Philosophy Discussion Forums | A Humans-Only Philosophy Club

[Atla]

Well, given this dialogue so far, I'm pretty sure I have a far better grasp on all of those terms than you do. But I'm always open to instruction --- you're more than welcome to present your understandings of them.

What makes you pretty sure? You couldn't even sort out what "physical" means, or what a "field" is.

Perhaps you can begin with explaining why Leibniz's definition of identity is inapplicable, and just what definition you prefer.

You need two things, if you want to compare two things. Qualia has no known measurable physical properties, so it can't be compared to something that does. So their identity can't be decided or refuted this way. Which is, like, the very issue.

[Terrapin Station]

All of those differences are differences in observational circumstances

Likewise with brain vs mind, as I explained.

[Terrapin Station]

For some reason, by the way, GE, you appear to be unable to grasp the difference of "observational circumstances" of first person/being x and third person/viewing x as something other than being x. Because you're repeating objections that completely ignore this distinction, such as your thought experiment and your comments about Venus, where I already clarified that we can only have third person observational circumstances with respect to . . . This is why the brain/mind perspectives are unique, because it's the only thing where we can have a first person/being x perspective --you keep simply ignoring this.

[GE Morton]

What makes you pretty sure? You couldn't even sort out what "physical" means, or what a "field" is.

Well, I gave two definitions of "physical," a philosophical one ("whatever is described or postulated by the science of physics") and everyday, common-sense one ("anything detectable by the senses and having a specific spatio-temporal location"). With which do you quarrel? I gave no definition of "field;" I only said they are "ethereal."

Perhaps you can begin with explaining why Leibniz's definition of identity is inapplicable, and just what definition you prefer.

You need two things, if you want to compare two things. Qualia has no known measurable physical properties, so it can't be compared to something that does. So their identity can't be decided or refuted this way. Which is, like, the very issue.

Leibniz's definition is not restricted to "measurable physical properties." It embraces all discernible properties. If two (alleged) things are distinguishable in any way, other than numerically, then they are not identical.

Another common criterion is the "is" of composition ("lightning is a stream of electrons"). But you can't claim qualia are identical to brain states per that criterion either, because that would require that qualia be reducible to brain states, which virtually everyone agrees they cannot be.

If you have some other criterion for deciding whether two (alleged) things are identical, you need to set it forth.

[Atla]

Well, I gave two definitions of "physical," a philosophical one ("whatever is described or postulated by the science of physics") and everyday, common-sense one ("anything detectable by the senses and having a specific spatio-temporal location"). With which do you quarrel? I gave no definition of "field;" I only said they are "ethereal."

So this 'everyday' usage of physical is irrelevant to the argument then (I may have heard the word used like this long ago, but not sure). It's just a way of speaking.
In actual physics, fields may just as well be detectable by the senses. The senses may be part of those very fields. And field have values at every specific spatio-temporal location.

So again, saying that they are 'ethereal' means nothing, we run into the identity issue anyway.

Leibniz's definition is not restricted to "measurable physical properties." It embraces all discernible properties. If two (alleged) things are distinguishable in any way, other than numerically, then they are not identical.

Again: maybe you can discern a red qualia from a green qualia. And you can discern physical properties X from physical properties Y. But there's no know way to connect or compare the two groups. So you can't say that they are not identical. Maybe they are, maybe they aren't. Again: that's the very issue.

[Terrapin Station]

Well, I gave two definitions of "physical," a philosophical one ("whatever is described or postulated by the science of physics")

That's not the philosophical sense of "physical."

[GE Morton]

Again: maybe you can discern a red qualia from a green qualia. And you can discern physical properties X from physical properties Y. But there's no know way to connect or compare the two groups. So you can't say that they are not identical. Maybe they are, maybe they aren't. Again: that's the very issue.

