[PoweredBySoy]

Gravity

Pretty much. We're missing like, what, 80% of the universe?

[Window]

To anyone who's interested in the consciousness and memory issues I really cannot recommend Godel, Escher, Bach enough, although I do have to include a warning that it is not at all light reading and some of the ideas about number theory and formal proofs I'm finding mentally draining to comprehend.

I tried reading this when I was 17 and as you might imagine I was not succesful in finising it (only got a third of the way in). I really should get back to it sometime and hopefully it will make sense now...

[The Technomancer]

Yes, I do. Please tell me how science hopes to explain fundamentally non-physical phenomena (qualia).

What is a non-physical phenomena? The wikipedia article on qualia contains many interpretations and permutations of the idea, what does it mean to you?

Correspondence is not identity. The fact that every mental state corresponds (even supervenes on) some physical (i.e., brain) state does not explain the mental state. It does not explain why the non-physical property exists (i.e., the mental state) or why there is a supervenience relationship between certain physical facts and certain non-physical facts.

Why is the mental state a non-physical property? Your point here seems to hinge on the claim that a mental state is a non-physical property but from what I can tell of what you're saying here you don't have any backing to that claim, only the statement that just because we can see physical changes and activities in the brain does not mean that there is not also something non-physical going on which is...not a very sound proposition on its own merits.

EDIT: I'm reading up on Property Dualism now which might help me understand

[bolbronx]

Why we yawn

[TruthJunky]

Why is the mental state a non-physical property? Your point here seems to hinge on the claim that a mental state is a non-physical property but from what I can tell of what you're saying here you don't have any backing to that claim, only the statement that just because we can see physical changes and activities in the brain does not mean that there is not also something non-physical going on which is...not a very sound proposition on its own merits. EDIT: I'm reading up on Property Dualism now which might help me understand

If I stick my hand on a hot stove, and feel pain, it may be that my feeling-the-pain corresponds with, follows on the heels of, supervenes on (or what have you, depending on the view) certain observable and quantifiable activity in my brain. But that observable and quantifiable activity in my brain is not itself *my pain*.

[phisheep]

Correspondence is not identity. The fact that every mental state corresponds (even supervenes on) some physical (i.e., brain) state does not explain the mental state. It does not explain why the non-physical property exists (i.e., the mental state) or why there is a supervenience relationship between certain physical facts and certain non-physical facts.

It's fair enough to refer to mental events, but probably a bit of a leap to refer to them as "non-physical" certainly at our current state of knowledge.

[Cromat]

I agree with the people who argue that science is mainly concerned with "How?" as opposed to "Why?"

To stick to the example of gravity, we have a scientific model that explain how gravity works. An object causes a warp in the fabric spacetime that is proportional to its mass. Other objects follow straight trajectories in a warped spacetime which causes the apparent effects of gravity.

But why does gravity work this way, or even exist?

The question of why things are the way they are is beyond the bounds of most scientific theories. The Standard Model of physics needs a ton of data received from experiments in order to work. No one knows why there are electrons, or why they have the particular properties that they do. No one knows why there should be exactly these types of particles and interactions. No one knows why time only goes in one direction. No one knows what the initial state of the universe was. And most importantly, no one knows why is there even a universe in the first place. Wouldn't nothing be simpler?

Stephen Hawkings asked it best: did "God" have a choice when creating the universe?

[The Technomancer]

If I stick my hand on a hot stove, and feel pain, it may be that my feeling-the-pain corresponds with, follows on the heels of, supervenes on (or what have you, depending on the view) certain observable and quantifiable activity in my brain. But that observable and quantifiable activity in my brain is not itself *my pain*.

Then what is it? What is your pain?

