The Consciousness Deniers

How does a computer know anything? We project meaning on to machines, to a person who only knows Japanese my computer is just a interesting toy box.

I am definitely not saying that it does!

However, the problem is that people compare computers (or at least computers + programs) with minds. I wanted to point out that there is a sense in which some memory cells of a computer may be dedicated to knowing about Paris - so we need to resolve exactly why the recursive decent argument doesn't apply to parts of a computer that 'knows' about Paris, but does apply to the neurons in the brain.

I am definitely not saying that it does!

However, the problem is that people compare computers (or at least computers + programs) with minds. I wanted to point out that there is a sense in which some memory cells of a computer may be dedicated to knowing about Paris - so we need to resolve exactly why the recursive decent argument doesn't apply to parts of a computer that 'knows' about Paris, but does apply to the neurons in the brain.

I am probably not understanding your drift here, David, so apologies if this is irrelevant. The way I understand the workings of computers does not allow for any suggestion that the computer "knows" anything at all. Paris would be a sequence of binary states which, only when decoded and presented back to a human mind in a form that it can comprehend, might have any meaning whatsoever - and only to the human, not to the computer. We could ask whether "knowing" entails "meaning" but, in the final analysis, the computer is nothing more than a desk calculator with storage. It shifts bits in and out of storage (registers, RAM, disk, etc.) but has no subjective awareness of, nor appreciation of the patterns of bits flowing through its circuits. 

Moreover, there is no "I" to the computer to which the stored "memories" might have meaning or associations. Perhaps it could, like a search engine, recognise the pattern which to a human spells Paris and pattern-match that with other stored information containing relevant Paris information but that information would be of no consequence to the computer itself. I would contend that it is the missing "I" that differentiates the computer from a human mind. To which someone like Dennett might argue, but the human "I"  does not exist either. If so, I think I might be justified in asking "who says so?". If Dennett replies, "I do", then has he not just contradicted himself?

I do. But so what? It's just an opinion.

Well it isn't just an opinion, as in "I like that latest music video". It's an argument - so where do you think Rosenberg's argument is wrong?

Or perhaps your particular materialism/physicalism is just an opinion taken on faith?

This idea that consciousness is fundamental seems to appeal to the vaingloriousness nature some persons possess.

But Rosenberg doesn't think consciousness is fundamental, he thinks physicalism is true and thus all of human existence is worthless:

The Disenchanted Naturalist’s Guide to Reality

Once purposes are ruled out of nature—biological, social, psychological–there is only one way that something’s functions can bring it about or maintain it, or explain its changes over time: the process that Darwin discovered–blind variation and environmental filtration. And that is a process in which arms races, and the reflexive, nested instability they entrain, makes human sciences only a little less myopic than the history that has been familiar to us since Thucydides.

So much for the meaning of history, and everything else we care about.

I am definitely not saying that it does!

However, the problem is that people compare computers (or at least computers + programs) with minds. I wanted to point out that there is a sense in which some memory cells of a computer may be dedicated to knowing about Paris - so we need to resolve exactly why the recursive decent argument doesn't apply to parts of a computer that 'knows' about Paris, but does apply to the neurons in the brain.

I'd answer the argument doesn't apply because there is no sense in which a computer knows about Paris, anymore than my scrapbook of my trip to Paris knows about Paris.

I agree. These aren’t biological systems that have evolved, over billions of years, to give us the construct of awareness.

If you are using the discrepancies between third person description and first person POVs to argue that consciousness is a construct this leads to some issues for the hopes one might pin on neuroscience -> As per Hoffman:

From The Interface Theory of Perception

For instance the amplitude of a sound, which is standardly assumed to be an objective property of an observer-independent physical stimulus, and its perceived loudness, which is standardly assumed to be an observer dependent subjective experience, both reside within the interface. The sound wave itself travels in spacetime, and therefore inhabits the spacetime interface of H. sapiens. Its amplitude, therefore, cannot be an observer-independent feature of objective reality. The psychophysical laws relating amplitude and loudness do not relate objective reality and perception, just different levels of the interface. Measurements of the acoustic level require the aid of technology, but this technology itself resides in our spacetime interface and yields reports couched in the predicates of our spacetime interface (Hoffman 2013).

From The Origin of Time In Conscious Agents

What looks to us like cause and effect in space-time is just a species-specific adaptation, and therefore just a useful fiction. Physicalist theories of objective reality are therefore almost surely false.

