I doubt that you'll be able to find anyone who thinks that consciousness is "merely information processing" in a way meaningful to the rest of your comments in that regard, or, to put it another way, that a thermometer is our qualitative equal.  What that position is trying to communicate to you is not that a thermometer is conscious, for example..but that consciousness could be (and n their opinion is) built out of information processing.  

In a similar way, a passenger jet isn't "merely aluminum", and so other things made of aluminum are not necessarily passenger jets....but it would be ludicrous to assert that the passenger jet isn't made of aluminum.  The response of "merely aluminum"...at it's strongest, is only a response to the suggestion that a passenger jet might contain some element undetectium in it's construction.  In the same way, a human being isn't "merely a computer"..a computer isn't "merely a calculator", a calculator isn't "merely a thermometer" - but fundamental to each of those examples is "merely information processing".  

OFC a machine -could- be built that is meaningfully aware of it's environment and responds to it without whatever it is that we call qualia, but that seems moot point since we are no such machine...unless, ofc, we are..and we have mistaken a post-process data summary as somehow experiencing in the moment.  Mistaking a summary of what has been for what it's like to be. That summary, for reference..would be beyond the ability of most thermometers even in an utterly basic sense..and so, regardless of whether or not you agree with the IP position...from within the IP position..we can rule out a conscious thermometer while still acknowledging that the difference between us is not or may not be a fundamental difference, but a difference of the application or level of sophistication in which those fundamentals are employed. That it is, put simply "merely information processing"...but that it still is what it is and does what it does, and what it is is not a thermometer, and what it does is beyond the ability of a thermometer.

Conversely, the trouble with undetectium is not only that we are incapable of detecting in ourselves, we cannot detect it's absence in a thermometer. We cannot detect, for example, that we -aren't- the thermometer... programmed to be convinced otherwise. If consciousness can be divorced in a meaningful way from the information processing ability of a system..then the information processing limits of a thermometer are not informative as to the thermometer lacking consciousness.

(March 25, 2018 at 10:02 am)Hammy Wrote: Another reason why I find epistemology less interesting than metaphysics is because I don't think we can know which is the right way to know. We just have to pick the position that is most useful to is. There becomes the problem of metaepistemology. It's not about knowing what is the right definition, it's about making a decision, about choosing the position that makes the most sense and THEN going from there to know stuff. We have to start with definitions FIRST. Epistemology comes AFTERWARDS.

I don't think a discussion of the Gettier problems involves simply making a choice and proceeding from there. It is applying reason to problems which are real and tangible, and can't simply be decided by the fiat of choice. You may not like epistemology, but it consists of conversations about real issues as much as any other field of philosophy. How can we do science if we cannot even determine what it means to know something?

Starting with definitions first is only acknowledging our assumptions in any case..it doesn't ground anything in an incontrovertible truth unless a person can solve the inconclusive state of meaning theory.

A truth by tautology is not a truth of the universe but a truth of definitions..and even that issue hasn;t been settled. Yet another "point" of continuing to pursue philosophy. We do acknowledge this, when we speak about equivocations, for example..but we also understand that some equivocations are so subtle as to be unnoticed. There's always, at the very least and being incredibly generous...the outside chance that any meaning content of a statement x is in that set..and so, even tautologies are provisional.

(March 25, 2018 at 1:05 am)Khemikal Wrote: How do you know that you do? 

That's the trouble with the crutch of a conceptual black hole..it swallows everything.  If you can answer the question of whether or not you experience, and how you know it..then you can answer the question of whether or not others experience..and how you know it...and you can answer the question of whether or not a thermometer experiences..and how you know it.

It is, after all, a singular question.  No different than asking whether or not it's raining in three different cities.  You may live in one, be familiar with the other, and never have visited the third, but was that the question?  Your knowledge of self is no less subjective than your knowledge of others, or your knowledge of thermometers.  It's a meaningless subjectivity, imo..but if you insist on it being a problem in any city it's just as much a problem in your own.  Just as your pragmatic assumptions are a problem if Matthildas are.  You couldn't even establish that -you- aren't a thermometer..in the manner you've tried to argue the subject with others.  

Is that a problem?

Yeah, maybe.  That's why I talk about ideas having scope, defined by the assumptions necessary to maintain them.

I can't prove that my wife has a sentient existence; if she doesn't, then saying she looks fat in her new jeans doesn't really matter much.  But in the context set by the idea that she IS a sentient creature with feelings, then that would be contra-indicated.

As for answering for myself and others, I respectfully disagree.  That's because I use different definitions for my subjective experiences than I do for their object.  My experience of hot chocolate, for example, is not hot chocolate.  My experience of music is not the music itself.

As for knowledge of the self: yeah, I'd agree.  As soon as you go beyond the basic fact of existence (whatever-it-is), you are conceptualizing an object; why would that be different than any others?

And no-- it's never a problem.  Philosophy is kind of the art of navigating that kind of stuff.

I get quite bored by philosophy when it makes an obviously simple problem needlessly complicated because "thought experiments." I'm sure it still has its place. I'm just not interested.

(March 25, 2018 at 5:01 pm)bennyboy Wrote: Yeah, maybe.  That's why I talk about ideas having scope, defined by the assumptions necessary to maintain them.

I can't prove that my wife has a sentient existence; if she doesn't, then saying she looks fat in her new jeans doesn't really matter much.  But in the context set by the idea that she IS a sentient creature with feelings, then that would be contra-indicated.

As for answering for myself and others, I respectfully disagree.  That's because I use different definitions for my subjective experiences than I do for their object.  My experience of hot chocolate, for example, is not hot chocolate.  My experience of music is not the music itself.

