Philosophy 101

  • 90 Replies
  • 30002 Views

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

What Came Before

  • *
  • Administrator
  • Emwama
  • *****
  • Posts: 0
    • View Profile
    • First Second Apocalypse
« Reply #30 on: April 24, 2013, 06:40:18 pm »
Quote from: Callan S.
Quote
Experience exists because the brain produces it.
I'll argue that one.

The idea/the hypothesis (and/or the certainty) of experience exists.

You're trying to look at a hypothesis making process, with a hypothesis making process. At which point, like two semi transparencies overlapping, hypothesis forming about hypothesis forming overlaps and appears something not hypothesis/not see through.

Perhaps a bit like a no god, try a 'no hypothesis' hypothesis. Take 'experience exists' and overlap it with a hypothesis of a field of black no hypothesis. Now the 'experience exists' contrasts against transparent black, instead of overlapping another semi transparent and becoming 'solid'. Instead it's a transparency still sitting upon transparency. Recursing back by one previously solid conclusion.

Quote
Consciousness seems utterly redundant to me. You could have people that do the exact things we do (even argue about consciousness!) without consciousness itself. Although how it is possible for beings to talk about something without a physical referent is a glaring problem with my position. I generally don't like using this line of argumentation, but I find it helps get across what I'm talking about, more or less.
Here's the ambiguity of 'conciousness' plus possibly the rejection I refer to above.

It's like you'd prefer a world of zombies with blank behind their eyes, than for 'conciousness' to shift it's core at all to something else. Sacred ground - like finding out Jesus was a girl and...rather pretending it was sexless. A blank between the legs. Though that's a pretty weak example from me - most people here would probably find that example utterly cool rather than untenable. My fail!

What Came Before

  • *
  • Administrator
  • Emwama
  • *****
  • Posts: 0
    • View Profile
    • First Second Apocalypse
« Reply #31 on: April 24, 2013, 06:40:30 pm »
Quote from: Jorge
Quote from: TWNF
Why does the brain generate experience? Because there is survival value in it for the species. This is the answer to all "why" questions when it comes to biology.

Once again, we are talking past each other.

Before I jump into the philosophy of it, I need to point out that you're actually wrong about the biology. Sometimes, we see traits that are ornate and conserved but they serve no function. This is called a spandrel. (Click for a classic paper by Gould and Lewontin) It's entirely possible that consciousness is a spandrel: an evolutionary side-effect of selection for some other information-processing structure.

Now, let me be clear what i am not arguing: I am not arguing that the human prefrontal cortex was not selected for. It very clearly was, given the IMMENSE evolutionary cost of producing and maintaining it. But the 'phenomenal experience' may be an unintentional side-effect of this selection.

Indeed, if BBT and TDTCB are true, it actually seems more likely to me that it IS a spandrel, since it seems to have no actual purpose.

OK, now to the philosophy.

We can probably all agree that a thermostat, or a digital camera has no 'phenomenological experiences'. If we view the human brain under the functionalist perspective, we get to the point at which the complexity of it "somehow" generates consciousness. Why, metaphysically, should this be? We should any inanimate object suddenly be gifted an internal perspective? Again, I argue science cannot answer that question. Maybe. I'm not sure. This is the heart of the Hard Problem.

What Came Before

  • *
  • Administrator
  • Emwama
  • *****
  • Posts: 0
    • View Profile
    • First Second Apocalypse
« Reply #32 on: April 24, 2013, 06:40:33 pm »
Quote from: TWNF
Quote from: Jorge
I need to point out that you're actually wrong about the biology. Sometimes, we see traits that are ornate and conserved but they serve no function.
I am aware of this. I was (over) generalizing.

Quote from: Jorge
Now, let me be clear what i am not arguing: I am not arguing that the human prefrontal cortex was not selected for. It very clearly was, given the IMMENSE evolutionary cost of producing and maintaining it. But the 'phenomenal experience' may be an unintentional side-effect of this selection.

Indeed, if BBT and TDTCB are true, it actually seems more likely to me that it IS a spandrel, since it seems to have no actual purpose.
Personally, I think it is highly unlikely that 'phenomenal experience' and the subjectivity that it involves is anything as inconsequential as to be considered a spandrel. Indeed I would say that subjectivity has enormous survival value.

