Philosophy Discussion Forums | A Humans-Only Philosophy Club

[GE Morton]

Physical fields aren't ephemeral, they are just as real as say protons (which technically are also theoretical constructs btw). Another way to look at it is that everything is fields, particles are merely excitations of fields. So we run into the physical-mental identity issue.

"Ephemeral" was the wrong word; "ethereal" would have been better (indeed, "fields" are barely more substantial than the luminiferous ether). But I agree that fields (and protons, of course) are "real" --- because "reality" consists of those posited things which help us understand and explain our experience. If the virtual model idea furthers that aim then it will be "real" too.

Functionalism is merely abstraction, it doesn't really address the issue.

All theories are abstractions. I suspect you're assuming that only a reductive explanation "really" addresses the issue. But, for the reasons noted, no such explanation will ever be possible. So if we're ever going to explain phenomenal experience we need to approach the problem from a different direction.

The idea that qualia/existence itself only happens when certain conditions are met, is a very intuitive and widespread, but highly irrational, illogical belief without evidence.

Do you know of any instances where there that is not the case? How much evidence do you need? The inductive evidence for it is pretty compelling.

[Atla]

"Ephemeral" was the wrong word; "ethereal" would have been better (indeed, "fields" are barely more substantial than the luminiferous ether). But I agree that fields (and protons, of course) are "real" --- because "reality" consists of those posited things which help us understand and explain our experience. If the virtual model idea furthers that aim then it will be "real" too.

All theories are abstractions. I suspect you're assuming that only a reductive explanation "really" addresses the issue. But, for the reasons noted, no such explanation will ever be possible. So if we're ever going to explain phenomenal experience we need to approach the problem from a different direction.

So then, again, we run into the mental-physical identity issue which you seem to have rejected. Of course I'm saying that identity is the only sensible way forward, reductionism solves nothing.

Do you know of any instances where there that is not the case? How much evidence do you need? The inductive evidence for it is pretty compelling.

Evidence for what? We can't measure qualia so there's no evidence for it.
However, the 'laws' or 'features' of nature tend to be universal, so why would there be an exception here? So the default idea is that qualia is universal, all these 'emergence out of complexity' etc. ideas are probably just bad philosophy.

And this is the start of the true inquiry into the Hard problem, it's a pretty deep rabbit hole.

[GE Morton]

Surely you don't think that physics is positing fields as something either nonphysical or epiphenomenal though, do you?

Fields are "physical" because they are posited by physical theory. They are not "physical" in the everyday sense, which implies being tangible and having definite spacetime coordinates. Neither is true of fields (every such field extends to infinity, it just grows "weaker" with distance from the origin). They are "everywhere," and thus nowhere.

Yes, the virtual model theory is a version of epiphenomenalism. The central question in the (massive) debate regarding epiphenomenalism is whether mental phenomena, e.g., qualia, can have any causal role in physical processes. Yes, and no. What particular "quale" one experiences when beholding, say, a red rose is physically inefficacious and irrelevant. Hence we don't need to characterize it or analyze it. But the fact that we have one is causally efficacious --- it is what permits us to distinguish a red rose from a yellow one, and hence determines which one we pick. And that quale is what we do have when making that choice. We do not have any information about the physics of light or of whatever processes may be underway in our brains. That quale is all we have to work with.

[Terrapin Station]

Fields are "physical" because they are posited by physical theory. They are not "physical" in the everyday sense, which implies being tangible and having definite spacetime coordinates. Neither is true of fields (every such field extends to infinity, it just grows "weaker" with distance from the origin). They are "everywhere," and thus nowhere.

"Physical" doesn't imply "tangible."

"Everywhere" doesn't imply "nowhere."

If you can't even get such simple ideas straight . . . geez, no wonder you're so confused.

[GE Morton]

"Physical" doesn't imply "tangible."

Yes, it does, in the everyday sense:

"1a: of or relating to natural science
b(1): of or relating to physics
(2): characterized or produced by the forces and operations of physics
2a: having material existence : perceptible especially through the senses and subject to the laws of nature"

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/physical

2a is the "everyday sense."

"Everywhere" doesn't imply "nowhere."

Yes, it does. Citing the spacetime coordinates of a thing is meaningful only if it enables us to locate the thing in a specific place. Something alleged to exist at all spacetime coordinates is indistinguishable from one which exists at no spacetime coordinates. "Omnipresence" is a vacuous concept.

