RE: The Totally Blind Zombie Homunculus Room
Tom Caylor writes: > Mark Peaty wrote: > > Nice try Colin! :-) > > and very thought provoking, as are all the contributions of yours which > > I have read on various discussion groups. > > > > Here though I think your assumptions are driving your conclusions and > > you beg some of the questions you seem to be assuming that you are > > answering. > > I don't see this as either a sin or a crime, so long as it is > > acknowledged. This is because I assert that we MUST assert what we > > believe about the world, because if we didn't we couldn't function at > > all or, alternatively, neither self nor other could honestly infer that > > we did believe anything about the world; it would just be a form of > > dreaming. > > > > Amen! In the true spirit of the Everything list, I believe. I am not > content with dreaming all week. One way or another we must face our > given unprovable beliefs (as Bruno defines faith), and then our eyes > are opened to the further truth. and then, even Godel believed in > an ultimate truth. But that may be too difficult for some to swallow, > that all truth is ultimately based on ultimate truth, not just logic. > But the first part of the journey is often taken just concentrating on > the road. A problem arises when "reality" and the "dream" may be one and the same. If I wonder whether something is real, I am wondering whether it is as real as this table in front of me. The table is the gold standard. Now, if it turns out that both the table and gold are actually made of fluff, that will be very interesting but it won't change my definition of or attitude towards the only reality I have ever known. Stathis Papaioannou _ Be one of the first to try Windows Live Mail. http://ideas.live.com/programpage.aspx?versionId=5d21c51a-b161-4314-9b0e-4911fb2b2e6d --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: The Totally Blind Zombie Homunculus Room
Mark Peaty wrote: > Nice try Colin! :-) > and very thought provoking, as are all the contributions of yours which > I have read on various discussion groups. > > Here though I think your assumptions are driving your conclusions and > you beg some of the questions you seem to be assuming that you are > answering. > I don't see this as either a sin or a crime, so long as it is > acknowledged. This is because I assert that we MUST assert what we > believe about the world, because if we didn't we couldn't function at > all or, alternatively, neither self nor other could honestly infer that > we did believe anything about the world; it would just be a form of > dreaming. > Amen! In the true spirit of the Everything list, I believe. I am not content with dreaming all week. One way or another we must face our given unprovable beliefs (as Bruno defines faith), and then our eyes are opened to the further truth. and then, even Godel believed in an ultimate truth. But that may be too difficult for some to swallow, that all truth is ultimately based on ultimate truth, not just logic. But the first part of the journey is often taken just concentrating on the road. Tom --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: The Totally Blind Zombie Homunculus Room
Nice try Colin! :-) and very thought provoking, as are all the contributions of yours which I have read on various discussion groups. Here though I think your assumptions are driving your conclusions and you beg some of the questions you seem to be assuming that you are answering. I don't see this as either a sin or a crime, so long as it is acknowledged. This is because I assert that we MUST assert what we believe about the world, because if we didn't we couldn't function at all or, alternatively, neither self nor other could honestly infer that we did believe anything about the world; it would just be a form of dreaming. From what you write it is not at all clear what 'Marvin' really is although I suspect he comes from the same cell line as Professor Mary of 'black and white' fame. [Although perhaps that should be 'cell block' ... yes? :-] By calling Marvin 'human' you muddy the waters I think: the ghost slips into the 'machine' unnoticed. I see several issues: * Marvin develops 'models' as algorithmic summaries of all the patterns of changes in the displays and presumably these include optimal patterns for button pushing also because his 'human sensory emulation' room also includes emulations of damage warning devices [pain] and homoeostatic normalisation warnings [hunger, thirst, bladder-full, etc.] and these models have handy summary labels [afferent] and short cut keys [efferent] - o because effectiveness and economy of effort are intrinsically rewarding and are prerequisites for the achievement of Marvin's scientific aims; * Marvin's models of the 'not-room' come to embody a pronounced distinction between patterns of correlations best labelled as 'flexible unity which is extension of the buttons' versus 'bundled large scale unity of many surprising things which is yet diverse and distant' - o because, if the information of the input displays and the effect of the buttons both truly emulate information entering and leaving the human brain case, there are correlations between sight and sound of self-body, touch sense of skin and tongue on the one hand and proprioceptive sensing on the other which endow self-body information with distinct and persistent identity which is profoundly contrasted with non-self-body world information; * AND you are being unfair to '1Z', as a result of you begging the question of the nature of phenomenal C rather than him being thoughtless. What you show in this tale of Marvin's room is that OUR phenomenal experience is the outcome of consistency and persistence; 'habit' in other words. This is shown in Marvin's case because, once 'the model has stabilised', the invariance embodied by and within it has the same dependability as the inner shape, colours