On Tuesday, August 19, 2014 5:00:10 AM UTC+10, Brent wrote: > > On 8/18/2014 4:38 AM, Pierz wrote: > > > > On Saturday, August 9, 2014 2:48:48 PM UTC+10, Brent wrote: >> >> On 8/8/2014 8:34 PM, Pierz wrote: >> >> In "The Conscious Mind", Chalmers bases his claim that materialism has >> failed to provide an explanation for consciousness on a distinction between >> 'logical' and 'natural' supervenience, where logical supervenience simply >> means that if A supervenes on B, then B logically and necessarily entails >> A. >> >> Because we can logically conceive of a (philosophical) zombie, then it >> seems that consciousness cannot *logically* supervene on the physical. >> >> >> This kind of argument is very weak. "Logically" anything can be true >> that doesn't entail "x and not-x", i.e. direct contradiction. When a >> philosopher slips in "can logically conceive", it is the "conceive" that >> does all the work. No one could "logically conceive" of particles that were >> two places at once, or became correlated by future instead of past >> interactions - until quantum mechanics was invented. It's at base an >> argument from incredulity. >> > > I agree - partially. The devil is in the detail. Chalmers asks whether > one can "logically conceive" of a universe in which mathematicians disprove > (something like) the fact that there are infinite primes. He claims such a > world is not logically conceivable, but only one in which mathematicians > are wrong. But this illustrates the problem. The more complex a scenario > becomes, the more difficult it is to say whether it is logically possible. > For example, I can conceive of a people living in a world with four > extended spatial dimensions, but it may well be that such a scenario is > logically impossible, due to the fact that no self-consistent set of > physical laws can describe it. But who can be sure? Perhaps everything > logically conceivable happens. Some physicists such as Tegmark would seem > to believe so. However I'm not sure that your objection has it the right > way round. Usually it's the philosophers arguing for the logical > possibility of something against objectors who finds it inconceivable for > mistaken reasons such as "common sense". So the argument from incredulity > usually goes in the reverse direction to what you're suggesting. With > respect to the problem of zombies though, he's pointing out that **within > the definitions given** of what matter is, within the current > understanding of matter's properties, the philosophical zombie is extremely > conceivable, and in fact is exactly what the model could be said to > predict. It's just that we happen to know first-hand that prediction to be > wrong. > >> >> There is simply nothing in the physical description that entails or >> even *suggests* the arising of subjective experiences in any system, >> biological or otherwise. This is a well-trodden path of argumentation that >> I'm sure we're all familiar with. However, since it does appear that, >> empirically, consciousness supervenes on physical processes, then this >> supervenience must be "natural" rather than logical. >> >> >> I agree. >> >> It must arise due to some natural law that demands it does. So far so >> good, though what we end up with in Chalmers' book - "property dualism" - >> hardly seems like the nourishing meal a phenomenologically inclined >> philosopher might have hoped for. Bruno's version of comp seems like more >> nourishing fare than the the watery gruel of property dualism, but >> Chalmers' formulation of logical supervenience got me thinking again about >> the grit in the ointment of comp that I've never quite been able to get >> comfortable with. This is only another way of formulating an objection that >> I've raised before, but perhaps it encapsulates the issue neatly. We can >> really only say we've "explained" something when explicated the >> relationships between the higher order explanandum and some ontologically >> prior basis, demonstrating how the latter necessarily entails the former. >> Alternatively we might postulate some new "brute fact", some hitherto >> unknown principle, law or entity which we accept because it does such a >> good job of uniting disparate, previously unexplained observations. >> >> Now the UDA does a good job of making the case that if we accept the >> premise of comp (supervenience on computational states), then materialism >> can be seen to dissolve into "machine psychology" as Bruno puts it, or to >> emerge from arithmetic. But the problem here is that we can no more see >> mathematical functions as necessarily entailing subjective experience as we >> can see physical entities as doing so. It is perfectly possible to imagine >> computations occurring in the complete absence of consciousness, and in >> fact nearly everybody imagines precisely this. I would say that it is an >> undeniable fact that no mathematical function can be said to* logically >> entail *some correlated conscious