Interaction ("mind body") problem

[GrowingSmaller]

I can point to lots of research showing that our consciousness is only informed of decisions after they're made - can you show research which proves that consciousness actually causes behavior like you think it does?

I can't believe anyhting so nihilisic (reducing to nothing) about conscious life and the existential condition. Neitszche attacked religion for being nihilistic about life in favour of a future heavenly state. I think that "science" is belig nihilistic in favour of so many so called experimental findings. Of course science may be right, and has better standards of evidence than religion, but whilst is is so incomplete I am not going to become a nihilist, and deny 'common sense' phenomenological reality, just because of some 20/1 century (after a mere 100 years of psychology) experiments say such and such.

 

[underpressure]

But why is there being conscious rather than a p-zombie (see "philosophical zombie")? You have told us about the concominants of consciousness, but not why there is consciousness! That is known as Chalmer's "hard problem of consicousness". And you might have told us what the concominants of pain are, but not why there is pain as a conscious experience. Nor have you told us (if it is the case) why pain as a conscious experience deters people. So you have to explain why there is consciousness first of all, and then give an full account (not a mere concominant) of why conscious experiences affect people in certain ways i.e. phenomenology and the existential condition of man need explaining from the scientific point of view. Merely saying "there are c-fibres firing" etc does not do the job. That gives us the correlates or concominants of experience but does not explain why there is experience when such things occur. Nor does it explain (if it is the case) how expeiences influence things, it merely shows how concominants of experience affect one another which is another matter. Science is at level 1, there are more thresholds to cross.

My consciousness or experience is my brain's interpretation of lots and lots of information received through my nerves, eyes, ears etc, and also we have the advantageous ability to calculate, ask questions, think through various scenarios, make predictions, plan, memorise, philosophise and learn. All of which combined has meant we are intelligent enough to be self aware, and not only that but compared to other species we have the ability to have a phenomenal understanding of the environment around us.

Why do we experience rather than not experience? Well other than going through the physical processes that occur one by one, I don't know how you can answer that any more deeply, other than to say your experience is just the way your brain interprets all that information?

As for the p-zombie, if it can't experience it would be pretty useless, would it not?

So if experiencing is interpreting information, and interpreting information gives us what you might call our consciousness, does it follow that anything that interprets information can 'experience' on some level? My opinion is yes, although I think it would have to be a very complex, sophisticated system before it could be self aware like us.

 

[sandwiches]

But why is there being conscious rather than a p-zombie (see "philosophical zombie")? You have told us about the concominants of consciousness, but not why there is consciousness! That is known as Chalmer's "hard problem of consicousness". And you might have told us what the concominants of pain are, but not why there is pain as a conscious experience. Nor have you told us (if it is the case) why pain as a conscious experience deters people. So you have to explain why there is consciousness first of all, and then give an full account (not a mere concominant) of why conscious experiences affect people in certain ways i.e. phenomenology and the existential condition of man need explaining from the scientific point of view. Merely saying "there are c-fibres firing" etc does not do the job. That gives us the correlates or concominants of experience but does not explain why there is experience when such things occur. Nor does it explain (if it is the case) how expeiences influence things, it merely shows how concominants of experience affect one another which is another matter. Science is at level 1, there are more thresholds to cross.

There cannot be such a thing as a philosophical zombie. The idea of a p-zombie reminds me of a friend who told me that he hated the idea of watching TV because it gave people the "false sensation" of being entertained. There is no such thing as false sensations or non-sentient sentience.

Now, the problem with your whole idea is that you seem to still be thinking that experiences are somehow something other than exactly electrochemical reactions. So, what you're asking, in essence is for me to tell you why a calculator "calculates" without telling you about its transistors and internal processes. That's absurd. The reactions in our brain and body are what EXACTLY what we call experience. There's nothing beyond that. There is no material or philosophical impassable chasm between what we call experience and the processes in our body. Those processes are more than merely associated components with experience and consciousness, they ARE, in fact, experience and consciousness, in their entirety.

Let me ask you something, what's the difference between a computer being able to sense its surroundings through cameras, microphones, etc and telling you that it knows it exists and that it can sense things around it and a person telling you the same thing?

