On naturalism and consciousness

[bennyboy]

The Milo thing smacks of a Steve Jobs demo-- carefully guided to bring across a certain impression. I have a feeling if I went in there and just started trying to talk to him about school or something, I'd just get guided to the pier scene. I also think if I held a towel or any other similarly-size white object up to the screen, Milo would grab a piece of paper.

Now, if I pull out a random object from my pocket, and Milo says-- " is that a Trojan condom?" then I'll be impressed.

[pocaracas]

The Milo thing smacks of a Steve Jobs demo-- carefully guided to bring across a certain impression. I have a feeling if I went in there and just started trying to talk to him about school or something, I'd just get guided to the pier scene. I also think if I held a towel or any other similarly-size white object up to the screen, Milo would grab a piece of paper.

Now, if I pull out a random object from my pocket, and Milo says-- " is that a Trojan condom?" then I'll be impressed.

Well, it may indeed be a sort of hoax, yes...
A neural network mostly designed to recognize facial expressions and act accordingly... also to learn what sort of behaviors we like to see from it... and little else... could be...

If you want it to know what a trojan condom is, then you'd have to teach it about condoms beforehand, huh? When I was a kid, I didn't know what a condom was... let alone what it looked like. Then I learned.... and I also learned about the different brands there are...
The program seemed to be expecting a picture, so it would acknowledge anything you show it as a piece of paper with a picture in it.

But the point is, such an artificial neural network is conceivable, at the moment. One that simply recognizes facial expressions, language tones, desired behaviors... and then acts accordingly in a new setting.
It's no small feat, but it's feasible with today's technology.

[bladevalant546]

I do not know if this has been said out right. I believe personally consciences might have been a quantum event as much as a biological one. I too hold on to the problem of non-sentient cells somehow developing the "mind". For some reason "it just the way it is" bothers me, basically I find it on the lines of godddit, instead replacing the word god with nature with out any explanation. Do I believe in a natural origin yes, however I am not satisfied with our current perception.

The primary issue I have is the lack of evolutionary explanation up to a certain point. However, it appears to have been random occurrence and the line where we can says "they are sentient" is also very hard to define. Sorry if it is hard to understand, having trouble with my words this morning.

[bennyboy]

For some reason "it just the way it is" bothers me, basically I find it on the lines of godddit, instead replacing the word god with nature with out any explanation.

Nicely put.

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Well, it may indeed be a sort of hoax, yes...

I wouldn't call it a hoax, I think, more like a guided experience. I see game devs (especially online RPG games) doing this stuff with their new AI systems all the time.

But the point is, such an artificial neural network is conceivable, at the moment. One that simply recognizes facial expressions, language tones, desired behaviors... and then acts accordingly in a new setting.
It's no small feat, but it's feasible with today's technology.

I agree. There's a lot to be achieved with a simple feedback mechanism distributed over practically infinite nodes. Frankly, it wouldn't surprise me if passing the Turing test becomes the norm for online computers in the next couple decades. Combine that with more highly evolved graphics processors and animation models, and presto! In fact, I'd say we'll see "real" computer-humans on TV pretty soon, but much, much later in a robotic form.

Max Headroom ftw

[bladevalant546]

I work with in the realm of technology and I can say we should be able to create a semi-sentient entity. I believe wit memristors they have been able to make a computer with the power of a cat brain.

[The Grand Nudger]

[Angrboda]

That's your problem for taking on the claim that matter can never have intentionality. It's not my fault you've chosen to make extraordinary claims.

What?? Don't you see how silly your request is..? Tell me how you can *show* someone that something is impossible. This discussion is about something practical; the arrangement of particles into beliefs. If it so happens to be impossible to actually achieve this, then how can I show you practically that it's impossible?

You're the one who is claiming that particles or systems of particles cannot do what mind does. And the only thing you've supported it with is that you don't yourself know how it could be that beliefs could be a property of particles or systems of particles. Unless you have a way to show that particles or a system of particles cannot form beliefs, then what you have is a classic argument from ignorance and your conclusion simply doesn't follow. It's fallacious. That you don't have an argument for your conclusion which isn't fallacious is not my problem. Your argument is invalid, plain and simple.