I agree with the people who argue that science is mainly concerned with "How?" as opposed to "Why?" To stick to the example of gravity, we have a scientific model that explain how gravity works. An object causes a warp in the fabric spacetime that is proportional to its mass. Other objects follow straight trajectories in a warped spacetime which causes the apparent effects of gravity. But why does gravity work this way, or even exist? The question of why things are the way they are is beyond the bounds of most scientific theories. The Standard Model of physics needs a ton of data received from experiments in order to work. No one knows why there are electrons, or why they have the particular properties that they do. No one knows why there should be exactly these types of particles and interactions. No one knows why time only goes in one direction. No one knows what the initial state of the universe was. And most importantly, no one knows why is there even a universe in the first place. Wouldn't nothing be simpler? Stephen Hawkings asked it best: did "God" have a choice when creating the universe?

But science is working on answering the "why"s you talked about. The arbitrary nature of the standard model is an incredible thorn that lots of people are trying to work through.

[TruthJunky]

It's fair enough to refer to mental events, but probably a bit of a leap to refer to them as "non-physical" certainly at our current state of knowledge.

It is not a physical event. My raw, experiential *feeling/sensation* of pain cannot (as a conceptual matter) be characterized in physical terms, even if it has physical causes, supervenes on brain activity, and so forth.

Then what is it? What is your pain?

It is a purely qualitative experience of consciousness which cannot be characterized in physical terms (even if, to repeat, it has physical causes, corresponds observably to brain activity, etc.). That is what makes consciousness a mystery.

Anyway, I'm not defending any particular position. I'm just trying to explain what the people who earlier said "Consciousness!" were claiming. This is Phil Mind 101 stuff.

[The Technomancer]

It is not a physical event. My raw, experiential *feeling/sensation* of pain cannot (as a conceptual matter) be characterized in physical terms, even if it has physical causes, supervenes on brain activity, and so forth.

Why not?

[Mully]

How many senses we truly have.

[TruthJunky]

Why not?

Well, I can just repeat Kripke here, like a dope. But see his _Naming and Necessity_. Look for his discussion of pain and C-fibers firing

[Cromat]

But science is working on answering the "why"s you talked about. The arbitrary nature of the standard model is an incredible thorn that lots of people are trying to work through.

True. This is why I posted in the " What are the greatest mysteries that science can't explain (yet)?" thread.

Though I doubt if the question "Why is there a Universe as opposed to nothing" could ever be answered.

[Raist]

Why we yawn

Read "Your inner fish"

edit: nevermind, just remembered it was about hiccups.

[godelsmetric]

Philosophical discussion of why we can't reduce sensation to physical terms is basically a very elaborate argument from incredulity.

[TruthJunky]

Philosophical discussion of why we can't reduce sensation to physical terms is basically a very elaborate argument from incredulity.

Not really. It's a conceptual argument. It's an argument about whether a fully detailed description of my brain at t1 could be *identical* to my experience of smelling chocolate, the way that a fully detailed description of the physical composition at {x,y,z} can, in fact, be *identical* to my desk.

[7Th]

Free will.

How can science explain something that doesn't exist?

[The Technomancer]

It is a purely qualitative experience of consciousness which cannot be characterized in physical terms (even if, to repeat, it has physical causes, corresponds observably to brain activity, etc.). That is what makes consciousness a mystery.

There seems to be some kind of arbitrary line here that divides "qualitative" from "quantitative". I hold that when we make that distinction its because of the resolution of our current understanding, not that there is something fundamentally different about qualitative mental properties. Where I'm getting hung up is that to me the statement "cannot be characterized in purely physical terms" is the same as saying "there are non-physical elements involved in the operation of consciousness" and I don't believe in non-physical elements.

Well, I can just repeat Kripke here, like a dope. But see his _Naming and Necessity_. Look for his discussion of pain and C-fibers firing

I'll look into it.

[DemiMatt]

http://www.cracked.com/article_19442...nt-answer.html #5 is my favourite.

As a cyclist, wow haha.

[Zaptruder]

It is not a physical event. My raw, experiential *feeling/sensation* of pain cannot (as a conceptual matter) be characterized in physical terms, even if it has physical causes, supervenes on brain activity, and so forth. It is a purely qualitative experience of consciousness which cannot be characterized in physical terms (even if, to repeat, it has physical causes, corresponds observably to brain activity, etc.). That is what makes consciousness a mystery. Anyway, I'm not defending any particular position. I'm just trying to explain what the people who earlier said "Consciousness!" were claiming. This is Phil Mind 101 stuff.

