The Philosophy of Mind: Zombies, "radical emergence" and evidence of non-experiential

[Edwardo Piet]

A commonly referenced framework for an evolutionary theory of consciousness is AST.  Attention Schema Theory.  It posits that qualia is a form of internal modeling, and that the benefits of this internal modeling are not only observable in other physical systems...but also, in all likelihood, much farther back down the evolutionary branches than we might expect.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attention_schema_theory

(you should really browse the publications in reference - particularly the lit review)

Again, this is all irrelevant to my points.

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A commonly referenced framework for an evolutionary theory of consciousness is AST.  Attention Schema Theory.  It posits that qualia is a form of internal modeling, and that the benefits of this internal modeling are not only observable in other physical systems...but also, in all likelihood, much farther back down the evolutionary branches than we might expect.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attention_schema_theory

(you should really browse the publications in reference - particularly the lit review)

Here's the thing, though.  You seem to be giving a final cause, which I'd say is a pretty idealistic view: "Well, consciousness helps an organism to thrive in its environment."  But the point of interest is how or why there can be such a thing as consciousness.

Right. And the OP is about debating the point of interest in which he ignores.

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Here's the thing, though.  You seem to be giving a final cause, which I'd say is a pretty idealistic view: "Well, consciousness helps an organism to thrive in its environment."  But the point of interest is how or why there can be such a thing as consciousness.

Answered in ast as a form of internal (and in more elaborate implementations, environmental and projective) modeling.

Far from answering it... it doesn't even address it.

Again, you're confusing how consciousness works with what consciousness is.

[The Grand Nudger]

How consciousness can be, and the evolutionary utility of consciousness, are not the same question.  The latter is the only issue I've commented on from your op.

[Edwardo Piet]

I seriously doubt that the philosophical question is answered: why is it that any physical system, under any configuration, has the capacity to experience qualia?  Why is there such a thing as subjective experience in a world view which is (at least in theory) modeled purely in objective terms?

I don't want to read your link just yet, because I doubt it answers the philosophical question at hand.  If it does, would you mind giving a short-form version?  If it's compelling at all, then I'll be happy to read up on AST.

--edit--
I think my issue is that qualia isn't considered elemental in a material view.  So either there's a critical mass of something (information, electric fields of a certain configuration, whatever) which suddenly spawns a quale, or there's an incremental process by which more complex systems have something more and more like qualia.  But qualia-gony (lol) is binary: either something is being experienced, or it isn't.  I cannot conceive that there is "more and more experienced."

My bold. I seriously doubt that it's even answerable... making it even more absurd to believe that it's already answered and that is why I am debating this. Confused people thinking they've solved unsolvable problems is the only real problem here.

[The Grand Nudger]

Here's an interesting question....though, about your main area of interest.

How can a wing be?

[Edwardo Piet]

I find Hammy's mannerisms in these discussions interesting.  That's how I manage it.

You have not shown that human consciousness actually does anything,

I certainly don't think that it's a free willing machine...and I guess if I limited what I would consider "doing anything" to being a free willing machine it would be easy for me to conclude that consciousness was, therefore, useless.  I don't have such a narrow definition of evolutionary utility, though.

You have not shown that it has any utility at all... evolutionary or otherwise. All I can concede is perhaps the fact we can have a conversation about it is the only effect (although the fact so many people fail to address it properly makes me wonder... and it reminds me of the jokes that perhaps Dennett is a philosophical zombie unlike the rest of us). If you want to call that a useful effect then go for it. But an evolutionary effect or any especially useful effect? You have not demonstrated any such thing. And how could you? Like I said, a behaviorally indistinguishable philosophical zombie can be conceived and that is precisely because it doesn't appear that consciousness is actually doing anything. If it was clear what consciousness did... such a zombie couldn't be conceived. And that is the point.

If I like to fuck real girls more than I like to fuck dolls....then the selective advantage of consciousness is demonstrated. 

That's a total non-sequitur that doesn't demonstrate anything about consciousness. A philosophical zombie could like to fuck real girls more than dolls. You are repeatedly missing the point.

I think consciousness contributes more than that, but that would be all that was required to reject the idea that consciousness is an effect without effects, or an effect without selectively relevant effects.

Let alone more than that, you haven't demonstrated that consciousness even demonstrates that... or how it could even demonstrate that.

You are simply begging the question by saying the equivalent "Of course you need consciousness for that and of course you need conciousness for art."

A robot could fuck a real a girl or produce art.

Are you building qualia into the definition of 'like' and hence begging the question perhaps? Hm?

Conveniently, I do prefer real girls..so... -shrug-..............?

Irrelevant.

