Monist vs. Dualist Experiment?

[bennyboy]

You are missing the point of the question - I'm not asking you to consider whether or not other entities are capable of subjective experiences (you've stated quite clearly that you cannot know that). I'm asking you to consider the nature of your own subjective experiences.

You take it as a brute fact that you are capable of subjective experiences.

This is indeed a brute fact.

You also accept the fact that your brain is capable of of processing information and that there are many, many forms of information processing going on in there.

I accept this, but only in the context of the assumption that there is in fact a physical world (i.e. we're not in the Matrix or the Mind of God). This leaves us with either physical monism or substance dualism, but excludes idealism (which I also accept as possible). I think for the purposes of this thread, I'm okay doing that.

I'm asking you to consider the hypothesis that "having subjective experiences" is one form of "information processing" going on in your brain. As evidence for this hypothesis, you have neuroscientific research suggesting that changes made in the information processing system changes the nature and quality of subjective experience.

Yes. It's hard to argue that mind is unique from the brain when you can poke a brain and smell smoke, or take drugs and have your whole perceptual experience completely collapse. It would be disengenous not at least to agree that much or all of the content of mind and experience seem to be of and by the brain.

[quote]

The idea of a philosophical zombie rests on the premise that qualia/subjective experiences are not a form of information processing. That is the only way for the so-called zombie to have all the information processing capacities and still not be able to experience subjectivity. Therefore, in order to show any qualitative difference between you and a zombie, you need to show that having subjective experience is not a form of information processing - and the only way for you to do that is start with a dualistic assumption.

Right. It would be like showing "Casablanca" but with no screen to catch the light.

The assumption here is not an "I". Like I said, you can regard the existence of "I" as a self-evident, brute fact. The assumption here is about the nature of "I", i.e. what "I" is. In dualism, the assumption is that the nature of "I" is something different and independent of what you see in the rest of the universe.

I agree. I think the intuitive response that people show in their interactions with their environment is that there's a mental "I" interacting with physical objects, and that when people communicate, two mental "I" entities must interface through their body-objects.

I can't speak for all humanity, but I think whatever people SAY about "I," they generally act as though they think "I" is distinct from the rest of the universe in some way.

That doesn't mean that view is correct, though.

Generic definitions may suffice when when everyone superficially understands the subject matter - but when you intend to study it in depth, a more accurate description is called for. Otherwise, you end up making all sorts of unfounded assumptions - as you demonstrate here. You assume that mind and matter are "unique substances" without actually considering what they are. You pose a difficulty in interaction without understanding their nature. And based on that, you hypothesize a third party which may turn out to be completely unnecessary.

That's the problem I have with duality. It seems to me either a monism or a ternary system would work better.

You made a comment about mind not being an observable property of matter - the implication being that we cannot know whether or not a particular material entity has a mind or not. You epistemological assumption here is that the only way we can know that an entity exists is by direct observational access to it

You've brought up this point before, so I think it's worth spending some effort on. First, I should distinguish between inferred OBJECTS and inferred PROPERTIES. Given an observed property, we can try to infer what type of object or material would be required to arrive at that property. So given fluctuations of bodies in space, we can infer the existence of black holes. Given chemical properties, we can infer the existence of the electron.

But this is not how we arrive at knowledge of the existence of mind. No machine came along and inferred qualia from either brain function or the mechanics of the body (like frowning and smiling). It is because we are already familiar with qualia that we make assumptions by like association: when I smile, people ask what I'm feeling happy about. They seem to recognize my qualia based on my behavior. So when other people smile, I extend that recognition back to them, and believe that they are feeling happy and therefore experience qualia.

I don't think that is a scientific process. It's a mediation between social instincts and philosophical pragmatism. Basically, we accept the consciousness of others because it feels right, and because it's the way things need to be for most of our instinctive behaviors to make any sense at all. And we want them to make sense.

Is it necessary to infer qualia to explain the behavior? I don't think so, since muscular activity traces back through neural activity, not through qualia. Maybe qualia ARE just the experience of certain kinds of neural activity, but if they are not more than that, then referencing them, rather than just the brain function itself, seems redundant at best. What does it really add to an explanation worded purely in the function of neural systems? I think the answer is this: because we already know about qualia, and the subjective experience of a person matters more to us than the biological systems which arrive at a behavior.

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[quote='bennyboy' pid='535419' dateline='1383217185']
I think so, but cannot know for sure.

Does a bacteria?
Does a virus?
Does a water molecule?
Does a hydrogen atom?
does a top quark?


At which point can we say that consciousness is incapable of operating on the physical substrate and why would that be?

I think this is a semantic question rather than an existential one. For all I know, some primitive mental property could be associated with all matter, and all energetic interactions associated with their respective qualia. If so, would you define this relationship as primitive consciousness, or is there a specific litmus test that you would apply in making that determination?

But how would one determine this, given that one cannot interact with the property of qualia directly?