Remove the physical event that creates the perception of pain, remove the perception of pain.

What you're claiming is as tautological as claiming that the speed of a moving car is a non-physical thing, even when physical elements are clearly in play in creating said speed. Remove the elements that create the speed and the speed ceases to be.

That said... I've recently softened my position on the issue of property dualism - from a hard materialist to someone that believes there to be information dualism... where the information side is completely reliant and derived from the material reality - where the information reality doesn't impinge on the operation of the physical reality.

I use the concept to allow for the invention of informational concepts like numbers and mathematics that have great efficacy but exist physically in literal terms as configurations on atoms of paper, configurations of atoms in neurons, and various other devices and properties - but that nonetheless affect the workings of things on both a macro and micro scale... that is it weaves between the macro scale in which we live and understand and the micro scale in which the physical laws of the universe operate.

While we're ultimately beholden to the physical laws of the micro scale that operate in massive parallelism - much of the phenomena and patterns in nature that occurs makes most sense at the macro scale interpretation - that is, it has the lowest information entropy when encoded for understanding through the macro scale world in which we live.

But that doesn't mean we can eschew materialism and go straight to magical thinking. Not at all - understanding those core principles concepts allows us to have a better, more concrete and cohesive understanding of the macro-scale operations of our world.

[The Technomancer]

Not really. It's a conceptual argument. It's an argument about whether a fully detailed description of my brain at t1 could be *identical* to my experience of smelling chocolate, the way that a fully detailed description of the physical composition at {x,y,z} can, in fact, be *identical* to my desk.

If we're operating in a universe where perfect description is possible (due to no uncertainty effects) then I don't see how the bolded could be not true. (more specifically that re-setting your brain into that state would produce the same effect. What kind of description are we talking about here? If you're saying that viewing a neurological map of yourself at that instant doesn't cause you to experience that sensation then that's not a result of a difference in the information, that's a difference in how the information is being transcribed and then translated)
We don't operate in a universe where perfect description is possible, but I don't quite think you're making the claim that conciseness transcends physical properties because of quantum uncertainty effects.

[TruthJunky]

That said... I've recently softened my position on the issue of property dualism - from a hard materialist to someone that believes there to be information dualism... where the information side is completely reliant and derived from the material reality - where the information reality doesn't impinge on the operation of the physical reality.

This is roughly what I believe. (The dependence relation is as you say: the non-physical depends wholly on the physical, and not the other way around.)

I'm very confused, then, by why you don't think there is a great unsolved mystery about why these causally inert, wholly dependent, purely qualitative properties exist in the first place, and why the stand in the dependence relation that they do. That's exactly the interesting and mysterious part.

But that doesn't mean we can eschew materialism and go straight to magical thinking. Not at all - understanding those core principles concepts allows us to have a better, more concrete and cohesive understanding of the macro-scale operations of our world.

I'm not sure who said anything about magical thinking. I'm pretty much a hardcore naturalist about all things.

[Fancy Corndog]

I understand what he's saying and I think it's worth making a distinction though. Without the intangibility of experience art couldn't exist, for example. Maybe we'll get to that point some day, but I don't think we're there yet.

[TruthJunky]

If we're operating in a universe where perfect description is possible (due to no uncertainty effects) then I don't see how the bolded could be not true. (more specifically that re-setting your brain into that state would produce the same effect. What kind of description are we talking about here? If you're saying that viewing a neurological map of yourself at that instant doesn't cause you to experience that sensation then that's not a result of a difference in the information, that's a difference in how the information is being transcribed and then translated) We don't operate in a universe where perfect description is possible, but I don't quite think you're making the claim that conciseness transcends physical properties because of quantum uncertainty effects.

Yes, setting uncertainty aside. (It's a thought experiment.)

The physical description of {x,y,z} just *is* my desk. They are two ways of saying the very same thing. There is no loss of information if we say "the such and such particles composed like thus and so at x, y, z" rather than "the wooden desk in the corner of the room". If the physical description is genuinely complete, then they're just two ways of picking out the very same thing.

