It isn’t intended to answer your question about neuroscience.It is intended to pose
the philosopher’s question about the limitations of physicalism. If physicalism is limited,
that eventually folds back to your question, since one way of explaining the limitation of physicalism is that there are non-physical things going on.
When she steps outside, something physical happens in her brain that has never happened before. Maybe something “non-physical” (huh?) also happens, maybe it doesn’t. We have gained no insight.
There are broadly speaking two versions of physicalism: ontological physicalism, according to which everything that exists is material, spatio-temporal, etc; and epistemological physicalism, according to which everything can be explained in physical terms. Physicalism can be challenged by the inexplicability of qualia in two ways. Firstly, qualia might be physically inexplicable because they are not physical things, which contradicts ontological physicalim. Secondly, the phsyical inexplicability of qualia might be down to their having a first-person epistemology, which contradicts epistemological physicalism. Epistemological physicalism requires that eveything be explicable in physical terms, which implies that everything is explicable in objective, descriptive, public, third-person terms. If there are some things which can only be known by acquantance, subjectively, in first person terms, then it is not the case that everything can be explained in physicalese. However, ontological physicalism could still hold.
For this discussion, the one of principal relevance is the one on the use of words, especially the mind projection fallacy (including the non-existence of mental or supernatural entities). Reductionism would be useful as well, and quantum physics.
The quantum physics part is particularly helpful for disabusing one’s self of many naive intuitions about object identity, that otherwise lead to belief in things like souls, or consciousness as something separate from bodies, or the idea that an exact duplicate of you wouldn’t actually be you. If you don’t get at least that much about the basics of physics, then it’s way too easy to believe in fairy tales when they have words like “consciousness” and “qualia” attached.
In other words, human beings are born with various intuitions (hardwired into the brain, as has been shown by experiments on babies who can’t even talk yet) that, without sufficient education, we use as the basis for reasoning about minds and reality. Huge amounts of philosophy and “common sense” reasoning are then based on these false premises.
Of course, this makes most philosophical discussions equivalent to nothing but hot air: reasoning based on false premises. Attempting to refute the conclusions without first refuting the premises is pointless, which is why I keep pointing to the Sequences. They contain the necessary information to refute the premises that support the vast majority of philosophical and supernatural nonsense. (Such as some of Chalmers’s and Searle’s, for example.)
Of course, if you don’t agree that physics, cognitive science, and Bayesian updates based on them are the basis for reaching an objective conclusion, then this discussion is entirely moot. That’s why I asked whether you’ve read the sequences—and implicitly, accept their premises about the nature of reasoning, as well as the specific facts of physics and cognitive science—so I can determine whether there’s anything worth talking about.
(Such as some of Chalmers’s and Searle’s, for example.)
Why did you link to Zombies: The Movie, which is really fun for people who already understand that the concept of irreducible qualia is nonsense, rather than Zombies! Zombies?, which explains why it is nonsense?
Why did you link to Zombies: The Movie, which is really fun for people who already understand that the concept of irreducible qualia is nonsense, rather than Zombies! Zombies?, which explains why it is nonsense?
Because “Zombies: The Movie” demonstrates why it is nonsense, and is thus harder to tune out and argue with.
Also, I personally found it much more convincing on the first read than the complex arguments of the other article. ;-)
For this discussion, the one of principal relevance is the one on the use of words, >especially the mind projection fallacy
It would have been helpful to say how it is relevant.
(including the non-existence of mental or supernatural entities).
That mental entities don’t exist at all is a very bold claim: much bolder than the claim
about the supernatural that you bracket it with, and one that many physicalists would disagree with. Moreover, neither claim follows from the very general consideration (which in itself I do not contend) that there is a
“mind projection fallacy”.
Reductionism would be useful as well, and quantum physics.
What do you mean by “reductionism would be useful”? If there were
a generally accepted reduction of qualia, there would be no problem of qualia.
There isn’t such a reduction. So are you talking about promissory reduction (we have to believe it will arrive one day)....or what?
The quantum physics part is particularly helpful for disabusing one’s self of many > naive intuitions about object identity, that otherwise lead to belief in things like
souls, or consciousness as something separate from bodies, or the idea that an
exact duplicate of you wouldn’t actually be you.
I have studied quantum physics, and I don’t think my ideas about qualia are based
on naive ideas about identity. I think they are based on what I have said they
are based on. If you have a criticism that is relevant to something I have said,
I will be glad to hear it. I would rather you did not guess at my motivations.
If you don’t get at least that much about the basics of physics, then it’s way too easy
to believe in fairy tales when they have words like “consciousness” and “qualia”
attached.
Calling something a “fairy tale” is not an argument. I am still waiting for an argument relevant to something I said.
In other words, human beings are born with various intuitions (hardwired into the >brain, as has been shown by experiments on babies who can’t even talk yet) that, >without sufficient education, we use as the basis for reasoning about minds and >reality. Huge amounts of philosophy and “common sense” reasoning are then >based on these false premises.
That argument is a non sequitur. The fact that an intuition is hardwired does not make it false.
Of course, this makes most philosophical discussions equivalent to nothing but hot > air: reasoning based on false premises.
That’s another non-sequitur based on the on the previous one: you haven’t shown
that philosophical arguments are mostly based on intuitions. Moreover, you are
in danger of throwing out the arguments of your fellow qualiaphobes,
such as Dennett.
which is why I keep pointing to the Sequences. They contain the necessary >information to refute the premises that support the vast majority of philosophical
and supernatural nonsense.
They contain a bunch of stuff about logic and language that most philosophers
(in the anglosphere at least) are vey familiar with. I have read arguments for
and against qualia, and found them both to be based on reason. I think it is possible
for reasonable people to disagree deeply.
And the equation between philosophy and the supernatural remains uninformed, to
say the least.
(Such as some of Chalmers’s and Searle’s, for example.)
OK. Someone doesn’t like Chalmers’s Zombie argument. Guess what? I don’t
like it either. I know it is possible to have qualiaphilia without p-zombies because my
own qualiaphilc arguments work that way. I never mentioned zombies in the first place...
That mental entities don’t exist at all is a very bold claim: much bolder than the claim about the supernatural that you bracket it with, and one that many physicalists would disagree with. Moreover, neither claim follows from the very general consideration (which in itself I do not contend) that there is a “mind projection fallacy”.
The mind projection fallacy (or more specifically, the Less Wrong sequence on it) is more than sufficient as an explanation for how mental and supernatural entities are perceived; what “many physicalists” may or may not believe is not really relevant here.
are you talking about promissory reduction (we have to believe it will arrive one day)....or what?
I’m saying the Less Wrong sequences on reductionism and quantum physics will be useful in dissolving your confusion about qualia.
I have read arguments for and against qualia, and found them both to be based on reason.
But not Bayesian evidence, which is what’s relevant on LessWrong.com. This is a community devoted to furthering the practice of Bayesian rationalism, not the discussion of philosophy in general, or what philosophers consider to be reasonable or not reasonable. This is a community that considers dissolution of the confusion about “free will” to be a basic exercise in rationality, rather than an abstruse philosophical question requiring years of argument, or something that’s still considered an unsettled open question, subject to disagreement.
I think it is possible for reasonable people to disagree deeply.
...and on LessWrong, we agree that’s true… IF and only if one or more of these conditions apply:
The reasonable people have different information,
The reasonable people are using different methods of evaluating the same information (due to e..g different values/desires), or
One or both of the “reasonable” people aren’t really reasonable at all
If you believe that there is some other way for reasonable people to disagree, then it’s a good indication that we’re not on the same page enough to bother talking about this at all.
OK. Someone doesn’t like Chalmers’s Zombie argument.
If you think that’s just an opinion, you don’t get Bayesianism yet; that’s why I suggested the Sequences to you, in case you’re genuinely interested in being able to settle philosophical arguments once and for all, instead of just having philosophical arguments. ;-)
I never mentioned zombies in the first place...
You didn’t need to. Any argument for epiphenomenalism reduces in roughly the same way: if it has an effect, then the effect is phenomenal and reducible. If it doesn’t have an effect (i.e. produces no difference in our predicted observations), why do we care?
Ontologically fundamental mental entities of any sort require one to think of the mind as a supernatural entity, rather than a physical one. But it’s very hard to notice that you’re doing this, because it’s implicit in how we think about thinking by default.
Ontologically fundamental mental entities of any sort require one to think of the mind as a supernatural entity, rather than a physical one.
What’s a “supernatural entity”? The word ‘supernatural’ is ill-defined: if something exists in the real world, then it is natural by definition.
For the record, I don’t think minds are ontologically fundamental per se, because minds are far too complex and they’re explained already by physical brains. But it may be that some precursor of subjective experience is fundamental.
The word ‘supernatural’ is ill-defined: if something exists in the real world, then it is natural by definition.
Yeah, just like the word ‘metaphysics’ is ill-defined. If something exists in the real world, then it is physical by definition.
Or to be even more snarky but at least more explanatory: I doubt that ‘exists’, ‘physical’, ‘meta-’, ‘super-’ or ‘natural’ are sufficiently well-defined in these contexts for your accusation of ill-definition to hold any weight. If I try to interpret what you’re saying in roughly the same manner in which it seems to me that you’re interpreting what most folk mean by ‘supernatural’, except instead of being uncharitable in the direction of being snobbishly literal I reverse it and be uncharitable in the direction of not paying attention to your explicit message, it looks something like this: “People who use the word ‘supernatural’ tend to be wrong in obvious ways and I like to point this out in a mildly intellectual fashion so that I can feel superior to them; also since I just denounced the enemy tribe you should like me more”. But that would be no more accurate a characterization of what you meant, than your characterization of what is typically meant by ‘supernatural’, and nobody on either side would learn anything from such analysis.
(This comment is not really a reply to User:bogus so much as an expression of annoyance at certain traditional rationalist memes. Sorry you got caught in the crossfire, User:bogus.)
The naive impression of “mind” in general philosophical discussion is a good example of a supernatural entity—the concept of mind separated from a specific human brain, some almost spirit-like entity.
In order to commit the mind-projection fallacy, you have to forget (really: not notice) that your brain actually exists and is not an objective observer of fact, but only an opinion-generating machine. Thus, discussions of consciousness and “qualia” are hugely hampered by forgetting that the mind is not an abstraction, it’s a specific physical thing, and that the various properties being attributed to it in these discussions exist only in the brain of the beholder, rather than in the thing being discussed. (As a natural consequence of physics not having layers or levels.)
The word ‘supernatural’ is ill-defined: if something exists in the real world, then it is natural by definition.
The mind projection fallacy (or more specifically, the Less Wrong sequence on it) is >more than sufficient as an explanation for how mental and supernatural entities are >perceived;
I disagree.I don’t see the specific application at all.
I’m saying the Less Wrong sequences on reductionism and quantum physics will be useful in dissolving your confusion about qualia.
