> On 24 Jul 2019, at 20:31, Telmo Menezes <[email protected]> wrote: > > > > On Wed, Jul 24, 2019, at 17:41, 'Brent Meeker' via Everything List wrote: >> >> >> On 7/23/2019 11:52 PM, Telmo Menezes wrote: >>> >>> On Tue, Jul 23, 2019, at 17:33, 'Brent Meeker' via Everything List wrote: >>>> >>>> On 7/23/2019 4:50 AM, Telmo Menezes wrote: >>>>> Hi Brent, >>>>> >>>>> On Fri, Jul 19, 2019, at 22:04, 'Brent Meeker' via Everything List wrote: >>>>>> On 7/19/2019 4:49 AM, Telmo Menezes wrote: >>>>>>> I share their perplexity. The idea of immaterialism is natural (and >>>>>>> arises thousands of years ago), because the only thing that we cannot >>>>>>> doubt (as Descartes pointed out) -- our consciousness -- is >>>>>>> immaterial. There is not scientific instrument that can detect >>>>>>> consciousness. >>>>>> That's not really true. Of course doctors assess patients as conscious, >>>>>> unconscious, in coma, or brain dead every day. The myth that >>>>>> consciousness is a mystery is part hubris (we are too special to be >>>>>> understood) and part an exaggerated demand for understanding. There's no >>>>>> scientific instrument that can detect the wave function of an electron >>>>>> either. But with the electron we're happy to have an effective theory >>>>>> that tells us when the detector will click or not. Mystery mongering >>>>>> about consciousness makes us demand something more that mere measurement >>>>>> and prediction, something that doesn't exist for any theory. >>>>> I understand your point that we can always make additional demands for >>>>> explanation, and that any scientific theory cannot be expected to do more >>>>> than what successful scientific theories do, which is to correctly >>>>> predict phenomena. >>>>> >>>>> My main point is this, and I think it goes to the core of our >>>>> disagreement: >>>>> No scientific theory predicts consciousness! >>>> What would it mean to predict consciousness. When we predict electrons >>>> what we mean it we predict the observable effects of electrons. >>> Right, so what are the observable effects of consciousness? All I can see >>> in neuroscience are predictions about the observable effects of (wet) >>> computations. Neuroscience is not capable of pointing to a behavior and >>> saying: ah! consciousness! see, this couldn't happen without consciousness. >>> >>> If you rob physicists of electrons, suddenly many of their models will have >>> holes in them, they will no longer be valid. If you rob neuroscientists of >>> consciousness, everything works the same. >> I'm not sure that's true. ISTM that some of the experiments by >> cognitive neuroscientists include conscious thoughts and judgements as >> elements of their theory. > > They try, but they can't measure. > > - Alexa, are you conscious? > - Of course! > > Err…
Most neuroscientists believes in Matter, and, sometimes even explicitly, like the ASSC, do not address the mind-body problem. When they have some understanding of the problem, they eliminate consciousness and person, which is the logical thing to do for people believing in both matter and mechanism: consciousness does not exists. Of course, most people here would disagree with such a blatant deny of the most important data on consciousness: the experience we live everyday. Bruno > >>> >>>> In that >>>> sense I think we will, eventually, predict consciousness. We will >>>> engineer intelligent entities and some of them will have the observable >>>> aspects of consciousness...and we will be able to say why the do and >>>> others don't and how we can design entities that have more or less or >>>> different kinds of consciousness: perception, self-identity, reflection, >>>> etc. >>> I attended a presentation the other day of a psychologist who is >>> investigating the sort of relationships that people develop with voice >>> assistants such as Alexa. She told the story of a woman who admits to being >>> emotionally attached to her Alexa. She says that she is not crazy or >>> deluded. This woman is an engineer and she has a pretty good grasp of what >>> Alexa is, and how it works in general. And yet, the emotional attachment >>> still kicks in. So I guess, according to your idea, we should start >>> searching Alexa for an initial model of consciousness? >> >> Certainly. Two obvious ones are that Alexa is responsive to the >> environment (speech) and is knowledgeable. > > But you don't need Alexa for that. You start by assuming that consciousness > is related to things such as being responsive to the environment, and then > you point at something that is responsible to the environment and you find > signs of consciousness. Don't you really see the problem here? > >>> >>>>> Putting it another way, every single successful scientific theory that we >>>>> know about as these two properties: >>>>> >>>>> - Consciousness is not required for anything "to work"; >>>>> - Consciousness is not predicted to exist in any way. >>>> But when we have a successful theory of intelligence I think we will >>>> find that consciousness is required for it to work for certain kinds of >>>> entities, one's we would think of