From: Steve Nichols (steve@multisell.com)
Date: Mon Dec 18 2000 - 19:40:59 MST
Date: Tue, 19 Dec 2000 20:33:38 -0500 (EST)
From: Dan Fabulich <daniel.fabulich@yale.edu>
Subject: Re: Sentience
S> Do you agree with McGinn that the mind-body problem is insoluble?
S> If so, then you can pack up and go away. If you think that it can be
S> solved, then you must also allow that an evolutionary account is
S> needed. I accuse academic philosophers of "THE ATHENA FALLACY (TM)"
S> ... that they deal with mind as if it sprung fully formed as "human"
S> from the split head of Zeus ... and ignore the intermediate stages
S> and natural processes that led to the current state of things.
>Don't be silly. I commit no Athena fallacy: I have no account
>WHATSOEVER about how mind comes about, say nothing of one like you
>describe.
Exactly, the Athena Fallacy IS that you have no account of how the
mind came about. The only human-been philosophical resource is
the method introspection ... which is an inadequate tool.
>Phantom limbs aren't *real*. They're a handy term to explain real
>phenomena, but they don't actually exist. It's like when I say things
>like "Insects give me the creeps." I don't posit that there are
>REALLY "creeps" which insects give me. I just mean that they make me
>nervous. Similarly with phantom limbs: there's no *actual* limb
>there, phantom or otherwise.
I think the term "creeps" is adjectival in that it puns creepiness/ scare
with creeping sensation of shoulder muscles, physiological reaction
to revulsion &c. So the originator of the phrase might indeed have
meant real "creeps." You would certainly know a phantom arm if you had one.
If you are making the linguistic point that it makes no difference talking
about "phantom limbs" or "sensations experienced as if there is a
phantom limb, " the OK, but the *feel* of the phantom limb is real.
I have pointed out that I don't care if you phrase your description of
consciousness as " a phantom median eye" or as "the experience as
if a median eye was present" ...... but the vernacular does not impact
on the phenomena, your whole posting is an attempt to confuse the
issue ... clarification requires elimination of "epiphenomenalism"
gobbledegook and all the other philosophical pseudo-language.
SO> I doubt a computer could "imagine" anything at all .......
>That is why you fail.
In the future, we might be able to create computers that replicate
the evolutionary processes that bring about I-1 type consciousness,
and I agree that in principle these could be conscious. But such
silicon or metallic "consciousness" would be of a different quality
to the flesh-and-blood consciousness of being an organism! The
computer could have "imagination-like" behaviour, but this needs to
be combined with an awareness of itself as an entity having this
imagination, concurrently. I doubt it could happen, but don't rule it out.
SO> Only biological organisms can act independently from purely
SO> chemical stimuli ...so we are talking about a very small subset of
SO> "atomic structures" ... even more specifically, those animals with
SO> I-1 brains.
>Brains *cannot* act independently of chemical stimuli.
How is a hypnotic suggestion or verbal cue a "chemical stimuli?"
The brain of one person will react in response to suggestions
given by another person (or TV &co). Change of state, both physical
and conscious.
>They are
>purely physical objects, with no more independence from the world than
>rocks have. Biological organisms are completely physically
>determined.
If we were, then we could not experience internal light with no
outside reference or causal source. I am rather insulted that
you compare me (and everybody else) with lumps of rock.
>How do you "generate" a non-existent entity?
But psychological entities do exist ....
I take note that you have deleted my points about holes, which
your schema fails to cope with, so I repeat:
A hole has a "shape" and "size" given in terms of its
substrate ... for instance a keyhole, or hole in the
road has measurable dimensions and we talk about holes
meaningfully .... even though they do not comprise of any matter.
Phantom limbs, and the phantom median eye, are functional gaps
as much as physical holes (although they do have physical correlates,
egg. the space where the physical arm was).
Another functional gap might be a missing piece of computer data.
How do you deal with holes (distinct from GAPS, which depend on
the fact that there was ONCE something present but no longer, whereas
a hole might be integral)?
