Philosophical zombies

[polymath257]

But if consciousness is just one sort of interaction?

[The Grand Nudger]

so in consciousness we have this perception of unity... of a single thing that can experience... but in the physical world, any given state of consciousness would be represented by a certain physical state of many different interacting particles etc; nowhere to pin it down to any 'thing' experiencing. 

We report unity of perception. This, ofc, is not an accurate description of the operation of the system so far as we can tell..so there's no need to take it down to the level of interacting particles. Brain function is distributed regardless of what it reports itself as.

[emjay]

so in consciousness we have this perception of unity... of a single thing that can experience... but in the physical world, any given state of consciousness would be represented by a certain physical state of many different interacting particles etc; nowhere to pin it down to any 'thing' experiencing. 

We report unity of perception. This, ofc, is not an accurate description of the operation of the system so far as we can tell..so there's no need to take it down to the level of interacting particles. Brain function is distributed regardless of what it reports itself as.

Yeah, I get what you're saying (I think); regardless of whatever user illusion we have, it corresponds with a distributed system in the physical world, so to look for a single point in the physical world would be a conflation of terms. That's not what I meant; I was just trying to relate my confusion and how I cannot envisage talk of 'experience' in a physical PZ when the correlate of that experience is a) a distributed physical brain state and b) in the physical world does not have a user illusion with any sense of unity... or sense of anything, full stop (if just talking about material interactions). If there's another way to talk about it, I'm all ears, but in that sense alone, I don't think I'll get much further in my thinking.

[bennyboy]

P-zeds are designed specifically to have no physical difference between anyone else in comparison.  Not that we're unaware of what it is, that there literally isn't one.  Identification and classification are soft problems.  The objection they're meant to express (whether used to argue against physicalism or not) doesn't work otherwise...and it's useful to remember that it exists only by fiat in the thought experiment.  

Well, whatever you did in order to exactly copy a human function, how would you know there wasn't still an additional variable? What if you could use some kind of energetic transdimensional interferometer to clone me, right down to the spin of every subatomic particle? Could you, even then, have 100% confidence that I was truly sentient?

Right now, the answer is no. We simply do not know at all what allows any physical system, including the brain, to have subjective experience of itself. Yeah, we can talk about this or that brain part, fMRI results when you think about chocolate, and so on. But we're always back down to the problem that you cannot really see mind-- only (supposed) correlates of mind.

How, scientifically, am I supposed to say that someone else is sufficiently a copy of me in order to actually have real feelings? I can't. First, I have to make the philosophical jump, and then and only then can I start to observe correlates and tell myself I am doing science of the mind. But any position which requires accepting the axiom being researched must instantly be discarded as circular, no?

[The Grand Nudger]

P-zeds are designed specifically to have no physical difference between anyone else in comparison.  Not that we're unaware of what it is, that there literally isn't one.  Identification and classification are soft problems.  The objection they're meant to express (whether used to argue against physicalism or not) doesn't work otherwise...and it's useful to remember that it exists only by fiat in the thought experiment.  

Well, whatever you did in order to exactly copy a human function, how would you know there wasn't still an additional variable?  What if you could use some kind of energetic transdimensional interferometer to clone me, right down to the spin of every subatomic particle?  Could you, even then, have 100% confidence that I was truly sentient?

Right now, the answer is no.  We simply do not know at all what allows any physical system, including the brain, to have subjective experience of itself.  Yeah, we can talk about this or that brain part, fMRI results when you think about chocolate, and so on.  But we're always back down to the problem that you cannot really see mind-- only (supposed) correlates of mind.

How, scientifically, am I supposed to say that someone else is sufficiently a copy of me in order to actually have real feelings?  I can't.  First, I have to make the philosophical jump, and then and only then can I start to observe correlates and tell myself I am doing science of the mind.  But any position which requires accepting the axiom being researched must instantly be discarded as circular, no?

-"but I/we/you could always be wrong". Haven't we already covered all possible ground in this?

If someone else is a copy of you, they are a copy of you. If you handed me a piece of paper and asked me to make a copy, you would expect the copy to be a copy. The p-zombie prop is that a perfect copy of you can be made that would..somehow, still not be a copy. At least in regards to one specific thing. Scientifically, you can say any of those things. From your position in the rejection of all knowledge..you cannot say anything, not even the things you just used as an objection. You may be wrong about those too.