 

[variant]

Well in my opinion in order to solve the problem of mental or phenomenological causation* the so called hard problem of consicousness would have to be solved first. So its a problem additional to and after the "hard problem". That's the problem.

*I mean give a phsyical account of how feeling pain, or seeing a apple, causes certain behaviour. A physical account that actually explains the consciousness involved and the conscious process, rather than one that just gives us the correlates of consciousness etc but does not really get the the heart of experience.

As a philosophical problem I think the wrong questions are being asked with the wrong assumptions.

The hard problem, in my opinion, is understanding these type of systems enough to produce a consciousness from the ground up.

If you can do that, you answer all the epistemological and metaphysical questions with a fair ammount of certainty.

I think it is best approached from an observe and test perspective rather than a logical assumptive one.

 

[underpressure]

Onto the question, why do we experience pain, well we were designed by natural selection, and clearly our brain interpreting a knock as an unpleasant sensation was an advantageous way of making sure we are careful not to damage and injure ourselves, so you can kind of see how our consciousness (if that's what you want to call it) has evolved. Incidentally, I'm guessing, since we share similar nervous systems with other mammals, our distant ancestors would have experienced sensations like pain way, way, way, before they resembled anything looking like us, and obviously way before they were self aware, intelligent (like us) and so on.

 

[GrowingSmaller]

Onto the question, why do we experience pain, well we were designed by natural selection, and clearly our brain interpreting a knock as an unpleasant sensation was an advantageous way of making sure we are careful not to damage and injure ourselves, so you can kind of see how our consciousness (if that's what you want to call it) has evolved.

I agree but for that to be the case there has to be "phenomenological causation" or "mental causation". I think that KCfromNC is denying this. If pain influences behavior, and pain is a phenomenon (appearance to mind), then phenomena have causal power. Otherwise there would be no consequence of pain for selection to select. I think we agree on this.

Incidentally, I'm guessing, since we share similar nervous systems with other mammals, our distant ancestors would have experienced sensations like pain way, way, way, before they resembled anything looking like us, and obviously way before they were self aware, intelligent (like us) and so on.

I agree that other mammales most likely have pain experiences.

 

[GrowingSmaller]

There cannot be such a thing as a philosophical zombie. The idea of a p-zombie reminds me of a friend who told me that he hated the idea of watching TV because it gave people the "false sensation" of being entertained. There is no such thing as false sensations or non-sentient sentience.

A p-zombie is possible in theory.

Now, the problem with your whole idea is that you seem to still be thinking that experiences are somehow something other than exactly electrochemical reactions.

Where did I say that? I certainly do not believe it.

So, what you're asking, in essence is for me to tell you why a calculator "calculates" without telling you about its transistors and internal processes. That's absurd.

No I am asking why consciousness emerges. Analysing all that processing equipment does not explain that.

The reactions in our brain and body are what EXACTLY what we call experience.

That may well be true, I guess. But that does not explain consciousness, or how experiencing pain causes aversion. All you have is "well... A, B, C happen when we experience pain". But that doesn not explain why there is pain, not how/why pain (thus explained) causes aversion.

There's nothing beyond that. There is no material or philosophical impassable chasm between what we call experience and the processes in our body. Those processes are more than merely associated components with experience and consciousness, they ARE, in fact, experience and consciousness, in their entirety.

Maybe they are, but why are they?

Let me ask you something, what's the difference between a computer being able to sense its surroundings through cameras, microphones, etc and telling you that it knows it exists and that it can sense things around it and a person telling you the same thing?

The analogy between me ant the person is stronger, so as analogy is the argument I base my opinion on, I can know more surely that he or she is aware like I am.

 

[GrowingSmaller]

My consciousness or experience is my brain's interpretation of lots and lots of information received through my nerves, eyes, ears etc, and also we have the advantageous ability to calculate, ask questions, think through various scenarios, make predictions, plan, memorise, philosophise and learn. All of which combined has meant we are intelligent enough to be self aware, and not only that but compared to other species we have the ability to have a phenomenal understanding of the environment around us.

Probably you are correct, as thats the best science we have.

