The Consciousness Deniers(nybooks.com)
nybooks.com
The Consciousness Deniers
http://www.nybooks.com/daily/2018/03/13/the-consciousness-deniers/
66 comments
> The use of the phrase "really nothing more than..." is the response of someone who doesn't want to pursue the issue further.
I don't see how consciousness can simply be predispositions to behavior, because I have conscious experiences without any behavior. It also doesn't make any definitional sense. My experience of seeing red isn't the same thing as whatever behavior I might have as result.
I don't see how consciousness can simply be predispositions to behavior, because I have conscious experiences without any behavior. It also doesn't make any definitional sense. My experience of seeing red isn't the same thing as whatever behavior I might have as result.
The way I look at it, conscious experiences are behavior: the behavior of an information-processing organ that has, in some mysterious but not necessarily magical way, become aware, to some extent, that it is not only an actor in its own model of what its sensory inputs mean, but also that it is a special actor, the one that actually creates the model.
Seeing red may be less mysterious than that - is it anything more than recalling similar sensations, and things (including abstract things like information/language constructs and emotions) that were associated with it?
Seeing red may be less mysterious than that - is it anything more than recalling similar sensations, and things (including abstract things like information/language constructs and emotions) that were associated with it?
I totally see it your way, that conscious experiences are just (internal) behaviour.
But I don't think that conscious experience itself creates the model of itself and the rest. It merely views or recalls or traverses it. It certainly also has some kind of influence. But I like to seperate it from the unconscious rest that happens.
> conscious experiences are behavior
Indeed - in the sense of behavior being equated with any kind of physical manifestation (inside or outside the brain).
> is it anything more than recalling
You are correct: having some form of memory is a prerequisite for consciousness.
Indeed - in the sense of behavior being equated with any kind of physical manifestation (inside or outside the brain).
> is it anything more than recalling
You are correct: having some form of memory is a prerequisite for consciousness.
> My experience of seeing red isn't the same thing as whatever behavior I might have as result.
The deeper you look at how the brain works, the more those two processes look like well-coordinated siblings.
The deeper you look at how the brain works, the more those two processes look like well-coordinated siblings.
Yea, but it still doesn't make sense. I mean, imagine Stephen Hawking really became incommunicable. He would still be very much conscious, without exhibiting any behavior. Even disposition of behavior doesn't make sense, because behavior is simply impossible. We're back to talking about the internal state of the brain/mind, and not simply behavior disposition.
So the idea of behavior disposition being central to consciousness is clearly silly. It is clearly a complicated function of the workings of the entire brain as a system -- even though the sensory and actuator (i.e. behavioral) systems are important to the individual, they are by no means exclusive or central.
So the idea of behavior disposition being central to consciousness is clearly silly. It is clearly a complicated function of the workings of the entire brain as a system -- even though the sensory and actuator (i.e. behavioral) systems are important to the individual, they are by no means exclusive or central.
If, by behavior, you mean movements by the body, then I think is a silly idea - a straw man, in fact, even if it was constructed by people who actually believed it. Pointing out its silliness may be amusing, but it doesn't get us any closer to understanding consciousness.
But if by behavior we don't mean movements by the body, and instead the whole state of the brain (the entire thinking process), then the theory is again trivial and useless (because it doesn't explain anything).
Indeed I don't claim to have read too much about it, but I think the main stream of behaviorism is literally that the functional response (i.e. black box response) is essentially all that matters. I'd be happy to know if there's more nuance than what appears.
I have a number of qualms about functional explanation of consciousness (which goes back to the Turing Test, probably earlier). I've seen outright denials that a representation of what is currently on your mind (the "mental theater"), often associated with consciousness, and indeed all similar abstractions we often use referring to our own minds, as "illusions" -- the brain is seen (by I believe at least a few currents) as a single monolithic black box function without a usefully interpretable internal state.
Anyone that has in fact experience programming computers will know there usually distinct caches, and clearly distinct subsystems that process information alternatively or in parallel, and algorithms operate recursively or iteratively over the memory until reaching a solution. I don't see why those insights shouldn't hold value for explaining consciousness, and perhaps explaining that even if an algorithm (e.g. a simple machine learning system) is indistinguishable from a [median] human in one or all tasks, then it is still not necessarily conscious, because the details of its inner workings lack certain features of a truly conscious being. For example, its internal representation of emotions may not be equivalent that of a human, such that it does not actually "experience" emotions, but because our own capabilities of verbally communicating emotions are quite limited, it may well beat the median human at this ability after utilizing gargantuan training sets.
So you can see themes of data efficiency, internal representation, etc emerge that are completely left out of behaviorism and related theories.
I intend to write a little about this (in an article), but there is probably at least a few academics exploring this more complicated, and complete, understanding.
Indeed I don't claim to have read too much about it, but I think the main stream of behaviorism is literally that the functional response (i.e. black box response) is essentially all that matters. I'd be happy to know if there's more nuance than what appears.
I have a number of qualms about functional explanation of consciousness (which goes back to the Turing Test, probably earlier). I've seen outright denials that a representation of what is currently on your mind (the "mental theater"), often associated with consciousness, and indeed all similar abstractions we often use referring to our own minds, as "illusions" -- the brain is seen (by I believe at least a few currents) as a single monolithic black box function without a usefully interpretable internal state.
Anyone that has in fact experience programming computers will know there usually distinct caches, and clearly distinct subsystems that process information alternatively or in parallel, and algorithms operate recursively or iteratively over the memory until reaching a solution. I don't see why those insights shouldn't hold value for explaining consciousness, and perhaps explaining that even if an algorithm (e.g. a simple machine learning system) is indistinguishable from a [median] human in one or all tasks, then it is still not necessarily conscious, because the details of its inner workings lack certain features of a truly conscious being. For example, its internal representation of emotions may not be equivalent that of a human, such that it does not actually "experience" emotions, but because our own capabilities of verbally communicating emotions are quite limited, it may well beat the median human at this ability after utilizing gargantuan training sets.
