@The Grand Nudger @GrandizerII 

From what both of you guys have said, it's becoming more and more clear to me that my own thoughts about pz's never came from Chalmers' formal zombie argument. Ie just because he is the most famous proponent of it, doesn't mean he has sole claim to those sorts of ideas.

So with that in mind, whatever is proved here against his specific argument, or form of the argument, doesn't necessarily disprove whatever private conceptions I have of pz's; it probably does, but just not necessarily. 'Probably does' in the sense that my conceptions of it are just more vague, less fleshed out versions; ie I'm not sure exactly where they came from, but probably just from looking at epiphenomenalism and thinking "what if?"... but not philosophically fleshing out the ideas much further than that, as Chalmers did... and therefore fleshing my own conceptions can only do them good, testing them more rigorously to see if they truly are 'conceivable'. Likewise, since my conceptions are vaguer, and more from an imaginative 'what if?' point of view than a philosophical one, they don't have the same goals either, as Chalmers; ie in thinking about pz's it was never my goal to refute physicalism, as it was for Chalmers.

So with all that said, since we are talking about Chalmers' specific argument, I'm happy to continue if you guys want to. Like I said, if nothing else, it will probably help to flesh out whatever internal conceptions I have of pz's, and more so because there's a bit of controversy here as to what exactly he meant regarding identical worlds... ie we can just look at all the possibilities (hopefully) and therefore be exhaustive.

So at this point it seems we're looking at two different possibilities:

1. An identical world in all respects such that the world is identical, humans are identical, and the natural/causal laws are identical.

2. An identical world in most respects, but differing subtly, in its causal laws.

On the face of it, the first one, TGN's, logically looks like a pretty pointless thing to propose (by Chalmers I mean, not TGN), ie can we imagine an actual world where everything is the same, yet different? No, I don't think we can. Is the question, 'can we theoretically imagine a world where everything is the same yet different?', a different question or the same question?, I'm not sure. That may be one of my internal confusions/conflations. And I'm not sure which of these two best fits my internal questions, probably the latter but they may in effect be the same thing.

Another I think that this makes clear to me is that I am probably conflating the notion of inert with nothing in my conceptions. Ie just because something is contended to be inert, as consciousness is in the case of ep, does not mean it is nothing... so what I mentioned earlier, that I treat the two worlds, this world and zworld, as being tantamount to identical of account of consciousness being causally inert, looks like an error of thinking; they're not identical and can't be treated as such, even by use of the world 'tantamount'.

And looking at Grandizer's view, the second one, I think, in this hindsight, that intuitively my internal question has always been more in line with TGN's interpretation, if not anywhere near as rigorously defined... and clearly starting to unravel when rigorously defined . Ie looking at an identical world in every respect... if there's anything different, even subtly, then it's something different. It's not to say that that can't be a different question... ie in a different but similar world, could life exist without consciousness?... but I don't think it's the same question we, or at least I, have been asking about the possibility of pz's.

Chalmers proposed it because chalmers is a dualist who believes that consciousness does not logically follow from any physical fact. Diving deeper I think chalmers proposed it because it's what dennet would call an intuition pump. To describe important things, so long as we don't get boggged down in the mess of possibly incorrect or inconceivable postulates that exploration might depend on. The trouble with intuition pumps only shows up when those details we don't want to get bogged down in are germane to the conclusions being advanced. An impossible dillemma in the confluence between pz and ep - as they're directly and fundamentally contradictory positions within dualism. EP denies the details of the pz, and the pz denies the details of ep. So, the devil really is there, if it's anywhere - which is what the dispute over conceivability is about in a nutshell. We can lazily and irrationally imagine any old thing, but this is not the bar for logical conceivability, and even that form of conceivability that the proposition goes for (if it's advanced as a refutation of physicalism) relies on a modal hook which is, itself, contested. Because it is necessarily true that physicalism is false in the zombie world, and if the zombie world is a possible world, then it's necessarily true that physicalism is false in all worlds.

I can't personally think of any argument or conclusion that needs the pzombie to proceed. Questions about the justification for the zombies reports of phenomenal content and what that says about ours, for example? That's the paradox of phenomenal judgement I'd yammered about earlier. It's fully contained within ep all by it's lonesome - so, whatever baggage the zombie brings to this question doesn't come with any additional logical utility. Ultimately, "forget the zombie" is the final step in every zombie argument, anyway, as none of them are about zombies or zombie worlds. They're about us, this world.

(January 25, 2023 at 8:40 am)emjay Wrote: @The Grand Nudger @GrandizerII 

From what both of you guys have said, it's becoming more and more clear to me that my own thoughts about pz's never came from Chalmers' formal zombie argument. Ie just because he is the most famous proponent of it, doesn't mean he has sole claim to those sorts of ideas.

