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It is time to give up the dualism introduced by the debate on consciousness

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Re: It is time to give up the dualism introduced by the debate on consciousness

#281

Post by adwn »

cortic wrote: post #235
adwn wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, there is at least one other option, which is that consciousness [1] is a phenomenon that we can't replicate in non-biological brains [2], but from which the existence of a "God"-like being, as the term is understood by major religions, still doesn't follow. [1] Or "qualia", to be precise. [2] For example, the existence of qualia might require certain carbon-based structures which aren't present in silicon-based d…

There is nothing that we know of in carbon based structures that violates universal causality, even in quantum scales where causality becomes more vague it is replaced by a measurable randomness. So there should be no reason we cannot reduce these phenomena to actual quantifiable and there for Computable elements.

> […] that violates universal causality

I think you're conflating qualia with free will. These are very different concepts, and the experience of qualia has nothing at all to do with "violating causality".

> So there should be no reason we cannot reduce these phenomena to actual quantifiable and there for Computable elements.

As long as we have practically no idea how qualia arise, or even what exactly they are, your claim has no base to stand on.

Re: It is time to give up the dualism introduced by the debate on consciousness

#282

Post by Brian_K_White »

spiorf wrote: post #252
Brian_K_White wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is brain power by the ton all over the place. The answer cannot be based on what a thing can do, but on what a thing chooses to do.

The verb "chooses" here does a lot of the heavy lifting, and implies a consciusness that chooses. It's making the answer circular and it means that we are just pre-filtering the possible answers for our preconceptions. My cat is not "less conscious" because he's choosing to sleep all day.

Any action that can possibly have a simple explaination, it doesn't matter if it can also have a complex explaination, is immaterial.

A cat doing anything that can be explained by simple tropism doesn't prove or disprove anything, it's simply data of no value one way or the other.

The fact that you sleep and so does a cat does not prove that you are just a cat or that the cat is actually postulating about the inner life of other cats but just choosing not to ever write it's thoughts down. It's simply a silly trivial surface thing to even talk about.

Re: It is time to give up the dualism introduced by the debate on consciousness

#284

Post by geye1234 »

> During the Middle Ages, Western civilization described humans as composed of two distinct entities: body and soul.

This is absolutely, completely, demonstrably false. Soul-body dualism was largely a 17th-century innovation, although Plato somewhat anticipated it. Most medieval Catholic thought rejected it (and continues to do so), being quite clear that the soul/mind and the body are one entity. How can people in good conscience write about things they're so ignorant of?

Gell-Mann suggests I don't read the rest of the article. A brief scan reveals a rehash of the common assertions with no serious attempt to reply to counterarguments.

Re: It is time to give up the dualism introduced by the debate on consciousness

#285

Post by amanaplanacanal »

trick-or-treat wrote: post #228
fssys wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, qualia are not fundamental to existence, this is an example of Wilfrid Sellars' "myth of the given" - to have a quale of a colour or a shape appearing in your vision you must have a concept of that colour/shape. Qualia in that sense are not prior to cognition. Maybe we can say they are necessary as an element of concept formation and language, ie for sapience.

Not fundamental to existence but fundamental to consciousness. Theoretically the person sitting next to you could be a zombie, no qualia, the lights are off, he's just having a conversation with you with nothing going on behind the scenes. And there's no way to tell, except that it's reasonable to extrapolate that since you feel something, he probably does too.

This is exactly my take also. Qualia and consciousness are the same thing. I have it, other humans appear to have it, other mammals appear to have it, LLMs don't.

Re: It is time to give up the dualism introduced by the debate on consciousness

#286

Post by Borealid »

simiones wrote: post #212
solenoid0937 wrote: post #6

Any argument that a "soul" exists or that consciousness does not arise from the physical world (eg our neurons) is literally unfalsifiable . It cannot be disproven in the same way you can't disprove the existence of God, and so arguing with people that believe in it is largely pointless.

