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Dingus McGee
Social climber
Where Safety trumps Leaving No Trace
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Apr 27, 2017 - 12:11pm PT
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Sycorax,
Largo has him licked in the writing category.
Would not that statement have a better referent if it read, " Largo has him licked in the long winded writing category of saying little but using a cornucopia of words.?
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Dingus McGee
Social climber
Where Safety trumps Leaving No Trace
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Apr 27, 2017 - 12:13pm PT
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If you are as clueless as Eeyonkee you could ask, "How could atoms and molecules ever make person."
On this thread most of us feel consciousness exists and is it more than a particular arrangement of atoms and molecules sending signals to one another?
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jgill
Boulder climber
The high prairie of southern Colorado
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Apr 27, 2017 - 02:07pm PT
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Largo has him licked in the writing category
JL expresses his bizarre ideas with literary style. However, his logical inferences are a tad hollow at times. IMHO. He should consult Zoltar more.
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - Apr 27, 2017 - 02:50pm PT
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your pat answer/question that, "how could 1's and 0's every make consciousness?" is just as clueless as someone asking how could atoms and molecules ever make a person.
--
I always try and keep my observations and comments grounded in my own direct experience. That normally does not unfold in abstractions like equations nor yet in evaluations. Also, many here tend to think almost exclusively in terms of causal relations, or what crated what, and specifically, how. It often takes some windy exposition as I cast about trying to come up with some form to pass on what seems to make epistemic sense to me.
Per Dingus' jab above, I can't remember positing that as any kind of "answer," pat or otherwise because to me, the philosophical belief that 1s and 0s could ever "make" consciousness is a nonsense statement to begin with. There is no evidence whatsoever that sentience is related to computational processing, for which 1s and 0s are the operate code. If I am "clueless" about contrary evidence, I'd be most interested in seeing or hearing about it.
As mentioned, Chalmers Hard Problem is basically a sucker or trick question challenging someone to casually show how objective functioning sources or creates sentience. The best anyone can do is to trot out some model that conflates information (content) with consciousness, or some iteration of emergence, which doesn't answer the Hard Problem.
In some ways the Hard Problem is a fail safe way to back honest investigators into Chalmers' position, in which sentience is a fundamental quality. But again, there is no clue whatsoever per objective functioning "creating" sentience, though common sense says there must be, because vital aspects of consciousness (like most all of the content) ARE sourced by the brain.
If you look at most of the arguments here they are not really about consciousness at all, rather the defense of classical, physical causality. As Mike and Ed have pointed out, there are virtually always first assumptions, givens, like strong and weak attraction, electromagnetism, which apparently do not arise through more fundamental mechanisms. And while this is accepted without pause in physics, many people seem to nearly lose their minds and their reason to avoid the same givens with consciousness.
Are electromagnetism and strong attraction examples of magic?
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Apr 27, 2017 - 04:06pm PT
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challenging someone to casually show how objective functioning sources or creates sentience
I could do that.
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Dingus McGee
Social climber
Where Safety trumps Leaving No Trace
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Apr 27, 2017 - 04:33pm PT
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Largo,
some on this thread may be of this group?
Like Dennett, Hacker argues that the hard problem is fundamentally incoherent and that "consciousness studies", as it exists today, is "literally a total waste of time":[18]
The whole endeavour of the consciousness studies community is absurd—they are in pursuit of a chimera. They misunderstand the nature of consciousness. The conception of consciousness which they have is incoherent. The questions they are asking don't make sense. They have to go back to the drawing board and start all over again.
Is your concept of consciousness incoherent?
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WBraun
climber
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Apr 27, 2017 - 05:19pm PT
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And as I have repeatedly demonstrated you gross materialists are still clueless why you're even on this planet.
Meanwhile, you spend your time talking to a robot you hold in your hand ....... :-)
Life comes from Life
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Ward Trotter
Trad climber
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Apr 27, 2017 - 05:28pm PT
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So then I approached Siri with my blow torch.
Susan Bennett, the voice of SIRI , started following me about a year or so ago. She is the human in Siri.
Anyone approaching her with a blowtorch will have to go through me first WBraun.
Better put on that protective suit of yours.
Lol.
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WBraun
climber
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Apr 27, 2017 - 05:33pm PT
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DMT
You want me to take a photo of how many iPhones I have here?
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WBraun
climber
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Apr 27, 2017 - 05:38pm PT
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I've done enough of this sh!t to fully know what that guy did.
He made some smart moves by buying individual components and building his own phone cheaper than buying a complete phone.
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WBraun
climber
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Apr 27, 2017 - 06:00pm PT
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DNT
I watched the video and completely understood was he was doing.
But spending a grand on this project seemed way out there.
I have so many of these phones some working others as spare parts.
I have one iPhone 5s which is our main real working phone.
I have another iPhone 5s which I'm waiting for a clean logic board with a clean imei to build a spare.
You built short wave amps?
You mean transmitters on the lower ham bands?
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MikeL
Social climber
Southern Arizona
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Apr 27, 2017 - 06:15pm PT
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I think we've put Siri to bed.
Sycorax, good post.
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snakefoot
climber
Nor Cal
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Apr 27, 2017 - 06:23pm PT
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this is mind after nail gun accident, luckily spared the globe and only a minor frontal lobe injury.
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jgill
Boulder climber
The high prairie of southern Colorado
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Apr 27, 2017 - 08:42pm PT
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Siri remains a special needs robot
Good one!
There is no evidence whatsoever that sentience is related to computational processing
And there is no evidence whatsoever that sentience is a "fundamental property" or "fundamental force." Neither conjecture has any validity outside a philosophy department coffee lounge, no matter the word count of one's argument.
