Sebastian Hagen: You don’t need a measurable difference between a p-zombie and a “conscious” entity. At least in principle you can also start from priors, not update except regarding your own consciousness, and estimate the probabilities, given that you are conscious, that you inhabit a world where a given entity is a zombie. In Chalmers’ framework you ask “given that there exist bridging laws between this experience here now and this configuration of atoms, what is the probability that there are more general bridging laws relating matter to consciousness and if there are such laws what is the probability distribution over their content?” Sane utility functions pay attention to base rates, not just evidence, so even if it’s impossible to measure a difference in principle one can still act according to a probability distribution over differences. Of course, its a physical system that is estimating these base probabilities, so its not at all clear that it should calculate that it is more likely that “I am conscious but you are not” than “you are conscious but I am not”, or even than “tooth decay is conscious but humans are not”. All it has to look at is the space of bridging laws. Chalmers comes close to intellectual honesty by embracing panpsychism on similar grounds but he fails to zero out morality by recognizing that “outer Chalmers”, while right by coincidence to take into account the interests of “inner Chalmers” in this one case, does violence to the “inner Chalmers” in the infinite universes where “bridging laws” connect a flourishing life for “outer Chalmers” with unspeakable agony for “inner Chalmers”.
I personally think that this is a confused way of thinking about what sort of thing natural laws are in the first place, but I can play the game if that’s the cost of entry to being taken seriously by some genuinely bright if deeply deluded people.
Jotedem: I’m astounded. A decent theological view that many top priests agree with is once again getting equated with property dualism? I mean, seriously. I would laugh if it weren’t so serious and depressing. Pity the poor souls of those innocent heathen scientists who damn themselves by doubting creationism, fortified in their hubristic confidence that only scientists know anything by the ease with which they demolish the arguments of philosophers. Still, they should know better. Its a huge leap in arrogance to step from rejecting a tiny and little respected academic discipline like Philosophy or Women’s Studies to rejecting Theology, the “King of the Sciences”, the propagation and development of which was the very reason for the creation of academia in the first place.
Bstark: seconded
Sebastian Hagen: You don’t need a measurable difference between a p-zombie and a “conscious” entity. At least in principle you can also start from priors, not update except regarding your own consciousness, and estimate the probabilities, given that you are conscious, that you inhabit a world where a given entity is a zombie. In Chalmers’ framework you ask “given that there exist bridging laws between this experience here now and this configuration of atoms, what is the probability that there are more general bridging laws relating matter to consciousness and if there are such laws what is the probability distribution over their content?” Sane utility functions pay attention to base rates, not just evidence, so even if it’s impossible to measure a difference in principle one can still act according to a probability distribution over differences. Of course, its a physical system that is estimating these base probabilities, so its not at all clear that it should calculate that it is more likely that “I am conscious but you are not” than “you are conscious but I am not”, or even than “tooth decay is conscious but humans are not”. All it has to look at is the space of bridging laws. Chalmers comes close to intellectual honesty by embracing panpsychism on similar grounds but he fails to zero out morality by recognizing that “outer Chalmers”, while right by coincidence to take into account the interests of “inner Chalmers” in this one case, does violence to the “inner Chalmers” in the infinite universes where “bridging laws” connect a flourishing life for “outer Chalmers” with unspeakable agony for “inner Chalmers”. I personally think that this is a confused way of thinking about what sort of thing natural laws are in the first place, but I can play the game if that’s the cost of entry to being taken seriously by some genuinely bright if deeply deluded people.
Jotedem: I’m astounded. A decent theological view that many top priests agree with is once again getting equated with property dualism? I mean, seriously. I would laugh if it weren’t so serious and depressing. Pity the poor souls of those innocent heathen scientists who damn themselves by doubting creationism, fortified in their hubristic confidence that only scientists know anything by the ease with which they demolish the arguments of philosophers. Still, they should know better. Its a huge leap in arrogance to step from rejecting a tiny and little respected academic discipline like Philosophy or Women’s Studies to rejecting Theology, the “King of the Sciences”, the propagation and development of which was the very reason for the creation of academia in the first place.