Now, why on earth would you say that we can't see mind? We can't see electricity either..but when we read a voltimeter we say that we have observed it. How this is supposed to be different from mind and brain function..or whether or not you have equally compelling reservations against observations of electricity, I'll leave to you.

[polymath257]

P-zeds are designed specifically to have no physical difference between anyone else in comparison.  Not that we're unaware of what it is, that there literally isn't one.  Identification and classification are soft problems.  The objection they're meant to express (whether used to argue against physicalism or not) doesn't work otherwise...and it's useful to remember that it exists only by fiat in the thought experiment.  

Well, whatever you did in order to exactly copy a human function, how would you know there wasn't still an additional variable?  What if you could use some kind of energetic transdimensional interferometer to clone me, right down to the spin of every subatomic particle?  Could you, even then, have 100% confidence that I was truly sentient?

Right now, the answer is no.  We simply do not know at all what allows any physical system, including the brain, to have subjective experience of itself.  Yeah, we can talk about this or that brain part, fMRI results when you think about chocolate, and so on.  But we're always back down to the problem that you cannot really see mind-- only (supposed) correlates of mind.

How, scientifically, am I supposed to say that someone else is sufficiently a copy of me in order to actually have real feelings?  I can't.  First, I have to make the philosophical jump, and then and only then can I start to observe correlates and tell myself I am doing science of the mind.  But any position which requires accepting the axiom being researched must instantly be discarded as circular, no?

Yes, if you copies even the spins of all the atoms, I would be 100% certain the copy is conscious. How could it NOT be?

Yes, we detect correlates of consciousness. And that is quite sufficient. When we see those correlates, we know the object is conscious.

if we can't make that leap, then it is impossible for me to know my wife is conscious. It is *possible* that I am the only 'conscious' being and everyone else is a zombie. For me, that is a redutio ad absurdum.

When do we know a copy is good enough to be sentient? When it shows the correlates of sentience, clearly.

[robvalue]

It seems to me that brains,(and who knows what else) have a subjective, internal "experience" which amounts to some sort of feedback loop.

The only way I can think of to really distinguish myself is if my brain isn't really here, I'm the classic brain in the vat. So I'm "having experiences", but everyone else are not copies of me, they are virtual mimics. I have a physical body somewhere else, but they have no physical form.

My question then becomes: can an element of a simulation, such as these mimics, develop their own version of an "experience" in just the same way? I'm thinking that the answer is "yes", and that this could conceivably already be happening. We might all be elements of a "virtual" world.

[Silver]

Too syfy-conspiratorial for my liking.

[The Grand Nudger]

Virtual worlds are interesting.  They're one of those rorschach for the times issues.  One of my favorite one liners on the subject is that reality appears to be pixelated.  This leads some to wonder about the nature of reality.

Personally, I always wonder why anyone would find it remarkable that virtual worlds created in a pixelated "reality" would be..themselves..pixelated.  Is there a difference between an actual and a simulated reality, and is this one of them?  It would have to be..we would have to imagine that a "real reality" woulk not be pixelated to think that this suggests that our reality is or may be a simulation. Otherwise, it simply suggests that the nature of simulations in a given reality are influenced or circumscribed by the nature of the reality they exist in. Less obnoxiously, it may be that it's difficult to determine the fundamental difference between a reality and a simulation because there isn't one, at least...not in this reality.

Silent premises ftw!

[robvalue]

I've said it loads of times by now, but I have adopted the absurdist position. I don't think "real" has any objective meaning; at least, not one that we could ever be sure we are using correctly.

I prefer instead to sort things into groups which are "as real" as each other. This could turn out to be "not real at all", and they could also turn out to be real in exactly the same way, but we just don't understand how yet. This even allows for the possibility that nothing at all is real. It's my uber-solipsism accordian model.

So we are all as real as each other. Or rather, our physical bodies (assuming we do have them) are as real as each other. They are real in relation to the framework they are in, and really, that's as real as anything can be.

For real this time.