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How would someone know that they don't have subjective experience? Someone who is color blind can tell that they don't see, for example, blue because they are told by someone who does see blue that a distinction exists that they don't perceive. It's hard to come up with such a distinction for subjective experience as a whole. But how about this. Nick, when you "see" a color, such as blue do you know that it's blue because you explicitly compare numeric pixel values to a table that tells you it is blue, or is your experience of blue a direct experience?
-- Russ Abbott _____________________________________________ Professor, Computer Science California State University, Los Angeles o Check out my blog at http://bluecatblog.wordpress.com/
On Mon, Jun 15, 2009 at 10:25 AM, Russ Abbott <[hidden email]> wrote:
It's
one thing to say (and I agree) that we have no idea how any of us can
experience any one else's subjective experience. (Perhaps we will be
able go do it at some point, but we can't now.)
It's another thing for someone to say that they don't have
subjective experience. It's hard even to imagine what that means. If
one doesn't have subjective experience (as, in my opinion, computers
don't) it's not clear what such a being would mean by denying having
subjective experience--since they don't know what it means.
It's also hard for me to believe Nick (or Hans) when they say that
they don't have it. I don't know how far down it goes, but most (at
least) higher level biological organisms seem to have subjective
experience.
Furthermore, I'd say that subjective experience is all that
we have. All any of us has is his/her own subjective experience. That's
where we live--in our subjective experience. There's no way to avoid it
-- even if one meditates. (It's still subjective experience that one is
experiencing in that state too; it's just not conceptualization.) So
for a human being to deny having subjecctive experience simply doesn't
make sense to me since I can't believe that any human being doesn't
have it. -- Russ Abbott _____________________________________________ Professor, Computer Science California State University, Los Angeles o Check out my blog at http://bluecatblog.wordpress.com/
On Mon, Jun 15, 2009 at 9:30 AM, Frank Wimberly <[hidden email]> wrote:
Russ,
What you say
(ask) resonates with me. In the early 1980’s when he and I were
junior faculty in the Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon (he was slightly
senior to me), Hans Moravec and I would have a very similar argument for hours
and frequently. I finally invited him to an AI class I was teaching to
have a public version of the discussion. Our basic positions were characterized
by:
Frank: My
subjective experience of consciousness is the first thing I know and the thing
I know exists with complete certainty (cf. Descartes. Sorry, Nick).
Hans: That’s
an epiphenomenon. It’s just one part of your brain observing another
part of your brain.
Anyway, I
eventually said to him, “Hans I understand the difference in our points
of view. You don’t have it! That’s why you don’t
get what I’m saying.”
I actually don’t
believe that Hans (or Nick) don’t have it.
Frank
---
Frank C. Wimberly
140 Calle Ojo Feliz
Santa Fe, NM 87505
[hidden email] [hidden email]
505 995-8715 (home) 505 670-9918 (cell)
From:
[hidden email] [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Russ
Abbott
Sent: Monday, June 15, 2009 12:02 AM
To: [hidden email]; The Friday Morning Applied Complexity
Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] The ghost in the machine (was 'quick question')
Hi Nick,
I don't think I understand your position. Are you talking about subjective
experience?
It seems to me that the essence of the "problem of consciousness,"
what Chalmers calls "the hard problem," is subjective experience,
i.e., the first person perspective. We all have it. (Or do you deny that you
have it?) But we have no idea how to explain it or to understand what it is or
how it comes about. That seems to me to be the heart of the problem. Are you
focusing on that issue (and if so what is your position) or on something else?
-- Russ
On Sun, Jun 14, 2009 at 10:32 PM, Nicholas Thompson <[hidden email]>
wrote:
John,
John,
All good questions.
I dont think I make a distinction between precise statements and metaphors.
I think I think it's metaphors all the way down
I also I think I think there is no such thing as a first person perspective
... not really. Specting.... seeing the world from a position ... is what
every creature does. One of the events that I can spect, is a creature
specting its world, and one of the creatures that I can spect, in this way
, is myself. Not my inner processes or my mind, but me, an actor in the
world.
