(May 26, 2014 at 7:27 pm)pocaracas Wrote:

(May 26, 2014 at 7:21 pm)Chas Wrote: There is no reason to believe that a silicon-based 'brain' of appropriate complexity could host a mind.

I'm agnostic on this... could or could not?...

Oops. fixt.

http://youtu.be/tpKx7Oi0oeM

(May 26, 2014 at 3:23 pm)Chas Wrote:

(May 26, 2014 at 2:48 pm)archangle Wrote: That's the problem with philosophy

Think of it in context of your belief. That "awareness emerged from complexity". From our vantage point the earth seems to have a limit to its complexity. Compare that to the complexity of the "known" universe . What might emerge from that "universe" set of interactions that we can't "see" yet?

Most of the universe is actually very simple.

Quote:then look at a complexity verses volume situation. The brain vs. the sun for example. Now the universe has a prediction of 14, or so, billion year size, and as of yet, an unknown complexity. hmmm.

The human brain is many, many orders of magnitude more complex than the sun.

Quote:then, along with your line of thought, the notion that the universe is build on a hierarchy of structure. from pure energy to "us". Would it be wild speculation that there is a "next step" in this structure?

Why, yes, that would be wild speculation.

What hierarchy of structure?

Quote:What do you think it means in term of the possibility of the emergence of "a living" universe?

Nothing. There is no evidence for it and no evidence of a possible mechanism.

lmao really? the standard model is "no evidence" WOW.

the fact you don't understand/know the term " hierarchy of structure" means you are not bringing enough to the table. philosophy is cute and all, but in the end its bs. Good for practice in writing and organizing thoughts. If we have any that is. I could writting and spellering help.

Your line of logic has no reason to stop at "us". In fact, the only wild speculation is the geocentric notion that the earth is it and all there is. That nothing will emerge further as we learn more about the universe is silly based on all your posts.

We do know some of the mechanisms of earth. It is not a wild speculation to say it may be a "life form". It is accepted as "possible" You may not agree with it, but it aint "wild speculation". Also, people at MiT are looking at the possibility that we are really a data set within a larger data set. If you don't know this I would suggest you do something other than read philosophy. pick up a good textbook in one of the sciences. Physics is awesome stuff.

I really could care less if the universe is alive or not. But to hold to the notion "Everything we have the universe probably has more of" is far more reasonable, less "wild", than "nothing out there and we are it"

But we have people that think a book is the sole word of god. They are afraid too. The earth is elegant, it is not that simple today. look inside of a cell. "wild speculation" "most of the universe is simple". Considering we know less than 10% of what it is. it is what it is I guess.

(May 26, 2014 at 8:10 pm)archangle Wrote:

(May 26, 2014 at 3:23 pm)Chas Wrote: Most of the universe is actually very simple.


The human brain is many, many orders of magnitude more complex than the sun.


Why, yes, that would be wild speculation.

What hierarchy of structure?


Nothing. There is no evidence for it and no evidence of a possible mechanism.

lmao really? the standard model is "no evidence" WOW.

the fact you don't understand/know the term " hierarchy of structure" means you are not bringing enough to the table. philosophy is cute and all, but in the end its bs. Good for practice in writing and organizing thoughts. If we have any that is. I could writting and spellering help.

Your line of logic has no reason to stop at "us". In fact, the only wild speculation is the geocentric notion that the earth is it and all there is. That nothing will emerge further as we learn more about the universe is silly based on all your posts.

We do know some of the mechanisms of earth. It is not a wild speculation to say it may be a "life form". It is accepted as "possible" You may not agree with it, but it aint "wild speculation". Also, people at MiT are looking at the possibility that we are really a data set within a larger data set. If you don't know this I would suggest you do something other than read philosophy. pick up a good textbook in one of the sciences. Physics is awesome stuff.

I really could care less if the universe is alive or not. But to hold to the notion "Everything we have the universe probably has more of" is far more reasonable, less "wild", than "nothing out there and we are it"

But we have people that think a book is the sole word of god. They are afraid too. So it is what it is I guess.

