Pleasure and Joy

[bennyboy]

For that you use the non-mental indicators of experience - the subject's verbal testimony, physiological reactions, physical reactions (both conscious and subconscious). Should there be actual experience occurring, all these lines of inquiry would be consistent and complement each-other and thus form a comprehensive body of evidence for the existence of experience.

Things are not always what they seem. You can come at this problem from as many angles as you want-- but they all have one thing in common: they do not give you direct access to subjective experience, and therefore require assumptions to arrive at the conclusion that there is any subjective experience happening at all.

That's the point. "Genetic tendency to consume particular foods" is not fondness - fondness requires the entity to be aware of that genetic tendency, which means being subjectively aware. Being overweight would normally require more than simple genetic tendency, it'd require that the person be aware of that tendency and act accordingly.

You can prove that an organism behaves in a certain way. You cannot prove that the reason it behaves in this way is because it has actual experience of the information it is processing.

I've corrected this misconception before.

Consciousness is a form of data-processing. That does not mean that all data-processing are forms of consciousness. Therefore, earth is not a giant consciousness and each particle does not have a particular kind of consciousness. The complexity of the system is very much relevant to this.

Layers in layers, dude. You have yet to come up with any test that proves the existence of actual experience in an organism, rather than it behaving as you suppose a feeling organism might behave.

You are the one who brought up the soul. Anyway, if you believe that a physical system can completely simulate human behavior without the requisite self-awareness inherent to humanity, then by all means, provide justification.

IF and only IF behavior is a mechanical, deterministic result of processed data, then why not? Once upon a time, it was said a computer could never beat a grandmaster, because it lacked "imagination." We now know that a computer can beat almost any player, even a grandmaster; we do not know, however, that the computer has an imagination.

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Criticisms to philosophical positions are not exempt from the burden of proof.

The "assumptions" here is the knowledge that:
- Physical systems exist.
- Physical systems capable of information processing exist.

The mind-hypothesis compatible with these assumptions is that "consciousness is a form of information processing done by the physical system referred to as the brain".

The testing parameters for this hypothesis would require explaining different aspects of consciousness (data-processing) as functions of brain and providing evidence that they are, in fact, functions of brain. While this testing is not complete, it is well on its way with mounting evidence explaining different aspects of consciousness as brain functions.

The falsifiability criteria would be presenting an aspect of consciousness that simply cannot be explained as a brain function - not just currently, but in perpetuity. The most common candidate for this would be the hard problem of consciousness or subjective experience. However, there is a hypothesis addressing that specific issue - one that is compatible to the physicalist-mind hypothesis and has sufficient evidence for it so that it cannot be rejected out-of-hand.

Thus, I've met my burden of proof - to the extent our current knowledge allows. Criticizing this position simply based on limitations of current knowledge would be - by definition - arguing from ignorance.

Despite your protests to the contrary, your assertion here is simple - "subjective experience cannot be explained/tested/proven by physcalist hypotheses/experimentation". The position to the contrary has given ample evidence to justify itself. You have given none. Science has met its burden of proof - you have not.

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The problem here is that a circle can't rightly be reasoned to be an arrow. ALL the science done is done by minds. If what those minds perceive is an accurate representation of reality, then the science is valid, even to the degree of determining where mind comes from. However, if reality is other than what it seems, which is very possible, then the validity of the science is limited to the scope of the assumptions you listed: specifically, that there is a physical reality, and that it is (pretty much) what it seems to be.

So if I use science to determine how to build a bridge, and I have the experience of a standing bridge, that's fine. In the context of the universe as it seems, it doesn't matter what the underlying reality of the bridge is. And as satisfying as it is to meet the BOP of ideas set in this context, and as elegant as your proofs in this context are, you are forever limited to that context.

If you want to use science (read: the mind) to determine the nature of mind in an absolute sense, then you have a parent/child relationship in which the two are identical. You must resolve the validity of the parent to validate ideas about the child, but cannot for obvious reasons-- you've thrown yourself into an infinite loop.

Behavior indicative of subjective preference without actual subjective awareness? How the hell is that even possible?

Well, the Cyberboy 2000 says, "Yum yum, I want the chocolate ice cream, not the yucky strawberry," rubs its belly, drools a little, and opens its eyes slightly wider to show that what it is looking at "pleases" it. It stamps its little cyber-feet if you tell it no, and make annoying noises in the car on the way home. None of this means it's actually experiencing anything.