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What is it like to be a bat? (1974) [pdf]

warwick.ac.uk

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Re: What is it like to be a bat? (1974) [pdf]

#81

Post by C-x_C-f »

hackinthebochs wrote: post #33
bondarchuk wrote: post #15

I am increasingly of the opinion that the phrases "what it is like to be a bat", or "there is something it is like to be a bat", are simply a linguistic sleight of hand masking a plain old dualistic standpoint. Just because these sentences make sense in our everyday language, does not mean they are suitable for technical and rigorous philosophical discussions. For one, the "something" in the 2nd formulation (or simpl…

>a linguistic sleight of hand masking a plain old dualistic standpoint. These terms are getting at something central to consciousness, the fact that there is a conceptual duality between how we conceive of it from the first-person and how we conceive of it from an objective standpoint. We can't disavow this conceptual duality, a theorist offering an explanation of consciousness that doesn't capture this dual nature o…

> A satisfying explanation of consciousness must offer some phenomena that carries a resemblance to our personal datum as experiencers of sensations.

What, in your opinion, would make for a satisfying explanation of consciousness? I think another nontrivial piece of the puzzle is that it's hard to even know what we are looking for. There are many philosophers who argue (convincingly IMHO) that it doesn't make sense to posit a hard problem of consciousness in the first place.

Re: What is it like to be a bat? (1974) [pdf]

#82

Post by pessimizer »

mjb wrote: post #4

> But bat sonar, though clearly a form of perception,is not similar in its operation to any sense that we possess, and there is no reason to suppose that it is subjectively like anything we can experience or imagine. Philosophy aside, bat sonar is different from the senses we possess in an really interesting way. Our eyes have excellent spatial resolution (up/down, left/right), some rough depth resolution (from stere…

Humans unconsciously echolocate. A lot of claims of "blindsight" turned out to be unconscious echolocation (obstructing hearing killed the blindsight.)

> Researchers from the 1940's through the present have found that normal, sighted people can echolocate - that is, detect properties of silent objects by attending to sound reflected from them. We argue that echolocation is a normal part of our perceptual experience and that there is something 'it is like' to echolocate. Furthermore, we argue that people are often grossly mistaken about their experience of echolocation. If so, echolocation provides a counterexample to the view that we cannot be mistaken about our own current phenomenology.

How Well Do We Know Our Own Conscious Experience? The Case of Human Echolocation

https://faculty.ucr.edu/~eschwitz/SchwitzAbs/Echo.htm

Re: What is it like to be a bat? (1974) [pdf]

#83

Post by [deleted] »

mjb wrote: post #36
enkid wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interestingly enough, humans have been able to use echo location, primarily in blind individuals. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_echolocation

Yeah! As far as I can tell from the research, what's going on there is primarily getting range information from the amplitude of the return (rather than delay or phase like "real" sonar uses). But still, it's very useful our brains are elastic enough to allow us to develop new senses!

[deleted]

Re: What is it like to be a bat? (1974) [pdf]

#84

Post by uoaei »

UIUC_06 wrote: post #76
uoaei wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The question of "where is the line" presumes there even is a line between matter ("objects") that expresses or does not express consciousness, which is also a big and unsubstantiated claim that requires proving. Occam's razor (i.e., our standard scientific apparatus of null vs alternative hypotheses) would seem to indicate it is appropriate to assume there is no difference in kind, only difference in degree, until th…

No need to define it or prove it. Just assume it.

What reason do you have to do so? What purpose would doing that serve?

As it stands you are just suggesting complicated, untestable theories. The point above is, that is ultimately pointless.

The simplest possible argument goes as follows: I am conscious, and I am made of matter. Everything else that is real is made of matter. There are other minds out there who also have this experience. With no further information, I must assume as the null hypothesis that everything in reality is conscious. An alternative hypothesis may be presented, but it would then need to be proven using reproducible studies and real evidence before we can assume the alternative hypothesis and reject the null hypothesis, per the consensus definition of formalized "science".

The rebuttal along epistemological lines goes as follows: you can know you are conscious, but you cannot necessarily know things that are witnessed through physical (limited, imperfect) sensory organs, so there is a wall beyond which we are forced only to postulate truths rather than conclusively prove them.

And the response to that is: if we are to progress in our analysis at all, we must postulate certain truths, and it is "best" to postulate only the least complex (in the Kolmogorov sense) assumptions given the data (Occam's Razor). "Best" is defined according to humanity's scientific principles.

