Seeing red

[bennyboy]

All definitions of all terms are, essentially, arbitrary.  

Definitions are arbitrary, but reality, for which we make labels, isn't.

You can define a cat however you want, but that meowing furry thing is going to need a name. Similarly, when I wake up and the lights come on in my mind, that's "mind." You can call an AI system a mind if you want, but then we'll need a new word for the thing I'm talking about-- unless we have sufficient reason to believe they are the same, which IMO we don't.

So is mind a real thing, such that a thing either has one or doesn't, or is it just a word of convenience to talk about things which you seem to interact with their environments in certain ways? If the latter's the case, then there's little interesting conversation to be had, I'd guess.

[The Grand Nudger]

All definitions of all terms are, essentially, arbitrary.  

Definitions are arbitrary, but reality, for which we make labels, isn't.

So sayeth the "skeptic" who can't even decide whether or not his experiences are referent, let alone what they're referent to?  You'll need to come a whole lot harder to make this statements of your own stick. Why can't reality be arbitrary, it's just an idea..............

You can define a cat however you want, but that meowing furry thing is going to need a name.  Similarly, when I wake up and the lights come on in my mind, that's "mind."  You can call an AI system a mind if you want, but then we'll need a new word for the thing I'm talking about-- unless we have sufficient reason to believe they are the same, which IMO we don't.

I can, and I can define a cat as such that cat and dragon are equals, therefore there are no cats in the world.  All these meowing things just share similarities /w cats - which don't exist.  Such is the power of definitions in formal logical statements.   Similarly, you can call mind whatever you want, and if photons have mind I must have "supermind", and supermind is all we're -actually- discussing, isn't it?  

So is mind a real thing, such that a thing either has one or doesn't, or is it just a word of convenience to talk about things which you seem to interact with their environments in certain ways?  If the latter's the case, then there's little interesting conversation to be had, I'd guess.

No ones asked you to consider whether or not you and AI are the same. By definition you are not the same. You've only been asked whether or not you might both be capable of exhibiting those behaviors which, in human beings, you interpret as mind.

OFC mind is a "real thing" - otherwise we'd have trouble explaining why we experience it and encounter so much of it on the interwebs. We're not discussing whether or not mind is real...but whats it's made out of, and what can account for it.

[Angrboda]

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mind
noun
1.
the element of a person that enables them to be aware of the world and their experiences, to think, and to feel; the faculty of consciousness and thought.

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In this instance, the robot drivers would have intentionality, but not mind. For the universe to have mind, it would have to be able to have intentionality about its own existence; this is unlikely. The same for molecules and atoms as they lack a means of representing their environment internally.

[The Grand Nudger]

Indeed.  If photons and atoms had either intention -or- mind we wouldn't have had to take the time to arrange them in computational systems, or to attempt to program AI.  It would be moot point, all comp systems (as all things) would have both intent and mind and neither of those two things would be up for debate or disagreement. They would be brute facts.

Forgive me for assuming that they might work differently, were that the case...that we might notice.

[bennyboy]

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mind
noun
1.
the element of a person that enables them to be aware of the world and their experiences, to think, and to feel; the faculty of consciousness and thought.

---

In this instance, the robot drivers would have intentionality, but not mind.  For the universe to have mind, it would have to be able to have intentionality about its own existence; this is unlikely.  The same for molecules and atoms as they lack a means of representing their environment internally.

What's the difference in intentionality, in your opinion, between a human brain and a galaxy? As far as I can tell, it's both just a bunch of busy work, with the difference being that we know the human brain experiences qualia, and we assume that a galaxy does not.

[Angrboda]

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mind
noun
1.
the element of a person that enables them to be aware of the world and their experiences, to think, and to feel; the faculty of consciousness and thought.

---

In this instance, the robot drivers would have intentionality, but not mind.  For the universe to have mind, it would have to be able to have intentionality about its own existence; this is unlikely.  The same for molecules and atoms as they lack a means of representing their environment internally.

Dictionaries mean nothing in philosophical discussion.  You should know that.

I wasn't quoting the dictionary as an authority, so it's perfectly appropriate as a starting point.

What's the difference in intentionality, in your opinion, between a human brain and a galaxy?

A galaxy appears to lack a means of representing things. It's possible that it is forming a representational system that I simply do not comprehend, but then the onus of supporting that notion would be on the person suggesting that it does. You've suggested that mind is endemic to matter. To date you don't appear to have supported that with anything but speculation. Speculation is fine, but it doesn't establish anything. Regardless, that form of representing things would be entirely separate from the type of material representational systems which I suggest are essential to mind.

[Edwardo Piet]

Dualism is false. There is no Cartesian Theatre. The mind may not be "material" but it is physical in the sense it obeys physical laws like the rest of the universe, and it is natural and not supernatural. There is no spirit, there is no soul.

[bennyboy]

I wasn't quoting the dictionary as an authority, so it's perfectly appropriate as a starting point.

Okay.

A galaxy appears to lack a means of representing things.   It's possible that it is forming a representational system that I simply do not comprehend, but then the onus of supporting that notion would be on the person suggesting that it does.  You've suggested that mind is endemic to matter.  To date you don't appear to have supported that with anything but speculation.  Speculation is fine, but it doesn't establish anything.  Regardless, that form of representing things would be entirely separate from the type of material representational systems which I suggest are essential to mind.

I'd argue that ALL states represent something-- they at the very least represent previous states and some function over time. I mean, an atom which absorbs a photon is carrying a record of an interaction from the transmitting body. If a billion photons are absorbed in a small burst into a patch of rock on some planet, is this not, until they are re-emitted, a kind of memory? I think hidden behind the various discussions of intention, representation, etc. is an implied substance dualism: we are looking for those things that we already consider meaningful, because we have minds. However, our brain doesn't follow special physical rules; why then would it achieve a special state?

As for mind and matter-- it is definitely speculation, since I'm trying to view this through the eyes of a materialist. A couple pages ago, I did a kind of process of reduction that kind of makes me feel there's no clear point at which we can say A is not mindful, but B is. If there's no critical mass at which mind sort of pops into existence, then I'd expect a spectrum of mind, from complex all the way down to very elemental.

[Angrboda]

A galaxy appears to lack a means of representing things.   It's possible that it is forming a representational system that I simply do not comprehend, but then the onus of supporting that notion would be on the person suggesting that it does.  You've suggested that mind is endemic to matter.  To date you don't appear to have supported that with anything but speculation.  Speculation is fine, but it doesn't establish anything.  Regardless, that form of representing things would be entirely separate from the type of material representational systems which I suggest are essential to mind.

I'd argue that ALL states represent something-- they at the very least represent previous states and some function over time.  I mean, an atom which absorbs a photon is carrying a record of an interaction from the transmitting body.  If a billion photons are absorbed in a small burst into a patch of rock on some planet, is this not, until they are re-emitted, a kind of memory?

No it isn't a memory. The information is represented in these states, but these states do not form a representational system. Note that in the case of the robot, a representational system consists of information, a system for representing it, and an environment for which that representation is meaningful (and by meaningful here I mean that it contains information which, by its content, guides the behavior of the representational system; in the robot driver example, this element is reflected by the road being represented being amenable to the motion of the vehicle; a robot driver in mid-air or on its back wouldn't be representing objects in a meaningful sense).

[emjay]