Philosophy Discussion Forums | A Humans-Only Club for Open-Minded Discussion & Debate

[Atla]

And this Four-Horseman-guy is supposed to be a role model for rationally thinking young people I guess. I think he even knows that he misrepresents what information is, but he's getting more publicity this way.

This is a prime example of fundamentally not even making an attempt to understand what someone is trying to tell you. You heard the words and then made no effort to get the point. So I'm here to help.

The key is when he said he was not proposing a form of dualism, or that that if this was dualism, then the software/hardware distinction was also dualism. No one who talks about information this way would deny that in each case of a specific bit of information, it is always carried/registered by some physical property. ("Information is physical" was the slogan of another pioneer of information theory.) For instance, no one would deny that every single line of code in a program consists of a series bits, each one requiring a physical system capable of existing in a binary state.

The point here is that the category "information" directs us to features of a system that while necessarily are physically instantiated, are important to us for reasons that are independent of that physical instantiation. For something to count as a spread sheet, you care about the features it has when you interface with it. The last thing you care about is how it is stored and managed in your computer, even though you know it must be to function. No, what matters is how it processes information.

By they way, this position is tied directly to Dennett's views on intentionality, his anti-reductionism when it comes to mental states, and his rejection of eliminativism, though to show how those stances are connected together would require a much longer essay.

Dennett states it clearly that some things aren't made of anything except information. And material things aren't needed for evolution.

[Faustus5]

Dennett states it clearly that some things aren't made of anything except information. And material things aren't needed for evolution.

Again, you aren't even trying. It is because he wants us to treat information as its own thing, not because he's rejected materialism and embraced dualism.

[Atla]

Dennett states it clearly that some things aren't made of anything except information. And material things aren't needed for evolution.

Again, you aren't even trying. It is because he wants us to treat information as its own thing, not because he's rejected materialism and embraced dualism.

If something isn't made of matter or energy then what is it made of?

[Terrapin Station]

Very cogent, persuasive responses to my last couple posts to you, by the way.

[Steve3007]

usually there's no attempt at all to try to show how the idea is coherent

Ok. So this is from the same post from which you quoted before saying the above:

I propose that the reason why I and others have various sensations which have things in common is because those sensations have a common cause. I call the common cause objects. I say that those objects are made of a stuff called matter. I propose that the reason why I can see those objects from a distance is that something travels from the objects to my eyes. I call that something EM radiation. I also sometimes call it photons. I say that those photons are made of a stuff called energy.

Tell me what is incoherent about the above. i.e. show me the inconsistency; the contradiction.

Note: I'm not asking you to repeat again that "energy is a property of dynamic relations of matter" and that therefore, on that basis, it is incoherent to propose that it exists as something other than that. We've already established that if that is what energy is then you are right about that.

I asked you there to show me the inconsistency/contradiction. i.e. show me how I am being incoherent. But, in your view, it's not up to you to do that? It's up to me to show you that I'm being coherent is it? So how do I do that, other than simply by not being incoherent?

[Steve3007]

Maybe you should explain why it's incoherent to you. Is it because you can't imagine it the same way you can imagine a lump of matter?

Incoherent=it literally doesn't make any sense, it's inconceivable, etc.

We'd be saying that something--well, only we can't use the word something, I don't know what word you'd want to use--exists that's somehow not a state of a thing or relation of things--basically so that it's "something" (or whatever) that's not something(s and their relations), yet we're still saying that it has a location, it has properties (that obtain via what?), etc.

The idea is just nonsense.

I didn't spot you telling Atla why it's incoherent to you. The central paragraph in the above is a bit garbled, but it's essentially saying that this statement is incoherent; nonsense:

"I propose the existence of some thing that is neither a thing nor a property of thing(s)."

Yes, clearly that statement is incoherent because it is self-contradictory.

Who do you imagine is making statements of that kind? Can you quote somebody doing it, so I can see an example of an incoherent statement.

[Steve3007]

...The point here is that the category "information" directs us to features of a system that while necessarily are physically instantiated, are important to us for reasons that are independent of that physical instantiation. For something to count as a spread sheet, you care about the features it has when you interface with it. The last thing you care about is how it is stored and managed in your computer, even though you know it must be to function. No, what matters is how it processes information...

Dennett states it clearly that some things aren't made of anything except information. And material things aren't needed for evolution.

I personally don't know what Dennett says. What Faustus5 says above makes perfect sense. So I strongly suspect that Atla is disingenuously caricaturing the position of this Dennett person. But I could be wrong.

On the subject of evolution: It is possible to simulate evolution-like processes in computer software. Perhaps that is what Dennett was talking about. Clearly computer software needs computer hardware on which to run. I'd be surprised if Dennett didn't know this.

[Gee]

I love the picture, so I will break this down simply.

1. Many millennia ago God created everything, then created man in his image, so only man had a soul (consciousness).

2. Centuries ago, man outgrew God and decided that he created himself, but he still had a soul (consciousness) as it was necessary for human rights.

3. Then man discovered evolution, which confirmed that God was not necessary, but left the problem of where the soul came from, as we still believed in it. We decided on the brain.