and textures of 'the room'. If Marvin is truly like the rest of us, apart from the rigours of his particular fate, then his interactions with 'the model' will become to him like extensions of his mind and body. He will become an homunculus, forgotten within his greater self! I like this story because it brings out the interdependence of sameness and habit on the one hand and novelty and exploration on the other. As I have asserted many times before, the most succinct explanation of phenomenal experience is that it is what it is like to be the updating of the model of self in the world [UMSITW]. IOW the incorporation of novelty into our sets of tested beliefs. This is how I relate to your assertion that the ability to do science is the true indicator of consciousness. Regards Mark Peaty CDES [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.arach.net.au/~mpeaty/ Colin Geoffrey Hales wrote: > This discussion is a hybrid of a number of very famous thought > experiments. Unlike those thought experiments, however, this experiment is > aimed purely and only at scientists. The intent is to demonstrate clearly > and definitively the nature of subjective experience (phenomenal > consciousness) and its primal role in a scientist's ability to function as > a scientist. > > Imagine a room. Its walls and celing and floor are matt black. There are > no doors or windows. All over the walls are digital displays which > announce numbers in warm, friendly colours. Up against all four walls and > up to international standard control desk height (roughly 750mm) is a > sloping console. Covering the console around all four walls are > pushbuttons. The number of displays is equal to the number of sensory > nerves entering a typical human brain from the peripheral nervous systems > including all sensory input. The number of pushbuttons is equal to the > entire set of effector nerves emanating from a typical brain. This total > number of displays and pushbuttons is in the millions. > > There is a comfortable chair upo
RE: The Totally Blind Zombie Homunculus Room
Colin, I think I am missing the main point: is the room + Marvin meant to be a zombie or not? Stathis > Date: Mon, 27 Nov 2006 17:20:19 +1100 > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Subject: The Totally Blind Zombie Homunculus Room > To: everything-list@googlegroups.com > > > This discussion is a hybrid of a number of very famous thought > experiments. Unlike those thought experiments, however, this experiment is > aimed purely and only at scientists. The intent is to demonstrate clearly > and definitively the nature of subjective experience (phenomenal > consciousness) and its primal role in a scientist's ability to function as > a scientist. > > Imagine a room. Its walls and celing and floor are matt black. There are > no doors or windows. All over the walls are digital displays which > announce numbers in warm, friendly colours. Up against all four walls and > up to international standard control desk height (roughly 750mm) is a > sloping console. Covering the console around all four walls are > pushbuttons. The number of displays is equal to the number of sensory > nerves entering a typical human brain from the peripheral nervous systems > including all sensory input. The number of pushbuttons is equal to the > entire set of effector nerves emanating from a typical brain. This total > number of displays and pushbuttons is in the millions. > > There is a comfortable chair upon which is seated the room's sole > occupant, Marvin the human. Marvin is normal except for never having been > outside the room and having never otherwise acquired any knowledge of > anything other than that of the room and its contents. He knows absolutely > nothing of any sort of external world or any other people. He has no clue > about the external world except for what he can surmise from the displays > and buttons. > > Marvin, like all healthy humans, has an experiential life which is the > collection of private phenomenal scenes delivered by his brain material. > These are operating normally except that Marvin has been deprived of all > the phenomenal content (experiences) that he ever could have received had > he been allowed outside the room. He has had a lifetime of experiences, > but all of them have been confined to depicting the room. > > Marvin is a scientist. He studies the science of not-room. His life > consists of experiments which involve the pressing of buttons and the > recording of patterns in the displays. Over time an enormous volume of > data begins to show patterns for which Marvin constructs models. The > models are generalisations of the behaviour of the displays after buttons > are pushed in a certain way. He tests and refines the models and has > developed a form of symbolic representation of the behaviour of the > displays. Certain features on the display occur regularly enough that > names have been given to notional not-room phenomena. One is called the > tronelec. The mathematics of not-room includes a lot of rules about the > behaviour of tronelecs. In time Marvin realises that his exploration of > not-room can be done according to routine rules and he sets about a > systematic, exhaustive assay of the entire range of possible > button/display relationships. > > Everything is going nicely but then one day a well known pattern does not > occur the way it used to. After a while the old pattern resumes. The whole > mathematics of not-room is undermined. It takes a long time for Marvin to > construct a new model that accounts for the novel behaviour. A new entity > called gytravi is needed. Then things settle down and routine systematic > exploration resumes. > > In time a massive collection of not-room entities and behavioural rules is > constructed and begins to repeat itself. So much so that Marvin, after > checking and rechecking, finds that the model seems to have