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

[Edwardo Piet]

I guess it's begging the question in the same way it is when theist make claims that god's existence is possible in principle while we cannot know that it isn't.

He's the one saying he doesn't know... no question is being begged. And Khem is the one who can't differentiate between the fact that consciousness happens to coincide with behavior and the fact that that behavior could in principle go along without consciousness because consciousness doesn't appear to actually be doing anything.

It's not begging the question when you miss the point being made. To beg the question is to say the equivalent of X is X because X is X.

In case you don't know:

To beg the question is to assume the truth of the conclusion of an argument in the premises in order for the conclusion to follow. It is a type of circular reasoning and an informal fallacy, in which an arguer makes an argument that requires the desired conclusion to be true. This often occurs in an indirect way such that the fallacy's presence is hidden or at least not easily apparent.

The term "begging the question", as it is usually phrased, originated in the 16th century as a mistranslation of the Latin petitio principii, which actually translates to "assuming the initial point".

[from wikipedia]

Ironically it's not me or Strawson who is assuming an initial point here. The whole point that is being addressed here is there's a difference between how things happen to coincide and asking why it coincides. And there's a difference between us being conscious as we behave and consciousness actually usefully interacting with our behavior. Obviously, we consciously see stuff. The whole point is that it's in principle possible to be able to have that function without the consciousness. The fact we happen to be conscious and consciously see stuff is missing the entire point. Ironically, it's begging the question to say that it has to be that way just because that's the way it is. It evolved that way, but the question is does consciousness actually do anything useful? Because it doesn't seem to, it seems to just be a byproduct of the brain, as the evidence appears to indicate.

I say that a moth's navigation system is useful but it has the unfortunate byproduct of making a moth suicide itself... there's no evolutionary benefit from suicidal moth behavior. The navigation system has the evolutionary benefit, and the suicidal behavior of moths on lamps is just a byproduct of that navigation system that has a benefit.

I then say that the brain, in the same way, has an evolutionary benefit. And consciousness itself is just a useless byproduct. Evolution evolves many things that are useless, but are byproducts of another feature that is useful, but that byproduct isn't harmful enough to the creature for it to be evolved away.

And Khem's response to this is to basically say "But the moth navigation system is useful though". How pathetic is that? The whole point was that yes that is useful but suiciding yourself on a lamp isn't. Khem completely missed the whole analogy. He does this so often I'm convinced it must be on purpose because while he's not exactly a genius he's not that stupid. And it's multiple forms of sophistry going on at once. That's why it's so frustrating. I'd like to discuss with someone who actually addresses what I'm saying.

And if someone is going to assert that a question is being begged... at least point out what question is supposedly being begged. I'm laying out arguments here and it seems like everyone is afraid of actually interacting with them. I'm talking of scientific evidence, and no one wants to talk about it. This thread was supposed to be interesting, and unfortunately I just ended up getting strawmanned by Khem as per bloody usual. To debate with me you have to address my actual points.

It's so tiresome to have to hear the same crap, irrelevant statements and misrepresentations over and over again after I've laid out an actual argument. Maybe I shouldn't have bothered... but I'm still waiting for someone more interesting and intellectually honest to show up.