OK.I’m saying I already know quite a lot about both subjects, and I don’t see the application. You need to stop assuming that I am ignorant, and start putting forward
relevant arguments. Repetition of “you are confused” won’t cut it.
I have read arguments for and against qualia, and found them both to be based on reason.
But not Bayesian evidence, which is what’s relevant on LessWrong.com.
I don’t see the relevance of Bayes. The topic is at the level of of clarifying concepts, not of making computations on datasets.
This is a community devoted to furthering the practice of Bayesian rationalism, not > the discussion of philosophy in general,
To say that qualia don’t exist, as you have been, is philosophy in general. To say
that philsophy as a whole is wrong-headed, as you have been, is metaphilosophy. Your position is inconsistent. You say both that philosophy is wrong headed and
that a certain philosophical problem is (dis)solved in the Sequences (in a typically
philosophical way, dismissed as a verbal/conceptual confusion).
or what philosophers consider to be reasonable or not reasonable. This is a >community that considers dissolution of the confusion about “free will” to be a basic >exercise in rationality, rather than an abstruse philosophical question requiring >years of argument, or something that’s still considered an unsettled open question, >subject to disagreement.
If it is a community based on reason, it will be open to reasoned objections.
that’s why I
suggested the Sequences to you, in case you’re genuinely interested in being able
to settle philosophical arguments once and for all, instead of just having >philosophical arguments. ;-)
That seems laughably naive to me. You don;t have an algortihm for
settling phil. arguments, because they do depend on evaluations, and
other stumbling blocks you haven’t thought of. You think it is just obvious
that we should ditch the idea of qualia to retain physicalism and avoid
epiphenomenalism. But that isn’t an obvious objective fact which other
people are toostupid to understand: that is
you de-valuing qualia and subjective experience.
You didn’t need to. Any argument for epiphenomenalism
I didn’t mention epiphenomenalism either, and I don’t believe in it..or, rather, I value
theories that avoid it.
reduces in roughly the same way: if it has an effect, then the effect is phenomenal > and reducible. If it doesn’t have an effect (i.e. produces no difference in our
predicted observations), why do we care?
Ontologically fundamental mental entities of any sort require
I haven’t said qualia are fundamental. and they are not defined that way.
If you don’t think that these arguments can be settled, there is no point in continuing this discussion.
And if you don’t think that Bayes matters to updating your beliefs, then you are not a Bayesian rationalist.
The reason I asked about the sequences was to find out whether you were someone trying to learn an application of Bayesian rationalism, or someone who’s just trying to have a philosophical argument.
Apparently, you fall in the latter category, which means I have no interest in continuing the discussion.
If it is a community based on reason, it will be open to reasoned objections.
What is considered “reasoning” by philosophy doesn’t reach the level of rigor that is required here… as was amply demonstrated by statements of yours such as:
You don;t have an algortihm for settling phil. arguments, because they do depend on evaluations
They only depend on evaluations if you’re interested in having an argument, as opposed to finding the truth (with or without a capital T) of a situation. Here, we expect arguments to be supported (or at least not opposed) by physics and cognitive science, in order to be considered “reasonable”, and we expect that hypotheses not be privileged.
I don’t think they have been settled. And I think there is value in reversing the Dunning Kruger Effect: getting someone to realise how difficult something really is.
I didn’t claim to be a Bayesian or not. I am comparing Bayes to Popper and various other
things at the moment. What I did say, and stand by, is that the formal part of Bayes is only applicable to problem areas that have already been marshalled into a less ambigous and non-linear form than typical phil, problems.
You can say you have some wonderfully high level of reasoning, but I don’t have to believe you. I can judge from the examples supplied. You have not applied Bayesian reasoning as a formalism to any problem. and the material you directed me to in the sequences didn’t either. It is all typical philosophical reasoning, neither particularly good not particularly bad.
They only depend on evaluations if you’re interested in having an argument, as
opposed to finding the truth (with or without a capital T) of a situation. Here, we
expect arguments to be supported (or at least not opposed) by physics and
cognitive science, in order to be considered “reasonable”, and we expect that
hypotheses not be privilege oopposed to finding the truth (with or without a capital
T) of a situation. Here, we expect arguments to be supported (or at least not
opposed) by physics and cognitive science, in order to be considered
“reasonable”, and we expect that hypotheses not be privileged.
Ie...you value science.
But the idea that just by basing your philosophical arguments on science, you can
Avoid Arguments and Find Truth is very naive. Most English-speaking philosophy
is science based, and is full of plenty of disagreements. Why don’t you know that?
Oh yeah: the Dunning-Kruger effect means that the less someone knows about a subject, the more they over-estimate their own abilities at it...
OK. You understand qualia, Please de-confuse me on the subject.
Have you read the LessWrong Sequences yet?
I have. I don’t understand qualia either. Do you have a particular relevant link you were thinking of?
ps: “You should really read the sequences” is telling people to read 1,000,000 words or go away, and as such is functionally equivalent to an extremely rude dismissal. Please don’t do that. Link to a particular post if you actually think the pointer is helpful, i.e. make it an actually helpful pointer rather than a functionally rude one.
There is a difference between telling someone to go read the sequences, and asking if someone has read the sequences. If you ask, the other person is allowed to say “no, I haven’t”, and that is useful to know what sort of inferential distances would be appropiate in your explanation.
I think that’s splitting hairs. It is still a functionally rude response in the guise of one that isn’t, and it’s still not actually a helpful response.
Particularly when I know the sequences don’t actually explain what qualia are such that we should care about them rather than dimissing them as a circular argument for magic. This post calls them things that “cannot arise from computable processes”, which doesn’t actually answer the question. Are there any I’ve missed that do?
It seems like you think PJEby was implying with his question that anyone who has read the sequences would understand qualia. I don’t think that is what he actually meant.
I would agree that it would have been better if he had been more explicit about why he was asking.
It seems like you think PJEby was implying with his question that anyone who has read the sequences would understand qualia. I don’t think that is what he actually meant.
Yeah, it seems to me that it’s usually intended to ask something more like “Can I use terminology and concepts found in the Sequences without explaining them further or explicitly linking to them?”, though I’ll agree that we should replace “Have you read the Sequences?” with something more specific in any case. (Of course, if someone wants to claim that a particular set of posts directly answers someone’s question, it’s always best to point to the specific posts. Unless they depend on so much before them that it makes sense to link to an entire sequence, which is probably unavoidable sometimes.)
I used “yet” because the specific person I was replying to appears to be a new user who has joined specifically to discuss this topic, while being unaware of the relevant basics on the topic.
No, what I meant is that if you’ve understood the sequences, then you would be able to dissolve questions regarding qualia, in the same way that you’d be able to dissolve questions regarding “free will”, and other confusing ideas.
Pjeby, the specifics of dissolving each dissolvable question are different.The word “sound” may have two definitions, once we tell them apart the question of falling trees producing sound gets dissolved. The word “free will” has a fuzzy definition, once we define it precisely, the question gets dissolved. The word “qualia” on the other hand is about categories of subjective experience which we cannot define or communicate adequately, and we aren’t sure if they’re even communicable, because they’re too much tied in with the concept of subjective experience, anticipation, and these in turn seem tied in with other unsolved questions like existence, causality and the fundamental relationship between mathematics and physics.
So, yes, perhaps the issue of qualia will one day be dissolved, but we’ve not managed to do so yet. If you can tell us the exact way to dissolve it, please oblige us. “Read and understand the sequences” is obviously not sufficient for us, so either you’re a few levels above us on this matter (by being able to dissolve this confusion), or we’re a few levels above you (in actually noticing ours).
Either way, telling us “just understand the sequences” isn’t sufficient or helpful, for us atleast.
On the matter of qualia. A truly naive person, untutored in philosophy, would not understand claims about qualia. He would say something like, “I see an apple. The apple is red.” He would assign redness to the apple itself—and so on like that. You on the other hand, having been through the process of tutoring in which your teachers directed your attention at the qualia themselves, as distinct from physical objects which may by impinging on our senses give rise to them, would know better than the naive person. But importantly, the difference between you is not that you have very different evidence in front of you, but that you have very different conceptual tools with which to think about that evidence. The possibility arises that your concepts are deeply flawed, and have led you to grossly misidentify the evidence in front of you.
One of the methods by which we come to recognize the qualia themselves, as distinct from the objects that give rise to them through their effects on our senses, is to imagine that there is no apple (say) in front of us, but something else indistinguishable from it (to us). So two very different things can be indistinguishable to us. Nevertheless (so the reasoning can go on) plainly something has not changed: namely, our own subjective experience remains the same, despite variation in its cause. This realization directs our attention at that which remains the same despite the physical changes. Voila, we are now attending to our qualia.
But the reasoning is flawed. The fact that we cannot distinguish between two things does not mean that when one replaces the other, something remains the same. Our senses of course do insist to us that something remains the same (which we will eventually identify as the quale). By by assumption, they are not to be trusted!
This is one of the flawed paths of reasoning by which we may come to believe in the existence of qualia.
The flawed path you’re attacking is not one I followed, and so it just seems a strawman to me.
But if you’re going to argue that qualia don’t exist, then I’ll have to believe that you’re the one confused, not me—the existence of qualia, the existence of my current subjective experience is the only thing I know for certain, more certain by far than I can of the existence of the physical world. Whether I’m in the Matrix, or in a true flesh body, or if perhaps my consciousness is simulated by hordes of monks using abacci to simulate my neurons… whether reality itself is a lie… I can never place absolute certainty on those things.
But one thing I know for certain: I experience qualia, more certainly than 2+2=4.
But if you’re going to argue that qualia don’t exist, then I’ll have to believe that you’re the one confused, not me—the existence of qualia, the existence of my current subjective experience is the only thing I know for certain, more certain by far than I can of the existence of the physical world.
No, I am not saying that qualia are something well-construed which does not exist, like a tea pot orbiting Mars, or like an aquatic dinosaur living today in a lake in Scotland. I am saying that the concept of qualia critically misconstrues the evidence. In fact your own statement here nicely illustrates what I take to be the reason the concept of qualia exists and persists, which is that by its very conception it provides the philosopher with something that he is supremely confident in. To employ my example: the philosopher does not know whether he is looking at an apple, or a plastic fake, or whether he is a brain in a vat hooked up to a computer simulation of an apple. What can he do to escape his uncertainty which grows with each new possible scenario that he imagines? Why, in the end it turns out to be simple: he declares that all these possibilities which he is unable to tell apart share a common element, and that element is a common subjective experience. Thus he turns his own failure (to tell things apart) into a supposed success (the supposed discovery of a common element). Voila: qualia. The concept is in effect defined to minimize uncertainty. So for you to write:
the existence of my current subjective experience is the only thing I know for certain
strongly confirms my own view about the nature of the philosopher’s concept of subjective experience, of qualia.
I always enjoy reading your contributions to these philosophy of mind debates, even when I disagree on some fairly minor points.