So you can see themes of data efficiency, internal representation, etc emerge that are completely left out of behaviorism and related theories.
I intend to write a little about this (in an article), but there is probably at least a few academics exploring this more complicated, and complete, understanding.
> But if by behavior we don't mean movements by the body, and instead the whole state of the brain (the entire thinking process), then the theory is again trivial and useless...
Precisely: the straw man that you chose to tilt at in your previous post is beside the point. You have not found a fundamental logical self-contradiction in physicalism here.
Precisely: the straw man that you chose to tilt at in your previous post is beside the point. You have not found a fundamental logical self-contradiction in physicalism here.
It is not physicalism I am arguing against, it is behaviorism/functionalism.
Regardless, we are not going to arrive at an understanding of consciousness by arguing against weak ideas.
> behavior is simply impossible
Thinking is also a form of behavior (in that it is to a large extent under one's control).
Thinking is also a form of behavior (in that it is to a large extent under one's control).
But not all behavior internal to the organism is conscious. Most of it is not. So consciousness is not behavior, even though it's correlated with some internal behavior.
BTW, behaviorism meant observable behavior, not biological processes, because behaviorists treated the brain (and body) as a blackbox, rather than get involved in a lot of speculation about how internal processes worked.
BTW, behaviorism meant observable behavior, not biological processes, because behaviorists treated the brain (and body) as a blackbox, rather than get involved in a lot of speculation about how internal processes worked.
We can directly measure brain state to some resolution. So, as long as the brain can detect and understand outside stimulus we could still communicate.
"If he’s right, no one has ever really suffered, in spite of agonizing diseases, mental illness, murder, rape, famine, slavery, bereavement, torture, and genocide. And no one has ever caused anyone else pain."
This concluding "slam dunk" is such an appeal to spooky-special-ness it makes me suspect the author hasn't yet grokked even the prerequisites to giving Dennett's views a fair shake.
This concluding "slam dunk" is such an appeal to spooky-special-ness it makes me suspect the author hasn't yet grokked even the prerequisites to giving Dennett's views a fair shake.
And what would giving Dennett's view a fair shake ential? I've read and listened to what Dennett has to say on the matter, and the implication is exactly what the author states. It only seems like we are conscious, but we don't actually experience anything. We're all p-zombies, and Dennett has exactly stated that in at least one of his recent talks.
Dennett also tried to deny that we have dream experiences, calling it coming-to-seem-to-remember upon waking up. I don't know whether he still denies the experience of dreaming, but it would be totally consistent with experience being a cognitive illusion. Taking Dennett seriously entails denying any sort of internal experience, whether it being mental imagery, dreams, inner dialog, feel of pain, etc.)
Dennett also tried to deny that we have dream experiences, calling it coming-to-seem-to-remember upon waking up. I don't know whether he still denies the experience of dreaming, but it would be totally consistent with experience being a cognitive illusion. Taking Dennett seriously entails denying any sort of internal experience, whether it being mental imagery, dreams, inner dialog, feel of pain, etc.)
> I've read and listened to what Dennett has to say on the matter, and the implication is exactly what the author states. It only seems like we are conscious, but we don't actually experience anything.
That is not what Dennett is saying. I have read all of his writings on consciousness, and he is quite clear (and in some places says in so many words) that he is not saying conscious experience does not exist. He is just saying that consciousness, real consciousness, is not like what the "mysterians" think it is like; it doesn't have all of the properties that people like the author of this article claim it has.
> Dennett also tried to deny that we have dream experiences
No, he didn't. He asked the question "are dreams experiences?" (in an article with that exact title that appears in the book Brainstorms, and more recently in other articles), and his conclusion was basically "it depends on what you mean by those words". Which illustrates another common fallacy that Dennett often has to rebut: the belief that saying something in ordinary language is sufficient to pin down a precise concept that can be explored and tested.
> Taking Dennett seriously entails denying any sort of internal experience
It does no such thing. Whatever giving Dennett's views a fair shake entails, you clearly have not met the requirements.
That is not what Dennett is saying. I have read all of his writings on consciousness, and he is quite clear (and in some places says in so many words) that he is not saying conscious experience does not exist. He is just saying that consciousness, real consciousness, is not like what the "mysterians" think it is like; it doesn't have all of the properties that people like the author of this article claim it has.
> Dennett also tried to deny that we have dream experiences
No, he didn't. He asked the question "are dreams experiences?" (in an article with that exact title that appears in the book Brainstorms, and more recently in other articles), and his conclusion was basically "it depends on what you mean by those words". Which illustrates another common fallacy that Dennett often has to rebut: the belief that saying something in ordinary language is sufficient to pin down a precise concept that can be explored and tested.
> Taking Dennett seriously entails denying any sort of internal experience
It does no such thing. Whatever giving Dennett's views a fair shake entails, you clearly have not met the requirements.
I have found Dennett's opponents to be an unreliable source on what he actually believes, but the question of who holds which beliefs is really beside the point - we are not going to understand consciousness through appeals to authority or other ad hominem arguments.
(Apologies I don't have longer to write up what might be interesting to read of his, will do my best for a few minutes!)
What I find his most interesting core claims are basically: "human and animal brains aren't spookily special in some non-physical way, and there are physical explanations for things we've simply failed to imagine and accept yet".
