The Philosophy of Mind: Zombies, "radical emergence" and evidence of non-experiential
April 21, 2018 at 9:09 am
(This post was last modified: April 21, 2018 at 10:31 am by Edwardo Piet.)
A philosophical zombie is not necessarily a person without consciousness that is physically indistinguishable from a non-zombie as that assumes dualism is true right from the beginning. A philosophical zombie can also be a person without consciousness, who regardless of physical brain differences, is behaviorally indistinguishable from a human being. The point being that regardless of brain differences, the actual consciousness that resides in the brain doesn't appear to be doing anything.
True, full-blown epiphenomenalism must be false simply because having a conversation about consciousness can only happen if consciousness exists, so that means consciousness has the effect at least of leading people to talk about it... so full-blown epiphenomenalism is false.
However, a moth's navigating system has the effect of having moths suicide themselves on lamps because they gets confused and behave as if it's the moon. But this does not imply that suiciding yourself on lamps as a moth is at all useful to the moth. It's an effect, sure, but a useless byproduct that doesn't cause any useful behavior. That's my view on consciousness. And that's what the science seems to show. The scientific experiments on free will for instance: That show that in the case of all decision making the unconscious aspects of the brain appear to be doing 100% of the work, and your brain has already decided unconsciously before 'you' your conscious self, has even become aware.
This is why the philosophical zombie argument is important. It's to show that consciousness doesn't seem to be actually doing anything useful or having any effect on our decision making. It seems to be a completely useless byproduct of evolution.... people could be behaviorally indistinguishable without consciousness it seems. So the hard problem is, why does it exist at all? Is it just a byproduct? It clearly has something to do with the brain and neuronal function.
That said, I am really starting to critique this so-called "radical emergence" idea. And that is on one instance where I think I actually agree with Dennett. I think. More problems on that later. Where I agree is who says that neuronal activity can't actually just be identical to consciousness? Sure we experience those neurons as, shapes and colors and whatever. As phenomenology. But I don't understand this "radical emergence" idea, that consciousness has to be produced from brain activity. Why can't it just be brain activity? Why does there have to be a finish line? And then this gets me thinking because what Dennett means by "user illusion" is of course that our subjective experience is just a convenient way of experiencing those neurons. That is the "user illusion". It's a useful function like the screen on your laptop.
But is it really... useful? What function?
As well as the fact I disagree with Dennett that philosophical zombies are impossible in all senses: Where I depart from Dennett is when he says there is no such thing as "real seeming", as if just because a subjective experience is subjective then it isn't really real. At which point I would ask him does he really have an imagination at all, because seen as his imagination is imaginary doesn't that mean he can't imagine anything? Of course not. He has an imagination. There's two senses of real: Real as opposed to absent and real as opposed to imaginary. And I think he is conflating the two. Of course seeming is real.
More than that... seeming is the ONLY thing that we know to be real. The whole universe could be an illusion, but subjective experience can't be. We could be mistaken about everything, but not our own consciousness itself.
This is where I think Dennett goes wrong. He can say what he likes about how conscious experience isn't something that is produced from the brain, because it's the fame in the brain tiself, and the idea that it emerges that's a user illusion . . . but it doesn't make conscious experience itself illusory. Seeming not only has to be real, it's the one thing we know to be real. He wrote a paper called "The absence of phenomenology", his view got less and less extreme but he used to outright deny consciousness by saying things like "It's just not there." He's spoke of how "there seems to be phenonmenology but it does not follow that there really is phenomenology". But of course it follows. As Searle said "If it consciously seems to you that you are conscious... you are conscious." And as Searle says, to paraphrase him... we make distinctions about illusions and reality by talking about the difference between how something actually is and how it seems to be. But with seeming itself you can't make that distinction.
More than seeming just being real.... is there any evidence at all of anything non-experiential at all? Where? When? What would it look like? (oh shit it can't look like anything) Even all the readings in science using whatever tools, using whatever equations, they're all indirect ways of experiencing things through our senses. There's evidence of less and less consciousness, but when has anyone ever experienced non-experience? (obviously never as that's logically impossible). And empirical evidence is experience-based, and reasoning goes on in the mind which is experiential.... so, my final point is where is the evidence of the non-experiential? When people dream, they're conscious on some level. Even people in a coma seem to have consciousness going on at some low level .And to quote Bertrand Russell on that matter, from his paper Mind and Matter:
So my opinions are:
Physicalism is true.
Philosophical zombies that are physically identical to human beings but without consciousness are impossible.
Philosophical zombies that are behaviorally identical to human beings but without consciousness are possible.
Epiphenomenalism in its strongest form can't be true because consciousness at least has the effect of having us talk about it.
However, consciousness doesn't have any effects that are actually useful or actually cause our behavior.
Our behavior is ultimately determined by 'unconscious' features of the brain (or considerably less conscious features of the brain).