What can he do to escape his uncertainty which grows with each new possible scenario that he imagines? Why, in the end it turns out to be simple: he declares that all these possibilities which he is unable to tell apart share a common element, and that element is a common subjective experience. Thus he turns his own failure (to tell things apart) into a supposed success (the supposed discovery of a common element). Voila: qualia. The concept is in effect defined to minimize uncertainty.
This is a rather Wittgensteinian diagnosis—it reminds me of Philosophical Investigations §308, for instance.
To play devil’s advocate I shall temporarily pretend to believe in qualia.
If I am unable to distinguish between visual stimuli A and B then some properties must be remaining the same each time, namely whatever it is that predisposes me to judge that present stimuli stand in such-and-such relations to other stimuli. (E.g. “this green thing, whatever it is, has a lighter, more garish shade than the leaves of that tree over there.”) Qualia are precisely those properties of my subjective experience which enable me to make these judgements. To be conscious of X at all implies the ability to synthesize X with other mental contents Y and make judgements like the comparison above. So since I am conscious, my mental contents must have qualia.
Therefore, I can no more doubt the existence of qualia than I can doubt the fact that I am conscious.
If I am unable to distinguish between visual stimuli A and B then some properties must be remaining the same each time,
Not necessarily. Here’s what could be happening in your brain and which could underlie your power of discrimination: there is some operator which takes two inputs and produces an output “same” or “different”. Since this operator could, in principle, be anything at all, then it is in principle possible for any two arbitrary inputs to be assessed as “the same” by the comparison operator. They don’t have to have anything in common.
That’s in principle. In reality, we don’t expect brains to be so badly designed. We expect that under normal conditions (though not necessarily in highly artificial laboratory setups which test the limits of perception, such as for example “change blindness” experiments) the comparison operators which operate inside the brain output “the same” only when the two inputs are from objects in the real world which are really pretty similar in some important way. And in the case of an apple versus a fake plastic apple, there is something that does remain the same: the pattern of light traveling in the space between the object and your eyes.
But this common pattern of light is surely not a quale. It’s not even in the brain. In fact, the sameness of the two patterns can be demonstrated by taking a digital photo of each scene and then having software compare the two photos. Can you take a photo of a quale?
Qualia are precisely those properties of my subjective experience which enable me to make these judgements.
We have jumped from “some properties must be remaining the same”—which I’ve acknowledged is probably typically the case in normal circumstances—to “properties of my subjective experience”. So we’ve slipped in the term “subjective experience”.
This is one of the flawed paths of reasoning by which we may come to believe in the existence of qualia.
Yep.
Fundamentally, though, all of these sort of mistakes arise from assuming that conceptual entities have some sort of existence outside of the mind of the conceiver. “Qualia” are just one example of such conceptual entities.
Some concepts refer to entities outside the mind, some to mental entities, and some don’t refer. So the observation that something is “conceptual” tells us nothing, basically.
The phrase “conceptual entities” seems empty to me. Did you mean something like “only
and purely conceptual entities”.
Some concepts refer to entities outside the mind, some to mental entities, and some don’t refer.
And all of them are physically represented in the brain. And even the ones that refer to outside reality, are an arbitrary division. In other words, physics doesn’t have layers—layers exist only in brains.
That’s why, when you make claims about qualia or consciousness as if they were something that existed outside of some particular observing brain (not the one within which they are deemed to exist), you’re making a mistake about physics, as well as philosophy, and committing the mind projection fallacy at the same time.
The word “qualia” on the other hand is about categories of subjective experience which we cannot define or communicate adequately, and we aren’t sure if they’re even communicable, because they’re too much tied in with the concept of subjective experience, anticipation, and these in turn seem tied in with other unsolved questions like existence, causality and the fundamental relationship between mathematics and physics.
In these discussions I’ve concerned myself only with improper use of the word “qualia” to support mystical arguments that attempt to place human consciousness into a special category exempt from simulation or duplication. That is, arguments that attempt to use “qualia” to justify naive human intuitions about consciousness.
The rest of what I’ve seen has been questions or arguments roughly equating “zombie worlds”… that is, ones where the presence or absence of the thing described yield no difference in predictions for the currently-observed world, and thus (AFAICT) meaningless, and therefore pointless to talk about.
There may exist non-confused, non-meaningless topics that somehow involve qualia, and even open questions for research. So far, however, I have not seen them in any recent LW discussion. (With the caveat that I have not been reading much outside the replies to my own comments, and the random bits that catch my eye on the main comments page.)
In these discussions I’ve concerned myself only with improper use of the word “qualia” support mystical arguments that attempt to place human consciousness into a special category exempt from simulation or duplication.
I don’t think anyone here has ever argued that qualia can’t be duplicated—what we argue is that perhaps they can’t be duplicated in a qualia simulator: same way that a gravity simulator can’t actually duplicate gravity. You need mass to duplicate gravity, a Turing machine doesn’t suffice.
I don’t think anyone here has ever argued that qualia can’t be duplicated—what we argue is that perhaps they can’t be duplicated in a qualia simulator
And that argument is a basic MPF error, that you should be able to see through if you really understood “how an algorithm feels from the inside”, or the rest of the mind projection fallacy sequence.
In order to claim that qualia can’t be duplicated in a qualia simulator, you are claiming that a purely mental property exists, outside physical reality.
After all, if a simulated person behaves in exactly the same way as a non-simulated one, we have no evidence regarding the state of these hypothesized qualia, one way or another.
The untrained mind takes this to mean that there must be no qualia in the machine… and only the machine, instead of realizing that this just means there’s no such thing in the first place. That we only think they exist because that’s how the algorithm feels from the inside—that is, the algorithm that our brain has for labeling things in the world as minds.
Our brains are built to suppose that things which move by themselves have minds and intentions. We can learn that things do not have minds, or that they do, but this labeling carries with it a host of specialized biases in our thinking.
And when you point this assembly of biases at something that is otherwise very simple, it’s trivial to see that the question isn’t, “can machines duplicate qualia?”, because clearly, we are machines, so the question is silly.
It only seems like a question, because our brains have prebuilt categories for “animate” and “inanimate”, and so the question feels like a big mystery to us… “how could something inanimate be made animate?”
So, the whole concept of qualia (as applied to this topic) is basically the human brain grasping at straws to preserve its inbuilt intuition that these are separate categories, instead of simply dropping them to realize that we are all made of the same stuff as machines are, and there’s absolutely no evidence for the animate-inanimate distinction being anything other than an evolutionary convenience. It’s not a “natural” category or distinction, outside the human mind.
In order to claim that qualia can’t be duplicated in a qualia simulator, you are claiming that a purely mental property exists, outside physical reality.
Um, no. The whole point of a qualia simulator is that it’s running on a physical substrate which may or may not instantiate qualia itself. This is a property of physical reality, not one of mind or algorithms.
The untrained mind takes this to mean that there must be no qualia in the machine...
Not quite. I may have no direct evidence that the machine has any subjective experience or qualia, but then again, the only subjective experience I have any evidence of is my own. Nevertheless, I can reasonably suppose that subjective experience also applies to other people, because I share a common body structure and biological ancestry with them, and as a physicalist I believe that subjective experience depends on some kind of physical substrate. But as far as behavior goes, I would regard the output of a qualia simulator (say, a whole-brain emulation) as being indistinguishable from any other mind.[1]
that’s how the algorithm feels from the inside
It’s not obvious that an algorithm should feel like anything, per se. Will the algorithm feel the same when run on an Intel Core computer, or a SPARC workstation?
[1]And yes, the simulated minds could talk about their own subjective experiences. If these subjective experiences are instantiated somehow as part of their algorithm, we could then take that as their equivalent to our qualia. But these minds would not share our physical substrate, so the status of these “qualia” would be radically different from our own.
It’s not obvious that an algorithm should feel like anything, per se.
I’m using the phrase in this sense… that is, the distinctions that are available for an algorithm to make—the states that are reachable, in some sense.
Human brains have special states to represent conscious or “intentional” animate entities, so to us it “feels” as though this category is special.
But these minds would not share our physical substrate, so the status of these “qualia” would be radically different from our own.
And what’s your extraordinary evidence for that extraordinary claim? You’re basically claiming that there is something special about human brains that makes them different. Why is that?
How did you arrive at this hypothesis, as opposed to any other?
Obvious answer: you privileged this hypothesis, out of any number of equally complex hypotheses, because it has inutitive appeal. Your brain has a special category for this, so it feels sensible.
But it isn’t sensible as a hypothesis, because if you didn’t have that special category already built into your brain, you would have no reason to single out human brains as being, not only the only substance in all the world that currently has these miraculous qualia, but to also be the only substance that ever will have them.
However, if you set your intuition aside, then there is no other reason whatsoever to single out such an extraordinary hypothesis for special consideration.
But it isn’t sensible as a hypothesis, because if you didn’t have that special category already built into your brain, you would have no reason to single out human brains as being, not only the only substance in all the world that currently has these miraculous qualia, but to also be the only substance that ever will have them.
Obviously, regarding a system as complex as the human brain as “the only substance in all the world that currently has these miraculous qualia” is an unlikely hypothesis. Nevertheless, subjective experience could be instantiated in a simpler physical system as a result of brain activity. There is plenty of precident for biological lifeforms tapping into “exotic” physics for some of their adaptive functions, and subjective experience might be no different.
And what’s your extraordinary evidence for that extraordinary claim?
It’s not an extraordinary claim. As a physicalist, if I’m going to take subjective experience seriously as anything other than what some algorithms (or minds) like to talk about, then it’s reasonable to suppose that the physical substrate matters.
As a physicalist, if I’m going to take subjective experience seriously as anything other than what some algorithms (or minds) like to talk about, then it’s reasonable to suppose that the physical substrate matters.
In a way that produces no distinguishable physical effect?
You seem to be hypothesizing the existence of an invisible dragon. Why? Explain to me how you came to select this hypothesis, out of all similarly complex possible hypotheses.
Like, for example, let’s say you grab a philosopher out of the past who insists that women don’t have men’s reasoning power because, you know, they’re not men, and that surely must be some physical reason why this is so!
Wouldn’t you want to know why he hypothesizes this? What his evidence is? Why he insists that, even if a woman were—hypothetically speaking, in his view—to make the same statements or draw the same conclusions as a man, from the same inputs as a man… then somehow, she still wouldn’t “really” be reasoning like a man, because she has female “qualia” instead of male “qualia”?
Pretty soon, you’d have to come to the conclusion that he’s arguing from the bottom line: trying to provide argumentative support for a conclusion he already had before he started, rather than simply investigating what truth there was to be found.
(Especially if he has nothing in the way of physical evidence for the existence of these “qualia” things… but appears to have just seized on them as a way to justify the already-existing intuitions.)
In order to claim that qualia can’t be duplicated in a qualia simulator, you are claiming that a purely mental property exists, outside physical reality.
I treated qualia the same way I treated gravity—does that mean I must also believe gravity to be a purely mental property outside physical reality?
