But recently there's been a Russell3. No, I don't disagree with what you said. But what do you say to the ethical issue?
Religious fundamentalists argue that if it weren't for a belief in God and his commandments we would all behave in what we would all agree is unacceptable ways. Therefore we must preserve God and his commandments; and more fundamentally that morality derives from God. My position is that morality derives from subjective experience. "Don't do to others what you would not have them do to you" is based primarily on a desire not to suffer (subjectively) and not on a rule that we follow that favors survival. It's a weaker stand than that of the religious fundamentalists because I have to rely in each person individually and take the position that if we were all sufficiently self-aware, we would all be moral beings--or really that the behavior we would engage in from this state of complete self-awareness would be the sort of thing that we would all consider moral. So my ethical theory is that morality derives from an awareness of subjective experience. What sort of ethical theory can you construct without the notion of subjective experience? (Or don't you think it's worthwhile to construct an ethical theory?) I realize that there are Kantian and Utilitarian ethical theories. But they don't really seem to work. They are too mechanical. But what alternative to you have if you give up self-awareness of subjective experience? Simply being aware that a certain action will cause you harm (for example) doesn't lead to the imperative not to perform that action on another. After all, what's so bad about harm? As the saying goes, *is *doesn't imply * ought*. The *ought *it seems to me comes either from external commands (which I don't think is a good way to proceed) or from subjective experience. Compassion, empathy, etc., (and not just noticing parallels between things) all derive from subjective experience, typically of suffering. And suffering is more than just noticing a mal-function. -- Russ -- Russ Abbott _____________________________________________ Professor, Computer Science California State University, Los Angeles Cell phone: 310-621-3805 o Check out my blog at http://bluecatblog.wordpress.com/ On Fri, Jun 19, 2009 at 11:37 AM, Nicholas Thompson < [email protected]> wrote: > Dear Russell 1 > > Russell 2 has always been with us. In fact, he is in Australia, where you > are about to go! > > The People are going to be Really Angry with us: I can't find anything to > disagree with about what you said. So I, too, have been worrying about the > homunculus.... or the mindunculus. > > If we have been agreeing all along, they will KILL us. We better find > something to disagree about quick. > > Surely you disagree with this: *I see the world; part of what falls > within my field of view is my own body and its actions. From what I see, I > construct (in childhood, with the help of my hypocritical parents) the > distinction between an inner and an outer world, a world in which I can "be" > good, while "doing" ill. This subdivision is enormously convenient to my > body's survival in a society, so it endures, and may even have evolved. . > * > ** > *Nick * > > Nicholas S. Thompson > Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, > Clark University ([email protected]) > http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/<http://home.earthlink.net/%7Enickthompson/naturaldesigns/> > > > > > > ----- Original Message ----- > *From:* Russ Abbott <[email protected]> > *To: *The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group<[email protected]> > *Sent:* 6/19/2009 12:08:48 PM > *Subject:* [FRIAM] Fwd: (Subjective) experience > > I'll admit that I'm now getting lost in all the words. (It's also > distressing that yet another Russell has shown up.) > > Here's a bit of an exchange Nick and I had privately. He suggested (and I > fully agree) that we should continue it on the list. Nick asked me to > respond to his earlier comment about Unicorns. So I said, > > Regarding unicorns, you raise an interesting issue. You said, *I > understand what you mean when you talk of unicorns; that doesn't make me > a sneaky believer in unicorns, does it?* > > I'm not so sure that works with first person statements (subjective > experience, qualia). How could anyone know what qualia are without > experiencing them? It's like saying I know what you mean by the taste of > chocolate even though I've never tasted it and don't even believe that there > is taste such as what you call chocolate. In that case, how could you > possibly claim to understand what I mean by the taste of chocolate. > > You've probably heard the famous thought experiment of Mary the color-blind > scientist.She knew all there is to know about color; she could predict what > anyone would say about color by examining the patterns of photons that > entered their eyes (and perhaps the firings in their brains as those photon > hits were processed). But she herself saw the world in black and white. > Then miraculously, she gained color vision. She has (let's assume) no new > knowledge as a result of her new color vision -- since she knew all there > was to know about color and color vision already. All she has are new > experiences of color -- subjective experiences of color. Has anything > changed for her? My answer is "yes." Is yours "no"? > > Nick responded. > > She doesn't have a new experience Of COLOR. She sees a colored world. The > world is now from her point of view a colored world. My mary is seeing the > colored world directly; your mary is seeing a color experience. It's the > intrusion of the cartesian theatre that I find distressing. At least. CF > Wittgenstein. > > My response. > > I'm not promoting a Cartesian Theater perspective since I take a Cartesian > Theater to imply a homunculus, i.e., an internal being (construct) that is > standing back from the "performance/exhibit" ongoing in the Cartesian > Theater and observing it. That clearly leads to an infinite regress: How > does the homunculus itself work? Does it have it's own Cartesian Theater? > Etc. > > I would also say that it's MY Mary that is seeing the world directly, that > she has an immediate subjective experience of the world, which is what I > mean by subjective experience. If there were a homunculus, it would be > seeing a color presentation being presented in the Cartesian Theater. > > Perhaps this has just been a big misunderstanding. When my Mary sees a > colored world, I feel perfectly comfortable saying that she is having an > experience of color and that (tautologically) she didn't have that > experience prior to being able to experience color. You seem to want to > reject putting it in those terms. I don't understand your objection to that > way of speaking. > > Also, to get back to my question about Mary. I say that something has > changed *for her* (and I would refer to what has changed as (part of) her > subjective experience). I gather that you agree that something has changed. > How would you characterize the change that's occurred. And recall, we are > stipulating that there is no behavioral difference between Mary before and > after she gained the ability to see a colored world. > > I'm now answering my own question and thinking that you will ask whether > there is a neuronal difference. I'll agree that there is and that her way of > processing color has changed. If we took brain scans her brain would be > functioning differently. So from that perspective you could argue (and I > would agree) that there is an externally observable difference. This brings > us to the notion of supervenience. We both agree that there are neuronal > differences. I claim that subjective experience supervenes over neuronal > phenomena. You say that neuronal phenomena are all there are(?). If that's > your position (and perhaps it isn't since I seem to be putting words in your > mouth by trying to answer the question from what I take to be your > position), it's very much a reductionist perspective. You are denying the > reality of higher level constructs because you can reduce them to lower > level phenomena. I say (and that's what my "Reductionist blind spot" was > about) that the ability to reduce things to lower level phenomena doesn't > eliminate the reality of the higher level phenomena. In a word processor, > words as entities are real even though there is nothing in the computer > except bits. > > But I want to bring this back to ethics. We would agree that pain has > neurologically observable features. But it seems to me that such > observations cannot lead to ethical imperatives unless one associates them > with the (subjective) experience of pain. But I've probably put too much > into this post already. > > -- 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 >
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