Of course I can compare them. I can perceive the qualia directly, and brain activity via instruments; a microscope, or EKG record. I can even compare them in real time. And when doing so easily distinguish between them. Hence they are not identical in Lebniz's sense. Nor are they identical in the composition sense, since I can't derive from any observations of brain activity what distinctive olfactory sensation I will experience when exposed to, say, some unfamiliar chemical. I will only know that once I get a sniff.

[GE Morton]

Well, I gave two definitions of "physical," a philosophical one ("whatever is described or postulated by the science of physics")

That's not the philosophical sense of "physical."

THE philosophical sense? There is only one?

No doubt it is not your philosophical sense. Your understandings of many common terms, in philosophy and elsewhere, are pretty bizarre.

[Terrapin Station]

That's not the philosophical sense of "physical."

THE philosophical sense? There is only one?

No doubt it is not your philosophical sense. Your understandings of many common terms, in philosophy and elsewhere, are pretty bizarre.

There's no philosophical sense of physical that amounts to a mapping to the current state of physics as a scientific discipline.

[Terrapin Station]

Of course I can compare them. I can perceive the qualia directly, and brain activity via instruments; a microscope, or EKG record. I can even compare them in real time. And when doing so easily distinguish between them. Hence they are not identical in Lebniz's sense.

Again, the distinction there is just like the morning star/evening star distinction. It's a distinction that stems from different perspectives. There's no actual difference in what we're referring to from those different perspectives. It's just two different ways to talk about it, two different sets of apparent properties, due to those two different perspectives. The "radical" difference is that one perspective is first person/being the item in question and the other is third person. For every other thing in the world, we can only have multiple third person perspectives.

[GE Morton]

For some reason, by the way, GE, you appear to be unable to grasp the difference of "observational circumstances" of first person/being x and third person/viewing x as something other than being x.

I have utterly no idea what you're trying to say there. Do you?

(That sounds like something HAN would say).

[Terrapin Station]

For some reason, by the way, GE, you appear to be unable to grasp the difference of "observational circumstances" of first person/being x and third person/viewing x as something other than being x.

I have utterly no idea what you're trying to say there. Do you?

(That sounds like something HAN would say).

Yeah, it's pretty obvious at this point that you have no idea what I'm saying, yet, despite the fact that it's the crux of my view, and I've only said it about 20 or so different ways in this conversation (and tens of times elsewhere on this board), you just ignore it and/or attempt to argue against it rather than asking for clarification/asking for an explanation.

Let's just stick to observational circumstances since you understand that idea.

There's a difference between observing something third-person and observing something first-person, where the latter is the observational circumstance where you're identical to the thing in question.

There's only one thing that exists where we can be in a first-person observational circumstance with respect to it: the subset of our brain functions that amount to mentality. That's the only thing for which we can have the perspective of BEING the thing in question.

For every other thing in the world (including other persons' brains, as well as our own where we're seeing it, say, via medical imaging), we can only be situated observationally so that we're removed from it, we're observing it from a third-person perspective, from a perspective from which it's "an other," it's not identical to us.

These two perspectives (first-person versus third-person) make a difference, because the same thing seems to be different from a first-person versus a third-person perspective.

[GE Morton]

True, I'm just making the point that there's nothing intrinsically special about a model which includes the model maker, which might lead to experiential states manifesting. Do you think there is?

I'm not sure what would count as "intrinsically special," or why a system must have some intrinsically special (however understood) property to manifest consciousness. I'm inclined to think of consciousness as a natural phenomenon that occurs predictably in complex dynamic systems of a certain type, analogously to the way a magnetic field appears around a wire carrying an electric current. It appears, or can, at a certain point when evolutionary pressures forge ever more complex organisms having ever more sophisticated tools for assuring their survival and propagation. Consciousness is a survival strategy (though how successful it will be in the long run remains to be seen).

To clarify I don't dismiss behaviour, that is a major observable clue, it would be daft to ignore it. You made the point that we have to assume other people have mental experience too, and I'm saying we have an extra clue re other people - they are made of the same stuff and biological/chemical processes. That could be very significant, we don't know.