And when you point this assembly of biases at something that is otherwise very simple, it’s trivial to see that the question isn’t, “can machines duplicate qualia?”, because clearly, we are machines, so the question is silly.
The question wasn’t if machines can duplicate qualia, but if Turing Machines can duplicate qualia.
Turing machines can’t duplicate gravity.
Turing machines can’t duplicate sound.
Turing machines can’t duplicate lots and lots of physical phenomena. Machines can duplicate these things, Turing machines can’t.
You have exactly the same evidence for other people having qualia, as you do for a simulation of a person having qualia: namely, that the person or simulation says they do.
The question wasn’t if machines can duplicate qualia, but if Turing Machines can duplicate qualia.
Then the question is whether reality is Turing computable, and we currently have no reason to believe it isn’t.
(Or, more precisely, we have no evidence that we would experience anything differently if our universe were itself a simulation running on a Turing machine.)
You have exactly the same evidence for other people having qualia, as you do for a simulation of a person having qualia: namely, that the person or simulation says they do.
Not exactly the same. My own internal experience is applicable with more certainty to other flesh brains that use the same physical processes as mine than it is to electronic simulations thereof.
Then the question is whether reality is Turing computable
And my whole point is that reality being Turing computable doesn’t mean that reality is Turing-producable. Same way that a black hole can be Turing computable but not Turing-producable.
Or, more precisely, we have no evidence that we would experience anything differently if our universe were itself a simulation running on a Turing machine.
We have no evidence to believe that anyone would experience anything on a Turing machine algorithm. Turing machines produces an output whose meaning is deciphered by external observers according to their own definitions. There’s no magic in the Turing Machine that creates an independent universe with its own internal meaning and internal experience—the Turing Machine returns some computations to us, to our universe, not to some different internal one.
It’s the belief the Turing Machine creates an internal universe with its own life that is a confusion.
Unless Tegmark IV—in which case we don’t even need the Turing machine, the math alone would sustain said internal universe.
My own internal experience is applicable with more certainty to other flesh brains that use the same physical processes as mine than it is to electronic simulations thereof.
Why, if it’s a complete simulation of those “same physical processes”?
You’re missing the privileged hypothesis here. The hypothesis you’re privileging is, “consciousness or qualia are physical side-effects of the brain’s operation”… a proposition for which no evidence exists, first of all.
You’re then using this hypothesis as a basis for an extended argument for the possibility that, if this hypothesis were true, then simulation of consciousness wouldn’t really be the same as regular consciousness.
But, you’re not only privileging that hypothesis (i.e., putting it forward without any evidence), you’re not even thinking through the ramifications of it being true!
Because if it’s true, then either those physical effects feed back into the operation of your brain, or they don’t.
And if they don’t, then, what do they matter? Why should we care about them, any more than we care about how much heat your brain radiates as a side-effect of its operation? (And how could this side-effect be perceived by you as “qualia” in that case?)
And conversely, if they do feed back into your brain’s operation (as they would have to in order for you to perceive them!), well, then a simulation which lacks this element will diverge in behavior from a real human, and thereby make apparent what is missing from the simulation.
In other words, you’re simply making another zombie-world argument. (That is, you’re making another “epiphenomena” argument—that some mysterious thing exists which has no effects and yet somehow matters, thereby providing a rationale for the bottom-line intuitions you started out with.)
Why, if it’s a complete simulation of those “same physical processes”?
For the same reason that a complete simulation of a plane, down to the quark level,
still won’t fly.
You’re missing the privileged hypothesis here. The hypothesis you’re privileging is, “>consciousness or qualia are physical side-effects of the brain’s operation”… a >proposition for which no evidence exists, first of all.
That’s vaguely phrased. There may be no direct evidence that qualia are
epiphenomenal side effects, but there is plenty of evidence that they covary
with brain operation.
And conversely, if they do feed back into your brain’s operation (as they would
have to in order for you to perceive them!), well, then a simulation which lacks this > element will diverge in behavior from a real human, and thereby make apparent
what is missing from the simulation.
It is perfectly possible for qualia to be causally effective in brains, and to be missing
from simulations, and for the simulation to be behaviourally identical. It For instance,
transistors are causally effective in electronic computers. But any electronic computer
can be rebuilt as a behaviourally identical optical, mechanical, hydrualic (etc) computer.
Why, if it’s a complete simulation of those “same physical processes”?
Because I understand the word “simulation” to mean an algorithm which can answer questions about the states of the thing it simulates; not something which actually performs those same processes. The simulation of an Boeing can’t actually fly actual people to actual America. Why should the simulation of a brain actually experience actual qualia?
The confusion doesn’t lie with me about this—nobody, not even you, has ANY problem understanding why the simulation of a physical phenomenon (e.g. gravity, flight, fire, weather patterns) is different to the physical phenomenon itself. And yet many people have trouble understanding why the simulation of a mental phenomenon may be different to the mental phenomenon itself.
In other words, you’re simply making another zombie-world argument.
Not so. The zombie-world argument is about an atom-for-atom identical to our world reality whose people nonetheless don’t experience qualia, even though they talk about them.
A simulation of a thing isn’t atom-for-atom identical to the thing it simulates. It might compute every single atom, so that it produces answers which an outside observer can somehow use their own cognitive processes to map its responses onto the relevant thing. But the map isn’t the territory.
Unless, again, Tegmark IV—keep in mind that my own position is NOT actually “No qualia in simulation” but rather “Tegmark IV or no qualia in a simulation”.
That some mysterious thing exists which has no effects
I certainly believe qualia have an effect, including the fact I’m talking about them right now. Same as mass, gravity, sound waves, radiation, etc… I treat them as a physical phenomenon, which can be reproduced by machines, but only simulated and not reproduced in a Turing machine.
Because I understand the word “simulation” to mean an algorithm which can answer questions about the states of the thing it simulates; not something which actually performs those same processes.
Yes, generally speaking. But certain kinds of simulation necessarily perform that which they simulate. For example, a perfect simulation of a scientific calculator necessarily is a scientific calculator, because in reporting what a scientific calculator would show as the answer, it necessarily itself shows that same answer.
The confusion doesn’t lie with me about this—nobody, not even you, has ANY problem understanding why the simulation of a physical phenomenon (e.g. gravity, flight, fire, weather patterns) is different to the physical phenomenon itself. And yet many people have trouble understanding why the simulation of a mental phenomenon may be different to the mental phenomenon itself.
Let’s re-word that last bit:
And yet many people have trouble understanding why the simulation of a scientific calculator may be different to the scientific calculator itself.
Certainly a Turing machine can be anything which is strictly defined by the return of an abstract output after the manipulation/transformation of a symbolic map it receives as input/initial state—so, a Turing machine can be a simulator, a calculator, a chess playing program, etc, etc.
The confusion doesn’t lie with me about this—nobody, not even you, has ANY problem understanding why the simulation of a physical phenomenon (e.g. gravity, flight, fire, weather patterns) is different to the physical phenomenon itself.
But first, you have to demonstrate that this “qualia” thing is physical, which you haven’t done. When you can show qualia are physical in this same way, you might have a case.
But at this point, you’re still arguing the purely-theoretical possibility of a very-privileged hypothesis.
my own position is NOT actually “No qualia in simulation” but rather “Tegmark IV or no qualia in a simulation”.
And of those alternatives, Tegmark is by far the simpler hypothesis: it doesn’t require privileging a complex carving out of categories to support it.
Meanwhile, the only thing “no qualia in simulation” offers as a selling point is that it appeals to human intuition… which should make it a suspicious alternative, indeed, where science is concerned.
(After all, the history of science seems to be a never-ending march of finding out ways the world doesn’t really work like our intuitions and biases say they do.)
Meanwhile, the only thing “no qualia in simulation” offers as a selling point is that it appeals to human intuition...
Actually, it might appeal to the intuition in the abstract as we talk about it now, but if someone were really watching a simulation of a person—and better, interacting with it—then, given a perfect simulation it would very difficult for them to believe anything but that the simulated person was real, conscious, and had genuine emotions.
Because I understand the word “simulation” to mean an algorithm which can answer questions about the states of the thing it simulates; not something which actually performs those same processes. The simulation of an Boeing can’t actually fly actual people to actual America. Why should the simulation of a brain actually experience actual qualia?
The problem with this argument is that an external observer cannot tell apart the output of a simulated mind from the output of a real actual brain, other than by looking at its substrate. Thus, the simulated mind is sort of like a zombie: it will talk about its own subjective experience, but the only real basis to that claim will be a portion of its algorithm.
I think it can still be argued that subjective experience is physically “real”, on Occam’s razor grounds: but it’s not an easy claim to make.
You have exactly the same evidence for other people having qualia, as you do for > a simulation of a person having qualia: namely, that the person or simulation says >they do.
No,. there is extra evidence that other people have qualia: you know they are made
out of stuff that can generate qualia, because it is the stuff you are made of.
Then the question is whether reality is Turing computable, and we currently have no reason to believe it isn’t.
No, that isn’t the question: it is naturalistically possible for qualia to only
exist “on the metal”. And the computability of physics is a much more complex
subject than you are assuming.
“A decisive refutation of any claim that our reality is computer-simulated would be the discovery of some uncomputable physics, because if reality is doing something that no computer can do, it cannot be a computer simulation. (Computability generally means computability by a Turing machine. Hypercomputation (super-Turing computation) introduces other possibilities which will be dealt with separately). In fact, known physics is held to be (Turing) computable,[11] but the statement “physics is computable” needs to be qualified in various ways. Before symbolic computation, a number, thinking particularly of a real number, one with an infinite number of digits, was said to be computable if a Turing machine will continue to spit out digits endlessly, never reaching a “final digit”.[12] This runs counter, however, to the idea of simulating physics in real time (or any plausible kind of time). Known physical laws (including those of quantum mechanics) are very much infused with real numbers and continua, and the universe seems to be able to decide their values on a moment-by-moment basis. As Richard Feynman put it:[13]
"It always bothers me that, according to the laws as we understand them today, it takes a computing machine an infinite number of logical operations to figure out what goes on in no matter how tiny a region of space, and no matter how tiny a region of time. How can all that be going on in that tiny space? Why should it take an infinite amount of logic to figure out what one tiny piece of space/time is going to do? So I have often made the hypotheses that ultimately physics will not require a mathematical statement, that in the end the machinery will be revealed, and the laws will turn out to be simple, like the chequer board with all its apparent complexities".
The objection could be made that the simulation does not have to run in “real time”.[14] It misses an important point, though: the shortfall is not linear; rather it is a matter of performing an infinite number of computational steps in a finite time.[15]”
that you should be able to see through if you really understood “how an algorithm feels from the inside”, or the rest of the mind projection fallacy sequence.
Upvoted for this in particular. There is one possible interpretation that is something of a status hit, but on LessWrong, this should be considered as a statement of the form “you making this statement is strong evidence you do not understand something. If you believe you do understand that something, now is the time to notice you are confused!”