And this means that physicalist theories of the mind-body problem, which propose that our conscious experiences are caused by, or arise from, or are identical to, activity in the brain, are almost surely false (Hoffman 2008; Hoffman and Prakash 2014). Einstein declared “The only justification for our concepts and system of concepts is that they serve to represent the complex of our experiences...”

Yes. But it’s now clear that our experiences are not caused by physical objects in space-time, objects such as neurons and the brain.

In the rush to get to work I forgot what my original point was.  It was triggered by Malf's but it is probably best aimed at those who believe there could be "non-physical" realities.  It was a point about physical and non-physical being convenient or inconvenient definitions when reality isn't actually dualistic; it's more of a blur of information that reacts and interacts and causes the "illusion" we call reality.  Perhaps the physical and the non-physical are made up of the same stuff ultimately and that makes definitions such as "physical" unhelpful in trying to understand consciousness.

Thanks for the warning though! 

It is often a skeptical claim that the fundamental parts of reality lack any mental characteristics.


So naturally one then asks if this skeptical-acceptable stuff (atoms, fields, energy, forces, etc) supposedly making up my brain can actually produce that which has to be true even if all reality is just my dream, namely that I have thoughts, have experiences, and can use logic. I've yet to see a satisfying argument, which leads me to conclude there is something more to reality than just the non-conscious physical.

From there one can begin to build arguments for why investigation of my mental character might suggest immortality of the self, going back to at least Plato noting that we are capable of grasping the eternally true Universals, mathematics & logic and thus - by affinity - might also be eternal entities...but that's an argument for another thread, if not another day.

Well it isn't just an opinion, as in "I like that latest music video". It's an argument - so where do you think Rosenberg's argument is wrong?

Or perhaps your particular materialism/physicalism is just an opinion taken on faith?


But Rosenberg doesn't think consciousness is fundamental, he thinks physicalism is true and thus all of human existence is worthless:

The Disenchanted Naturalist’s Guide t

I'm certain you don't listen. You also like playing semantics, argument opinion, frankly it's all the same. Yes, I agree human existence is worthless. What emotion did you experience when you read that? 
 It's not taken upon faith. I can each and every day post a scientific article of some new mechanistic discovery. Be it physics, chemistry biology... and not once in any article will you ever see a direct reference neigh even a hint of a metaphysical explanation. You can't make the same claim for what I take you believe is the true nature of reality. Furthermore, not one of the philosophical arguments you might present as rebuttal has absolutely no impact towards changing a skeptical mind. Such rebuttals are effective if an individual is searching though. I've got an idea for an experiment for you. Post a topic on the International Skeptics Forum. Present your case to see what the response is. As far as I know you hang out only here where it's safe from aggressive counter argument. If you think the metaphysical offers a better explanations for the nature of nature stick your neck out.

I'd answer the argument doesn't apply because there is no sense in which a computer knows about Paris, anymore than my scrapbook of my trip to Paris knows about Paris.

Right, but that wouldn't satisfy an AI enthusiast who had just completed a program that could hold some sort of dialog about Paris. To them, I guess the program does 'know about Paris!

I mean I know the idea of memory traces in the brain is often countered with the idea that you would need an endless set of meta information to access the memory trace.

I don't want to argue the opposite point of view, but I'd like to harden the argument somehow.
http://www.sciencecartoonsplus.com/image...iracle.gif

I'm certain you don't listen. You also like playing semantics, argument opinion, frankly it's all the same. Yes, I agree human existence is worthless. What emotion did you experience when you read that?

So it seems because you lack the ability to make an argument it becomes nothing but opinions? I don't think that follows. Your lack of ability in philosophy (and science, given you ran away from Maanelli to insult him behind his back, talk about lacking the "testosterone" you say others don't have! ) is hardly a determiner of the rightness of your position?

And of course if it is all worthless...why are you here trying to convince people of that? Seems like a rather narcissistic impulse to psychologically harm others for no good reason?

 It's not taken upon faith. I can each and every day post a scientific article of some new mechanistic discovery. Be it physics, chemistry biology... and not once in any article will you ever see a direct reference neigh even a hint of a metaphysical explanation.

It does seem like faith, because you simultaneously accept physicalism but offer no counter-argument when some of your fellow physicalists offer an argument saying we cannot have thoughts. As such how is your position not faith-based?

So if there's no metaphysical explanation it isn't actually determined whether it's physical, in the sense you use, or say idealist in that all of those scientific discoveries are in the dreaming of God?