[Atla]

every such field extends to infinity, it just grows "weaker" with distance from the origin). They are "everywhere," and thus nowhere.

?! You seem to be confusing forces and fields.

[Atla]

Citing the spacetime coordinates of a thing is meaningful only if it enables us to locate the thing in a specific place. Something alleged to exist at all spacetime coordinates is indistinguishable from one which exists at no spacetime coordinates. "Omnipresence" is a vacuous concept.

Spacetime is also "omnipresent" then.
Fields exist at all spacetime coordinates, they can take different values from coordinate to coordinate. It makes no sense to say that they exist at no coordinates. Never mind

[Gertie]

GE

Re the linked paper


[And Koch is choosing to pursue the route of IIT, which he and Tononi suggest implies an underlying panpsychic ontology...]

My own view on the conscious/experiential self, is that brain architecture rules here. We might find the claustrum or somewhere else is something akin to a command and control centre all neural roads lead to and from. In charge of assessing the incoming sensory information, checking with memory etc, thinking through options and issuing instructions to motor systems. But there are competing ideas about how the inter-connectedness works (eg Greenfield likens the localised inter-connectedness found on scans to the ripple effect when you throw a stone in a pond - summarised here https://www.scaruffi.com/mind/greenfie.html ).

What we know is a sense of being a discrete, unified self somehow emerges. For such complex critters as humans, the evolutionary pressure to turn a confusing cacophany of sights, sounds, sensations, memories, etc, into a useful experiential model which helps us to navigate the world, makes sense of the need for such a mechanism. We'd expect to eventually uncover some such 'unifying' mechanism in the brain. And perhaps that's where it's working a little differently for people with autism.

Such a mechanism might also amount to some sort of intermediary process, or even a bridging mechanism between the mental and physical, but if that's an experiencing mini-me, it only puts the bridging problem back a stage.


More later

[Terrapin Station]

"Physical" doesn't imply "tangible."

Yes, it does, in the everyday sense:

"1a: of or relating to natural science
b(1): of or relating to physics
(2): characterized or produced by the forces and operations of physics
2a: having material existence : perceptible especially through the senses and subject to the laws of nature"

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/physical

Even with 2a, that doesn't imply tangible. Look up "tangible." Seriously, why do I need to explain this to you?

But no philosophical, scientific etc. usage of "physical" implies that something is perceivable to unaided human senses. You're on a philosophy board.

"Everywhere" doesn't imply "nowhere."

Yes, it does. Citing the spacetime coordinates of a thing is meaningful only if it enables us to locate the thing in a specific place. Something alleged to exist at all spacetime coordinates is indistinguishable from one which exists at no spacetime coordinates. "Omnipresence" is a vacuous concept.
[/quote]

If x exists everywhere then x exists at location L. If x exists nowhere then x doesn't exist at location L.

There's something seriously wrong with you.

[Sculptor1]

Yes, it does, in the everyday sense:

"1a: of or relating to natural science
b(1): of or relating to physics
(2): characterized or produced by the forces and operations of physics
2a: having material existence : perceptible especially through the senses and subject to the laws of nature"

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/physical

Tangible means touchable.
Surely you can think of physical things that cannot be touched.

[Terrapin Station]

Yes, it does, in the everyday sense:

"1a: of or relating to natural science
b(1): of or relating to physics
(2): characterized or produced by the forces and operations of physics
2a: having material existence : perceptible especially through the senses and subject to the laws of nature"

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/physical

Tangible means touchable.
Surely you can think of physical things that cannot be touched.

I like how, among other things, he listed the definition of "physical" (and from a generic dictionary, no less), as if the problem was solely that.

[GE Morton]

So then, again, we run into the mental-physical identity issue which you seem to have rejected. Of course I'm saying that identity is the only sensible way forward, reductionism solves nothing.

If we understand "identity" in Leibniz's sense --- two things are identical IFF they differ in no distinguishable properties, then phenomenal experience and brain processes are obviously not identical. The Place/Smart identity thesis confuses the "is" of composition (lightning is a stream of electrons) with the "is" of identity (the Morning Star is the Evening Star).

Evidence for what? We can't measure qualia so there's no evidence for it.

Well, if you understand "qualia" as I defined it earlier, and you claim "there is no evidence for it," then you apparently cannot distinguish red from green, or even from the smell of ammonia. If you can make those distinctions, without any external apparatus, then you DO have evidence for qualia. We don't, BTW, have to "measure" qualia to have evidence for them. For qualia, "to be is to be perceived."

