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The Zero shot translation for google translate is system generated language that a computer created itself. If we were to extrapolate that to a computer that can do the creation of sometjing and go about its own path of creation that is to some extent random - can't we create some form of conscious...? I side with Daniel - consciousness is a muscle the brain.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Talking lions are just lions with trans-species communicating capabilities. Lion communicate with each other instinctively. They at the very least understand each other, whether we understand lions is a different point.
> Talking lions are just lions with trans-species communicating capabilities. In other words, completely different brains than regular lions. So, not lions.
I think my problem with Dennett boils down to the fact that he's a wet blanket =) His attitude would be fine if it really did seem like there was nothing more to be learned about consciousness. To me his perspective seems a lot like our primitive ancestors looking at the stars and calling them holes poked in the sky--case closed. But you don't have to believe in a soul or anything like that to suspect that there's so…
Dualism comes in a variety of forms. Examples include property dualism (Searle, though he denies it) and panpsychism (Chalmers, it seems). Regardless of the version expounded, all such dualisms divorce the mental from the physical, hence the dead horses that are the so-called mind-body problem or the problem of qualia. On this view of matter, we can't account for things like color because, by definition, matter does not have color in the way that we commonly understand it as having color. Physical theories, instead of explaining color, redefine color in other terms. The only place left to locate color, as it is commonly understood, is the mind that's been so brutally split off from matter. Fun fact: Cartesian dualism is not a "religious residue". It is a philosophical position. In its lingering incarnation, we can credit Descartes through whose work it bears an interesting relation to the development of modern empirical science. Prior to Cartesianism, Aristotelian views were dominant. Indeed, while the Roman Catholic Church does not have an "official" metaphysical doctrine (metaphysics is philosophical, not theological or doctrinal), the preferred metaphysical theoretical apparatus has been Aristotelian since Aquinas. No such dualism exists in Aristotle or Aquinas.
On the other hand, eliminativism manages to take an even whackier view of things than dualism. Whereas dualism has painted itself into a corner by refusing to reexamine its suppositions, eliminativism "resolves" the problem by shutting its eyes, that is, by denying the existence of those things it must explain. As a result, it is an incoherent position.
What's interesting is that Dennett does distinguish between "function" and "intention", though I'm not entirely sure how he reconciles (if he does at all) all of these with materialism. The reason I draw attention to this point is that teleology/final causality is frequently misunderstood owing to a confusion between conscious intent and function. When an Aristotelian talks about the "purpose" of an organ, he has in mind what the organ is ordered and organized toward, not what intelligent design theorists would describe as "design". (Interestingly, ID theories are also rooted in Cartesian ideas about matter and thus need to appeal to imposed, extrinsic divine intent to locate and explain the function of things like organs. Their scientistic (not scientific) opponents take the eliminativist approach and deny that organs have functions at all because they hold to the same concept of matter as ID theories while rejecting that divine intent exists. On the other hand, Aristotelianism maintains the intrinsic finality of things like organs and thus does not need to appeal to some externally imposed divine intent to explain function as such.)
> “Right,” Dennett replied. “He would be so different from regular lions that he wouldn’t tell us what it’s like to be a lion. I think we should just get used to the fact that the human concepts we apply so comfortably in our everyday lives apply only sort of to animals.” That's just silly. We taught Koko the gorilla how to talk, the effort was supremely insightful in helping us to understand animal cognition. Animal…
> “Right,” Dennett replied. “He would be so different from regular lions that he wouldn’t tell us what it’s like to be a lion. I think we should just get used to the fact that the human concepts we apply so comfortably in our everyday lives apply only sort of to animals.” That's just silly. We taught Koko the gorilla how to talk, the effort was supremely insightful in helping us to understand animal cognition. Animal…
And in the act of teaching Koko to talk - we changed Koko.
Her handlers were gorilla handlers, not linguists. They were willing to accept any combination of hand signs as communication, and they got to decide what was being "communicated".
The phenomenon was no different from dog owners who believe their dog understands English.
