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

[Terrapin Station]

Can you give a couple examples of posts where you explain stuff? Most of the time, as with this post, you seem to just be sniping at people and positioning yourself as "superior."

That's what we started with, I explained several big philosophical issues where you were wrong or clueless. Nothing got through.

Btw did you honestly think that you guys with average "existential" intelligence can really have a go at philosophy?

This isn't saying anything either way about my intelligence, but again, I have graduate degrees in philosophy, I taught briefly, and I've published a number of monographs in journals such as Review of Metaphysics and Philosophy of Science as well as (still) regularly participating in conferences/congresses. So whatever my intelligence, obviously someone like me can "have a go" at it.

At any rate, you need to have more patience about "something getting through" than just trying a couple times and then deciding to devolve into flaming. For one, "having a go" at an academic discipline from an angle of teaching requires a lot more patience and persistence than that.

[Atla]

This isn't saying anything either way about my intelligence, but again, I have graduate degrees in philosophy, I taught briefly, and I've published a number of monographs in journals such as Review of Metaphysics and Philosophy of Science as well as (still) regularly participating in conferences/congresses. So whatever my intelligence, obviously someone like me can "have a go" at it.

At any rate, you need to have more patience about "something getting through" than just trying a couple times and then deciding to devolve into flaming. For one, "having a go" at an academic discipline from an angle of teaching requires a lot more patience and persistence than that.

I don't care about teaching. I can't learn anything new that way.

[Faustus5]

I understand very well that all you can do is lie here.

He said in plain English that he's endorsing the software-hardware dualism, which is not a "bad" kind of dualism.

No, that is not what he said--who is the liar now?

What he said is that his comments about information should NOT be considered as an endorsement of dualism, "unless" one thinks of the software/hardware distinction as a form of dualism, which he throws out there as a possibility, but one he doesn't take very seriously. That's why he follows up the comment with a wry show of hands for who believes software to be real. Software being regarded as real is meant to discourage treating the distinction as a form of dualism.

That's the whole damn point, software-hardware is a "good" dualism if we understand that information is abstraction, and a "bad" dualism if we treat information as something distinct from matter or energy.

Dennett is a materialist, so he understands that there is no such thing as information that is not registered by a physical state of some sort.

What he wants to stress is that informational objects are such independently of how they are physically instantiated, and paying attention to this fact draws your attention to what makes them important and interesting.

A line of computer code can be written on a piece of paper in ink, drawn on a chalkboard in chalk, spoken aloud in French, memorized in your brain, or stored in the memory system of a computer. In each case, it is instantiated physically in a completely different medium, but regardless it is still the "same" informational object across those mediums. The medium thus doesn't matter. The information does.

His denial of phenomenal consciousness is ironically also a subtle form of bad dualism btw, one has to first divide existence into phenomenal consciousness and something else first, before one can dismiss the former.

No, you believers in mysterious, physically unaccountable, magic star-dusts of consciousness are the dualists here. It is that occult belief which Dennett rejects, in favor of a materialism than can accommodate everything about consciousness that is genuinely real.

[Faustus5]

I'd be interested if you can give a clear, coherent explanation of Dennett's position on this.

Okay, keeping in mind that "intentionality" as a concept is concerned with the content of a mental state. . . .

Dennett's view is that we ascribe the content of a mental state to someone as a way to predict and understand an agent's current and future behavior. To have a belief that X means that in various contexts you are likely to exhibit certain kinds of behavior, because we have social norms about what a belief in X requires and means.

There will of course be variations based on other beliefs you may have. Mary may believe it is raining hard outside, and one contextual behavior we would expect is that when she goes out, she'll use an umbrella or otherwise cover herself. If she doesn't, that would be a violation of expected norms for belief it is raining hard. But if it turned out that she also believes it is fun to walk in the rain, or also believes her car is just 10 feet from the door and that the car is her destination, those beliefs would explain why her behavior failed to meet expected norms. Beliefs form networks.