All you have is your own incredulity... and how it seems to you personally that consciousness must be doing something. Sorry, but I don't care how you feel, I care about the actual evidence and the distinction between behaving conscious and actually being conscious, a distinction that appears to be completely beyond you. You merely assume that consciousness has evolutionary utility, and that consciousness is required for civilization and art, without any evidence to support that, and despite all evidence to the contrary. I provided a Strawson quote to point out how consciousness isn't required for those things, and like all my points you completely ignored Strawson's point as well.

Oh, cmon, that can't be entirely true.  You're an empathetic guy, you probably care..at least a little bit..how I feel. 

What I'm clearly saying is it's entirely irrelevant to this discussion.

You might even be able to imagine yourself in my shoes. 

Actually that is something I can't do but I can spot your logical errors.

I make many assumptions..such as the necessary assumption of your consciousness in any empathetic analysis..commonly thought to be a selective advantage in populations capable of managing it.  I don;t actually make the assumption that consciousness is required for civilization, though I do note that our consciousness has contributed immensely to ours..and our civilization is widely regarded as a selective advantage for our species.  

You have not shown that any of those things require consciousness.

At least some of those effects seem to be selectively advantageous, even though there are other ways to achieve a similar effect.

You have not demonstrated that any of that has anything to do with consciousness or any way requires consciousness.

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Here's an interesting question....though, about your main area of interest.

How can a wing be?

It evolved. Is this the part where you introduce your false analogy again? Wings demonstrably do something, but consciousness doesn't demonstrably do anything.

[The Grand Nudger]

You have not shown that it has any utility at all... evolutionary or otherwise. All I can concede is perhaps the fact we can have a conversation about it is the only effect. If you want to call that a useful effect then go for it. But an evolutionary effect or any especially useful effect? You have not demonstrated any such thing. And how could you? Like I said, a behaviorally indistinguishable philosophical zombie can be conceived and that is precisely because it doesn't appear that consciousness is actually doing anything.

Sure, they could do that, and that would describe the evolutionary utility of however -they- did that...not at all unlike the evolutionary utility of an ant colony.  

That's a total non-sequitur that doesn't demonstrate anything about consciousness. A philosophical zombie could like to fuck real girls more than dolls. You are repeatedly missing the point.

Sure, and if it liked to fuck real girls more than dolls then being a real girl is selectively advantageous for the real girl.   

Let alone more than that, you haven't demonstrated that consciousness even demonstrates that... or how it could even demonstrate that.

You are simply begging the question by saying the equivalent "Of course you need consciousness for that and of course you need conciousness for art."

Evolutionary utility isn't a matter of necessity.  It's a matter of what you do with what you've got.  You don't need a birds wings to take flight.., there are other ways to achieve that effect.  Nevertheless..if the way -you- do it involves wings...and taking flight is advantageous...that is a description of evolutionary utility.  

A robot could fuck a real a girl or art.

Yes..there are many evolutionary pathways to commonly advantageous behaviors and abilities.  This isn't a problem for any given representative apparatus.  

Oh, cmon, that can't be entirely true.  You're an empathetic guy, you probably care..at least a little bit..how I feel. 

What I'm clearly saying is it's entirely irrelevant to this discussion.

I think that it's more important than it may seem.  AST posits consciousness as internal modeling, and also the ability to model other "selves".  If empathy is advantageous...and if consciousness is internal modeling...then this...again, is a description of evolutionary utility.  

I make many assumptions..such as the necessary assumption of your consciousness in any empathetic analysis..commonly thought to be a selective advantage in populations capable of managing it.  I don;t actually make the assumption that consciousness is required for civilization, though I do note that our consciousness has contributed immensely to ours..and our civilization is widely regarded as a selective advantage for our species.  

You have not shown that any of those things require consciousness.

b-mine.

You have not demonstrated that any of that has anything to do with consciousness or any way requires consciousness.

It;s the former..not the latter..I'm commenting on, and I simply don't agree.  Perhaps..though, you could suggest some specific advantage that you'd consider a credible answer?

[bennyboy]

I seriously doubt that the philosophical question is answered: why is it that any physical system, under any configuration, has the capacity to experience qualia?  Why is there such a thing as subjective experience in a world view which is (at least in theory) modeled purely in objective terms?

I don't want to read your link just yet, because I doubt it answers the philosophical question at hand.  If it does, would you mind giving a short-form version?  If it's compelling at all, then I'll be happy to read up on AST.

--edit--
I think my issue is that qualia isn't considered elemental in a material view.  So either there's a critical mass of something (information, electric fields of a certain configuration, whatever) which suddenly spawns a quale, or there's an incremental process by which more complex systems have something more and more like qualia.  But qualia-gony (lol) is binary: either something is being experienced, or it isn't.  I cannot conceive that there is "more and more experienced."

