(January 26, 2023 at 2:07 am)Tomato Wrote: Cruelty is subjective. What better way to understand this than the famous line, it's cruel to be kind.

Otherwise, we need to stop this fallacious anthropomorphization of everything around us that isn't us. Understand things for what they are instead of what they aren't.

Such depth of wisdom.

Everyone, please, let's all just understand what things are, because how hard can it be to do so?

(January 26, 2023 at 5:49 am)GrandizerII Wrote:

(January 26, 2023 at 2:07 am)Tomato Wrote: Cruelty is subjective. What better way to understand this than the famous line, it's cruel to be kind.

Otherwise, we need to stop this fallacious anthropomorphization of everything around us that isn't us. Understand things for what they are instead of what they aren't.

Such depth of wisdom.

Everyone, please, let's all just understand what things are, because how hard can it be to do so?

Pretty hard, apparently.

Boru

(January 26, 2023 at 12:05 am)The Grand Nudger Wrote: Fun thouhts. If physicalism is true, and ep is tantamount to physicalism, then the worst thing you could say about ep, is that it's tantamount to the true explanation of consciousness. Concepts and semantics are fun.

I'm just going to have to read that old thread again; I'm pretty sure you did convince me on physicalism, but I've forgotten how

(January 26, 2023 at 6:00 am)BrianSoddingBoru4 Wrote:

(January 26, 2023 at 5:49 am)GrandizerII Wrote: Such depth of wisdom.

Everyone, please, let's all just understand what things are, because how hard can it be to do so?

Pretty hard, apparently.

Boru

I guess some people have it all figured out.

(January 25, 2023 at 9:16 pm)emjay Wrote:

(January 25, 2023 at 9:07 pm)GrandizerII Wrote: Just to be clear, meta-problem is an "easy" problem according to Chalmers, not "hard".

Okay, well I'll get to that in your reading matter I just associate him with the hard problem is all I really meant by that (and he coined the phrase is that right?).

Sorry, forgot to respond to this before. Yes, he's the one who did so, though obviously this is a problem that was considered by people long before him.

I don't know, I don't mind the guy. Even if I didn't agree with him (which I do because the hard problem makes sense to be considered as such), there's a lot of insightful things he has to say that are worth hearing/reading, and it's always good to be exposed to that stuff.

I don't agree with illusionist philosophers like Keith Frankish, but I also don't mind the guy himself. He can explain things quite well, and I've gotten to learn a lot from him listening to Mind Chat, especially.

As for panpsychism, I understand it can come off as "woo-ey" to some people, but it is at least something to be considered/critiqued seriously imo. It's not a theory perse, of course, but it sets a potential starting point for how one could resolve the hard problem eventually.

(January 26, 2023 at 1:56 am)The Grand Nudger Wrote: IDK. If we truly understood/believed that even creatures we were sure didn't possess phenomenal content like we do could be convinced that they did, could be convinced that they were in pain and experienced terror and endured stress, that might change the way we treat other creatures for the better. Why be cruel....why create a sick illusory cruelty play, even? We're cruel for effect, even when we aren't cruel people, because we believe that specific cruelty is inert.

Livestock and crops lack the capacity to understand it.

That's ultimately what I meant by the sort of irreconcilable paradoxes I have when thinking about pz's... things that I just can't wrap my head around but aren't necessarily logical... more likely 'semantic confusion' somewhere down the line. Basically if you treat something differently because you think it lacks phenomenal consciousness on the one hand versus the contention that both worlds would be identical on the other. Or really, two questions stem from that... one is how that mechanistically would occur? And now that looks easyish to answer... especially in light of ast or something like that, but the harder question is what should you do with respect to a pz, how should you treat it, and with what justification if the answer is to treat it exactly the same way as something considered conscious?

ETA: Forget that 'easyish' question, that doesn't quite capture what I meant I just can't figure out how to articulate it, even to myself, so best to ignore that question. Ie the mechanism is not in dispute, whatever that mechanism is, but that's not the sum of what that question is about for me.

(January 26, 2023 at 6:57 am)emjay Wrote:

(January 26, 2023 at 1:56 am)The Grand Nudger Wrote: IDK.  If we truly understood/believed that even creatures we were sure didn't possess phenomenal content like we do could be convinced that they did,  could be convinced that they were in pain and experienced terror and endured stress, that might change the way we treat other creatures for the better.  Why be cruel....why create a sick illusory cruelty play, even?  We're cruel for effect, even when we aren't cruel people, because we believe that specific cruelty is inert.

Livestock and crops lack the capacity to understand it.

That's ultimately what I meant by the sort of irreconcilable paradoxes I have when thinking about pz's... things that I just can't wrap my head around but aren't necessarily logical... more likely 'semantic confusion' somewhere down the line. Basically if you treat something differently because you think it lacks phenomenal consciousness on the one hand versus the contention that both worlds would be identical on the other. Or really, two questions stem from that... one is how that mechanistically would occur? And now that looks easyish to answer... especially in light of ast or something like that, but the harder question is what should you do with respect to a pz, how should you treat it, and with what justification if the answer is to treat it exactly the same way as something considered conscious?

I don't have a complete (or even a proper) answer to this one of course, but I would think that having phenomenal consciousness would not be the decisive factor here when considering whether we should treat a pz the same as an actual human being?