In these discussions I’ve concerned myself only with improper use of the word
“qualia” to support mystical arguments that attempt to place human consciousness > into a special category exempt from simulation or duplication.
The category of things whose simulations are not duplications isn’t special or exceptional.It includes most things. Simulated planes don’t fly, simulated gravity
doesn’t attract, etc, etc. There is a smaller category of things whose simulations are
duplications. It is not an extraordinary claim to say consc. belongs in the first category.
You need to examine the intutions that make you think it belongs in the second.
In order to claim that qualia can’t be duplicated in a qualia simulator, you are claiming that a purely mental property exists, outside physical reality.
That doesn’t follow, as explained above. That simulated gravity does not atrract,
does not imply gravity is non-physical.
The untrained mind takes this to mean that there must be no qualia in the
machine… and only the machine, instead of realizing that this just means there’s no > such thing in the first place.
There clearly is such a things since I experience qualia every time I suck a lemon
or sit on a brass tack. The “untrained mind” should have stuck with “we don’t know
one way or the other”.
That we only think they exist because that’s how the algorithm feels from the inside >-- that is, the algorithm that our brain has for labeling things in the world as minds.
If the algorithm feels like anything from the inside, there are qualia, because qualia
are what something feels like. This is the error Searle is always pointing out:: you can’t say conscious experience is just an illusion, because to be able to have illusions, you must be able to have experiences in the first place...
Our brains are built to suppose that things which move by themselves have minds > and intentions.
That has almost nothing to do with qualia.
And when you point this assembly of biases at something that is otherwise very
simple, it’s trivial to see that the question isn’t, “can machines duplicate qualia?”,
because clearly, we are machines, so the question is silly.
In some senses of “machine” (eg artificial construct), we are clearly not machines.
Absent a definition of “machine”, that comment is almost meaningless.
So, the whole concept of qualia (as applied to this topic) is basically the human
brain grasping at straws to preserve its inbuilt intuition that these are separate
categories, instead of simply dropping them to realize that we are all made of the
same stuff as machines are,
You mean quarks and electrons? Good luck building an electromagnet out of soap,
then. We do have qualia,and they could depend on some vary specific physical and chemical properties, as does being a ferromagnet or a liquid crystal. That being the case, qualiaphilic arguments should not be lumped in with the supernatural,
at least not without consideration of the specific argument.
Haven’t read it, evidently it might be an idea ( /me adds it to the extensive queue). The description looks like large chunks of the sequences already written up as a book.
I mean, I can come up with my own idea of what “qualia” means (starting from “a word that means whatever wins my argument that consciousness is irreducible”, mentioning the narrative fallacy and getting more acerb from there), but have trouble coming up with what it could mean as part of such an argument without being really obviously silly …
edit: Found and glanced at section 2.5 in a PDF. Yeah, “a word that means whatever wins my argument that consciousness is irreducible” looks like the actual substance of the term “qualia” as an argument for irreducible consciousness, i.e. none to speak of. “I feel something! That counts as actual magic, doesn’t it?” “Er, no.” (The term “qualia” may have uses in a reductionist’s conception of consciousness—I might have use for it in thinking about aesthetics—but those uses aren’t these ones.)
Neither do I. However, having understood (a certain subset of) the sequences, I am capable of dissolving nonsensical questions about qualia… which is what most discussion of qualia consists of. (I.e., nonsense questions and confusion.)
The uses of words, the mind projection fallacy, reductionism, and part of QM are probably the sequences with the most important tools for dissolving that sort of confusion.
My conclusion in the Mary’s room thought experiment doesn’t challenge either of these versions: something new happens when she steps outside, and there’s a perfectly good purely physical explanation of what and why. It is nothing more than an artifact of how human brains are built that Mary is unable to make the same physical thing happen, with the same result, without the assistance of either red light or appropriate surgical tools. A slightly more evolved Mary with a few extra neurons leading into her hippocampus would have no such difficulty.
Incidentally, while agreeing with your main point, I feel I ought to challenge the implications of “more evolved.” This has nothing to do with Mary’s position on some scale of evolution; she could be “less evolved” and have those neurons, or “more evolved” and lack them.
Mary still doesn’t have to make anything special happen to her brain have knowledge of anything else. She can still understand photosynthesis without photosynthesising.
She can understand the sequence of chemical reactions that comprises the Calvin cycle just as she can understand what neural impulses occur when red light strikes retinal rods, but she can’t form the memory of either one occurring within her body.
Which, yet again, only matters if there is something special about qualia that requires memory or instantiation in the body to be understood. She can understand the Calvin Cycle full stop.
It isn’t intended to answer your question about neuroscience.It is intended to pose the philosopher’s question about the limitations of physicalism. If physicalism is limited, that eventually folds back to your question, since one way of explaining the limitation of physicalism is that there are non-physical things going on.
When she steps outside, something physical happens in her brain that has never happened before. Maybe something “non-physical” (huh?) also happens, maybe it doesn’t. We have gained no insight.
If we agree that she learns something on stepping outside we have learnt that a version of physicalism is false.
Can you state what that version is? Whatever it is, it’s nothing I subscribe to, and I call myself a physicalist.
There are broadly speaking two versions of physicalism: ontological physicalism, according to which everything that exists is material, spatio-temporal, etc; and epistemological physicalism, according to which everything can be explained in physical terms. Physicalism can be challenged by the inexplicability of qualia in two ways. Firstly, qualia might be physically inexplicable because they are not physical things, which contradicts ontological physicalim. Secondly, the phsyical inexplicability of qualia might be down to their having a first-person epistemology, which contradicts epistemological physicalism. Epistemological physicalism requires that eveything be explicable in physical terms, which implies that everything is explicable in objective, descriptive, public, third-person terms. If there are some things which can only be known by acquantance, subjectively, in first person terms, then it is not the case that everything can be explained in physicalese. However, ontological physicalism could still hold.
Or, you could notice that the apparent inexplicability of qualia is a sign that you are confused. ;-)
OK. You understand qualia, Please de-confuse me on the subject.
Have you read the LessWrong Sequences yet?
Some of them. I have read Block, Chalmers, Dennet, Flanagan, Jackson, Levin, Nagel, Searle, etc, etc as well. Which sequence did you have in mind?
For this discussion, the one of principal relevance is the one on the use of words, especially the mind projection fallacy (including the non-existence of mental or supernatural entities). Reductionism would be useful as well, and quantum physics.
The quantum physics part is particularly helpful for disabusing one’s self of many naive intuitions about object identity, that otherwise lead to belief in things like souls, or consciousness as something separate from bodies, or the idea that an exact duplicate of you wouldn’t actually be you. If you don’t get at least that much about the basics of physics, then it’s way too easy to believe in fairy tales when they have words like “consciousness” and “qualia” attached.
In other words, human beings are born with various intuitions (hardwired into the brain, as has been shown by experiments on babies who can’t even talk yet) that, without sufficient education, we use as the basis for reasoning about minds and reality. Huge amounts of philosophy and “common sense” reasoning are then based on these false premises.
Of course, this makes most philosophical discussions equivalent to nothing but hot air: reasoning based on false premises. Attempting to refute the conclusions without first refuting the premises is pointless, which is why I keep pointing to the Sequences. They contain the necessary information to refute the premises that support the vast majority of philosophical and supernatural nonsense. (Such as some of Chalmers’s and Searle’s, for example.)
Of course, if you don’t agree that physics, cognitive science, and Bayesian updates based on them are the basis for reaching an objective conclusion, then this discussion is entirely moot. That’s why I asked whether you’ve read the sequences—and implicitly, accept their premises about the nature of reasoning, as well as the specific facts of physics and cognitive science—so I can determine whether there’s anything worth talking about.
Why did you link to Zombies: The Movie, which is really fun for people who already understand that the concept of irreducible qualia is nonsense, rather than Zombies! Zombies?, which explains why it is nonsense?
Because “Zombies: The Movie” demonstrates why it is nonsense, and is thus harder to tune out and argue with.
Also, I personally found it much more convincing on the first read than the complex arguments of the other article. ;-)
Zombies?! I never said a word about zombies...
It would have been helpful to say how it is relevant.
That mental entities don’t exist at all is a very bold claim: much bolder than the claim about the supernatural that you bracket it with, and one that many physicalists would disagree with. Moreover, neither claim follows from the very general consideration (which in itself I do not contend) that there is a “mind projection fallacy”.
What do you mean by “reductionism would be useful”? If there were a generally accepted reduction of qualia, there would be no problem of qualia. There isn’t such a reduction. So are you talking about promissory reduction (we have to believe it will arrive one day)....or what?
I have studied quantum physics, and I don’t think my ideas about qualia are based on naive ideas about identity. I think they are based on what I have said they are based on. If you have a criticism that is relevant to something I have said, I will be glad to hear it. I would rather you did not guess at my motivations.
Calling something a “fairy tale” is not an argument. I am still waiting for an argument relevant to something I said.
That argument is a non sequitur. The fact that an intuition is hardwired does not make it false.
That’s another non-sequitur based on the on the previous one: you haven’t shown that philosophical arguments are mostly based on intuitions. Moreover, you are in danger of throwing out the arguments of your fellow qualiaphobes, such as Dennett.
They contain a bunch of stuff about logic and language that most philosophers (in the anglosphere at least) are vey familiar with. I have read arguments for and against qualia, and found them both to be based on reason. I think it is possible for reasonable people to disagree deeply.
And the equation between philosophy and the supernatural remains uninformed, to say the least.
OK. Someone doesn’t like Chalmers’s Zombie argument. Guess what? I don’t like it either. I know it is possible to have qualiaphilia without p-zombies because my own qualiaphilc arguments work that way. I never mentioned zombies in the first place...
The mind projection fallacy (or more specifically, the Less Wrong sequence on it) is more than sufficient as an explanation for how mental and supernatural entities are perceived; what “many physicalists” may or may not believe is not really relevant here.
I’m saying the Less Wrong sequences on reductionism and quantum physics will be useful in dissolving your confusion about qualia.
But not Bayesian evidence, which is what’s relevant on LessWrong.com. This is a community devoted to furthering the practice of Bayesian rationalism, not the discussion of philosophy in general, or what philosophers consider to be reasonable or not reasonable. This is a community that considers dissolution of the confusion about “free will” to be a basic exercise in rationality, rather than an abstruse philosophical question requiring years of argument, or something that’s still considered an unsettled open question, subject to disagreement.
...and on LessWrong, we agree that’s true… IF and only if one or more of these conditions apply:
The reasonable people have different information,
The reasonable people are using different methods of evaluating the same information (due to e..g different values/desires), or
One or both of the “reasonable” people aren’t really reasonable at all
If you believe that there is some other way for reasonable people to disagree, then it’s a good indication that we’re not on the same page enough to bother talking about this at all.
