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

[Terrapin Station]

ME: 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?

I'm guessing that you're the source of the confusion of many persons on this board about this stuff. "x is physical" doesn't amount to "the laws of physics tell us about it."

[GE Morton]

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

I don't think I said (quite) that. I said that brains create a virtrual model of the organism of which it is a part, including itself, and of the environment in which it finds itself. That model becomes the subjective "me" and the external world as perceived.

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. ).

Heh. I've read Penrose's Emperor's New Mind. A thought-provoking book, but the theory is so speculative and so dependent upon controversial quantum theoretical phenomena that it is not likely to spur much interest any time soon. It can't be ruled out, of course, but the solution is probably much simpler.

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...

I agree. That "Hard Problem" is real, but the solution is (fairly) simple, and does not require dualism or mysticism. At the same time, some aspects of it will be permanently inexplicable --- even if we invent an AI system that passes the Turing test.

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.

You have to keep in mind that those questions you would ask of the "experience machine" apply just as well to humans. I can only know that you are a conscious creature, a "thinking machine," via your behavior. I have no more access to your "inner world" than I would of that machine. That is just the nature of the beast --- the subjective experience of a conscious system, biological or electronic, will be intrinsically, impenetrably private. We can only impute inner phenomena to it by inferences from its behavior.

[GE Morton]

First off, "have those shapes from all reference points" isn't a shape from no reference point, is it?

Yes, it is. "From all reference points" implies that reference points are irrelevant to the shape of the Earth. It's shape is not dependent upon any reference point.

"The Earth is spherical"--how does that property obtain, exactly? Here's a common definition of "sphere": "a round solid figure, or its surface, with every point on its surface equidistant from its center."

"From its center" is a spatiotemporal reference point. But you're saying it has a shape from no reference point, right? So you couldn't use "from its center." So how does the property of "spherical" obtain from no reference point?

We use a reference point to define a sphere, in order to convey how to go about constructing one. The shape of the Earth does not depend that reference point, or upon our definition of "sphere."

This sidetrack is too silly to continue, TP. I'm done with it.

[Terrapin Station]

We use a reference point to define a sphere, in order to convey how to go about constructing one. The shape of the Earth does not depend that reference point, or upon our definition of "sphere."

So the explanation of how it has a shape from no reference point when we use a reference point to define a sphere in the first place is?

[Atla]

brains create a virtrual model of the organism of which it is a part, including itself, and of the environment in which it finds itself. That model becomes the subjective "me" and the external world as perceived.

What is that virtual model made of, where does it exist?

[Terrapin Station]

By the way, if you won't address this (So the explanation of how it has a shape from no reference point when we use a reference point to define a sphere in the first place is?), we'll surely wind up doing this all over again, because our disagreement over the brain/mind relationship boils down to a disagreement over this ontological issue, and if we can't get down to the brass tacks of this ontological issue, it's just going to keep cropping up again every time the brain/mind relationship comes up.

[GE Morton]

brains create a virtrual model of the organism of which it is a part, including itself, and of the environment in which it finds itself. That model becomes the subjective "me" and the external world as perceived.

What is that virtual model made of, where does it exist?

It exists in your brain. If you destroy the brain you destroy the model. It is made of "virtual stuff" --- non-tangible, ephemeral, unanalyzable "stuff" that emerges from certain cybernetic systems, much like an electromagnetic field emerges from an operating electric motor. It is field effect of those systems.

[GE Morton]

I said, "It is field effect of those systems."

Should have said, more conservatively, "You can think of it as a field effect of those systems."

[GE Morton]

By the way, if you won't address this (So the explanation of how it has a shape from no reference point when we use a reference point to define a sphere in the first place is?), we'll surely wind up doing this all over again, because our disagreement over the brain/mind relationship boils down to a disagreement over this ontological issue, and if we can't get down to the brass tacks of this ontological issue, it's just going to keep cropping up again every time the brain/mind relationship comes up.

You need to jettison that ontology of yours, TP. It is incoherent, nonsensical, and leads to numerous reductio ad absurdums, which I've pointed out before.