And answering the "well whatabout [spookily special sounding thing]?" questions that naturally arise after that are the real fun challenge. But doing so is really tough, and often requires multiple long-held assumptions be questioned in succession, which is why so much of his work is on the process of questioning beliefs (and where his "thinking tools", thought experiments etc. really shine).
Re: "Dennett also tried to deny that we have dream experiences, calling it coming-to-seem-to-remember upon waking up", he's said himself[0] that is a myth based on mischaracterization of his work[1]:
> More than a few people apparently suppose that I espouse and defend the bizarre 'cassette theory' of dreaming in 'Are Dreams Experiences? '1 Emmett speaks, for instance, of "Dennett's defense of the cassette theory". Since more than a few suppose this, it must be because of obscurity or misdirection in my paper, for I do not end up espousing the theory, and am quite explicit about it. I concoct the cassette theory as a foil, as an alternative to what I call the received view, precisely in order to raise and investigate the question of what in fact would settle the issue between two such drastic rivals.
From what you wrote there are a couple of characterizations of Dennett's positions that suggest you might still enjoy giving some of his work another go with a generous mindset, e.g.:
> Taking Dennett seriously entails denying any sort of internal experience
I suspect Dennett wouldn't deny people perceive internal experience, heck -- evidence of that has been serialized right in your comment. He accounts for each of the phenomenon you describe (mental imagery, dreams as you mentioned, inner dialogue, pain) in his work, just not ascribing any fundamentally non-physical traits to the special-personal-feeling-ness of them.
[0]: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2FBF00357702
[1]: It's not hard to imagine how Dennett's claims could end up so often being mischaracterized (even by academic philosophers) -- the stuff he's claiming is subtle and (by its mind-blowing nature) hard to accept! So if someone hasn't yet grokked it, and they re-tell it how they stored it, the reader is doomed to never take seriously that kooky philosopher's claims.
What I find his most interesting core claims are basically: "human and animal brains aren't spookily special in some non-physical way, and there are physical explanations for things we've simply failed to imagine and accept yet".
And answering the "well whatabout [spookily special sounding thing]?" questions that naturally arise after that are the real fun challenge. But doing so is really tough, and often requires multiple long-held assumptions be questioned in succession, which is why so much of his work is on the process of questioning beliefs (and where his "thinking tools", thought experiments etc. really shine).
Re: "Dennett also tried to deny that we have dream experiences, calling it coming-to-seem-to-remember upon waking up", he's said himself[0] that is a myth based on mischaracterization of his work[1]:
> More than a few people apparently suppose that I espouse and defend the bizarre 'cassette theory' of dreaming in 'Are Dreams Experiences? '1 Emmett speaks, for instance, of "Dennett's defense of the cassette theory". Since more than a few suppose this, it must be because of obscurity or misdirection in my paper, for I do not end up espousing the theory, and am quite explicit about it. I concoct the cassette theory as a foil, as an alternative to what I call the received view, precisely in order to raise and investigate the question of what in fact would settle the issue between two such drastic rivals.
From what you wrote there are a couple of characterizations of Dennett's positions that suggest you might still enjoy giving some of his work another go with a generous mindset, e.g.:
> Taking Dennett seriously entails denying any sort of internal experience
I suspect Dennett wouldn't deny people perceive internal experience, heck -- evidence of that has been serialized right in your comment. He accounts for each of the phenomenon you describe (mental imagery, dreams as you mentioned, inner dialogue, pain) in his work, just not ascribing any fundamentally non-physical traits to the special-personal-feeling-ness of them.
[0]: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2FBF00357702
[1]: It's not hard to imagine how Dennett's claims could end up so often being mischaracterized (even by academic philosophers) -- the stuff he's claiming is subtle and (by its mind-blowing nature) hard to accept! So if someone hasn't yet grokked it, and they re-tell it how they stored it, the reader is doomed to never take seriously that kooky philosopher's claims.
> I suspect Dennett wouldn't deny people perceive internal experience, heck -- evidence of that has been serialized right in your comment. He accounts for each of the phenomenon you describe (mental imagery, dreams as you mentioned, inner dialogue, pain) in his work, just not ascribing any fundamentally non-physical traits to the special-personal-feeling-ness of them.
Right, but under Dennett's account, it only seems like we have subjective experiences. He compares it to the sun rising and setting. It seems like the sun literally rises and sets, even though we know it's the Earth turning. Similarly, Dennett thinks neuroscience will show that although it seems like we have these subjective experiences, they are really nothing more than brain activity, and as such, can be fully described by third person, objective scientific account. This is contrary to what philosophers like Chalmers and Nagel have argued.
> It's not hard to imagine how Dennett's claims could end up so often being mischaracterized
And the same can be said for any philosopher that attracts a lot of disagreement. There are plenty of Chalmers detractors. Do they understand all the subtlety of his arguments? However, I do think Dennett and Chalmers understand each other well enough.
Right, but under Dennett's account, it only seems like we have subjective experiences. He compares it to the sun rising and setting. It seems like the sun literally rises and sets, even though we know it's the Earth turning. Similarly, Dennett thinks neuroscience will show that although it seems like we have these subjective experiences, they are really nothing more than brain activity, and as such, can be fully described by third person, objective scientific account. This is contrary to what philosophers like Chalmers and Nagel have argued.
> It's not hard to imagine how Dennett's claims could end up so often being mischaracterized
And the same can be said for any philosopher that attracts a lot of disagreement. There are plenty of Chalmers detractors. Do they understand all the subtlety of his arguments? However, I do think Dennett and Chalmers understand each other well enough.
Ultimately any intelligent process needs to arise from non-intelligent processes. This is so obvious that it’s hard to believe it needs stating.
>> Ultimately any intelligent process needs to arise from non-intelligent processes.