stabilised. > > At this point we stop to survey the situation. > > The first thing to note is that the room is an empirically verified > physiologically accurate representation of the sensory circumstances of a > human brain. Nervous activity effect/affect is replicated by > buttons/displays and all signals are standardised. There are no > experiential qualities (perceptual sensation qualities) associated with > this nervous activity. This is a physiologically verified, well > established empirical fact. Indeed the room is a little too kind - If you > discarded all the buttons and displays, then that is a more > physiologically accurate circumstance . > > The main point is that this collection of totally sensationless signals is > exactly what is available to a human brain and through which all sense > measurement arrives. Consider the room without a Marvin in it. Based on > what evidence is there any reason to even conceptualise the existence of > an external world? Nothing in that room gives any indication of it. There > is no a-priori knowledge of not-room. No possible way to interpret
Re: The Totally Blind Zombie Homunculus Room
> > Le Mardi 28 Novembre 2006 21:47, Colin Geoffrey Hales a écrit : >> All your comments are shooting from hip without actually reading and >> thinking. They are all of the class "> isn;t like that" when the point is that the circumstances are needed to >> demonstrate the outcome. In no case have you shown any way that the >> alternates claimed limited by teh thought experiment can be redrressed >> in >> the circumstances. >> >> Stop wasting my time. > > Please stay calm and polite... I don't also think that you read what > others > tell you. This list is not meant to do dog fighting. > > Quentin Anciaux > This dog is quite calm. And as impossible as it seems... what you see is me being polite!...very subjective, I know. It's australian for "robust discussion". Yes, I have been skimming...a survival measure in an overload situationI'll try to do better on that... Colin --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: The Totally Blind Zombie Homunculus Room
Le Mardi 28 Novembre 2006 21:47, Colin Geoffrey Hales a écrit : > All your comments are shooting from hip without actually reading and > thinking. They are all of the class " isn;t like that" when the point is that the circumstances are needed to > demonstrate the outcome. In no case have you shown any way that the > alternates claimed limited by teh thought experiment can be redrressed in > the circumstances. > > Stop wasting my time. Please stay calm and polite... I don't also think that you read what others tell you. This list is not meant to do dog fighting. Quentin Anciaux --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: The Totally Blind Zombie Homunculus Room
see the end > > Colin Geoffrey Hales wrote: >> This discussion is a hybrid of a number of very famous thought >> experiments. Unlike those thought experiments, however, this experiment >> is >> aimed purely and only at scientists. The intent is to demonstrate >> clearly >> and definitively the nature of subjective experience (phenomenal >> consciousness) and its primal role in a scientist's ability to function >> as >> a scientist. > > >> Imagine a room. Its walls and celing and floor are matt black. There are >> no doors or windows. All over the walls are digital displays which >> announce numbers in warm, friendly colours. Up against all four walls >> and >> up to international standard control desk height (roughly 750mm) is a >> sloping console. Covering the console around all four walls are >> pushbuttons. The number of displays is equal to the number of sensory >> nerves entering a typical human brain from the peripheral nervous >> systems >> including all sensory input. The number of pushbuttons is equal to the >> entire set of effector nerves emanating from a typical brain. This total >> number of displays and pushbuttons is in the millions. > > >> There is a comfortable chair upon which is seated the room's sole >> occupant, Marvin the human. Marvin is normal except for never having >> been >> outside the room and having never otherwise acquired any knowledge of >> anything other than that of the room and its contents. He knows >> absolutely >> nothing of any sort of external world or any other people. He has no >> clue >> about the external world except for what he can surmise from the >> displays >> and buttons. > > >> Marvin, like all healthy humans, has an experiential life which is the >> collection of private phenomenal scenes delivered by his brain material. >> These are operating normally except that Marvin has been deprived of all >> the phenomenal content (experiences) that he ever could have received >> had >> he been allowed outside the room. He has had a lifetime of experiences, >> but all of them have been confined to depicting the room. > > > >> Marvin is a scientist. He studies the science of not-room. His life >> consists of experiments which involve the pressing of buttons and the >> recording of patterns in the displays. Over time an enormous volume of >> data begins to show patterns for which Marvin constructs models. The >> models are generalisations of the behaviour of the displays after >> buttons >> are pushed in a certain way. He tests and refines the models and has >> developed a form of symbolic representation of the behaviour of the >> displays. Certain features on the display occur regularly enough that >> names have been given to notional not-room phenomena. One is called the >> tronelec. The mathematics of not-room includes a lot of rules about the >> behaviour of tronelecs. In time Marvin realises that his exploration of >> not-room can be done according to routine rules and he sets about a >> systematic, exhaustive assay of the entire range of possible >> button/display relationships. > > >> Everything is going nicely but then one day a