But philosophers are not so sure that the same is true in the case of i) a complete and perfect physical description of my brain and ii) my experience of smelling chocolate. Yes, of course, as you say, any time you reproduced the same, identical brain state, you would also reproduce my smelling chocolate. But that's not the question. The question is whether "the brain organized like thus and so, with such and such parts firing, and the transmissions of such and such character occurring like such and such [insert unbelievably complex and systematic description of brain]" would actually be equivalent to "my experience of smelling chocolate". I think that the experience -- the raw *feeling* -- is not something that can be characterized or captured in physical terms.

[The Technomancer]

Yes, setting uncertainty aside. (It's a thought experiment.) The physical description of {x,y,z} just *is* my desk. They are two ways of saying the very same thing. There is no loss of information if we say "the such and such particles composed like thus and so at x, y, z" rather than "the wooden desk in the corner of the room". If the physical description is genuinely complete, then they're just two ways of picking out the very same thing.

Right, totally agree here. As another poster on here said recently "a perfect map of a thing is the thing itself"

But philosophers are not so sure that the same is true in the case of i) a complete and perfect physical description of my brain and ii) my experience of smelling chocolate. Yes, of course, as you say, any time you reproduced the same, identical brain state, you would also reproduce my smelling chocolate. But that's not the question. The question is whether "the brain organized like thus and so, with such and such parts firing, and the transmissions of such and such character occurring like such and such [insert unbelievably complex and systematic description of brain]" would actually be equivalent to "my experience of smelling chocolate". I think that the experience -- the raw *feeling* -- is not something that can be characterized in physical terms.

And I just don't understand this part. Okay, here's something that might help me: do you hold that it can be characterized at all?

[MuseManMike]

I understand what he's saying and I think it's worth making a distinction though. Without the intangibility of experience art couldn't exist, for example. Maybe we'll get to that point some day, but I don't think we're there yet.

There are interesting ways of looking at what art "is" as far as its relationship between the tangible and the "intangible." We don't necessarily see as art governed by "laws" -- we see it as a fleeting, unrepeatable expression of some unique feeling. Aside from attempting to "reduce" the laws that ultimately govern those "feelings" (chemical reactions); "action of expressing" (neurology and physiology) -- there are interesting discussions to be had. Gilles Deleuze had this interesting concept in one of his most respected works where he claimed that things were either generalities or repetitions. Generalities were cycles and laws (science). And repetitions were essentially one-off events; unique thoughts like art that inherently can't have equivalencies. I am not as well-versed in something so analyzed and complex as Deleuzian philosophy, but I think these two things were still somehow related for him. Of course his work is only tangentially related to what is being discussed here, but I just found it interesting how I am a strict monist/materialist, yet if I adhere to Deleuze (which I do) I have to concede there might be things that exist outside of these strict generalities. Yay for dissonance!

[Zaptruder]

This is roughly what I believe. (The dependence relation is as you say: the non-physical depends wholly on the physical, and not the other way around.) I'm very confused, then, by why you don't think there is a great unsolved mystery about why these causally inert, wholly dependent, purely qualitative properties exist in the first place, and why the stand in the dependence relation that they do. That's exactly the interesting and mysterious part.

Sorry, I get carried away reading into people sometimes.

It's an interesting thought... but it seems to me primarily interesting from the point of view of a pattern seeking human, reading into the situation more then needs to be.

That is to say... these properties arise as a repeatable pattern in the sea of physical interactions... like crests upon a wave. There is much between the crests of the wave that our brains care not to comprehend that must occur between each crest. We draw a line between the crests, then ponder at wonderousness of how straight a line it is.

As regards to the nature of our own experience - why is it the way it is? Why is red - red? Because red possesses a certain static set of characteristics - when interpreted through the information processing system of our brain - relative to all the other factors been processed... is the most efficient manner of encoding/decoding those static characteristics relative to other static characterstics (be it other colours, other sensory perceptions, or other forms of thought).