Like all observers, I am situated, and since I am the only person who is
around me all the time, I am situated in a particularly unique way with
respect to myself. My situation may sight me or blind me, depending on
the
kind of information that is required to make an accurate prediction about
what I will do.
Those are my best answers.
> From: John Kennison <[hidden email]>
> To: [hidden email]
<[hidden email]>;
The
FridayMorning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
> Date: 6/14/2009 9:35:12 PM
> Subject: RE: [FRIAM] The ghost in the machine (was 'quick question')
>
>
>
> Nick,
>
> I'm not sure if I am correctly representing your position about the
third-person point of view, but I would agree that if we want to construct
a scientific theory of consciousness, it must be based on a third person
approach. But it seems possible that there are some facts about 'the
world
as it really is' that are not now accessible to science. If this is so, the
impressions we receive from the first-person point of view may offer us the
best insights we can get, given the current state of scientific knowledge.
So why must we rigorously ignore such impressions?
>
> I agree with your point that our language about consciousness is not very
consistent. Trying to use precise language about our minds may be as
difficult as creating a scientific theory of our 'inner lives'. Maybe when
discussing this area, we can only use language metaphorically and hope that
the person we are communicating with can make sense of it. What about your
statements that 'consciousness is an illusion' or a 'huge language game' .
Are these metaphors or precise statements?
>
> --John
> ________________________________________
> From: [hidden email]
[[hidden email]] On
Behalf Of
Nicholas Thompson [[hidden email]]
> Sent: Sunday, June 14, 2009 1:24 PM
> To: [hidden email]
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] The ghost in the machine (was 'quick question')
>
> Dear Jochen,
>
> What I am about to say will seem crazy and I certainly don't expect to
> convince you. At max, I might get you to try out the world from this
> rather strange point of view, and see why somebody might explore it.
>
> My basic position is that consciousness is an illusion. I am not
talking
> "user-illusion" here or even epiphenomenalism. What
I am saying is much
> stronger and more obnoxious than either of those positions. The
best
> metaphor I can think of is "the sun rising." We all talk
as if the sun
> rises, but it doesn't, or at best, the statement, "the sun
rises", relates
> only in a vague way to the actual state of affairs. Our belief that
the
> sun rises get's its force not from the facts but from the enormous
> authority of language, and other social arrangements. Consciousness is a
> huge language game, which we violate on pain of being called crazy.
>
> So what do I have to offer instead? Well, nothing, actually. I
confess
to
> being as caught in the illusion as anybody else. All I can say is
that
> the way we talk about consciousness verges seems not to make a lot of
> sense, much of the time.
>
> For instance, not only do we talk as if the conscious-actor can act on his
> body, or through his body, on the world; we also talk as if the
> conscious-actor can act on his own mind, e.g., "make it
up" like a
> rumpled bed. In these intra-mental transactions, who is the agent
and who
> the receiver of the action? Only in talking about consciousness do
we
> allow the agent to act upon itself in such a profligate way.
>
> An other oddity is our curious ambivalence concerning third-person
point
> of view. There are four billion people in the world, right?
When you and
> I speak of any of those people, we take a third-person point of view.
> Early in the conversation, we will make a decision, depending on our
> metaphysics, concerning whether another person's consciousness is
something
> we have access to, or not. Some will take the position that we never
> REALLY can know what is in another person's mind. We could, of
course,
ask
> the agent, but the agent need not tell us the truth. So we are stuck
> because [scientific] knowledge of another's mind is beyond our reach.
For
> such people, a scientific conversation concerning the true thoughts,
> feelings, intentions, etc., of another person is not possible.
>
> But what of people who don't hold to the primacy of the first person view.
> With such people we can have a conversation about the true intentions of
> another person, confident that we can get to the truth of the matter.
Was
> OJ Simpson a murderer? Don't ASK him; look at the evidence.
Our legal
> system is based on the notion that the intentions of an agent are
something
> that a jury of peers can assess. In such circumstances, we are
convinced
> that we can invade the so called privacy of the mind.
>
> But even people who grant their own powers to see the true intentions of
> others, still grant themselves primacy in the determination of their own
> behavior. To that extent, we indulge ourselves in a dualism in which
we
> hold one theory that works for ourselves and another theory that works for
> the other 4 billion people on earth. And it is the personal
theory that
> holds the most sway when called upon to talk about the relationship
between
> the "brain and consciousness."
