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

[GE Morton]

Yes, they are identical. Observations of the same thing at different times do not make the thing different. If we analyze the reflected spectra, calculate the diameter and mass of the body, and compute its orbital position at the two times and correct for the time difference, we will find no differences.

There are properties by which the morning star and evening star can be distinguished.

Oh? What are those --- other than the fact that one observation is made in the morning, the other in the evening? That is a change in the observational circumstances, not in the thing observed.

[Terrapin Station]

Er, no. The properties of a thing are the same, at a given time, from all perspectives. They only look different from different perspectives. The properties of an external thing are not dependent upon the observer. That is absurd.

Er yes. For example, take again the simple example of something that is circular from one reference point and oblong from another reference point.

It's not some way from no reference point. There is no such thing.

The reference point from which it's circular is just one reference point of a potential infinity of reference points available. There is no objective preference of one reference point over another. One reference point isn't correct while the others are incorrect. It's simply a fact that the property is different from different reference points.

[Terrapin Station]

There are properties by which the morning star and evening star can be distinguished.

Oh? What are those --- other than the fact that one observation is made in the morning, the other in the evening? That is a change in the observational circumstances, not in the thing observed.

There's no "non-observational circumstance" from which properties are some way or the other. Or again, there's no reference point free reference point for anything.

[GE Morton]

The "mental state" in question is not the "decision state." It is the content of that state --- the issues and alternatives being weighed and considered. No MRI scan will reveal those.

The MRI scan reveals it from a third-person perspective. It won't reveal it from a first-person perspective, because the fMRI is not the brain in question.

Reveals WHAT from a "third person perspective"? The issues and alternatives being considered? Obviously not. That information will not be available to anyone, from any perspective, other than the subject's. The "it" to which you refer there --- whatever you imagine that pronoun to denote --- is not that content.

Likewise, a oscilloscope will show soundwaves from a perspective that is other than the soundwaves in question. It can't show the soundwaves from a perspective of being the soundwaves, because the oscilloscope isn't the soundwaves in question.

Soundwaves, not being perceiving, sentient creatures, do not have perspectives. You say the silliest things.

[Terrapin Station]

Soundwaves, not being perceiving, sentient creatures, do not have perspectives. You say the silliest things.

Before I answer the other part, didn't I just write, in a response addressed to you, a post that you already responded to prior to this: "'Perspective' here doesn't refer to something necessarily conscious, by the way. It refers to spatiotemporal reference points or reference frames."

It seems like you didn't read that. Or you didn't understand it, yet you didn't bother to ask for clarification of it.

How are we supposed to have a conversation about philosophy if you're not even going to read and think about what I write?

[Terrapin Station]

Just to reiterate, in case this wasn't clear, no one can access a reference point of being any object (or process etc.) aside from oneself, and specifically one's subset of brain states that are mental states.

So we can't know what any properties are from the reference point of any other object "itself." We can only know all other objects (processes, etc.) from reference points of "otherness"--the equivalent of third-person reference points.

This is why our mental brain states seem radically different from the reference point of being those brain states as opposed to various reference points for other things. Our mental brain states are the only thing for which we can access a "being the thing in question" reference frame.

[GE Morton]

Er yes. For example, take again the simple example of something that is circular from one reference point and oblong from another reference point.

There is no such thing. It is either circular or is not. How it looks from someone's viewpoint is irrelevant. As I said before, any reference point can be translated to any other. We don't assign shapes to things based on any particular perspective. Its shape is what is constant through all perspective translations. The properties of things are not functions of the viewpoint of any particular observer.

If a spiral galaxy appears as an oval in telescopes, the astronomer corrects the perspective until all points on the circumference are equidistant from the telescope. THEN he reports its shape.

You need to reflect on the absurd implications of your claim.

[GE Morton]

Soundwaves, not being perceiving, sentient creatures, do not have perspectives. You say the silliest things.

Before I answer the other part, didn't I just write, in a response addressed to you, a post that you already responded to prior to this: "'Perspective' here doesn't refer to something necessarily conscious, by the way. It refers to spatiotemporal reference points or reference frames."

Sorry, doesn't fly. A perspective is how something looks to some observer. Reference points are not perspectives, unless some observer is situated at that reference point.

[GE Morton]

Just to reiterate, in case this wasn't clear, no one can access a reference point of being any object (or process etc.) aside from oneself, and specifically one's subset of brain states that are mental states.

That is false. I can translate from any reference point to any other --- often by merely walking across the room, and thereby see what you are seeing. I can't see what is going on in your mind, however, no matter what reference point I occupy. I can, on the other hand, see what is going on in your brain (in principle).

You're evading the questions asked earlier: Can a MRI or CAT scan, or any other method of detecting/measuring brain activity, tell us what the patient is thinking about? Or the "properties"of whatever quale denotes the color red, for him?

Please don't attempt to dismiss that impossibility as resulting from a difference in perspectives. Spatio-temporal loci have nothing to do with it. Mental phenomena is not identical to, reducible to, or predictable from any observable neural behavior --- because the two phenomena are qualitatively different. Claiming they are identical ignores the obvious.

This is why our mental brain states seem radically different from the reference point of being those brain states as opposed to various reference points for other things.

"Mental brain states" is a contradiction in terms.

[Atla]

Hehe well I'm just here for fun, I'm not taking it seriously,...

