Why not? Call it what you like, but it has all the properties relevant to your argument, because your concern was that the person would “act in all ways as if they’re in pain” but not actually be in pain. (Seems like you’d be begging the question in favor of functionalism if you claimed that the first-person recognition ((2)-belief) necessarily occurs whenever there’s something playing the functional role of a (1)-belief.)
That’s not possible, because the belief_2 that one isn’t in pain has nowhere to be instantiated.
I’m saying that no belief_2 exists in this scenario (where there is no pain) at all. Not that the person has a belief_2 that they aren’t in pain.
Even if the intermediate stages believed_2 they’re not in pain and only spoke and acted that way (which isn’t possible), it would introduce a desynchronization between the consciousness on one side, and the behavior and cognitive processes on the other.
I don’t find this compelling, because denying epiphenomenalism doesn’t require us to think that changing the first-person aspect of X alwayschanges the third-person aspect of some Y that X causally influences. Only that this sometimes can happen. If we artificially intervene on the person’s brain so as to replace X with something else designed to have the same third-person effects on Y as the original, it doesn’t follow that the new X has the same first-person aspect! The whole reason why given our actual brains our beliefs reliably track our subjective experiences is, the subjective experience is naturally coupled with some third-person aspect that tends to cause such beliefs. This no longer holds when we artificially intervene on the system as hypothesized.
There is no analogue of “fluid” in the brain. There is only the pattern.
We probably disagree at a more basic level then. I reject materialism. Subjective experiences are not just patterns.
Because it’s not accompanied by the belief itself, only by the computational pattern combined with behavior. If we hypothetically could subtract the first-person belief (which we can’t), what would be left would be everything else but the belief itself.
if you claimed that the first-person recognition ((2)-belief) necessarily occurs whenever there’s something playing the functional role of a (1)-belief
That’s what I claimed, right.
Seems like you’d be begging the question in favor of functionalism
I don’t think so. That specific argument had a form of me illustrating how absurd it would be on the intuitive level. It doesn’t assume functionalism, it only appeals to our intuition.
I’m saying that no belief_2 exists in this scenario (where there is no pain) at all. Not that the person has a belief_2 that they aren’t in pain.
That doesn’t sound coherent—either I believe_2 I’m in pain, or I believe_2 I’m not.
I don’t find this compelling, because denying epiphenomenalism doesn’t require us to think that changing the first-person aspect of X alwayschanges the third-person aspect of some Y that X causally influences.
That’s true, but my claim was a little more specific than that.
The whole reason why given our actual brains our beliefs reliably track our subjective experiences is, the subjective experience is naturally coupled with some third-person aspect that tends to cause such beliefs. This no longer holds when we artificially intervene on the system as hypothesized.
Right, but why think it matters if some change occurred naturally or not? For the universe, everything is natural, for one thing.
Why not? Call it what you like, but it has all the properties relevant to your argument, because your concern was that the person would “act in all ways as if they’re in pain” but not actually be in pain. (Seems like you’d be begging the question in favor of functionalism if you claimed that the first-person recognition ((2)-belief) necessarily occurs whenever there’s something playing the functional role of a (1)-belief.)
I’m saying that no belief_2 exists in this scenario (where there is no pain) at all. Not that the person has a belief_2 that they aren’t in pain.
I don’t find this compelling, because denying epiphenomenalism doesn’t require us to think that changing the first-person aspect of X always changes the third-person aspect of some Y that X causally influences. Only that this sometimes can happen. If we artificially intervene on the person’s brain so as to replace X with something else designed to have the same third-person effects on Y as the original, it doesn’t follow that the new X has the same first-person aspect! The whole reason why given our actual brains our beliefs reliably track our subjective experiences is, the subjective experience is naturally coupled with some third-person aspect that tends to cause such beliefs. This no longer holds when we artificially intervene on the system as hypothesized.
We probably disagree at a more basic level then. I reject materialism. Subjective experiences are not just patterns.
Because it’s not accompanied by the belief itself, only by the computational pattern combined with behavior. If we hypothetically could subtract the first-person belief (which we can’t), what would be left would be everything else but the belief itself.
That’s what I claimed, right.
I don’t think so. That specific argument had a form of me illustrating how absurd it would be on the intuitive level. It doesn’t assume functionalism, it only appeals to our intuition.
That doesn’t sound coherent—either I believe_2 I’m in pain, or I believe_2 I’m not.
That’s true, but my claim was a little more specific than that.
Right, but why think it matters if some change occurred naturally or not? For the universe, everything is natural, for one thing.
Well… I guess we have to draw the line somewhere.