Going beyond pzs, this gets us into the question of whether we should start seriously considering advanced AI as worthy of respect and dignity (almost in the same manner as humans). I think eventually (as in decades from now), we will have to start doing so, or at least consider it. Even if we aren't ever sure that they are conscious.

But yeah, something to contemplate.

(January 26, 2023 at 6:49 am)GrandizerII Wrote:

(January 25, 2023 at 9:16 pm)emjay Wrote: Okay, well I'll get to that in your reading matter I just associate him with the hard problem is all I really meant by that (and he coined the phrase is that right?).

Sorry, forgot to respond to this before. Yes, he's the one who did so, though obviously this is a problem that was considered by people long before him.

I don't know, I don't mind the guy. Even if I didn't agree with him (which I do because the hard problem makes sense to be considered as such), there's a lot of insightful things he has to say that are worth hearing/reading, and it's always good to be exposed to that stuff.

I don't agree with illusionist philosophers like Keith Frankish, but I also don't mind the guy himself. He can explain things quite well, and I've gotten to learn a lot from him listening to Mind Chat, especially.

As for panpsychism, I understand it can come off as "woo-ey" to some people, but it is at least something to be considered/critiqued seriously imo. It's not a theory perse, of course, but it sets a potential starting point for how one could resolve the hard problem eventually.

I have read Chalmers in the past, and I'm sure at some point he did resonate with me... in a time when I used to buy every book on consciousness I could find, desperate for answers about the hard question. But at some point I had let's say a paradigm shift in thinking... so, different from growing out of touch as is the case for me with the rest of it. That paradigm shift being to consider the hard question a waste of time and unproductive to think about because the best it can be is speculation, and not only that but also a hindrance to learning about the mind and brain. Ie there are some people who throw the baby out with the bathwater in that regard, ie they in effect say 'what's the point thinking about the easy questions [which we can summarise as being psychology and neuroscience, or even content-based/functional etc theories on consciousness] of consciousness, because they can never touch on the hard question?' That approach misses out on the richness of the stuff we can learn and the brain and its processes, and taken to extremes would mean we'd never have learnt anything about the brain, never having got out of the starting gate as it were. And to varying degrees between - again using that word - tantamount and actual, my view on that nowadays tends to be that a full account of the easy questions, would amount to a full explanation of consciousness, to me.

I haven't got to illusionism yet, so thanks for the extra name to look into, and yeah, I'll definitely check out Mind Chat at some point.

Panpsychism just feels completely at odds with the, let's say process-driven or functional, way I think about consciousness, ie not some quantifiable unit present to different degrees in everything, but something that arises in some way from specific neural activity or processes. Panpsychism also feels like pre paradigm shift thinking for me; harking back to a time when I was happy with purely speculative theories. Granted I don't as yet know the ins and outs of Panpsychism (I'll get to that in your reading list ) but on the face of it I can't see how it can be anything but speculative, and therefore likely unsatisfying to me.

(January 26, 2023 at 7:10 am)GrandizerII Wrote:

(January 26, 2023 at 6:57 am)emjay Wrote: That's ultimately what I meant by the sort of irreconcilable paradoxes I have when thinking about pz's... things that I just can't wrap my head around but aren't necessarily logical... more likely 'semantic confusion' somewhere down the line. Basically if you treat something differently because you think it lacks phenomenal consciousness on the one hand versus the contention that both worlds would be identical on the other. Or really, two questions stem from that... one is how that mechanistically would occur? And now that looks easyish to answer... especially in light of ast or something like that, but the harder question is what should you do with respect to a pz, how should you treat it, and with what justification if the answer is to treat it exactly the same way as something considered conscious?

I don't have a complete (or even a proper) answer to this one of course, but I would think that having phenomenal consciousness would not be the decisive factor here when considering whether we should treat a pz the same as an actual human being?

Going beyond pzs, this gets us into the question of whether we should start seriously considering advanced AI as worthy of respect and dignity (almost in the same manner as humans). I think eventually (as in decades from now), we will have to start doing so, or at least consider it. Even if we aren't ever sure that they are conscious.

But yeah, something to contemplate.

My italics. That's the paradox in a nutshell for me, and something I don't think I'll resolve any time soon. Heart and head being a bit at odds in this, as well as not being able to fully articulate it to myself.

And yeah, agree with the rest.

(January 26, 2023 at 7:59 am)emjay Wrote: And to varying degrees between - again using that word - tantamount and actual, my view on that nowadays tends to be that a full account of the easy questions, would amount to a full explanation of consciousness, to me.

If by full, you mean including how you can get from neural activities to [what appears to be] phenomenal experiences, I must admit I can't see how that would be possible. We'll have to wait and see, I suppose, when it comes time for such a full explanation to come into fruition (hopefully before I die).

Quote:Panpsychism just feels completely at odds with the, let's say process-driven or functional, way I think about consciousness, ie not some quantifiable unit present to different degrees in everything, but something that arises in some way from specific neural activity or processes. Panpsychism also feels like pre paradigm shift thinking for me; harking back to a time when I was happy with purely speculative theories. Granted I don't as yet know the ins and outs of Panpsychism (I'll get to that in your reading list ) but on the face of it I can't see how it can be anything but speculative, and therefore likely unsatisfying to me.

Yes, there's pros and cons to each view. Every view of [the emergence of] consciousness (or what appears to be consciousness) is going to be radical in some way, whichever one ends up being true.