Free will & the Conservation Laws

[robvalue]

What I mean is, I think it's (maybe) impossible that I'm ever going to be fully convinced that people are not mimics, because there would be no observable difference. But maybe one day one of those mimics will come up with a way!

I don't believe they are though, it is absurd, it's just something I can't discount. But I don't need to discount it, so it's irrelevant. It's not nearly as much of a gap as solipsism, it's a tiny further step once you've accepted that. So let's just put it all together

[The Grand Nudger]

A mimic who isn't having an experience "like me" would appear just the same as a real person who was actually having one, and would return the same answers and physical properties under testing.

You seem to be setting up a position where something would pass your tests and you'd still..effectively, fail it.  That doesn't seem sensible.  When two things are indistinguishable under scrutiny........



How would a mimic be able to mimic you if there was no experience of you to mimic -by-? Just happened to get it right, over and over? If it were mimicing -you-...we could get another interrogater. If it "seems like" whomever is questioning it, regardless of the differences between all the questioners we brought forward....that would bring up suspicion. It will have failed a subtle test (as the test of asking something what it sees is not, actually, meant to determine what the object sees or the accuracy or commonality of it's perception with you). Sure, you may be witnessing, for example, an artifact of the designer's experience, a clever toy. Due diligence would demand that you pursue that angle. Still testable, isn't it?

Is it your opinion that a turing test is uninformative, unreliable, simply an assumption, or not even a test.... for example, with regards to experience?

[robvalue]

No, I'm saying there is no test I can think of. I can't know what it "feels like", if anything, to be someone else.

I can only say that the situation where only I experience things seems absurd, and extremely contrived like you say.

Get a load of this:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Problem_of_other_minds

I take the pragmatic approach that what appears most likely is probably true, since I can't directly investigate further.

Of course, there's the question of whether "I" am experiencing anything either, or what that even means. Fucked if I know. I'm too caught up in it to view it objectively.

[The Grand Nudger]

The -contents- of their experience, what it "feels like" to be someone else is not the subject in question, however.  We are not wondering whats in the box, in context, we're wondering whether or not there's a box.  I think that there are many subtle frameshifts in these propositions that lead us to declare a problem of x when, in actuality, we're referring to a problem of y.

Assume, for example, that being someone else doesn't feel anything -at all- like being yourself. That does not say anything about whether or not they feel. An objection to the one is no objection to the other. What may be warranted skepticism in the former is not transferred, logically, to the latter.

[vorlon13]

[Angrboda]

The problem with your test Rhythm is that it depends on a form of anthropomorphic projection. That if others behave as I would behave under the test, then they are experiencing the same things that I would be. But there's no way to know that this equivalence holds. It in a way is claiming that there aren't alternative methods (besides experience) by which such behavior can be realized. Take for example the phenomenon of blindsight. The person doesn't have an actual experience of the stimulus, yet they are able to report on the stimulus. This is "passing the test" without any actual awareness of the stimulus. What if there are zombies who can pass the greater test without actually being aware? Your test gives us no good reason to rule them out.

[bennyboy]

The problem with your test Rhythm is that it depends on a form of anthropomorphic projection.  That if others behave as I would behave under the test, then they are experiencing the same things that I would be.  But there's no way to know that this equivalence holds.  It in a way is claiming that there aren't alternative methods (besides experience) by which such behavior can be realized.  Take for example the phenomenon of blindsight.  The person doesn't have an actual experience of the stimulus, yet they are able to report on the stimulus.  This is "passing the test" without any actual awareness of the stimulus.  What if there are zombies who can pass the greater test without actually being aware?  Your test gives us no good reason to rule them out.

Why "anthropomorphic" projection of people onto say androids?

What about an egotistic projection of the sentient self onto human-looking objects?

Is this the same test, or a different one?

[The Grand Nudger]

The problem with your test Rhythm is that it depends on a form of anthropomorphic projection.

I don't think that it does...again, I'm not basing my conclusion on whether or not they see what I see, or the accuracy of their observation.  Only that they can provide me an answer to that question which gives me reason to conclude that they had an experience, however different from mine or any human beings.  Even our own experiences are not uniform. My test won't work for a rock or a non-communicative.  I would have to try something else for that. I -explicitly- offered this test for people...btw...so I;m not sure that anthropomorphic projection..as an objection..even applies.

That if others behave as I would behave under the test, then they are experiencing the same things that I would be.  

That subtle shift in the question, again.  I;m not interested in whether or not their experience is uniform to my own.  I'm interested in whether or not they experience.  I -am- limited in my reference set...but we can only work with what we've got, and to demand otherwise or refuse to accept a conclusion on those grounds would be unreasonable.  

But there's no way to know that this equivalence holds.  It in a way is claiming that there aren't alternative methods (besides experience) by which such behavior can be realized.

I think that there -are- ways to do that (I offered artifact of a conscious designer as an example)....my test doesn't claim any such thing, it's merely -one way- to get at an answer to a question by working with what we've got where it might apply.

Take for example the phenomenon of blindsight.  The person doesn't have an actual experience of the stimulus, yet they are able to report on the stimulus. This is "passing the test" without any actual awareness of the stimulus.

The test is not whether they are aware of the -same- stimulus as I am, I only wonder whether they are -aware-..full stop.  The man with blind sight appears to be aware of something.  OFC he passed the test, your objection is another subtle shift.

What if there are zombies who can pass the greater test without actually being aware?  Your test gives us no good reason to rule them out.

Then we have no good reason to rule them out....and every reason to consider them as aware as we are..and we'll have to confront that, rather than creating an imaginary partition which we cannot demonstrate, considering them "mimics" and ourselves something else.  Don't you think? I feel like I'm being asked how I would handle getting results I didn;t like, or that caused me to confront some uncomfortable notion. That we are, ourselves, indistinguishable from those "zombies", in that regard. If we are, so be it.

[robvalue]

Well put Jorm, thank you

It seems like a philosophical question with no proper answer that doesn't in some way beg the question. But the question might make no sense, of course.

It's far less troublesome than solipsism, though. It's a bit of a ridiculous stretch to think I could be the only one experiencing things. It's not a stretch at all to think this could be a dream.

[The Grand Nudger]

It's not begging the question you think it is. At least I don't think so. Perhaps you could tell me, precisely, what question it begs? IMO, it's only when we consider those subtle shifts that we appear to be begging anything, that we get mixed up in loaded or fallacious statements, questioning, and objections.