I rather enjoyed the authors brief mention of atoms having some type of intelligence or consciousness. Perhaps they do and it's such a small amount that we can't detect it. Some have pointed out that mathematics is strangely well suited to describing physics, but clearly it will not work do describe phenomena that don't follow those types of mathematical models.
I'm just playing devils advocate, I doubt what I just wrote but I can't refute it either. Some phenomena are actually defined as aggregate behavior - sound waves, coherent light, matter in the solid state - and cannot exist at the level of atoms or photons.
I rather enjoyed the authors brief mention of atoms having some type of intelligence or consciousness. Perhaps they do and it's such a small amount that we can't detect it. Some have pointed out that mathematics is strangely well suited to describing physics, but clearly it will not work do describe phenomena that don't follow those types of mathematical models.
I'm just playing devils advocate, I doubt what I just wrote but I can't refute it either. Some phenomena are actually defined as aggregate behavior - sound waves, coherent light, matter in the solid state - and cannot exist at the level of atoms or photons.
> Some phenomena are actually defined as aggregate behavior - sound waves, coherent light, matter in the solid state - and cannot exist at the level of atoms or photons.
While this is true, it does not mean that these phenomena cannot be explained in terms of the behavior of atoms or photons. They can. The position of those who are called "Deniers" by the author of this article is simply that consciousness is another such phenomenon.
While this is true, it does not mean that these phenomena cannot be explained in terms of the behavior of atoms or photons. They can. The position of those who are called "Deniers" by the author of this article is simply that consciousness is another such phenomenon.
> mathematics is strangely well suited to describing physics
This is like saying that numbers are strangely well suited to counting things.
This is like saying that numbers are strangely well suited to counting things.
I think that’s partly the motivation behind panpsychism, although I haven’t studied the subject well enough to be sure.
I like to make a distinction between what I consider "neurobiological consciousness" — that which can be studied in a lab using the scientific method — and "experiential consciousness" — that which cannot be studied, because it is only capable of being experienced by one person and thus fails the criteria for reproducibility.
I agree with the article's author that it is bizarre that there are people who outright reject the existence of experiential consciousness. If I were to make a list of everything in order of my subjective probability that each item actually exists, experiential consciousness would be at the top of the list. Everything else on the list could effectively be faked by an advanced simulation technology.
I'm not sure that there is actually a resolution to the dilemma, because resolving it would require an experiment that can be reproduced, and by definition, something that is capable of being experienced by only one person cannot be experienced by another person. So there's really no way out of the mess. The "believers" and "deniers" will be forced to remain at a stalemate.
I agree with the article's author that it is bizarre that there are people who outright reject the existence of experiential consciousness. If I were to make a list of everything in order of my subjective probability that each item actually exists, experiential consciousness would be at the top of the list. Everything else on the list could effectively be faked by an advanced simulation technology.
I'm not sure that there is actually a resolution to the dilemma, because resolving it would require an experiment that can be reproduced, and by definition, something that is capable of being experienced by only one person cannot be experienced by another person. So there's really no way out of the mess. The "believers" and "deniers" will be forced to remain at a stalemate.
> "experiential consciousness" — that which cannot be studied
There is no indication that it can't. Any act of consciousness is manifested as some physical effect in the brain, and as such it can be detected, measured, and interpreted.
There is no indication that it can't. Any act of consciousness is manifested as some physical effect in the brain, and as such it can be detected, measured, and interpreted.
It's entirely possible that, like quantum effects, the mind's electrical functioning cannot be fully deducible using any practical method.
We cannot definitively rule that out, but as scientists studying a natural phenomenon, we can put this speculation aside until there is some actual evidence for it.
I'm not telling the scientists what to study.
> that which cannot be studied, because it is only capable of being experienced by one person and thus fails the criteria for reproducibility.
This "argument from Popper" [1] is about as valid as saying that we cannot study snow because every snowflake is unique.
There are reasonable grounds for believing that there is sufficient commonality between individuals' mental processes, and within individual's sequence of mental processes, for them to be scientifically studied. At the very least, there is absolutely no evidence at this point to refute this proposition.
If our minds were really this distinct, we couldn't even talk to one another about them.
[1] Not "Popper's argument", as I am pretty sure he would not have made it.
This "argument from Popper" [1] is about as valid as saying that we cannot study snow because every snowflake is unique.
There are reasonable grounds for believing that there is sufficient commonality between individuals' mental processes, and within individual's sequence of mental processes, for them to be scientifically studied. At the very least, there is absolutely no evidence at this point to refute this proposition.
If our minds were really this distinct, we couldn't even talk to one another about them.
[1] Not "Popper's argument", as I am pretty sure he would not have made it.
>and "experiential consciousness" — that which cannot be studied, because it is only capable of being experienced by one person and thus fails the criteria for reproducibility.
How do you even know it exists if it can't be studied? How is anybody supposed to know what you're even talking about if they can't recreate it in their own brains?
When you get down to it, even though the processes occurring in our brains are extremely complex, there is nothing that indicates that the behavior in one cannot be reproduced in another, within any given scale of accuracy.
So you only presume that it cannot be studied, and you assume that it is a different kind of process. With no reason for it to be either, when it could simply be something currently out of our reach.
How do you even know it exists if it can't be studied? How is anybody supposed to know what you're even talking about if they can't recreate it in their own brains?
When you get down to it, even though the processes occurring in our brains are extremely complex, there is nothing that indicates that the behavior in one cannot be reproduced in another, within any given scale of accuracy.
So you only presume that it cannot be studied, and you assume that it is a different kind of process. With no reason for it to be either, when it could simply be something currently out of our reach.
> How do you even know it exists if it can't be studied?
Because you experience your own and therefore assume that other people (and probably many animals) have experiences do to the similarity in behavior and biology.