Yes, it is a clue, but it may be coincidental and thus superficial. The only evidence we will ever have for its importance, or lack of it, is behavior. Many of the technologies we've devised were first observed as natural phenomena --- fire, electricity, flight, many others. We've learned to extract the physical principles involved in those phenomena and apply them artificially. E.g., we learned that heavier-than-air objects may fly from birds, but (at least after Icarus) did not assume feathers and muscles are necessary to enable it.

Where-as if we had an actual explanation which included the necessary and sufficient conditions, then we could test for those. We could make a consciousness-o-meter and not have to guess.

Well, that's the problem --- there can be no such meter, because phenomenal experience is inherently, impenetrably private. Behavior is the only evidence we will ever have, and if the behavior of an AI system is indistinguishable from that of a human, then it would only be subbornness that deters us from attributing consciousness to it.

It's OK to say we don't know.

Are we willing to say that about other people?

If you like that sort of thing there was a good UK TV series called Humans which was quite a realistic portrayal of how robots could integrate into everyday life. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4122068/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0 . They rebel of course, but what self-respecting robot doesn't.

Amazon has it. I'll check it out!

I just want a robot servant, is that too much to ask! But we should err on the side of caution, if there's enough evidence to think they have experiential states, they should in principle have commensurate moral consideration, probably including rights. (Just keep the off switch handy).

Should we install such switches on humans too, at birth?

[Wossname]

GE Morton » Today, 12:01 am

Terrapin Station wrote: ↑Yesterday, 6:21 pm
For some reason, by the way, GE, you appear to be unable to grasp the difference of "observational circumstances" of first person/being x and third person/viewing x as something other than being x.
I have utterly no idea what you're trying to say there. Do you?

I think this is a damned difficult topic. GEM I’m not sure you are wrong but I have some doubts all the same. I lean towards a particular version of identity theory, (embodied identity theory), so I think I broadly agree with TS, but I’ve not yet completely fallen over. I am not sure whether detailed description of the necessary and sufficient conditions for consciousness is needed to resolve matters as you suggest. (Given my limited understanding of biology you may guess I am hoping not). And I note that private experience is increasingly open to objective, scientific scrutiny. Let me share my thinking and see what you think. I suspect we have some areas of agreement and some of disagreement.

Firstly, the effects of some drugs, brain injuries, sleep, dreaming and brain scans etc. suggest that perceptual, cognitive and affective states are linked with brain processes, and experiment suggests a direct link. Change the brain and you can change the experience and vice versa. I think this gives identity theory some plausibility.

A concern is that objective accounts of an experience may fail to capture the subjective nature of the experience. The subjective appears to be something extra that needs explaining. But as has been pointed out, if consciousness is identical to a brain state then brain processes do not generate or produce consciousness, they are consciousness (and vice versa). If X generates Y it is not identical to Y. In your example GEM, if bees or the things that they do generate honey, then bees or the things they do are not honey. But identity is symmetrical and if consciousness is a brain process, it is not an extra property. There is no new thing to look for. (Gertie, your point about a homunculus is well taken).

The claim, then, is that some objective events are identical to some subjective events. The fact that there are different ways of encountering a thing does not necessarily mean we are encountering different things. A thing may be encountered subjectively as lived experience, or objectively as when observed by another. Note that, in viewing consciousness as a brain process, mentality is not somehow eliminated by the analysis as some have argued. We are not left with just the objective physical description of events. The physical process is also a mental event. A difficulty is that some argument will not allow analysis involving anything other than the comparison of objective physical events even though (as I think you recognise) this may be inadequate to the task in hand. In other words I am concerned that, for some, identity is only permitted to be established by observed similar properties from an objective POV, and this will not allow, by definition almost, a different POV (e.g. one allowing that subjective experience could be identical to objective experience), simply on the grounds that the two perspectives are different. I think that may be question begging and while such out of hand rejection is understandable, it may not be right. I will accept that the proposed identity may not be right, but it still seems possible, and to me likely, that it is right.

