From: Dan Fabulich (daniel.fabulich@yale.edu)
Date: Tue Dec 26 2000 - 17:46:02 MST
Steve Nichols wrote:
> So what you think is that MVT' is as good as it can get .. that
> claims about 'mind' are always going to be unverifiable ... even if
> mind-transference or telepathy was possible .... end of story?
> Unless I enforce my views on you my new hypnosis developed from MVT
> .... and not just threaten it.
Well, yes, and that would be cheating, since you wouldn't actually
answer or refute my objections: I'd just ignore them, or forget about
them.
> > 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?
>
> > 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.
>
> OK, do you take a Rylean view that "mind" is a category mistake and only
> 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. But
why? :) Why not be an anti-realist instead? ;)
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 reinterpet "consciousness" to
refer to non-mental entities.
> There seems some mileage in this, but I happen to think that if MVT
> accounts for all types of animal intelliegence/ conscious behaviour
> and (observable) cognitive patterns ... then it does permit me to
> postulate an extended "analogous" stronger version that take in
> consciousness as well ... if only for the sake of aesthetic
> completion ... and because some people will be able to find use in
> accepting the MVT structure (to replace faulty supernaturalist and
> lingoistic competing theories of 'consciousness' such as Berkeley'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. After the fact, we now regard these to be normative
scientific values, principles which guide our scientific beliefs.
This is literally philosophy which BECOMES science, not by virtue of
new discoveries, but via a change in scientific paradigms.
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. 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.
> Your stricter aesthetic does not permit you to find merit in the
> stronger conclusions of MVT, but does help in answering the
> important questions about the evoloution of animal "conscious
> 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 skeptical about our capacity to answer that question. We
might be sort-of pragmatic anti-philosopers 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 skeptical 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.
> > 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.
>
> The category of a particular area of space as a "hole" is indeed
> psychological ... the hole can only be demarked independently of its
> (physical) substrate by the naming of it (seeing it, pattern completion,
> and formulating it as a linguistic/ conceptual entity). It has no "matter"
> 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.
Holes are physical bits of space (or functions/components, ...) that
we use our minds to demarcate. 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.
> This seems at least as "sensible" as the epiphenomenalist claim.
> Again, I think the issue might be as much to do with aesthetics and
> cognitive style as to which side of this (ultimately pointless)
> divide you choose. I prefer to concentrate on the empirical matters
> and observable phenomena, and think this conversation has been a
> 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.
> > 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.
>
> The link between phantom (ex-) limbs and sensations in the previously
> 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.
> Likewise the neurosignature and gateway theory of pain strongly
> supports this linkage. In practice (as a therapist) we do not have
> the luxury of engaging in philosophical quibbles, but must act
> positively to alleviate the symptoms according to our best
> judgement.
Of course.
> Your "consciousness isn't real" posture just doesn't cut it in workaday
> reality.
It works just as well as its opposing view, so long as one
pro-actively reinterprents 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 you have conceded the priority of the mental by your admission that IF
> my MVT hypnotic persuasion works, then you agree with my stronger claims
> for MVT. We only ever *experience* the world as filtered through ideation
> 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.
> No Turing machines of the sort you discuss have ever, not will ever,be
> 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.
> > 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.
>
> So you would be convinced by the practice, but not by the theory
> ... a fair comment. I adhere to certain psychotherapeutic ethics
> that might inhibit me using such techniques on you involuntarily,
> 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.
If I felt tongue-in-cheek, I'd say that if you hypnotized my like
that, I'd be hypnotized into being wrong. ;)
> > Isn't the answer obvious? You say, like a true scientist: "I don't
> > know the answer. There is no evidence."
>
> Neo-Darwinian evolution remains a "theory" and religious creationist
> fundamentalists will never accept it as fact ... but in practice most
> scientists (as opposed to quibbling philosophers) accept it in practice
> 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.
> > No, it's relevant. See, the mind can't affect the "holes." So it
> > can't affect the brain.
>
> The SHAPE of the brain effects its function, the shape evolved, and
> (gestalt) can be described in terms of foreground OR background
> (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, 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.
> >
> Then, if we are determined in such a way that we have the option to
> intervene and change our cognitive patterns .... then we are determined
> in such a way that we have free-will. The whole trans/ post-human venture
> is an excercise of free-will against the cultural conditioning to remain the
> 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. The strong version states that
given that the world was exactly the way it was all the way up to the
point of your decision, you could Decide one thing or the other
in some non-random non-determined way. That's what I reject.
> I, like you, could choose to trot out a philosophical case different
> from the one I aesthetically prefer (and find easier to argue) ....
> possibly the move-response format of dialogue (Hegelian dialect)
> shapes the argument ... and the only certain course open to win
> chicken/egg type arguments is by trial of strength of the persausive
> or hypnotic relative strengths of each party .... it certainly gives
> us a new option to philosophical logic-chopping. I am not sure that
> the better arguments always win in practice, but often it is the
> stronger Will.
If philosophy one day descends into hypno-wars, I'm bailing. :) But
I largely agree with this.
> I agree that von Neumann machines & neural nets can often both solve
> the same problems ... and that both ultimately rely on the laws of
> statistical mechanics ... but the von Neuman machines ARE determined
> more fully since they are fully predictive, whereas the internal
> state of neural computers are NOT analysable and discrete ..... the
> weight state does not translate into particular known
> properties. Serial machine emulations are just that,
> simulations. They are running a whole bunch of code whilst true
> parallel neuro-computers have no code. They cannot DO real-time
> computations .. so how can you even say that they "emulate" real
> 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. 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.
-Dan
-unless you love someone-
-nothing else makes any sense-
e.e. cummings
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