> How is anybody supposed to know what you're even talking about if they can't recreate it in their own brains?
We do so by imagining other people feeling things like we do. This can be a problem when we come across people with experiences different enough from our own. I don't know whether I can imagine giving birth, since I'm male. I also can't imagine what it's like to see in more than three primary colors, but some animals can.
Because you experience your own and therefore assume that other people (and probably many animals) have experiences do to the similarity in behavior and biology.
> How is anybody supposed to know what you're even talking about if they can't recreate it in their own brains?
We do so by imagining other people feeling things like we do. This can be a problem when we come across people with experiences different enough from our own. I don't know whether I can imagine giving birth, since I'm male. I also can't imagine what it's like to see in more than three primary colors, but some animals can.
>Because you experience your own and therefore assume that other people (and probably many animals) have experiences do to the similarity in behavior and biology.
This is called 'studying it'.
Different experiences do not preclude understanding. You can't imagine "what it's like", but "what it's like" is always a biological process of analogy. And you can convey understanding of subjective experience through analogies. That's the whole point of art.
Just because you can only get arbitrarily close to understanding something doesn't mean you can't understand it. By that measure, you don't even understand your own senses - they are transient, fleeting, and reflexive. But we're not supposed to deny the entire concept of knowing and understanding, are we?
Ok, so you don't see more than three primary colors. Doesn't mean you can't understand it. You know the difference between being in a room with only red light versus being in a room with white light? Then you know what it is to see more colors.
Personal anecdote: I've felt things in dreams that I've never felt awake. I can imagine sensations I've never experienced while awake. So I can't believe that it's impossible to feel things outside of our current experiences or to experience things arbitrarily close to as how others do. Especially since we can hook electrodes up to our brains, do computations outside, and arbitrarily increase the state space of our brains. So like I said: out of reach doesn't mean impossible.
This is called 'studying it'.
Different experiences do not preclude understanding. You can't imagine "what it's like", but "what it's like" is always a biological process of analogy. And you can convey understanding of subjective experience through analogies. That's the whole point of art.
Just because you can only get arbitrarily close to understanding something doesn't mean you can't understand it. By that measure, you don't even understand your own senses - they are transient, fleeting, and reflexive. But we're not supposed to deny the entire concept of knowing and understanding, are we?
Ok, so you don't see more than three primary colors. Doesn't mean you can't understand it. You know the difference between being in a room with only red light versus being in a room with white light? Then you know what it is to see more colors.
Personal anecdote: I've felt things in dreams that I've never felt awake. I can imagine sensations I've never experienced while awake. So I can't believe that it's impossible to feel things outside of our current experiences or to experience things arbitrarily close to as how others do. Especially since we can hook electrodes up to our brains, do computations outside, and arbitrarily increase the state space of our brains. So like I said: out of reach doesn't mean impossible.
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I often think in this specific realm. From looking back at previous points in my life before I learned the inner machinations of complex systems such as computers, I know that there are subjects which are incredibly far out of my reach of current understanding simply because of the mountains of fundamental concepts to learn and understand before getting anywhere near an understanding of the mechanisms by which the application of the complex system is actually achieved.
But now that I am on the other side of that gulf of knowledge, at least with respect to the general operation of computers, I can't help but notice a fundamental difference in people who truly understand a given subject deeply, and those who are generally aware of the subject, but are still somehow immersed in the subject. People that truly understand the subject can often times accidentally offend the other side with what is a completely uncontroversial statement in the company of those that truly understand. That is because oftentimes, the gaps of understanding are often filled in with emotionally charged, self centered rationalizations.
I guess where I usually get off this train of thought is that perhaps one day we will come to realize that every single solitary experience of any kind can be explained away with biochemistry, and pondering that against the thought of what it has previously meant throughout my life to find out that what I had thought of as so profound and meaningful was neither of those at all.
But now that I am on the other side of that gulf of knowledge, at least with respect to the general operation of computers, I can't help but notice a fundamental difference in people who truly understand a given subject deeply, and those who are generally aware of the subject, but are still somehow immersed in the subject. People that truly understand the subject can often times accidentally offend the other side with what is a completely uncontroversial statement in the company of those that truly understand. That is because oftentimes, the gaps of understanding are often filled in with emotionally charged, self centered rationalizations.
I guess where I usually get off this train of thought is that perhaps one day we will come to realize that every single solitary experience of any kind can be explained away with biochemistry, and pondering that against the thought of what it has previously meant throughout my life to find out that what I had thought of as so profound and meaningful was neither of those at all.
People have the same experience with languages. Before you learn it, a language often seems mysterious and beautiful; after you have learned it, you no longer even notice its existence.
As a software engineer whose original line of work was continental European philosophy, its striking to read things like this because it shows how little we've progressed in philosophical thinking since Immanuel Kant's Critique of Pure Reason. The radical idea in Kant is that subjective experience has an objective structure: that means we can grant the validity of scientific observation, the key insight being that what you feel and see empirically (what gets called qualia), doesn't exhaust the definition of subjective experience, but is derivative of its essential structure. Once you make these distinctions, talking about why scientific observation is valid is easy.
The fault is that this doesn't completely eliminate a certain nuanced form of solipsism, and this is where Hegel comes in, but does make strong guarantees that gravity won't stop working the same way tomorrow.
The fault is that this doesn't completely eliminate a certain nuanced form of solipsism, and this is where Hegel comes in, but does make strong guarantees that gravity won't stop working the same way tomorrow.