So basically... the perception of red is the crest in the wave - our brain isn't fast enough to have the capacity to be aware of how the brain is decoding the colour red and recombobulating it in our conscious mind - the fastest it can operate at while providing us with a reliable perception of the colour red - is to show it to us as red - even while the other parts of our mind work in parallel to ponder the nature of red - going through orders of magnitudes more operations to think what it is thinking right now.

[TruthJunky]

And I just don't understand this part. Okay, here's something that might help me: do you hold that it can be characterized at all?

I don't really know.

I think that it can be roughly characterized in comparative terms, using other qualitative descriptions (e.g., "like maple, but without the ..., and with more ...").

[The Technomancer]

That is to say... these properties arise as a repeatable pattern in the sea of physical interactions... like crests upon a wave. There is much between the crests of the wave that our brains care not to comprehend that must occur between each crest. We draw a line between the crests, then ponder at wonderousness of how straight a line it is.

I love this, I think I'll use this in the future.

I don't really know. I think that it can be roughly characterized in comparative terms, using other qualitative descriptions (e.g., "like maple, but without the ..., and with more ...").

Hm, okay, I think we've gone about as far with this discussion as we can then. Interesting perspective

[Gotchaye]

I already tried to get this across, but one more time:

The huge mystery about consciousness is that it's not obvious why it should exist. Like truthjunky said, if you have a bunch of molecules arranged in a desk pattern, you have a desk. Because "desk" is just the word we use to refer to particular arrangements, and has no content beyond that.

But almost everybody finds p-zombies conceivable. That is, we can imagine a human without conscious experience, or a robot with human-like capabilities but no conscious experience, which reacts as if in pain upon being burned but which doesn't actually feel - it's just an automaton. So the idea of "consciousness", as actually used, obviously doesn't stand in an identity relationship to brain activity. Further, "my consciousness" strikes me as being an enormously different thing than any other consciousness. You could copy my brain exactly, and give this new brain the experience of smelling chocolate, and I still wouldn't smell chocolate. The consciousness that one brain in particular is producing is experienced by me in a way that's different from how I experience the consciousness produced by any other brain (which science can't even demonstrate the existence of). Science has a very hard time accounting for subjectivity in any interesting way.

Edit: And I want to stress that, in addition to not really being scientific questions, these are issues of immense practical importance. At some point, we're going to need to be able to figure out what rights artificial intelligences have, and plausibly that's going to depends on the extent to which they are conscious.

[TruthJunky]

I love this, I think I'll use this in the future. Hm, okay, I think we've gone about as far with this discussion as we can then. Interesting perspective

For the record, I do not have all that much interested in the topic, honestly. (I do philosophy [PhD], but I don't do philosophy of mind.) This isn't something I spend much time thinking about and it isn't something I care about. I'm mostly just parroting what you'd hear in an intro philosophy of mind class. People were earlier being dismissive of folks who'd answered "Conscioussness" to the thread's question, and so I've been trying to explain what those folks must have had in mind.

[TruthJunky]

But almost everybody finds p-zombies conceivable. That is, we can imagine a human without conscious experience, or a robot with human-like capabilities but no conscious experience, which reacts as if in pain upon being burned but which doesn't actually feel - it's just an automaton. So the word "consciousness" obviously doesn't stand in an identity relationship to brain activity. Further, "my consciousness" strikes me as being an enormously different thing than any other consciousness. You could copy my brain exactly, and give this new brain the experience of smelling chocolate, and I still wouldn't smell chocolate. The consciousness that one brain in particular is producing is experienced by me in a way that's different from how I experience the consciousness produced by any other brain (which science can't demonstrate the existence of). Science has a very hard time accounting for subjectivity in any interesting way.

I'm pretty sure that some of these folks are actually saying that Kripke's zombies are inconceivable. <shrug>

[The Technomancer]

I'm pretty sure that some of these folks are actually saying that Kripke's zombies are inconceivable. <shrug>

It depends on how deep we take (pulling from the Wikipedia article on Kripke's Zombies) the idea of "identical response". If we have two theoretical perfect information brain snapshots of a human brain and a zombie brain in response to a stimulus and the two snapshots are identical then I don't understand or see what additional factor is used to mark the brains as "different"

[MuseManMike]

What's your area of study, TruthJunky?