well known pattern does >> not >> occur the way it used to. After a while the old pattern resumes. The >> whole >> mathematics of not-room is undermined. It takes a long time for Marvin >> to >> construct a new model that accounts for the novel behaviour. A new >> entity >> called gytravi is needed. Then things settle down and routine systematic >> exploration resumes. > >> In time a massive collection of not-room entities and behavioural rules >> is >> constructed and begins to repeat itself. So much so that Marvin, after >> checking and rechecking, finds that the model seems to have stabilised. > >> At this point we stop to survey the situation. > >> The first thing to note is that the room is an empirically verified >> physiologically accurate representation of the sensory circumstances of >> a >> human brain. Nervous activity effect/affect is replicated by >> buttons/displays and all signals are standardised. There are no >> experiential qualities (perceptual sensation qualities) associated with >> this nervous activity. This is a physiologically verified, well >> established empirical fact. Indeed the room is a little too kind - If >> you >> discarded all the buttons and displays, then that is a more >> physiologically accurate circumstance . > > > >> The main point is that this collection of totally sensationless signals >> is >> exactly what is available to a human brain and through which all sense >> measurement arrives. Consider the room without a Marvin in it. Based on >> what evidence is there any reason to even conceptualise the existence of >> an external world? > > There is nothing in the room to conceptualise an > external world because Marvin does all the conceptualising. > Is this supposed to show that an you need phenomenality is > needed to conceptualise an external world? It doesn't. > We could imagine the co
Re: The Totally Blind Zombie Homunculus Room
Patterns Within Experience: the Phenomenological Approach to Science * Phenomenology * The Phenomenlogical Approach to Science * Science and physics. * "Phenomenological" physics. * Operationalism and phenomenology. * Hume's problem. * Patterns and prediction. * Universality and particularity. Phenomenology Roughly speaking, phenomenology is a philosophical approach which studies common features of human consciousness while remaining non-committal about what is "outside" consciousness. It is very broadly related to metaphysical idealism and scepticism. It differs from the stronger versions of scepticism by not going so far as to deny a world outside consciousness. It differs from the stronger versions of idealism in its insistence on studying common features of multiple consciousnesses, thus avoiding, if by fiat, consciousness. The Phenomenlogy Approach to Science The Phenomenological Approach to Science consists of a number of claims which are not always distinguished by the proponent of phenomenalism: * Science can be done in a phenomenological way * Science is done in a phenomenological way * Science should be done in a phenomenological way Science and physics. The idea that science should be non-committal about the existence of its objects of investigation would come as quite a surprise to the average geologist or botanists. Phenomenalism in science is realyabout physics, since the existence of quarks or magnetic fields is so much more deniable -- at least dubitable -- than the existence of rocks or flowers. "Phenomenological" physics. There is a certain kind of procedure in physics which is called "Phenomenological". It consists of finding a pattern within data without -- for the time being -- relating it to any deeper laws or principles. This is at least analogous to what phenomenologists want. It is perhaps not the same thing, because it deals with instrument-readings, not literal phenomena, ie conscious experiences -- see Operationalism and phenomenology. The other issue is that this procedure is very much second-best within physics. The establishment of a "Phenomenological" pattern is regarded as only a prelude to the job finding a deep theoretical interpretation (see Hume's problem). Operationalism and phenomenology. Operationalism is the idea that the content of a scientific theory goes no further than operations and measurements that can be performed with laboratory equipment.an approach to science that is at least parallel to phenomenology. Like phenomenology it eschews "deep" explanations, and seems considerably more applicable to physics than to the special sciences. At a pinch, an electron might be a bundle of instrument-readings, but a bacterium is hardly a microscope! Hume's problem. Hume's critique of causality hinges on the unobservability of causes as such. Realism supposes that causes exist but are unobservable, like the magnetic field that causes iron filings to form a pattern. Strict empiricism and phenomenalism have little option but to reject causality. Phenomenalism does so quite explicitly with its stated preference for "description" over causal explanation. But is science illegitimate in positing causes? Hume's arguemnt really has bite when dealing with necessary connections between events. The explanatory mechanisms posited by scientific realism are always revisable, so apriori necessity is not asserted. Patterns and prediction. The revisability of scientific theories -- along with their confirmability and their falsifiability - -all depend on their ability to predict. The phenomenalist's substitute for prediction is pattern. But the mere fact that a pattern of experience has held in the past in no guarantee that it will continue to hold in the future. Of course, a phemomenalist scientist can go through the same motions of theory-confirmation as a realist physicist, she just can't give an account of why prediction works when it works, because she is not confirming anything beyond the data itself. Rather than saying "the Higgs Boson