I'm also a software engineer, and I never turned philosophy into a job - it was just a major for me in college. Nevertheless it's interesting that we are both drawn to Kant, as his seemed to be the only suitable reply to the radical skepticism you're left with near the end of Descartes' Meditations (Even Descartes' disproof of his own skepticism is inadequate compared to Kant.) To this date Kant's response to Cartesian and Humean skepticism is the only one I find remotely compelling. It also lines up with my intuition that the form of subjective experience has properties which make subjective experience itself not entirely discoverable by analyzing first principles - those conditions being space and time, concepts that cannot be derived analytically but must be known prior to experience. And in that sense space and time have objective reality in a sense, as conditions of our perception. Our experience must already conform to the conditions of space and time in order for us to have it at all - which means that some reality exists, even though it has no knowable character independently of our perception.
I don't know why Kant has not experienced a resurgence, as his philosophy seems more and more relevant the more scientific theories like quantum mechanics are developed - theories which intimately tie up experience and objective reality and which, like Kant, both declare the knowledge of things-in-themselves, independent of perception, impossible and at the same time affirm that things-in-themselves exist. This is something no philosophy, with the possible exception of Kant's, has ever been able to conclusively demonstrate.
I don't know why Kant has not experienced a resurgence, as his philosophy seems more and more relevant the more scientific theories like quantum mechanics are developed - theories which intimately tie up experience and objective reality and which, like Kant, both declare the knowledge of things-in-themselves, independent of perception, impossible and at the same time affirm that things-in-themselves exist. This is something no philosophy, with the possible exception of Kant's, has ever been able to conclusively demonstrate.
Quantum mechanics doesn't necessarily make any statement about experience. It only seems to after "leaving" an assumption in your explanations about what measurement means for you to find later. (Only one out of the many interpretations involves "the part where the scientist observes the system," and it takes the specialness of measurement as axiomatic for philosphical reasons.
Disclaimer: I have some meditation, observation of the mind and advaita/Zen practice.
If you look at all your experience since you are born, it all happened in your mind, exclusively. The faces of your parents, your first girlfriend, your job, swimming, eating all sums up to senses which all appear in your mind/conciousness. So it is not only that conciousness exists, it is what everything you have ever known is made of. You can claim you experience something that is outside of you, but there is no proof for that. There will never be a proof. A proof would happen in your mind as well. The thoughts of 'outside of mind' will also happen in your mind. Based on experience conciousness is the only thing that really exists.
If you look at all your experience since you are born, it all happened in your mind, exclusively. The faces of your parents, your first girlfriend, your job, swimming, eating all sums up to senses which all appear in your mind/conciousness. So it is not only that conciousness exists, it is what everything you have ever known is made of. You can claim you experience something that is outside of you, but there is no proof for that. There will never be a proof. A proof would happen in your mind as well. The thoughts of 'outside of mind' will also happen in your mind. Based on experience conciousness is the only thing that really exists.
> If you look at all your experience since you are born, it all happened in your mind, exclusively.
It happened in your brain. Whether it happened in your mind or even whether the mind exists is up for debate. As we learn more about the brain, the mind recedes and it may disappear altogether. Just like how our increased understanding of physiology ended any serious notion of the soul.
The issue of the mind suffers from the same problems that soul did. Can a soul get old? Of course not. Our bodies get old. Can the mind get drunk? Of course not, our brains get drunk. If you take psychotropic drugs, do these drugs target the mind or the brain? Obviously the brain.
It happened in your brain. Whether it happened in your mind or even whether the mind exists is up for debate. As we learn more about the brain, the mind recedes and it may disappear altogether. Just like how our increased understanding of physiology ended any serious notion of the soul.
The issue of the mind suffers from the same problems that soul did. Can a soul get old? Of course not. Our bodies get old. Can the mind get drunk? Of course not, our brains get drunk. If you take psychotropic drugs, do these drugs target the mind or the brain? Obviously the brain.
There's no understanding about how "it happens in the brain". Of course that supposition is the most reasonable one when we accept a materialistic paradigm. I don't discard any explanation, but I find it difficult to imagine how a material thing, the brain with its neurons and electric impulses and neurotransmiters, can be able to generate what philosophers of mind call qualia, which is something apparently non material.
I have an experience. How my brain/hardware causes the experience? Is the experience material? Perhaps. I wonder: how? e.g.: when I see a cup, where in my brain is the subjective experience of the cup? Is it coded as electric impulses? What decodes it and translates the impulses to qualia?
I have an experience. How my brain/hardware causes the experience? Is the experience material? Perhaps. I wonder: how? e.g.: when I see a cup, where in my brain is the subjective experience of the cup? Is it coded as electric impulses? What decodes it and translates the impulses to qualia?
> but I find it difficult to imagine how a material thing, the brain with its neurons and electric impulses and neurotransmiters, can be able to generate what philosophers of mind call qualia, which is something apparently non material.
There was a time when people said the same thing about the body. How can a slab of muscle and bones move? What is moving the body? Of course, it has to be a soul. The same thing with the heavens. Look at those magnificent planets and stars. Certainly gods must reside there and are moving them.
> I have an experience. How my brain/hardware causes the experience? Is the experience material? Perhaps. I wonder: how? e.g.: when I see a cup, where in my brain is the subjective experience of the cup? Is it coded as electric impulses? What decodes it and translates the impulses to qualia?
This is basic philosophy questions. It can't be answered by philosophy. It has to be answered by science ( neuroscience ).
Honestly, philosophically pondering about the brain/mind right now is akin to pondering about the gods/planets a few hundred years ago. Or philosophizing about where the soul reside in our body ( pineal gland? heart? liver? )
Now, we see how absurd those assumptions were because we advanced scientifically and we gained knowledge. I'm fairly certain the same will happen with the mind/brain questions.
All I know is that there is no "qualia" without the brain. Applying occam's razor, why do we need the mind? Other than as a crutch for our lack of understanding of the brain?
There was a time when people said the same thing about the body. How can a slab of muscle and bones move? What is moving the body? Of course, it has to be a soul. The same thing with the heavens. Look at those magnificent planets and stars. Certainly gods must reside there and are moving them.
> I have an experience. How my brain/hardware causes the experience? Is the experience material? Perhaps. I wonder: how? e.g.: when I see a cup, where in my brain is the subjective experience of the cup? Is it coded as electric impulses? What decodes it and translates the impulses to qualia?
This is basic philosophy questions. It can't be answered by philosophy. It has to be answered by science ( neuroscience ).
Honestly, philosophically pondering about the brain/mind right now is akin to pondering about the gods/planets a few hundred years ago. Or philosophizing about where the soul reside in our body ( pineal gland? heart? liver? )
Now, we see how absurd those assumptions were because we advanced scientifically and we gained knowledge. I'm fairly certain the same will happen with the mind/brain questions.
All I know is that there is no "qualia" without the brain. Applying occam's razor, why do we need the mind? Other than as a crutch for our lack of understanding of the brain?
> There was a time when people said the same thing about the body.
Movement, electric impulses, nerves, are observable/measurable stuff. I'm not sure that your example is analogous to qualia. You suppose that qualia is material. It may be, still I find it very hard to imagine how it could be. What is our subjective experience made of? How electricity and neurotransmitters cause subjective experience? It appears that there's a gap between objects and qualia because only I can see my qualia, while everybody can see a brain or measure electric impulses.
Anyway, I like your hypothesis that it could be answered by science. It can lead to interesting experiments and theories.
Movement, electric impulses, nerves, are observable/measurable stuff. I'm not sure that your example is analogous to qualia. You suppose that qualia is material. It may be, still I find it very hard to imagine how it could be. What is our subjective experience made of? How electricity and neurotransmitters cause subjective experience? It appears that there's a gap between objects and qualia because only I can see my qualia, while everybody can see a brain or measure electric impulses.
Anyway, I like your hypothesis that it could be answered by science. It can lead to interesting experiments and theories.
> It appears that there's a gap between objects and qualia because only I can see my qualia, while everybody can see a brain or measure electric impulses.
That could be true. Or it could be true that you don't really exist and the subjective experience is an illusion. The subjective self seems to be just another iteration of the unique soul. The soul is what makes you you and the soul is why you experience things.
> Anyway, I like your hypothesis that it could be answered by science.
It's the only way we can settle things one way or the other. We can argue about gods on mount olympus til the cows come home. The only real way to be sure is to actually climb the mountain and see for ourselves.
My inclination at the moment is the mind is fiction. We no more have a "mind"( aka brain's soul ) than plants which move to capture more sunlight have a "mind".
We just have to patiently wait for science to advance to answer the mind/brain questions. In the meantime, it is fun to philosophize about it.
That could be true. Or it could be true that you don't really exist and the subjective experience is an illusion. The subjective self seems to be just another iteration of the unique soul. The soul is what makes you you and the soul is why you experience things.
> Anyway, I like your hypothesis that it could be answered by science.
It's the only way we can settle things one way or the other. We can argue about gods on mount olympus til the cows come home. The only real way to be sure is to actually climb the mountain and see for ourselves.
My inclination at the moment is the mind is fiction. We no more have a "mind"( aka brain's soul ) than plants which move to capture more sunlight have a "mind".
We just have to patiently wait for science to advance to answer the mind/brain questions. In the meantime, it is fun to philosophize about it.
Your concept of brain is happening in your mind right now. You think there is such a thing like a physical world and a brain but all that is really in your 'conciousness'. Can you feel electrical signals in your brain? Or can you feel senses in your conciousness?
> Your concept of brain is happening in your mind right now.
No. It's in my brain.
> Can you feel electrical signals in your brain? Or can you feel senses in your conciousness?
When people experience certain kinds of brain injury, they can lose their sense of smell, touch, etc. Some people with brain defects can't feel pain. But after surgery, if successful, these people can feel, sense, smell, touch, etc again.
I know for a certain that I can't feel without my brain. As for the mind? As I said, it's debatable.
Ultimately, we have to wait for brain science for our answer. We could sit here and debate forever, like I did in philosophy class. But that will get us nowhere. It will be like debating whether the soul exists in the liver or the pineal gland 300 years ago.
But I think all signs point to the mind going the way of the soul. At least that's what nascent advances in neuroscience and philosophical consensus is slowly heading towards.
The mind to the body is just like the soul to the body or the gods to the heavens. It's nonsense we invented to explain what we do not understand.
But only scientific advance can put this debate to rest.
No. It's in my brain.
> Can you feel electrical signals in your brain? Or can you feel senses in your conciousness?
When people experience certain kinds of brain injury, they can lose their sense of smell, touch, etc. Some people with brain defects can't feel pain. But after surgery, if successful, these people can feel, sense, smell, touch, etc again.
I know for a certain that I can't feel without my brain. As for the mind? As I said, it's debatable.
Ultimately, we have to wait for brain science for our answer. We could sit here and debate forever, like I did in philosophy class. But that will get us nowhere. It will be like debating whether the soul exists in the liver or the pineal gland 300 years ago.
But I think all signs point to the mind going the way of the soul. At least that's what nascent advances in neuroscience and philosophical consensus is slowly heading towards.
The mind to the body is just like the soul to the body or the gods to the heavens. It's nonsense we invented to explain what we do not understand.
But only scientific advance can put this debate to rest.
It is not in your brain. Thinking "it's in my brain" happens in your awareness. You think that there is a brain and a body and a world but all these things show up in your awareness and never elsewhere. Look outside, where are the images? Where are the sounds? Where are the feelings? In your awareness. The feeling of 'something outside me' itself is in your awareness.
