Re: (Subjective) experience
Posted by
Nick Thompson on
URL: http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/Re-Subjective-experience-tp3084143p3086287.html
Russ and Steve,
Seeing Drs in Boston today, so out of this wonderful loop for a day.
About "feeling nauseous". If a robot can DO nauseous, it can feel nauseous, would be my first response. But notice what a strain on grammar is put by the notion of "feeling nauseous". "feeling" is a metaphor, akin to touching with the fingertips. How do I palpate "nauseous"? Something VERY STRANGE GOING ON HERE.
Look, I stipulate that privileging a third person view (as opposed to the more traditional practice of privileging a first person view) is not going to rescue me (or us) from talking silly. But it will change the kind of silly talk we do.
The tough one is dreaming. Do robots dream? Does Nick dream? One can either launch into reams of inter psychic babble or one can "just say no"! It's a different kind of silliness.
Anyway, this has been written in great haste and is probably of lower quality than usual.
Do good, today.
N
Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology,
----- Original Message -----
To: [hidden email]
Sent: 6/16/2009 1:08:25 AM
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] (Subjective) experience
P.P.S. Do you think you could get a robot to provide information it "didn't want" to provide (whatever you think that means) by waterboarding it?
-- Russ
On Mon, Jun 15, 2009 at 11:36 PM, Russ Abbott
<[hidden email]> wrote:
P.S. Nick, Do you believe that robots are capable of feeling frustrated and irritated?
-- Russ
On Mon, Jun 15, 2009 at 9:54 PM, Russ Abbott
<[hidden email]> wrote:
See below.
-- 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/
On Mon, Jun 15, 2009 at 8:53 PM, Nicholas Thompson
<[hidden email]> wrote:
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".
Didn't I already respond to that? No point in doing it again.
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.
I don't believe I operate according to rules. So again, I don't know what rules you are talking about. But more importantly, I'm more interested in a sentence like "I was aware of the mouse." You keep changing the subject to an observation of something else. The issue is what does it mean to say that I am having an experience, e.g., "I feel nauseous." Does it mean anything to you? I still don't know. Also, I still don't know whether you would understand a robot that said "I feel nauseous" to mean the same sort of thing that you mean by that sentence.
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.
You are not answering the question. If a robot feeling nauseous means to you the same thing as a human feeling nauseous, do you grant it the same sorts of "rights" that we grant each other. I'd like to know your answer. For example, would it be torture to waterboard a robot?
-- Russ Abbott
Thanks for hanging in, here, Russ. This is interesting.
I'm beginning to feel irritated. It seems to me you aren't engaging in an honest dialog since you aren't responding to the questions I asked. I took some time to construct questions that would help me understand your position. But if you won't answer them I'm wasting my time, which I find frustrating, not 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