You clearly have not understood my posts.

What has any of this to do with the standard model?

And there are many "hierarchies of structure", but that wasn't the point - I wanted to know what one the poster was referring to .

And where the fuck did you come up with the notion that I said anything like nothing out there and we are it"?

(May 26, 2014 at 7:21 pm)Chas Wrote: I will say for about the third time that qualia are not a property of brain but of mind/consciousness.

And from what non-brain minds have you gathered evidence establishing this claim?

As for my argument not being clear:

bennyboy Wrote:GIVEN THAT the brains of others actually experience qualia, rather than just seeming to, I argue:
1) The brain has many properties.
2) Qualia supervene on some or all of these properties.
3) Some of these properties are unique to the brain, and some are universal.
4) It is not known on which of these properties qualia supervene.
5) It is therefore not known whether qualia are unique to the brain or universal.

Chas Wrote:You assume that qualia are a property of the brain. I do not.

1. Since I'm a declared agnostic idealist, that seems unlikely.
2. Accepting the brain/mind/qualia connection as a given was not an assertion but a concession, i.e. an "even if." Maybe I was confused by:

Chas Wrote:I will restate that there is absolutely no evidence for anything but mind being dependent on anything but brain.

Chas Wrote:I will say for about the third time that qualia are not a property of brain but of mind/consciousness.

Chas Wrote:All of the evidence of neuroscience indicates that the mind depends on a brain.

There is no evidence that it depends only on the brains we use.
There is no reason to believe that a silicon-based 'brain' of appropriate complexity couldn't host a mind.

(May 26, 2014 at 8:21 pm)bennyboy Wrote:

(May 26, 2014 at 7:21 pm)Chas Wrote: I will say for about the third time that qualia are not a property of brain but of mind/consciousness.

And from what non-brain minds have you gathered evidence establishing this claim?

As for my argument not being clear:

bennyboy Wrote:GIVEN THAT the brains of others actually experience qualia, rather than just seeming to, I argue:
1) The brain has many properties.
2) Qualia supervene on some or all of these properties.
3) Some of these properties are unique to the brain, and some are universal.
4) It is not known on which of these properties qualia supervene.
5) It is therefore not known whether qualia are unique to the brain or universal.

Chas Wrote:You assume that qualia are a property of the brain. I do not.

1. Since I'm a declared agnostic idealist, that seems unlikely.
2. Accepting the brain/mind/qualia connection as a given was not an assertion but a concession, i.e. an "even if." Maybe I was confused by:

Chas Wrote:I will restate that there is absolutely no evidence for anything but mind being dependent on anything but brain.

Chas Wrote:I will say for about the third time that qualia are not a property of brain but of mind/consciousness.

Chas Wrote:All of the evidence of neuroscience indicates that the mind depends on a brain.

There is no evidence that it depends only on the brains we use.
There is no reason to believe that a silicon-based 'brain' of appropriate complexity couldn't host a mind.

Then I will restate:

• 'Brain' is a complex, active physical structure with inputs, processing, and outputs.
  
• Mind is an emergent property of the complexity of 'brain'.
  
• The only brains we know of are biological.
  
• There is no good reason to assume that brains must be biological, or natural.
  
• Qualia are an aspect of consciousness, not something separate from consciousness.
  
• There is no reason to believe that an artificial brain could not be conscious.
  
• There is therefor no reason to believe that an artificial brain could not experience qualia.
  

Okay, Chas. That's clearly stated now. It seems related to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integrated_...ion_theory

I disagree with the way you place the burden of evidence-- that anything that has input, complex processing and outputs should be assumed to experience qualia, and that doubters need to prove the negative. There are too many "there's no reason to believe not X. . . " statements in there, when you've used "there's no reason to believe X. . ." with the various possibilities I suggested.

