On Tue, May 23, 2023 at 2:05 PM Jesse Mazer <laserma...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > > On Tue, May 23, 2023 at 9:34 AM Terren Suydam <terren.suy...@gmail.com> > wrote: > >> >> >> On Tue, May 23, 2023 at 7:09 AM 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 appreciate the callout, but it is necessary to talk at both the micro >> and the macro for this discussion. We're talking about symbol grounding. I >> should make it clear that I don't believe symbols can be grounded in other >> symbols (i.e. symbols all the way down as Stathis put it), that leads to >> infinite regress and the illusion of meaning. Symbols ultimately must >> stand for something. The only thing they can stand *for*, ultimately, is >> something that cannot be communicated by other symbols: conscious >> experience. There is no concept in our brains that is not ultimately >> connected to something we've seen, heard, felt, smelled, or tasted. >> >> In my experience with conversations like this, you usually have people on >> one side who take consciousness seriously as the only thing that is >> actually undeniable, and you have people who'd rather not talk about it, >> hand-wave it away, or outright deny it. That's the talking-past that >> usually happens, and that's what's happening here. >> >> Terren >> > > But are you talking specifically about symbols with high-level meaning > like the words humans use in ordinary language, which large language models > like ChatGPT are trained on? Or are you talking more generally about any > kinds of symbols, including something like the 1s and 0s in a giant > computer that was performing an extremely detailed simulation of a physical > world, perhaps down to the level of particle physics, where that simulation > could include things like detailed physical simulations of things in > external environment (a flower, say) and components of a simulated > biological organism with a nervous system (with particle-level simulations > of neurons etc.)? Would you say that even in the case of the detailed > physics simulation, nothing in there could ever give rise to conscious > experience like our own? > > Jesse > No, I wouldn't deny that possibility. As I mentioned in the reply I just made to Jason, I'm coming from an idealist perspective, which is to say that reality is fundamentally consciousness. So the simulation you're hypothesizing would itself be a manifestation of consciousness - though admittedly that's not a super helpful thing to say. At least, it's no more helpful than panpsychist assumptions that all matter has some aspect of consciousness. It doesn't tell you why this chunk of matter that looks like a rock doesn't appear at all to be conscious, and why this chunk of matter that looks like a Jesse Mazer is. Or why Jesse Mazer's left kneecap doesn't seem to have its own consciousness - or if it does, how it interacts with the holisitic Jesse Mazer consciousness. Idealism isn't a theory of consciousness in the sense that it explains those differences. My current take on it is just that it's the only way to make sense of reality if you don't believe in religious dualism, and you acknowledge that the Hard Problem is a fatal flaw for physicalism and you're willing to update your beliefs based on that. But I reserve the right to change my mind on that. Terren > > > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/CAMy3ZA9wxpLrCTsd%3Deb%2BUgE6dP7xgm9Rxbfh_FyzA9-nD_EC6w%40mail.gmail.com.