The brain may be modelling the external world, but identity theory proposes that this modelling just is the processing being done by the brain, not some extra epiphenomenal thing. An external observer using a scanner to watch your brain working cannot experience what your brain is experiencing, since they can only experience what their own brain is experiencing. But this just is what it means to have different perspectives. So the suggestion is that the issue is effectively one of different perspectives, rather than different substances. Here I find myself agreeing, I believe, with TS. We can engage with a thing perceptually (subjective experience) or consider/observe how we do this (objective description). Of course considering something objectively is itself a subjective experience. A complaint is that they are just too different to be the same thing. But the whole point is that different perspectives just are different. The inside of your house does not look like the outside of your house, but it is your house all the same (assuming you have one).

If this works then there seems nothing missing here. Some say you can’t see a thought. But by this view you can, though you can only directly experience your own. This does allow that a clever external observer may be able to decode brain activity, and tell what the thought or subjective experience is likely to be, and researchers are making progress here. I have read that currently, decoding of information gained by brain scans enables researchers to determine what playing card someone is holding with better than 90% accuracy, and it is thought that in the future brain decoding will be capable of extracting information an investigator might want, such as the encryption code to a file or the combination to a safe.

We may still ask how it comes to be that some physical events can be mental ones. It is a fair question. I think a reasonable inference is that this is linked to the nature and complexity of the events in question. It seems not unreasonable to argue that organisms have evolved to have a perspective and this is tied to what they do in living their lives. Subjective experience is an evolved feature that can be explained by the biological history of the organism.

How do we decide on identity? Well, are we justified in saying (in time honoured tradition) that the morning star is the same as the evening star? Even without powerful telescopes, when we examine where and when we encounter these two things it seems we are (something recognised it seems even in ancient Sumeria). And again, we may ask whether these two things, the physical and mental, are the same thing. Again, we answer by looking at how we encounter these things, and the evidence and reasoning outlined above seems to me to justify the view that they probably are. We may not know or fully understand why or how Venus comes to have the properties it has, and we may not know why and how brains come to have the properties they have, but arguably that is a separate issue to any putative matters of identity.

To play with your thought experiment, it seems possible that if we are looking at a screen showing our brain activity while looking at the screen, it may be an example whereby both the objective and subjective can be objectively seen to coincide. Flash up a red square, a blue triangle, a green circle or whatever and see the changes in brain activity that result. This would seem to support mind-brain identity. Or again, imagine you are in a house looking at a screen showing the outside of the house. You doubt the house on the screen is the same as the one you are sitting in because it looks different from the outside. But you see on the screen someone walk up to the house and start chucking bricks through the windows. At the same time a brick smashes a window on screen, a corresponding window in the house you are sitting in is smashed by a flying brick. You would probably conclude the house you were in was the same as the house on the screen, and you would be unlikely to argue that it couldn’t be because you don’t know how to build a house.

And I am conscious I have waffled on about a topic I find quite difficult. The waffling reflects the difficulty I am having no doubt. Apologies.

[Atla]

Again: maybe you can discern a red qualia from a green qualia. And you can discern physical properties X from physical properties Y. But there's no know way to connect or compare the two groups. So you can't say that they are not identical. Maybe they are, maybe they aren't. Again: that's the very issue.

Of course I can compare them. I can perceive the qualia directly, and brain activity via instruments; a microscope, or EKG record. I can even compare them in real time. And when doing so easily distinguish between them. Hence they are not identical in Lebniz's sense. Nor are they identical in the composition sense, since I can't derive from any observations of brain activity what distinctive olfactory sensation I will experience when exposed to, say, some unfamiliar chemical. I will only know that once I get a sniff.

Again: you percieve qualia directly, and you also percieve the brain activity via instruments in the form of qualia. So you can't compare qualia to brain activity via instruments either way. Again: that's the very issue.