[Terrapin Station]

By the way, if you won't address this (So the explanation of how it has a shape from no reference point when we use a reference point to define a sphere in the first place is?), we'll surely wind up doing this all over again, because our disagreement over the brain/mind relationship boils down to a disagreement over this ontological issue, and if we can't get down to the brass tacks of this ontological issue, it's just going to keep cropping up again every time the brain/mind relationship comes up.

You need to jettison that ontology of yours, TP. It is incoherent, nonsensical, and leads to numerous reductio ad absurdums, which I've pointed out before.

You know what you'd need to do? You'd need to be able to actually address my objections to your objections, starting with explaining how a shape would obtain from no reference point.

[Atla]

What is that virtual model made of, where does it exist?

It exists in your brain. If you destroy the brain you destroy the model. It is made of "virtual stuff" --- non-tangible, ephemeral, unanalyzable "stuff" that emerges from certain cybernetic systems, much like an electromagnetic field emerges from an operating electric motor. It is field effect of those systems.

Electromagnetic fields are physical and analyzable. They may not be tangible for us in the everyday sense, but I wouldn't call them ephemeral. So that would mean that the model is in fact physically identical to a part of the brain.

If you want to start working on the Hard problem, you first have to discard ideas that probably don't work. Strong emergence is a good example of it, here we pretend that the whole is more than the sum of the parts, in short it's a scientifically accepted version of magic. We are still at square one, trying to bridge the explanatory gap, and we are still fully involved in dualism, we simply convince ourselves that we aren't.

[Terrapin Station]

What is that virtual model made of, where does it exist?

It exists in your brain. If you destroy the brain you destroy the model. It is made of "virtual stuff" --- non-tangible, ephemeral, unanalyzable "stuff" that emerges from certain cybernetic systems, much like an electromagnetic field emerges from an operating electric motor. It is field effect of those systems.

So first, you'd need to clarify whether the "non-tangible, ephemeral, unanalyzable 'stuff'" exists in brains or extends beyond them, you need to deal with the problem, mentioned by Atla below, that electromagnetic fields are not "non-tangible, ephemeral, unanalyzable 'stuff,'" so you'd need to explain what makes the difference, and you'd need to give any sort of good reason to believe there is anything such as "non-tangible, ephemeral, unanalyzable 'stuff'" in the first place, because it does indeed sound like "it's magic!" or "it's God!"-caliber "we need an explanation now! So I'm going with this" nonsense.

[Pattern-chaser]

Does anyone have anything to say "on the absurd hegemony of science", or has that discussion finished now?

[Atla]

It exists in your brain. If you destroy the brain you destroy the model. It is made of "virtual stuff" --- non-tangible, ephemeral, unanalyzable "stuff" that emerges from certain cybernetic systems, much like an electromagnetic field emerges from an operating electric motor. It is field effect of those systems.

So first, you'd need to clarify whether the "non-tangible, ephemeral, unanalyzable 'stuff'" exists in brains or extends beyond them, you need to deal with the problem, mentioned by Atla below, that electromagnetic fields are not "non-tangible, ephemeral, unanalyzable 'stuff,'" so you'd need to explain what makes the difference, and you'd need to give any sort of good reason to believe there is anything such as "non-tangible, ephemeral, unanalyzable 'stuff'" in the first place, because it does indeed sound like "it's magic!" or "it's God!"-caliber "we need an explanation now! So I'm going with this" nonsense.

What Atla mentioned was based on the Hard problem though, which presupposes a general understanding of how physics even works, and what the explanatory gap is - things you have yet to demonstrate.

[Terrapin Station]

So first, you'd need to clarify whether the "non-tangible, ephemeral, unanalyzable 'stuff'" exists in brains or extends beyond them, you need to deal with the problem, mentioned by Atla below, that electromagnetic fields are not "non-tangible, ephemeral, unanalyzable 'stuff,'" so you'd need to explain what makes the difference, and you'd need to give any sort of good reason to believe there is anything such as "non-tangible, ephemeral, unanalyzable 'stuff'" in the first place, because it does indeed sound like "it's magic!" or "it's God!"-caliber "we need an explanation now! So I'm going with this" nonsense.

What Atla mentioned was based on the Hard problem though, which presupposes a general understanding of how physics even works, and what the explanatory gap is - things you have yet to demonstrate.

I wasn't about to start campaigning for a broken clock.