Without self-aware consciousness:
Stimuli>unconscious processing>action>changes in environment>new stimuli

Organisms without self-awareness act on the output of unconscious process. They rely on the results of their action on the environment for feedback concerning the effectiveness of the unconscious processing. Only after they act do they find out if what they did was effective or not.

With the advent of self-conscious awareness:
Stimuli>unconscious processing>awareness of output of unconscious processing>additional processing*>eventual action>changes in environment>new stimuli

*Conscious awareness allows for additional processing which includes the outcomes of initial processing of stimuli. It is a way of improving on initial responses to stimuli by feeding those responses back into the computation. This loop can cycle indefinitely but in practical terms the cycling is limited by the need to eventually take action. Organisms with self-awareness (experiences) can reflect on the output of unconscious processes before taking action.

Quote from: Jorge
If we view the human brain under the functionalist perspective, we get to the point at which the complexity of it "somehow" generates consciousness. Why, metaphysically, should this be? We should any inanimate object suddenly be gifted an internal perspective? Again, I argue science cannot answer that question. Maybe. I'm not sure. This is the heart of the Hard Problem.
Taking my comments about self-awareness into account I maintain that science can tell us why the ability to experience the world with self-awareness has evolved. This capacity has evolved because there is tremendous survival advantage in self-awareness (experiencing).

What Came Before

  • *
  • Administrator
  • Emwama
  • *****
  • Posts: 0
    • View Profile
    • First Second Apocalypse
« Reply #33 on: April 24, 2013, 06:40:39 pm »
Quote from: Jorge
Yes, OK. I think you are (roughly) in the Daniel Dennett camp (not bad company, if I do say so myself).

I have, at times, held this position. It currently makes very little sense to me, but perhaps that is to be expected, given the predictions made by BBT.

My only strong disagreement with you is in assigning consciousness a function. If Scott's 'darkness that comes before' is an accurate portrayal of cognition, it seems that consciousness itself is an aftereffect, given that it has no causal power. The thoughts comes when they want... to paraphrase Nietzsche.

EDIT: Although, if you 100% equate consciousness to its neural correlates, then I see your point.

What Came Before

  • *
  • Administrator
  • Emwama
  • *****
  • Posts: 0
    • View Profile
    • First Second Apocalypse
« Reply #34 on: April 24, 2013, 06:40:45 pm »
Quote from: Callan S.
Coming back to this...
Quote
Consciousness seems utterly redundant to me. You could have people that do the exact things we do (even argue about consciousness!) without consciousness itself.
Is there some sort of test for this conclusion? Perhaps people who have suffered a brain injury and can't sustain what many experts might call conciousness, vs someone with it? Both set to the same task?

You could have a monitor show the exact same graphics from a high end graphics card, without any graphics card at all.

But it would not be dynamic. It'd be a prerecorded movie.

What Came Before

  • *
  • Administrator
  • Emwama
  • *****
  • Posts: 0
    • View Profile
    • First Second Apocalypse
« Reply #35 on: April 24, 2013, 06:40:52 pm »
Quote from: TWNF
Quote from: Jorge
My only strong disagreement with you is in assigning consciousness a function. If Scott's 'darkness that comes before' is an accurate portrayal of cognition, it seems that consciousness itself is an aftereffect, given that it has no causal power. The thoughts comes when they want... to paraphrase Nietzsche.
I contend that self-consciousness is far more than a side-effect of evolution. Rather I believe it is a selected-for trait with enormous survival value.

I also contend that it plays a causal role in decision making. As I explained in my previous post, self-consciousness supplies the brain with a kind of feedback that is not available to more primitive nervous systems. This feedback contributes to (participates is causing) decisions arrived at (computationally) by the brain.


Quote from: Jorge
EDIT: Although, if you 100% equate consciousness to its neural correlates, then I see your point.
I attribute consciousness to the activity of neurons. Short of a capitulation to dualism I can see no other source of consciousness.

What Came Before

  • *
  • Administrator
  • Emwama
  • *****
  • Posts: 0
    • View Profile
    • First Second Apocalypse
« Reply #36 on: April 24, 2013, 06:40:59 pm »
Quote from: Jorge
I currently capitulate to a kind of dualism, or "dual-aspect monism" which is just a fancy way of saying "I don't know shit."

