Does it make sense to speak of "Universal Consciousness" or "Universal Intelligence"?

[bennyboy]

Why are you invoking technology here? Future AI and subsequent boundaries for sentience is an entirely different discussion.

My intention is to show that the belief in other-qualia is a philosophical choice mediated by instinct, rather than a physical fact.

Given the Cyberboy 3000 could sufficiently imitate human behavior-- including apparent emotional responses-- many people might be willing to think it was actually sentient. But the philosophical question would still be there-- how could we establish that destroying such an entity involved the destruction of a sentient being, rather than just the dismantling of a machine?

---

Further, we have a complete understanding as to how these A.I. work.

I accepted this at face value the first time I read your post. But now, I'm not so sure. We can know the mechanism of the A.I.-- the type of ram and CPU etc, as well as the algorithms programmed into the system.

However, the really good stuff might end up being hidden in the complex relationships between nodes-- i.e. in the information. And that is one theory of consciousness-- that it is a function of information flow, rather than the medium that carries it.

---

There is no such thing as a "type" of thing science is designed to investigate. Science in principle investigate all type of things. What science does do differently from everything else is to insist upon reliability of its own investigation by insisting on rigorous verification of its own results.

I don't think that description of science is complete. You should add that the "rigorous verification" must be doable by a third party.

So let's take the hypothesis that I am a sentient entity-- by which I mean that I experience qualia, rather than just seeming to. How are you going to investigate my claim?

Let me answer this question, and see if you disagree with me. You will look to other claims of sentience, establish what correlate properties were involved (brain chemistry, blood flow, etc.), and see if those same properties are involved in my own processing of information.

This is all fine, and can produce much useful knowledge. But it is not sufficient to establish that I'm not a philosophical zombie. That part can only be assumed, and there's no reason to believe that will ever change.

[Angrboda]

What do you mean by "real" in this case? If by "real" you mean that your qualia "exists," I'd say that's yet to be demonstrated.

I mean that there is a subjective experience of what things are like, rather than an absense of it.

There is? How do you know this?

You know, when I recall the melody of a favorite song, the sound I remember doesn't occur, well, anywhere - it just seems to be there, both everywhere and nowhere at the same time. And I experience myself as existing a few inches behind my eyes, a point of nothingness, that "sees." Neither of these "experiences" are experiences of a thing having them. Neither are what things are like because no thing that we know of is a thing that has a what it's like. So obviously, these experiences aren't what things are like because there are no things which have these properties of existing nowhere and everywhere, or of seeing where there are no eyes. So something is amiss in your claim that there "is" a subjective experience "of what things are like." I'll accept that you have experiences, but just what exactly an experience is, and what kinds of things have them, what their ontological character is, whether they are "like anything" or not, these are questions you've run roughshod over in order to assume that qualia have ontic character when they may not.

[Cato]

My intention is to show that the belief in other-qualia is a philosophical choice mediated by instinct, rather than a physical fact.

Philosophical choice mediated by instinct? What does this even mean?Will you at least concede that it is reasonable to conclude, if for no other reason than to direct inquiry, that all humans without significant injury or aflliction experience qualia?

[MindForgedManacle]

There is no such thing as a "type" of thing science is designed to investigate. Science in principle investigate all type of things. What science does do differently from everything else is to insist upon reliability of its own investigation by insisting on rigorous verification of its own results.

This is a bit silly. Of course there are limits to what science can investigate, both because of categorical differences and practicality. Categorically, science isn't useful in discussing ethics, aside from providing information about the world.

And in terms of reliability of results, both maths and logic have science beat.

If science can verify its results, than science is superior to any other method. If science can not verify its results, then science is still no worse than any other method.

If the thing that makes science supreme amongst other methods of knowing is its ability to verify its results, and in some hypothetical case it cannot do so, then how is it no worse?

In principle, under no circumstances can any other method be prefer to science if one is concerned with reliability of one's investigative efforts, rather than attempting to uphold that which has no ground to be upheld.

Depends on what you mean by 'investigate'. I think I'd agree if you just mean in terms of empirical investigation.

To say something in principle can not be investigated by science is to admit whatever that thing is in principle unverifiable and thus in principle indistinguishable from hallucination, or bullshit.

This would leave out maths, logic, ethics, political philosophy and the arts being bullshit, which I don't think you believe.

[Chas]

I didn't say there weren't areas where no progress was made. Try reading what I actually write.

You said, " Every time a scientist has predicted there is no room for advancement, or that all is known, he has been wrong. Every. Single. Time."

Let me go on record now by announcing formally that I predict that there is no room for advancement in the field of chicken-gut divining.

Now you are simply ridiculous. Do you really not know what is and what is not science?

Your arguments so far seem to indicate that; the statement above proves it.

[bennyboy]

My intention is to show that the belief in other-qualia is a philosophical choice mediated by instinct, rather than a physical fact.

Philosophical choice mediated by instinct? What does this even mean?Will you at least concede that it is reasonable to conclude, if for no other reason than to direct inquiry, that all humans without significant injury or aflliction experience qualia?

I cannot know for sure that any other entity, human or otherwise, actually experiences qualia. I cannot see your thoughts, or interact with them. I cannot see, for example, what red looks like to you.