>
> Ok, so having confessed to all of that, please allow me to comment on your
> letter below. I will use CAPS, because it is a quick way to
distinguish
my
> text from yours. Owen will accuse me of SHOUTING, which I promise I
am
> not. I am speaking in a teensy weensy voice.
>
> All the best,
>
> Nick
>
> Nicholas S. Thompson
> Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology,
> Clark University ([hidden email])
> http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/
>
>
>
>
> > [Original Message]
> > From: Jochen Fromm <[hidden email]>
> > To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
<[hidden email]>
> > Date: 6/14/2009 9:50:27 AM
> > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] The ghost in the machine (was 'quick question')
> >
> > The question was why do many of us have the
> > belief that they can move their body in a certain
> > direction if they want to do it voluntarily or
> > consciously? The belief must be based on a perception
> > of a process or interaction. If downward causation
> > is like self-consciousness an illusion, then what
> > kind of stimuli or causal chain preceeds a conscious
> > action?
>
> THE BEST I CAN OFFER IS A PROCEDURE FOR ANSWERING THAT QUESTION, WHICH IS
> TO FIGURE OUT HOW ONE WOULD GO ABOUT ANSWERING IT IN THE THIRD PERSON
CASE.
> I GRANT TO MYSELF ALL THE POWERS OF PERCEPTION THAT I GRANT TO ANY OTHER
> HUMAN BEING, AND NO MORE. SO, I AM PRESENT EVERYWHERE I GO, AND I
SEE
> MYSELF DO STUFF (ALTHOUGH MY POINT OF VIEW ON MY OWN ACTIONS IS UNIQUE).
> MY INTENTIONS ARE A KIND OF STANDING IN RELATION TO THE WORLD AND MY
> CONSCIOUSNESS IS A KIND OF STANDING IN RELATION TO MY INTENTIONS.
ALL OF
> THIS IS AS EVIDENT TO OTHERS AS IT IS TO MYSELF, ASSUMING THAT THEY HAVE
> BEEN AROUND ME AS MUCH AS I HAVE.
>
> WHAT FOLLOWS IS METAPHYSICS OR ONTOLOGY OR BOTH. I HAVE NEVER KNOWN
THE
> DIFFERENCE. WHAT IS WRITTEN HERE REMINDS ME OF DESCRIPTION'S OF THE
LEVELS
> OF PURGATORY IN MILTON. SURE, IT BEARS SOME VAGUE RELATION TO THE
WORLD
AS
> WE KNOW IT -- OTHERWISE THE PASSAGES WOULD BE UNINTELLIGIBLE -- BUT
> DESCRIBING THE WORLD AS WE FIND IT IS NOT THE PRIMARY IMPULSE OF THIS
> WRITING. THE PRIMARY IMPULSE, AS IN MILTON, IS TO DESCRIBE THE WORLD
THAT
> LIES BEHIND OUR SENSES ... THE WORLD AS IT REALLY IS. THE AUTHORITY
OF
> SUCH CLAIMS LIES NOT IN IS DESCRIPTIVE POWER BUT IN ITS COALESCENCE WITH
> ALL THE OTHER THINGS WE THINK WE KNOW, AND THOSE COME NOT FROM THE SENSES
> BUT FROM LANGUAGE AND SOCIETY.
>
> >
> > I think the answer is maybe a complex interaction
> > of several causal chains and circuits:
>
> THE DECISION TO USE THE CURCUIT AND THE CHAIN METAPHORS IS AN IMPORTANT
ONE
> AND NOT ONE THAT IS WARRANTED BY THE ANALOG PARALLEL PROCESSING SYSTEM THE
> BRAIN SEEMS TO BE.
> >
> > * There is causal chain from the outer world
> > to the brain and back (including the internal
> > stimuli-response or perception-action loop)
> >
> > * There is a causal chain inside the body
> > from the primary sensoric and motoric regions
> > of the brain to the corresponding body parts
> >
> > * There is a causal chain inside the mind from
> > the high-level level goals and abstract
> > intentions to the low-level actions and
> > concrete behavior patterns
>
> NOTE HOW THE NOTION OF CAUSAL CHAIN IS METAMORPHOSING HERE. HOW DOES
A
> GOAL CAUSE? WE ARE FUSING BRAIN-TALK WITH LOGICAL ANAYSIS TALK.
IT MAKES
> A KIND OF SENSE TO DO SO, BUT SO DOES ALL METAPHYSICS, AND METAPHYSICS
DOES
> NOT TELL US MUCH ABOUT HOW THINGS ARE IN EXPERIENCE. .
> >
> > Now a mental thought occurred, a physical activity
> > of the body happened, and afterwards we witness
> > it. Has the mental thought triggered the physical
> > action? The causal chain which preceeds a conscious
> > action goes roughly like this
> >
> > WHAT FOLLOWS IS INDEED WHAT OUR LANGUAGE PRESUPPOSES, IN THE SAME WAY
> THAT EQUIVALENT CONVERSATIONS ABOUT DEVELOPMENT PRESUPPOSED. BUT, AS
WE
> ARE DISCOVERING WITH DEVELOPMENT, THE BODY DOES NOT BEHAVE LOGICALLY AND
IT
> CERTAINLY DOES NOT BEHAVE EFFICIENTLY. WASTE IS THE HALL MARK
OF THE
> DEVELOPMENTAL SYSTEM, BUILDING UP ONLY TO TEAR DOWN ARE REBUILD.
>
> The mind formulates a intention and selects a goal,
> > according to the current beliefs and desires
> > (for example "i want to reach a certain region")
> >
> > - The body is in a certain state and environment
> >
> > - The mind perceives the current situation
> >
> > - The mind triggers a certain action suitable for the
> > the current situation and the current goal
>
> NO, I DISAGREE. THIS IS NOT WHAT THE MIND DOES, IN ANY CASE.
THIS IS
WHAT
> YOU DO, AND IF I WATCH YOU CLOSELY, I CAN SEE YOU DODING IT.
> >
> > - The body is in a new state
> >
> > Here conscious action is possible through modulation
> > of the causal chain from the outer world to the brain
> > and back, which is described usually as a perceive
> > -reason-action or belief-desire-intention loop.
> > The illusion of downcard causation seems to arise
> > through a fundamental attribution error and
> > an interaction of several causal chains.
> >
> > There is also book named "The Self and Its Brain:
> > An Argument for Interactionism" by Karl Popper and
> > John C. Eccles which discusses a similar topic.
>
> J. THANKS FOR THIS EXCHANGE. I APOLOGIZE FOR THE CAPS AGAIN.
OWEN WILL
> NOT FORGIVE ME, BUT I THINK YOU WILL. NOW i WILL RETURN TO ORDINARY
TEXT.
>
> Take care. If you every were so idle and demented as to want to read
> something I have written on the subject, you might try:
>
> http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/id36.html
>
> Nick
>
> >
> > -J.
> >
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: "Nicholas Thompson" <[hidden email]>
> > To: <[hidden email]>
> > Sent: Saturday, June 13, 2009 6:45 AM
> > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] The ghost in the machine (was 'quick question')
> >
> >
> > > Jochen,
> > >
> > > What follows is a behaviorist snit, and I apologize in advance
for it.
> > >
> > > Why does the defence of consciousness always come in this form:
> > >
> > > "Yet although we agree there is no mysterious downward
causation,
> > > we can without doubt consciously influence the activities and
movements
> > > of our body"
> > >
> > > It is NOT without doubt. I doubt it. So there is at LEAST ONE
doubt.
I
> > > doubt that I am conscious and that my consciousness affects my
acts.
> > >
> > > Surely after 5 hundred years there is SOMETHING to be said
beyond
> Decartes
> > > meditations.
> > >
> > > Nick
> > >
> > > Nicholas S. Thompson
> > > Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology,
> > > Clark University ([hidden email])
> > > http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/
> > >
> > >
> > >
> >
> > ============================================================
> > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
> > lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
>
>
>
> ============================================================
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
> lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
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