On 6/9/2020 6:41 PM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
On Wed, 10 Jun 2020 at 10:41, 'Brent Meeker' via Everything List <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:On 6/9/2020 4:45 PM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:On Wed, 10 Jun 2020 at 09:15, Jason Resch <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: On Tue, Jun 9, 2020 at 6:03 PM Stathis Papaioannou <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: On Wed, 10 Jun 2020 at 03:08, Jason Resch <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: For the present discussion/question, I want to ignore the testable implications of computationalism on physical law, and instead focus on the following idea: "How can we know if a robot is conscious?" Let's say there are two brains, one biological and one an exact computational emulation, meaning exact functional equivalence. Then let's say we can exactly control sensory input and perfectly monitor motor control outputs between the two brains. Given that computationalism implies functional equivalence, then identical inputs yield identical internal behavior (nerve activations, etc.) and outputs, in terms of muscle movement, facial expressions, and speech. If we stimulate nerves in the person's back to cause pain, and ask them both to describe the pain, both will speak identical sentences. Both will say it hurts when asked, and if asked to write a paragraph describing the pain, will provide identical accounts. Does the definition of functional equivalence mean that any scientific objective third-person analysis or test is doomed to fail to find any distinction in behaviors, and thus necessarily fails in its ability to disprove consciousness in the functionally equivalent robot mind? Is computationalism as far as science can go on a theory of mind before it reaches this testing roadblock? We can’t know if a particular entity is conscious, but we can know that if it is conscious, then a functional equivalent, as you describe, is also conscious. This is the subject of David Chalmers’ paper: http://consc.net/papers/qualia.html Chalmers' argument is that if a different brain is not conscious, then somewhere along the way we get either suddenly disappearing or fading qualia, which I agree are philosophically distasteful. But what if someone is fine with philosophical zombies and suddenly disappearing qualia? Is there any impossibility proof for such things? Philosophical zombies are less problematic than partial philosophical zombies. Partial philosophical zombies would render the idea of qualia absurd, because it would mean that we might be blind completely blind, for example, without realising it.Isn't this what blindsight exemplifies?Blindsight entails behaving as if you have vision but not believing that you have vision.
And you don't believe you have vision because you're missing the qualia of seeing.
Anton syndrome entails believing you have vision but not behaving as if you have vision. Being a partial zombie would entail believing you have vision and behaving as if you have vision, but not actually having vision.
That would be a total zombie with respect to vision. The person with blindsight is a partial zombie. They have the function but not the qualia.
As an absolute minimum, although we may not be able to test for or define qualia, we should know if we have them. Take this requirement away, and there is nothing left. Suddenly disappearing qualia are logically possible but it is difficult to imagine how it could work. We would be normally conscious while our neurons were being replaced, but when one special glutamate receptor in a special neuron in the left parietal lobe was replaced, or when exactly 35.54876% replacement of all neurons was reached, the internal lights would suddenly go out.I think this all-or-nothing is misconceived. It's not internal cognition that might vanish suddenly, it's some specific aspect of experience: There are people who, thru brain injury, lose the ability to recognize faces...recognition is a qualia. Of course people's frequency range of hearing fades (don't ask me how I know). My mother, when she was 95 lost color vision in one eye, but not the other. Some people, it seems cannot do higher mathematics. So how would you know if you lost the qualia of empathy for example? Could it not just fade...i.e. become evoked less and less?I don't believe suddenly disappearing qualia can happen, but either this - leading to full zombiehood - or fading qualia - leading to partial zombiehood - would be a consequence of replacement of the brain if behaviour could be replicated without replicating qualia.
No. You're assuming the replacements either instaniate the qualia or they do nothing. The third possibility is that they instantiate some different qualia, or conditional qualia.
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