[TruthJunky]

It depends on how deep we take (pulling from the Wikipedia article on Kripke's Zombies) the idea of "identical response". If we have two theoretical perfect information brain snapshots of a human brain and a zombie brain in response to a stimulus and the two snapshots are identical then I don't understand or see what additional factor is used to mark the brains as "different"

Sorry, here is a simple version of the question.

Is it in-principle *possible* for there to be a precisel physical duplicate of yourself at this moment -- right down to the finest microphysical detail -- who did not have any conscious experience?

[Timedog]

The problem with the discussion between why and how is that we're having that discussion in a high-level language and we're trying to map those words onto incredibly ill-defined terms. What does "why" mean, and how is it separate from "how"? I'm not saying its unanswerable, I'm saying I expect a lot of people answer it differently. For me "why" is almost a useless term, because for it to be distinct from "how" would imply a non-deterministic (or non-physical, the universe may not be deterministic) agency which I don't think exists.

This is what I was trying to describe but was incredibly drunk.

[Gotchaye]

It depends on how deep we take (pulling from the Wikipedia article on Kripke's Zombies) the idea of "identical response". If we have two theoretical perfect information brain snapshots of a human brain and a zombie brain in response to a stimulus and the two snapshots are identical then I don't understand or see what additional factor is used to mark the brains as "different"

To be clear, the issue isn't whether or not it's metaphysically possible for one brain to be conscious and a completely identical brain to not be conscious, but whether it is logically possible, or merely conceivable to the extent that that's distinct from logical possibility.

We can easily conceive of magical worlds with disembodied minds (or minds that are not merely supervening on the physical) all over the place. Full Metal Alchemist doesn't cause (real) people's heads to explode when they find out that Al's got nothing going on physically inside that armor, but still thinks.

[The Technomancer]

Sorry, here is a simple version of the question. Is it in-principle *possible* for there to be a precisely physical duplicate of yourself at this precise moment -- right down to the finest microphysical detail -- who did not have any conscious experience?

My response is no. For the duplicate to lack consciousness then consciousness would have to derive from some additional factor not encoded in the physical arrangement of my brain, and I don't know what that additional factor could be. I'm honestly curious to hear what other people think it is.

[MuseManMike]

Sorry, here is a simple version of the question. Is it in-principle *possible* for there to be a precisel physical duplicate of yourself at this moment -- right down to the finest microphysical detail -- who did not have any conscious experience?

What if you argue that consciousness is essentially a byproduct of said arrangement; therefore, you cannot have the exact arrangement without having the "same" consciousness -- or at least "a" consciousness?

Edit: Yeah, Techno gets it. You would then have to concede some intangible addition that exists in one body and not the other.

[Zaptruder]

I already tried to get this across, but one more time: The huge mystery about consciousness is that it's not obvious why it should exist. Like truthjunky said, if you have a bunch of molecules arranged in a desk pattern, you have a desk. Because "desk" is just the word we use to refer to particular arrangements, and has no content beyond that. But almost everybody finds p-zombies conceivable. That is, we can imagine a human without conscious experience, or a robot with human-like capabilities but no conscious experience, which reacts as if in pain upon being burned but which doesn't actually feel - it's just an automaton. So the word "consciousness" obviously doesn't stand in an identity relationship to brain activity. Further, "my consciousness" strikes me as being an enormously different thing than any other consciousness. You could copy my brain exactly, and give this new brain the experience of smelling chocolate, and I still wouldn't smell chocolate. The consciousness that one brain in particular is producing is experienced by me in a way that's different from how I experience the consciousness produced by any other brain (which science can't demonstrate the existence of). Science has a very hard time accounting for subjectivity in any interesting way. Edit: And I want to stress that, in addition to not really being scientific questions, these are issues of immense practical importance. At some point, we're going to need to be able to figure out what rights artificial intelligences have, and plausibly that's going to depends on the extent to which they are conscious.

So what if we find p-zombies concievable? We also find unicorns and space teapots conceivable.