BBT explicitly contradict consciousness as having much or any functional consequence that we can understand. So, while the feedback might be there, it's certainly not doing what we intuitively understand it to be doing... "volition", "planning" etc. (This sentence was edited for consistency.)

Today's classic paper for Phi101:
http://www.idemployee.id.tue.nl/g.w.m.rauterberg/lecturenotes/DGB01%20ADD/libet-1999a.pdf

What Came Before

  • *
  • Administrator
  • Emwama
  • *****
  • Posts: 0
    • View Profile
    • First Second Apocalypse
« Reply #37 on: April 24, 2013, 06:41:06 pm »
Quote from: TWNF
Quote from: Jorge
I currently capitulate to a kind of dualism, or "dual-aspect monism" which is just a fancy way of saying "I don't know shit."
I had a suspicion you were hedging your bets. Why resort to dual-aspect monism when mono-aspect dualism can do the job without all the mental gymnastics necessary to support the "having-your-cake-and-eating-it-too" perspective of dual-aspect monism?

Quote from: Jorge
BBT explicitly contradict consciousness as having much or any functional consequence that we can understand. So, while the feedback might be there, it's certainly not doing what we intuitively understand it to be doing... "volition", "planning" etc. (This sentence was edited for consistency.)
Does BBT actually explicitly deny consciousness any functional role? If so, I cannot subscribe to Scott's theory.  At least not that aspect of it. I maintain that any information available to the brain, including the contents of conscious awareness, will be automatically included as input in the brain's ongoing computation of 'what needs doing now'. This is how conscious awareness plays a causative role in cognition and behaviour.

What Came Before

  • *
  • Administrator
  • Emwama
  • *****
  • Posts: 0
    • View Profile
    • First Second Apocalypse
« Reply #38 on: April 24, 2013, 06:41:13 pm »
Quote from: Jorge
Quote
conscious awareness plays a causative role in cognition and behaviour

I strongly disagree with this. Forget the controversial dualism stuff, this is just science: "you" don't cause jack shit. Most of your actions and plans are decided and executed before your conscious mind has even a whiff of them. This is a pretty unpopular opinion, but it is the philosophical underpinning behind The Darkness that Comes Before, what the Dunyain strive for (to free their minds from causal history), and actually backed by some pretty serious science and philosophy.

I am more open to the idea that the neural correlates of consciousness (aka "consciousness" in the Dennett framework) eventually have an effect on your behavior, but I sincerely doubt this is in any way shape or form correlated to your feeling of "willing" something to happen.

I 'choose' to move my arm, but even though I consciously feel I made that choice, it was actually made milliseconds (which is a lifetime at the molecular level) before I was even conscious of the feeling of making it.

And every time we talk about this, I have to dredge up that extremely poignant Nietzsche quote at the beginning of TDTCB. Your thoughts precede you. They come to your mind fully formed, and force you to execute. Beliefs, opinions, sentences, desires, objectives, goals... all these things are hidden in the dark of your mind.


Quote
Why resort to dual-aspect monism when mono-aspect dualism can do the job

"Mono-aspect dualism" is a contradiction. Assuming you were being facetious, I can only reply that I clearly don't think any kind of pure monism or physicalism can 'do the job'.

What Came Before

  • *
  • Administrator
  • Emwama
  • *****
  • Posts: 0
    • View Profile
    • First Second Apocalypse
« Reply #39 on: April 24, 2013, 06:41:20 pm »
Quote from: TWNF
Quote from: Jorge
Quote
conscious awareness plays a causative role in cognition and behaviour

I strongly disagree with this. Forget the controversial dualism stuff, this is just science: "you" don't cause jack shit. Most of your actions and plans are decided and executed before your conscious mind has even a whiff of them.
Jorge, you have really leapt to an unsupported conclusion here. Nowhere have I claimed that a self does anything. What I said was the content of conscious awareness plays a causal role. As I explained, any information available to the brain for processing has the potential to play this role; to be grist for the neural mill.

