If the GLUT is conscious, then there is consciousness in the Zombie World. There cannot be consciousness in the Zombie World, therefore the GLUT cannot be conscious. If the GLUT is not conscious, something else must be looking up the inputs in the GLUT, and that thing must be conscious. Rinse—Repeat.
This is why the epiphenomenal argument is logically impossible—either the Zombie World is not exactly the same as ours (precluded by the framing of the thought experiment) or there is consciousness in the Zombie World (also precluded by the framing of the thought experiment). They are mutually exclusive. A Zombie Master with a GLUT does not solve the problem for the epiphenomenal position—it’s just Zombie Masters and GLUTs all the way down.
If the GLUT is not conscious, something else must be looking up the inputs in the GLUT, and that thing must be conscious.
This is an incorrect synthesis, and likely an incorrect conclusion. Eliezer is saying it is the process by which the table is populated that involves consciousness, not the thing that does the picking.
Right, I was arguing Roland’s point, not Eliezer’s, and I don’t see where I disagreed with Eliezer in any way.
Roland just said the GLUT is conscious, which means by definition it isn’t in a Zombie World, because the definition of a Zombie World is one that is apparently identical to ours, minus consciousness.
I’m not sure where I screwed the synthesis up here, Eliezer’s post doesn’t really come into it except for framing the subject of Zombie Worlds, GLUTs, and consciousness.
I was just saying if the GLUT is conscious then the Anti-Zombie position automatically wins the Zombie World GLUT argument, by definition. Perhaps I should have just said it exactly like that?
Please reread the bit I quoted. I am not trying to be pedantic, and it’s possible that either I am misreading you, or that you just didn’t write quite what you’d intended. Speaking of the case where the GLUT itself is not conscious, which was the sole of my focus, it seems to me that you said that the thing that is “looking up the inputs in the GLUT” must be conscious. This seems to mean “thing that is performing the lookup operation”, which is different than “thing that stored the data to be looked up.” Did I misunderstand you?
I didn’t misspeak, even though the argument I gave wasn’t the exact same one that Eliezer gave it is essentially the exact same argument. The “rinse, repeat” was meant to suggest you keep going with it ad infinitum, and the very next step I came up with was the exact same as Eliezer’s. It’s a reference to washing directions on shampoo bottles, and I’ve honestly never had anyone get confused by it, so I apologize.
The point is, if the thing looking up the inputs (to continue where I left off) isn’t conscious, then the thing that created the thing that looks up the inputs is probably conscious. If the thing that created the thing that created the GLUT isn’t conscious (e.g. a true random code generator that happens to produce the GLUT that matches our universe) then the thing that chose that GLUT out of the multitude of others is probably conscious. This is exactly Eliezer’s argument, unless I have completely misunderstood it, and if I have I would love to be corrected (I’ve only been actively engaged in this kind of thinking for a little over a year now, so I’m still very much a newbie). As it is, I don’t see what is different in principal between my point and Eliezer’s.
My point was in regards to Roland’s argument, which was that he didn’t mind the GLUT being consciousness in his Zombie World. I was attempting to point out that if the GLUT is conscious then the anti-zombie principle is automatically validated on the grounds that it’s not a Zombie World in that case.
In order for epiphenomenalists to effectively argue the Zombie World using a GLUT, it cannot be conscious itself. Eliezer argued (in a nutshell) that if there was a conscious mind behind the creation of the GLUT, then the GLUT was simply a tool of the conscious mind, and that the GLUT wasn’t actually running things, the consciousness behind it was. This is true regardless of where in the process the consciousness is, the point is that it is there somewhere and has a meaningful affect on the universe it exists in. Any world that his this kind of connection to a consciousness by definition can’t be a real Zombie World.
If consciousness has no affect on the universe then it is meaningless. This has been my understanding of Eliezer’s position throughout this entire series.
I mean, there’s got to be more to it than inputs and outputs.