4. Then science discovered that other species have brains that work somewhat like ours. So we invented a kind of reverse evolution where we assume consciousness is possible if another specie's brain is close enough to ours, but we are not willing to admit that other species might have souls.

5. So consciousness either was given to us by God, or it magically evolved in the human specie and then reverse engineered itself back to species with similar brains. Therefore plants could not possibly be conscious.

Is this close to your thinking?

In reality, science has discovered that plants are aware, conscious, of themselves, their environment, and others of their specie. They do not have brains.

I'm an atheist. I don't believe in "souls."

I am certain that you believe what you posted above, but you should not assume that I will accept it. When people state that they are atheist and that they don't believe in "souls", that generally means that they are not religious; so what, neither am I. I was not talking about religion, I was talking about knowledge and belief and where they source from.

All knowledge sources from somewhere and belief has certain requirements of knowledge in order for it to be believable. One of those requirements is that knowledge must not be too new, it has to be familiar in order to be believable. So this means that a person can track ideas, knowledge, through history. I tracked the idea that consciousness comes from humans, and the above is what I found. If you track the 'consciousness is the universe' idea, often you will find an Eastern religion/philosophy at the source, because this idea follows closer to those religious beliefs and so is easier to believe.

Consciousness isn't something "magical." It's simply a property of certain materials, in certain structures, undergoing certain processes.

So it isn't magical, it is certain? Well that certainly clarifies things.

We know for sure that human brains are the right sorts of materials/structures/processes for those properties. We can be pretty sure that very similar brains are going to be the right sorts of materials/structures/processes, too. We just don't know how different brains can be for consciousness to still obtain.

We know no such thing. What we know is that human brains affect consciousness, other brains also affect consciousness, but that does not mean that brains cause consciousness. A speed boat racing through a lake will affect the water, it causes waves, but it does not cause the water. Brains do not cause consciousness.

But there's no good reason to believe that very different sorts of materials/structures/processes would amount to conscious properties.

There is every reason to believe it, if these "materials/structures/processes" are part of life. I will try to explain where I think the thinking about consciousness gets lost.

Many years ago, I took a speech class in a local college. The instructor spend 15 minutes explaining how he carefully organized his information in order to present a coherent speech on problem solving. When he was finished, I put my hand up and stated that he had forgotten the first and most important step in problem solving; he had forgotten to identify the problem. If you miss this first step, all of your subsequent work is a waste of time.

When I look at people trying to understand consciousness, I see a lot of people arguing about where it comes from, even though they have no understanding of what consciousness is or how it works. People decide that consciousness comes from the Universe, or "God", or the brain, then they cherry pick science for the evidence that will support their beliefs, ignoring other evidence, and allowing them to rationalize their confirmation bias. This does not appear to be a valid way to solve the problem.

Gee

[Atla]

...The point here is that the category "information" directs us to features of a system that while necessarily are physically instantiated, are important to us for reasons that are independent of that physical instantiation. For something to count as a spread sheet, you care about the features it has when you interface with it. The last thing you care about is how it is stored and managed in your computer, even though you know it must be to function. No, what matters is how it processes information...

Dennett states it clearly that some things aren't made of anything except information. And material things aren't needed for evolution.

I personally don't know what Dennett says. What Faustus5 says above makes perfect sense. So I strongly suspect that Atla is disingenuously caricaturing the position of this Dennett person. But I could be wrong.

On the subject of evolution: It is possible to simulate evolution-like processes in computer software. Perhaps that is what Dennett was talking about. Clearly computer software needs computer hardware on which to run. I'd be surprised if Dennett didn't know this.

I basically quoted the guy but whatever. And no one is saying that computer software runs without computer hardware. What are you talking about Steve?

[Steve3007]

I basically quoted the guy but whatever.

Could provide the source of the quote so I can see the context.

[Atla]

I basically quoted the guy but whatever.

Could provide the source of the quote so I can see the context.

Anyway fine, here is some Dennett quoting the father of cybernetics. Enough to watch 29:58-31:22 and 43:35-45:16.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZX6awZq5Z0

And this Four-Horseman-guy is supposed to be a role model for rationally thinking young people I guess. I think he even knows that he misrepresents what information is, but he's getting more publicity this way.

[Steve3007]

Thanks. A Royal Institution Christmas Lecture? Looks interesting. But an hour long. I'll watch it later.

[Steve3007]

Oh. You gave a time. I didn't see that at first. Ok. I'll watch it now.

[Steve3007]

Ok, so in the part which begins at 29:58 he's talking about the evolution of "memes" - a term which was originally invented by Richard Dawkins to mean ideas that spread in a way that is analogous to evolution. So on that one, as I suspected, you were selectively quoting him disingenuously. Clearly he's not claiming that memes exist without a medium. He's just saying something similar to what Faustus5 said earlier about the unimportance of the specifics of the medium.

[Steve3007]

The part which begins at 43:35: He gives some examples of things that he describes as being "made from information" and points that information is transmitted. I see nothing particularly controversial there.