Is evidentialism a dead philosophy?

[bennyboy]

The case of consciousness is a special one, right here, right now. That's because we look to certain behaviors as evidence supporting non-philosophical-zombiism, and because we are approaching the point at which man-made machines will be able to mimic those behaviors more and more effectively. Will this shift in available evidence change what philosophical assumptions we're willing to make? Are we just going to throw up our hands and extend "rights" to every physical system which can tug at our evolved heartstrings?

If you'd actually read my initial post, the argument was based on physical similarity, not behavioral similarity. But in answer to your question, yes we will likely accord rights based on similarity of behavioral capability. A robot soldier may not be accorded the right not to be shut off, but depending on its demonstrated ability to make appropriate decisions of who to kill and when, it may be afforded the autonomy to operate unsupervised in a war zone. The Amazon recommendation engine is an example of machine intelligence. We know, in general, how it arrives at its recommendations, but as to the specifics, its behavior is unknown and unpredictable. Yet the recommendation engine performs its job well enough that Amazon includes its decisions and recommendations along with human created promotional material. It has been granted the right to sell products for Amazon, based on its past behavior, even though we can't completely predict its future behavior.

That's a very interesting idea of a "right." Should the CyberBen 3000, if it can simulate all my behaviors, be extended all the rights that I enjoy? How about the right to "pursue happiness?" even though I suspect the CyberBen doesn't experience qualia, but only seems to?

[Angrboda]

That's a very interesting idea of a "right." Should the CyberBen 3000, if it can simulate all my behaviors, be extended all the rights that I enjoy? How about the right to "pursue happiness?" even though I suspect the CyberBen doesn't experience qualia, but only seems to?

I'm not gonna go there with you, but I will say a couple things. First, practically speaking, we'd never be able to ascertain whether they share "all" our behaviors, or even a significant portion of them. Second, our mental behaviors and their relation to external behaviors are also behaviors which would need to be duplicated if we're extending rights solely on similarity of behavior. The only way to determine that would be to first determine the causes of our mental behaviors, and only extend similar rights based on duplicating those causes. As with many hypotheticals in philosophy of mind, what that actually will look like may be something we can't even imagine at this point. Finally, as per our discussions previously, there may be reasons why we don't extend certain rights toward non-humans based on ethical principles or based on self-interest. Again, it depends on what rights are involved, how much of our behavior is duplicated, and how those behaviors are duplicated, much of which we simply can't guess at this time.

An interesting thought experiment suggests itself. Let's suppose the military developed a similar system to that of Amazon, only its purpose is to suggest suitable replacement parts or supplies on military contracts. At the beginning, it is only used to make suggestions about substitutions. A human double checks all recommendations at first. However, they find that the human overrules the machine's suggestion extraordinarily rarely, and as often as not, the human makes a mistake in overruling the machine. So in practice, the machine is as effective as the human at choosing substitutions. Should we eliminate the human from the loop and let the machine make the decisions directly? Why or why not? And remember, these are military contracts, so lives are at stake.

[bennyboy]

An interesting thought experiment suggests itself. Let's suppose the military developed a similar system to that of Amazon, only its purpose is to suggest suitable replacement parts or supplies on military contracts. At the beginning, it is only used to make suggestions about substitutions. A human double checks all recommendations at first. However, they find that the human overrules the machine's suggestion extraordinarily rarely, and as often as not, the human makes a mistake in overruling the machine. So in practice, the machine is as effective as the human at choosing substitutions. Should we eliminate the human from the loop and let the machine make the decisions directly? Why or why not? And remember, these are military contracts, so lives are at stake.

I think we already have many examples of machines which have completely replaced humans-- i.e. we have MORE trust in the machines to do their jobs, exactly because they are not human. Starting with electric calculators, and moving up to Google and Amazon, what you are talking about has become a growing reality. Perhaps an army of drones with some clever computing, or nano-"viruses" with clever computing, is really going to be our future.

[Freedom of thought]

The problem with this though, is it doesn't take into account the concept of philosophical zombies: Which is a person which seems like they have consciousness, but they really don't have consciousness. I agree though that physicalism plus our observations makes it reasonable to believe in other minds.

Evidence, not proof. The introduction of the concept of philosophical zombies shifts the burden of proof to those who suggest there can be such a thing. Failing that, we fall back on uniformitarianism which is generally assumed.

I understand what you are saying, but assuming there can be no such thing as a philosophical zombie is slightly naive. I can easily imagine such a world where only one real mind exists, and the rest are just figments of the existing mind's imagination, it's certainly a possibility. I don't think I live in such a world though. Introducing philosophical zombies into the discussion is usually by theists who are trying to demonstrate that we don't have actual evidence of other minds, yet we still believe they exist.