Otherwise even a GLUT would be conscious, right?
Eliezer, I suspect you are not being 100% honest here. I don’t have any problems with a GLUT being conscious.
If the GLUT is conscious, then there is consciousness in the Zombie World. There cannot be consciousness in the Zombie World, therefore the GLUT cannot be conscious. If the GLUT is not conscious, something else must be looking up the inputs in the GLUT, and that thing must be conscious. Rinse—Repeat.
This is why the epiphenomenal argument is logically impossible—either the Zombie World is not exactly the same as ours (precluded by the framing of the thought experiment) or there is consciousness in the Zombie World (also precluded by the framing of the thought experiment). They are mutually exclusive. A Zombie Master with a GLUT does not solve the problem for the epiphenomenal position—it’s just Zombie Masters and GLUTs all the way down.
This is an incorrect synthesis, and likely an incorrect conclusion. Eliezer is saying it is the process by which the table is populated that involves consciousness, not the thing that does the picking.
Right, I was arguing Roland’s point, not Eliezer’s, and I don’t see where I disagreed with Eliezer in any way.
Roland just said the GLUT is conscious, which means by definition it isn’t in a Zombie World, because the definition of a Zombie World is one that is apparently identical to ours, minus consciousness.
I’m not sure where I screwed the synthesis up here, Eliezer’s post doesn’t really come into it except for framing the subject of Zombie Worlds, GLUTs, and consciousness.
I was just saying if the GLUT is conscious then the Anti-Zombie position automatically wins the Zombie World GLUT argument, by definition. Perhaps I should have just said it exactly like that?
Please reread the bit I quoted. I am not trying to be pedantic, and it’s possible that either I am misreading you, or that you just didn’t write quite what you’d intended. Speaking of the case where the GLUT itself is not conscious, which was the sole of my focus, it seems to me that you said that the thing that is “looking up the inputs in the GLUT” must be conscious. This seems to mean “thing that is performing the lookup operation”, which is different than “thing that stored the data to be looked up.” Did I misunderstand you?
I didn’t misspeak, even though the argument I gave wasn’t the exact same one that Eliezer gave it is essentially the exact same argument. The “rinse, repeat” was meant to suggest you keep going with it ad infinitum, and the very next step I came up with was the exact same as Eliezer’s. It’s a reference to washing directions on shampoo bottles, and I’ve honestly never had anyone get confused by it, so I apologize.
The point is, if the thing looking up the inputs (to continue where I left off) isn’t conscious, then the thing that created the thing that looks up the inputs is probably conscious. If the thing that created the thing that created the GLUT isn’t conscious (e.g. a true random code generator that happens to produce the GLUT that matches our universe) then the thing that chose that GLUT out of the multitude of others is probably conscious. This is exactly Eliezer’s argument, unless I have completely misunderstood it, and if I have I would love to be corrected (I’ve only been actively engaged in this kind of thinking for a little over a year now, so I’m still very much a newbie). As it is, I don’t see what is different in principal between my point and Eliezer’s.
My point was in regards to Roland’s argument, which was that he didn’t mind the GLUT being consciousness in his Zombie World. I was attempting to point out that if the GLUT is conscious then the anti-zombie principle is automatically validated on the grounds that it’s not a Zombie World in that case.
In order for epiphenomenalists to effectively argue the Zombie World using a GLUT, it cannot be conscious itself. Eliezer argued (in a nutshell) that if there was a conscious mind behind the creation of the GLUT, then the GLUT was simply a tool of the conscious mind, and that the GLUT wasn’t actually running things, the consciousness behind it was. This is true regardless of where in the process the consciousness is, the point is that it is there somewhere and has a meaningful affect on the universe it exists in. Any world that his this kind of connection to a consciousness by definition can’t be a real Zombie World.
If consciousness has no affect on the universe then it is meaningless. This has been my understanding of Eliezer’s position throughout this entire series.