That being said, I am a human. I look in a mirror and see a shape similar to that of other humans, and I'm willing to make the philosophical jump that since I experience qualia, they do too. The main reason I believe people, and other things in my environment, are objectively real, is that I FEEL they are real.

This is fine when considering those like me. However, as an overall test of sentience, it fails, since it cannot reliably test sentience in robots, or in strange lumps of stuff on alien planets. Nor does it tell me WHY those people are sentient (if my philosophical jump was correct) : is it because people involve information which feeds back on itself? Is it a property of a specific organic material or function? Is it a googly spirit which has magically invaded an otherwise inanimate machine?

[Chas]

Philosophical choice mediated by instinct? What does this even mean?Will you at least concede that it is reasonable to conclude, if for no other reason than to direct inquiry, that all humans without significant injury or aflliction experience qualia?

I cannot know for sure that any other entity, human or otherwise, actually experiences qualia. I cannot see your thoughts, or interact with them. I cannot see, for example, what red looks like to you.

One does not experience qualia; qualia are the experiences.

Once one accepts that another is conscious, then it follows that that other has qualia. The argument is whether our qualia are alike or not.

[bennyboy]

I cannot know for sure that any other entity, human or otherwise, actually experiences qualia. I cannot see your thoughts, or interact with them. I cannot see, for example, what red looks like to you.

One does not experience qualia; qualia are the experiences.

Once one accepts that another is conscious, then it follows that that other has qualia. The argument is whether our qualia are alike or not.

I couldn't agree more:

I would agree that qualia are, by definition, an aspect of consciousness. But then I'd realize that you are using a definition of consciousness that has already been repurposed to fit into the physical monist world view: states of brain function, fMRI scans, etc. and not the subjective experience that consciousness really refers to.

. . . with apologies if I overstepped your original intent. I've become very suspicious of subjective words in the context of physicalist arguments, as they are rarely accepted to mean what I take them to mean. To me, "conscious" always meant having qualia, even before I learned (in a forum argument, of course) about that word-- so it is quite annoying to hear people say things like "anything capable of interacting with its environment is conscious," and then use an equivocation on the two meanings to reinforce ideas like "qualia are just brain chemistry."

I do like one of the implications of the way you are wording things, though: the idea that a person doesn't HAVE qualia, but IS qualia. Because I think almost everyone will agree that a person who ceases ever to be conscious again has ceased to exist.

(back to OP)
In some sense, it is the influence of scientific ideas that makes me like the idea of universal consciousness-- somehow, with the princicple of conservation it makes sense that a primitive awareness is intrinsic to all the universe, and that human awareness is merely a molding of some of it into a temporary unified form. To me, this is much less far fetched than the idea that there was for billions of years a universe ticking blindly along its mechanical course, and then due to the statistical accidents of evolution, the subjective perspective just happened to pop into existence.

[Chas]

One does not experience qualia; qualia are the experiences.

Once one accepts that another is conscious, then it follows that that other has qualia. The argument is whether our qualia are alike or not.

I couldn't agree more:

I would agree that qualia are, by definition, an aspect of consciousness. But then I'd realize that you are using a definition of consciousness that has already been repurposed to fit into the physical monist world view: states of brain function, fMRI scans, etc. and not the subjective experience that consciousness really refers to.

. . . with apologies if I overstepped your original intent. I've become very suspicious of subjective words in the context of physicalist arguments, as they are rarely accepted to mean what I take them to mean. To me, "conscious" always meant having qualia, even before I learned (in a forum argument, of course) about that word-- so it is quite annoying to hear people say things like "anything capable of interacting with its environment is conscious," and then use an equivocation on the two meanings to reinforce ideas like "qualia are just brain chemistry."

I do like one of the implications of the way you are wording things, though: the idea that a person doesn't HAVE qualia, but IS qualia. Because I think almost everyone will agree that a person who ceases ever to be conscious again has ceased to exist.

(back to OP)
In some sense, it is the influence of scientific ideas that makes me like the idea of universal consciousness-- somehow, with the princicple of conservation it makes sense that a primitive awareness is intrinsic to all the universe, and that human awareness is merely a molding of some of it into a temporary unified form. To me, this is much less far fetched than the idea that there was for billions of years a universe ticking blindly along its mechanical course, and then due to the statistical accidents of evolution, the subjective perspective just happened to pop into existence.

I'm glad I was able to make myself understood. My terseness sometimes gets in the way of communication.

However, I am on the other side regarding your last paragraph. I have no problem whatsoever with the universe ticking along without any conscious beings, and I don't accept any kind of universal consciousness as no credible mechanism has ever been proposed.

I definitely view consciousness/mind as emergent from brain, with the definition of 'brain' being either wetware or hardware. Therefore, I don't discount the possibility of strong AI.

[Neo-Scholastic]

"I agree that by the standards of any other area of science, psi - that is ESP, remote viewing, all those things - is proven. That begs the question, do we need higher standards of evidence when we study the paranormal?" Dr. Richard Wiseman, noted skeptic.

In other words, no matter how solid the proof, he will demand more because it challenges his belief about how the world should work. It just goes to show, Chas, that your commitment to science is just an argument of convenience. You're antiscience when it suits you.