Re: (Subjective) experience
Posted by
Russ Abbott on
URL: http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/Re-Subjective-experience-tp3084143p3089648.html
Steve, I appreciate your empathy and help.
Nick, Here are some questions. How about taking a shot at them directly.
- Do robots feel irritation and frustration?
- Do robots feel nauseous in the commonly understood sense of the
terms "feel" and "nauseous"? Most people have no trouble understanding
what "feeling nauseous" means. I have never heard anyone say that using
the term "feeling nauseous" is grammatically strange. Let's just use
the common sense meaning of the term. Or are you denying that the
common sense meaning of the term has any content, e.g., like Santa
Clause if taken literally.
- Do you grant robots human rights?
- Is waterboarding a robot torture?
- Whether
waterboarding a robot is torture or not would it be effective? If so,
why and how. If not. how does that distinguish between robots and
humans--for which waterboarding generally is effective.
- And your own question: do robots dream? Or are you
denying that you dream? I didn't understand your comment in that
regard. Or were you acknowledging that the line of thought you are
taking leads nowhere?
-- 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 Tue, Jun 16, 2009 at 3:54 PM, Nicholas Thompson
<[hidden email]> wrote:
Thanks for the backup here.
Help me to see what questions I am not answering, here.
I MEAN to be answering Russ's questions, so given that he feels I am not, we are near to being reduced to name calling and finger pointing.
Later this evening I will have a chance to work on this.
Nick
Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology,
----- Original Message -----
Sent: 6/16/2009 10:20:00 AM
Subject: [FRIAM] Nick takes Metaphorazine was: (Subjective) experience
Russ Abbott wrote:
Again you didn't answer the question.
"Feel" has multiple meanings, only one of which has to do with palpating.
Furthermore "feel" as referring to a subjective state is no more a metaphor than any other language.If, when you get stuck for a reply you retreat to calling language a metaphor, you will never deal with the issue. All referential language is metaphor: "an expression used to refer to something that it does not literally denote." where "denote" means "to be a sign or indication of." All referential language is intentional. It is never the thing to which it refers. Some language, such as exclamations, e.g., of joy, pain, etc. are often an aspect of the thing itself. But this is a tangent. I want you to deal with the issue of experience.
I suspect that all language is figurative. Many of our intellectualizations are based on understanding by analogy and therefore rooted in metaphor (did I just say "based on"? and then "rooted"? - *what* must I be talking "about"? Can't I just be "direct" and quit "beating around the bush" and using "oblique" and "tangential" references to things?).
I do suspect Nick might have been dipping into his Metaphorazine... fortunately he's stayed out of his stash of Onamatopiates (so far) and you don't want to be there when he jacks up on Alliterene and Hyberbolehyde! Did he say he was just off to the Docs' for a fresh set of scrips?
Metaphorazine
by jeff noon
Johnny takes Metaphorazine. Every clockwork day. Says it burns his
house down, with a haircut made of wings. You could say he eats a
problem. You could say he stokes his thrill. Every clingfilm evening,
climb inside a little pill. Intoxicate the feelings. Play those skull-piano blues.
Johnny takes Metaphorazine.
He's a dog.
For the full poem, click the link above.
I doubt that I can add any clarity with my own stirring here, but I feel compelled. Or perhaps there is an observation of compellingness which is uniquely situated in the metaphorical location which does not change when movement happens. This reminds me (way too much) of the implications (I think) of David Bohm's Rheomode.
I sometimes suspect that David Bohm drank Simileum like Absynthe. Or perhaps it is just an occupational hazard of trying to understand and explain Quantum Theory.
I believe that Nick's point is that among those who experience "I"ness (the experience of being in the first person?), that this is really the experience of observing from a unique perspective. That qualitatively, whatever observers might exist, they are inherently 3rd person, observing a world. What "we" (those illusory beings who feel first-personish) observe when we think we are observing ourselves is really an illusion or a consequence of the uniqueness of that observation being embodied, and nothing more (as if that is not enough?). This is a subtle thing, and I'm not sure I really get it, but I do feel that I have a hint of what he is trying to describe.
I'm not sure that the question of whether Robots (or computers, or smart phones, or hand-calculators, or abacii, or quipu) have experiences is relevant to this topic. That might be partially why Nick keeps ignoring it. I think it is nevertheless an interesting (and important?) question, but I think it is not germane to the point he is making.
I suppose Nick could speak for himself, but I'm having such a grand time trying him on (after an extra heavy dose of Metaphorazine) that I can't help it!
Woof Woof, Squeek Squeek, Chirp Chirp, Blah Blah,
- Sieve
PS. Yes, I am perhaps, having waaay too much fun!
============================================================
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