RE: Nothing to Explain about 1st Person C!
Stathis writes Lee Corbin writes: I anticipate that in the future it will, as you say so well, be shown that appropriate brain states necessarily lead to conscious states, except I also expect that by then the meaning of conscious states will be vastly better informed and filled-out than today. In particular, the concept will have migrated from a mix of 1st and 3rd person notions, to entirely 3rd person notions. I speculate that after this occurs, people won't consider the old 1st person notion to be of much value (after all, you can't really use it to communicate with anyone about anything). I really can't imagine how you could make consciousness entirely a 3rd person notion, no matter how well it is understood scientifically. Suppose God, noting our sisyphian debate, takes pity on us and reveals that in fact consciousness is just a special kind of recursive computation. He then gives us a dozen lines of C code, explaining that when implemented this computation is the simplest possible conscious process. Good example. OK, from a scientific point of view, we know *everything* about this piece of code. And, let's say further that we have all sorts of descriptions of it, which make enormous intuitive sense; but only as much as an experienced electrical engineer has explanation after explanation, and metaphor after metaphor, with which he understands and can explain electrical phenomena. We also know that it is conscious, which is normally a 1st person thing, because God told us. Yes, but let's say that it also makes sense, i.e., fits in with the way that we know how the brains of mammals work, etc. (I do believe I am only fleshing out your hypothesis---very sorry if I'm damaging it or changing it.) But we *still* don't know what it feels like to *be* the code implemented on a computer. We might be able to guess, perhaps from analogy with our own experience, perhaps by running the code in our head; but once we start doing either of these things, we are replacing the 3rd person perspective with the 1st person. Yes. Doesn't it seem that you want the impossible? That you want to be the code and yet remain someone else? It seems like only by actually *being* that code---having its emotional reactions, its same impressions of everything---can you possibly know what it's like... to be the code. This point was made by someone here before. Namely, that if *you* become a bat in order to learn what it's like to be a bat, then you aren't you anymore. Lee
RE: Nothing to Explain about 1st Person C!
Lee Corbin writes: But we *still* don't know what it feels like to *be* the code implemented on a computer. We might be able to guess, perhaps from analogy with our own experience, perhaps by running the code in our head; but once we start doing either of these things, we are replacing the 3rd person perspective with the 1st person. Yes. Doesn't it seem that you want the impossible? That you want to be the code and yet remain someone else? It seems like only by actually *being* that code---having its emotional reactions, its same impressions of everything---can you possibly know what it's like... to be the code. This point was made by someone here before. Namely, that if *you* become a bat in order to learn what it's like to be a bat, then you aren't you anymore. I agree with everything you have said. You have to be the code to know what it is like to be the code. And consciousness is the only thing in the universe of which this is true. --Stathis _ Free wallpapers on Level 9 http://level9.ninemsn.com.au/default.aspx
Re: Nothing to Explain about 1st Person C!
Le 25-mai-05, à 13:11, Stathis Papaioannou a écrit : Lee Corbin writes: But we *still* don't know what it feels like to *be* the code implemented on a computer. We might be able to guess, perhaps from analogy with our own experience, perhaps by running the code in our head; but once we start doing either of these things, we are replacing the 3rd person perspective with the 1st person. Yes. Doesn't it seem that you want the impossible? That you want to be the code and yet remain someone else? It seems like only by actually *being* that code---having its emotional reactions, its same impressions of everything---can you possibly know what it's like... to be the code. This point was made by someone here before. Namely, that if *you* become a bat in order to learn what it's like to be a bat, then you aren't you anymore. I agree with everything you have said. You have to be the code to know what it is like to be the code. And consciousness is the only thing in the universe of which this is true. --Stathis I do agree too. Mainly. But, to prevent future misunderstandings, I think it is better to say we are the owner of the code. If we forget this it will be hard to figure out later that consciousness can not been exclusively associated to the code but to some equivalence class of the code through the multiverse (or UD* the effective set of all computational histories). We would miss eventually the possibility of interference both with comp and with Everett's QM. Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
Re: Nothing to Explain about 1st Person C!
