Consciousness in a robot? (Earth, education, demons, views)

[Sophronius]

Gaylenwoof;36229906]The logical implications of substance and property dualism are significantly different. Christianity - and basically any form of religion that talks about disembodied souls (surviving the death of the body, transferring from one body to another, etc.) requires substance dualism. A "substance" (in philosophical lingo) is a type of thing that can, in principle, exist all by itself - its existence does not necessarily depend on other things. If consciousness is a different type of substance than physical entities, then consciousness could presumably exits without the physical world. Substance dualism, therefore, is not logically compatible with physicalism.

S ( been away a bit and wanted to make a perspective)

okay and as mentioned earlier I don't care about any spiritual overtones in this subject area and enjoy seeking out the realities,( science-philosophy) thats it. If above is how things are with these terms super.Other then that there is nothing scientific( science-philosophy) being turned over.

G continuing.

Property dualism, on the other hand, is consistent with physicalism - although things get complicated because people have radically different ideas about what "properties" are. (The classic division is said to be between Plato and Aristotle. My own view is more like Aristotle's.) When I talk about properties, I'm thinking of energy as the primary "substance" of reality, but I think of energy as having a variety of fundamental properties - brute properties that just "are what they are." You cannot have energy without these fundamental properties (the properties basically just define what energy "is" in essence) and you cannot have these properties without energy.

S

okay again including the hazy description of energy which does not include whatever given environment including the luggage and laws, ok for now. ( will mention G is great to read compared to all the things and utubes .

G

The Cheshire cat happens to be smiling. You could have the cat without the smile, but you can't have the smile without the cat (according to me). This is essentially the "Aristotelian" notion of properties (in contrast to Plato's notion of eternal "Forms".)

If, per chance, you find that the cat is smiling, then you can use your knowledge of the smile to help you "reverse engineer" the cat (so to speak). If you want to model the fundamental elements that constitute reality, then you need to build you model in such a way so that you can explain the possibility of smiling in terms of the model. If your model cannot explain the known data, then your model is incomplete at best, and it might be completely wrong.

S

okay and the smile is an expression of what is understood, as above is told, to be joy, not pain which would be all about a howl. Reverse engineer for the howel and see if the smile is somewhat leading. Iow how can a screech be any different then a smile, I understand the fundemental target but would not use this example because of the psyhco bias in getting at value appreciation and its allure in this subject, I don't think its an all together clean analogy. ( absence of pain, suggesting a non expression in the event( smile) wouldn't seem to be a sound position to work from.

G continuing from cat smile story

In recent discussions the phrase "something more" has been popping up. With substance dualism (and with Platonic Forms), yes, there is "something more,"

S

no doubt and expected ...something more, new terms and words for what amounts to be skirting around the subject.

G

but with a Aristotelian type of property dualism, then no, there is nothing more. If you think property dualism implies "something more" then you are missing the point of property dualism of the Aristotelian sort that I'm advocating (which is why I generally prefer other terms like "dual aspect theory" or "neutral monism" -

S

okay

G

the word "dualism" in "property dualism" throws people off and causes unnecessary confusion). We know that we are conscious - which is to say: we experience the world qualitatively. This is the basic data that we start with. This is the basic data from which we "reverse engineer" reality. Logically, we have no choice about starting with this immediate empirical data. The qualities of our "here/now" experience are the only data that we know without resorting to hypothetical "stuff" existing "in the past" and/or existing "out there" serving as the cause of our immediate experience.

S

okay

G



Based on this immediately-known data, we have lots of good logical reasons to infer the existence of a "material world" out of which we are composed, and a system of "memory" by which we experientially "access the past" - that which presumably was, but is seemingly no longer present in our immediate experience. What we basically do is "build a model" of the external world; we theorize different types of "external" entities with various properties in order to help explain the qualitative data constituting our immediate experience. E.g., When I stick this pin in my finger, I feel this sensation that I call 'pain'. (BTW, notice the indexical word "this"). This sensation, along with countless other qualitative experiences form vast patterns of qualitative experience, and we take these patterns as further good evidence for the existence of an external world full of other people who experience similar patterns of experience, which leads us to the concept of "objectivity"