If you think on the problem of p-zombies however... in order to act as a human, you need to have a complex set of sub-routines that can spur you to act human. Actually been human is the most efficient way of acting as a human - to be something else - a program that can act human in all situations - you'd actually have to have greater capacity than a human being - it's like an emulating software... to perfectly emulate hardware in software - you need several magnitudes more processing power to do so. Otherwise you'll get inaccuracies and incongruencies that are detectable.

But the question of morality and ethics that is applied to outside the bounds of just humanity is indeed an interesting area of thinking... and will merit serious thought and action, likely within our lifetimes.

Without a huge amount of thought... or intuitively speaking... it seems to me as though we shouldn't try to anthropormorphize non-biological intelligence too much - as it's not necessary to set them up with the same pain/reward motivation system that we have going for ourselves.

[godelsmetric]

Yes, setting uncertainty aside. (It's a thought experiment.) The physical description of {x,y,z} just *is* my desk. They are two ways of saying the very same thing. There is no loss of information if we say "the such and such particles composed like thus and so at x, y, z" rather than "the wooden desk in the corner of the room". If the physical description is genuinely complete, then they're just two ways of picking out the very same thing. But philosophers are not so sure that the same is true in the case of i) a complete and perfect physical description of my brain and ii) my experience of smelling chocolate. Yes, of course, as you say, any time you reproduced the same, identical brain state, you would also reproduce my smelling chocolate. But that's not the question. The question is whether "the brain organized like thus and so, with such and such parts firing, and the transmissions of such and such character occurring like such and such [insert unbelievably complex and systematic description of brain]" would actually be equivalent to "my experience of smelling chocolate". I think that the experience -- the raw *feeling* -- is not something that can be characterized or captured in physical terms.

Right, exactly, as I said, it's an argument from incredulity. You just find it very unlikely that a complete physical description of your brain could yield a description that is identical to your 'raw feeling'.

Not to mention the reductionist assumptions being made.

[The Technomancer]

To be clear, the issue isn't whether or not it's metaphysically possible for one brain to be conscious and a completely identical brain to not be conscious, but whether it is logically possible, or merely conceivable to the extent that that's distinct from logical possibility.

Well, yes its clearly conceivable, we call it the "soul". But there are many things that are both conceivable and illogical. Most of Escher's more famous works fall into that category. Our minds are good at "smoothing over" illogical things and trying to make them logical and thus comprehensible.

[Zaptruder]

Sorry, here is a simple version of the question. Is it in-principle *possible* for there to be a precisel physical duplicate of yourself at this moment -- right down to the finest microphysical detail -- who did not have any conscious experience?

No. If you duplicate all the parts of an engine to the finest precise details... is it not going to operate as an engine still? Or do all the things an engine would do, including creating exhaust fumes? Would it not turn the crankshaft, turning the wheels, creating movement and thus speed?

[Gotchaye]

If you think on the problem of p-zombies however... in order to act as a human, you need to have a complex set of sub-routines that can spur you to act human. Actually been human is the most efficient way of acting as a human - to be something else - a program that can act human in all situations - you'd actually have to have greater capacity than a human being - it's like an emulating software... to perfectly emulate hardware in software - you need several magnitudes more processing power to do so. Otherwise you'll get inaccuracies and incongruencies that are detectable.

I basically agree with this. I'm inclined to say that p-zombies are metaphysically impossible. But that they're not conceptually impossible proves that consciousness isn't just identical to brain states. It may supervene on brain states, but we are actually talking about a different kind of thing when we talk about consciousness.

But yes, assuming something like materialism, probably it would be very hard to emulate consciousness without consciousness. Although, again, it would also be impossible to actually check and see if we've succeeded.

[Gotchaye]

Well, yes its clearly conceivable, we call it the "soul". But there are many things that are both conceivable and illogical. Most of Escher's more famous works fall into that category.

But they're (Escher's works are) not illogical. They're un-real, in that they often don't work in simple Cartesian geometries which the real world outside of relativity seems to work in. They're perfectly self-consistent.