Well, like I stated, I thought it was quite intuitive. I mean, "thoughts" are just that: a metaphysical relation between the 'soul' and some aspect of the universe. If they're not that, then I don't know how we as conscious beings would go about business seeing as this is our *only* way of acting upon this universe.

(emphasis added)

Then you simply don't know. You don't know how matter does it, and that the soul "just does" is a lousy argument. You're simply at an impasse.

It's not just a matter of knowledge, likewise with square circles: I don't know what that would look like, but that's irrelevant because it seems to be impossible to produce such a thing. Same business here.

(emphasis added)
What the heck are you on about now? That particles or systems of particles can have intentionality isn't self-evidently impossible, nor is it impossible by definition. In no way is it like a square circle. That's an invalid analogy, so no, it's not the same business here. You've made an argument that rests on fallacious reasoning and now when it comes time to pay the piper by fleshing out the "impossible" part of it, you want to cry that it's unfair. Well, tough shit. That's the burden you've taken on by making an argument from ignorance.

Furthermore, you don't know how particles or systems of particles can have intentionality. You also don't know how a metaphysical relation can explain intentionality. For you, that you don't know how particles do it is a problem. That you don't know how a metaphysical relation solves it is not a problem. You've got two different standards. That's special pleading.

Let me give you an analogous argument:

I don't believe deterministic laws can explain free will. I think it's just intuitively true that we have free will. I don't know how deterministic laws can yield free will. Therefore, deterministic laws do not explain free will. Free will is a metaphysical relation between the soul and the universe. Claiming that deterministic laws can explain free will is like saying there are square circles.

This, in another form, is your argument in a nutshell, and like your argument it is fallacious because it is an argument from ignorance, it begs the question, it uses a bare assertion to assert that free will is a metaphysical relation, and so on. And your argument has all these faults.

Fallacies shared with your argument:
1. Argument from ignorance: Your lack of knowledge about how particles or systems of particles can be about things isn't a compelling argument for the conclusion that they can't be about something; it's only a compelling argument that you are ignorant.
2. Bare assertion: Claiming that thoughts "just are" about other things simply doesn't follow from anything other than your personal belief, and your personal belief counts for nothing in this case. I can imagine how systems of particles can be about other things, that systems of particles can have intentionality, so your claim about the nature of belief is just that: a claim, that needs to be supported by something better than, "because I said so."
3. Begging the question: claiming that particles and particle systems being "about something" is like being a square circle (impossible) without argument, and moving from that to the conclusion that particles and particle systems are "about something" is impossible. (As noted, it seems altogether plausible that systems of particles can have intentionality, so the problem is not with it being impossible, but rather a failure of your imagination.)
4. Special pleading: not knowing how it is accomplished for particles is a problem, but not knowing how for the "soul" is not a problem.

If we have shown that consciousness from matter "just isn't", then what's left on the table?

And we're back to arguments from ignorance. You haven't shown this. That you personally don't know how matter can solve the problem gets you nothing.

There's nothing for me to show, as showing a negative is a rather impossible task in of itself. And as for knowledge, same thing applies as above.

You started this argument by saying, "I don't believe consciousness can be explained by way of a naturalistic account. Why? Because I don't think particles have it in them to act in such a way as to recreate what we mean by consciousness i.e. our thoughts, beliefs, attitudes etc.," [emphasis mine] and then you proceeded to outline a few ways you felt that particles didn't show the property of being "about" other things in the way that you mean. The only way the argument you've started can work is if you show that all ways that particles or systems of particles can behave are not "about" something. Failing that, this is simply another argument from ignorance, your argument is fallacious, and your conclusion doesn't follow. Claiming that it's unreasonable for me to ask you to do this is itself unreasonable as you're the one who undertook to make such a fallacious argument.

There's no rational argumentation needed to show that 'thoughts are inherently about something', because the simple negation of that statement shows you how non-sensical it would be otherwise.