state. Rather, we must postulate some >> kind of law or principle which claims that it is just so that mathematical >> functions, or certain classes thereof, co-occur with or are somehow >> synonymous with, conscious experiences. In other words, we are still forced >> back on a kind of natural supervenience. But the problem here is that, >> whereas with matter we may be able to invoke some kind of ontological >> 'magic' that "puts the fire into the equations" to quote Hawking, with pure >> mathematics it is hard to see how there can be any such natural law that is >> distinct from pure logic itself. >> >> >> I think the way to look at it, is to ask how and why evolution invented >> consciousness. It's pretty clear that not *all* computation produces >> consciousness. So what is it about the computation in human brains that >> produces consciousness. I speculate that it's because it's computation >> that is about something. It's computation that is representing, reflecting >> on and predicting the world. That world is perceived by our sensory >> systems and evolution built this representational system on top of the >> sensory system. So when we recall something we experience images of it. >> When we think about playing some music we experience sounds. It has been >> my reservation about Bruno's step 8 that he considers a dream state in >> order to avoid the question of it's relation to the world, to being about >> something. I think the world, which Bruno calls physics, is necessary as >> the object of consciousness. >> > > Yeah and I don't get that and I don't think it's tenable. A computer > being fed data from a camera and responding to it doesn't "know" the data > is "about" anything. If it were being fed data from a mathematical function > being run on another machine would it become unconscious again? "Man, stop > feeding me that mathematical data, it makes me black out something > shocking!" Data is data. If it's real world data it will tend to manifest > certain complex regularities reflecting the mathematical structure of the > world, but it's all just patterns. > > > It's only data if it's about something. The above argument is like saying > you retina doesn't know what it's seeing, you're optic nerve doesn't know > what the nerve impulses are about, etc., therefore you can't be seeing > anything. My view is that for a computation to instantiate consciousness > it has to be about something; and by that I mean it has to have causal > connection to what it is about and it has to have the potential to act or > make decisions. We don't believe in philosophical zombies because to act > like a conscious person in almost all situations implies consciousness. > > If you're going to stick with this argument you need to be more rigorous > about it and not just lazily rely on your intuition. How specifically does > the computer distinguish computation about something from computation about > ... what? nothing? Why does processing data that is correlated with the > physical world make a computer conscious? How could the machine distinguish > between simulator data and real data? And if simulator data is OK, what > exactly is data that is not OK? Please convince me, but right now I see no > reason to take the idea seriously at all. > > > You're trying to isolate the consciousness from it's context so that it's > "just" data and patterns and 1s and 0s and neuron pulses. I'm saying > consciousness requires a context, in fact I think it requires a physics. > > I know what you're saying. But why don't you specifically answer my questions instead of just reiterating what you already said?
> > >> >> Now when I've put this objection to Bruno in the past in slightly >> different words, claiming that it is hard to see any way to reconcile the >> language of mathematics with the language of qualia, Bruno has invoked >> Gödel to claim that mathematics is more than mere formalism, that it >> embodies a transcendent Truth that is beyond that which can be captured in >> any mathematical formulation. At least, that is the best summary I can make >> of my understanding of his reply. He also claims to have discovered the >> 'placeholder' for qualia within the mathematics of Löbian machines: the gap >> between statements which the machine knows to be true and those which the >> machine knows to be true and can prove to be so. It's a fascinating >> argument, but it seems at the very least incomplete. The fact that a >> machine making self-referentially correct statements will be able to assert >> some (true) things without being able to prove them does not compel me in >> any way to believe that such a machine will have a conscious experience of >> some particular phenomenal quality. It may be true that correct statements >> about qualia are correct statements which can't be proven, but this does >> not mean that statements about qualia are statements about unprovable >> mathematical propositions. I might claim that Chaitin's constant is >> 