(September 2, 2013 at 6:16 am)bennyboy Wrote: 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.
No, the problem is that you are not only working with with limited facts, you are also unwilling to consider any additional facts available.
This is not a semantic game. Your direct access to your own subjective awareness tells you nothing about the fundamental nature of experience itself. The only thing that you can know from just that direct access is that you have subject awareness. That you are capable of experience. Just from that single fact, you cannot determine the existence/non-existence of soul, you cannot determine if someone or something else is also subjectively aware and you cannot determine whether brain function is relevant to the experience. Once again, because it bears repetition, you cannot conclude anything on any of those issues simply based on the fact of your own experience.
But fortunately, our repository of facts is not limited to that. And this is why it is not a semantic game. What you refer to as "your rich subjective awareness" or your "actual experience" is, in fact, a specific form of data-processing. The philosophical reality of who you are is that you are a complex information processing system within which one specific form of information-processing is labelled "experience". That you think this makes you less special is irrelevant. That you think this does not jive with your belief of what experience is, is likewise irrelevant. Certain aspects of your behavior are the product of this form of data-processing and if Cyberboy displays the similar behavior, then that is prima-facie evidence that it too has that data-processing in its system. Which means what you call "subjective awareness" or "experience", the Cyberboy has that as well. The absence of direct access to Cyberboy's experience is not sufficient reason to dismiss all the other lines of evidence suggesting its existence.
(September 2, 2013 at 6:16 am)bennyboy Wrote: 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.
You are making the same mistake over and over again. That other humans are capable of experience is not only knowable, it is known. It is known because direct access to experience is not required to establish the knowledge of its existence. It is known because all the lines of evidence - physiological, neurological and behavioral - point to its existence.
(September 2, 2013 at 6:16 am)bennyboy Wrote: 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.
Your ignorance is not a justification for universal ignorance. Your inability to know it does not place a limitation on anyone else's ability to know. Others would know that Cyberboy has the ability to actually experience because they know that certain behaviors are the result of subjective awareness and evidence of that behavior is prima-facie evidence of existence of experience. Your rejection of this knowledge is a positive assertion and bears the burden of proof.
(September 2, 2013 at 6:16 am)bennyboy Wrote: 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.
Nope, I'm taking a mechanism and discovering that the way it works is precisely how the mind-existent concept of imagination works and thus concluding that the mechanism has imagination.
(September 2, 2013 at 6:16 am)bennyboy Wrote: 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, if you are positing the possibility of matrix, then you do have to do more than show circular argument. Unfortunately, you haven't even shown that mind attempting to comprehend its own nature is circular.
(September 2, 2013 at 6:16 am)bennyboy Wrote: 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, this argument fails on two levels.
The philosophical and scientific concepts of proof, evidence, knowledge etc. rely on the axiomatic principle that you perceive reality. The hypotheticals presented here constitute a denial of that axiom, undercutting the very concept of proof and knowledge. Which is why, these scenarios are self-refuting. Which is why it is up to you, positing the possibility, to provide justification and bear the burden of proof. I do not have to disprove anything.
Further, within the context of this discussion, the scientific method still ends up being valid within this context and therefore remains the suitable means to examine consciousness and subjective experience, which themselves are a part of this context.
(September 2, 2013 at 6:16 am)bennyboy Wrote: 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.
And as I said before, there is no 'conflation' and no semantic tricks. Your 'actual experience as a thinking, feeling human' is a specific form of data-processing. That is its fundamental nature. Which is why if the Cyberboy has the same system of data-processing, it possesses actual experience. And we can prove that it does by showing that the results of your data-processing match the results of Cyberboy's data-processing.