My bold. I seriously doubt that it's even answerable... making it even more absurd to believe that it's already answered and that is why I am debating this. Confused people thinking they've solved unsolvable problems is the only real problem here.

The line that seems to come up is this:

1)  Nobody can answer the question of psychogony (the existence of mind).
2)  Science has proven itself good at answering many questions.
3)  Therefore science is our best recourse for studying anything.
4)  Science studies only material structures, their properties, and the force that acts upon them.
5)  Therefore, mind should be taken as material, because anything that isn't obviously addressed by science is a waste of time.

[Edwardo Piet]

You have not shown that it has any utility at all... evolutionary or otherwise. All I can concede is perhaps the fact we can have a conversation about it is the only effect. If you want to call that a useful effect then go for it. But an evolutionary effect or any especially useful effect? You have not demonstrated any such thing. And how could you? Like I said, a behaviorally indistinguishable philosophical zombie can be conceived and that is precisely because it doesn't appear that consciousness is actually doing anything.

Sure, they could do that, and that would describe the evolutionary utility of however -they- did that...not at all unlike the evolutionary utility of an ant colony.  

So this is an admission that you were wrong then? Philosophical zombies could do all the things you previously said required consciousness.

Sure, and if it liked to fuck real girls more than dolls then being a real girl is selectively advantageous for the real girl. 

Being irrelevant again? As you can see, you are not addressing the fact that the robot would have every reason to like fucking the real girl if she was also a robot... and the whole point is that the robot wouldn't be able to tell the difference. You are equivocating: are you talking about a real girl that is real because it isn't a 'doll'? Or a real girl that is real because it isn't a philosophical zombie/robot? Your ambiguity is showing again.

Evolutionary utility isn't a matter of necessity.

Um... the entire point of the philosophical zombie argument that you are supposed to be addressing is a matter of that. The point is that there isn't necessarily any reason why consciousness had to evolve along with brains per se... as all behaviors could be achieved without consciousness. You keep failing to demonstrate the undemonstratable and continuing to claim that consciousness has a function without any actual or argument that supports otherwise (not surprised, such a thing isn't possible). Is this the part where you say "But in this case consciousness does perform that function" and simply miss the point and completely beg the question again?

  It's a matter of what you do with what you've got.  You don't need a birds wings to take flight.., there are other ways to achieve that effect. 

And yet... flight is actually does have evolutionary utility... unlike consciousness and unlike a moth killing itself on a lampshade. Just as the moth's navigation's system has utility but the suicidal behavior doesn't...  the brain is useful but consciousness isn't. Talking about the moth's navigation system being useful is just a failure to understand my analogy... and talking about flight and wings being useful is a crappy analogy of your own because both wings and flight are demonstrably useful... unlike consciousness or suicidal moth behavior.

Are you going to concede your crap analogy and your faulty interpretation of my analogy yet? Are you going to ignore the previous question altogether rather than concede it? Or are you going to double down and insist even harder that your analogy isn't crappy and/or you understood mine well. Are you going to ignore one point but not the other? Curious what approach you will take... but I doubt you'll concede all areas in which you are clearly wrong. Also, it seems clear to you that debates are largely about your own ego.

Nevertheless..if the way -you- do it involves wings...and taking flight is advantageous...that is a description of evolutionary utility.  

As already explained (many times and you keep ignoring it) this is a false analogy. There's evidence for both of those things having evolutionary utility... but there is no such case with consciousness (is this the part where you go and give more crappy examples like art and civilization when I already dealt with that but you ignored my question about the distinction between phenomena and noumena repeatedly? Or is this the part where you move onto another crappy example after failing to deal with the others? And after moving onto that crappy example will you answer my point about the distinction between phenomena and noumena then? Or will you ignore it again?)

A robot could fuck a real a girl or [produce] art.

Yes..there are many evolutionary pathways to commonly advantageous behaviors and abilities.  This isn't a problem for any given representative apparatus. 

This doesn't address the philosophical zombie argument at all. The entire point is that all behaviors can happen noumenally which means that phenomenal qualia doesn't appear to actually do anything because all entities are still behaving exactly the same <------- this is as concisely and clearly as I can possibly put it. But my guess is you'll probably ignore my clear point about the distinction between noumena and phenomena again.

Oh, cmon, that can't be entirely true.  You're an empathetic guy, you probably care..at least a little bit..how I feel. 

What I'm clearly saying is it's entirely irrelevant to this discussion.

Notice what it is that you actually say and that I am responding to when I say that it is irrelevant to the discussion. (as as a side note: No I am not an empathetic guy at all. I'm a very unempathetic guy. I'm a compassionate guy: There is a difference.

I think that it's more important than it may seem. 