You seem stuck on a notion of what thoughts and intentionality are, and any concept which doesn't align with your personal beliefs in the matter is simply declared to be nonsense or impossible. As already noted, I think this appearance that thoughts are "about" other things is an illusion, so claiming that any explanation which doesn't explain intentionality in the terms you believe it to exist is wrong is ludicrous. What you believe intentionality really is doesn't mean shit to me unless you can give some reason for your belief. That negating a nonsensical belief about intentionality results in nonsense only lends credence to the notion that your whole framework of beliefs about intentionality is a nonsensical crock of shit.

Maybe you'll understand my point if we drop the 'inherent' bit for now and say, 'thoughts are about something'. If we can agree on that, then we can also agree that 'thoughts aren't about something' certainly can't be the case. Well, now considering that a thought *not* being about something means a 'thought' is now a trivial idea (as a thought not being about something means a 'thought' is all but an empty word) it must mean that the entire essence of what we call a 'thought' *must now be* that it's about something. Ergo thoughts are inherently about something.

I haven't the first fucking clue what you mean by any of this. No, as noted, I don't believe thoughts are "about something" in the way that you mean. You keep insisting that your way of thinking about intentionality is the right way, but you don't feel the need to give any actual reason why. I don't buy your version of intentionality, and your insisting that any other view is either nonsense or square circles amounts to just so much hot air from you.

Thoughts aren't "about other things" either inherently or by their essence. In my view, that's an illusion. But I'm not the one making claims here. You are. And so far you've backed them with nothing but fallacies and complaints.

[Cato]

I do not know if this has been said out right. I believe personally consciences might have been a quantum event as much as a biological one. I too hold on to the problem of non-sentient cells somehow developing the "mind". For some reason "it just the way it is" bothers me, basically I find it on the lines of godddit, instead replacing the word god with nature with out any explanation. Do I believe in a natural origin yes, however I am not satisfied with our current perception.

Do you think that an individual water molecule is imbued with wetness? Will you also make the claim that wetness is somehow a quantum attribute?

I am comfortable with the idea of consciousness being an emergent property of the brain. For me it makes sense based on our observation of emergent properties in other systems and what little we do know about how the brain works. Nobody has an understanding of the mechanism, but it is more reasonable to me than invoking a dualist notion tugging along its never addressed locality issue.

[Whateverist]

Nobody (I think) doubts that there's a very strong relationship between the brain and the content of mind. This is very different than understanding why mind exists and what it is about any arrangement of particles that supposedly causes it to come into existence. Even a perfect correlation between brain function and qualia does not serve as an explanation for how a mind comes into being.

To understand "why a mind exists" I would look to evolutionary biology. The word "why" suggests intention. Does the universe/god have intentions which it carries out in order to achieve teleological goals? I don't think so.

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Consciousness?

Its an illusion of millions and millions processes of perception and sensory experiences. Brain chemistry. That's all "we" are. Objectively speaking, there is no real "you" or "I", not within the chemical, physical or biological worlds.

This seems caught up on the level of description. Similarly the dining room table does not cease to have the qualities we describe as "solid" merely because we know at the micro level there is much, much more space between particles than there are particles. So "you" and "I" exist in exactly the same sense we've always meant, regardless of how the stuff of our brains accomplishes the quality of our consciousness.

[Thumpalumpacus]

Let's use an example; my belief that spoons are curved.

Curving exists independant of consciousness. We define something as curved based on our language. That is not what makes that something curved.

Consciousness is merely the act of processing information about another environment. What makes humans truly odd is that we have self-consciousness, which is simply one part of the brain observing another part of the brain at work. Few other animals possess a brain complex enough to self-partition like this, but it seems to me that self-consciousness flows naturally from it.

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Also, the fact that physical changes to brain architecture cause physical changes to personality and consciousness seem to inculpate material cause as the basis of consciousness.

Just starting in on this thread, sorry if I'm rehashing a point already made.

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Define soul.

Chaka Khan is the definition of soul: