Pleasure and Joy

[bennyboy]

Wrong. Again. As a physical monist, I regard experience as a form of internal data-processing. Therefore, for behavior specific to that data-processing to occur, experience must occur as well.

The problem is that I have actual experience, and you are defining something other than that as experience. You can play semantic games all you want, but the fact is that I am known (at least by me) to have a rich subjective awareness, and the Cyberboy 2000 can be known only to behave as though it does. You can conflate your definition with mine as much as you want, but that doesn't change the philosophical reality of what I am, and what the Cyberboy (as far as we are able to know) is not.

Begging the question - Starting from the assumption that Cyberboy 2000 is not capable of experience and therefore rejecting all evidence of its behavior indicative of experience.

Whether it does or does not actually experience is not known, or knowable. I know I experience, because I wake up in the morning and do just that. I'm willing to assume that other humans do that, because they seem similar enough to me in other regards that it's worth making that assumption.

If I've made a positive assertion about the existence/lack of Cyberboy's ability to actually experience, then I happily retract it. I don't, and can't know-- and neither can anyone else. But there is enough dissimilarity that I'm not willing to assume it just because it behaves like a human.

Imagination is not limited to visual cues. However, the program does have an image of the problem - that'd be the chess board you see on the screen. And if you look into its analysis, you'd see the possible future images of the chess-board based on its expectation of your moves. Any way you slice it, the program is imagining your future moves (since those haven't been made yet) and making its own moves in anticipation.

Nope. You're just taking good old-fashioned, imagination-less mechanism, and applying a mind-existent term to it as though its lack of actual experience means nothing.

Coming up with a hypothetical and establishing that hypothetical as possible are two different things. Simply saying that "we could be in BIV or Matrix etc." is not sufficient. You have to establish it as logically coherent as well. And you have not done so.

No I don't. All I have to do is show that the mind attempting to comprehend its own nature is a circle. And to say the obvious: circles are bad.

Actually, you can prove that your views represent reality - because of they didn't, the bridges would not stand.

Right. In the context in which physics is done-- looking at things, experimenting on them, and manipulating them to our benefit-- the bridge and the science that allow it to stand are perfectly real. Whether that reality is in the Matrix, or a BIJ, or the Mind of God, is irrelevant, so long as the bridge stands. So you've proven nothing about the ultimate nature of things-- whether they are purely physical, purely mental, a mix, or something different entirely. All you've proven is that in our reality (whatever it is) some things are consistent enough to make categorizing those consistencies useful.

Unfortunately for you, you do not have the copyright on mind-existent words. You do not get to start with the assumption that "experience", "imagination" etc. are words that are meaningless within physical-monist context and any application of those words within that context is a redefinition. And you most certainly do not get to do this without even providing a definition of the words which you regard as the true Scotsman.

As I said, you can apply any words you want to your model, in whatever capacity you want. However, the fact is that I wake up and begin a rich subjective experience, and you cannot prove that the Cyberboy 2000 does. Therefore, I'm not willing to engage in a conversation where it is demanded that Cyberboy's data processing is conflated with my actual experience as a thinking, feeling human.