This morning before arising I had a spell of lucid dreaming similar to experiences many years ago. I had been thinking before dozing off of a climb in the Needles (Black Hills), and I "awoke" with my hand on a solid hold at the top of a spire, peeking over expecting to see granite spires in the trees, but instead there was a beautiful city before me, built on a hillside, with tiers of sidewalks and streets along which strolled pedestrians but very few cars.
There were lovely buildings, but no modern skyscrapers. One in particular was like an ancient temple, a soft ivory color and huge with windows and terraces and balconies. The sky was clear and a deep blue and I could focus on individuals walking along in the distance. There seemed to be some construction in play although very little traffic. Everything seemed very real and clearly defined.
Later, I thought, Why spend so much time and so many words on the so-called Hard Problem when the content processed or created by the mind is so astounding?
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MikeL
Social climber
Southern Arizona
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Apr 28, 2017 - 07:11am PT
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Dingus posted from Wiki: Like Dennett, Hacker argues that the hard problem is fundamentally incoherent and that "consciousness studies", as it exists today, is "literally a total waste of time":[18]
The whole endeavour of the consciousness studies community is absurd—they are in pursuit of a chimera. They misunderstand the nature of consciousness. The conception of consciousness which they have is incoherent. The questions they are asking don't make sense. They have to go back to the drawing board and start all over again.
Dear Dingus,
. . . the last paragraph you posted is a quote from Dennett. Next time put it into quotes (as the site notes from an indentation) so that we know it’s another person’s thoughts—not yours or Wiki's summary. (It’s an issue in reporting, as it helps clarify who’s saying what.) Given that the quote belongs to Dennett, an evaluation takes on another character in the reading. (One might expect Dennett to remain consistent with what he’s written time and time again.)
If YOU, on the other hand, have your own thoughts about “consciousness studies” (which are???), then let us know what’s on your mind.
At the same site, in the same section, one can find many indications of contra writing and critics of Dennett and Hacker. Perhaps a particularly damaging one might be:
Galen Strawson[’s] reply that [to Dennett and Hacker], in the case of consciousness, even a mistaken experience retains the essential face of experience that needs to be explained, contra Dennett.
No one that I’ve read or heard seems to be able to negate this assertion, and almost everyone here in this thread overlooks it when they run across it or present their own analysis.
No matter what appears to anyone—either in their mind, in their research articles, from what other people have said or written, from any of their senses, in an hallucination, etc.—shows up in consciousness. That undeniable epistemological fact colors everything. In a very real sense, there is nothing but consciousness everywhere at any time for anyone, at some level, even when in a coma.
Nothing dominates noticing (consciousness). Another way of saying the same thing is noticing “immediacy.” The claim of non-immediacy seems one step removed, but that simply exposes an interpretation. But even with an interpretation, immediacy hasn’t gone anywhere. Whenever you want to see immediacy, there it is. Try to make immediacy go away. Try to make light go away.
There is no reason for thought experiments, philosophical arguments, or any argument when no one can claim that they can get outside of consciousness. That would be self-contradictory declaration. No matter what one claims consciousness to be, there it is. Hard problem, easy problem, no problem, . . . one cannot assert one’s own non-consciousness.
All of this is great fun—a bit absurd, perhaps, but fun for some. At the end of the day, however, . . . moot . One might well be arguing for or against existence categorically. Even the object of the wildest imagination is in consciousness.
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Apr 28, 2017 - 07:38am PT
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No matter what appears to anyone—either in their mind, in their research articles, from what other people have said or written, from any of their senses, in an hallucination, etc.—shows up in consciousness.
So consciousness is that in which everything shows up.
But it says nothing else about consciousness. Some people would like to go further in exploring certain things that "show up."
Mighty Consciousness itself can be turned off by the simple halothane molecule. Why is that? What happens to "everything" when your consciousness undergoes general anesthesia?
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cintune
climber
The Model Home
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Apr 28, 2017 - 08:17am PT
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A quick round-trip ticket to the wonderful world of nothing.
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WBraun
climber
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Apr 28, 2017 - 08:24am PT
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Mighty Consciousness itself can be turned off by the simple halothane molecule.
No you can't.
Consciousness becomes at that time aware that there is no feeling or pain under local general anesthesia.
You have a very unclear and incomplete understanding of what consciousness really is.
The modern scientific understanding of consciousness far too rigidly fixed in western defective gross material mechanistic only theory ......
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - Apr 28, 2017 - 08:54am PT
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There is no evidence whatsoever that sentience is related to computational processing
And there is no evidence whatsoever that sentience is a "fundamental property" or "fundamental force." Neither conjecture has any validity outside a philosophy department coffee lounge, no matter the word count of one's argument.
Depends on what you call "evidence," John. If you mean, "There is no external object called sentience off which I can pull a measurement, work up a theory and crank out some predictions," I would agree.
But why limit your scope to Type A physicalism? And if you have some psychological need to do so, or if scientism (only numbers can be trusted) has you by the short hairs, is it the case for you that any "knowing" outside of physical theories is something you lump in with poetry and woo?
Point being, what you are driving at with this position is, perhaps, a question less about mind and more about epistamology, basically the ongoing investigation of what distinguishes justified belief from opinion.
And in this case, you seem to be saying that physical measurements notwithstanding, all else IS opinion?
If not, if you take measurements away, at best, what is left for you? Can it be said that once upon a time you enjoyed bouldering, and that you KNEW that you did. Would a measurement bolster that knowledge? And in your mind, is such knowledge limited to subjective temperature, so to speak?
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