On Tuesday 09 September 2003 19:41, Ben Goertzel wrote:
> > On Monday 08 September 2003 14:37, Ben Goertzel wrote:
> > > > The problem is to
> > > > fit qualia
> > > > into a pure physicalistic ontology. Physical theories because of
> > > > their success have become the measure of all things.
> > >
> > > I understand your perspective, but mine is different. I'm not
> >
> > so sure that
> >
> > > physical theories are the measure of all things. Physicalistic
> > > reductionism is just one among many useful views of the world. Perhaps
> > > where qualia are concerned, it's not the most important or useful view?
> >
> > But isn't interactionistic mind-body dualism the alternative?
>
> My view is as follows...
>
> I see physics as a collection of patterns in the experienced world. It's a
> very, very powerful and intense collection of patterns. But nevertheless,
> it's not totally comprehensive, in the sense that there are some patterns
> in the experienced world that are not part of physics, but are rather
> "complementary" to physics (in the Niels Bohr sense of complementarity).
> Qualia, perhaps, are in this set of patterns that are complementary to the
> patterns comprising physics.
Then you see qualia as something over and above (or next to) the material
world and you hold a kind of mind-bodydualism.
>
> Now, physics sees my "experienced world" as the product of some physical
> system (my brain, etc.) From this point of view, the qualia that are
> patterns in my experienced world are patterns generated by a physical
> system (my brain, etc.)
>
> Physics and experience are thus two perspectives, each of which claims to
> contain and generate the other!
There is this loop yes. But the relation of experience to physics is not equal
as vv. Physics is epistemologically founded in experience and understanding,
i.e. alle evidence for physical theories is perceptual evidence in the end.
Experience is ontologically founded in physics, i.e. physics ('its field'
neuroscience) shows how the perceptual machinery works (a bit of
extrapolation to the future is needed here of course).
>
> In my own work on AGI, I have drawn on both of these perspectives: both the
> mechanistic, scientific perspective AND the subjective, experiential
> perspective.
The split psychological-physical does not coincide with subjective-objective
and not-mechanical/mechanical. The intentional stance is purely objective and
mechanical (in its ontology) but still completely psychological.
In theory one could create a digital mind based purely the
> mechanistic, scientific perspective, but given the currently somewhat
> primitive state of mind science, obtaining some guidance from the
> experiential side (via drawing analogies between subjective human
> experience and the likely subjective experience of an AI) has seemed
> prudent.
You seem to forget the middle ground of objective psychology. And there is
also the philosophical behaviourism of Ryle and Wittgenstein (and Dennett),
where mental terms like 'pain' 'believe' 'thought' are argued to have
objective meanings. W.: 'Internal events must have external criteria'. The
evidence for pain is pain behaviour, to desire something is to act to get
that something, etc.
Arnoud
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