On Thu, Apr 29, 2021 at 10:38 AM John Clark <[email protected]> wrote:
> On Thu, Apr 29, 2021 at 9:48 AM Terren Suydam <[email protected]> > wrote: > > >> *>I think it's possible there was consciousness before there was >> intelligence,* >> > > I very much doubt it, but of course nobody will ever be able to prove or > disprove it so the proposition fits in very nicely with all existing > consciousness literature. > The point was that it's not necessarily true that consciousness is the inevitable byproduct of intelligence. > > >> *> you're implicitly working with a theory of consciousness. Then, you're >> demanding that I use your theory of consciousness when you insist that I >> answer questions about consciousness through the framing of evolution.* >> > > I proposed a question, "How is it possible that evolution managed to > produce consciousness?" and I gave the only answer to that question I could > think of. And 3 times I've asked you if you can think of another answer. > And three times I received nothing back but evasion. I now asked the same > question for a fourth time, given that evolution can't select for what it > can't see and natural selection can see intelligent behavior but it can't > see consciousness, can you give me an explanation different from my own on > how evolution managed to produce a conscious being such as yourself? > No, I can't. If you're saying evolution didn't select for consciousness, it selected for intelligence, I agree with that. But so what? > > >> *> >> do you agree that testimony of experience constitutes facts about >>>> consciousness?* >>>> >>> >>> >> Only if I first assume that intelligence implies consciousness, >>> otherwise I'd have no way of knowing if the being giving the testimony >>> about consciousness was itself conscious. And only if I am convinced >>> that the being giving the testimony was as honest as he can be. And >>> only if I feel confident we agree about the meeting of certain words, like >>> "green" and "red" and "hot" and "cold" and you guessed it "consciousness". >>> >> >> > OK, fine, let's say intelligence implies consciousness, >> > > If you grant me that then what are we arguing about? > Over whether there are facts about consciousness, without having to link it to intelligence. > > *>the account given was honest (as in, nobody witnessing the account would >> have a credible reason to doubt it),* >> > > The most successful lies are those in which the reason for the lying is > not immediately obvious. > There's uncertainty with the behavior of single subatomic particles, but when we observe the aggregate behavior of large numbers of them, we call those statistical observations *facts*, and those observations are repeatable. There's a value of N for which studying N humans in a consciousness experiment puts the probability that they're all lying below a certain threshold. > > >> * > and we can agree on all those terms.* >> > > Do we really agree on all those terms? How can we know words that refer > to qualia mean the same thing to both of us? There is no objective test for > it, if there was then qualia wouldn't be subjective, it would be > objective. > We don't need infinite precision to uncover useful facts. If someone says "that hurts", or "that looks red", we know what they mean. We take it as an assumption, and we make it explicit, that when someone says "I see red" they are having the same kind of, or similar enough, experience as someone else who says "I see red". There's no question that the type of evidence you get from first-person reports is vulnerable to deception, biases, and uncertainty around referents. But we live with this in every day life. It's not unreasonable to systematize first-person reports and include that data as evidence for theorizing, as long as those vulnerabilities are acknowledged. Like I've said from the beginning, it may be the case that we'll never arrive at a theory of consciousness that emerges as a clear winner. But I disagree with you that it's not worth trying to find one, or that it's impossible to make progress. Terren > John K Clark See what's on my new list at Extropolis > <https://groups.google.com/g/extropolis>. > . > >> >>> . >> > -- > 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/CAJPayv0M63Y_GL_rDjOL41uu7pgjvnwfiu2rM0LNWoL-y0Ahfw%40mail.gmail.com > <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/CAJPayv0M63Y_GL_rDjOL41uu7pgjvnwfiu2rM0LNWoL-y0Ahfw%40mail.gmail.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer> > . > -- 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]. 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