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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

#291

Post by pygy_ »

n4r9 wrote: post #253
pygy_ wrote: post #238

FTA: > Then he declared that there is another distinct problem — why the brain’s behavior is accompanied by experience at all — which he christened the “hard” problem of consciousness. The hard problem isn't about "why", it's about "what it's like". Try to explain what it's like to hear a major and a chord to a deaf person, or what it's like to see magenta to someone who's blind. None of the things you say, sign or w…

Qualia is the term people often use to mean "what it's like". The hard problem is "why is there qualia". This of course assumes that qualia exists as a coherent thing, which some philosophers dispute.

Indeed, I didn't remember that Chamlers was literally building his argument around the "why?"... But he does.

This reduces to the intractable mystery of existence. A more interesting question would be, as usual "how".

There are serious attempts at this, coming from both neuroscience and physics (e.g. for the latter https://pubs.aip.org/aip/adv/article/15/11/115319/3372193/Un... )

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

#292

Post by david-gpu »

jillesvangurp wrote: post #239

Neal Stephenson touches on this topic in several of his novels. Probably the most concrete of this is "Fall; or Dodge in Hell" which involves a simulation of people's scanned brains rediscovering qualia and constructing their own simulated world from scratch. In the book, two of the deceased digital "souls" eventually mate and produce digital offspring and the whole simulation starts consuming more and more resources…

> At some point, we'll have AGI that pass any test we can think of and we'll still have people arguing that these cannot be conscious.

Is there a distinction in your mind between consciousness and intelligence? Is it possible, for example, for a machine to solve complex problems but not be conscious? Or vice versa, can an animal or a person be very unintelligent yet still conscious?

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

#294

Post by captainbland »

solveiga wrote: post #7

I don’t think consciousness exists, at least not in the way people talk about it. First, there’s no clear definition that everyone agrees on. Second, there’s no way to test whether something has it. Does a cow have it? A dog? A spider? If you can't test for it and even define it, how can you claim its real?

I think people focus a lot on the dangers of erasing consciousness as a moral entity, but it strikes me that something which is so loosely defined and for all intents and purposes unfalsifiable carries its own dangers too. Especially given so many of us are happy to kill and eat many creatures that pass many proposed tests of consciousness.

It's probably sensible to use more strongly defined terms like humanity, self-awareness, cognitive capability, empathy and so on. And to treat them somewhat separately rather than trying to bundle it all together.

But people want there to be something special about us which can be defined as something separate from us, in a neutral, universalist sounding way which also happens to be relatively exclusive - I think because there's this desire to make the concept of a soul have an equivalent in scientific realism for the purposes of discussing philosophy in a secular way.

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

#296

Post by energy123 »

mikk14 wrote: post #263
energy123 wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But you are taking an opinionated view of the resolution to the Ship of Theseus paradox. If you are a computational functionalist, then it really is "you" afterwards (or rather there's now two identical "you" until the original "you" is destroyed). A monist could also point to your hypocrisy of believing that you are still your child self despite every atom in your body having been replaced between then and now.

A true monist would realize that any experience of the uploaded being that received a copy of the brain is not felt by the original brain that has been copied. This is a fact and it is elementary to see it as true, as well as supporting the view that the copy is not the same being at all. If your description of computation functionalists is accurate, then they simply are dualists and would do good in admitting this t…

Imagine you are destroyed in your sleep by aliens and replaced by an atomically identical duplicate. Would you call this "you"?

If not, what if the aliens recycled the atoms from your original body to make the new body, putting each original atom into the same original spot with the same position and momentum (ignoring quantum and uncertainty principle).

What if they recycled 99% of the atoms from your original body, but swapped 1% of them for different atoms?

What if they only destroyed 5% of your brain and reassembled that destroyed portion, leaving the rest of you untouched? What about 50%?

What if they waited 1 planck moment before reassembling you versus 5 seconds?

Where is your dividing line in this scenario space between "that's really me" versus "that's just a copy and is not really me" ?

The functionalist answer, as I understand it, is fungibility across time and copies when arriving at definitions of words like "you".