So with that in mind, whatever is proved here against his specific argument, or form of the argument, doesn't necessarily disprove whatever private conceptions I have of pz's; it probably does, but just not necessarily. 'Probably does' in the sense that my conceptions of it are just more vague, less fleshed out versions; ie I'm not sure exactly where they came from, but probably just from looking at epiphenomenalism and thinking "what if?"... but not philosophically fleshing out the ideas much further than that, as Chalmers did... and therefore fleshing my own conceptions can only do them good, testing them more rigorously to see if they truly are 'conceivable'. Likewise, since my conceptions are vaguer, and more from an imaginative 'what if?' point of view than a philosophical one, they don't have the same goals either, as Chalmers; ie in thinking about pz's it was never my goal to refute physicalism, as it was for Chalmers.

So with all that said, since we are talking about Chalmers' specific argument, I'm happy to continue if you guys want to. Like I said, if nothing else, it will probably help to flesh out whatever internal conceptions I have of pz's, and more so because there's a bit of controversy here as to what exactly he meant regarding identical worlds... ie we can just look at all the possibilities (hopefully) and therefore be exhaustive.

So at this point it seems we're looking at two different possibilities:

1. An identical world in all respects such that the world is identical, humans are identical, and the natural/causal laws are identical.

2. An identical world in most respects, but differing subtly, in its causal laws.

On the face of it, the first one, TGN's, logically looks like a pretty pointless thing to propose (by Chalmers I mean, not TGN), ie can we imagine an actual world where everything is the same, yet different? No, I don't think we can. Is the question, 'can we theoretically imagine a world where everything is the same yet different?', a different question or the same question?, I'm not sure. That may be one of my internal confusions/conflations. And I'm not sure which of these two best fits my internal questions, probably the latter but they may in effect be the same thing.

Another I think that this makes clear to me is that I am probably conflating the notion of inert with nothing in my conceptions. Ie just because something is contended to be inert, as consciousness is in the case of ep, does not mean it is nothing... so what I mentioned earlier, that I treat the two worlds, this world and zworld, as being tantamount to identical of account of consciousness being causally inert, looks like an error of thinking; they're not identical and can't be treated as such, even by use of the world 'tantamount'.

And looking at Grandizer's view, the second one, I think, in this hindsight, that intuitively my internal question has always been more in line with TGN's interpretation, if not anywhere near as rigorously defined... and clearly starting to unravel when rigorously defined . Ie looking at an identical world in every respect... if there's anything different, even subtly, then it's something different. It's not to say that that can't be a different question... ie in a different but similar world, could life exist without consciousness?... but I don't think it's the same question we, or at least I, have been asking about the possibility of pz's.

I will admit I forgot about the textbook definition of EP, and that's what may have contributed to some of the confusion. If, by epiphenomenalism, you mean the textbook definition which contains the condition that the brain (or physical stuff in general) is the sole producer of consciousness, then sure, PZ is not compatible with that.

When I'm thinking epiphenomenalism, however, I tend to think of it in a general sense (where the emphasis is on [human] consciousness being an epiphenomenon, whatever the combination of producers may be).

And no, I doubt Chalmers would go with the first interpretation that you listed of "physically identical" because I don't think he would commit such a grave error in thinking (he is supposed to be a prominent philosopher of the mind after all, not some amateur ... and he's had plenty of time to think about this). It would basically be saying the actual world somehow magically, supernaturally, produces qualia in us. That does not sound like Chalmers to me.

I think the second interpretation is more likely. Remember, Chalmers is concerned with trying to show that physicalism is false. If he were to posit a zombie world that is almost physically identical to the actual, but not quite, that would not help his point (since the physicalist could just say well, qualia arises in our world because of that extra physical stuff that's not found in the zombie world). But positing a non-physical difference between the two worlds keeps his point intact, from how I understand it.

Anyway, I, too, don't put much stock in the PZ argument because it gets us nowhere anyway. But like I do with various arguments for God, for example, I like to make sure I (and others) are getting the argument right. But yeah, personally, I think it's a bit of a red herring, and it's not my go-to argument for my view on consciousness.

Prominent philosophers of the mind say silly shit, no matter who you ask - and especially if you ask other prominent philosophers of the mind. Chalmers meant exactly what you think he wouldn't - and he certainly would not have subbed in god doing god shit with god stuff, because chalmers describes his idea as naturalistic dualism. Consciousness is a further fact, not a god fact or magical fact. A fact of nature, but one that does not follow logically from the facts of nature. That, imo, is the utility he saw in the pz. Here were the facts of nature identically instantiated and not producing the effect.