Edit: Likewise the soul. It's a perfectly coherent concept. We just don't have any reason to suppose that they actually exist.

Anyway, like I said, the point is to show that you can't just drop "consciousness just is what happens when you get a big parallel computer going" as if it answers "why are we conscious" in any meaningful way.

[The Technomancer]

I basically agree with this. I'm inclined to say that p-zombies are metaphysically impossible. But that they're not conceptually impossible proves that consciousness isn't just identical to brain states. It may supervene on brain states, but we are actually talking about a different kind of thing when we talk about consciousness.

Or that your (our) minds are capable of conceiving of things that are illogical because of the nuance and complexity of how we mentally handle symbols and concepts.

EDIT: What do you mean when you say that the idea of a p-zombie is "self consistent"? Has the concept been reduced to symbolic logic and been shown to be non-contradictory?

EDIT 2: Also I find these zombies inconceivable. I cannot internally reconcile the two determining characteristics ("is a duplicate", "is not conscious")

[Zaptruder]

But they're (Escher's works are) not illogical. They're un-real, in that they often don't work in simple Cartesian geometries which the real world outside of relativity seems to work in. They're perfectly self-consistent. Edit: Likewise the soul. It's a perfectly coherent concept. We just don't have any reason to suppose that they actually exist. Anyway, like I said, the point is to show that you can't just drop "consciousness just is what happens when you get a big parallel computer going" as if it answers "why are we conscious" in any meaningful way.

It answers it in the most meaningful way - otherwise the only other reasonable response is to dismiss our understanding of consciousness as a fallacy of our limited minds.

Really... at some point this is just a really grown up, sophisticated way of whining: "But why?!"

[phisheep]

Yes, setting uncertainty aside. (It's a thought experiment.) The physical description of {x,y,z} just *is* my desk. They are two ways of saying the very same thing. There is no loss of information if we say "the such and such particles composed like thus and so at x, y, z" rather than "the wooden desk in the corner of the room". If the physical description is genuinely complete, then they're just two ways of picking out the very same thing. But philosophers are not so sure that the same is true in the case of i) a complete and perfect physical description of my brain and ii) my experience of smelling chocolate. Yes, of course, as you say, any time you reproduced the same, identical brain state, you would also reproduce my smelling chocolate. But that's not the question. The question is whether "the brain organized like thus and so, with such and such parts firing, and the transmissions of such and such character occurring like such and such [insert unbelievably complex and systematic description of brain]" would actually be equivalent to "my experience of smelling chocolate". I think that the experience -- the raw *feeling* -- is not something that can be characterized or captured in physical terms.

This supposed conceptual gap isn't insuperable.

It is perfectly possible, perhaps even likely, that the mind runs as a sort of virtual machine in the brain, which would mean that the exact same physical phenomena would look different from the inside than from the outside. There's not even necessarily any one-to-one correspondence between the views.

In such a case it would be difficult to make a case for either view being more objectively true than the other, even though the external view is more plainly visible to neurophysiologists (assuming that they are not experimenting on themselves).

[MuseManMike]

I'd obviously had to do more reading, but I think I agree (at least from how it's described here). I can conceive of a duplicate without consciousness for the sake of argument or to illustrate a point. But to argue that one could be an exact duplicate and not have that intrinsic property of the original (given the original has consciousness) sounds wrong. You'd have to disprove materialism/monism false for me to begin to even entertain that. Or, at least, make dualism more palpable.

[The Technomancer]

But they're (Escher's works are) not illogical. They're un-real, in that they often don't work in simple Cartesian geometries which the real world outside of relativity seems to work in. They're perfectly self-consistent. Edit: Likewise the soul. It's a perfectly coherent concept. We just don't have any reason to suppose that they actually exist. Anyway, like I said, the point is to show that you can't just drop "consciousness just is what happens when you get a big parallel computer going" as if it answers "why are we conscious" in any meaningful way.

Okay, they're not formally illogical. But I don't see how we can apply formal logic to "consciousness" or "soul" if they don't have formal definitions. Consistency is meaningless if the thing being shown to be consistent isn't also defined