If you think that’s just an opinion, you don’t get Bayesianism yet; that’s why I suggested the Sequences to you, in case you’re genuinely interested in being able to settle philosophical arguments once and for all, instead of just having philosophical arguments. ;-)
You didn’t need to. Any argument for epiphenomenalism reduces in roughly the same way: if it has an effect, then the effect is phenomenal and reducible. If it doesn’t have an effect (i.e. produces no difference in our predicted observations), why do we care?
Ontologically fundamental mental entities of any sort require one to think of the mind as a supernatural entity, rather than a physical one. But it’s very hard to notice that you’re doing this, because it’s implicit in how we think about thinking by default.
What’s a “supernatural entity”? The word ‘supernatural’ is ill-defined: if something exists in the real world, then it is natural by definition.
For the record, I don’t think minds are ontologically fundamental per se, because minds are far too complex and they’re explained already by physical brains. But it may be that some precursor of subjective experience is fundamental.
Yeah, just like the word ‘metaphysics’ is ill-defined. If something exists in the real world, then it is physical by definition.
Or to be even more snarky but at least more explanatory: I doubt that ‘exists’, ‘physical’, ‘meta-’, ‘super-’ or ‘natural’ are sufficiently well-defined in these contexts for your accusation of ill-definition to hold any weight. If I try to interpret what you’re saying in roughly the same manner in which it seems to me that you’re interpreting what most folk mean by ‘supernatural’, except instead of being uncharitable in the direction of being snobbishly literal I reverse it and be uncharitable in the direction of not paying attention to your explicit message, it looks something like this: “People who use the word ‘supernatural’ tend to be wrong in obvious ways and I like to point this out in a mildly intellectual fashion so that I can feel superior to them; also since I just denounced the enemy tribe you should like me more”. But that would be no more accurate a characterization of what you meant, than your characterization of what is typically meant by ‘supernatural’, and nobody on either side would learn anything from such analysis.
(This comment is not really a reply to User:bogus so much as an expression of annoyance at certain traditional rationalist memes. Sorry you got caught in the crossfire, User:bogus.)
The naive impression of “mind” in general philosophical discussion is a good example of a supernatural entity—the concept of mind separated from a specific human brain, some almost spirit-like entity.
In order to commit the mind-projection fallacy, you have to forget (really: not notice) that your brain actually exists and is not an objective observer of fact, but only an opinion-generating machine. Thus, discussions of consciousness and “qualia” are hugely hampered by forgetting that the mind is not an abstraction, it’s a specific physical thing, and that the various properties being attributed to it in these discussions exist only in the brain of the beholder, rather than in the thing being discussed. (As a natural consequence of physics not having layers or levels.)
Exactly.
Well, I don’t have a naive conception of the mind, and I do remember my brain exists, so I am not committing the MPF. Hurrrah!
I disagree.I don’t see the specific application at all.
OK.I’m saying I already know quite a lot about both subjects, and I don’t see the application. You need to stop assuming that I am ignorant, and start putting forward relevant arguments. Repetition of “you are confused” won’t cut it.
I don’t see the relevance of Bayes. The topic is at the level of of clarifying concepts, not of making computations on datasets.
To say that qualia don’t exist, as you have been, is philosophy in general. To say that philsophy as a whole is wrong-headed, as you have been, is metaphilosophy. Your position is inconsistent. You say both that philosophy is wrong headed and that a certain philosophical problem is (dis)solved in the Sequences (in a typically philosophical way, dismissed as a verbal/conceptual confusion).
If it is a community based on reason, it will be open to reasoned objections.
That seems laughably naive to me. You don;t have an algortihm for settling phil. arguments, because they do depend on evaluations, and other stumbling blocks you haven’t thought of. You think it is just obvious that we should ditch the idea of qualia to retain physicalism and avoid epiphenomenalism. But that isn’t an obvious objective fact which other people are toostupid to understand: that is you de-valuing qualia and subjective experience.
I didn’t mention epiphenomenalism either, and I don’t believe in it..or, rather, I value theories that avoid it.
I haven’t said qualia are fundamental. and they are not defined that way.
If you don’t think that these arguments can be settled, there is no point in continuing this discussion.
And if you don’t think that Bayes matters to updating your beliefs, then you are not a Bayesian rationalist.
The reason I asked about the sequences was to find out whether you were someone trying to learn an application of Bayesian rationalism, or someone who’s just trying to have a philosophical argument.
Apparently, you fall in the latter category, which means I have no interest in continuing the discussion.
What is considered “reasoning” by philosophy doesn’t reach the level of rigor that is required here… as was amply demonstrated by statements of yours such as:
They only depend on evaluations if you’re interested in having an argument, as opposed to finding the truth (with or without a capital T) of a situation. Here, we expect arguments to be supported (or at least not opposed) by physics and cognitive science, in order to be considered “reasonable”, and we expect that hypotheses not be privileged.
I don’t think they have been settled. And I think there is value in reversing the Dunning Kruger Effect: getting someone to realise how difficult something really is.
I didn’t claim to be a Bayesian or not. I am comparing Bayes to Popper and various other things at the moment. What I did say, and stand by, is that the formal part of Bayes is only applicable to problem areas that have already been marshalled into a less ambigous and non-linear form than typical phil, problems.
You can say you have some wonderfully high level of reasoning, but I don’t have to believe you. I can judge from the examples supplied. You have not applied Bayesian reasoning as a formalism to any problem. and the material you directed me to in the sequences didn’t either. It is all typical philosophical reasoning, neither particularly good not particularly bad.
Ie...you value science.
But the idea that just by basing your philosophical arguments on science, you can Avoid Arguments and Find Truth is very naive. Most English-speaking philosophy is science based, and is full of plenty of disagreements. Why don’t you know that? Oh yeah: the Dunning-Kruger effect means that the less someone knows about a subject, the more they over-estimate their own abilities at it...
I have. I don’t understand qualia either. Do you have a particular relevant link you were thinking of?
ps: “You should really read the sequences” is telling people to read 1,000,000 words or go away, and as such is functionally equivalent to an extremely rude dismissal. Please don’t do that. Link to a particular post if you actually think the pointer is helpful, i.e. make it an actually helpful pointer rather than a functionally rude one.
There is a difference between telling someone to go read the sequences, and asking if someone has read the sequences. If you ask, the other person is allowed to say “no, I haven’t”, and that is useful to know what sort of inferential distances would be appropiate in your explanation.
I think that’s splitting hairs. It is still a functionally rude response in the guise of one that isn’t, and it’s still not actually a helpful response.
Particularly when I know the sequences don’t actually explain what qualia are such that we should care about them rather than dimissing them as a circular argument for magic. This post calls them things that “cannot arise from computable processes”, which doesn’t actually answer the question. Are there any I’ve missed that do?
It seems like you think PJEby was implying with his question that anyone who has read the sequences would understand qualia. I don’t think that is what he actually meant.
I would agree that it would have been better if he had been more explicit about why he was asking.
Yeah, it seems to me that it’s usually intended to ask something more like “Can I use terminology and concepts found in the Sequences without explaining them further or explicitly linking to them?”, though I’ll agree that we should replace “Have you read the Sequences?” with something more specific in any case. (Of course, if someone wants to claim that a particular set of posts directly answers someone’s question, it’s always best to point to the specific posts. Unless they depend on so much before them that it makes sense to link to an entire sequence, which is probably unavoidable sometimes.)
http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Jargon needs expansion (and isn’t formatted much like a jargon file for newbies).
Pjeby’s use of the word ‘yet’ leads me to agree with David on this one.
I used “yet” because the specific person I was replying to appears to be a new user who has joined specifically to discuss this topic, while being unaware of the relevant basics on the topic.
Based on my own recent past discussions with pjeby, I think that’s what he meant.
No, what I meant is that if you’ve understood the sequences, then you would be able to dissolve questions regarding qualia, in the same way that you’d be able to dissolve questions regarding “free will”, and other confusing ideas.
Pjeby, the specifics of dissolving each dissolvable question are different.The word “sound” may have two definitions, once we tell them apart the question of falling trees producing sound gets dissolved. The word “free will” has a fuzzy definition, once we define it precisely, the question gets dissolved. The word “qualia” on the other hand is about categories of subjective experience which we cannot define or communicate adequately, and we aren’t sure if they’re even communicable, because they’re too much tied in with the concept of subjective experience, anticipation, and these in turn seem tied in with other unsolved questions like existence, causality and the fundamental relationship between mathematics and physics.
So, yes, perhaps the issue of qualia will one day be dissolved, but we’ve not managed to do so yet. If you can tell us the exact way to dissolve it, please oblige us. “Read and understand the sequences” is obviously not sufficient for us, so either you’re a few levels above us on this matter (by being able to dissolve this confusion), or we’re a few levels above you (in actually noticing ours).
Either way, telling us “just understand the sequences” isn’t sufficient or helpful, for us atleast.
On the matter of qualia. A truly naive person, untutored in philosophy, would not understand claims about qualia. He would say something like, “I see an apple. The apple is red.” He would assign redness to the apple itself—and so on like that. You on the other hand, having been through the process of tutoring in which your teachers directed your attention at the qualia themselves, as distinct from physical objects which may by impinging on our senses give rise to them, would know better than the naive person. But importantly, the difference between you is not that you have very different evidence in front of you, but that you have very different conceptual tools with which to think about that evidence. The possibility arises that your concepts are deeply flawed, and have led you to grossly misidentify the evidence in front of you.
One of the methods by which we come to recognize the qualia themselves, as distinct from the objects that give rise to them through their effects on our senses, is to imagine that there is no apple (say) in front of us, but something else indistinguishable from it (to us). So two very different things can be indistinguishable to us. Nevertheless (so the reasoning can go on) plainly something has not changed: namely, our own subjective experience remains the same, despite variation in its cause. This realization directs our attention at that which remains the same despite the physical changes. Voila, we are now attending to our qualia.
But the reasoning is flawed. The fact that we cannot distinguish between two things does not mean that when one replaces the other, something remains the same. Our senses of course do insist to us that something remains the same (which we will eventually identify as the quale). By by assumption, they are not to be trusted!
This is one of the flawed paths of reasoning by which we may come to believe in the existence of qualia.
The flawed path you’re attacking is not one I followed, and so it just seems a strawman to me.
But if you’re going to argue that qualia don’t exist, then I’ll have to believe that you’re the one confused, not me—the existence of qualia, the existence of my current subjective experience is the only thing I know for certain, more certain by far than I can of the existence of the physical world. Whether I’m in the Matrix, or in a true flesh body, or if perhaps my consciousness is simulated by hordes of monks using abacci to simulate my neurons… whether reality itself is a lie… I can never place absolute certainty on those things.
But one thing I know for certain: I experience qualia, more certainly than 2+2=4.