exists", she is saying something like "the Higgs pattern has held up to now. This is relevant to the question of whether science (or at least physics) should adopt the phenomenological approach. It cannot do so without changing anything. What is changed is that a certain kind of explanatory understanding, the ability to answer "why" questions, has to be foregone. Most scientists see themselves in the business of explaining and understanding, and so prefer realism to phenomenalism. I suppose the phenomenologist could still mount an argument to the effect that science should adopt phenomenalism because science should abandon explantory understanding. But explanatory understanding is evidently a good thing. The phenomenlogist presumably thinks abandoning it would lead to a better thing. The main candidate seems to be enhanced autonomy and significance for areas other than science. Universality and particularity. We a
Re: The Totally Blind Zombie Homunculus Room
Colin Geoffrey Hales wrote: > This discussion is a hybrid of a number of very famous thought > experiments. Unlike those thought experiments, however, this experiment is > aimed purely and only at scientists. The intent is to demonstrate clearly > and definitively the nature of subjective experience (phenomenal > consciousness) and its primal role in a scientist's ability to function as > a scientist. > Imagine a room. Its walls and celing and floor are matt black. There are > no doors or windows. All over the walls are digital displays which > announce numbers in warm, friendly colours. Up against all four walls and > up to international standard control desk height (roughly 750mm) is a > sloping console. Covering the console around all four walls are > pushbuttons. The number of displays is equal to the number of sensory > nerves entering a typical human brain from the peripheral nervous systems > including all sensory input. The number of pushbuttons is equal to the > entire set of effector nerves emanating from a typical brain. This total > number of displays and pushbuttons is in the millions. > There is a comfortable chair upon which is seated the room's sole > occupant, Marvin the human. Marvin is normal except for never having been > outside the room and having never otherwise acquired any knowledge of > anything other than that of the room and its contents. He knows absolutely > nothing of any sort of external world or any other people. He has no clue > about the external world except for what he can surmise from the displays > and buttons. > Marvin, like all healthy humans, has an experiential life which is the > collection of private phenomenal scenes delivered by his brain material. > These are operating normally except that Marvin has been deprived of all > the phenomenal content (experiences) that he ever could have received had > he been allowed outside the room. He has had a lifetime of experiences, > but all of them have been confined to depicting the room. > Marvin is a scientist. He studies the science of not-room. His life > consists of experiments which involve the pressing of buttons and the > recording of patterns in the displays. Over time an enormous volume of > data begins to show patterns for which Marvin constructs models. The > models are generalisations of the behaviour of the displays after buttons > are pushed in a certain way. He tests and refines the models and has > developed a form of symbolic representation of the behaviour of the > displays. Certain features on the display occur regularly enough that > names have been given to notional not-room phenomena. One is called the > tronelec. The mathematics of not-room includes a lot of rules about the > behaviour of tronelecs. In time Marvin realises that his exploration of > not-room can be done according to routine rules and he sets about a > systematic, exhaustive assay of the entire range of possible > button/display relationships. > Everything is going nicely but then one day a well known pattern does not > occur the way it used to. After a while the old pattern resumes. The whole > mathematics of not-room is undermined. It takes a long time for Marvin to > construct a new model that accounts for the novel behaviour. A new entity > called gytravi is needed. Then things settle down and routine systematic > exploration resumes. > In time a massive collection of not-room entities and behavioural rules is > constructed and begins to repeat itself. So much so that Marvin, after > checking and rechecking, finds that the model seems to have stabilised. > At this point we stop to survey the situation. > The first thing to note is that the room is an empirically verified > physiologically accurate representation of the sensory circumstances of a > human brain. Nervous activity effect/affect is replicated by > buttons/displays and all signals are standardised. There are no > experiential qualities (perceptual sensation qualities) associated with > this nervous activity. This is a physiologically verified, well > established empirical fact. Indeed the room is a little too kind - If you > discarded all the buttons and displays, then that is a more > physiologically accurate circumstance . > The main point is that this collection of totally sensationless signals is > exactly what is available to a human brain and through which all sense > measurement arrives. Consider the room without a Marvin in it. Based on > what evidence is there any reason to even conceptualise the existence of > an external world? There is nothing in the room to conceptualise an external world because Marvin does all the conceptualising. Is this supposed to show that an you need phenomenality is needed to conceptualise an external world? It doesn't. We could imagine the control panel delivering non-phenomenal information to Marvin (such as he slips of paper used in the Chinese Room). Or we could split Marvin into two people, A Watcher who
