Computers can be 100% certain they're seeing blue.
Well it depends what you mean by this.
You're using a lot of words, that I feel have not been properly explained in any concrete form: "feel," "experience," "come alive."
I mean 'qualia'. Wiki it.
You merely restated your assertion. How does what a computer do with input, analysis of said input, memory, etc differ from human experience? And please don't restate that human "feel" or that humans "truly sense."
Well would you agree that a computer has the input of a ray of light that what happens is that it turns the photons into electrical charges and then this electricity then sets off alot of switches in the computer (I'm not a computer expert
). This then ends up mechanically making the computer sense electricity to the right parts of the screen to make an image (for example). Would agree that this is all that happens? The computer simply works by laws, but doesn't have a subjective experience of the colour blue, for example?
Brains similarly work according to laws, but this time the human machine has a subjective experience.
You may hope that this can be explained physically, but that is the difference to be explained.
Atoms don't taste sour but lemons do. Rocks aren't huge but mountains are. Tires can't move by themselves using internal combustion but cars do. Leaves can't support a person but rope can.
Well the physical lemon isn't sour, only when tasted by a conscious being does the 'sour' exist; 'huge' is comparative, nothing is objectively huge; movement is also apparently relative; I'm not sure what leaves have to do with rope, but strength is also comparative.
I'm not sure what my point is there, I'm just trying to clear up the ideas.
Why is it so difficult to understand that components do not have to show the same properties of the whole?
Perhaps I am wrong to be trying to think about the components like this. I'll be happy to hear new examples. But if you give an example like "protons, neutrons and electrons aren't combustible on their own, but carbon and oxygen atoms are", I will say that combustion is just the name we give to a certain type of energy/material movement/interaction. Nothing new is introduced.
Everything we use on a daily basis is made of components which alone do NOT exhibit the properties of their whole. The same resistor can be in a car, in a radio, and in a watch, yet those things perform vastly different duties. In the same way that the same "dead" matter in a rock, a cow patty, and a human are in composites with vastly different properties.
Well the resistors still do the same thing don't they? I mean they work the same? Plus there is more than a resistor in a radio. I think.
So what if the matter in our brain creates something we call consciousness? Why is that particular process special and no other?
Because every other physical thing has been explainable in terms that apply to their fundamental particles. Eg: life is just a form of interaction of matter and energy according to physical laws.
I hope you don't mind if I copy you on to some of my more general thoughts on the subject here:
Premise: To know what it is like to experience green you must experience green. What it is like can only be known subjectively, not objectively through physical evidence.
If there is no physical evidence for something then it isn't accepted as science. If we can't objectively know about experience (qualia), then it can't be scientifically accepted as existent. That is how we know about physical things. But nevertheless we have 100% sure knowledge of the existence of qualia. Now we need to know what to make of this gap between scientific 'knowledge' and subjective knowledge.
We can say, 'I don't know', we can ideologically say (without evidence) that qualia must somehow be accounted for by the physical alone, or we can at least have a look at other explanations. At least see if there is an explanatory power in other ways of thinking (Remember that science used to be a new way of thinking). If they are, then they should be taken seriously.
Not long ago I considered the mind to be strange, but that it must have physical explanation, or at least that we would never understand it. But then I came across some explanations that seemed to go a long way to explaining experience and how it relates to the physical.
I'm not saying that this new explanation is definitely true, but I think too strong a grasp on materialism to be dangerous in the search for truth. Too strong a faith in materialism is just as bad as too strong a faith in religion. Ones mind should be open, but of course not too open.
Materialism doesn't claim that dead matter can see, as far as I know.
But dead matter (atoms) can see (when in the form of a human body).
They're a lot more squishy, in general. Do you really need an exhaustive list?
I can't remember why I asked the question (I am replying to various other people), but I doubt humans being squishy is an important difference between us a robots that explains our mental difference. The difference being that they have none.
Again, you have to assume dualism to make a distinction between the physical processes which produce pain and the "really real" pain.
No you don't, you just need not have unnecessary faith in materialism.
Yeah, that certain type being blue or green.
The type of photon is only labelled that because it corresponds to our experience of what we called green or blue.
If they have a good reason for recognizing this stuff, it shouldn't be so hard to explain their thinking on the matter.
Well they probably can better than me.
Just like seeing is measuring photons, not literally the color green.
I agree that that is what eyes do.
No more than a car works just like a fish.
Well, both are made of atoms and can be explain purely in terms that apply to atoms.
But yeah, vitalism died out as a valid scientific view in a hundred plus years ago. Hopefully philosophers will catch up eventually.
I don't think I accept vitalism. Life can be explained just by the physical.
You're mis-stating the Mary's Room thought experiment, but don't worry, I know what you mean. I think that if someone really knows everything there is to know about color, they'd know what the experience of red is. That's kind of what the definition of "everything" means.
I said if they knew everything about the brain, not everything about the colour.
I also don't think this is a realistic approximation of reality, of course, so any conclusions you'd draw from this thought experiment are moot.
Because you don't think it is possible to know everything about the brain?
Sure, your conscious mind reports what it reports and that is what it is. But by admitting that what it reports might not be an accurate view of reality, you have to question all of the stuff you've said about the meaning of consciousness feeling special. After all, you've said that those feelings can be an illusion.
Why?
Do you mean neurologists or do you mean philosophers? Only one of them is an expert in this field.
I was just giving examples of different specialities of people.
No I don't since it's not true. Green can be described in lots of ways - there's no reason to say that the only correct one is a subjective experience caused by seeing it.
You think you can describe green (the qualia) to someone who hasn't seen green?
But without dragging in dualism, if someone knows everything about the brain that will by definition include the feeling of the subjective experiences certain colors provoke. So yes, it's pretty obvious that if they know everything about the brain they'll know a specific subset of those things (in this case, the experience of green).
This is only true if you assume that materialism is true.
I hate to keep repeating myself, but this only becomes a problem if you assume that subjective experience is something unique in that it can't be known - which we have no reason to assume, since we obviously do know about subjective experiences.
I'm not saying subjective experience can't be known, but that it can't be known by objective physical experiment. That is an assumption there.
Why? The fact that we can't have an experience our bodies aren't physically capable of having tells us nothing about whether or not those experiences are material in nature or require us to invoke dualism.
It's no more telling than the fact that we can't drive to work on a computer. Both are physical, we understand how both work, and there's no reason to invoke magic simply because one physical system can't do something another one can.
But all other physical things we seem to be able to know objectively, through objective understanding, not subjective experience. I'll just give some more general thoughts about the subject (sorry if I repeat myself
):
If there is no physical evidence for something then it isn't accepted as science. If we can't objectively know about experience (qualia), then it can't be scientifically accepted as existent. That is how we know about physical things. But nevertheless we have 100% sure knowledge of the existence of qualia. Now we need to know what to make of this gap between scientific 'knowledge' and subjective knowledge.
We can say, 'I don't know', we can ideologically say (without evidence) that qualia must somehow be accounted for by the physical alone, or we can at least have a look at other explanations. At least see if there is an explanatory power in other ways of thinking (Remember that science used to be a new way of thinking). If they are, then they should be taken seriously.
Not long ago I considered the mind to be strange, but that it must have physical explanation, or at least that we would never understand it. But then I came across some explanations that seemed to go a long way to explaining experience and how it relates to the physical.
I'm not saying that this new explanation is definitely true, but I think too strong a grasp on materialism to be dangerous in the search for truth. Too strong a faith in materialism is just as bad as too strong a faith in religion. Ones mind should be open, but of course not too open.