On naturalism and consciousness

[The Grand Nudger]

Yes, I feel emotion!

Output 1 at io address "x" - write to register A.

I think we can probably agree that there is something extra, not yet accounted for, but that it's most likely not hyperphysical, yes?

I don't think so, just what we already know allows for computational power orders of magnitude greater in a biological system than an artificial system - at present. It's not even a limit of what we know regarding computation, but what we can currently manufacture to achieve it. Nuerons have a scale and complexity that bitchslaps our modern systems. They are capable of expressing much more than any conceivable artificial gate (they may connect to many thousands of other nuerons, instead of the one, two, or three common at this level of abstraction in artificial gates) - and there are approx 16x times as many of them as there are gates on a modern computer. Even if they aren't using computational theory to operate (that's a possibility) - if they did (and we -know- they're capable), they'd be incredibly powerful. That our current weak systems can achieve effects that mimic what we call consciousness (albeit not the full package) gives us a solid reason to say that a system 16 times as powerful, and 10k times as dense - just might trick us to the point where wqe could not distinguish ourselves from them. That raises suspicions about what we are, not what they are.

As to whether or not a sentient machine could be considered "alive" - why? Is all "life" sentient"? Is that a requirement or a factor of eligibility for inclusion in the club? I'd say no, they would be sentient, not "alive". I suppose they could be engineered to fit any definition we gave for life though, conceptually (just that sentience or consciousness isn't enough in and of itself).

you're nudging quite a bit closer to the panpsychist's point of view, don't you think?

You're going to have to take a closer look at their point of view, mine is a negation of theirs in every sense. I don't see consciousness as a primordial anything, out of which other things derive. I think it's a derivative because that's what the evidence suggests. It suggests it very, very strongly.

Isn't that what we tend to do for everything in which we look at a thing's utility?

Utility, not existence or attributes. Utility. Of course we consider ourselves when we consider utility (we also have to know a fair bit about the thing being considered).

I don't think that's a tendency we can escape really. What other bar can we appeal to? When we talk about animal consciousness or one of its biological functions, for example, we also tend to anthropomorphisize--i.e. whether its an "emotion" or a "thought" or a "purpose" we're talking about. Can we really get out of that without losing any conception of what it is we're really discussing?

Sure, we're good at abstraction (so are computers btw, in fact...computing -is- abstraction, at multiple concurrent levels)

No doubt, but as to the computational theory, I'm just not really sure that I'm convinced it's really talking about consciousness as philosophers as diverse from Descartes to David Chalmers or Thomas Nagel, have traditionally conceived it.

Maybe not, that notion isn't lost on those people either. They fully realize that what they have to say may be regarding something else entirely, that's what "folk nuero-science" is a reference to. The idea that people who formulated their ideas of what "consciousness" is - before they could really glimpse into the workings of the brain - mechanically, before the ability to do so even existed....just might not have had a good enough picture with which to decipher the mystery they hoped to tackle. We still may not, but it's bound to be a better picture than what we had, eh?

Maybe it boils down to nothing more than semantics, but I do tend to think there is something to be said about "qualia," which Dennett (I don't know about the others in your list) simply flat out denies as being an entirely mythical, useless concept.

-entirely mythical and useless as people so often express it, yes.

And while I share your disdain for so-called ghost hunters and mediums, I'd love to see scientists treat alleged psychical experiences of telepathy or what have you (if there are genuine accounts, genuine as in something unexplained really being experienced) seriously.

They have and do. It happens, we are continually disappointed.

Take the placebo effect for example--how does the mind seem to effect the body so as to cure illness?--that seems rather mystical, yet it is so widely reported that hard-nosed scientists I think would be better served to take some of these bizarre instances into consideration rather than dismiss them off-hand (as far as I know, the placebo effect is still simply treated as an unknown phenomena, which should at least cause us to be less dogmatic about what we think is and isn't possible).

Regression to the mean accounts for a portion. It's not quite as mystical to me, but maybe we have access to different information?

Is that really "mind over matter" btw? How, in what way, especially if mind -is- matter.....lol.
(computational theory can offer an explanation for that mechanism, btw..a computational system acts on the inputs it receives regardless of whether or not those inputs are descriptive of reality, everything is handled as abstraction)