S

hold on, the "confirming with a full world of other people who experience similar patterns is " confirmation of an already formed up , objective conclusion, that's all. It is a confirmation "of the understood found objective notion in the experience alongside the setting" That is how it works, otherwise there would be nothing to bring to the table in the experience within the world.Man would not even be able to understand the finite world without a path to comprehend the meaning and contrast in the concept of infinite. The symmetry here, objective-subjective, man is conscious , there is no value subjectively to an individual subjective thought, unless playing tennis where other mechanisms are in play. The comparing and confirming with others of subjective thoughts and so on, ARE the comparing of individually found objective notions. There is no such thing as boiling things down to one or the other and the root is objective, otherwise the self would have no role and we would behave more in immediacy, more as though playing tennis. Subjective-objective is a system. I can be corrected, we have the mind, the setting or world and the experience. There is nothing to communicate without an objectively found subjective experience. It cannot qualify as an experience without comprehending at very least it was an experience which reduces to an objective realization all at once. ( opinion as usual and its gotta be forward otherwise u cannot get it down.

G

- which we see upon reflection is ultimately based on the notion of inter-subjective agreement. In order to confidently label some entity X as "objectively real" we take a vote: We ask a bunch of people "Do you see X?" Each time someone answers "yes" our confidence in the objective reality of X is increased. We publish articles in peer-reviewed journals saying "I did steps 1, 2, and 3 and got X." Other people then follow the same steps to see if they get the same result. The result might be, for example, a certain type of spike on an oscilloscope. This empirical observation of the spike is a subjective qualitative visual experience. ALL data that we can possibly know anything about eventually boils down to our own subjective qualitative experience.

S

Its not an inner subjective agreement at all...if its classified as an agreement then something is taking the role of objectivity. I will get to some more in a bit. I want to make what may be possibly interesting points, donno. ( been away a bit and havn't read entries after this one and looking forward. I think it may be indirectly testing for adequacy in part of this . ( inner subjective agreement ?) May connect to my other posts and have an idea for this I thought of the other day after , maybe later tonight , will read the posts in the proper succession and happy to retract anything which would be out of not reading the later additions but wanted to get the thought down .

[Sophronius]

Originally Posted by Gaylenwoof

We cannot know "X" if we don't personally experience some pattern of subjective qualitative experiences that we interpret as "indicating the existence of X." Please try not to read anything "extra" into this. It is the simplest logic in the world. In fact, it is so simple that people seemingly can't believe I'm trying to explain something so obvious, so they imagine that I must be talking about something more complicated - something "extra". No, I'm not. What I'm pointing out is the simplest of things: You can't know anything about X unless you personally have some subjective/qualitative experience that you interpret as being "about X."

When we talk about building conscious robots, we are talking about how to build machines who can personally have subjective/qualitative experiences that they interpret as being "about" this or that. But you (I mean each and every one of you who is reading this) cannot correctly comprehend the question unless you personally reflect upon your own experience of "what it is like" for you personally to experience pain, etc. Your own personal experience - THIS qualitative experience HERE and NOW - is the basic data that our model of reality needs to explain if we are going to use this model as a guide to building conscious machines.

I propose that we CAN eventually put together a model of reality that explains this data in terms of physical energy, but only if we acknowledge the data for what it is, namely, the subjective/qualitative experience of "here" and "now" - which is exactly the sort of thing we compare to other people's experience (E.g., when you did steps 1, 2, and 3 did you see X?"), and only if we assign the correct properties to energy in our model. We already know that energy has a bunch of properties; in other words, we already accept property pluralism. We do not think we are engaging in "supernaturalism" just because we accept that energy has many different properties.

In the context of discussing the possibility of consciousness in robots, the point of "property dualism" is not to add "something more" to our ontology. The point is to assign a set of fundamental properties to our model of reality so that our model explains the EMPIRICAL data - i.e., the data of experience - which is ultimately rooted in our individual qualitative/subjective experiences - the very sorts of experience we believe that a conscious robot ought to have if it is to count as being conscious.