0.994754987543925216... and it might just happen that I'm right, through >> divine inspiration, but Chaitin's constant is not a quale of mine. Bruno >> can point to this space in his formalism to say "that's where the qualia >> fit", but there is a similar leap of faith involved to actually put them >> there as we make when attributing qualia to emergence from neurology. >> >> Gödel's theorem might show that mathematics is more than mere >> formalism, but it does not allow us to make the leap to mathematics being >> more than abstract relationships between numbers. There will always be some >> true, unprovable statement in any set of axioms, but this statement will >> still be about numbers, not about feelings. If we start to say mathematics >> is more than that, we are making a metaphysical, and indeed mystical claim, >> and I believe we have also expanded mathematics to become something else, >> something that we can no longer truly claim to be maths as that is usually >> understood. >> >> Now of course the "gap" between the maths and the qualia (I don't like >> the obfuscating and often confused language of Craig's posts, but I think >> "Gödel of the gaps" is a pretty good turn of phrase, if indeed he is >> pointing to the same thing as me) is actually imported into comp with the >> initial assumption of qualia supervening on computational states. That >> postulate is of course unexplained, mystifying and, when taken to its >> logical end as Bruno has done, mystical. But when all is said and done, >> we're still left with it as a "brute fact", if anything more naked than it >> was at the beginning of the argument. More naked because it is even less >> clear how we are going to get a natural law to bridge the gap between the >> putative ontological basis of consciousness and consciousness itself when >> that basis is pure mathematics. >> >> >> That doesn't bother me as much. If you look back how we have explained >> gravity, electromagnetism, atoms, thermodynamics,all that hard science that >> is held up as the paradigm of explanation, you see that at bottom is just >> precise, predictive description. John von Neumann said, "The sciences do >> not try to explain, they hardly even try to interpret, they mainly make >> models. By a model is meant a mathematical construct which, with the >> addition of certain verbal interpretations, describes observed phenomena. >> The justification of such a mathematical construct is solely and precisely >> that it is expected to work." That's why I think that the "hard problem >> of consciousness" is hard because people think that when we have a theory >> that works we still won't have an explanation - but we will, just as good >> and bad explanation as we have for gravity and electromagnetism. >> >> Deutsch would heartily disagree with von Neumann. He says that explain > is exactly what the sciences try to do. > > > Yeah, I read his book. But he doesn't say what makes a good explanation > beyond one that works and is consilient with other theories that work. > > But sure, the explanation may at first sound preposterous and there's > always something left unexplained by it (the incompletion). Maybe the > problem is purely the habitual way we've thought of maths as being in the > mind and distinct from nature, > > > Since Plato, most mathematicians, when not philosophizing, think of maths > as existing in the immaterial realm of platonia. As my mathematician > friend Ed Clark once said, "We're platonist Monday thru Saturday. On > Sunday we're formalists." > > Not just your friend Ed. Paul Davies quotes more or less the same line (except it's formalism all weekend!). What I mean though is that we don't usually think mathematics and nature are *synonymous* or that nature is part of maths (as comp suggests) and so we distinguish between logical or methematical laws and natural ones. > so adding what seems to be a kind of natural law to it, the idea that it > also has an interior with qualities, seems, well, unnatural. I find this > whole area in the category of "hard to think about". > >> >> After all, what is mathematics? If it includes all consciousness, is >> inseparable from it, if it encompasses love, pain, the smell of rain, and >> everything else it is possible to experience, then we are really talking >> about the mind as a whole, and the claim of a reduction to arithmetic >> starts to look at the very least misleading. Arithmetic is just the sugar >> coating that gives the rationalist a better chance of swallowing the >> psychedelic pill. >> >> >> Bruno seems to be able to make arithmetic pretty mystical - calling parts >> of it angels and God. :-) >> >> Brent >> "The duty of abstract mathematics, as I see it, is precisely to >> expand our capacity for hypothesizing possible ontologies." >> --- Norm Levitt >> > Brent > -- 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 [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. 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