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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

#321

Post by [deleted] »

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…

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

#322

Post by simiones »

xyzsparetimexyz wrote: post #208
simiones wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> consciousness effectively hits zero somewhere around reptiles Note that at least one species of fish have been shown to very consistently pass the mirror test (they try to clean up a mark on their body they can only see in a mirror, then go back to the mirror to check, and repeat a few times). So, at least if you consider the mirror test to be a sign of consciousness in animals, then you might want to extend this t…

The mirror test is just about intelligence. A p-zombie could easily pass it.

The mirror test is essentially the only pseudo-objective argument we have for believing that non-human animals are conscious - it proves that said animals have a concept of themselves as opposed to the rest of the environment. You are right that it is not necessarily very convincing, but I don't think we have anything much better.

Also, the entire point of p-zombies is that they can, by definition, pass any objective test that we can currently conceive. A p-zombie is, by definition, "something that behaves exactly like a human, but doesn't have any inner consciousness". Of course, just because we can define something at this high level doesn't mean that this thing can actually exist (e.g. we can define the concept "numbers that are bigger than 3 but smaller than 2", despite no such number existing).

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

#323

Post by smackeyacky »

LoganDark wrote: post #312
kaashif wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why does whether we're in a simulation or not matter for whether anything is explorable? You can explore how the simulation works, there's just some other layer you can't explore. Or maybe you can somehow. When you look at the stars, are they real or a simulation in your brain? Does that mean you can't explore them?

> When you look at the stars, are they real or a simulation in your brain? This is unknowable.

It is knowable isn’t it? We know our brains play a variety of tricks to get a cohesive view out of two wildly complicated but deeply flawed meat sensors.

That fits the definition of a simulation.

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

#324

Post by vixen99 »

H8crilA wrote: post #191
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 am pretty sure I am not conscious, and this seems to solve the entire problem that other people have.

If I knew precisely which definition of consciousness you are testing against your own experience I would understand your point and I would like to. Can you say what it is that you are sure you are not?

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

#326

Post by psychoslave »

mikk14 wrote: post #230
energy123 wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know anyone who supports both ideas at the same time. Are you saying that philosophers do? Most philosophers are materialists or computational functionalists, while being monists. This means they aren't dualists, and it means they do not adopt the supernatural explanation. But they are careful not to rule out dualism. There's this pattern I've observed in discussions about philosophy. First there's a rejectio…

I don't know if this is discussed by actual serious philosophers, but consider the issue of "mind uploading." I have seen very staunch monists seriously discussing that, if you were to produce a complete digital copy of your brain -- copying any possible information to the most minute synapse -- then you effectively "uploaded" yourself into a computer and can live a digital life. These people believe this while at th…

> copying any possible information to the most minute synapse

That's reducing an individual to, I assume, the sum of its neural network. So like considering everything else happening in the fleshy body matters to what a human is, nor how they relate to the rest of cosmos as such a body.

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

#327

Post by mooreat » 

  Unless someone eventually finds the consciousness center in the brain I will continue to hold the position that it is just another property of "things". I know consciousness must be real because it's the first thing I have access to without any sort of reasoning attached on top of it. Its realness is more visceral than atoms or any other physical theory because it is the way in which the world is conveyed to me, but I don't think I'm unique in any way for having it.

  I feel like all systems, in a panpsychist sense, participate in consciousness, so in some way it's a property of matter or systems in our universe that we have somehow failed to account for in physics. We miss it because systems only exhibit consciousness internally like on top of having all the physical properties of rocks, rocks also have an internal state of being. That internal state of being for the most part is uninteresting cause it doesn't dictate the rocks actual form or function in the universe.

  I'd argue human consciousness is the same. My conscious experience has nothing to do with the thoughts that are actually being produced. By this I mean there is no authorship of the thoughts and actions I perform by my consciousness. To me it seems more like a stage in which elements of my experience appear for brief moments before fading away, so much like the rock's internal experience my internal experience does not have any affect on the physical world.

  Part of me then starts to worry why worry about consciousness at all if it's something that doesn't participate in the physical world because then what's the point of it all? Also, if all systems get to participate, then what stops things like basic logic gates on a PC from having consciousness as well. I tend to lean towards thinking that those feelings are similar to the same kinds of feelings humans used to have about thinking they were the center of the universe, but I'm not sure.
Sorry for the brain dump,

Austin

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

#328

Post by lelanthran »

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.

You've already drawn your line in the sand (i.e. they are conscious). In that case, you can't also claim that we should continue producing them by the millions at the flick of a switch.

The AI-is-conscious crowd will have to choose - either they are conscious, in which case they should not be birthed, or they are not conscious in which case we can use them as tools. You can't have both and still be logically consistent.

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

#329

Post by simiones »

Borealid wrote: post #286
simiones wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 f…

True, I should have been more careful with my wording. My point was actually that unfalsifiable metaphysical statements are not invalid in the same way that unfalsifiable physical/scientific statements are.

So yes, some metaphysical statements are falsifiable, and some have in fact been falsified over time. And, very importantly, many of the biggest metaphysical questions have no known falsifiable answers (at least none that are not already known to be false, of course).

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

#330

Post by sdevonoes »

tmvphil wrote: post #320

It seems wild to me to write a (popular) article about consciousness in the year 2026 without addressing the elephant in the room: we are able to devise computer programs of increasing complexity that replicate more and more behaviors that were once the sole domain of humans, and at what point do we consider such computers to have experience in the sense that we have, and the sense in which calculators and thermostat…

> Should we expand our moral conception of responsibility or care to non-human patients, and if so, which?

Such an irony. Humans have has since the bery beginning inflicted pain and suffering on other human beings. We are still doing it directly (e.g., wars) or indirectly (e.g., capitalism). The idea that perhaps in the not so distant future, machines may live better “lives” or be treated better than some humans is pathetic. But here again, there are some pets that live better than a 1000 humans nowadays

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