boneyard bill

contracycle writes:

Oh yes, the argument from psychic powers. Now we know what these inanimate processes "feel" like to a silicon chip.

And we've also got the argument by linguistic misdirection. Suddenly an "intellection" is a "feeling." I don't know how to "feel" an intellection. How on earth is a silicon chip going to feel one?

boneyard bill

contracycle writes:

In my eyes it does even amount to a reasonable use of the English language.

boneyard bill

contracycle writes:

Except that you're the only one on this thread who defines subjectivity that way. So what you're talking about isn't what we're talking about.

When we talk about subjectivity we mean sentient experience, and while sentient experience may be involved in "self state monitoring," that isn't what it is.

contracycle

Kay, well, theres obviously no point in continuing this. what we have is the age old clash between looking at the world as it is, and rawing conclusions from it, or inspecting our navels and devising complex semantic games.

I don't see what basis you, or indeed anyone, has for claiming that our mentality is not physical. Certainly, nobodyt has provided even an argumrent for why this may be the case - only fault assertions that we and machines and animals are different in some special and magical way. For which not the slightest indication can be given.

BB makes spurious comparisons to faith. Not Faith, BB, projection. As I may have mentioned on another thread, the theory of cometary and meteoriuc impacts on planets was unproven 'till Shoemaker-Levy was observed; but nonetheless, we had confidence in the anlaysis to the extent that it passed into conventional wisdom.

We can make reasonbale guesses, we can make predicitons. I do no KNOW that we will make an AI; I only expect that we will. If we find, in fact, that we cannot, then that will tell us something very interesting, as any falsification of a claim does.

What we have here is a set of superstitions, a desperate search for Divine Spark that makes humans special, not dumb matter like everything else. It's old fashioned arrogance, the assertion of humanity as natures pinnacle.

You can;t even give the lsightest basis for expecting an organic brain to be functionally distinct from an orgabic one - you merely assert, arrogantly, that this is True. And you have the cheek to make accusations of fundamentalism? Please.

eifion

I'm not sure, in my experience neonate mammals will suck on pretty much anything they can get in their mouths, whether it stops them feeling hungry or not. I'd say that they do have a 'sucking instinct' and as they are generally born in proximity to lactating mamary glands this instinct increases the chance of finding nutrition, growing, surving to reproductive maturity etc.

VivaHedone

Subjectivity is not ‘self state monitoring’. That may provide a purpose for subjectivity (although I also disagree with that, as I will explain later), but it is not what subjectivity is. Subjectivity is our sensations, feelings etc – basically, our experience.

Self state monitoring, self-auditing, etc, does not require a subjective experience. All it requires is for the electronic pathways to be configured so that if anything goes wrong, certain electrons flow in a certain direction and correct the problem. How precisely will this create a ‘feeling’ in the computer? How can certain movements of electrons create a ‘sensation’? I would like you to explain how, exactly, a sensation is created in our brains.

In order to answer this question, you may have to also tell us just what a sensation is (not what causes it, like ‘a reaction to stimuli’, but what exactly it is). Try this, which I have used many times before: Imagine I am blind, and always have been. Now describe sight to me.

I concede the point on this one. Even though I cannot explain it, it is obvious that our brains do somehow create sensations, with the same basic ‘equipment’ as a computer. Therefore, yes, if a computer was built that used electronic flow and magnetic fields in a way similar to our brains, it could conceivably create a sensation. Apologies for my ill thought-out statement.

However, that is a distraction. It still leaves the basic question unanswered – what, why and how is subjectivity?

boneyard bill

contracycle writes:

A little evidence that it is physical would help. Some of us out here actually like to have facts to support what we believe in.

The materialist makes a claim. That claim requires a reductive explanation. The materialist cannot provide a reductive explanation.

Therefore, I do not believe the materialist claim.

Where is the logical flaw in that?

boneyard bill

eifion writes:

Judging by your response, I think you pretty thoroughly missed the point of my post. But aside from that, even if we decide that the baby does possess a "tit-sucking" instinct; what exactly have we explained? We've explained what we already knew. Babies suck tits, and we've not explained a single thing more.

boneyard bill

VivaHedone writes:

I think you apologize to readily. Yes it is conceivable that we might be able to produce computers that actually had vision. "Conceivable" only means that the statement itself does not contain a contradiction. But is it possible? That question cannot be answered because we simply don't know how visual experiences come about.

Torben

I don't think that you can ever explain subjectivity or emotions or human relationships in a reductionist way that will satisfy very many people. But IMHO this is not due to some 'spirit of life' or something like that. It's because the explanation is not what we're looking for. So even if the reductionist was ever able to demonstrate atomic, molecular, cellular and physiological chains of causation for eg. friendship or anger, the explanation would still not feel relevant to a lot people, because they expect an explanation they can relate to. Cells and proteins aren't part of most people's everyday experience of being themselves.

Take a bacterium swimming in a pond towards a cube of sugar. The reductionist explanation is very long and complicated, involving sensing of the sugar by bacterial receptors, intracellular signalling to the flagellum (engine) of the bacterium, constantly correcting the heading until the source of sugar is reached. This extremely complex set of molecular mechanisms along with some far-out feedback controls has been brought about by the non-sentient forces of natural selection because this set of mechanisms enables this particular bacterium to get an increased rate of reproduction compared to its direct competitors in the pond.

Another explanation would be that the bacterium is hungry and dies if it doesn't eat. Therefore, it swims towards the sugar. This explanation sucks because it's anthropocentric; explaining the phenomenon by appealing to feelings, we have.


So why subjectivity in the first place? I don't claim to have any answers, but looking at other animals, it's apparent that subjectivity increases as brain complexity (vague term, I know) increases. Look at cats, dogs, dolphins, chimpanzees. It seems that animals capable of doing complex tasks also develop this subjectivity to a varying degree. So maybe subjectivity has got to do with inventiveness or 'intelligence'? Chimps are as far as I know the only other animal capable of recognizing themselves in mirrors, indicating their distinguishing between them and the world. They are also able to learn up to about 200 words and thus communicating with humans! Maybe subjectivity is an unavoidable feature of problem-solving? Increasing (as someone above stated) survival value by stressing the need for problem-solving?

A final question: what is the qualitative difference between the sight experience of humans, dogs, houseflies and a videocamera connected to the CPU of the Mars Rover?

Cheers,
-T