Le 24-mai-05, à 14:03, Lee Corbin a écrit : Yes, but I don't think that there is any answer to the hard problem. Concretely, I conjecture that of the 10^5000 or so possible strings of 5000 words in the English language, not a single one of them solves this problem. And in French ?;) In particular, the concept will have migrated from a mix of 1st and 3rd person notions, to entirely 3rd person notions. This has been done. (Not yet in english, I mean with all the technical details). I speculate that after this occurs, people won't consider the old 1st person notion to be of much value (after all, you can't really use it to communicate with anyone about anything). I hope you are wrong. But comp, fortunately predicts the contrary, and this in a pure third person way. Remember we *can* talk in a third person way about the first person notions. And comp predicts that for any introspective machine, its first person knowledge grows more quickly than its third person knowledge. Admittedly with some definitions, conjectures, and hypotheses, but that will always be the case in science, as you say often yourself. But so the explanation is testable. Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
RE: Nothing to Explain about 1st Person C!
Lee Corbin writes: [quoting Stathis] I would still say that even if it could somehow be shown that appropriate brain states necessarily lead to conscious states, which I suspect is the case, it would still not be clear how this comes about, and it would still not be clear what this is like unless you experience the brain/conscious state yourself, or something like it. I anticipate that in the future it will, as you say so well, be shown that appropriate brain states necessarily lead to conscious states, except I also expect that by then the meaning of conscious states will be vastly better informed and filled-out than today. In particular, the concept will have migrated from a mix of 1st and 3rd person notions, to entirely 3rd person notions. I speculate that after this occurs, people won't consider the old 1st person notion to be of much value (after all, you can't really use it to communicate with anyone about anything). I really can't imagine how you could make consciousness entirely a 3rd person notion, no matter how well it is understood scientifically. Suppose God, noting our sisyphian debate, takes pity on us and reveals that in fact consciousness is just a special kind of recursive computation. He then gives us a dozen lines of C code, explaining that when implemented this computation is the simplest possible conscious process. OK, from a scientific point of view, we know *everything* about this piece of code. We also know that it is conscious, which is normally a 1st person thing, because God told us. But we *still* don't know what it feels like to *be* the code implemented on a computer. We might be able to guess, perhaps from analogy with our own experience, perhaps by running the code in our head; but once we start doing either of these things, we are replacing the 3rd person perspective with the 1st person. --Stathis Papaiuoannou _ Dont just search. Find. Check out the new MSN Search! http://search.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200636ave/direct/01/
RE: Nothing to Explain about 1st Person C!
Lee Corbin wrote: A friend sends me this link: http://members.aol.com/NeoNoetics/CONSC_INFO_PANPSY.html which will perhaps be of interest to a number of people here. But the familiar first sentence just sends me into orbit: The hard problem of consciousness, according to David Chalmers, is explaining why and how experience is generated by certain particular configurations of physical stuff. Just how the devil do you all you Chalmerites expect that the world could have been any different in this regard than it is??? Do you imagine that it's possible that we could go to another star, and encounter beings who discoursed with us about every single other thing, yet denied that they had consciousness, and professed that they had no idea what we were talking about? Yes or No! I want an answer. Do you think that this *could* happen someday? The list is very active recently and as I have to work, eat etc. I haven't had time to properly digest (let alone reply to) all the excellent posts. The above question is a version of the zombie problem, and there are two slightly different answers depending on whether you are talking about human zombies or zombies from another planet. Human zombies are easy: they're not really zombies. If they behave like humans, they almost certainly have the same subjective experiences as humans. If this were not necessarily true, then the added complication of consciousness would never have evolved. Nature cares only about behaviour, and has no way of knowing about subjective experience. This almost certainly means that consciousness is a necessary side-effect of the type of complexity needed to create human type behaviour. From memory, Chalmers suggests that this is possibly true, but still maintains that it is *logically* possible for human zombies to exist, supporting his thesis that it is not possible to derive consciousness from brain states (the hard problem). Without getting into a discussion of what logically possible means, I would still say that even if it could somehow be shown that appropriate brain states necessarily lead to conscious states, which I suspect is the case, it would still not be clear how this comes about, and it would still not be clear what this is like unless you experience the brain/conscious state yourself, or something like it. You could dismiss this as unimportant, but I think it makes 1st person experience fundamentally different from everything else in the universe. As for aliens, I don't see how we could possibly assume that organisms who did not even evolve on our planet have anything in common with us mentally. They may be more fundamentally alien and different to us than bats or lobsters are, and it may be completely impossible to empathise with them, even if we could somehow tap into their minds. --Stathis Papaioannou _ FREE pop-up blocking with the new MSN Toolbar get it now! http://toolbar.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200415ave/direct/01/
RE: Nothing to Explain about 1st Person C!