I think the reason not to believe machines experience qualia is that they aren't alive, and that their "thinking" consists of both different hardware and software than ours. Until we have a good physical theory of mind, I don't think reducing billions of cells and a gazillion molecules down to a three-stage model, interchangeable by any structure that can do the processing, can reasonably be accepted as less conjectural than any other idea about the brain/mind relationship.

(May 26, 2014 at 9:43 pm)bennyboy Wrote: Okay, Chas. That's clearly stated now. It seems related to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integrated_...ion_theory

I disagree with the way you place the burden of evidence-- that anything that has input, complex processing and outputs should be assumed to experience qualia, and that doubters need to prove the negative. There are too many "there's no reason to believe not X. . . " statements in there, when you've used "there's no reason to believe X. . ." with the various possibilities I suggested.

Everyone has the burden of evidence. I didn't say that 'anything' can be assumed to experience qualia, only that which is conscious.

There are exactly as many 'no reason to believe' statements there as necessary, since those are possibilities against which there is no evidence.

Quote:I think the reason not to believe machines experience qualia is that they aren't alive,

What? No élan vital?

Quote:and that their "thinking" consists of both different hardware and software than ours.

That's rather anthropocentric. So, there can be no alien consciousness? No other self-aware intelligence in the entire cosmos?

Quote:Until we have a good physical theory of mind, I don't think reducing billions of cells and a gazillion molecules down to a three-stage model, interchangeable by any structure that can do the processing, can reasonably be accepted as less conjectural than any other idea about the brain/mind relationship.

I'm not actually trying to reduce it to a three-stage model - that was just echoing your previous intelligent matter model.

I am simply pointing out that there is no evidence that it is not possible.

(May 26, 2014 at 10:03 pm)Chas Wrote: That's rather anthropocentric. So, there can be no alien consciousness? No other self-aware intelligence in the entire cosmos?

I said that there's a reason to believe that only organic brains of living organisms, as opposed to artificial silicon non-living ones, are required for qualia. I didn't say I believe it to be reality.

Let's avoid the word self-aware. I think there's an equivocation embedded in it that's best avoided. To me, self-aware means having self-qualia-- the experience of what it's like to be oneself. I do not accept the ability to respond to the environment as sufficient-- but many people use "self-aware" in that context, as well.

My question would be this-- how do you KNOW something is self-aware, rather than just a complex machine without qualia? What are the criteria, and are they philosophically sufficient? In a nutshell, my problem with all of this discussion is that there are no philosophically sufficient descriptions of qualia which are also physically testable, and that appeals to "evidence" on either side fail not becuase there's a lack of evidence, but because we have no capacity either to perceive it or to recognize it.

(May 26, 2014 at 10:29 pm)bennyboy Wrote:

(May 26, 2014 at 10:03 pm)Chas Wrote: That's rather anthropocentric. So, there can be no alien consciousness? No other self-aware intelligence in the entire cosmos?

I said that there's a reason to believe that only organic brains of living organisms, as opposed to artificial silicon non-living ones, are required for qualia. I didn't say I believe it to be reality.

Let's avoid the word self-aware. I think there's an equivocation embedded in it that's best avoided. To me, self-aware means having self-qualia-- the experience of what it's like to be oneself. I do not accept the ability to respond to the environment as sufficient-- but many people use "self-aware" in that context, as well.

I can agree that self-aware means the same as having/experiencing qualia.

Quote:My question would be this-- how do you KNOW something is self-aware, rather than just a complex machine without qualia? What are the criteria, and are they philosophically sufficient? In a nutshell, my problem with all of this discussion is that there are no philosophically sufficient descriptions of qualia which are also physically testable, and that appeals to "evidence" on either side fail not becuase there's a lack of evidence, but because we have no capacity either to perceive it or to recognize it.

You keep saying that qualia are beyond the reach of science, but that is an unsupported assertion. You don't know that to be true.

It seems to be beyond our current science, but a clever experimenter might figure out how to test it tomorrow or future technologies might make it straightforward.

And I don't know what you mean by 'philosophically sufficient'.
Philosophy doesn't give us answers, it helps us ask questions and clarify our thinking.