Re: What is it like to be a bat? (1974) [pdf]

#85

Post by naasking »

jancsika wrote: post #74
naasking wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't understand what you mean by sleight of hand. He means that it implicitly smuggles in a certain conclusion. For instance, "I think therefore I am" seems logically sound, but actually begs the question in presupposing "I" to then conclude that "I" exists. Or ask an innocent person a question like, "when did you stop beating your wife?" > There are many synonymous ways of phrasing the question: e.g., describe…

> He means that it implicitly smuggles in a certain conclusion. For instance, "I think therefore I am" seems logically sound, but actually begs the question in presupposing "I" to then conclude that "I" exists. That's not correct. It means if something-- anything-- is in the act of reflecting about thinking-- that is, reflecting about thinking about anything at all, including questioning existence-- then that thing e…

> It means if something-- anything-- is in the act of reflecting about thinking-- that is, reflecting about thinking about anything at all, including questioning existence-- then that thing exists only in that it is an entity capable of reflecting upon its own existence.

Still presupposing an entity. Why would a thought need an entity at all to think it? Don't you see that this is an implicit assumption that hasn't been justified? Why can't thoughts simply exist without a thinker? A thought can certainly refer to itself, much like a mathematical expression can be recursive.

Here's the fallacy free version: this is a thought, therefore thoughts exist. No entity implied or needed.

Re: What is it like to be a bat? (1974) [pdf]

#86

Post by edgyquant »

zvmaz wrote: post #7

One excellent book on consciousness is Mcginn's The Mysterious Flame [1]. I knew consciousness is a hard problem, but the book made it clear how baffling and utterly mysterious it is. I am still absolutely flabbergasted when I think about it (how on earth does consciousness arise from material "meat"?! [2] Where are pain and color and subjective experience really located in the material universe?). It also made me sk…

>how on earth does consciousness arise from material "meat"?

Maybe it doesn’t. Or rather maybe experience doesn’t, and consciousness is just experience acting on a complex and self organizing decision tree.

Re: What is it like to be a bat? (1974) [pdf]

#87

Post by hackinthebochs »

naasking wrote: post #80
hackinthebochs wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The qualities that we perceive of it are deceptive, and not necessarily reflective of anything real. This claim only makes sense given a particular definition of "real", but if (the qualities of) our subjective experiences are outside of that definition, why should we take (the qualities of) subjective experience to not be real, rather than the definition to be impoverished? What is real should encompass every way i…

Would you take a "day job" to be ontologically real? It is a way in which the aggregate of particles that make up your body regularly behave on a semi periodic schedule. That would seem to fit your definition of "encompassing every way in which things are or can be". If it is real, isn't there still a need to distinguish ontological primitives from aggregate properties like the above? Why shouldn't this be what we me…

>Would you take a "day job" to be ontologically real?

I do. I'm quite pluralistic with what I deem "real". Quarks are real as well as chairs and day jobs. Roughly speaking, I take all fundamentals and all invariants in space and time over the fundamentals to be real. Invariants seem to be attractors in conceptual space that are apt to be picked out and labeled by cognitive systems like us. These invariants play various explanatory roles in our conceptualization of the world, and so they are real.

>If it is real, isn't there still a need to distinguish ontological primitives from aggregate properties like the above? Why shouldn't this be what we mean by "real"?

Definitely. I just use the qualifier fundamental to make that distinction. Real is a term that plays a key explanatory role in our conceptualization of the world and so how we define it for the purposes of theory should respect this pre-theoretical usage. The idea of ontological primitives distinct from everyday existence is a result of theory and so should use a distinct term. When people say chairs exist, they mean it in this broad pre-theoretic sense. There's no reason to blow that up.

Re: What is it like to be a bat? (1974) [pdf]

#88

Post by uoaei »

AlbertCory wrote: post #75
uoaei wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's wading in water, there's treading in water, there's snorkeling, there's diving, there's standing on a boat, there's drifting aimlessly. They are all different ways of interacting with depth. If you have a problem with the extent to which I've represented my knowledge and how my representation of those specific things I discuss differs from how experts deal with them, you are always free to provide something b…

Ooh. "snark and contempt" Project much?

I think you may be taking things a bit personally if you are detecting contempt in my comments.

Re: What is it like to be a bat? (1974) [pdf]

#89

Post by edgyquant »

AlbertCory wrote: post #56
naasking wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you have it backwards: we would need a reason to think they don't have it, given our shared history and similar biology.

ok, so anything with our "shared history and similar biology" is assumed to have consciousness? How similar is "similar"? Is it just mammals, or just certain orders, or can organisms in the other branches be assumed to have consciousness too?

I think that unless you have proof otherwise we should assume all organisms have awareness of their surroundings. Otherwise you’re just doing the same thing religious people did for centuries and treating humans as ultra special.

Re: What is it like to be a bat? (1974) [pdf]

#90

Post by edgyquant »

uoaei wrote: post #84
UIUC_06 wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No need to define it or prove it. Just assume it.

What reason do you have to do so? What purpose would doing that serve? As it stands you are just suggesting complicated, untestable theories. The point above is, that is ultimately pointless. The simplest possible argument goes as follows: I am conscious, and I am made of matter. Everything else that is real is made of matter. There are other minds out there who also have this experience. With no further information,…

Are you not doing the same? What reason do we have to assume that things don’t have experience?
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