in
>principle. They may be linked, but they're not the same.
No, you continue to misunderstand that "holes" are an analogy that
I use to point out some shared attributes with the "absent" or "abstract"
pineal eye .... but I by no means hold that this analogy is the whole story.
s> Then, if we are determined in such a way that we have the option to
S> intervene and change our cognitive patterns .... then we are determined
S> in such a way that we have free-will. The whole trans/ post-human venture
S> is an exercise of free-will against the cultural conditioning to remain
the
S> same (boring, human, not-fit-to-run-the-planet received wisdom).
>Well, of course, there is a weak version of free-will, according to
>which we have free will if only we can make decisions independently of
>our genetics and our fellow man, but NOT necessarily independent of,
>say, the state of the Earth yesterday or last week or last year. I
>must agree with that weaker version.
I will reciprocally agree with a weaker version of determinism: after
all we cannot step outside this Universe (at least very easily!) and I
accept that we do not have free will in all things. Perhaps by combining
these weaker versions we can stop this tired old Free Will debate?
>If philosophy one day descends into hypno-wars, I'm bailing. :) But
>I largely agree with this.
Some would say it always has been ... reputation of the philosopher
and presentational & fashion success have always held a sway.
S> I agree that von Neumann machines & neural nets can often both solve
S> the same problems ... and that both ultimately rely on the laws of
S> statistical mechanics ... but the von Neumann machines ARE determined
S> more fully since they are fully predictive, whereas the internal
S> state of neural computers are NOT analysable and discrete ..... the
S> weight state does not translate into particular known
S> properties. Serial machine emulations are just that,
S> simulations. They are running a whole bunch of code whilst true
S> parallel neuro-computers have no code. They cannot DO real-time
S> computations .. so how can you even say that they "emulate" real
S> time computations?
>I never said that they did it in real time... they do it considerably
>slower than that. But doing it at all is interesting.
NO ... why go with a less good analogy, a less efficient proof,
and with a daft imaginary (Turing) architecture when you would
learn far more looking at neural (silicon) computation ... which
sculpt themselves from experience rather than running code ...
The von Neumann and Turing analogies as to how a brain works
are of as much use and out of date as the 1920's analogies between
the brain and a telephone exchange.
>In
>particular, if you had a slow person who still had REM, still claimed
>to have dreams and told me about them, still told me how they felt,
>still talked to me like an ordinary slow person, I'd be drawn to
>conclude that they were just like me, only slower, including having
>consciousness, only slower, assuming I have it in the first place.
This isn't a case of just "equivalent but slower" .... they would also be
working in a completely different way from you. Neural computers
are reverse engineered from brain circuits, so are a lot more
convincing ... this ISN'T just an aesthetic matter either ... the neural
computational model of the brain is BETTER than the older serial
computational models ... sure a load of sluggard academics still use it
but they are due for reduction by MVT pretty soon, I hope.
www.steve-nichols.com
Post-human Council Member
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