"Radical emergence" doesn't seem to make any sense but it doesn't seem to be required either.
Saying that subjectivity isn't real or that there is no "real seeming" is the silliest thing to be said by anyone ever.
There doesn't seem to ever be any evidence of the non-experiential, or anything other than seeming.
True, full-blown epiphenomenalism must be false simply because having a conversation about consciousness can only happen if consciousness exists, so that means consciousness has the effect at least of leading people to talk about it... so full-blown epiphenomenalism is false.
However, a moth's navigating system has the effect of having moths suicide themselves on lamps because they gets confused and behave as if it's the moon. But this does not imply that suiciding yourself on lamps as a moth is at all useful to the moth. It's an effect, sure, but a useless byproduct that doesn't cause any useful behavior. That's my view on consciousness. And that's what the science seems to show. The scientific experiments on free will for instance: That show that in the case of all decision making the unconscious aspects of the brain appear to be doing 100% of the work, and your brain has already decided unconsciously before 'you' your conscious self, has even become aware.
This is why the philosophical zombie argument is important. It's to show that consciousness doesn't seem to be actually doing anything useful or having any effect on our decision making. It seems to be a completely useless byproduct of evolution.... people could be behaviorally indistinguishable without consciousness it seems. So the hard problem is, why does it exist at all? Is it just a byproduct? It clearly has something to do with the brain and neuronal function.
That said, I am really starting to critique this so-called "radical emergence" idea. And that is on one instance where I think I actually agree with Dennett. I think. More problems on that later. Where I agree is who says that neuronal activity can't actually just be identical to consciousness? Sure we experience those neurons as, shapes and colors and whatever. As phenomenology. But I don't understand this "radical emergence" idea, that consciousness has to be produced from brain activity. Why can't it just be brain activity? Why does there have to be a finish line? And then this gets me thinking because what Dennett means by "user illusion" is of course that our subjective experience is just a convenient way of experiencing those neurons. That is the "user illusion". It's a useful function like the screen on your laptop.
But is it really... useful? What function?
As well as the fact I disagree with Dennett that philosophical zombies are impossible in all senses: Where I depart from Dennett is when he says there is no such thing as "real seeming", as if just because a subjective experience is subjective then it isn't really real. At which point I would ask him does he really have an imagination at all, because seen as his imagination is imaginary doesn't that mean he can't imagine anything? Of course not. He has an imagination. There's two senses of real: Real as opposed to absent and real as opposed to imaginary. And I think he is conflating the two. Of course seeming is real.
More than that... seeming is the ONLY thing that we know to be real. The whole universe could be an illusion, but subjective experience can't be. We could be mistaken about everything, but not our own consciousness itself.
This is where I think Dennett goes wrong. He can say what he likes about how conscious experience isn't something that is produced from the brain, because it's the fame in the brain tiself, and the idea that it emerges that's a user illusion . . . but it doesn't make conscious experience itself illusory. Seeming not only has to be real, it's the one thing we know to be real. He wrote a paper called "The absence of phenomenology", his view got less and less extreme but he used to outright deny consciousness by saying things like "It's just not there." He's spoke of how "there seems to be phenonmenology but it does not follow that there really is phenomenology". But of course it follows. As Searle said "If it consciously seems to you that you are conscious... you are conscious." And as Searle says, to paraphrase him... we make distinctions about illusions and reality by talking about the difference between how something actually is and how it seems to be. But with seeming itself you can't make that distinction.
More than seeming just being real.... is there any evidence at all of anything non-experiential at all? Where? When? What would it look like? (oh shit it can't look like anything) Even all the readings in science using whatever tools, using whatever equations, they're all indirect ways of experiencing things through our senses. There's evidence of less and less consciousness, but when has anyone ever experienced non-experience? (obviously never as that's logically impossible). And empirical evidence is experience-based, and reasoning goes on in the mind which is experiential.... so, my final point is where is the evidence of the non-experiential? When people dream, they're conscious on some level. Even people in a coma seem to have consciousness going on at some low level .And to quote Bertrand Russell on that matter, from his paper Mind and Matter:
Bertrand Russell Wrote:We know nothing about the intrinsic quality of physical events except when these are mental events that we directly experience.
So my opinions are:
Physicalism is true.
Philosophical zombies that are physically identical to human beings but without consciousness are impossible.
Philosophical zombies that are behaviorally identical to human beings but without consciousness are possible.
Epiphenomenalism in its strongest form can't be true because consciousness at least has the effect of having us talk about it.
However, consciousness doesn't have any effects that are actually useful or actually cause our behavior.
Our behavior is ultimately determined by 'unconscious' features of the brain (or considerably less conscious features of the brain).
"Radical emergence" doesn't seem to make any sense but it doesn't seem to be required either.
Saying that subjectivity isn't real or that there is no "real seeming" is the silliest thing to be said by anyone ever.
There doesn't seem to ever be any evidence of the non-experiential, or anything other than seeming.