Bruno writes Do you imagine that it's possible that we could go to another star, and encounter beings who discoursed with us about every single other thing, yet denied that they had consciousness, and professed that they had no idea what we were talking about? Yes or No! I want an answer. Do you think that this *could* happen someday? No. But that does not solve the problem. Even Feigenbaum's Eliza was able to talk on consciousness. Only to the approximate extent that a tape recorder does. The key difference is that one understands that actual computations are performed in the legitimate cases of consciousness. 1) Do you agree it is wrong to torture a sensible being? (and right to send someone who does that in jail) ? Certainly. 2) Do you agree there is nothing wrong to torture a sculpture or a doll? I do. Now japanese, I have read, makes cleverer dolls who simulate quite well being tortured, or looking as being sensible, but of course they are just zombie, not more clever than Feigenbaum's Eliza. Exactly. But they makes progress. The mind-body problem is: at which stage of the progress should we send a doll's torturer in jail? Should we wait for the doll being able to win a trial in court? Even women in many countries are not yet able to do that, you know. That's a good question. I strongly affirm that WE NEED IN EVERY CASE TO MAKE A DETAILED EXAMINATION OF THE MACHINERY INVOLVED, AND USE OUR BEST INSIGHTS. THERE IS NO OTHER WAY. Lee
Re: Nothing to Explain about 1st Person C!
Dear Lee, Are we not dancing around the Turing Test here? Stephen - Original Message - From: Lee Corbin [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: EverythingList everything-list@eskimo.com Sent: Sunday, May 22, 2005 2:23 PM Subject: RE: Nothing to Explain about 1st Person C! Bruno writes Do you imagine that it's possible that we could go to another star, and encounter beings who discoursed with us about every single other thing, yet denied that they had consciousness, and professed that they had no idea what we were talking about? Yes or No! I want an answer. Do you think that this *could* happen someday? No. But that does not solve the problem. Even Feigenbaum's Eliza was able to talk on consciousness. Only to the approximate extent that a tape recorder does. The key difference is that one understands that actual computations are performed in the legitimate cases of consciousness. 1) Do you agree it is wrong to torture a sensible being? (and right to send someone who does that in jail) ? Certainly. 2) Do you agree there is nothing wrong to torture a sculpture or a doll? I do. Now japanese, I have read, makes cleverer dolls who simulate quite well being tortured, or looking as being sensible, but of course they are just zombie, not more clever than Feigenbaum's Eliza. Exactly. But they makes progress. The mind-body problem is: at which stage of the progress should we send a doll's torturer in jail? Should we wait for the doll being able to win a trial in court? Even women in many countries are not yet able to do that, you know. That's a good question. I strongly affirm that WE NEED IN EVERY CASE TO MAKE A DETAILED EXAMINATION OF THE MACHINERY INVOLVED, AND USE OUR BEST INSIGHTS. THERE IS NO OTHER WAY. Lee