What doesn't matter in ascribing intentionality to a subject is what configuration of stuff is inside of the subject, making it behave the way it does. We don't care about that any more than we care about the details of a computer program in determining whether it is a spread sheet or not. All we care about is whether an agent behaves rationally according to social norms, or in the case of a computer program, whether it is good at doing what we expect of THAT sort of program.

That's one reason why Dennett's views on intentionality make him an anti-reductionist. Even between members of the same species (say, human beings) there is such variation in the ways different people's nervous systems physically instantiate what we'd essentially call the "same" belief that reduction to some common element in all human nervous systems would be impossible to find. At any rate, it wouldn't be necessary to find such a thing.

For eliminativists, failure to reduce means mental states don't exist, or are some kind of folk myth, but because Dennett has the views he does on how mental states acquire content in the first place, he doesn't need to require reductionism for them to still be real in a robust, pragmatic sense.

And how his anti-reductionism of mental states ties in to his claim that simply describing one's mental states captures all their qualities.

His theories of intentionality are separate from his theories about consciousness. His approach to intentionality will be about mental state content. His approach to consciousness will be concerned with how some intentional states come to dominate the brain's networks of neurons over other states.

And he has never said that "simply describing one's mental states captures all their qualities". The closest thing to this that he has said is that a successful theory of consciousness must explain how people come to say the things they say about what it is like to have conscious experiences of one sort or another--and when such a theory can do this, there is nothing left for it to do.

[Atla]

I understand very well that all you can do is lie here.

He said in plain English that he's endorsing the software-hardware dualism, which is not a "bad" kind of dualism.

No, that is not what he said--who is the liar now?

What he said is that his comments about information should NOT be considered as an endorsement of dualism, "unless" one thinks of the software/hardware distinction as a form of dualism, which he throws out there as a possibility, but one he doesn't take very seriously. That's why he follows up the comment with a wry show of hands for who believes software to be real. Software being regarded as real is meant to discourage treating the distinction as a form of dualism.

That's the whole damn point, software-hardware is a "good" dualism if we understand that information is abstraction, and a "bad" dualism if we treat information as something distinct from matter or energy.

Dennett is a materialist, so he understands that there is no such thing as information that is not registered by a physical state of some sort.

What he wants to stress is that informational objects are such independently of how they are physically instantiated, and paying attention to this fact draws your attention to what makes them important and interesting.

A line of computer code can be written on a piece of paper in ink, drawn on a chalkboard in chalk, spoken aloud in French, memorized in your brain, or stored in the memory system of a computer. In each case, it is instantiated physically in a completely different medium, but regardless it is still the "same" informational object across those mediums. The medium thus doesn't matter. The information does.

This is simply not what Dennett says, it's what you want him to say. He kinda knows what he's saying, and he also mentions that some very smart people he knows are very unhappy with this line of thought of his.

If information is always registered by a physical state of some sort, because information is an abstraction about that physical state, then either information isn't real in the sense that matter/energy are real, or information IS matter/energy.

But we get the bad dualism when we say that information is something other than matter/energy.

No, you believers in mysterious, physically unaccountable, magic star-dusts of consciousness are the dualists here. It is that occult belief which Dennett rejects, in favor of a materialism than can accommodate everything about consciousness that is genuinely real.

Not even wrong..

[Gertie]

Thanks for this Faustus.

I'd be interested if you can give a clear, coherent explanation of Dennett's position on this.

Okay, keeping in mind that "intentionality" as a concept is concerned with the content of a mental state. . . .

Right, as I recall Dennett makes this 'aboutness' distinction between beliefs and desires(intentional states), and qualia, which he has a different approach to. Yes?

Dennett's view is that we ascribe the content of a mental state to someone as a way to predict and understand an agent's current and future behavior. To have a belief that X means that in various contexts you are likely to exhibit certain kinds of behavior, because we have social norms about what a belief in X requires and means.