[bennyboy]

Evidence, not proof. The introduction of the concept of philosophical zombies shifts the burden of proof to those who suggest there can be such a thing. Failing that, we fall back on uniformitarianism which is generally assumed.

I understand what you are saying, but assuming there can be no such thing as a philosophical zombie is slightly naive. I can easily imagine such a world where only one real mind exists, and the rest are just figments of the existing mind's imagination, it's certainly a possibility. I don't think I live in such a world though. Introducing philosophical zombies into the discussion is usually by theists who are trying to demonstrate that we don't have actual evidence of other minds, yet we still believe they exist.

Right. In fact, there clearly IS such a world, and it is a large part of people's lives-- the world of dreams. In some dreams, a person's behavior can be so convincing that you are quite sure the person is real, even though upon waking you realize that probably is not the case. So even an apparent similarity to the self, including both viewed traits and behaviors, is not necessarily a guarantee of good source attribution.

[MindForgedManacle]

Evidence, not proof. The introduction of the concept of philosophical zombies shifts the burden of proof to those who suggest there can be such a thing. Failing that, we fall back on uniformitarianism which is generally assumed.

I understand what you are saying, but assuming there can be no such thing as a philosophical zombie is slightly naive. I can easily imagine such a world where only one real mind exists, and the rest are just figments of the existing mind's imagination, it's certainly a possibility. I don't think I live in such a world though. Introducing philosophical zombies into the discussion is usually by theists who are trying to demonstrate that we don't have actual evidence of other minds, yet we still believe they exist.

Actually, according to the 2010 PhilPapers survey, most philosophers reject the notion of philosophical zombies being metaphysically possible.

Further, you've missed Rasetsu's point about evidence. Consistently similar behavior to oneself is evidence that other entities are the same sort of thing as oneself. Sure, it's not a proof, but then again it's not supposed to be. Philosophers tend to relegate things like philosophical zombies and solipsism as sometimes interesting epistemological discussions, but metaphysically absurd and too speculative and ad hoc.

[Angrboda]

I understand what you are saying, but assuming there can be no such thing as a philosophical zombie is slightly naive. I can easily imagine such a world where only one real mind exists, and the rest are just figments of the existing mind's imagination, it's certainly a possibility. I don't think I live in such a world though. Introducing philosophical zombies into the discussion is usually by theists who are trying to demonstrate that we don't have actual evidence of other minds, yet we still believe they exist.

Right. In fact, there clearly IS such a world, and it is a large part of people's lives-- the world of dreams. In some dreams, a person's behavior can be so convincing that you are quite sure the person is real, even though upon waking you realize that probably is not the case. So even an apparent similarity to the self, including both viewed traits and behaviors, is not necessarily a guarantee of good source attribution.

Dreams lack persistence, otherwise we would assume the dream world was just another world. Since persistence is a trait of objects in this world, people in dreams don't display the same properties as people in this world. But it's a good objection. Why don't we treat the dream world as real?

[bennyboy]

Dreams lack persistence, otherwise we would assume the dream world was just another world. Since persistence is a trait of objects in this world, people in dreams don't display the same properties as people in this world. But it's a good objection. Why don't we treat the dream world as real?

Honestly, I think it's only because we've learned it's temporary, and therefore not worth investing in. That being said, I've had dreams in which sensory experience seemed much more vivid than normal life, and I've also had dreams in which the emotional content was greater. In the context of the dream, I certainly did treat the actors and dramatic elements as real.

There may be another element. Maybe, on some level, without knowing it we have an instinct that dreams are of the self, and that the external world isn't.

[Freedom of thought]

I understand what you are saying, but assuming there can be no such thing as a philosophical zombie is slightly naive. I can easily imagine such a world where only one real mind exists, and the rest are just figments of the existing mind's imagination, it's certainly a possibility. I don't think I live in such a world though. Introducing philosophical zombies into the discussion is usually by theists who are trying to demonstrate that we don't have actual evidence of other minds, yet we still believe they exist.

Actually, according to the 2010 PhilPapers survey, most philosophers reject the notion of philosophical zombies being metaphysically possible.

Further, you've missed Rasetsu's point about evidence. Consistently similar behavior to oneself is evidence that other entities are the same sort of thing as oneself. Sure, it's not a proof, but then again it's not supposed to be. Philosophers tend to relegate things like philosophical zombies and solipsism as sometimes interesting epistemological discussions, but metaphysically absurd and too speculative and ad hoc.

Interesting, I'd like to see their reasons for thinking it's completely impossible though.

[archangle]

let's see,
using what you do know to try and try and describe something you don't know.

How would that be a good thing?