I can, of course, have no direct evidence that you have qualia. I can only infer that you do from your observable ability to make the above distinctions.

However, the 'laws' or 'features' of nature tend to be universal, so why would there be an exception here? So the default idea is that qualia is universal, all these 'emergence out of complexity' etc. ideas are probably just bad philosophy.

Qualia are not "laws of nature." Or features of it. The are features, products, only of certain types of physical systems, some natural, but perhaps some artificial also.

[GE Morton]

Tangible means touchable.

"Definition of tangible (Entry 1 of 2)
1a: capable of being perceived especially by the sense of touch : PALPABLE"

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/tangible

In the broader sense, especially among philosophers, "tangible" means perceivable via the senses.

[GE Morton]

But no philosophical, scientific etc. usage of "physical" implies that something is perceivable to unaided human senses. You're on a philosophy board.

In the post which started this latest pointless quibble I said, "Fields are 'physical' because they are posited by physical theory. They are not "physical" in the everyday sense, which implies being tangible and having definite spacetime coordinates."

Now you're repeating what I acknowledged in the first sentence of the above quote. In the everyday sense, physical means tangible --- detectable by the senses --- and locatable in time and space.

If x exists everywhere then x exists at location L. If x exists nowhere then x doesn't exist at location L.

Yep. And "existing at location L" and "not existing at location L" are indistinguishable. Both statements are non-cognitive.

[Gertie]

GE

Gertie wrote: ↑
Yesterday, 3:13 pm

If the model is a product of the brain, a separate thing like steam from a train, how is the brain 'aware' of its contents? Or how does the model 'present itself' to the brain? The model/product is what's made of the seeing and thinking experiencing stuff, right? So the physical brain isn't 'looking' at the experiential product like a little homunculus in a Cartesian theatre - Dennett rightly dismisses that. So how does the communication from the experiential model back to the model maker brain work, in order to take the appropriate physical action?

The model does not present itself to the brain; the brain creates the model, which embraces the brain itself (imperfectly). It is not part of the brain, strictly speaking, any more than electrical field is part of the generator that produces it. But it is not entirely separate from the brain either. There is a continuous feedback circuit between the model and the (non-conscious) portions of the brain. Those portions deliver information to the model in real time, it is processed there, possible responses analyzed and evaluated, and the results delivered back to the appropriate portions of the brain, to undertake a task, control movement of the body, respond to a threat, etc. At times non-conscious portions of the brain can override the model, and force an action not consciously chosen (such as when it forces you to sleep).

OK thanks, I misunderstood the implications of something you said earlier.

Note that the existence of a dynamic, conceptual or "virtual" model of a system generated by that system nicely explains, unpacks, the concept of "self-awareness." So we can say, tentatively, that any system capable of doing that is conscious.

In a way. But you can draw a picture of yourself or your brain in your own think bubble which can do that. Computer games model a world which my avatar acts within as I watch and make decisions on what action to take. There doesn't seem to be something intrinsically special re consciousness about models which include the model maker.

The point re multiple realisability stands tho - if you don't have an explanation which covers basics like necessary and sufficient conditions, how do you know you're not missing something necessary which is a feature of biological brains, their chemistry and so on. Simply including the model maker in the model, and copying functional processes and dynamic complex patterns of interactions might not be enough.

How and when do we know what is enough? If the AI can pass the Turing test, do we need anything more?

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.



Think about that. A dead person, or a brain-dead person, is also made of the same stuff, but they are not conscious.

I'm not getting the brain dead person point? I accept neural correlation, and the dynamic nature of it brains and experience. Seeing other people's brains stop working, usually because they're dead, is why I assume the same will happen to me and I'll no longer experience anything when I die. How is that relevant to iwhether AIs will be able to experience?

I think we'd have to conclude that if a system can pass the Turing test and exhibit behaviors characteristic of known conscious creatures (us), even if through some sort of mechanical apparatus, then they, too, are conscious, and that the physical substrate of the system is irrelevant to that capacity.

I think we'd have to conclude we've created something which behaves like us and can pass the Turing test, because the way it works mimics how human brains work. But we wouldn't know if it had captured possible substrate dependent necessary conditions for experiencing.

[I'm happy to put Dennett aside now. Thanks for your help on that, I'd had this nagging feeling I must be missing something significant].