as "social". >>> On a side note: I believe that an important component that is still missing >>> in AI is the ability to model and forecast the internal states of human >>> beings. The AI could then attempt to predict the effects of its actions in >>> the user's internal state, and learn from mistakes. I think this can lead >>> to the "social" AI you talk about, now it's just a matter of filling in the >>> implementation details :) >> I agree. And notice that these details would at least implicitly >> include modeling inner thoughts of the kind we call conscious. > > Maybe we are not talking about the same thing at all. I do not mean conscious > as in "having a model of yourself or others". I mean conscious in the sense > that "the lights are on". You're not a zombie. Why? > >>> >>> My problem with what you say, as I think you know, is that we cannot detect >>> consciousness, >> >> I pointed out in another post that we do it all the time in cases of >> great import. I think you are demanding some kind of magical direct >> detection which we never have in other sciences. > > I am not demanding it, I think it is impossible to detect consciousness. I > think it is a type of phenomena that is outside the scope of empirical > science, perhaps because all the scientists live inside of it. > >>> so no matter how good the AI we build, we are still confronting with the >>> same problem we have with cats, plants, stars. We have to guess. >> >> Exactly. The same way we guess at all scientific theories...except we >> like to say "hypothesize". And we judge our guesses according to how >> they match and predict observations. > > But in this case nothing can be observed. > >>> Sometime we don't even have a basis to guess. I think the engineering >>> approach to understanding is a dead end when it comes to consciousness -- >>> even though I work in the field of AI and like it very much. >>> >>>>> Now, I know you will argue that yes, neuroscience can predict and observe >>>>> conscious states, but the only thing it can do is find correlates between >>>>> observable behavior and brain activity. Which is great, but has nothing >>>>> to do with the hard problem. >>>> I reject the "hard problem". It's a problem that is intractably hard >>>> because it asks what no scientific theory ever provides. >>> I agree that it asks what no scientific theory so far provides, but I don't >>> agree that is a valid basis for rejecting it. >> >> Then I'm curious as to what you think a solution would look like. What >> form could it possibly take? > > Not all questions have answers. > >>> At most, you can claim to find it personally uninteresting. >>> >>>>> Firstly because consciousness itself cannot be measured or observed. What >>>>> you can do is observe behaviors that you *assume to be correlated with >>>>> consciousness*. I challenge you to find any other theory or filed of >>>>> science where such a speculative leap is accepted and the results after >>>>> such a leap taken seriously. >>>>> >>>>> - Are my cells individually conscious? I don't know. >>>>> - Are stars conscious? Is Google? Who knows. Emergentists might suspect >>>>> they are, because they are systems with highly complex behavior. >>>>> - Are cats conscious? I assume they are, but am I not just noticing their >>>>> similarities to me? What about plants? Why or why not? >>>>> - Etc. >>>> Are electrons waves or particles? Why or why not? >>> "Particle" is the name of a type of model, "wave" is the name of another >>> type of model. Electrons turn out to not be explainable by any of those >>> models, so they are a third thing. No? >> >> They are described by Dirac matrices...so far. But my point is that >> science does not need to detect the thing-in-itself. Science makes >> models which it strives make accurate, prediction, comprehensive, and >> consilient. > > I agree. And my point is that Darwinism necessitates not consciousness, not > does it expect it to arise. > >>> >>> >>> >>> >>>>> In the end, I find John Clark's position on this more palatable: he >>>>> agrees that consciousness cannot be measured, so he doesn't care about >>>>> the problem. He thinks it's a waste of time to think about it. >>>>> Intelligence is the interesting thing. Fair enough. But your position is >>>>> a bit different: you present your own metaphysical belief as >>>>> scientifically justified, and I don't think that is a tenable position. >> >> What metaphysical belief do you refer to? > > The metaphysical belief that consciousness is a property of matter (and not > the other way around, for example). > > Telmo. > >> 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 view this discussion on the web visit >> https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/8d00d411-0327-c8b4-7104-44dfbc2c9a6e%40verizon.net. >> > > -- > 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 view this discussion on the web visit > https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/a0c3b5cb-4027-455f-b135-a0ac4c8a9b6f%40www.fastmail.com. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. 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