You've mentioned this more than once before. I guess you consider it important to remind people?

Sometimes, people who I could debate a little bit seriously, do come along. But since idiots like TS, Sculptor and Age make most discussion impossible on such forums by ruining most threads (and they can be at this all day like their lives depended on it), and then they call me the idiot, well maybe I don't want to people think that I'm actually taking them seriously, because I don't. Now why don't you stop enabling their behaviour.

[Sculptor1]

No, these are all physical.

Really? The "state of the art" in AI technology refers to the extent of knowledge in that field. Knowledge is physical? And what do the laws of physics tell us about the contemporary music scene?

Of course. Do you think there would be any knowledge without brains, books, and other media?

You're ignoring the obvious in order to defend a naive ontology.

There is no distinction. The state of the art is cashed out in physicality, exactly like mental states.

Again . . . really? Please explain just how the mental state of, say, thinking about where to go for dinner "cashes out" physically --- what tests or examinations of brain tissue or activity will reveal that.

Well try to decide where to go without your brain. And you will have your question answered.

[Terrapin Station]

There is no such thing. It is either circular or is not. How it looks from someone's viewpoint is irrelevant. As I said before, any reference point can be translated to any other. We don't assign shapes to things based on any particular perspective.

There isn't a shape "from no reference point." I wrote this already. If you're going to disagree with it, you need to explain how there's a shape from no reference point.

[Terrapin Station]

[quote="Terrapin Station" post_id=366590 time=1599699868 user_id=46607


Before I answer the other part, didn't I just write, in a response addressed to you, a post that you already responded to prior to this: "'Perspective' here doesn't refer to something necessarily conscious, by the way. It refers to spatiotemporal reference points or reference frames."

Sorry, doesn't fly. A perspective is how something looks to some observer. Reference points are not perspectives, unless some observer is situated at that reference point.
[/quote]

In other words, even though someone is explicitly telling you how they're using a term, you'll just ignore it in some cases. Nice.

[Terrapin Station]

Just to reiterate, in case this wasn't clear, no one can access a reference point of being any object (or process etc.) aside from oneself, and specifically one's subset of brain states that are mental states.

That is false.

You can be an object other than yourself? I suppose you can outrun your shadow, too.

[Gertie]

GE

Gertie wrote: ↑
Today, 12:24 pm

To briefly summarise how I'm interpreting you -

Brain processes create a product, in the way a steam train creates steam.

This product consists of experiential ''what it's like'' states.

The content of these experiential states comprise a dynamic 'virtual model' of a material world and myself as an embodied agent within it.

An external world, but not necessarily a "material" one.

The function of this experiential model of the world is to direct actions.

To consider and weigh possible alternatives, and their possible outcomes, prior to taking some action. Yes.

Understood.

The brain then 'presents the experiential model to itself' - by which you mean presents the experiential model to the ''consciousness system/body as a whole''.

Not quite. The brain creates the model, which is the "me" and the world we perceive. We, and the universe we see and conceive, ARE that model.

OK. So what does it mean to say neurons, chemicals, etc present that model they've produced to themselves?

The upshot here, important for AI, is that any system which can create a dynamic, virtual model of itself and its environment, constantly updated in real time, and choose its actions based on scenarios run in the model, will be "conscious."

Well that would depend on whether that recreates the necessary and sufficient conditions for experiential states to manifest, and while we know brains have them, we don't know what those conditions are. They might be substrate dependent (see for example https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orchestra ... %20neurons. ).

A note on the "Explanatory Gap": There are two types of explanations, reductive ones and functional ones. The "gap" only acknowledges the former, and because mental phenomena are not reducible to physical phenomena, concludes that mental phenomena are inexplicable.

A reductive explanation proceeds by constructing a causal chain from one event or set of events to another. And of course, no such chain can be constructed between a physical event or process and a non-physical phenomenon.

Right. And when Dennett says we have to talk about consciousness in functional terms, he's saying he can't explain it any other way. And I think that's because of what Chalmers calls The Hard Problem, which Dennett denies exists. Or ''dissolves'' - which I suppose it does if you ignore it. How can you be a materialist which is an ontological account rooted in matter and the smaller bits of matter it's reducible to, and just ignore the biggest problem this raises re experience...

But a functional explanation does not draw such a chain. Instead, it sets up a mechanism, a process, which is thought to be enabling or causative of a certain result, and seeing if the anticipated result follows. It disregards any intermediate steps which may or may not intervene between cause and effect. So if we can set up a system we believe will produce consciousness, and it indeed produces something we can't distinguish from conscious behavior, then we will have explained consciousness functionally.

I don't find the functional approach to phenomenal consciousness satisfactory. It might or might not work to produce an experiencing machine, but it'll be by immitating certain functional features of a known experiencing system (brains), not by explaining it in the way reductionism might. Hence the problem of how to test AI for phenomenal experience - we won't know if reproducing that model making function has captured the necessary and sufficient conditions for experiencing. We might only have created a machine which is very good at mimicking experiential states, and is incapable of understanding and correctly answering questions about feelings, thinking, seeing, etc. We should still def be trying it to see what happens of course, it's a possible practical way forward.

BTW, Levine's seminal paper on the "Explanatory Gap" is here:

https://faculty.arts.ubc.ca/maydede/min ... oryGap.pdf

Thanks. Looks like it might need a lot of background reading to really understand, but I'll give it a go.