Mindfulness or Mindlessness?

[vulcanlogician]

Why do you think functionalism is true compared to biological naturalism, Angrboda?

I don't know that I do think functionalism is true.  I don't understand it well enough to say that.  But I think functionalism is very misunderstood by its opponents, particularly Searle.  As a person with a mathematics and computer background, I'm more sympathetic to it.  Perhaps through familiarity, or perhaps due to a better understanding of its power.  I think Searle's biological naturalism is just silly.  It's fundamentally anti-reductionist.  If a biological structure has a reducible physical structure, then that structure can be simulated.  It comes down to Searle's assertion that simulations can't duplicate reality, which undercuts all his arguments, as imagining any scenario is simulating it.  If simulation can't duplicate the relevant features of biological consciosness, then imagining a Chinese Room can't foresee all the properties that the Chinese Room would have if it were actual.  He wants to have his cake and eat it, too.  In the case of his simulation of the Chinese Room, he doesn't need an actual Chinese Room, just a simulation.  In the case of the brain, he does need an actual biological brain, as a simulation is unsatisfactory.  He can't have it both ways.

I wrote a lengthy research paper about Searle and functionalism in a metaphysics course. This is how I know all this stuff concerning Searle. I'm not really a Searle fan or anything. The Chinese Room? I hate it. It's a shitty thought experiment that equivocates if it does anything. It is well worth the criticisms you gave in your previous post, the above post, and then some. I didn't even mention it in my research paper.

One of my professors was Searle's assistant. She said he was a dick and she hated being around him. What's more, he'd tell his students that he'd solved the mind/body problem. And other professors were tasked with correcting them when they repeated this claim in their papers.

All this being said, I do think Searle clarified a few things about the mind/body problem. For one: a critique of dualism. Dualists like to divide reality into two columns. In one column (physicality) belongs things like extension and physical properties. In the other column (mentality) belong things like subjectivity and intentionality. Searle rightly calls the dualists out on this conceit. They assume that subjectivity and intentionality belong necessarily to the mental realm. Searle sees subjectivity and intentionality as physical properties of physical things. For whatever reason, no physicalists (including functionalists) have really done an analysis like this. I thought this was a good analysis. And it meshes well with his theory, biological naturalism.

As for biological naturalism itself? I do think it's a decent theory. As I said earlier, my thinking as far as the hard problem goes is between functionalism and [some better theory]. Maybe biological naturalism is a contender there. I might be biased because it does mimic the thinking of Spinoza. But--like I admitted-- this is a bias. I have no reason to accept Spinoza's ideas as true here. I just enjoy reading the guy, and I think he's brilliant. That doesn't mean he is correct. (Exhibit A: Plato.)

Searle thinks you CAN possibly create artificial consciousness. He doesn't rule it out, anyway. If you arrange proteins in such a way that resembles nerve fibers, they would be conscious. Attach them to a computer somehow, and the computer would be conscious. It might not even need to be protein-based to Searle. It would just need to do the same physical thing as a neuron-- NOT the same informational thing, as the functionalist contends. I wouldn't call it anti-reductionist. Just reductionist in a different way.

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Also, I think you had a good criticism of my puzzlement in the first place. I AM searching for a sort of "locality for consciousness," and inasmuch as that's a fool's errand, I am a fool. I do think you have a point in this regard, especially if functionalism turns out to be true. But (in my defense), searching for where memory is located isn't entirely a fool's errand. Start taking ice cream scoops of someone's brain out, and I'll bet memory will fail or begin to fail them at a certain stage. There is a sort of physical locality to memory. (For instance, take 1,000 ice cream scoops out of Jupiter's atmosphere, and I can remember things fine. So memory does have some kind of local connection to the brain. There is a place that it is: my brain. And a place it is not: Jupiter's atmosphere.)

For me, you gotta remember: I'm Socrates. When I don't know, I say I don't know. It's nice to point out which theory is most plausible, but I'm not one to decide on the most plausible theory until I have a sufficient degree of certainty. I'm not there with consciousness. Besides, it's so interesting to consider the possibilities, why not? But more than just "it's interesting".... we should respect the Socratic adage, and be sure to not think is true what we don't know. After all, ether seemed more plausible than "no ether" to 19th century physicists. And, given what they knew about waves, ether was the most plausible conclusion. But they were wrong.

What I'm doing is testing the ideas for strength. If ether exists, how come x? If functionalism is true, what about qualia?

It's interesting seeing you and vulcan discussing this in this thread... 

Duuuuuude..... emjay.... whatup, bro? So happy to see you man. How you been?

You might have missed this, but it was a few pages back.  A sim doesn't have to look like anything, but it will look like -something-.  We might see red for another color, or another thing.  We might hear red instead of seeing it.  In whatever case, your question could be applied, but in every application the complaint could not credibly be that functionalist theories can't explain it, but that you think the explanation is or may be wrong.

To functionalists, who posit multiple realizability, it's doing the experience of red, however done and however experienced, that counts as the thing.  Not the specific bits and parts in the individual experiencer.  Many functionalist theories of mind aren't even theories of human mind.  If articial intelligence is possible, multiple realizability is true.  If machine consciousness is possible, multiple realizability is true.  If there's any other conscious creature anywhere on earth or in the universe..multiple realizability is true.  The only state of affairs where multiple realizability could even be false..is if we are the sole conscious agents in the cosmos and it's completely irreproducible any other way.

The thing is Nudger, there is a question mark attached to qualia. Sure, the wavelengths of light perceived as red must look like something. But why do they appear red? There must be a reason. Or (at the very least) there *might* be a reason. I've not dismissed the idea that consciousness can be simulated. And btw, neither has Searle, as I said in my reply to Angrboda. Where do you stand on the back of our toilets being "slightly conscious." I feel like I want to draw the line there. Even though I can agree that, especially in a behaviorist sense, the back of our toilets are "aware."

I'm not sold on the notion that "awareness" entails conscious experience. Mind you, I'm not ruling it out entirely. But, I feel like questions are warranted. Those are the questions I'm asking.