Sure. We do that with other people. But we can know our own experienced thoughts and feelings.

There will of course be variations based on other beliefs you may have. Mary may believe it is raining hard outside, and one contextual behavior we would expect is that when she goes out, she'll use an umbrella or otherwise cover herself. If she doesn't, that would be a violation of expected norms for belief it is raining hard. But if it turned out that she also believes it is fun to walk in the rain, or also believes her car is just 10 feet from the door and that the car is her destination, those beliefs would explain why her behavior failed to meet expected norms. Beliefs form networks.

OK.

What doesn't matter in ascribing intentionality to a subject is what configuration of stuff is inside of the subject, making it behave the way it does. We don't care about that any more than we care about the details of a computer program in determining whether it is a spread sheet or not. All we care about is whether an agent behaves rationally according to social norms, or in the case of a computer program, whether it is good at doing what we expect of THAT sort of program.

If we're interested in consciousness, why wouldn't we care about experiential mental states and their correlated brain states?

That's one reason why Dennett's views on intentionality make him an anti-reductionist. Even between members of the same species (say, human beings) there is such variation in the ways different people's nervous systems physically instantiate what we'd essentially call the "same" belief that reduction to some common element in all human nervous systems would be impossible to find. At any rate, it wouldn't be necessary to find such a thing.

OK, so he's saying intentional states, beliefs, are physically 'instantiated' in this particularly complicated way, which means no two people's beliefs will be instantiated identically in any two people, therefore phenomenal mental intentional states can't be reducible to their physical correlates?
I don't see how the 'therefore...' follows, if I've understood you correctly. Not being identically reducible in others, doesn't mean not reducible in each individual. You and I can both look out the window and believe it's raining, that general ''it's raining'' belief won't have the exact same neural correlates in each of us, but that's surely a different thing to saying that the experiential state isn't reducible in principle. It seems more like a Type-Token distinction than a Reducibility one.

For eliminativists, failure to reduce means mental states don't exist, or are some kind of folk myth, but because Dennett has the views he does on how mental states acquire content in the first place, he doesn't need to require reductionism for them to still be real in a robust, pragmatic sense.

Not sure what' 'real in a robust, pragmatic sense' actually means?


(And eliminativists are idiots.)

Gertie wrote: ↑
Yesterday, 7:27 pm
And how his anti-reductionism of mental states ties in to his claim that simply describing one's mental states captures all their qualities.

His theories of intentionality are separate from his theories about consciousness. His approach to intentionality will be about mental state content.

OK, so he believes 'intentional states' are real phenomenal mental states (tho maybe not as straightforward as we think). No prob with that.

And he has never said that "simply describing one's mental states captures all their qualities". The closest thing to this that he has said is that a successful theory of consciousness must explain how people come to say the things they say about what it is like to have conscious experiences of one sort or another--and when such a theory can do this, there is nothing left for it to do.

This still puzzles me. Why not say a successful theory of consciousness will explain the How and Why of phenomenal mental states?

Is it just because we can't observe other people's mental states, only their behaviour and reports, so hey lets not worry about it? Or is he implying something more?

[Sy Borg]

This thought came to me while chatting with Gertie on another thread. On one hand, correlation of brain states and thoughts are no proof of brains generating consciousness.

Definitely not proof, but that's a red-herring, because empirical claims are not provable period.

It comes down to reasons to believe a given claim rather than a contrary claim.

Requiring evidence beyond correlation is not a red herring.

The fact is that we do not understand how consciousness is generated. My own suspicion is that most take an anthropocentric approach this issue, refusing to even consider the possibility that consciousness may be possible without needing something akin to the human vehicle of consciousness, ie. a brain. There are so many organisms out there sensing their environment, yet we remain convinced that only brains can bring experience. Yet, as Nagle noted, we don't even know what it's like to be a bat, let alone simpler organisms.