The functionalist answer is not that > 1 copy can communicate telepathically or supernaturally share experiences is a dualist sense. They are still causally independent physical entities.

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

#297

Post by mikk14 »

amanaplanacanal wrote: post #277
mikk14 wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A true monist would realize that any experience of the uploaded being that received a copy of the brain is not felt by the original brain that has been copied. This is a fact and it is elementary to see it as true, as well as supporting the view that the copy is not the same being at all. If your description of computation functionalists is accurate, then they simply are dualists and would do good in admitting this t…

Isn't continuity just an implementation detail? Suppose your brain was replaced a bit at a time with mechanical hardware, the end result is an uploaded mind while maintaining continuity.

I admit that this is a troubling problem with the position that I stated, but I don't think it's a complete takedown.

The easiest rebuttal would be to simply say that continuity is not a mere implementation detail. If you give up continuity, you can make a copy without altering the original, you just have to read it.

But if you need to ensure continuity you have to alter the original. This seems to me a very fundamental part of the process, making it qualitatively different.

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

#298

Post by [deleted] »

bambax wrote: post #204
jwilliams wrote: post #111

Rovelli is arguing (I think) that we need to fundamentally view consciousness as a natural phenomenon - albeit one that is extremely complex and poorly understood. So we ditch the philosophical puzzle and focus on the reality we can perceive and reason on. The problem is that consciousness is a philosophical invention (and a slippery one at that). We're in the wrong frame. If you accept consciousness is a thing you e…

I never quite understood what we mean by "consciousness" but I find fascinating that most modern philosophers who describe themselves as materialists / non religious can argue in the same sentence that there is something special and extra-natural about the human experience. It's one or the other: either nature is all there is, and therefore, consciousness is a purely natural phenomenon, that we can investigate, and p…

[deleted]

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

#299

Post by pygy_ »

themafia wrote: post #270
pygy_ wrote: post #238

FTA: > Then he declared that there is another distinct problem — why the brain’s behavior is accompanied by experience at all — which he christened the “hard” problem of consciousness. The hard problem isn't about "why", it's about "what it's like". Try to explain what it's like to hear a major and a chord to a deaf person, or what it's like to see magenta to someone who's blind. None of the things you say, sign or w…

> Try to explain what it's like to hear a major and a chord to a deaf person, or what it's like to see magenta to someone who's blind. I know this isn't what you wanted, but the dualism struck me: A major chord is like a blend of two base colors that give rise to a pleasant composite color. Mix the wrong bases and the result is sensibly wrong. Magenta is like when you play a D and an F# together. When you see it at s…

What is it like to experience synesthesia :-)

These are very good analogies (and possibly experiences for those who are natural synesthetes), but even then, that won't make the who doesn't have the corresponding perceptual modality person experience that exact sensation.

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

#300

Post by prmph »

jwilliams wrote: post #111

Rovelli is arguing (I think) that we need to fundamentally view consciousness as a natural phenomenon - albeit one that is extremely complex and poorly understood. So we ditch the philosophical puzzle and focus on the reality we can perceive and reason on. The problem is that consciousness is a philosophical invention (and a slippery one at that). We're in the wrong frame. If you accept consciousness is a thing you e…

Consciousness the the fundamental reality; it is the only thing we know for sure.

I know for sure what I am perceiving. Forget about if it is a simulation or not: it is still what I am perceiving. There is nothing else I can be sure of.

So you are correct that it is, in some sense, un-explorable. However, if the above is the reason, then nothing else is explorable also; you cannot prove that we are not in a simulation, and in a sense it does not matter.

If you accept that we assume we are not in a simulation and the knowledge we have matters, then consciousness is also open to exploration, and it is not only a philosophical thing. There are several hard questions about consciousness that are meaningful in this frame:

- Why do some things appear to be conscious and other not so?

- Is there only one consciousness in the universe, or multiple?

- Is consciousness local and embodied, or not?

- Would restoring the physical substrate of consciousness (if possible) lead to the same consciousness, or an identical one? Does this distinction between "same" and "identical" consciousnesses even make sense?

Etc

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