Telmo Menezes wrote:
On Sat, May 16, 2015 at 2:48 PM, Bruce Kellett
So you think that Darwinian evolution produced intelligent
zombies,
and then computationalism infused consciousness?
No. What I am saying is that consciousness is not a plausible
target for gradual evolution for the following reasons:
1) There is no evolutionary advantage to it, intelligent zombies
could do equally well. Every single behaviour that each one of
us has, as seen for the outside, could be performed by
intelligent zombies;
Do you find it an advantage to be conscious in your everyday life?
From a biological perspective, I don't know. It seems to me that my
genes could survive and be propagated without consciousness. There have
been some week attempts at demonstrating the evolutionary value of
consciousness, but they always seem to equate consciousness with
self-modelling.
Tell me if you think this thing is conscious:
http://thefutureofthings.com/5320-self-modeling-robot/
Not particularly. But consciousness would appear to be consciousness of
self in an environment, so this may be some steps along the way,
although rather simple at the moment.
Do you really think that your partner and/or children are zombies?
No, my personal bet is that intelligent zombies are not possible. I use
intelligent zombies as a thought experiment. I bet that consciousness
necessarily supervenes on the computations that allow for human
intelligence. But this is a personal belief, not a scientific position.
I cannot make a scientific claim because I don't know how to design an
experiment to test this hypothesis.
Yes, one would have a problem known just what computations were involved.
2) There is no known mechanism of conscious generation that can
be climbed. For example, we understand how neurons are
computational units, how connecting neurons creates a computer,
how more neurons and more connections create a more powerful
computer and so on. Evolution can climb this stuff. There is no
equivalent known mechanism for consciousness.
This is the tired old creationist crap saying that the eye is too
complicated to be explained by evolution; the bacterium's flagellum
is too complicated...; the ...... is too complicated .....
You are referring to the argument of irreducible complexity. In that
case, the claim is that there is too much a priori needed complexity for
an eye to function for it to be generated by iterative improvement. This
claim counts as a scientific theory because it can be tested. It has
been falsified by the fossil record, examples of earlier stages of eye
evolution in simpler animals, demonstrations on how a single-cell eye
could work, etc.
That was what I was referring to.
This is not the argument I am making at all. All I am saying is that we
don't know what consciousness is and, even worse, we have no way to
measure or detect it. If consciousness somehow emerges from brain
activity, then it surely originated from evolution, even if has a
spandrel. But to make that claim you have to show a mechanism by which
brain activity generates consciousness. I don't think anyone has been
able to do that, or even propose a falsifiable hypothesis.
I don't think you have to demonstrate the mechanism -- just that the
association exists. And this has surely been done through many
experiments studying brain activity in conscious and unconscious
individuals. Absence of relevant brain activity is a widely used
criterion for brain death and the subsequent turning off of life support
systems. I think one can make too much of a mystery of consciousness.
Sure, one individual's consciousness is not available for study in the
way that his facial features or social behaviours are available. But
that is not an insuperable barrier to scientific study.
Having absolute belief that such a mechanism must exist is the same type
of mistake that the creationists make.
Mo. Creationists make the opposite assumption -- they claim that no such
mechanism is possible. This is not so far from hinting that the
mechanism doesn't exist when we don't know what it is.
At bottom, it is just an argument from ignorance. You do not happen
to know a mechanism whereby consciousness could develop from simpler
forms. But that does not in any way mean that such is not possible.
I never claimed it wasn't possible. I simply claimed it is not known.
I read what you said differently.
Creationist anti-intellectualism yet again....
Can't you argue without insulting me?
You seemed to be going down that path...
I don't know if intelligent zombies are possible. Maybe
consciousness necessarily supervenes on the stuff necessary for
that level of intelligence. But who knows where consciousness
stops supervening? Maybe stuff that is not biologically evolved
is already conscious. Maybe stars are conscious. Who knows? How
could we know?
What we can know, by scientific investigation, is that all known
life forms evolved from simpler forms by processes generally
described under the heading of Darwinian evolution. Consciousness is
a feature of many living creatures. If you want to argue that
consciousness is something outside the normal evolutionary process,
then you have embraced an irreducibly dualist position.
That is a fallacy. Consider:
All life forms where created by evolutionary processes
All life forms have mass
Mass was created by evolutionary processes
No, you example is not equivalent to my argument. Mass is a property of
most physical objects: consciousness is not. At least, it is a
reasonable working hypothesis that rocks are not conscious, given
reasonable definitions of consciousness. Connect a rock to an EEG and it
would be pronounced brain dead. As I said, consciousness is a feature of
living creatures, and living creatures, together with all their
features, are products of Darwinian evolution. There is no fallacy here.
The argument is:
All biological features of living things are the product of evolutionary
processes.
Consciousness is a biological feature of some living creatures.
Therefore, consciousness is the product of evolutionary processes.
I can see that computationalism might well have difficulties
accommodating a gradual evolutionary understanding of almost
anything -- after all, the dovetailer is there in Platonia before
anything physical ever appears. So how can consciousness evolve
gradually?
This, it seems to me, is just another strike against comp -- it does
not fit with the scientific data.
It is not hard to imagine evolutionary processes within computations. In
fact, that's what I did for a living for some years.
What is hard is to explain consciousness, comp or no comp. Pretending to
have answers is not a valid argument.
Biological evolution is not a pretended argument. It is a mechanism that
could reasonably be expected to give rise to consciousness in quite
natural ways.
Bruce
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