On Sat, Nov 27, 2010 at 5:02 PM, Brent Meeker <meeke...@dslextreme.com> wrote:
> On 11/27/2010 1:06 PM, Jason Resch wrote:
> On Sat, Nov 27, 2010 at 12:49 PM, Rex Allen <rexallen31...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> Even if you have used some physical system (like a computer) that can
>>> be interpreted as executing an algorithm that manipulates bits that
>>> can be interpreted as representing me reacting to seeing a pink
>>> elephant ("Boy does he look surprised!"), this interpretation all
>>> happens within your conscious experience and has nothing to do with my
>>> conscious experience.
>>
>> Isn't this just idealism?
>
> If it were consistent it would be solipism.By inconsistency I assume that you are referring to my use of "you" and "your" while claiming that, ultimately, Jason's conscious experience has nothing to do with my conscious experience? If there are no causal connections between our experiences then...why am I addressing him in my emails as though there were? There are three answers to this question: 1) To be consistent, I have to conclude that ultimately there is no reason for this. It's just the way things are. That I do this is just a fact, and not causally connected to any other facts. 2) The related fact that, lacking free will, I have no real choice but to do this. 3) My "experienced" justification is that these emails are mostly an opportunity to articulate, clarify, and develop my own thoughts on these topics. I take an instrumentalist view of the process...it doesn't matter what Jason's metaphysical status is. As to solipsism, meh. In what sense do you mean? Methodological solipsism, yes. Metaphysical solipsism, no. 1. My mental states are the only things I have access to. Yes. 2. From my mental states I cannot conclude the existence of anything outside of my mental states. Yes. 3. Therefore I conclude that only my mental states exist. No. So, I only score two out three on the metaphysical solipsism checklist. Why do I reject #3? This comes back to taking a deflationary view of "personage". It isn't "mental states belonging to Rex" so much as "mental states whose contents include a Rex-like-point-of-view". I have recollections of mental states which did not include a Rex-like point of view (Salvia!). Based on those recollections I find it entirely plausible (though not certain) that non-Rex-flavored mental states exist. But beyond that I can't say anything further about what kinds of mental states do or don't exist. Maybe Jason's mental states exist, maybe they don't. It's not really important. > It's when your conscious > experience infers that you are communicating with another conscious > experience that the need for an explanation of the similarity of the > experiences is needed. Objective = intersubjective agreement. And I would say that trying to explain intersubjective experience is getting a little ahead of things until one has a plausible explanation of subjective experience. What can you reliably infer from your conscious experience without knowing what conscious experience "is"? It's building a foundation on top of something which has no foundation. >From conscious experience, I'd think that you can only reliably infer things about conscious experience, not about what exists outside of or behind conscious experience. As Hans Moravec says: "A simulated world hosting a simulated person can be a closed self-contained entity. It might exist as a program on a computer processing data quietly in some dark corner, giving no external hint of the joys and pains, successes and frustrations of the person inside. Inside the simulation events unfold according to the strict logic of the program, which defines the 'laws of physics' of the simulation. The inhabitant might, by patient experimentation and inference, deduce some representation of the simulation laws, but not the nature or even existence of the simulating computer. The simulation's internal relationships would be the same if the program were running correctly on any of an endless variety of possible computers, slowly, quickly, intermittently, or even backwards and forwards in time, with the data stored as charges on chips, marks on a tape, or pulses in a delay line, with the simulation's numbers represented in binary, decimal, or Roman numerals, compactly or spread widely across the machine. There is no limit, in principle, on how indirect the relationship between simulation and simulated can be." Without a limit on how indirect the relationship can be, then there's no conclusions that can be drawn. And, as always, if the simulation of conscious experience can "just exist", then why can't conscious experience itself just exist? Rex -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-l...@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