And what exactly about these discoveries are "mechanistic"? Perhaps some examples to clarify what you mean?

You can't make the same claim for what I take you believe is the true nature of reality.

Interesting --> What do I believe?

Furthermore, not one of the philosophical arguments you might present as rebuttal has absolutely no impact towards changing a skeptical mind.

Hmmm, that can't be true since Feser was an atheist-materialist before he was a Catholic. Re: these arguments, they also seem to have changed Sam Harris' mind? ->
[/url]
[url=https://samharris.org/the-mystery-of-consciousness/]The Mystery of Consciousness

To say “Everything came out of nothing” is to assert a brute fact that defies our most basic intuitions of cause and effect—a miracle, in other words.

Likewise, the idea that consciousness is identical to (or emerged from) unconscious physical events is, I would argue, impossible to properly conceive—which is to say that we can think we are thinking it, but we are mistaken. We can say the right words, of course—“consciousness emerges from unconscious information processing.” We can also say “Some squares are as round as circles” and “2 plus 2 equals 7.” But are we really thinking these things all the way through? I don’t think so.

Finally ->

Such rebuttals are effective if an individual is searching though. I've got an idea for an experiment for you. Post a topic on the International Skeptics Forum. Present your case to see what the response is. As far as I know you hang out only here where it's safe from aggressive counter argument. If you think the metaphysical offers a better explanations for the nature of nature stick your neck out.

Is that the place where you tried to get people to argue against Maaneli, and they told you to stop wasting your life?  

Anyway this is an amusing assumption on your part, I do have these discussions with people of the atheist/physicalist bent in person and online. I've posted in a few skeptical blogs and the response was dismal, akin to the poor arguments you dole out here.

But even if I only posted here I don't see how this would change your inability to express a coherent position. This isn't much better than your argument that I lack the "testosterone" to accept physicalism. In fact I'd say this is yet another last ditch ad hominem attempt to evade actually presenting a clear argument for how physicalism can be true but we can also have thoughts about things.

In any case, if you think this "stick your neck out" idea counts as a serious argument perhaps you should go first and comment on the writings of the theologian Edward Feser? Or one of the other theist philosophers, or really just some other blog discussing consciousness? Perhaps Bernardo's forum? I could CC Tallis if you want to give an argument for why he's a "damned fool"?

So it seems because you lack the ability to make an argument it becomes nothing but opinions? I don't think that follows. Your lack of ability in philosophy (and science, given you ran away from Maanelli to insult him behind his back, talk about lacking the "testosterone" you say others don't have! ) is hardly a determiner of the rightness of your position?

And of course if it is all worthless...why are you here trying to convince people of that? Seems like a rather narcissistic impulse to psychologically harm others for no good reason?


It does seem like faith, because you simultaneously accept physicalism but offer no counter-argument when some of your fellow physicalists offer an argument saying we cannot have thoughts. As such how is your position not faith-based?

So if there's no metaphysical explanation it isn't actually determined whether it's physical, in the sense you use, or say idealist in that all of those scientific discoveries are in the dreaming of God?

And what exactly about these discoveries are "mechanistic"? Perhaps some examples to clarify what you mean?


Interesting --> What do I believe?


Hmmm, that can't be true since Feser was an atheist-materialist before he was a Catholic. Re: these arguments, they also seem to have changed Sam Harris' mind? ->
[/url]
[url=https://samharris.org/the-mystery-of-consciousness/]The Mystery of Consciousness


Finally ->


Is that the place where you tried to get people to argue against Maaneli, and they told you to stop wasting your life?  

Anyway this is an amusing assumption on your part, I do have these discussions with people of the atheist/physicalist bent in person and online. I've posted in a few skeptical blogs and the response was dismal, akin to the poor arguments you dole out here.

But even if I only posted here I don't see how this would change your inability to express a coherent position. This isn't much better than your argument that I lack the "testosterone" to accept physicalism. In fact I'd say this is yet another last ditch ad hominem attempt to evade actually presenting a clear argument for how physicalism can be true but we can also have thoughts about things.

In any case, if you think this "stick your neck out" idea counts as a serious argument perhaps you should go first and comment on the writings of the theologian Edward Feser? Or one of the other theist philosophers, or really just some other blog discussing consciousness? Perhaps Bernardo's forum? I could CC Tallis if you want to give an argument for why he's a "damned fool"?

The ad homs abound.  What a remarkable way to make your point.