Nicely written! I am a big fan of analogies, and the horse / unicorn analogy I think is very helpful here in explaining the source / target language.
Note I think you missed a period here:
> perspective A description of that perspective, even an
Here is another thing I've been thinking about in regards to your central argument. It concerns my friend Bob, who lives on the moon and sustains himself mostly via moon cheese. As you may be able to tell, Bob doesn't actually exist. But he thinks he exists, and claims to exist on every imaginary phone call we have. He says "Cognito ergo sum! I just notice my own thoughts and own experiences, and even if I don't understand the fundamental nature of those thoughts, something must exist to be generating them". This happens to be the exact same reason I think I exist! Yet Bob is wrong. So am I wrong too? Or maybe correct merely via coincidence and not correct logic?
Thanks for the typo pick-up. Always tell me if you see one, thanks.
The Bob analogy doesn’t really apply, because there is no Bob to be fooled about its essential nature. There is a you to be fooled about your essential nature… And I don’t even think you are that fooled. Things really seem the way they seem; your model of your interior is the best view of it you can have. It’s just not a model of some thing you picked up through your senses. It’s model all the way down.
I'd say in a zombie world there would be no me to be fooled either.
> And I don’t even think you are that fooled
I'll take that as a compliment. I agree that we are not that far apart even though I still identify as a dualist. Perhaps I believe in the same underlying reality you're talking about, I'm just not conceptualizing it in the same way (or, as you would say, the right way).
I have an issue with calling zombies logically impossible. I take the thought to be that consciousness is in fact physical, so it can't be both physical and non-physical and the zombie scenario would be nonsense if physicalism were true. But it I don't take it to be analytically true that consciousness is physical which means, before science, what consciousness meant does make sense to say it can or can't be removed from some physical states or processes.
I think of consciousness as similar to water and H20 and you can tell me if you disagree. I think the clear drinkable liquid in lakes and rivers could have been xyz. It's logically possible anyways that something with those properties wasn't a particular chemical. My understanding of your claim of zombies being logically impossible is like saying it is logically impossible that water is not H20. But that seems like equivocating a bit and like you're talking past the zombie argument people because they mean something like what people meant by water before we discovered H20 and what you mean by water just is H20.
I think it's helpful for me to think about this issue in terms of analytic and synthetic identities. I don't see how mental states being whatever substance, process, system, whatever, can be analytically derived, which is why the hard problem seems so hard. But it can be synthetically theorized about and the most plausible explanation given our observations is that mental states are physical states because of all the correlations and whatever other arguments one could make. What convinces me to stop being baffled by consciousness as much as I used to be is making the analytic synthetic identity difference clear. Then I realized lots of stuff has concepts which are unable to be derived from one another, yet in reality, they are the same.
One of the most helpful points I've read from you is that epiphenominalism can't be believed in in virtue of its truth which ought to make one highly skeptical if not throw out the theory. You pull apart the reason why we believe in the view and the actual consequences of the view being true which is helpful. I don't care about platonism, other than for being unintelligible, for the exact reason you gave about epiphenominalism before. If it is defined out of the causal chain, so you dont believe it in virtue of its truth and you'd believe it if it weren't true anyways, what work is it doing?
>Then I realized lots of stuff has concepts which are unable to be derived from one another, yet in reality, they are the same.
I really like this idea of a analytic / synthetic distinction. Can you give a specific analogy? Or was the water = H20 suppose to be the analogy? I've heard that one before, but it hasn't really clicked for me. It makes sense that you could analytically, starting with the physical and chemical laws and supposing water = H20, derive all properties of water like how it is clear. However, it doesn't make sense how you could derive analytically, starting with physical and chemical laws and supposing mind = brain, derive any property of the brain like blueness.
Of course I realize we didn't start with physics and then figure out that water was clear, when did it empirically the other way around. But you need that analytic connection to know that there isn't anything missing in the explanation. If it turns out our best physical and chemical theories predict that water could be clear or purple or rainbow, then that would be a major puzzle for scientists to figure out.
The earliest life would have functioned as automata/p-zombies and most lower organisms lack the information-processing capability necessary for awareness. Where the break falls I don't know but bacteria are not individually aware. I think (personal opinion, no more) it's just vertebrates and a few higher inverts (decapods, octopods and perhaps crab spiders - interestingly all the ones with big eyes! - maybe a well-developed visual cortex is part of it - LLM's use GPU's..., or maybe they just look cute)
Awareness is a thought process so it requires energy so it has a cost. Evolution would not have favoured it unless it gave a benefit, so there are benefits to not being a p-zombie. What it gives us, we even have a phrase for it, is "skin in the game". So a p-zombie would be distinguishable.
100 years ago living things were thought to have "vital force", a special non-physical element which made them different from inanimate matter. Now we know better but we still tend to think awareness relies on its own special non-physical element.
Whether we are p-zombies or not cannot make any evolutionary difference.
I think we need to be wary of introducing the philosophical confusion surrounding zombies into the quite separate discussion of the utility of consciousness.
I would recommend Michael Graziano’s book on Attention Schema Theory if you have not read it. That schema maps quite well to consciousness, once we strip away puzzles related to qualia and pseudo-epiphenomenalism.
Yes, I understand the definition of p-zombie is that there is no difference (slipperyness: either that's a proposition not a proven fact or awareness requires dualism). We wouldn't have evolved awareness unless there was a benefit. Since we did evolve awareness, it must make a difference and p-zombies are invalid.
re introducing p-zombies into utility of consciousness: no, I was going the other way.
re the book: thanks, just bought it. (Rethinking Consciousness: A Scientific Theory of Subjective Experience - hope that's the right book!)
If you accept dualism you must also consider pluralism - what happens if more than one "soul" ends up in the same brain? (Or if not, why not?) Then you get into soul-delivery systems and soul-catchers and it rapidly descends into farce.
There's also the semi-zombie: aware but doesn't know it - e.g. a brain in a jar that mirrors the state of the brain of the p-zombie but has a "soul"; it is unable to realise it is aware, cos its thoughts match those of the p-zombie.
Nicely written! I am a big fan of analogies, and the horse / unicorn analogy I think is very helpful here in explaining the source / target language.
Note I think you missed a period here:
> perspective A description of that perspective, even an
Here is another thing I've been thinking about in regards to your central argument. It concerns my friend Bob, who lives on the moon and sustains himself mostly via moon cheese. As you may be able to tell, Bob doesn't actually exist. But he thinks he exists, and claims to exist on every imaginary phone call we have. He says "Cognito ergo sum! I just notice my own thoughts and own experiences, and even if I don't understand the fundamental nature of those thoughts, something must exist to be generating them". This happens to be the exact same reason I think I exist! Yet Bob is wrong. So am I wrong too? Or maybe correct merely via coincidence and not correct logic?
Thanks for the typo pick-up. Always tell me if you see one, thanks.
The Bob analogy doesn’t really apply, because there is no Bob to be fooled about its essential nature. There is a you to be fooled about your essential nature… And I don’t even think you are that fooled. Things really seem the way they seem; your model of your interior is the best view of it you can have. It’s just not a model of some thing you picked up through your senses. It’s model all the way down.
I'd say in a zombie world there would be no me to be fooled either.
> And I don’t even think you are that fooled
I'll take that as a compliment. I agree that we are not that far apart even though I still identify as a dualist. Perhaps I believe in the same underlying reality you're talking about, I'm just not conceptualizing it in the same way (or, as you would say, the right way).
I have an issue with calling zombies logically impossible. I take the thought to be that consciousness is in fact physical, so it can't be both physical and non-physical and the zombie scenario would be nonsense if physicalism were true. But it I don't take it to be analytically true that consciousness is physical which means, before science, what consciousness meant does make sense to say it can or can't be removed from some physical states or processes.
