Re: (Subjective) experience
Posted by
Nick Thompson on
URL: http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/Re-Subjective-experience-tp3084143p3084282.html
See comments in Navy Blue below.
Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology,
----- Original Message -----
Sent: 6/15/2009 8:49:41 PM
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] (Subjective) experience
When "experience" is used as a verb, we don't add the word "subjective." We add it when "experience" is used as a noun to refer to first person experience. The broader word "experience" isn't that precise.
How could an experience not be the experience from the point of view of an agent? I dont see what is being specified by the addition of "subjective".
But more to the point I'm still confused what you mean bv "I don't deny that I, or the cat, or even the robot, experience (when all three obey the rules of "experiencing"). What rules are you talking about?
The implicit rules anybody applies before they use a sentence like, "the cat was aware of the mouse." What would we have to see before we would. Sadly, there hasnt been much incentive to formalize those rules since we talk of experiene as an event somwhere rather than as a relationship between an agent and an event.
Furthermore, I don't agree that robots have the same sort of first person experience that we and cats do. Is that really your position, that robots "experience" the world the same way you do? If so, doesn't it follow that we should be kind to robots in the same way we should be kind to people and cats, that robots deserve humane treatment, etc.?
I was interested to see where you would draw the line. Some would draw it between the cat and the human. What I can't understand is what committment -- other than a metaphysical one -- would lead one to draw it anywhere in the absense of some empirical standard for what constitutes the act of experiencing.
-- Russ Abbott
Thanks for hanging in, here, Russ. This is interesting.
Nick
_____________________________________________
Professor, Computer Science
California State University, Los Angeles
Cell phone: 310-621-3805
o Check out my blog at
http://bluecatblog.wordpress.com/On Mon, Jun 15, 2009 at 7:09 PM, Nicholas Thompson
<[hidden email]> wrote:
Russ,
I don't think I am bickering or splitting hairs; but then, people who are, never do.
To put yourself in my frame of mind on these issues, start by saying what you can say about what others "see". I see that my cat sees the mouse in the corner of the room.
Anything I can say of the cat, I can say of myself.; anything I cannot say of the cat, I cannot say of myself.... well, except for the fur part.
If all experience is subjective, then we probably don't need the extra word, do we? I don't deny that I, or the cat, or even the robot, experience (when all three obey the rules of "experiencing"). I just don't see what is gained by adding the word "subjective" except a very confusing and inconsistent metaphysics.
Nick
Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology,
----- Original Message -----
Sent: 6/15/2009 7:38:20 PM
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] The ghost in the machine (was 'quick question')
Nick,
In one of the previous messages, you said, "I don't know about you, but I experience a world." Experiencing a world is a mark of subjective experience. Robots don't experience; they have sensors that measure things and report those measures, from which the robot may draw conclusions. There is a difference. I don't understand how you can deny that difference.
After all, what do you mean by "experience the world" other than subjective experience? Is this just a matter of terminological bickering? If you are willing to say that you experience the world, then by my understanding of "experience" you have subjective experience.
-- Russ Abbott
_____________________________________________
Professor, Computer Science
California State University, Los Angeles
Cell phone: 310-621-3805
o Check out my blog at http://bluecatblog.wordpress.com/
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============================================================
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