We Are Beast Machines
nautil.us
We Are Beast Machines
1–10 of 145 posts
Re: We Are Beast Machines
#2I'm finally starting to unravel New Age terminology which deals with this subject. Eastern philosophy is almost impenetrable due to the cultural barrier, but those who succeeded imported some relevant ideas to Wester society.
It's really bizarre how some of these wisdom teachers go on conspiratorial rants which have a completely different tone from the actually useful information.
Re: We Are Beast Machines
#3Nothing in this essay addresses the single most prominent question of contemporary philosophy of mind, which is the hard problem of consciousness. It only addresses the soft problems, which everyone agrees are solvable "merely" with enough time, funding, and initiative. Nothing about the "beast machine" addresses how qualitative experience arises from physical phenomena, or as Chalmers puts it, "Why are we not philosophical zombies?" Of course the hard problem, by its nature, is likely irreducible, so expecting it to be solved is unreasonable.
The point is books and passages like this are only compelling if you've already accepted a hand-wavey answer to the hard problem. In this case the author's accepted answer seems to be the ever popular, "consciousness is an illusion," but that particular explanation to the hard problem is no more valid (or any less vague) than any other. Stating it with authority and not acknowledging it as a "faith-based" axiom undermines the work.
Re: We Are Beast Machines
#4Nothing in this essay addresses the single most prominent question of contemporary philosophy of mind, which is the hard problem of consciousness. It only addresses the soft problems, which everyone agrees are solvable "merely" with enough time, funding, and initiative. Nothing about the "beast machine" addresses how qualitative experience arises from physical phenomena, or as Chalmers puts it, "Why are we not philos…
So far the only answer I've seen people give to the question is "what problem? There's no problem". Basically, there are many people who don't (or also have convinced themselves that they don't) perceive an incongruity between their personal subjective experience and the idea that consciousness is just an emergent phenomena of a physical system. I haven't found a good way to explain it, I just know that there's something wrong or missing.
So basically it seems there's three camps:
Those that feel the incongruity and don't know a solution.
Those that feel the incongruity and have found their own solution (which is usually what people will call "religion").
Those that do not feel the incongruity.
I don't personally see a way to justify it if someone doesn't feel the problem in their bones.
Re: We Are Beast Machines
#5I'm finally starting to unravel New Age terminology which deals with this subject. Eastern philosophy is almost impenetrable due to the cultural barrier, but those who succeeded imported some relevant ideas to Wester society. It's really bizarre how some of these wisdom teachers go on conspiratorial rants which have a completely different tone from the actually useful information.
Eastern philosophy isn't impenetrable, and people who cannot penetrate it aren't hampered by cultural difference.
Even for natives of those cultures, penetrating that philosophy often takes years of spiritual practise and training. The reason is that it isn't about ideas, it's an actual body-mind training and transformation of being. It isn't something you just sit and talk about and discuss, although it can include that, but also it must come with actual implementation to occur.
That's the main difference I've noticed between western philosophy and eastern philosophy which makes them difficult to integrate. The former is almost always understood by the experience of so-called "ordinary beings" and communicated in terms of intellectual arguments, whereas the latter cannot really be understood unless you actually physically and spiritually transform your very being.
For example, I used to practise Soto Zen, and Dogen's philosophical writings are very popular there. Western philosophers, or just general non-practitioners, absolutely bash their heads against his writing, it's just so difficult to wrangle and there's no connection. In Soto Zen we understand it by sitting zazen (seated meditation). Literally, the only way I know to understand it is by doing meditation practise. Then next time you read it and you have a deep connection with it that you can't explain in a way that someone who hasn't had that connection would understand. Western philosophy seems to not be compatible with those kinds of transformations. If it cannot be explained in a way that is somehow independent of the observer's own practise, then it is not considered rigorous, but also such a thing is impossible when talking, for example, about Zen.
Re: We Are Beast Machines
#6Nothing in this essay addresses the single most prominent question of contemporary philosophy of mind, which is the hard problem of consciousness. It only addresses the soft problems, which everyone agrees are solvable "merely" with enough time, funding, and initiative. Nothing about the "beast machine" addresses how qualitative experience arises from physical phenomena, or as Chalmers puts it, "Why are we not philos…
So far the only answer I've seen people give to the question is "what problem? There's no problem". Basically, there are many people who don't (or also have convinced themselves that they don't) perceive an incongruity between their personal subjective experience and the idea that consciousness is just an emergent phenomena of a physical system. I haven't found a good way to explain it, I just know that there's somet…
I don't understand how someone can not understand the problem.
You and I have conscious experience, we have a meaningful sensation of qualia. A billet of 4140 steel does not, or so we assume. Both are governed by physical laws of the universe, so there must be some distinction beyond these physical laws that differentiate them.
