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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

#711

Post by funimpoded »

Eisenstein wrote: post #706
funimpoded wrote: post #694

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Possibly metaphysical naturalism is wrong and supernatural things exist! And maybe thoughts (and/or the experience of consciousness) are among those supernatural things. That could be it. In which case sure, maybe solving math problems can create consciousness (why not?).

You are attacking a strawman without answering the question.

Do I think supernatural things like thoughts not being represented in physical reality exist? I defer to Russell's Teapot on this one and lean toward "no". If they do, then attempting to reason about anything gets pretty iffy anyway. Who knows what might exist or be true, in that case!

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

#712

Post by beaker52 »

bonobo wrote: post #616
beaker52 wrote: post #534

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

I see, thanks for your reply. I'm still with physicalism so far, but I see your point. It gave me more room for thought. > You are a feature of the world that is impressed upon me. I was disappointed here for a while thinking about my NPC nature and place in this world, then I realized *YOU* must be a (very persuasive I'll admit) feature of the world that is impressed upon *ME*. Now I'm fine again. Thanks to myself f…

> I was disappointed here for a while thinking about my NPC nature and place in this world, then I realized YOU must be a (very persuasive I'll admit) feature of the world that is impressed upon ME.

Exactly. Now that we’re both aligned on having unreconcilable claims to being the one-true-consciousness, we can write competing holy books and argue about promised lands, and all that good jazz.

You see, once we begin playing the game, a whole host of worldly distractions crop up to occupy us. Wait until I show you this game called “having a career”, or “chasing wealth”. Spoiler alert - your body dies at the end, and you get to keep none of it, but it was fun, or at least it was supposed to be.

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

#713

Post by grantcas »

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?

[dead]

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

#714

Post by beaker52 »

pixl97 wrote: post #660
beaker52 wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So many people appear to be mesmerised by their own place in the physical world, and taken by this powerful idea that the physical world is the source of it all, giving rise to everything through physical laws and processes, like our brain, a product of quaint physical processes, giving rise to consciousness. To me, that idea seems entirely back-to-front. To me, it appears obvious to me that I am having a conscious e…

>I simply don’t buy that my consciousness comes from my physical brain, it seems more likely that my brain comes from my consciousness Cool, I'll give you some drugs that alter the physical reactions in your brain and turn off your consciousness, then tell me all about it.... oh.

Deal. Where do I sign?

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

#715

Post by Kim_Bruning »

“The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than the question of whether a submarine can swim.”

The answer to whether a submarine can swim tells you more about the person the about the submarine. Meanwhile submarines propel themselves under the waves just fine[1] , and stalk their prey with silent impunity.

Perhaps we should call these discussions "swimming submarine debates"?

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfa-class_submarine could hit 41 kts(47 mph; 76 km/h) ... which is pretty good for something that couldn't swim ;)

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

#716

Post by a13o »

nothinkjustai wrote: post #682
a13o wrote: post #354

It’s going to be a long road, but I think as LLMs and their offspring create more and more convincing arguments for silicon consciousness we will conclude that consciousness is about as real as humours, and we’ve all been p-zombies this whole time. Maybe the literary creature shoe should have started on the other foot, and sent us in search of proof that we are or are not p-angels. That at least puts the burden of pr…

How can you even argue that we’re p-zombies? I know that I’m not. I assume others aren’t. Maybe you are?

From a non-dual perspective either nobody is a p-zombie or everybody is a p-zombie. I think the trajectory of LLMs will be that consciousness sensations are abundant and low value, and that will give all the non-dual territory over to the illusionists (who now have a tangible example to point to.) Emergence won't be disproven but it'll be about as interesting as a penny stock. Everyone else is going to go to ground as a dualist and argue for some entirely new unreachable aspect of human exceptionalism, but they'll have ceded qualia as they did for souls. If I had to guess, they'll focus on embodied cognition because building high-fidelity bodies still seems really hard.

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

#717

Post by AnimalMuppet »

pixl97 wrote: post #660
beaker52 wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So many people appear to be mesmerised by their own place in the physical world, and taken by this powerful idea that the physical world is the source of it all, giving rise to everything through physical laws and processes, like our brain, a product of quaint physical processes, giving rise to consciousness. To me, that idea seems entirely back-to-front. To me, it appears obvious to me that I am having a conscious e…

>I simply don’t buy that my consciousness comes from my physical brain, it seems more likely that my brain comes from my consciousness Cool, I'll give you some drugs that alter the physical reactions in your brain and turn off your consciousness, then tell me all about it.... oh.

If I mess with the voltages of a CPU board, it can mess up the software. Do you conclude from that that software is electrical? You should conclude that it runs on an electrical substrate, but not that the software itself is electrical.

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

#718

Post by selcuka »

skirmish wrote: post #187
selcuka wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the basis of the p-zombies thought experiment discussed (and dismissed without any real arguments) in the article.

P-zombies cannot be argued about, if you reject their existence your opponent will call you a p-zombie (happened to Dennett).

It's a fair point, though. If one rejects a subjective experience without any doubt, the most plausible explanation is that they don't have that subjective experience.

If I tell you that I see numbers as colours, and you say "that's not possible", I would assume that you don't have synesthesia [1]. I wouldn't doubt the fact that I have it [2].

Similarly, if some people argue that consciousness is not something like I describe, I would naturally assume that they don't experience it the same way as I do.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synesthesia

[2] Someone I know has synesthesia. I don't have any way to confirm or deny that. All I can say is I don't have it.

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

#719

Post by api »

I think part of the answer is that AI shows that intelligence and consciousness are unrelated phenomena. Humans happen to be both.

I think this has been obvious from the other side of the argument forever. Animals obviously have consciousness and emotional responses and they are made of the same living matter we are, but my pet bunnies can’t do natural language or math.

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

#720

Post by hackinthebochs »

staticassertion wrote: post #398
hackinthebochs wrote: post #386

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a physicalist as well. A commitment to physicalism doesn't force you to reject the hard problem. The hard problem doesn't entail that phenomenal consciousness is not grounded in physical structure and function. The hard problem is about what is needed to explain consciousness. Science typically involves defining some phenomena precisely in terms of structure and function, then giving a precise story about how som…

I was rejecting your definition of the hard problem as it contains an assertion that a physicalist wouldn't accept. Yes, reduction would be one very viable strategy. It doesn't require precisely defining the phenomenon in order for me to just say that it reduces based on the fact that reduction has been a successful approach for everything else in cognition. > There is an in principle barrier to a transparent structu…

The claim that you can't describe consciousness in principle is widely accepted by participants on all sides of the debate. Can you tell me what experiencing red is like to you such that someone who is red/green color blind will know what its like? Most people think not. Rather, phenomenal consciousness is something you must experience yourself. It just isn't something that one can learn descriptively. This is a premise of the hard problem and also the Mary's room thought experiment. People who reject the premise usually just reject phenomenal consciousness completely.
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