As for knowledge of the self: yeah, I'd agree.  As soon as you go beyond the basic fact of existence (whatever-it-is), you are conceptualizing an object; why would that be different than any others?

And no-- it's never a problem.  Philosophy is kind of the art of navigating that kind of stuff.

You maintain the validity of your subjective experience even as you negate it.  That, is a problem.  It's not a problem in your everyday life, granted..obviously you can hold those opinions and function,.but it reduces your position to noise signifying nothing.  You don't even know..or cant coherently explain, why -you- think what you do. That's laying aside the plain reading..that you have an incoherent thought process, for generosity's sake, alone... - which..just like before, is at least a possibility that is unlikely to impact your daily function.

What are the chances that you could adequately explain those positions to others? Yet another reason to continue exploring philosophy. You experience the "basic fact" of your existence subjectively. If that's a problem for anyone else or their positions..it's just as much a problem for you and yours. No position or experience escapes that criticism by fiat. Respect is irrelevant, your rejoinder is self-contradictory.

@Shell.
Some obviously simple problems are neither obvious nor simple. I get your disinterest, though. I'm routinely disinterested in the vast majority of philosophical conundrums. I'm only aware of a vanishing fraction of them to begin with.

(March 24, 2018 at 10:06 pm)polymath257 Wrote:

(March 24, 2018 at 9:21 pm)bennyboy Wrote: If pragmatism is truth, then you're right.  But it isn't, and you're not.

I can definitely define what qualia is [sic].  It's the experience of what things are like, including the existence of the self.  That you can't hit it with a hammer and therefore want to discard it from any intellectual consideration is your problem, not a problem with philosophy.

And how is a quale NOT a form of information processing? How is it any different than any other sensory input?

So, does a thermometer 'experience' the temperature? Why or why not?

Thomas Nagel asks the question "What is it like to be a bat?"

A scientist may fully understand a bat's physiology and fully understand how it uses sonar to navigate its nocturnal environment but something is left unexplained. There is a certain sensation and experience that the bat has when it uses sonar--the qualia involved.

What about the sensation of pain? You might understand every neural pathway activated by a pin prick to the finger. Even if you had privilege to view every change in someone's brain states when his/her finger is being pricked with a pin, the first-person experience of the pin prick (pain) would not be discernible to you.

As John Searle puts it, conscious experience is causally reducible but not ontologically reducible to brain states.

(March 25, 2018 at 6:09 pm)vulcanlogician Wrote:

(March 24, 2018 at 10:06 pm)polymath257 Wrote: And how is a quale NOT a form of information processing? How is it any different than any other sensory input?

So, does a thermometer 'experience' the temperature? Why or why not?

Thomas Nagel asks the question "What is it like to be a bat?"

A scientist may fully understand a bat's physiology and fully understand how it uses sonar to navigate its nocturnal environment but something is left unexplained. There is a certain sensation and experience that the bat has when it uses sonar--the qualia involved.

What about the sensation of pain? You might understand every neural pathway activated by a pin prick to the finger. Even if you had privilege to view every change in someone's brain states when his/her finger is being pricked with a pin, the first-person experience of the pin prick (pain) would not be discernible to you.

As John Searle puts it, conscious experience is causally reducible but not ontologically reducible to brain states.

Well, yes, the first person experience isn't discernible to me because their brain isn't my brain. But I would know that they are feeling pain, or in the case of the bat, sonar. I would be able to describe, probably in some detail, *what* they are experiencing. But yes, it is not my brain that is experiencing it all.

But I fail to see why that is such a deep issue to so many people. When my computer gets some information, and processes it, your computer may not get the same information or it may process it slightly differently. That seems, to me, to the sole difference in 'first person' versus 'third person' descriptions.

(March 25, 2018 at 6:54 pm)polymath257 Wrote: Well, yes, the first person experience isn't discernible to me because their brain isn't my brain. But I would know that they are feeling pain, or in the case of the bat, sonar. I would be able to describe, probably in some detail, *what* they are experiencing. But yes, it is not my brain that is experiencing it all.

But I fail to see why that is such a deep issue to so many people. When my computer gets some information, and processes it, your computer may not get the same information or it may process it slightly differently. That seems, to me, to the sole difference in 'first person' versus 'third person' descriptions.

The problem isn't missing information. The problem is, even when every single piece information is accounted for, something is still missing.

That is the essence of the mind/body problem, and that is the great riddle of consciousness.

Of course, some will say it's really no big problem at all, which is why super empirically-minded folks seem comfortable with functionalism. I'm not one of them though. Something about the mystery of consciousness intrigues me. Looking at it one way, it almost seems more fundamental than any other metaphysical problem. Looking at it another way, its a simple distinction that (if made like the functionalists make it) is really no problem at all.

(March 25, 2018 at 5:25 pm)Khemikal Wrote: You maintain the validity of your subjective experience even as you negate it.  That, is a problem.  It's not a problem in your everyday life, granted..obviously you can hold those opinions and function,.but it reduces your position to noise signifying nothing.  You don't even know..or cant coherently explain, why -you- think what you do.  That's laying aside the plain reading..that you have an incoherent thought process, for generosity's sake, alone... - which..just like before, is at least a possibility that is unlikely to impact your daily function.  

How would experience be invalid? It's not a position, a philosophy, or a world view. I don't see that there's anything about it that CAN be invalid. What can be invalid are interpretations about the objectivity of experienced objects-- but that's really not the same thing.

I don't think a sense of self can be, or need be, interpreted. It's not a conclusion or an inference. It's just a label for whatever-it-is.