(January 9, 2016 at 7:27 pm)Rhythm Wrote: I don't know why you'd jump from an unexplained disparity in perception to dualism or theism...........or that the brain had nothing to do with consciousness.....even if you -did- have examples.

So are you saying that you believe that if hypothetically a human was cloned, right down to the atomic level by say a Star Trek transporter, that the perceptions would be or could be different? If they could be different then how could you possibly relate the brain to experience, either as a producer of experience or in an emergent sense of mirroring the state in some way... if the same system produced different 'results' (ie perceptions)?

I cant rule it out.  They would diverge from, -at least- the very moment of their cloning (this assumes process perfection).  You'd have to test them awfully quick.   This, though, isn't the part that I had hoped to comment upon...rather, why we would go from an unexpected result in such a test (that, for example, two identical "consciousness systems" had divergent perceptions) to: 

"a personal god"

or

"there must be some other type of stuff".


Neither follows. Nor would such a result eliminate all previous results in which the brains involvement in experience is made demonstrably clear. That would all still be there. This is, essentially, the old "evolution is false..therefore goddidit" bait and switch.

(January 9, 2016 at 8:21 pm)Rhythm Wrote: I cant rule it out.  They would diverge from, -at least- the very moment of their cloning (this assumes process perfection).  You'd have to test them awfully quick.   This, though, isn't the part that I had hoped to comment upon...rather, why we would go from an unexpected result in such a test (that, for example, two identical "consciousness systems" had divergent perceptions) to: 

"a personal god"

or

"there must be some other type of stuff".


Neither follows.  Nor would such a result eliminate all previous results in which the brains involvement in experience is made demonstrably clear.  That would all still be there.  This is, essentially, the old "evolution is false..therefore goddidit" bait and switch.

I don't know how you've got to this, thinking that I'm trying to 'bait and switch' you First of all you can cross off "a personal god" from the above because I would not even hazard that as a possible alternative. But the second one, yes, if I could not even rely on the assumption that system X produces conscious state X... that system X in exactly the same state could produce two different perceptional states, then I would, myself, have to start thinking about other alternatives and probably give up on even trying to understand the brain and would probably end up going in Bennyboy's direction, of idealism.

(January 9, 2016 at 9:11 pm)emjay Wrote: <snip> in other words every person's unique environment (from their perspective ie like the transporter example) leaves physical, structural traces in the brain, at the level or synaptic strengths and at higher levels as a result of genetics and plasticity. So yes, I agree that everybody has a unique experience of consciousness at that level... different memories, different tastes, beliefs, habits etc. But I would say that certain structures in the brain are sufficiently similar across individuals, as a result of genetics and evolution, that certain aspects of conscious experience - eg vision itself - are experienced the similarly in most individuals, and that being due to the relatively fixed structural and relational organisation of those aspects of the system... ie relatively fixed constraints in those domains. But even those constraints can be changed, as with the bunnies and the extra cones, or with brain damage, and end up changing the perceptional nature of the experience because the relationships and input data to be modelled have changed. I wasn't arguing that we're all the same at all, and I'm sorry if it came across that way. And I know there's no way to prove that everyone else in the world is not a philosophical zombie/simulation and therefore that I'm making assumptions about other people's experience that I can never truly know about, but I have to make those assumptions for my theories.

I think we're in full agreement that it is reasonable to infer that the high degree of similarity in brain construction and physiology among humans should result in a proportionally high degree of conscious experience (with the usual caveats that we're not vat brains.) I'm pretty sure that my experiences are pretty much like yours.
Somewhere though, brain construction in other species is going to have diverged enough that what they think is going to be pretty different. What is going on in the 'mind' of a cuttlefish that is showing courtship signals to a female on one side while threatening competing males away on the other side? I think any accurate speculation would be entirely coincidental.

(January 9, 2016 at 9:51 pm)JuliaL Wrote:

(January 9, 2016 at 9:11 pm)emjay Wrote: <snip> in other words every person's unique environment (from their perspective ie like the transporter example) leaves physical, structural traces in the brain, at the level or synaptic strengths and at higher levels as a result of genetics and plasticity. So yes, I agree that everybody has a unique experience of consciousness at that level... different memories, different tastes, beliefs, habits etc. But I would say that certain structures in the brain are sufficiently similar across individuals, as a result of genetics and evolution, that certain aspects of conscious experience - eg vision itself - are experienced the similarly in most individuals, and that being due to the relatively fixed structural and relational organisation of those aspects of the system... ie relatively fixed constraints in those domains. But even those constraints can be changed, as with the bunnies and the extra cones, or with brain damage, and end up changing the perceptional nature of the experience because the relationships and input data to be modelled have changed. I wasn't arguing that we're all the same at all, and I'm sorry if it came across that way. And I know there's no way to prove that everyone else in the world is not a philosophical zombie/simulation and therefore that I'm making assumptions about other people's experience that I can never truly know about, but I have to make those assumptions for my theories.