S

Before continuing with above, wanted to mention in adding to last there seems to be a confusion among the general thinking or how I'm reading with the labeling of objective and subjective, and then making what would be assertions in the values and roles which objectivity and subjectivity play.

S continuing,

So if an individual sits down and makes a position, it would be subjective relative to others, but objective on behalf of the individual voicing the position. So relative to the individual it is an objective experience from the outset because it requires the individually objective what it is like, objective because it would be relative to what is understood subjectively alongside objective reasoning. If its going to be argued the individual subjective position relative to the group does not have any objectivity to it, then the complaint becomes the individual subjective thought is irrational. The nature of the subjective thought in opinion as far as the individual mind goes is objective.

^ So in experience the what it is like, plays the role of the group and enables the conscious experience which alongside the 'what it is like' is individually objective, or both all at once.

G

We cannot know "X" if we don't personally experience some pattern of subjective qualitative experiences that we interpret as "indicating the existence of X." Please try not to read anything "extra" into this. It is the simplest logic in the world. In fact, it is so simple that people seemingly can't believe I'm trying to explain something so obvious, so they imagine that I must be talking about something more complicated - something "extra". No, I'm not. What I'm pointing out is the simplest of things: You can't know anything about X unless you personally have some subjective/qualitative experience that you interpret as being "about X."

G continuing,

When we talk about building conscious robots, we are talking about how to build machines who can personally have subjective/qualitative experiences that they interpret as being "about" this or that. But you (I mean each and every one of you who is reading this) cannot correctly comprehend the question unless you personally reflect upon your own experience of "what it is like" for you personally to experience pain, etc. Your own personal experience - THIS qualitative experience HERE and NOW - is the basic data that our model of reality needs to explain if we are going to use this model as a guide to building conscious machines.

S


If the 'what it is like' is required for a conscious experience , then all conscious ability's & moments and experiences are only possible with a -what it is like individually, objective understanding - for foundation(what it is like- which is already individually objective)

G continuing,

I propose that we CAN eventually put together a model of reality that explains this data in terms of physical energy, but only if we acknowledge the data for what it is, namely, the subjective/qualitative experience of "here" and "now" - which is exactly the sort of thing we compare to other people's experience (E.g., when you did steps 1, 2, and 3 did you see X?"), and only if we assign the correct properties to energy in our model. We already know that energy has a bunch of properties; in other words, we already accept property pluralism. We do not think we are engaging in "supernaturalism" just because we accept that energy has many different properties.

In the context of discussing the possibility of consciousness in robots, the point of "property dualism" is not to add "something more" to our ontology. The point is to assign a set of fundamental properties to our model of reality so that our model explains the EMPIRICAL data - i.e., the data of experience - which is ultimately rooted in our individual qualitative/subjective experiences - the very sorts of experience we believe that a conscious robot ought to have if it is to count as being conscious.


S

Things go by ( or are seen or perceived mentally ) at the speed of light, but the individual is not traveling or in motion anywhere near the speed of light so for now will mention in opinion, there would seem to be things at variance preforming similar duties .

[MysticPhD]

Originally Posted by Gaylenwoof

Insofar as you are talking about substance dualism, I agree. But I would once again suggest that you pay close attention to what we know directly and what we know indirectly. When you look at a blue coffee cup, what you know directly is: "This qualitative experience here & now."
From the basis of this "here, now" qualia, you start to make interpretations, inferences, and assumptions. Based on the quality of your immediate experience, for example, you believe that you are awake - not dreaming. Notice I'm not asking you to question "Am I awake or dreaming" - I trust that you can tell the difference for most practical purposes. All I'm asking you to do is to take note of the fact that the assumption "I'm awake right now" takes you one small step away from the qualitative "here & now" nature of your experience - which is the only thing that you know with complete certainty.
In a fraction of a second prior to each conscious moment, a vast flood of neural activity occurs. What this pre-conscious activity does is "front load" your experience with assumptions based on past experiences - most of which you don't even become aware of in any explicit way: E.g. "I'm awake right now", "I'm seeing a blue coffee cup", "I see this cup every day", "I will probably see this cup tomorrow", "This cup is ceramic"...and so on. By the time you get to idea like "This cup is made of atoms" and "atoms are made of subatomic particles" you are a gazillion levels of inference removed from those aspects of the immediate qualitative "this experience here & now." All of the scientific data that leads you to believe that you and the cup are made of atoms, and electromagnetic radiation bounces off the cup enters your eyes and triggers chemical reactions in your retina, etc. - all of that data is excellent data, but none of that data should completely overpower the most immediate aspects of your experience - the relatively non-inferential "this is what it is like to be alive here and now."
The qualities of your "here/now" experience are the logical foundations of ALL of the inferences that follow. Without the qualitative nature of your immediate experience, there would be no theorizing about the composition of physical objects, there would be no talk of neurons, etc. All I'm trying to get you to do is take a moment of focus on the present moment and pay attention to this experience. I'm trying to get you to understand that this experience is not "something more" that has to be added to our ontology. Rather, this immediate qualitative experience IS the ontology. This is what is ultimately "real" about "reality." Everything else - and I mean EVERYTHING else - is inference, interpretation, assumption - it is all "model building."
Ironically, we directly experience "ultimate reality" in the deepest and truest sense every waking moment of every day - we actually have no choice about that. But in a pre-conscious flurry of activity we add piles of interpretations about what each moment of experience "means" so that by the time we are consciously aware of the moment (it take roughly 300 milliseconds to "construct" a conscious moment), an entire narrative has been woven - a storyline that provides a meaning-full historical context as well as a set of future-oriented expectations. "I see my blue coffee cup - that one that I got at the flea market a year ago. I think I'll go put some coffee in it." This construction process also adds tons of predispositions - "if/thens" - such as "If I drop the cup, it will break," and "If asked to talk about it, I could say the cup is made of atoms," etc.
The end result of this construction process is not an illusion - it is "reality itself" in a highly complex form, but the complexity is such that we overlook the bedrock reality - the quality of the moment just "in itself" as "what it is" - and get lost instead on the layers of inference, interpretation, and assumptions - as if they are "more real" than the bedrock qualitative "feel" of the moment. We build a model of reality in which we picture the world made of atoms, then start to believe that our model of reality is "more real" than the bedrock reality that we can't help but experience in each and every waking moment. In extreme cases, we come to believe that the bedrock itself is just an illusion - we see it is as some weird sort of "something more" that doesn't fit into our model, so we conclude it is "not real." In this way, our direct experience of ultimate reality gets interpreted as just another theoretical piece to be plugged into our model, but we can't seem to fit it into the model, so some of us want to throw the piece away saying, "No one can prove to me that I need this in my model, so I'm going to get rid of it."
This is one way to state the basic difference between Plato and Aristotle's views on the nature of properties. You've chosen Aristotle's view, and so have I. What I have suggested is that some physical systems have an amazing property, namely, the property of subjective experience. This is not adding "something more" - it is simply acknowledging the bedrock reality that is implicit in every waking moment.

Originally Posted by KCfromNC

Wait, how does it avoid the logical problems you've mentioned again? Physicalism is perfectly OK saying that we don't understand everything about how the brain works - isn't that all that property dualism has to offer as well? Or does property dualism actually try to explain anything?

Originally Posted by Gaylenwoof

A strict materialist has to find some way to deny that Mary - the futuristic neuroscientist who knows every third-person-accessible fact that there is to know about brain science, but who has never had the first-person visual experience of seeing "red" - doesn't gain any new understanding of "red" when she finally sees the color directly for herself. According to strict materialism, Mary's first-person experience of what it is like to see red is completely reducible to the objective information that she learned about red by studying the brains of other people who can see red, so there is nothing new for her to learn if she ever sees red with her own eyes. Perhaps it is obvious to you that Mary gains no new understanding of red when she sees it for herself, but it is not obvious to me. In fact, I think that all materialist attempts to explain this away end up with one of 3 results:
(1) Absurd (eliminative materialism)
(2) Property dualism, or a hidden form of property dualism (no longer "strictly" materialist)
(3) Completely unhelpful (the "promissory note" saying "I don't have a clue how this can be done, but I have faith that future science will somehow be able to completely reduce qualia to third-person facts.") To me, the third option seems structurally too much like "God works in mysterious ways." Sure you can pick that option, but I don't see it as being the best we can do.
Property dualism (like materialism) is not a scientific theory, and it doesn't actually "solve" the engineering problem of how to build brains that are capable of seeing "red" or "feeling pain," but I think it does serve as the most reasonable philosophical position to take. Basically I'm saying that strict materialism is not the best metaphysical "default" position - rather, property dualism is the best default position because it identifies "seeing red" with a physical process (pretty much what materialists want to do), but it also explains why Mary understands something new about "red" when she finally sees it with her own eyes. She learns what it is like to BE a physical system experiencing the visual sensation of "seeing red." When she was studying other people's brains, she was learning everything that can be learned objectively about "seeing red" but she was not learning everything there is to know about seeing red because she was not learning what it is like to subjectively BE an "experiencer of "red". To actually experience "red" she had to go beyond what she could learn via purely objective means. She had to become a red-seeing subject. To me this is so trivially obvious that I can't understand why I should even have to explain it.
Based on other posts in various threads, I suspect you want to pick option #3, but you've said a few things that make me think that, if you really studied the philosophical arguments in detail, you'd end up supporting option #2 - but that's just a guess.

It cannot be explained any better than these posts of yours Gaylen. That they still fail to get the main point across is depressing. The pragmatic and concrete mind simply has no use for these kinds of philosophical ruminations. When they are used in support of theism . . . the intellectual walls are immediately erected to reject even the possibility of addressing them rigorously. I admire the clarity of your understanding of the actual issues while retaining your atheist views . . . even though I of course believe you are misguided!

[Sophronius]

Originally Posted by MysticPhD

I am pleased that you are at least trying to deal with these issues, Arq. In a way we agree about the "same Stuff." That "Stuff" is field and it manifests in various vibratory "event" forms as energy/mass using our "measures." It is your reluctance to consider the "dark" manifestations that dominate our reality as the mental versions. I do not fool myself that your resistance is to my scientific knowledge or views. It is largely due to my spiritual views as reflected in my Christian posts. The anathema that is Christianity to you evokes a significant bias within you that seems to prevent you from parsing my scientific and philosophical views from my spiritual beliefs. It is the worst kind of guilt by association causing you to denigrate and demean my views and their intellectual legitimacy largely on the basis of my spiritual experiences and views. You are not alone in this . . . but it is very frustrating.
Yet again an excellent exposition . . . but on the distinction between substance and property dualism we seem to disagree, Gaylen. You have not fully accepted and internalized the "vibratory event" nature of reality. You acknowledge the qualitative as essential and fundamental to reality so we agree on that aspect. I also detect the recognition of some aspect of it in your use of "self and world" as intrinsic to modeling a machine that not only behaves as if it is conscious but actually is conscious. (I see that goal as quixotic, btw.)

Reality is comprised of "vibratory events" and any permanence is derived from the aggregate "standing wave" aspects of them. Ask yourself what distinguishes the "reality" of the wave that "wipes you out" when surfing from the other waves. Does it ever cease to be real? Does your experience of it as an essential aspect ever cease to be real? Is there any way to extricate you as real from the experience? Events like the creation of our conscious awareness take time. The measurement of anything using that awareness takes time and acknowledgement of them takes time. It is this unavoidable "passage" of time involved in the event nature of reality that creates all the confusion about impermanence and what is real.

If the wave vib is all figured out it should at least be able to create a half decent experimental suggestion.


Edit,

okay I can see most of the convo is more interested in the language of terms and religious ideas , not the aware topic and making a robot.

I wanted to get at making the suggestion, the aware attribute is a system, subjective at one end and objective at the other. A graph in keeping with a symmetry for consciousness faculty/ objective-subjective. ( no separating or iow no reading at either extreme end of the graph, always some type of mix) If some don't know what a system is , its worth looking up and an interesting thing.To be honest I think there needs to be two times involved and the one unit. Plus motion or what would be the effect of gravity would be the onto. Consciousness is able to manipulate the effect of gravity, that is what it can command . The smile in the cat is an expression of lightsomeness. ( besides all the need etc. That's my input for now could go on but don't think there is any point if above is totally off the usual and not really that passionate about it but like the challenge.

[TRANSPONDER]

Originally Posted by MysticPhD

It cannot be explained any better than these posts of yours Gaylen. That they still fail to get the main point across is depressing. The pragmatic and concrete mind simply has no use for these kinds of philosophical ruminations. When they are used in support of theism . . . the intellectual walls are immediately erected to reject even the possibility of addressing them rigorously. I admire the clarity of your understanding of the actual issues while retaining your atheist views . . . even though I of course believe you are misguided!

As usual, you are making no point - except that everyone is stupid if they fail to agree with with your faith -based theory, which Gaylen ought to be supporting, but isn't. You are very transparent.

As for Gaylenwoof, I am very impressed by his erudition and patience in explaining. I don't pretend to have grasped all he is trying to explain, and have just to retire with the idea that the philosophy of nature of experience is rather the minutiae of consciousness that may one day be answered by biology, in as much as it is anything that could be answered by biology - and I suspect if it couldn't be, it is non existent anyway.

Whatever, I believe that bot that he argues and i argue and everyone else argues does not support your theory, and you mantra that everyone is either ignorant or misguided unless they agree with you is wearing pretty thin.

[TRANSPONDER]

Originally Posted by Gaylenwoof

A strict materialist has to find some way to deny that Mary - the futuristic neuroscientist who knows every third-person-accessible fact that there is to know about brain science, but who has never had the first-person visual experience of seeing "red" - doesn't gain any new understanding of "red" when she finally sees the color directly for herself. According to strict materialism, Mary's first-person experience of what it is like to see red is completely reducible to the objective information that she learned about red by studying the brains of other people who can see red, so there is nothing new for her to learn if she ever sees red with her own eyes. Perhaps it is obvious to you that Mary gains no new understanding of red when she sees it for herself, but it is not obvious to me. In fact, I think that all materialist attempts to explain this away end up with one of 3 results:

(1) Absurd (eliminative materialism)
(2) Property dualism, or a hidden form of property dualism (no longer "strictly" materialist)
(3) Completely unhelpful (the "promissory note" saying "I don't have a clue how this can be done, but I have faith that future science will somehow be able to completely reduce qualia to third-person facts.") To me, the third option seems structurally too much like "God works in mysterious ways." Sure you can pick that option, but I don't see it as being the best we can do.

Property dualism (like materialism) is not a scientific theory, and it doesn't actually "solve" the engineering problem of how to build brains that are capable of seeing "red" or "feeling pain," but I think it does serve as the most reasonable philosophical position to take. Basically I'm saying that strict materialism is not the best metaphysical "default" position - rather, property dualism is the best default position because it identifies "seeing red" with a physical process (pretty much what materialists want to do), but it also explains why Mary understands something new about "red" when she finally sees it with her own eyes. She learns what it is like to BE a physical system experiencing the visual sensation of "seeing red." When she was studying other people's brains, she was learning everything that can be learned objectively about "seeing red" but she was not learning everything there is to know about seeing red because she was not learning what it is like to subjectively BE an "experiencer of "red". To actually experience "red" she had to go beyond what she could learn via purely objective means. She had to become a red-seeing subject. To me this is so trivially obvious that I can't understand why I should even have to explain it.

Based on other posts in various threads, I suspect you want to pick option #3, but you've said a few things that make me think that, if you really studied the philosophical arguments in detail, you'd end up supporting option #2 - but that's just a guess.

The problem with Mary is that she is (like Chalmer's zombies) an imaginary construct, an analogy, if you will, that has been invented to illustrate a supposedly valid point. Would it be unfair to compare it to the 'This is the conclusion, what facts can we find to support it?' With no facts an imaginary mind experiment (Mary) has to be invented.

Mary overlooks the biological aspect because she is a zombie or robot constructed without biological background. She is, in effect, a machine with a consciousness put in but one that has no instinct or anything to work with.

The questions (I can't recall the details off -hand) about why a lifetime blind person knows about colour (if that is really the case) is because genetic instincts with information about colour are already there. Clearly the 'Mary' scenario ignores this. If we are talking about a robot given the ability to recognize red then the only difference to us is that we have emotional feelings about it. And that is a biological question, not a philosophical one.

If I may say so, the business of using Mary or Zombies strikes me as enabling a wobble between purely mechanical intelligent entities and human ones with instincts and rather enables confusion, which allows the matter to remain unresolved.

I also have to observe that the deprecation of the 'promissory note' is rather unfair. So much has been discovered that way - DNA instinct was a major one - that to pee over the idea that it may be discovered in the future is ..well, unfair at the least. It may be unhelpful in resolving the matter now, but then the problem is with philosophy demanding answers right now.

[KCfromNC]

Originally Posted by Gaylenwoof

A strict materialist has to find some way to deny that Mary - the futuristic neuroscientist who knows every third-person-accessible fact that there is to know about brain science, but who has never had the first-person visual experience of seeing "red" - doesn't gain any new understanding of "red" when she finally sees the color directly for herself. According to strict materialism, Mary's first-person experience of what it is like to see red is completely reducible to the objective information that she learned about red by studying the brains of other people who can see red, so there is nothing new for her to learn if she ever sees red with her own eyes. Perhaps it is obvious to you that Mary gains no new understanding of red when she sees it for herself, but it is not obvious to me.

I'll wait for the experimental evidence on this one. History has shown than speculating on how brains would function in impossible hypothetical situations is a poor way of learning about what goes on in our reality.

But honestly, this sounds like the p-Zombie argument - assume a world where X knows everything / is identical. Now consider the situation where X learns something new / is different. Seems like if one is going to make up absurd premises, the least they could do is stick with them through their argument rather than changing them to smuggle in hidden assumptions.

but it also explains why Mary understands something new about "red" when she finally sees it with her own eyes.

Again, if the whole premise is she knows everything there is to know about red this isn't what will happen - she already knew this, the "this" being part of "everything". It looks like you're changing the premise here to a situation where she knows lots of things, but not everything. It's not stated as such, but you're assuming dualism in the premise - that everything doesn't include some magical extra that dualism proposes.

[ She learns what it is like to BE a physical system experiencing the visual sensation of "seeing red." When she was studying other people's brains, she was learning everything that can be learned objectively about "seeing red" but she was not learning everything there is to know about seeing red because she was not learning what it is like to subjectively BE an "experiencer of "red".

Yes, of course if you assume there's more to know than everything there is to know, you'll end up with the need to explain it. Why are we making this assumption, again?

To actually experience "red" she had to go beyond what she could learn via purely objective means.She had to become a red-seeing subject.

Which is as far as we can tell, a purely physical process.

To me this is so trivially obvious that I can't understand why I should even have to explain it.

I'm still not sure what actual advantage dualism has. If you ignore the question begging about there being more there than is actually there, it looks like nothing different from what a naturalist would say. So is it just that it provides an explanation for the extra assumptions it makes? Seems pretty useless in that case.

[KCfromNC]

Originally Posted by AREQUIPA

The problem with Mary is that she is (like Chalmer's zombies) an imaginary construct, an analogy, if you will, that has been invented to illustrate a supposedly valid point. Would it be unfair to compare it to the 'This is the conclusion, what facts can we find to support it?' With no facts an imaginary mind experiment (Mary) has to be invented.

Mary overlooks the biological aspect because she is a zombie or robot constructed without biological background. She is, in effect, a machine with a consciousness put in but one that has no instinct or anything to work with.

The questions (I can't recall the details off -hand) about why a lifetime blind person knows about colour (if that is really the case) is because genetic instincts with information about colour are already there. Clearly the 'Mary' scenario ignores this. If we are talking about a robot given the ability to recognize red then the only difference to us is that we have emotional feelings about it. And that is a biological question, not a philosophical one.