Why do we experience rather than not experience? Well other than going through the physical processes that occur one by one, I don't know how you can answer that any more deeply, other than to say your experience is just the way your brain interprets all that information?

Some people like Chalmers IIRC think the question is unanswerable. If thats the case then any answers that are logically dependent on answering that are unanswerable too.

As for the p-zombie, if it can't experience it would be pretty useless, would it not?

In theopry a p-zombie can do everything a conscious human can.

So if experiencing is interpreting information, and interpreting information gives us what you might call our consciousness, does it follow that anything that interprets information can 'experience' on some level? My opinion is yes, although I think it would have to be a very complex, sophisticated system before it could be self aware like us.

I am not sure. Maybe that are quanta, or pixels of consciousness, each aware that it is awareness.

 

[quatona]

A p-zombie is possible in theory.

Where did I say that? I certainly do not believe it.


No I am asking why consciousness emerges. Analysing all that processing equipment does not explain that.


That may well be true, I guess. But that does not explain consciousness, or how experiencing pain causes aversion. All you have is "well... A, B, C happen when we experience pain". But that doesn not explain why there is pain, not how/why pain (thus explained) causes aversion.



Maybe they are, but why are they?

The analogy between me ant the person is stronger, so as analogy is the argument I base my opinion on, I can know more surely that he or she is aware like I am.

Could you give a hypothetical satisfactory answer to your "why" questions - just so I know what sort of explanation you are looking for?

Why does plutonium emit radioactivity? It can be explained how the process works, but I wouldn´t know what the "why" here is asking for, either.

 

[KCfromNC]

I accept that but the fact that pleasures were associated with life giving things (food, sex etc) would be purely incidental. That I cannot believe is the truth.

This is a question for science, not arbitrary personal beliefs.

Go at the above. You actually believe that a being whose [bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse] just happened to be painful would be as fit as the opposite (who found pleasure)? You seem to say that pain has nothing to do with bevavior, nor pleasure - because they do not cause actions. So that follows from your belief.

I don't think I've ever said I know how consciousness works with any sort of certainty. You're the only one telling us how things must or can not be.

But be careful of changing the subject. Before you were discussing the experience of feeling pain as a thing in itself being the cause of action, now you've reverted to merely questioning pain itself causing actions. The latter happens in animals which don't experience qualia so they're totally different questions.

Who said I am dualist? Are you inferring "he has a catholic icon, the RCC teaches dualism, therefore he is a dualist"?

Do you truly believe that all non-dualist ideas of mind have a fatal flaw or are you just putting us on about this?

 

[KCfromNC]

Honestly I htough I knew but thatwas just a belief i was brought up with. I bdo not believe (like a shintoinstmight ) that the chair has a personal soul, but I connot exclude that there is some form of isolated "consciousness reaction" amongst the atoms or particles of the chair.

You can't conclude it doesn't, but do you have any reason at all to think it does? You're really stretching here - to defend your analogies you have to resort to talking about office furniture having conscious minds. That should tell you something about how far afield you need to go to justify your feelings on the subject.

 

[KCfromNC]

I agree but for that to be the case there has to be "phenomenological causation" or "mental causation". I think that KCfromNC is denying this.

Nope. First, I'm saying I have any real idea how hte brain works in detail. But more importantly, I'm saying we shouldn't automatically trust what our conscious mind is telling us about its role in causing action - the research shows it's really good at taking credit for stuff it had no part in.

If pain influences behavior, and pain is a phenomenon (appearance to mind), then phenomena have causal power.

The experience and memory of pain seem to have causal power in some cases. Both are, as far as we can see, physical processes. Calling it a phenomenon doesn't change that.

 

[KCfromNC]

In theopry a p-zombie can do everything a conscious human can.

Except for the arbitrary and baseless assumption that they can't be conscious, of course.

 

[underpressure]

In theopry a p-zombie can do everything a conscious human can.

Well, I think if you designed a group of robots that imitated humans, that had all its moves 'preprogrammed' including everything they are going to say and do to each other, these robots wouldn't need a conciousness in the sense that we have, as they wouldn't need to really do much heavy processing or thinking, because everything they are going to say or do has been mapped out by the programmer. It would just be a case of getting the mechanics right, then manually entering the commands (which would be be quite labour extensive on the part of the designer). This would require a lot of manual entering of course, and the problem with these robots, is they wouldn't be able to independently interact or react to new information, for example if I was to walk into the room where these robots are situated they would be unaware that I was there, and would carry on as normal, and they certainly wouldn't have any self awareness, although it would be relatively simple for the programmer to get the robots to claim that they are self aware. That's the only way I can see a p-zombie being able to exist.

Now if you were to design these robots, so that they have the capacity to learn, interact with light, sound, touch, which would require some clever code/algorithms on the part of the programmer, so their 'life' isn't mapped out by the programmer at the beginning (although I'm not say these robots would have 'free will' either depending on how you define that term, just that they can react differently to different environments), then this would require more complicated processing on the part of the machine and therefore I think they would need (and have) a consciousness maybe not a million miles apart from the kind of way we experience, depending on how well they actually work. And this would be far more satisfactory for the designer, as each robot could take on a life of its own and interact with the environment and people and things around it.

 

[GrowingSmaller]

This is a question for science, not arbitrary personal beliefs.

Yuo believe my beliefs are arbitrary. Then why do i not change that at random?

I don't think I've ever said I know how consciousness works with any sort of certainty. You're the only one telling us how things must or can not be.

I was expressing non-arbitrary beliefs.

But be careful of changing the subject. Before you were discussing the experience of feeling pain as a thing in itself being the cause of action, now you've reverted to merely questioning pain itself causing actions. The latter happens in animals which don't experience qualia so they're totally different questions.

How do you know which animals experience qualia?

Do you truly believe that all non-dualist ideas of mind have a fatal flaw or are you just putting us on about this?

I am not a dualist. Wher did I say I was a dualist. I say that even if pyshicalism is correct there remanin problems which seem as difficult ar the mind body problem, like the problem of (whether) phenomena/qualia cause behaviour (and I believe they do).

 

[GrowingSmaller]

You can't conclude it doesn't, but do you have any reason at all to think it does? You're really stretching here - to defend your analogies you have to resort to talking about office furniture having conscious minds. That should tell you something about how far afield you need to go to justify your feelings on the subject.

I am not claiming to know either way. I am agnostic.

 

[GrowingSmaller]

Except for the arbitrary and baseless assumption that they can't be conscious, of course.

It is a logical possibility that they may not be, not a logical necessity that they must not be.

 

[underpressure]

Some people like Chalmers IIRC think the question is unanswerable. If thats the case then any answers that are logically dependent on answering that are unanswerable too.

Well if you are looking for the answer to, "why are you, you?" I think we can answer it by explaining all the physical processes that go on, how your DNA came to be what it is, and the environment you grew up in. If you think a deeper answer exists, but it is impossible for us to get to the answer, I can (kind of) see where you are coming from, I think, but I think the question needs to be defined better.

 

[GrowingSmaller]

Could you give a hypothetical satisfactory answer to your "why" questions - just so I know what sort of explanation you are looking for?

A professor (IIRC) wrote that the problem is so deep we do not even know what kind of answer we might expect.

Why does plutonium emit radioactivity? It can be explained how the process works, but I wouldn´t know what the "why" here is asking for, either.

Why does the apple fall to the ground? gravity. We even have relativity and inverse square laws. Why do consciousness emerge? Unknown. (btw I dont know much about radioactivity or plutonuim so I am unable to comment). Also we do not know why gravity seems to emerge at the classical scale iirc.

 

[sandwiches]

A p-zombie is possible in theory.

Where did I say that? I certainly do not believe it.


No I am asking why consciousness emerges. Analysing all that processing equipment does not explain that.


That may well be true, I guess. But that does not explain consciousness, or how experiencing pain causes aversion. All you have is "well... A, B, C happen when we experience pain". But that doesn not explain why there is pain, not how/why pain (thus explained) causes aversion.



Maybe they are, but why are they?

Now, let me clarify something: Are you asking why we developed consciousness as humans or why consciousness arises from the processes in the brain?

The analogy between me ant the person is stronger, so as analogy is the argument I base my opinion on, I can know more surely that he or she is aware like I am.

How would you go about determining if the computer is conscious and self-aware?