Nick and I are on opposite sides of the consciousness debate. I think there is an inner mind and that I experience it. Nick rejects statements not made from the third person perspective. Perhaps the debate suffers from a feeling that if we take Nick's third person view, we are not allowed to use metaphorical statements that suggest an inner mind. But clearly we can say "The computer had an illusion" or a "breakdown" etc. to describe behavior. (e.g. The behavior was as we imagined it would be if the computer had a inner mind which suffered a breakdown.) Moreover, not only can these metaphorical statements about behavior be defined rigorously, but we can formulate and test rules about how they are related. We don't have to believe in inner minds to say that a person accused of dishonesty behaves as if deeply hurt. That is why we should not casually make such accusations nor assume they will be without negative consequences even if there is no inner mind.
________________________________________ From: [email protected] [[email protected]] On Behalf Of Russ Abbott [[email protected]] Sent: Thursday, June 18, 2009 11:07 PM To: [email protected] Cc: [email protected]; [email protected] Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Nick and dishonest behavior Nick wrote: To call a man "dishonest" (my word, I admit, but you have embraced it) is very harsh in my world, and seems (to me) to require a level of certainty about another person's motives that I just don't know how you could come by from your limited experience with me. ... You are insisting on the correctness of your view of my mind based on inferences from my behavior. Yes, I'm doing exactly that, judging you on the basis of your behavior -- in this conversation. (The past 40 years aren't relevant to that.) Your position in this discussion seems to be that your behavior is all there is. So why are you objecting that I'm doing it? Furthermore, your objection seems to be that I don't know what your "motives" are. I'm not sure what you mean by motives in this case. I'm not assuming any particular motive. In fact I'm confused about what your motives might be and why you are acting so dishonestly. Yet you are acting dishonestly. To review: a good example of your dishonest behavior was your answer to my question about nausea. Your provided a very nice first person description of what it means to feel nauseous. If you say that you are "feeling nauseous" i will understand that your world seems like it is churning around but that your visual cues do not confirm (i.e., you are dizzy) and that your stomach feels the way it does when on previous occasions you have thrown up. Note your use of the first person words seems and feels. But then you refused to answer whether that description would ever apply to a robot. Instead you offered a 3rd person description of what it looks like to feel nauseous and said that of course a robot could fit that description. I call that dishonest. You know what a first person description means because you used it yourself. But then you refused to answer the question whether such a first person description could apply to a robot. Furthermore, you refused to acknowledge that this is what you were doing. I see that as dishonest. But I don't know what your motives for acting this way might be. Besides, why are you so concerned about my characterizing your behavior as dishonest? Why is that a very harsh term? It's simply a description of your behavior. Are you upset because you are taking my use of the term dishonest to apply more broadly than to your behavior? In the second passage of yours quoted above, you talked about my view of your mind. Are you unhappy that I seem to be implying that your mind is dishonest? I thought your position was that there is no mind for me to have a view of. I thought your position was that behavior was all that mattered. It should not matter to you what "my view of your mind" is if it doesn't mean anything to talk about minds. -- Russ ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