> Any argument that a "soul" exists or that consciousness does not arise from the physical world (eg our neurons) is literally unfalsifiable . This is an metaphysical discussion, so falsifiability is kind of irrelevant. All metaphysical positions are ultimately unfalsifiable - including materialism and physicalism just as much as dualism or monism or theism.

> All metaphysical positions are ultimately unfalsifiable

This is not true, there are many metaphysical positions that are falsifiable.

For example, "anything shaped like an apple is an apple" is a metaphysical position. It defines what it means to be apple-ish. You could hold that metaphysical position and also "apples are always made of plant material" as another position you hold at the same time.

Then you could falsify the metaphysical position by presenting a stone carved into the shape of an apple. You could choose to deny reality and change your physical definition (what the definition of the word "apple" is), but if you think logically the evidence constructively falsifies the original metaphysical position.

I think what you might have been trying to say is that people tend to adopt metaphysical positions which are non-falsifiable. Yes, they do, but that doesn't mean no metaphysical arguments can be resolved through logic and experiment.

Re: It is time to give up the dualism introduced by the debate on consciousness

#287

Post by H8crilA »

trick-or-treat wrote: post #249
roncesvalles wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My pet theory is that I don't think all humans are conscious (in other words, some perfectly cognitively normal-seeming people are just automatons without an inner experience, like plants or LLMs). Mainly motivated by the fact that a lot of people report not having an inner monologue, and other little hints that I've picked up over the years. The "inner experience" might be totally optional to fitness, like green eye…

That's called solipsism. I went through it as a lad, I think it's not uncommon.

I assure you that I am not conscious (and a human, not an LLM). Therefore at least partial solipsism is true.

Re: It is time to give up the dualism introduced by the debate on consciousness

#288

Post by binary132 »

taneq wrote: post #276
adwn wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, there is at least one other option, which is that consciousness [1] is a phenomenon that we can't replicate in non-biological brains [2], but from which the existence of a "God"-like being, as the term is understood by major religions, still doesn't follow. [1] Or "qualia", to be precise. [2] For example, the existence of qualia might require certain carbon-based structures which aren't present in silicon-based d…

Qualia are a begged question from the start, imo.

Did typing this sentence feel funny?

Re: It is time to give up the dualism introduced by the debate on consciousness

#289

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

fssys wrote: post #203
trick-or-treat wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's the same thing. You can't have consciousness without qualia and vice versa.

No, qualia are not fundamental to existence, this is an example of Wilfrid Sellars' "myth of the given" - to have a quale of a colour or a shape appearing in your vision you must have a concept of that colour/shape. Qualia in that sense are not prior to cognition. Maybe we can say they are necessary as an element of concept formation and language, ie for sapience.

You really don't need a concept of a colour or a shape, and it's a fairly typical academic fallacy to assume you do.

That's directly confusing experience with categorisation and labelling of experience.

If you touch a very hot object your nervous system will pull your hand away before your brain registers what's happening. The qualia of pain are pre-conceptual, preverbal, and precranial, and your consciousness only catches up later.

Re: It is time to give up the dualism introduced by the debate on consciousness

#290

Post by [deleted] »

daseiner1 wrote: post #158
selcuka wrote: post #15

> This contradicts everything we have learned about nature. It doesn't contradict anything. It simply means that there is a gap in our current understanding, which may (or may not [1]) be scientifically explained in the future. The default reflex of the opponents of "the hard question" (i.e. those who deny the existence of such a question) is to attach a religious or spiritualist meaning to it, which is far from the…

> a religious or spiritualist meaning to it, which is far from the truth. It's a question that arises from scientific curiosity that we hope to answer one day. a) it is wrong to say definitively that it is untrue. there is no acid test for the existence of God nor of spirit. b) religious and spiritual traditions have wrangled with this very question for at least 3000 years. it is not a 'scientific curiosity'. It is o…

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