On 30 Jan 2014, at 06:19, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
On 30 January 2014 16:00, meekerdb <[email protected]> wrote:
On 1/29/2014 5:06 PM, David Nyman wrote:
On 29 January 2014 22:15, Craig Weinberg <[email protected]>
wrote:
The problem that concerns me about this way of looking at things
is that
any and all behaviour associated with consciousness - including,
crucially,
the articulation of our very thoughts and beliefs about conscious
phenomena
- can at least in principle be exhausted by an extrinsic account.
But if
this be so, it is very difficult indeed to understand how such
extrinsic
behaviours could possibly make reference to any "intrinsic"
remainder, even
were its existence granted. It isn't merely that any postulated
remainder
would be redundant in the explanation of such behaviour, but that
it is
hardly possible to see how an inner dual could even be accessible
in
principle to a complete (i.e. causally closed) extrinsic system
of reference
in the first place.
Right, because the extrinsic perspective is blind to the limits of
causal
closure.
But I'm afraid the problem is precisely that it behaves as if it is
NOT in
fact blind to such limits. As Bruno points out in a recent response
to John
Clark, if we rely on the causal closure of the extrinsic account
(and which
of us does not?) then we commit ourselves to the view that there
must be
such an account, at some level, of any behaviour to which we might
otherwise
wish to impute a conscious origin. However, my point above is that
the
problem is in fact even worse than this. In fact, it amounts to a
paradox.
The existence of a causally closed extrinsic account forces us to
the view
that the very thoughts and utterances - even our own - that purport
to refer
to irreducibly conscious phenomena must also be fully explicable
extrinsically. But how then could any such sequence of extrinsic
events
possibly be linked to anything outside its causally-closed circle of
explanation? To put this baldly, even whilst asserting with absolute
certainty "the fact that I am conscious" I am forced nonetheless to
accept
that this very assertion need have nothing to do (and, more
strongly, cannot
have anything to do) with the fact that I am conscious!
I take no credit for being the originator of this insight,
But you have explained it well. And it's not at all clear to me that
Bruno's computational theory avoids this paradox. It seems there
will
still, in the UD computation, be a closed account of the physical
processes.
No doubt it will be computationally linked with some provable
sentences,
which Bruno wants to then identify with beliefs. But this still
leaves
beliefs as epiphenomena of the physical processes; even if comp
explains
them both.
I don't think there is a problem if consciousness is an epiphenomenon.
Is it not that very idea which leads to the notion of zombie?
If consciousness is an epiphenomenon, eliminating it would change
nothing in the 3p.
If you start looking for consciousness being an extra thing with
(perhaps) its own separate causal efficacy, that's where problems
arise.
Dualism is a problem. Making consciousness epiphenomenal is not
satisfying, and basically contradicted in the everyday life. It is
because pain is unpleasant that we take anesthetic medicine.
The brain is obliged to "lie" at some (uncknown, crypted) level, not
for consciousness (that it filters), but for pain and joy. That's
normal. If you run toward the lion mouth, you lower the probability of
surviving.
Epiphenomenalism does not eliminate consciousness, but it still
eliminate conscience and persons.
With comp I think we avoid it, even if the solution will appear to be
very Platonist, as truth, beauty, and universal values (mostly
unknown) will be more "real" than their local terrestrial
approximations through primitively physical brains and other
interacting molecules like galaxies foam.
Bruno
--
Stathis Papaioannou
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