Monist vs. Dualist Experiment?

[Neo-Scholastic]

I admire the quality of content and presentation of qualiasoup’s videos. He did a very good job summarizing the basic arguments supporting physicalist theories. But, he did not fairly represent the counter-arguments. Fortunately, some response videos give at least a basic overview of the counter-arguments.

Genkaus, we have both already accepted the close relationship and correlation between brain states/processes and mental properties. You take that correlation as evidence for a causal link between low-level physical processes and qualia, apparently defined as a high-level emergent property. None of your replies justify this assumption. You either dismiss counter-arguments with hand-waving or restate your assumption by wrapping it in behaviorism. My objections (emergence as a linguistic convention, the implicit over-determination or epiphenomenalism of causal closure, evolution’s blindness to qualitative states, and the sign/significance relationship) stand unanswered.

(emphasis mine)

When you decide to stop equivocating just to make room for your god, you let us know, Chad, okay?

It is evidence. Not 100% conclusive evidence, but nothing ever is. Shall we apply the same standard for your theories for which there is no evidence? You'd love us to do that. It just grates on your nerves that we're not that stupid.

Then feel free to respond to my arguments, overdetermination, etc.

[Angrboda]

(emphasis mine)

When you decide to stop equivocating just to make room for your god, you let us know, Chad, okay?

It is evidence. Not 100% conclusive evidence, but nothing ever is. Shall we apply the same standard for your theories for which there is no evidence? You'd love us to do that. It just grates on your nerves that we're not that stupid.

Then feel free to respond to my arguments, overdetermination, etc.

Arguments are not evidence. Do you even know what the word 'equivocation' means?

[Neo-Scholastic]

Then feel free to respond to my arguments, overdetermination, etc.

Arguments are not evidence. Do you even know what the word 'equivocation' means?

The argument concerns the interpretation of the evidence at hand. My critiques show that the physicalist interpretation is of the evidence is wrong. I invite you to show me where I have made any mistakes. (sound of crickets)

Feel free to show me of where I have used equivocation. You are the one equivocating by acting as if correlation and causation are the same thing. They are not.

[Angrboda]

Thx. I'll pass. I'm just afeared of yur mighty logics. *tremble*

[genkaus]

Genkaus, we have both already accepted the close relationship and correlation between brain states/processes and mental properties.

And the only thing stopping you from taking the next logical step is your insistence on leaving space for some sort of magical, non-physical phenomena.

You take that correlation as evidence for a causal link between low-level physical processes and qualia, apparently defined as a high-level emergent property. None of your replies justify this assumption.

No - what I take as evidence of causal link is that change in one results in expected change in the other.

You either dismiss counter-arguments with hand-waving or restate your assumption by wrapping it in behaviorism.

That's because that's all your 'counter-arguments' are worthy of. Like I said, invoking the FSM as a counter-argument to gravit does not deserve anything more than a hand-wave.

My objections (emergence as a linguistic convention, the implicit over-determination or epiphenomenalism of causal closure, evolution’s blindness to qualitative states, and the sign/significance relationship) stand unanswered.

No, those objections have been answered already. There is no emergence in my view of qualia, there is no over-determination or epiphenomenalism, there is an evolutionary advantage to developing subjective experience and the sign-significance relationship makes sense only within the context of subjective experience.

Few of the additional empirical features you mention (in addition to verbal reports of pain) would be present in a machine intelligence, like the hypothetical Cyberboy.

Prove it. I'd say that the Cyberboy displaying those features would mean that it has been installed with the qualia function.

Biological similarities allow you to reasonably conclude that other humans experience subjective states of awareness.

No, the knowledge that biological mechanisms perform specific functions allows me to reasonably conclude qualia in others.

You have no similar basis for extending that capacity to radically different physiologies, from huge Babbage computers to silicon-based life forms.

I would - that basis would be replication of those functions within these radically different physiologies.

If there is a specific physical property you have in mind that allows consciousness to be realized across multiple platforms, then you need to be clear about what you think that property could be.

I've been clear - that property would be self-referential data processing.

[Neo-Scholastic]

And the only thing stopping you from taking the next logical step is your insistence on leaving space for some sort of magical, non-physical phenomena.

Newton’s critics dismissed gravity as magical. Now we consider it a fundamental force. Mind at least appears to influence physical processes and could be fundamental. Or not. Either way an adequate theory of mind must account for all relevant phenomena. Your position only redefines the phenomena of qualia in functional terms because it suits your theory. You have not even attempted to explain how qualia reduce to functions.

...what I take as evidence of causal link is that change in one results in expected change in the other.

Granted. Now explain which is the cause and which is the effect. If a physical change to the brain causes a mental property to manifest, then can a mental property cause a change in the physical brain state? Or do they work in parallel? Do physical processes cause other physical processes while at the same time mental properties are causing other mental properties? Those are your only options. Choose.

There is no emergence in my view of qualia.

Another evasion. You claim high-level functions emerge that provide for self-reference. Then you call that qualia.

There is no over-determination or epiphenomenalism.

Only because you redefine qualia as a function and not using its accepted definition.

there is an evolutionary advantage to developing subjective experience.

Asserted without proof.

...and the sign-significance relationship makes sense only within the context of subjective experience.

Subjective experience is what a theory of mind must explain. You haven’t explained anything about the relationship between subjective states and physical processes. You take it for granted.

Few of the additional empirical features you mention (in addition to verbal reports of pain) would be present in a machine intelligence, like the hypothetical Cyberboy.

I'd say that the Cyberboy displaying those features would mean that it has been installed with the qualia function.

QUALIA FUNCTION!!! I have to throw the bullshit flag on that one. Just what exactly is a qualia function?

Now as for your "self-referencial data processing", it seems pretty clear to me that steam engine governors and thermostats perform self-referential data processes. I doubt either are conscious.

[MindForgedManacle]

Eh Chad, you should know why people thought Newton's view of gravity was occultish. It was because Newton sort of broke the norm of explaining how something acted a certain way, and moved on to merely using the fact that it did behave a certain way to generalize about it. Rather than ponder how gravity worked, Newton took the more pragmatic route.

[bennyboy]

Prove it. I'd say that the Cyberboy displaying those features would mean that it has been installed with the qualia function.

Either you don't know what qualia means, or you need to prove this assertion. "Qualia" is specifically reserved exactly not to allow equivocation between the function of processing data about things, and the process of experiencing what things are like. You're not allowed to conflate them.

[pocaracas]

Qualia is define in such a way as to make in impossible to measure/identify it in any other entity besides yourself.... while fully aware that most of humans do possess it.