As I've nagged at poor Consul - how do neuronal dynamics translate to subjective experience? How to do you go from A to B? No one knows. Another point is that correlation does not equal causation. So, it's not a red herring to point out that "correlation of brain states and thoughts are no proof of brains generating consciousness".

[Consul]

Yet, as Nagle noted, we don't even know what it's like to be a bat, let alone simpler organisms.

"Does a bat know what it is like to be a bat?" – Colin McGinn: http://www.colinmcginn.net/phenomenological-knowledge/

[Consul]

Requiring evidence beyond correlation is not a red herring.

Regarding the consciousness-brain relationship, there is evidence beyond correlation!

There are so many organisms out there sensing their environment, yet we remain convinced that only brains can bring experience.

Yes—for very good reasons!

[Sy Borg]

Requiring evidence beyond correlation is not a red herring.

Regarding the consciousness-brain relationship, there is evidence beyond correlation!

There are so many organisms out there sensing their environment, yet we remain convinced that only brains can bring experience.

Yes—for very good reasons!

We best not resume this debate, or we'll repeat a lot of content.

The evidence is - famously - missing. That is why consciousness is still considered to be one of the great mysteries. We do not know how subjective experience is "generated", if that is how it works. That is the situation and no back-and-forth between us will change that fact.

[Gee]

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.

I don't believe that Gods exist in other words.

All knowledge sources from somewhere

Sure. Knowledge arises in functioning brains.

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

"Certain" as in "particular" or "specific."

You made your position clear in the first two responses above. You are so far involved in the thousand year old monism v dualism debates that you can't even think about consciousness. You can only argue.

I wondered if you had college training, as I have found that many colleges teach people how to argue and call that teaching philosophy. It is not. Some of those colleges do not even require critical thinking and logic classes in order to gain a degree. Later in this thread, I noted that you stated that you had a degree in philosophy and taught philosophy, so I guess I was right.

Apparently I did not make my position clear in prior posts. I have no intention of arguing some monism v dualism nonsense and believe it to be about the stupidest way imaginable to study consciousness. It would be like taking a box with 'something' (consciousness) in it, and telling people that they had to discover what that something was by figuring out where it came from. That is what the Monism v Dualism debate actually is, an argument about where consciousness comes from "God" or the brain, with no regard for what consciousness actually is or how it works.

No thank you.

Gee

[Gee]

Same thing with consciousness. Dennett was literally denying the existence of phenomenal consciousness. Which may be the most profoundly ridiculous stance in all of philosophy, so it didn't even occur to his followers that that's what he's really saying. So they criticize the critics of Dennett.

This is why this guy is so dangerous. He creates more and more insanity and people don't even realize it, he's the most successful charlatan of our time.

Don't mean to butt in, but I had to state that I seriously agree with you. Some of your earlier posts helped me to better understand why I was so uncomfortable with some of Dennett's ideas, but even I had no problem finding his denial of phenomenal consciousness very disturbing. Some philosophers renamed his book Consciousness Denied, or Consciousness Explained Away.

Dennett is a brilliant man, who actually understood the complexity of the idea of "self", but in order to resolve it, he simply dismissed it. Problem solved! If we dismiss the idea of 'self' and doubt qualia because it is impossible to prove, things become problematic. My subjectivity is based upon my experience (qualia) of being me (self), so this puts subjectivity into doubt. Since truth is subjective, without subjectivity there is no truth, without subjectivity there is no objectivity because objectivity is a consensus of subjective opinions. Without objectivity and truth, there are no facts!

But what bothered me the most was his dismissal of phenomenal consciousness (qualia) because of political and social reasons. It is the first step that must be taken before denying a person their human rights. The Nazis did it when they called the Jews "dogs", the Christian Churches did it when they called tribal people "soulless heathens", and the American plantation owners did it when they called their black slaves "high level trainable animals".

Oh yes. Dennett's ideas are very dangerous.

Gee

[Gee]

This thought came to me while chatting with Gertie on another thread. On one hand, correlation of brain states and thoughts are no proof of brains generating consciousness.