(January 25, 2023 at 9:56 am)GrandizerII Wrote: [...]
I will admit I forgot about the textbook definition of EP, and that's what may have contributed to some of the confusion. If, by epiphenomenalism, you mean the textbook definition which contains the condition that the brain (or physical stuff in general) is the sole producer of consciousness, then sure, PZ is not compatible with that.

When I'm thinking epiphenomenalism, however, I tend to think of it in a general sense (where the emphasis is on [human] consciousness being an epiphenomenon, whatever the combination of producers may be).
[...]

My view of ep didn't come from any formal/textbook definition either, it was just what naturally stemmed from my views and theories on neural networks and the brain in the past. Views and theories I don't really hold to any more, except by default, as baggage from the past. So to truly know where I stand now on those, and similar issues, would mean fully revisiting and updating my views on psychology and neuroscience. As confident as I used to be in them, at the end of the day, in hindsight, they were armchair views; ie I'm not a psychologist and I'm not a neuroscientist, so they weren't sufficiently grounded in reality, to be truly reliable or scientific.

There's this fun line of argumentation in attention schema theory that speaks to both our armchair views and the possibility of inaccuracy in reports of phenomenal content. It leans in. We may not be aware of all The Science, but neither are we personally aware of the full details of the structure the model represents despite constant (alleged/reported) first hand experience as users or possessors of the thing. The zombies reports and our reports are both bound to be inaccurate, insomuch as a model of attention is relatively impoverished with respect to detail compared to the object of attention. The arm model contains information that is useful for arm control, but not all information about the arm. The arm is far richer in physical detail than the arm model..and so, this arm model like an attention model - they contend, is always an inaccurate representation of the mechanism of the arm or the mechanism of phenomenal content. It's purpose..it's function...it's behavior..it's structure...it's very nature... is, very simply, utility - which, if so, is a handy refutation of any argument that evolutionary biology simply can't account for the production or possession of said whatsit.

That we'd need to invoke gods or the supernatural. That, if it's true that either exists and were involved in producing phenomenal content or phenomenal reports, they're only incidentally true, and tertiarily involved. Ala, yeah, sure, lets propose that gods made this machine that works this way -well..okay, i'm saying I think it works this way - and we're not disagreeing about operation, we disagree about the point of manufacture. Let's say it's true that gods made it, and so evolutionary biology actually wasn't responsible for it. It still seems like the kind of utilitarian thing evolution could have effected if gods hadn't beaten it to the punch.

Here's the question I have. Would a god created phenomenal mechanism know more about the arm, be more accurate, than a physically or naturally created phenomenal mechanism?

(January 25, 2023 at 12:25 pm)The Grand Nudger Wrote: There's this fun line of argumentation in attention schema theory that speaks to both our armchair views and the possibility of inaccuracy in reports of phenomenal content. It leans in. We may not be aware of all The Science, but neither are we personally aware of the full details of the structure the model represents despite constant (alleged/reported) first hand experience as users or possessors of the thing. The zombies reports and our reports are both bound to be inaccurate, insomuch as a model of attention is relatively impoverished with respect to detail compared to the object of attention. The arm model contains information that is useful for arm control, but not all information about the arm. The arm is far richer in physical detail than the arm model..and so, this arm model like an attention model - they contend, is always an inaccurate representation of the mechanism of the arm or the mechanism of phenomenal content. It's purpose..it's function...it's behavior..it's structure...it's very nature... is, very simply, utility - which, if so, is a handy refutation of any argument that evolutionary biology simply can't account for the production or possession of said whatsit.

That we'd need to invoke gods or the supernatural. That, if it's true that either exists and were involved in producing phenomenal content or phenomenal reports, they're only incidentally true, and tertiarily involved. Ala, yeah, sure, lets propose that gods made this machine that works this way -well..okay, i'm saying I think it works this way - and we're not disagreeing about operation, we disagree about the point of manufacture. Let's say it's true that gods made it, and so evolutionary biology actually wasn't responsible for it. It still seems like the kind of utilitarian thing evolution could have effected if gods hadn't beaten it to the punch.

Here's the question I have. Would a god created phenomenal mechanism know more about the arm, be more accurate, than a physically or naturally created phenomenal mechanism?

Just to say, I've just read the wiki on that and it looks a very interesting theory... and from a different angle than usual it seems, seeminging top-down I guess; ie how can we account for what we do report about consciousness, what sort of information does the system have to model for that to be the case? And the case even for a hypothetical pz like you say. So yeah, just saying I think it looks very interesting for further reading

Yeah, it can be fun. One of it's defining features is a reversal of the easy and hard problems as envisioned by others. Whereas Chalmers believes that a scientific machine theory like ast could easily solve the easy problem but no scientific theory will ever (or could ever) satisfy the hard problem - ast proponents believe that actually mapping out human consciousness in full - a factually accurate description of it's exact operation in the brain as a process...will be much harder than explaining how it attributes the property of awareness to itself. That, they think, is a much simpler operation.