Good point. There's also questions about whether deficits in early childhood experiences of color vision would make it impossible for her to actually have the subjective experience of red even if you put an apple in front of her. So is the question everything that can be known in an ideal sense, or everything that she could know given current brain function? And that last "everything" is based on necessarily limited research, since we fortunately don't routinely perform these sorts of experiments on actual people - so even if you pretend you're going with actual research it is going to be a question of which version do you trust. Not that most version of the argument I've seen even get as far as considering actual research on brain function, though.

That's the problem with these thought experiments. Like you say, they ignore the reality of biology and exist in the idealized world imagined by the people making the argument. Since they're unbounded by reality, the conclusion can be whatever the imaginer wants. Sure, it makes a good story and is probably lots of fun at parties, but I need more than clever sounding riddles to convince me that science is on the wrong path.

I also have to observe that the deprecation of the 'promissory note' is rather unfair.

Yep, exactly. Science has a pretty solid track record studying reality, even the bits philosophical objections have said it was impossible for naturalism to explain (c.f. vitalism, creationism's historical vs. lab science distractions, irreducible complexity). If you want to question the value of something on this basis, the first thing to throw out would be clever-sounding creative writing based philosophical objections to scientists studying certain parts of the natural world. When have those ever provided value?

One can provide all sorts of deductive arguments about how science will never be able to study subjective experience. Meanwhile scientists are building machines which let them scan the brain and tell what image a person is experiencing. Reality trumps creative writing exercises every day of the week.

[TRANSPONDER]

Thanks. I have to be aware that I am out of my comfort zone here, taking issue with certificate -holders in the Art, yet. On the other hand, I have the distinct feeling that there is a thinking circumscribed BY the art and there is a resultant overlooking of relevant factors in other fields that have implications for the models constructed.
If the models are flawed then, like a logical construct based on invalid premise, the conclusion will be flawed.

if the idea is to construct an analogy to illustrate something that is already known to be true, then we have to ask just what is it that is known to be true? It sounds horribly like the circular fallacy of beginning with an assumed premise.

I'd forgotten about Plato and Aristotle. If the Platonist idea is that abstracts that we can imagine must exist in reality, I don't buy it. Hexagons as an entity without anything to be hexagonal do not (so far as seems reasonable) exist. If the Aristotleian idea is along my argument that the 'ideals' are just labels given to patterns that we recognize, then obviously I agree with it.

Incidentally, I don't see how we can back engineer a Cheshire cat from a smile. As I recall, it didn't even have carnivore's teeth. we could have no idea what it was. And that leaves me wondering what the argument was intended to prove.

[Arach Angle]

Hey grey. You said each and every one of us reading so I am responding. I am fine with the here and now. But if we can't anchor our claims in experiments (if/then) first there is no need for me to address it past if/then. I have stayed out of your way because I am not a philosopher. I am a pragmatic person. I can talk science and then state/draw conclusion from that. This materialism and dualism is not useful to me nor would I use it to "prove" anything.

"... accept property pluralism first ...", no way. "property pluralist" accept the data first. It is not the other way around. I tend look at the data first. Then I come up with a story that seems to link them together. I don't think I would use " ... property dualism of the Aristotelian sort ..." as my base. I kind of like using chemistry, biology, and physics as my base. But I understand the subjective angle in that this "point" is just me and not you.

Again, I stayed out of your conversations for a reason. I understand exactly what you are saying. If experiments fits what guys like Descartes said, then fine. If not, fine too. I have little use for "materialism" as an axiom. I do use the LHC do help with some of my axioms.
My view is like anchoring money in a precious metal. I see "philosophy", as you are using it, as more of a floating monetary base. Neither are "exactly correct" in describing reality and using both is better for me. But at some point we have to pick a starting point. My "here and now" is in the "lab". Or when I see a child in a car with a smoking mom.

If you want to talk about an "aware" robot we can. Well, we already did. That is why the thread went to religion because we said what we said already. I say "It is most likely going to happen. It may, or may not "think like us" depending on how we make it." Do you agree?

I also would like to state how gracious you are in your long posts. Thank you.
srry for poor writing skill.