On Tue, May 23, 2023 at 7:15 AM Stathis Papaioannou <stath...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > > On Tue, 23 May 2023 at 21:09, Jason Resch <jasonre...@gmail.com> wrote: > >> As I see this thread, Terren and Stathis are both talking past each >> other. Please either of you correct me if i am wrong, but in an effort to >> clarify and perhaps resolve this situation: >> >> I believe Stathis is saying the functional substitution having the same >> fine-grained causal organization *would* have the same phenomenology, the >> same experience, and the same qualia as the brain with the same >> fine-grained causal organization. >> >> Therefore, there is no disagreement between your positions with regards >> to symbols groundings, mappings, etc. >> >> When you both discuss the problem of symbology, or bits, etc. I believe >> this is partly responsible for why you are both talking past each other, >> because there are many levels involved in brains (and computational >> systems). I believe you were discussing completely different levels in the >> hierarchical organization. >> >> There are high-level parts of minds, such as ideas, thoughts, feelings, >> quale, etc. and there are low-level, be they neurons, neurotransmitters, >> atoms, quantum fields, and laws of physics as in human brains, or circuits, >> logic gates, bits, and instructions as in computers. >> >> I think when Terren mentions a "symbol for the smell of grandmother's >> kitchen" (GMK) the trouble is we are crossing a myriad of levels. The quale >> or idea or memory of the smell of GMK is a very high-level feature of a >> mind. When Terren asks for or discusses a symbol for it, a complete >> answer/description for it can only be supplied in terms of a vast amount of >> information concerning low level structures, be they patterns of neuron >> firings, or patterns of bits being processed. When we consider things down >> at this low level, however, we lose all context for what the meaning, idea, >> and quale are or where or how they come in. We cannot see or find the idea >> of GMK in any neuron, no more than we can see or find it in any neuron. >> >> Of course then it should seem deeply mysterious, if not impossible, how >> we get "it" (GMK or otherwise) from "bit", but to me, this is no greater a >> leap from how we get "it" from a bunch of cells squirting ions back and >> forth. Trying to understand a smartphone by looking at the flows of >> electrons is a similar kind of problem, it would seem just as difficult or >> impossible to explain and understand the high-level features and complexity >> out of the low-level simplicity. >> >> This is why it's crucial to bear in mind and explicitly discuss the level >> one is operation on when one discusses symbols, substrates, or quale. In >> summary, I think a chief reason you have been talking past each other is >> because you are each operating on different assumed levels. >> >> Please correct me if you believe I am mistaken and know I only offer my >> perspective in the hope it might help the conversation. >> > > I think you’ve captured my position. But in addition I think replicating > the fine-grained causal organisation is not necessary in order to replicate > higher level phenomena such as GMK. By extension of Chalmers’ substitution > experiment, > Note that Chalmers's argument is based on assuming the functional substitution occurs at a certain level of fine-grained-ness. If you lose this step, and look at only the top-most input-output of the mind as black box, then you can no longer distinguish a rock from a dreaming person, nor a calculator computing 2+3 and a human computing 2+3, and one also runs into the Blockhead "lookup table" argument against functionalism. Accordingly, I think intermediate steps and the fine-grained organization are important (to some minimum level of fidelity) but as Bruno would say, we can never be certain what this necessary substitution level is. Is it neocortical columns, is it the connectome, is it the proteome, is it the molecules and atoms, is it QFT? Chalmers argues that at least at the level where noise introduces deviations in a brain simulation, simulating lower levels should not be necessary, as human consciousness appears robust to such noise at low levels (photon strikes, brownian motion, quantum uncertainties, etc.) > replicating the behaviour of the human through any means, such as training > an AI not only on language but also movement, would also preserve > consciousness, even though it does not simulate any physiological > processes. Another way to say this is that it is not possible to make a > philosophical zombie. > I agree zombies are impossible. I think they are even logically impossible. 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