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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

#571

Post by D-Machine »

raincom wrote: post #543
HarHarVeryFunny wrote: post #515

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The major reason for the never-ending disagreements on the nature of consciousness is that pretty much 100% of the time no-one ever rigorously defines what (things) they are actually talking about, and the word is so overloaded and poorly defined that any discussion therefore devolves into people talking about different things, as well as the discussion being so vague as to be meaningless. There are of course other r…

One can build scientific theories without rigorously defining terms: a stipulative definition is enough. Best example is Darwin's "Origin of Species"; here, Darwin didn't rigorously define "species": 'No one definition has as yet satisfied all naturalists; yet every naturalist knows vaguely what he means when he speaks of a species.' Many in the social sciences fetishize definitions, operating under the false notion…

But with "consciousness" we don't have even a stipulative definition, more like 40 different competing definitions (https://philpapers.org/rec/VIMMAT) which are in many cases only loosely related, and generally are talking about very different things. When the situation is this bad, I am skeptical you can make scientific progress.

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

#572

Post by KingFelix »

beaker52 wrote: post #534
bonobo wrote: post #456

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find your position quite interesting but I feel like it still suffers the same issues I've seen in other "mind-first" arguments (I'm sorry for any ill-defined terms as I'm not a philosopher myself), such as p-zombies (how do you know other people are conscious as well?) and the origin of it. I think both positions (physicalism vs mind-first) suffer from the same issue that is to reach the bottom of it all, except p…

> I'm sorry for any ill-defined terms as I'm not a philosopher myself Don't worry. You're in good company. > How would this work if, from your perspective, I'm also conscious and not a p-zombie? It's impossible for me to say that you are conscious. I only watch my own movie. In that movie, others appear to be watching their own movies. Their movies exist only as content in my movie. I cannot say for certain whether o…

Lots of comments here and lots of opinions! the Consciousness conference has been discussing this since 1994, will be in San Diego this October. It is where the actual Hard problem was first proposed by Chalmers, Rovelli was at the conference a few years ago too. https://cs2026.org/ It's a great conference, with lots of interesting people and conversations. Highly recommend

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

#573

Post by sigbottle »

I've been working through the American pragmatist tradition - James, Pierce, Sellars, Rorty, Brandom.

Something about that background, all the discussions about definitions and representation, the original article talking about dualisms.... It's certainly an experience.

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

#574

Post by KingFelix »

storus wrote: post #405

This article had absolutely no proof of its statements and all it did was use past allegories. We are definitely missing something in our understanding of the world, like before we knew about electromagnetism or radioactivity. There are some mechanisms we know about that contribute to the knowledge of self that become exposed by conditions like Depersonalization/Derealization disorder from certain neurons in inflamma…

Come to Consciousness conference, its where the hard problem started. https://cs2026.org/

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

#575

Post by mannanj »

mordymoop wrote: post #434
storus wrote: post #405

This article had absolutely no proof of its statements and all it did was use past allegories. We are definitely missing something in our understanding of the world, like before we knew about electromagnetism or radioactivity. There are some mechanisms we know about that contribute to the knowledge of self that become exposed by conditions like Depersonalization/Derealization disorder from certain neurons in inflamma…

Over time I've found that by far the highest ROI move in a consciousness debate is to simply ask "Oh, interesting. How do you know that?" and watch everyone on all sides flounder. It's one of the few places where otherwise smart people make confident statements that they don't even realize they can't support until they're asked to try. The intuitions are so strong that they seem to swamp reason. This has caused my ow…

That's nice. Do you have a go to for conversations with less mindful people or people without a training in meditation/mindfulness? For example, for people who have no experience and yet speak from a frame of strong identity and identification to their thoughts as though they are them, I like to ask "Who's the one who witnesses the thoughts?" and it kind of ties a brain-knot in their head.

Funny enough most people who don't want to meditate or practice mindfulness, also get dissuaded from the dissonance this brings up, and like the old me, just move on to more comfortable conversation.

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

#576

Post by delecti »

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…

Are there people who say that digitizing one's conscious moves their mind? If I upload a file from my computer to to a server, the file still exists on my computer (until deleted). I've never thought that a mind upload would work any differently.

I think that many who talk about consciousness digitization handwave away what happens to their body/brain afterwards, but I don't necessarily think that means they think they'll move into the computer.

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

#577

Post by DubiousPusher »

jffhn wrote: post #536
n4r9 wrote: post #449

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the article has an interesting argument here. We also "experience" the sun going up and down in the sky. But actually this is an illusion of our vantage point on a spinning rock.

We don't experience the sun going up and down, we experience its direction changing relative to the horizontal plane, and it is not an illusion: it matches planetary motion. The mistake arises when interpreting the raw experience. Sensations don't lie. Another example: Metal feels colder than plastic, but the sensation is right again: you are loosing more heat when touching metal.

But the sensation in a sense is a lie. Cold strictly speaking isn't real. And for much of human existence we spoke of it as if it was a substance due exactly to this specific sensatation.

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

#578

Post by unparagoned »

zetalyrae wrote: post #61
hackinthebochs wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Either all the computation happens "in the dark" [...] or, everything is conscious, from brains to slide rules and spreadsheets Why exclude the option that only specific kinds of computations are conscious, e.g. recursive control systems?

For two reasons: 1. This requires explaining why only some kinds of information processing are privileged to be conscious, which seems rather arbitrary. 2. There's the question of levels of abstraction. Which information processor is conscious? The physical CPU, the zeroth VM, the first VM, the second VM, etc. 3. And there's the question of interpretation. What is computation? A CPU is "just" electrons moving about.…

Funny enough Chalmers thinks a computation can be conscious. I believe he thinks that there are like special laws of computation that give rise to consciousness and that makes it dualism.

Makes no sense to me, to me if a simulation of physics gives rise to consciousness that’s pure physicalism

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

#579

Post by DubiousPusher »

kevin42 wrote: post #538
trollbridge wrote: post #419

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. The main reason we believe consciousness exists is because we all experience it. So it’s hard to deny.

“We experience it, therefore it exists” proves less than it seems. It proves there is an experience to explain. It does not prove that consciousness is what it appears to be from the inside. A mirage is still seen, but the thing it seems to show is not really there. Consciousness might be real in that same limited sense, while our folk model of it could be deeply wrong.

Sleep paralysis entered the chat

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

#580

Post by KingFelix »

I'll add a comment that hopefully won't get buried. The hard problem that Rovelli is talking was, I think, the first time someone said something in the field of consciousness that people could (at the time) agree on. Not many people were openly discussing in the 90's in academic settings.

It was proposed by Chalmers as a young undergrad at the Science of Consciousness conference. I have been attending for awhile and really enjoy it. There are so many opinions and thoughts on this post, if you are really into thinking about consciousness, this year the conference will be in San Diego. It's a long day of lectures, followed by evenings of great conversations. https://cs2026.org/

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