In this framing, there are typically four camps, three of them line up with your camps:
1) I am not like a block of steel, but I don't know why.
2) I am not like a block of steel, but I know why ("religion")
3) I am like a block of steel, neither are conscious (no incongruity/consciousness is an illusion)
4) I am like a block of steel, both are conscious ("it from bit"/Chalmers's universal conciousness)
Of course this implies the existence of a 5th and 6th camp that believes the block of steel is conscious, but we are not. I find these camps throw the best parties.
Re: We Are Beast Machines
#7Earlier quoted context omitted.
So far the only answer I've seen people give to the question is "what problem? There's no problem". Basically, there are many people who don't (or also have convinced themselves that they don't) perceive an incongruity between their personal subjective experience and the idea that consciousness is just an emergent phenomena of a physical system. I haven't found a good way to explain it, I just know that there's somet…
I don't understand how someone can not understand the problem. You and I have conscious experience, we have a meaningful sensation of qualia. A billet of 4140 steel does not, or so we assume. Both are governed by physical laws of the universe, so there must be some distinction beyond these physical laws that differentiate them. In this framing, there are typically four camps, three of them line up with your camps: 1)…
Well we do know emergent phenomena that occur as abstractions. Probably the most obvious example is a computer program. At a basic level, the computer really doesn't look like it's doing useful work, it just processes lists of rules and stuff, but actually the emergent behaviour is that I am browsing Hacker News. What is the difference between a computer and a rock? Well there isn't actually a fundamental difference, other than that the computer is physically arranged such that it is doing some complicated calculation resulting in this rich UI experience.
I think it's the same with the brain. Why is there consciousness in this brain and not in a rock? Well because the brain is set up to perform a complicated "calculation" and the rock is not. Just like the program's behaviour only exists as an emergent property of the computer's physical state, so does consciousness arise as an emergent property from the brain's physical state.
EDIT: to clarify this is why it is justified to say there is not a problem, but I do not personally find it satisfying
Re: We Are Beast Machines
#8Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't understand how someone can not understand the problem. You and I have conscious experience, we have a meaningful sensation of qualia. A billet of 4140 steel does not, or so we assume. Both are governed by physical laws of the universe, so there must be some distinction beyond these physical laws that differentiate them. In this framing, there are typically four camps, three of them line up with your camps: 1)…
Well we do know emergent phenomena that occur as abstractions. Probably the most obvious example is a computer program. At a basic level, the computer really doesn't look like it's doing useful work, it just processes lists of rules and stuff, but actually the emergent behaviour is that I am browsing Hacker News. What is the difference between a computer and a rock? Well there isn't actually a fundamental difference,…
But the question is when and from where does “experiencing things” (qualia) arise. When does calculation become sensation?
Re: We Are Beast Machines
#9Earlier quoted context omitted.
So far the only answer I've seen people give to the question is "what problem? There's no problem". Basically, there are many people who don't (or also have convinced themselves that they don't) perceive an incongruity between their personal subjective experience and the idea that consciousness is just an emergent phenomena of a physical system. I haven't found a good way to explain it, I just know that there's somet…
I don't understand how someone can not understand the problem. You and I have conscious experience, we have a meaningful sensation of qualia. A billet of 4140 steel does not, or so we assume. Both are governed by physical laws of the universe, so there must be some distinction beyond these physical laws that differentiate them. In this framing, there are typically four camps, three of them line up with your camps: 1)…
The trouble with the "hard problem" of consciousness is that it's predicated on the possibility of the existence of p-zombies. Even if you don't know how a complex physical system gives rise to consciousness, you understand that a block of steel is not a complex physical system - so the fact that it isn't conscious isn't that contentious.
If p-zombies could exist as complex systems without consciousness, then there would be a problem. But it's not so obvious that their existence is a possibility - or even, as Chalmers puts it, that they are "conceivable". To me, the leap of faith involved in the "hard problem" is really this first one.
Re: We Are Beast Machines
#10Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well we do know emergent phenomena that occur as abstractions. Probably the most obvious example is a computer program. At a basic level, the computer really doesn't look like it's doing useful work, it just processes lists of rules and stuff, but actually the emergent behaviour is that I am browsing Hacker News. What is the difference between a computer and a rock? Well there isn't actually a fundamental difference,…
But the question is when and from where does “experiencing things” (qualia) arise. When does calculation become sensation?
Those same people might say that it is just the experience of "being the computer" rather than seeing it from afar. But I don't know, because personally it isn't an argument I find convincing.
As an aside, I think you have to be a bit arrogant or closed minded to assert that they actually can see the problem. I really don't think my wife is lying or being nefarious when she says she doesn't see a problem. I trust her and others when they say they don't see a problem.