No, I am not saying that qualia are something well-construed which does not exist, like a tea pot orbiting Mars, or like an aquatic dinosaur living today in a lake in Scotland. I am saying that the concept of qualia critically misconstrues the evidence. In fact your own statement here nicely illustrates what I take to be the reason the concept of qualia exists and persists, which is that by its very conception it provides the philosopher with something that he is supremely confident in. To employ my example: the philosopher does not know whether he is looking at an apple, or a plastic fake, or whether he is a brain in a vat hooked up to a computer simulation of an apple. What can he do to escape his uncertainty which grows with each new possible scenario that he imagines? Why, in the end it turns out to be simple: he declares that all these possibilities which he is unable to tell apart share a common element, and that element is a common subjective experience. Thus he turns his own failure (to tell things apart) into a supposed success (the supposed discovery of a common element). Voila: qualia. The concept is in effect defined to minimize uncertainty. So for you to write:
strongly confirms my own view about the nature of the philosopher’s concept of subjective experience, of qualia.
I always enjoy reading your contributions to these philosophy of mind debates, even when I disagree on some fairly minor points.
This is a rather Wittgensteinian diagnosis—it reminds me of Philosophical Investigations §308, for instance.
To play devil’s advocate I shall temporarily pretend to believe in qualia.
If I am unable to distinguish between visual stimuli A and B then some properties must be remaining the same each time, namely whatever it is that predisposes me to judge that present stimuli stand in such-and-such relations to other stimuli. (E.g. “this green thing, whatever it is, has a lighter, more garish shade than the leaves of that tree over there.”) Qualia are precisely those properties of my subjective experience which enable me to make these judgements. To be conscious of X at all implies the ability to synthesize X with other mental contents Y and make judgements like the comparison above. So since I am conscious, my mental contents must have qualia.
Therefore, I can no more doubt the existence of qualia than I can doubt the fact that I am conscious.
Not necessarily. Here’s what could be happening in your brain and which could underlie your power of discrimination: there is some operator which takes two inputs and produces an output “same” or “different”. Since this operator could, in principle, be anything at all, then it is in principle possible for any two arbitrary inputs to be assessed as “the same” by the comparison operator. They don’t have to have anything in common.
That’s in principle. In reality, we don’t expect brains to be so badly designed. We expect that under normal conditions (though not necessarily in highly artificial laboratory setups which test the limits of perception, such as for example “change blindness” experiments) the comparison operators which operate inside the brain output “the same” only when the two inputs are from objects in the real world which are really pretty similar in some important way. And in the case of an apple versus a fake plastic apple, there is something that does remain the same: the pattern of light traveling in the space between the object and your eyes.
But this common pattern of light is surely not a quale. It’s not even in the brain. In fact, the sameness of the two patterns can be demonstrated by taking a digital photo of each scene and then having software compare the two photos. Can you take a photo of a quale?
We have jumped from “some properties must be remaining the same”—which I’ve acknowledged is probably typically the case in normal circumstances—to “properties of my subjective experience”. So we’ve slipped in the term “subjective experience”.
Fine. I have evidence for qualia, but it is not certain. Does that change anything?
Yep.
Fundamentally, though, all of these sort of mistakes arise from assuming that conceptual entities have some sort of existence outside of the mind of the conceiver. “Qualia” are just one example of such conceptual entities.
Some concepts refer to entities outside the mind, some to mental entities, and some don’t refer. So the observation that something is “conceptual” tells us nothing, basically. The phrase “conceptual entities” seems empty to me. Did you mean something like “only and purely conceptual entities”.
And all of them are physically represented in the brain. And even the ones that refer to outside reality, are an arbitrary division. In other words, physics doesn’t have layers—layers exist only in brains.
That’s why, when you make claims about qualia or consciousness as if they were something that existed outside of some particular observing brain (not the one within which they are deemed to exist), you’re making a mistake about physics, as well as philosophy, and committing the mind projection fallacy at the same time.
I don’t understand that. Please give an example.
How true. Oh, and there’s no guarantee that any particular question is disolvable ahead of disolving it....
In these discussions I’ve concerned myself only with improper use of the word “qualia” to support mystical arguments that attempt to place human consciousness into a special category exempt from simulation or duplication. That is, arguments that attempt to use “qualia” to justify naive human intuitions about consciousness.
The rest of what I’ve seen has been questions or arguments roughly equating “zombie worlds”… that is, ones where the presence or absence of the thing described yield no difference in predictions for the currently-observed world, and thus (AFAICT) meaningless, and therefore pointless to talk about.
There may exist non-confused, non-meaningless topics that somehow involve qualia, and even open questions for research. So far, however, I have not seen them in any recent LW discussion. (With the caveat that I have not been reading much outside the replies to my own comments, and the random bits that catch my eye on the main comments page.)
I don’t think anyone here has ever argued that qualia can’t be duplicated—what we argue is that perhaps they can’t be duplicated in a qualia simulator: same way that a gravity simulator can’t actually duplicate gravity. You need mass to duplicate gravity, a Turing machine doesn’t suffice.
And that argument is a basic MPF error, that you should be able to see through if you really understood “how an algorithm feels from the inside”, or the rest of the mind projection fallacy sequence.
In order to claim that qualia can’t be duplicated in a qualia simulator, you are claiming that a purely mental property exists, outside physical reality.
After all, if a simulated person behaves in exactly the same way as a non-simulated one, we have no evidence regarding the state of these hypothesized qualia, one way or another.
The untrained mind takes this to mean that there must be no qualia in the machine… and only the machine, instead of realizing that this just means there’s no such thing in the first place. That we only think they exist because that’s how the algorithm feels from the inside—that is, the algorithm that our brain has for labeling things in the world as minds.
Our brains are built to suppose that things which move by themselves have minds and intentions. We can learn that things do not have minds, or that they do, but this labeling carries with it a host of specialized biases in our thinking.
And when you point this assembly of biases at something that is otherwise very simple, it’s trivial to see that the question isn’t, “can machines duplicate qualia?”, because clearly, we are machines, so the question is silly.
It only seems like a question, because our brains have prebuilt categories for “animate” and “inanimate”, and so the question feels like a big mystery to us… “how could something inanimate be made animate?”
So, the whole concept of qualia (as applied to this topic) is basically the human brain grasping at straws to preserve its inbuilt intuition that these are separate categories, instead of simply dropping them to realize that we are all made of the same stuff as machines are, and there’s absolutely no evidence for the animate-inanimate distinction being anything other than an evolutionary convenience. It’s not a “natural” category or distinction, outside the human mind.
Um, no. The whole point of a qualia simulator is that it’s running on a physical substrate which may or may not instantiate qualia itself. This is a property of physical reality, not one of mind or algorithms.
Not quite. I may have no direct evidence that the machine has any subjective experience or qualia, but then again, the only subjective experience I have any evidence of is my own. Nevertheless, I can reasonably suppose that subjective experience also applies to other people, because I share a common body structure and biological ancestry with them, and as a physicalist I believe that subjective experience depends on some kind of physical substrate. But as far as behavior goes, I would regard the output of a qualia simulator (say, a whole-brain emulation) as being indistinguishable from any other mind.[1]
It’s not obvious that an algorithm should feel like anything, per se. Will the algorithm feel the same when run on an Intel Core computer, or a SPARC workstation?
[1]And yes, the simulated minds could talk about their own subjective experiences. If these subjective experiences are instantiated somehow as part of their algorithm, we could then take that as their equivalent to our qualia. But these minds would not share our physical substrate, so the status of these “qualia” would be radically different from our own.
I’m using the phrase in this sense… that is, the distinctions that are available for an algorithm to make—the states that are reachable, in some sense.
Human brains have special states to represent conscious or “intentional” animate entities, so to us it “feels” as though this category is special.
And what’s your extraordinary evidence for that extraordinary claim? You’re basically claiming that there is something special about human brains that makes them different. Why is that?
How did you arrive at this hypothesis, as opposed to any other?
Obvious answer: you privileged this hypothesis, out of any number of equally complex hypotheses, because it has inutitive appeal. Your brain has a special category for this, so it feels sensible.
But it isn’t sensible as a hypothesis, because if you didn’t have that special category already built into your brain, you would have no reason to single out human brains as being, not only the only substance in all the world that currently has these miraculous qualia, but to also be the only substance that ever will have them.
However, if you set your intuition aside, then there is no other reason whatsoever to single out such an extraordinary hypothesis for special consideration.
Obviously, regarding a system as complex as the human brain as “the only substance in all the world that currently has these miraculous qualia” is an unlikely hypothesis. Nevertheless, subjective experience could be instantiated in a simpler physical system as a result of brain activity. There is plenty of precident for biological lifeforms tapping into “exotic” physics for some of their adaptive functions, and subjective experience might be no different.
It’s not an extraordinary claim. As a physicalist, if I’m going to take subjective experience seriously as anything other than what some algorithms (or minds) like to talk about, then it’s reasonable to suppose that the physical substrate matters.
In a way that produces no distinguishable physical effect?
You seem to be hypothesizing the existence of an invisible dragon. Why? Explain to me how you came to select this hypothesis, out of all similarly complex possible hypotheses.
Like, for example, let’s say you grab a philosopher out of the past who insists that women don’t have men’s reasoning power because, you know, they’re not men, and that surely must be some physical reason why this is so!
Wouldn’t you want to know why he hypothesizes this? What his evidence is? Why he insists that, even if a woman were—hypothetically speaking, in his view—to make the same statements or draw the same conclusions as a man, from the same inputs as a man… then somehow, she still wouldn’t “really” be reasoning like a man, because she has female “qualia” instead of male “qualia”?
Pretty soon, you’d have to come to the conclusion that he’s arguing from the bottom line: trying to provide argumentative support for a conclusion he already had before he started, rather than simply investigating what truth there was to be found.
(Especially if he has nothing in the way of physical evidence for the existence of these “qualia” things… but appears to have just seized on them as a way to justify the already-existing intuitions.)
Whatever. How about the arguments of qualiaphiles who don’t think simulations will necessarily lack qualia?
I treated qualia the same way I treated gravity—does that mean I must also believe gravity to be a purely mental property outside physical reality?
The question wasn’t if machines can duplicate qualia, but if Turing Machines can duplicate qualia.
Turing machines can’t duplicate gravity. Turing machines can’t duplicate sound. Turing machines can’t duplicate lots and lots of physical phenomena. Machines can duplicate these things, Turing machines can’t.
Actually, you didn’t.
You have exactly the same evidence for other people having qualia, as you do for a simulation of a person having qualia: namely, that the person or simulation says they do.
Then the question is whether reality is Turing computable, and we currently have no reason to believe it isn’t.
(Or, more precisely, we have no evidence that we would experience anything differently if our universe were itself a simulation running on a Turing machine.)
Not exactly the same. My own internal experience is applicable with more certainty to other flesh brains that use the same physical processes as mine than it is to electronic simulations thereof.
And my whole point is that reality being Turing computable doesn’t mean that reality is Turing-producable. Same way that a black hole can be Turing computable but not Turing-producable.