The consequence of that being that our hypothetical pzombies reports are only off by measure with respect to our own (allegedly justified) reports - not in kind. If they've only got the reports, but not the thing that the report is about - then that's the way they're physically different from us. They lack the physical attention or control model. How they manage to be behaviorally indistinguishable from us would be an incredible mystery, though. I'd probably suggest that any cut difference in distance between us was due to our underperforming even with respect to what the model might allow. Because we don't make often/constant/full/good use, maybe we could or do act like something that doesn't have such a thing to use..often or alot, depending on how dim a view of humanity we wanted to express, lol.

(January 25, 2023 at 3:21 pm)emjay Wrote:

(January 25, 2023 at 12:25 pm)The Grand Nudger Wrote: There's this fun line of argumentation in attention schema theory that speaks to both our armchair views and the possibility of inaccuracy in reports of phenomenal content.  It leans in.  We may not be aware of all The Science, but neither are we personally aware of the full details of the structure the model represents despite constant (alleged/reported) first hand experience as users or possessors of the thing.  The zombies reports and our reports are both bound to be inaccurate, insomuch as a model of attention is relatively impoverished with respect to detail compared to the object of attention.  The arm model contains information that is useful for arm control, but not all information about the arm.  The arm is far richer in physical detail than the arm model..and so, this arm model like an attention model - they contend, is always an inaccurate representation of the mechanism of the arm or the mechanism of phenomenal content.  It's purpose..it's function...it's behavior..it's structure...it's very nature... is, very simply, utility - which, if so, is a handy refutation of any argument that evolutionary biology simply can't account for the production or possession of said whatsit.  

That we'd need to invoke gods or the supernatural.  That, if it's true that either exists and were involved in producing phenomenal content or phenomenal reports, they're only incidentally true, and tertiarily involved.  Ala, yeah, sure, lets propose that gods made this machine that works this way -well..okay, i'm saying I think it works this way - and we're not disagreeing about operation, we disagree about the point of manufacture.  Let's say it's true that gods made it, and so evolutionary biology actually wasn't responsible for it.  It still seems like the kind of utilitarian thing evolution could have effected if gods hadn't beaten it to the punch.  

Here's the question I have.  Would a god created phenomenal mechanism know more about the arm, be more accurate, than a physically or naturally created phenomenal mechanism?

Just to say, I've just read the wiki on that and it looks a very interesting theory... and from a different angle than usual it seems, seeminging top-down I guess; ie how can we account for what we do report about consciousness, what sort of information does the system have to model for that to be the case? And the case even for a hypothetical pz like you say. So yeah, just saying I think it looks very interesting for further reading

Learning is always good.

Here are more links you may be interested in:

More on AST:
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10....00500/full

Less technical explanation:
https://aeon.co/essays/how-consciousness...-in-ghosts

Illusionism, in general:
https://aeon.co/essays/what-if-your-cons...your-brain

Meta-problem of consciousness (another idea of Chalmers):
https://philpapers.org/archive/CHATMO-32.pdf

Modern panpsychism:
https://aeon.co/ideas/panpsychism-is-cra...bably-true

Mind Chat YouTube Channel (series hosted by two philosophers of mind, one a panpsychist and the other an illusionist, where they interview interesting guests on their views of consciousness and other topics):
https://www.youtube.com/c/mindchat

It's important to point out that ast isn't illusionism, or..at least, that's not what they're proposing. It's critics express frustration that it doesn't make this claim. An illusion, as ast proponents would describe one, would be something like a phantom limb. A correctly functioning internal model is not, however, taken by them or generally to be an illusion.

Michael Graziono had this to say on the matter after elaborating specifically on the above -

Quote:Using the term “illusion” in that more inclusive sense makes a philosophical point, but I prefer not to use the word in that way. That philosophical emphasis paints a picture in which the arm schema is a separate entity unmoored to reality, a construct of the brain, a way the brain tricks itself. But the arm schema is anchored to reality and has a specific functional purpose: to represent the arm. When it is doing its job effectively, it is not well described as an illusion. It’s a model. It’s a representation. It’s the brain’s useful caricature of the arm. Given the constraints on the brain’s processing ability, it is necessarily always true that what we think we have and say we have is a distortion or simplification of what we actually have.

I can see why dennet would want it to be an illusion, and I could see why dualists would want it to be an illusion - but that's not what they have in mind.
(I'll let myself out)