Quote from: Jorge
I am more open to the idea that the neural correlates of consciousness (aka "consciousness" in the Dennett framework) eventually have an effect on your behavior, but I sincerely doubt this is in any way shape or form correlated to your feeling of "willing" something to happen.
Just to set the record straight I do not believe free will exists. I'm surprised that you have the impression that I do. I don't remember talking about anything that could be construed as supporting free will or an autonomous self. And I am well aware of the often cited experiments showing unconscious decision making precedes conscious awareness of those decisions.

Quote from: Jorge
"Mono-aspect dualism" is a contradiction. Assuming you were being facetious, I can only reply that I clearly don't think any kind of pure monism or physicalism can 'do the job'.
Actually, I meant to say "mono-aspect monism". What is it that physicalism can't do in terms of accounting for experience? If science can't at least potentially explain some aspect of experience then we are back to some quasi-dualistic rationalization. Perhaps you could explain the basic tenets of dual-aspect monism and the thinking that supports them.

What Came Before

  • *
  • Administrator
  • Emwama
  • *****
  • Posts: 0
    • View Profile
    • First Second Apocalypse
« Reply #40 on: April 24, 2013, 06:41:33 pm »
Quote from: Callan S.
I'm not quite on the same topic, but...
Quote
Most of your actions and plans are decided and executed before your conscious mind has even a whiff of them.
I'm guessing this is an extreme example, sans any control efforts? Like maybe you see you have some booze in the fridge and have the strong urge to drink it (such urge might have formed some time ago) but you know it'll get in the way of you studying. So you resist (or try to - you may fail, indeed).

So yes, you 'act out', but some things can be detected and guessed in advance and those actions altered.

Do people ever really think they have absolute control? How would they ever feel 'spontanious' when at the same time they feel some absolute control? Or how would they explain tripping over things or blunder into objects? Or saying things which if they had more time to think aforehand, they would have resisted saying?

What Came Before

  • *
  • Administrator
  • Emwama
  • *****
  • Posts: 0
    • View Profile
    • First Second Apocalypse
« Reply #41 on: April 24, 2013, 06:41:37 pm »
Quote from: Jorge
OK, your position is much clearer now. I don't think you would have any qualms with BBT, indeed I advise you to read it (Bakker linked to it recently on his blog) you might actually understand it better than I did.

Quote
What I said was the content of conscious awareness plays a causal role. As I explained, any information available to the brain for processing has the potential to play this role; to be grist for the neural mill.

'grist' and 'mill' are flag words for a Bakker sock-puppet alert. Come on Scott! You're going to have to fold those facial knuckles better.

(I apologize if I'm totally off-base)

What Came Before

  • *
  • Administrator
  • Emwama
  • *****
  • Posts: 0
    • View Profile
    • First Second Apocalypse
« Reply #42 on: April 24, 2013, 06:41:43 pm »
Quote from: TWNF
Quote from: Jorge
OK, your position is much clearer now. I don't think you would have any qualms with BBT, indeed I advise you to read it (Bakker linked to it recently on his blog) you might actually understand it better than I did.
As far as I can tell I don't have any qualms with the central argument that the brain has no access to its own workings. However, Scott seems to think that because this is the case there might be some kind of ineffable mental phenomena (like qualia) occurring in the black box. To me this kind of speculation is just wishful thinking. As I have maintained all along, the only way to allow for qualia and other mysterious mental phenomena is to admit to dualism.

What Came Before

  • *
  • Administrator
  • Emwama
  • *****
  • Posts: 0
    • View Profile
    • First Second Apocalypse
« Reply #43 on: April 24, 2013, 06:41:50 pm »
Quote from: sologdin
Quote
Today's classic paper for Phi101:
http://www.idemployee.id.tue.nl/g.w.m.r ... -1999a.pdf

nice.  love how high the houses of cards get in order to preserve human freedom.

What Came Before

  • *
  • Administrator
  • Emwama
  • *****
  • Posts: 0
    • View Profile
    • First Second Apocalypse
« Reply #44 on: April 24, 2013, 06:41:59 pm »
Quote from: Jorge
Today's philosophy 101 link, a mind-map of Western Philosophy. Shallow, but at least organizes contemporaries together and provides links for deeper to Wikipedia for elaboration.
http://www.mindmeister.com/23290325/western-philosophy/