I think we're in full agreement that it is reasonable to infer that the high degree of similarity in brain construction and physiology among humans should result in a proportionally high degree of conscious experience (with the usual caveats that we're not vat brains.)  I'm pretty sure that my experiences are pretty much like yours.
Somewhere though, brain construction in other species is going to have diverged enough that what they think is going to be pretty different.  What is going on in the 'mind' of a cuttlefish that is showing courtship signals to a female on one side while threatening competing males away on the other side?  I think any accurate speculation would be entirely coincidental.

Yeah, I don't think it's even worth trying to speculate on what it's like to be a cuttlefish... we can't imagine perceptions completely different from our own.

(January 9, 2016 at 9:36 pm)emjay Wrote: I don't know how you've got to this, thinking that I'm trying to 'bait and switch' you  

Not you personally, man, lol.  Our minds play implicational games with us.

Quote:First of all you can cross off "a personal god" from the above because I would not even hazard that as a possible alternative.

You did posit it, that's what theism is. 

Quote:But the second one, yes, if I could not even rely on the assumption that system X produces conscious state X... that system X in exactly the same state could produce two different perceptional states, then I would, myself, have to start thinking about other alternatives and probably give up on even trying to understand the brain and would probably end up going in Bennyboy's direction, of idealism.

Why, how does it follow?  You will have determined that something other than brain is involved....but not that some other fundamental "stuff" exists or is necessary..or that the brain is not involved.  We already think that something other than just the brain is involved in mind, in consciousness. Neither dualism nor theism (nor idealism) are required in order to account for this..merely an environment. If I found that two identical..or lets say vastly similar structures differed greatly in their perceptions -if their structure could not account for or explain a disparity-..I would look first to environment...as you might when trying to determine why different human beings perceive things differently, or indeed have a different experience of consciousness.

(January 9, 2016 at 10:03 pm)Rhythm Wrote:

(January 9, 2016 at 9:36 pm)emjay Wrote: I don't know how you've got to this, thinking that I'm trying to 'bait and switch' you  

Not you personally, man, lol.  Our minds play implicational games with us.

Phew   Trust me, I know all about the tricks that the mind can play like that, I play Mafia

Quote:

Quote:First of all you can cross off "a personal god" from the above because I would not even hazard that as a possible alternative.

You did posit it, that's what theism is. 

I think it was a bad choice of words on my part. By saying "No, I don't have any examples because I don't think there are any examples. If there were, then there'd be no point in even assuming that the brain had anything to do with consciousness, and then it would be into theist, dualism territory." I was meaning that I thought it would lead to the sorts of bad arguments put forward by theists of a soul that is either completely independent of the brain or only partially dependent on it, but which in either case receive the same response from me of 'if that's the case, why have a brain in the first place?'. And that particular response is all I need to stop me ever going in the soul direction again.

Quote:

Quote:But the second one, yes, if I could not even rely on the assumption that system X produces conscious state X... that system X in exactly the same state could produce two different perceptional states, then I would, myself, have to start thinking about other alternatives and probably give up on even trying to understand the brain and would probably end up going in Bennyboy's direction, of idealism.

Why, how does it follow?  You will have determined that something other than brain is involved....but not that some other fundamental "stuff" exists or is necessary..or that the brain is not involved.  We already think that something other than just the brain is involved in mind, in consciousness.  Neither dualism nor theism are required in order to account for this..merely an environment.

Okay, I think I'm starting to see what you're getting at. It wasn't at the forefront of my mind until Julia's post that the system includes the environment, which is in turn unique for everyone. I was confining my vision of the system to the brain, in the reductionistic way that I do, and although the net result is the same in the sense that I am aware of the structural changes that result from interaction with the environment, I didn't picture it in that way; of each human brain and its consciousness being the sum total not just of brain and body state but also of a life born in a particular and unique time and place in the universe and traversing a unique path through the environment it finds itself in over a lifetime. It's quite beautiful to look at it like that. And thinking about it like that, yes there could be other influences in the physical world - as yet discovered or not - that affect the system and/or consciousness.

But anyway, I need to go to bed now so we'll have to resume this discussion another day. Night night

(January 9, 2016 at 7:13 pm)Rhythm Wrote: That's not actually a problem unless you can provide an example where two identical systems produce a different experience of consciousness.........do you have examples?  

Again. Try reading Nagel's "What is it like to be a Bat." It's a fairly short paper: http://organizations.utep.edu/portals/14...el_bat.pdf