We have no evidence to believe that anyone would experience anything on a Turing machine algorithm. Turing machines produces an output whose meaning is deciphered by external observers according to their own definitions. There’s no magic in the Turing Machine that creates an independent universe with its own internal meaning and internal experience—the Turing Machine returns some computations to us, to our universe, not to some different internal one.
It’s the belief the Turing Machine creates an internal universe with its own life that is a confusion.
Unless Tegmark IV—in which case we don’t even need the Turing machine, the math alone would sustain said internal universe.
Why, if it’s a complete simulation of those “same physical processes”?
You’re missing the privileged hypothesis here. The hypothesis you’re privileging is, “consciousness or qualia are physical side-effects of the brain’s operation”… a proposition for which no evidence exists, first of all.
You’re then using this hypothesis as a basis for an extended argument for the possibility that, if this hypothesis were true, then simulation of consciousness wouldn’t really be the same as regular consciousness.
But, you’re not only privileging that hypothesis (i.e., putting it forward without any evidence), you’re not even thinking through the ramifications of it being true!
Because if it’s true, then either those physical effects feed back into the operation of your brain, or they don’t.
And if they don’t, then, what do they matter? Why should we care about them, any more than we care about how much heat your brain radiates as a side-effect of its operation? (And how could this side-effect be perceived by you as “qualia” in that case?)
And conversely, if they do feed back into your brain’s operation (as they would have to in order for you to perceive them!), well, then a simulation which lacks this element will diverge in behavior from a real human, and thereby make apparent what is missing from the simulation.
In other words, you’re simply making another zombie-world argument. (That is, you’re making another “epiphenomena” argument—that some mysterious thing exists which has no effects and yet somehow matters, thereby providing a rationale for the bottom-line intuitions you started out with.)
For the same reason that a complete simulation of a plane, down to the quark level, still won’t fly.
That’s vaguely phrased. There may be no direct evidence that qualia are epiphenomenal side effects, but there is plenty of evidence that they covary with brain operation.
It is perfectly possible for qualia to be causally effective in brains, and to be missing from simulations, and for the simulation to be behaviourally identical. It For instance, transistors are causally effective in electronic computers. But any electronic computer can be rebuilt as a behaviourally identical optical, mechanical, hydrualic (etc) computer.
Because I understand the word “simulation” to mean an algorithm which can answer questions about the states of the thing it simulates; not something which actually performs those same processes. The simulation of an Boeing can’t actually fly actual people to actual America. Why should the simulation of a brain actually experience actual qualia?
The confusion doesn’t lie with me about this—nobody, not even you, has ANY problem understanding why the simulation of a physical phenomenon (e.g. gravity, flight, fire, weather patterns) is different to the physical phenomenon itself. And yet many people have trouble understanding why the simulation of a mental phenomenon may be different to the mental phenomenon itself.
Not so. The zombie-world argument is about an atom-for-atom identical to our world reality whose people nonetheless don’t experience qualia, even though they talk about them.
A simulation of a thing isn’t atom-for-atom identical to the thing it simulates. It might compute every single atom, so that it produces answers which an outside observer can somehow use their own cognitive processes to map its responses onto the relevant thing. But the map isn’t the territory.
Unless, again, Tegmark IV—keep in mind that my own position is NOT actually “No qualia in simulation” but rather “Tegmark IV or no qualia in a simulation”.
I certainly believe qualia have an effect, including the fact I’m talking about them right now. Same as mass, gravity, sound waves, radiation, etc… I treat them as a physical phenomenon, which can be reproduced by machines, but only simulated and not reproduced in a Turing machine.
Yes, generally speaking. But certain kinds of simulation necessarily perform that which they simulate. For example, a perfect simulation of a scientific calculator necessarily is a scientific calculator, because in reporting what a scientific calculator would show as the answer, it necessarily itself shows that same answer.
Let’s re-word that last bit:
See above.
Certainly a Turing machine can be anything which is strictly defined by the return of an abstract output after the manipulation/transformation of a symbolic map it receives as input/initial state—so, a Turing machine can be a simulator, a calculator, a chess playing program, etc, etc.
Are mental phenomena are like calculations, or like physical event and processes? That is the question. You don’t seem to have answered it.
But first, you have to demonstrate that this “qualia” thing is physical, which you haven’t done. When you can show qualia are physical in this same way, you might have a case.
But at this point, you’re still arguing the purely-theoretical possibility of a very-privileged hypothesis.
And of those alternatives, Tegmark is by far the simpler hypothesis: it doesn’t require privileging a complex carving out of categories to support it.
Meanwhile, the only thing “no qualia in simulation” offers as a selling point is that it appeals to human intuition… which should make it a suspicious alternative, indeed, where science is concerned.
(After all, the history of science seems to be a never-ending march of finding out ways the world doesn’t really work like our intuitions and biases say they do.)
Actually, it might appeal to the intuition in the abstract as we talk about it now, but if someone were really watching a simulation of a person—and better, interacting with it—then, given a perfect simulation it would very difficult for them to believe anything but that the simulated person was real, conscious, and had genuine emotions.
“no qualia in simulations” requires qualia to be physical. “Tegmark IV” requires mathematical constructs to be physical.
I’m not at all sure which is the simplest hypothesis. Tegmark IV does have the benefit of explaining a larger chunk of reality though.
The problem with this argument is that an external observer cannot tell apart the output of a simulated mind from the output of a real actual brain, other than by looking at its substrate. Thus, the simulated mind is sort of like a zombie: it will talk about its own subjective experience, but the only real basis to that claim will be a portion of its algorithm.
I think it can still be argued that subjective experience is physically “real”, on Occam’s razor grounds: but it’s not an easy claim to make.
No,. there is extra evidence that other people have qualia: you know they are made out of stuff that can generate qualia, because it is the stuff you are made of.
No, that isn’t the question: it is naturalistically possible for qualia to only exist “on the metal”. And the computability of physics is a much more complex subject than you are assuming.
“A decisive refutation of any claim that our reality is computer-simulated would be the discovery of some uncomputable physics, because if reality is doing something that no computer can do, it cannot be a computer simulation. (Computability generally means computability by a Turing machine. Hypercomputation (super-Turing computation) introduces other possibilities which will be dealt with separately). In fact, known physics is held to be (Turing) computable,[11] but the statement “physics is computable” needs to be qualified in various ways. Before symbolic computation, a number, thinking particularly of a real number, one with an infinite number of digits, was said to be computable if a Turing machine will continue to spit out digits endlessly, never reaching a “final digit”.[12] This runs counter, however, to the idea of simulating physics in real time (or any plausible kind of time). Known physical laws (including those of quantum mechanics) are very much infused with real numbers and continua, and the universe seems to be able to decide their values on a moment-by-moment basis. As Richard Feynman put it:[13]
The objection could be made that the simulation does not have to run in “real time”.[14] It misses an important point, though: the shortfall is not linear; rather it is a matter of performing an infinite number of computational steps in a finite time.[15]”
Upvoted for this in particular. There is one possible interpretation that is something of a status hit, but on LessWrong, this should be considered as a statement of the form “you making this statement is strong evidence you do not understand something. If you believe you do understand that something, now is the time to notice you are confused!”
It would be nice if there were a way to tell somebody that they don’t understand something, without it being a status hit!
Of course, if such a thing were possible, human history and civilization would look a LOT different than they currently do. ;-)
Yeah, precisely. It’s doable if difficult in person, but I haven’t the slightest idea how to phrase it in text.
The category of things whose simulations are not duplications isn’t special or exceptional.It includes most things. Simulated planes don’t fly, simulated gravity doesn’t attract, etc, etc. There is a smaller category of things whose simulations are duplications. It is not an extraordinary claim to say consc. belongs in the first category. You need to examine the intutions that make you think it belongs in the second.
That doesn’t follow, as explained above. That simulated gravity does not atrract, does not imply gravity is non-physical.
There clearly is such a things since I experience qualia every time I suck a lemon or sit on a brass tack. The “untrained mind” should have stuck with “we don’t know one way or the other”.
If the algorithm feels like anything from the inside, there are qualia, because qualia are what something feels like. This is the error Searle is always pointing out:: you can’t say conscious experience is just an illusion, because to be able to have illusions, you must be able to have experiences in the first place...
That has almost nothing to do with qualia.
In some senses of “machine” (eg artificial construct), we are clearly not machines. Absent a definition of “machine”, that comment is almost meaningless.
You mean quarks and electrons? Good luck building an electromagnet out of soap, then. We do have qualia,and they could depend on some vary specific physical and chemical properties, as does being a ferromagnet or a liquid crystal. That being the case, qualiaphilic arguments should not be lumped in with the supernatural, at least not without consideration of the specific argument.
You responded to my post, when I think you meant to respond to pjeby’s.
Did you try section 2.5 of “Good and Real”?
Haven’t read it, evidently it might be an idea ( /me adds it to the extensive queue). The description looks like large chunks of the sequences already written up as a book.
I mean, I can come up with my own idea of what “qualia” means (starting from “a word that means whatever wins my argument that consciousness is irreducible”, mentioning the narrative fallacy and getting more acerb from there), but have trouble coming up with what it could mean as part of such an argument without being really obviously silly …
edit: Found and glanced at section 2.5 in a PDF. Yeah, “a word that means whatever wins my argument that consciousness is irreducible” looks like the actual substance of the term “qualia” as an argument for irreducible consciousness, i.e. none to speak of. “I feel something! That counts as actual magic, doesn’t it?” “Er, no.” (The term “qualia” may have uses in a reductionist’s conception of consciousness—I might have use for it in thinking about aesthetics—but those uses aren’t these ones.)
Neither do I. However, having understood (a certain subset of) the sequences, I am capable of dissolving nonsensical questions about qualia… which is what most discussion of qualia consists of. (I.e., nonsense questions and confusion.)
The uses of words, the mind projection fallacy, reductionism, and part of QM are probably the sequences with the most important tools for dissolving that sort of confusion.
My conclusion in the Mary’s room thought experiment doesn’t challenge either of these versions: something new happens when she steps outside, and there’s a perfectly good purely physical explanation of what and why. It is nothing more than an artifact of how human brains are built that Mary is unable to make the same physical thing happen, with the same result, without the assistance of either red light or appropriate surgical tools. A slightly more evolved Mary with a few extra neurons leading into her hippocampus would have no such difficulty.
Incidentally, while agreeing with your main point, I feel I ought to challenge the implications of “more evolved.” This has nothing to do with Mary’s position on some scale of evolution; she could be “less evolved” and have those neurons, or “more evolved” and lack them.
I should have predicted that somebody here was going to call me on that. I accept the correction.
Mary still doesn’t have to make anything special happen to her brain have knowledge of anything else. She can still understand photosynthesis without photosynthesising.
She can understand the sequence of chemical reactions that comprises the Calvin cycle just as she can understand what neural impulses occur when red light strikes retinal rods, but she can’t form the memory of either one occurring within her body.
Which, yet again, only matters if there is something special about qualia that requires memory or instantiation in the body to be understood. She can understand the Calvin Cycle full stop.