On naturalism and consciousness

[FallentoReason]

Ah, Rhythm my main man! Good to see you around this place again.

Well, what about the program tells you it's inherently a belief about curved spoons?

It isn't, inherently. It is a variable that can be defined, and then handled.

Well there you go; the arrangement of particles only expresses a "belief" about spoons merely because an already conscious being is superimposing their *own* beliefs on what those particles represent.

All I hypothetically see are pixels being lit up by electricity that just so happen to spell out possibly what would be a mathematical expression of a curved spoon,

Which is all -I- see with regards to our "beliefs" - "all" implies some sort of negative connotation - and I don;t want it to come across that way because I think it;s awesome that this is even possible, regrdless of whatever is doing "it"

My point was that when you break it down to the elementary parts of this "belief", there is actually nothing there to tell you about this "belief". You're taking for granted the fact that the set of electricity/pixels that you see have to be given meaning by you, the already conscious being.

of which would be completely meaningless

Hardly, p=spoons are curved is nothing -if not- a statement of what p means. It is entirely comprised of meaning..you might even call it...meangful :wink:

Strawman. I said the electricity/pixels are entirely meaningless, not the proposition we defined at the beginning, which obviously by human convention actually means something.

and void of any belief if it weren't for my hypothetical technical skills required to interpret said output i.e. an already conscious being is required in order to connect one set of particles to another in a fashion we would call "belief".

Hardly, unless you think that a string computer is conscious.

I do not think any computer is conscious, which is precisely the point. And therefore, how can we say a computer could even hold a *belief*, if there is no conscious entity to be found?

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Sure, but all we've ever been able to do is point to the parts of the brain responsible for certain aspects of our consciousness, such as the ones you've mentioned. But can you point to the area of the brain where you yourself exist, where your 'soul' resides?

I think that what we are, our "soul" as you call it, is the memories we have of what we were and what we have done. It's our past experiences that shape our present; it's our knowledge of the world that, intertwined with our ancestral instincts, makes us who we are.

Really? Is that all there is to the 'soul' you think? If we thought of these memories as books at a library, wouldn't you say it feels like there's someone who in fact walks around and reads these books? Or is that just me?

I think that you saying that it's impossible for "particles to be about something " is arguing from ignorance. Of course we still don't know many important things about our brain and our consciousness, but there is no evidence of anything beyond the physical realm "pulling the strings" of our sentience. Saying that "it seems impossible" simply cuts the case clear and does not add anything to what we already know.

I'm pointing to a metaphysical problem; the idea that particles can't make up ideas i.e. arrange themselves so as to be in relation to other particles in the universe as a "belief" or "thought".

This topic reminds me of the time when organic chemistry was considered completely different from inorganic chemistry because most people believed it was impossible for atoms alone to form the complex lifeforms we know and postulated the existence of a "vital force" that made life itself possible. Guess what, the "vital force" didn't exist. Sometimes we like to think we are completely separated from the rest of the universe, don't we?

What I'm considering is any sort of chemistry essentially. It's simply the exercise of putting together what ever particles you like so as to create a belief about other particles in the universe. Can it be done? I don't think so.

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Meh, particles can clearly be "about something" or else computing would be impossible. Machine language and computational architecture depends upon particles having the ability to be "about something". Having something like programs, or services, or users (I would consider consciousness a service or user or program) enhances that capability, but even without any of those things a PCB is capable of "doing work" - of describing and then handling propositions. All you need to "do work" is an ALU and some inputs. It doesn't matter where those inputs come from, and it doesn't matter what the ALU is made out of, or how it's arranged. As such, it;s not conceptually impossible, or even conceptually difficult...for particles to be "beliefs".

I think we need to be more critical in our thinking here. Computing isn't "about something". Computing is metal, plastic, and possibly more complex materials coming together in such a way, that certain causal relations are able to grab electrons, make them zip through copper strips, and produce an array of pixels on the screen, of which *we* interpret however we like, according to our needs. But a computer never knew "about something". It never held the "belief" that e.g. calculation #12 meant the mining project was at risk of a collapse. All it ever was and did, was simply act as a mega-advanced system of pulleys and levers, crunching out simple logic at speeds conveniently faster than what we can do it at. Nevermind consciousness!