Where is your awareness? Can you locate it? No because it is always everything you feel. When you move and travel awareness doesn't move. It doesn't have a location or a size or any physical attributes. It is always one field representing all aspects of your life right now.
The brain has effects on the things that can show up in awareness, but not really on the experience of awareness itself. Awareness is always the simple direct experience of things (thoughts, images, sounds, body feelings). You might not get images or get modified thoughts when you have some brain diseases, but you are always this aware field of things appearing.
Where is your awareness? Can you locate it? No because it is always everything you feel. When you move and travel awareness doesn't move. It doesn't have a location or a size or any physical attributes. It is always one field representing all aspects of your life right now.
The brain has effects on the things that can show up in awareness, but not really on the experience of awareness itself. Awareness is always the simple direct experience of things (thoughts, images, sounds, body feelings). You might not get images or get modified thoughts when you have some brain diseases, but you are always this aware field of things appearing.
> Based on experience conciousness is the only thing that really exists.
I had to pay for my new car, though.
I had to pay for my new car, though.
The thoughts to buy the car, the touch on your wallet, the images of your car, the sounds, all happened in consciousness.
You can't prove it deductively. But you can build inductive evidence for the existence of things outside of yourself.
All that evidence appears in the mind and assumes conciousness is located in the brain, when our actual experience is that conciousness is just the container of everything and does not have a location. You can locate your brain but can you locate your conciousness? Everything you see or feel is in your conciousness right now, even the concepts of time and space. How could you conciousness have a position in space?
I'm happy to see this article posted here. Many people in technology seem so sure that AI is on some kind of path to singularity, and don't give respect to the deep controversy of that belief. Merely examining how the brain 'works' is missing the point. The nature of consciousness (qualia) that this author is talking about is not the same as the neurobiological machinery that sustains it.
Think about the limit at which the problem of consciousness is falsifyable or measurable. Qualia is whatever is beyond that. Its subjective experience.
From the author:
> Perhaps it’s not surprising that most Deniers deny that they’re Deniers. “Of course, we agree that consciousness or experience exists,” they say—but when they say this they mean something that specifically excludes qualia.
Think about the limit at which the problem of consciousness is falsifyable or measurable. Qualia is whatever is beyond that. Its subjective experience.
From the author:
> Perhaps it’s not surprising that most Deniers deny that they’re Deniers. “Of course, we agree that consciousness or experience exists,” they say—but when they say this they mean something that specifically excludes qualia.
At some point, your phone might tell you that it has subjective experiences. What will you do then?
One can do nothing about that: a simulation can be indistinguishable from the real thing.
Consciousness: the ability to convince people (including yourself) you're as special as they are.
That, I think, is the premise behind the Turing test.
This author clearly does not understand the actual beliefs of the people he calls "Deniers". Here is the "smoking gun" paragraph:
One of the strangest things the Deniers say is that although it seems that there is conscious experience, there isn’t really any conscious experience: the seeming is, in fact, an illusion. The trouble with this is that any such illusion is already and necessarily an actual instance of the thing said to be an illusion. Suppose you’re hypnotized to feel intense pain. Someone may say that you’re not really in pain, that the pain is illusory, because you haven’t really suffered any bodily damage. But to seem to feel pain is to be in pain. It’s not possible here to open up a gap between appearance and reality, between what is and what seems.
And here is how a typical "Denier" would respond:
The move you are making here is not actually a statement of fact; it's a definition. You are defining "qualia" to be "those things for which seeming is identical to being". Which is fine as far as it goes; you can't argue with a definition. But then you must also admit that this thing you've defined, "qualia", does not have some other important properties: for example, your qualia do not infallibly tell you about your own internal state. You admit this, because you give the example of someone being hypnotized to feel intense pain even though they have not suffered any actual bodily damage.
In short, the problem is not that some people (the "Deniers") deny that consciousness exists. The problem is that other people (like the author of this article) claim that consciousness, real consciousness, has properties that it does not, and cannot, have.
One of the strangest things the Deniers say is that although it seems that there is conscious experience, there isn’t really any conscious experience: the seeming is, in fact, an illusion. The trouble with this is that any such illusion is already and necessarily an actual instance of the thing said to be an illusion. Suppose you’re hypnotized to feel intense pain. Someone may say that you’re not really in pain, that the pain is illusory, because you haven’t really suffered any bodily damage. But to seem to feel pain is to be in pain. It’s not possible here to open up a gap between appearance and reality, between what is and what seems.
And here is how a typical "Denier" would respond:
The move you are making here is not actually a statement of fact; it's a definition. You are defining "qualia" to be "those things for which seeming is identical to being". Which is fine as far as it goes; you can't argue with a definition. But then you must also admit that this thing you've defined, "qualia", does not have some other important properties: for example, your qualia do not infallibly tell you about your own internal state. You admit this, because you give the example of someone being hypnotized to feel intense pain even though they have not suffered any actual bodily damage.
In short, the problem is not that some people (the "Deniers") deny that consciousness exists. The problem is that other people (like the author of this article) claim that consciousness, real consciousness, has properties that it does not, and cannot, have.
"Proponents of this view insist that their position does not eliminate consciousness, but instead reduces it to something else. They’re right, formally speaking... When you reduce chemical processes to physical processes, you don’t deny that chemical processes exist."
...but instead of following through, he returns to the truisms of his chosen tribe: "All true. And yet, to reduce consciousness to behavior and dispositions to behavior is to eliminate it. To say that consciousness is really nothing more than (dispositions to) behavior is to say that it doesn’t exist." The use of the phrase "really nothing more than..." is the response of someone who doesn't want to pursue the issue further.