I think my problem with Dennett boils down to the fact that he's a wet blanket =) His attitude would be fine if it really did seem like there was nothing more to be learned about consciousness. To me his perspective seems a lot like our primitive ancestors looking at the stars and calling them holes poked in the sky--case closed. But you don't have to believe in a soul or anything like that to suspect that there's so…
On the contrary, he's just saying that conscious is not an irreducible phenomenon like some of his philosophical contemporaries believe. There's still a lot to learn about the reduction. In fact, his is the less lazy way out, because how consciousness reduces to physical laws is completely unknown, but if you take consciousness as irreducible in some way, then you have nothing else to explain: consciousness just is.
First problem: philosophers are not divided into two camps, so Rothman is misinformed. Aristotelianism is another. But let's return to these "two camps" for a moment. Typically, these two purported camps are some variation of dualism and elimnativism. Both ultimately rest on the Cartesian metaphysical legacy. Dualism comes in a variety of forms. Examples include property dualism (Searle, though he denies it) and panp…
Not even remotely. I'm not even sure how you could possibly form such a conclusion, except by some deep misunderstanding of all of the various materialist arguments that discuss qualia. Dennett is himself a materialist by the way.
Materialism can classify qualia as an illusion while still recognizing that some reduction of qualia to physical laws is needed. This reduction would be left to the domain of science though, because that's where it would belong.
> “Right,” Dennett replied. “He would be so different from regular lions that he wouldn’t tell us what it’s like to be a lion. I think we should just get used to the fact that the human concepts we apply so comfortably in our everyday lives apply only sort of to animals.” That's just silly. We taught Koko the gorilla how to talk, the effort was supremely insightful in helping us to understand animal cognition. Animal…
That quote, and its context, is not an argument that animals do not have exceedingly rich inner lives, nor is it an argument that language is some prerequisite for such a state. It is an effort to address, and dismiss, the kind of "17th century delusions" that you're worried about (and, in fact, participating in, whether intentionally or not). The statements, "Animals are sentient", and, "Animals are not sentient", a…
Suggesting that "consciousness" is some kind of smooth continuum is just plain wrong. Empirically, it's more like a series of discrete abilities that kick in as more and more sophisticated neurological processes become available. (We don't really know that for sure, and Chalmers and the animists/dualists may turn out to be right. But that kind of dualism is very fuzzy, and if you're trying to build intelligent systems it's hard to do anything useful with it.)
One tell-tale is the mirror test. Some animals understand they are the creature in the mirror, while others see a different animal - and respond accordingly, driven by instinct.
That's a binary test. You can't "sort of" see a reflection of yourself.
It's true you can get it wrong some of the time - as a human, you can be tired or confused or drunk or ill or simply in a poorly lit environment.
But the ability to make the distinction, assuming you're functioning normally, is either there or it isn't. You either have the self-abstractive processing needed to operate with a self symbol and to understand that you're experiencing it in the mirror, or you don't. And if you don't, you never will.
There are many other possible binary tests, and consciousness seems to exist as a sum total of the pass/fail profile for all of them.
That's why the lion question is irrelevant - it doesn't go far enough to make this point. It assumes - on the basis of no neurological theory - that being able to talk would transform the instinctual and perceptual mechanisms built into lions so completely they'd become irrelevant, and you'd have something that looked like a lion but thought like a philosopher and was no longer even slightly interested in chasing after antelopes.
This is clearly wrong, because being able to talk hasn't made us stop feeling and acting like primates, or - often - even dumber animals.
With those kinds of details in mind, a multidimensional consciousness scale could be defined quite precisely.
But Dennett's fuzzy argument about being sort-of conscious and sort-of not is - I think - hand-wavey vagueness. It lacks the precision needed to do that usefully.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Talking lions are just lions with trans-species communicating capabilities. Lion communicate with each other instinctively. They at the very least understand each other, whether we understand lions is a different point.
> Talking lions are just lions with trans-species communicating capabilities. In other words, completely different brains than regular lions. So, not lions.