>Brains are like Turing machines in that they are composed entirely of
>simple physical parts that do simple physical things. These physical
>parts move deterministically in lock-step. (Though, to qualify this
>view, I'm a fan of many-worlds.)
What parts of the brain "move?" ... the dualist problem has been described
precisely that the pineal gland (or any brain part) cannot be "moved" as,
say, a hand can be moved. Also, the point with parallel computing is that
things happen in PARALLEL, not in serial lockstep.
>Moreover, the physical world is causally closed. Nothing non-physical
>interacts with the brain.
See the verbal cue example above. Yes, nothing non-physical interacts with
the PHYSICAL bits of the brain, but thoughts (dreams, and other non-physical
stuff)
can interact with the NON-physical gap in the brain. Consciousness is the
infinite-state feedback loop between the brain and the environment made
possible
because the brain expects to receive data from a peripheral sensor that has
gone
missing.
>How do you "generate" a non-existent entity?
By "generate" a phantom eye, I don't imply any active processes, it is
more like coins rolling down a ramp and falling into the correctly sized
holes, giving
the appearance of intelligently sorting coins into piles. The pathways to
and from
the old median eye (which predate even the visual cortex) expect that data
travelling
along them is from the outside world, whereas in E-1 animals it is not! That
is why
I think consciousness is a trick of nature.
>Your tests establish a physical causal link
>between the real pineal eye and a lack of intelligent behaviour. As
>the eye goes away, assuming you're right about this, intelligent
>behaviour begins to flourish.
I find it hard to agree with your Epiphenomenalist assumption that
everything
that has happened in the universe to date would have happened in exactly the
same way if no animal had ever been even remotely aware of anything, and
that we are robots following out a behavioural script. This is not my
experience.
>No. We will find structural behavioral analogs, but we will never
>figure out why we see anything at all. We'll be able to figure out
>*when* we see something, but not how.
So you seem to agree with McGinn ... a very defeatist stance, and very
unextropian! You haven't managed to answer my point against this
that, and I repeat since you avoid answering here:
S> Perhaps I should develop new and irresistible hypnotic applications
S> from MVT and enforce belief in it ... would this satisfy you?
This example was deliberately crafted because it underlines the
pre-eminence of consciousness ... and goes against epiphenomenalism.
How do you answer this method of "proving" MVT?
>Yes. Philosophy of mind is a stupid discipline. But you can't beat
>us on our own turf. Just drop the philosophy, stick to the science,
>and let's get ON with it.
I fully intend to pull the turf away from under your feet! "Philosophy"
(love of argument) cannot be roped off and protected in the way
you would like ... weasel words cannot stop the march of progress.
So I don't accept your notion of MVT' ... because knowledge is seamless.
The mind-body problem ... only like can interact with like, therefore how
does the (observable) brain manifest (non-observable) mentation .... can
be dissolved by the MVT explanation in terms of a illusionary sense-organ
which is nevertheless continuous (even supervenient, in Jaegwon Kim's
mereological sense of this silly word, perhaps) with the brain matrix.
An illusionary body part can deals with the illusionary world of conscious
events.
>It uses a different algorithm from the one Kasparov uses. But
>Kasparov uses an algorithm too. (His is certainly better, but it's
>hard to read off from the neurons, and ever trickier to program.)
The human player tends to use entirely different approaches, Casablanca
for example said that he only ever looked one move ahead, "but the best
move!"
Anyway, you haven't explained away the programmers needed for Deep Blue ...
Kasparov can modify whatever heuristics he uses as a result of feedback from
outcomes, but bugs in Deep Blue needs programmers .... homunculi.
Will get round to dealing with your other points when I have more time.
But to date, nothing you have said convinces me much. Why do you bother
to plow a trough which you think is sterile and pointless? Science can throw
up new solutions and information, but it seems your type of tautologous
speculation
can never get anywhere. Best to ASSUME we have free will, even if cannot
ultimate know it to be so ... if we assume fatalism and determinism then no
point ever doing anything? (Fatalism and determinism just as much conceptual
make-believe as free will incidentally).
Best
www.steve-nichols.com
The Physician of Souls
Posthuman
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