Again, note what I actually said was irrelevant. That whether I care or not about how you feel is irrelevant our discussion about consciousness. So no, it clearly isn't more important than it may seem. It's entirely irrelevant. You are just on another red herring again. Whether I care about what you feel or not has nothing to do with my being interested in discussing consciousness with you.

AST posits consciousness as internal modeling, and also the ability to model other "selves".  If empathy is advantageous...and if consciousness is internal modeling...then this...again, is a description of evolutionary utility. 

Consciousness isn't required for empathy. Once again, the point is that all that can happen noumenally, without any phenomenal qualia at all. You have not demosntrated how qualia does (or even could) perform any function at all. The only conceivable effect appears to be the fact that because people have qualia they are able to talk about it. We wouldn't be having this discussion about qualia if we didn't have qualia to discuss. But the point is that all other behavior besides discussing or communicating about qualia itself... is performable without qualia. It appears to be an effect that has no effect besides allowing us to acknowledge that it exists. We can all talk about what red looks like to us... but our eyes could still do everything it needed to do without us actually having any seeing-red-experience to talk about.

It;s the former..not the latter..I'm commenting on, and I simply don't agree.  Perhaps..though, you could suggest some specific advantage that you'd consider a credible answer?

For consciousness? No of course not: in case you're completely logically blind (actually you are pretty close to that from my standpoint...) you should have noticed that my entire argument is about how such an example cannot be given. when are you going to address my point that the noumenal behavior and objects could still exist without the phenomenal aspect?

Again you have demonstrated nothing... along with making false analogies and red herrings. At least you've stopped strawmanning for a while (for now anyway).

But that's because it's hard to make a strawman out of an opponent when you're going on fall blown red herrings. It's hard to make a strawman out of someone's position when you're not even addressing anything like their position. It's all false analogies and red herrings now with you.

Oh god and the way you keep begging the question over and over lol. When it comes down to it, when you're really at the point where if this were a formal debate you'd have to concede your point... all you've got is basically saying "Of course consciousness is required for those things."

Here's my of course: of course you can't give examples in which qualia has any sort of evolutionary utility... because such a example can't even conceivably be given.

[LadyForCamus]

Empathy is about the only useful function of consciousness that I can come up with. @Hammy, how can we experience empathy without consciousness?

[Edwardo Piet]

My bold. I seriously doubt that it's even answerable... making it even more absurd to believe that it's already answered and that is why I am debating this. Confused people thinking they've solved unsolvable problems is the only real problem here.

The line that seems to come up is this:

1)  Nobody can answer the question of psychogony (the existence of mind).
2)  Science has proven itself good at answering many questions.
3)  Therefore science is our best recourse for studying anything.
4)  Science studies only material structures, their properties, and the force that acts upon them.
5)  Therefore, mind should be taken as material, because anything that isn't obviously addressed by science is a waste of time.

Great post and I agree... but allow me to add to their mistakes:

1) They believe that mind and matter are opposites by definition... and because they are materialists and believe everything is matter they make the mistake of thinking that that must mean that mind is an "illusion" or that it seems to seem to exist but it doesn't really seem to exist. As if seeming wasn't the most real and knowable thing in the world... and as if all empirical knowledge didn't depend on it...

2) They make this mistake because they fail to recognize that the mental and the physical as opposed to each other is only one way to make such distinctions on the matter (funny how I said "matter" instead of "topic" there lol)... you can just as easily say physical as opposed to non-physical or mental as opposed to non-mental. The difference is, those are true dichotomies but "mental as opposed to physical" is not a true dichotomy... and yet they act as if it is.............[Oh look I did Khem's trademarked stoned person excessive periods trail at the end of my making a point... the difference is I'm not stoned and my point really is a good point rather than being another profoundly underwhelming red herring or otherwise trivial truth or scientific fact that unfortunately for him doesn't address what I said]

3) They conflate "not real" in the sense of "imaginary" with "not real" in the sense of "absent." This is my guess as to why Dennett thinks that consciousness and qualia and seeming can't be real. It's why he thinks there is "no such thing as real seeming". Because, he conflates "not real" in the sense of "imaginary" with "not real" in the sense of absent. Consciousness is not real in the sense of imaginary because consciousness is literally mental representation and the mind... it's what's going on within us... as opposed to what's out there. But that doesn't mean it's not real in the sense of absent! Obviously we have an imagination and it's very real... as unreal in the sense of imaginary that it indeed is.

N.B. So my take on Dennett is that the reason why he falsely concludes that the most knowable thing in the universe (consciousness) isn't real... is because he is committing a logical fallacy of equivocation.

P.S. I like talking to you because you actually often make sense (and the importance of actually making sense is precisely why semantics is very important... and why anyone saying "That's just semantics." in a debate is one of my biggest pet peeves).