I agree with this; correlation and generation are not the same thing. Although I am sure that the brain is a player in the game of consciousness, it is not the source of consciousness. You could probably argue that it is the source of human consciousness, or a more advanced consciousness, because it is clearly the receptacle of most of our sense information. But it can't be the source of awareness in life because evolution has the brain coming much later.

Although some of the posts early on in this thread have me rethinking about how much influence the brain actually has on consciousness.

Likewise, the fact that numerous brainless organisms display what appears to be awareness is not proof of their internality.

No it is not proof, but then, what do you mean by "internality"? Do you mean do they "think" about their experiences? That is what many people require in order to say that plant life has "internality" or subjective experience, or consciousness. But does one have to think about their experiences in order to have experiences? I don't think so.

Do brainless organisms have awareness (consciousness) and internal subjective experience? Yes. We have to get over this idea that consciousness is the brain and thinking thoughts. If that were true, then all of our computers would be conscious. Consciousness is awareness/feeling and a sense of self, which all life has -- all life does not appear to think.

We are stuck. Ultimately our statements here reflect what we want to believe.

There is too much truth to this, but there does not have to be. Instead of choosing where we think consciousness comes from and working confirmation bias in order to prove our "beliefs", why not study consciousness itself? What it is; how it works; it's properties? Then we might be able to get unstuck.

Gee

[Consul]

But what bothered me the most was his dismissal of phenomenal consciousness (qualia) because of political and social reasons. It is the first step that must be taken before denying a person their human rights. The Nazis did it when they called the Jews "dogs", the Christian Churches did it when they called tribal people "soulless heathens", and the American plantation owners did it when they called their black slaves "high level trainable animals".
Oh yes. Dennett's ideas are very dangerous.

No, he doesn't intend to dehumanize people in any way by denying phenomenal consciousness; and the reasons for his denial aren't political but philosophico-scientific ones. Comparing him to the Nazis is ludicrous!

[Sy Borg]

This thought came to me while chatting with Gertie on another thread. On one hand, correlation of brain states and thoughts are no proof of brains generating consciousness.

I agree with this; correlation and generation are not the same thing. Although I am sure that the brain is a player in the game of consciousness, it is not the source of consciousness. You could probably argue that it is the source of human consciousness, or a more advanced consciousness, because it is clearly the receptacle of most of our sense information. But it can't be the source of awareness in life because evolution has the brain coming much later.

Although some of the posts early on in this thread have me rethinking about how much influence the brain actually has on consciousness.

Likewise, the fact that numerous brainless organisms display what appears to be awareness is not proof of their internality.

No it is not proof, but then, what do you mean by "internality"? Do you mean do they "think" about their experiences? That is what many people require in order to say that plant life has "internality" or subjective experience, or consciousness. But does one have to think about their experiences in order to have experiences? I don't think so.

Do brainless organisms have awareness (consciousness) and internal subjective experience? Yes. We have to get over this idea that consciousness is the brain and thinking thoughts. If that were true, then all of our computers would be conscious. Consciousness is awareness/feeling and a sense of self, which all life has -- all life does not appear to think.

We are stuck. Ultimately our statements here reflect what we want to believe.

There is too much truth to this, but there does not have to be. Instead of choosing where we think consciousness comes from and working confirmation bias in order to prove our "beliefs", why not study consciousness itself? What it is; how it works; it's properties? Then we might be able to get unstuck.

By "internality" I refer to whether it feels like something to be that entity. That it feels raw sensations.

In a sense, it does not matter how much we study this subject because the most brilliant and learned minds in the area still do not know. I do, however, think many jump the gun in asserting what is in this issue due to their preferences, and experts are not immune from bias here.

Do we believe that neuroscientists are on the verge of solving the "hard problem", with current models being correct, with only a few details needed to work it all out? Or do we think it more likely that there will be surprises in store for future researchers. I lean towards the latter view but, boringly, only time will tell.