I think of consciousness as similar to water and H20 and you can tell me if you disagree. I think the clear drinkable liquid in lakes and rivers could have been xyz. It's logically possible anyways that something with those properties wasn't a particular chemical. My understanding of your claim of zombies being logically impossible is like saying it is logically impossible that water is not H20. But that seems like equivocating a bit and like you're talking past the zombie argument people because they mean something like what people meant by water before we discovered H20 and what you mean by water just is H20.
I think it's helpful for me to think about this issue in terms of analytic and synthetic identities. I don't see how mental states being whatever substance, process, system, whatever, can be analytically derived, which is why the hard problem seems so hard. But it can be synthetically theorized about and the most plausible explanation given our observations is that mental states are physical states because of all the correlations and whatever other arguments one could make. What convinces me to stop being baffled by consciousness as much as I used to be is making the analytic synthetic identity difference clear. Then I realized lots of stuff has concepts which are unable to be derived from one another, yet in reality, they are the same.
One of the most helpful points I've read from you is that epiphenominalism can't be believed in in virtue of its truth which ought to make one highly skeptical if not throw out the theory. You pull apart the reason why we believe in the view and the actual consequences of the view being true which is helpful. I don't care about platonism, other than for being unintelligible, for the exact reason you gave about epiphenominalism before. If it is defined out of the causal chain, so you dont believe it in virtue of its truth and you'd believe it if it weren't true anyways, what work is it doing?
I'll get to these comments later. Got to go to work. Meanwhile, I just posted the continuation.
>Then I realized lots of stuff has concepts which are unable to be derived from one another, yet in reality, they are the same.
I really like this idea of a analytic / synthetic distinction. Can you give a specific analogy? Or was the water = H20 suppose to be the analogy? I've heard that one before, but it hasn't really clicked for me. It makes sense that you could analytically, starting with the physical and chemical laws and supposing water = H20, derive all properties of water like how it is clear. However, it doesn't make sense how you could derive analytically, starting with physical and chemical laws and supposing mind = brain, derive any property of the brain like blueness.
Of course I realize we didn't start with physics and then figure out that water was clear, when did it empirically the other way around. But you need that analytic connection to know that there isn't anything missing in the explanation. If it turns out our best physical and chemical theories predict that water could be clear or purple or rainbow, then that would be a major puzzle for scientists to figure out.
The earliest life would have functioned as automata/p-zombies and most lower organisms lack the information-processing capability necessary for awareness. Where the break falls I don't know but bacteria are not individually aware. I think (personal opinion, no more) it's just vertebrates and a few higher inverts (decapods, octopods and perhaps crab spiders - interestingly all the ones with big eyes! - maybe a well-developed visual cortex is part of it - LLM's use GPU's..., or maybe they just look cute)
Awareness is a thought process so it requires energy so it has a cost. Evolution would not have favoured it unless it gave a benefit, so there are benefits to not being a p-zombie. What it gives us, we even have a phrase for it, is "skin in the game". So a p-zombie would be distinguishable.
100 years ago living things were thought to have "vital force", a special non-physical element which made them different from inanimate matter. Now we know better but we still tend to think awareness relies on its own special non-physical element.
Whether we are p-zombies or not cannot make any evolutionary difference.
I think we need to be wary of introducing the philosophical confusion surrounding zombies into the quite separate discussion of the utility of consciousness.
I would recommend Michael Graziano’s book on Attention Schema Theory if you have not read it. That schema maps quite well to consciousness, once we strip away puzzles related to qualia and pseudo-epiphenomenalism.
Yes, I understand the definition of p-zombie is that there is no difference (slipperyness: either that's a proposition not a proven fact or awareness requires dualism). We wouldn't have evolved awareness unless there was a benefit. Since we did evolve awareness, it must make a difference and p-zombies are invalid.
re introducing p-zombies into utility of consciousness: no, I was going the other way.
re the book: thanks, just bought it. (Rethinking Consciousness: A Scientific Theory of Subjective Experience - hope that's the right book!)
Yes, that’s the right book. Let me know what you think.
The (used) book has arrived. Interesting aroma! I hope I can understand it without resorting to pharmaceuticals!!
Let me know what you thiink.
Yes, interesting read.
He dismisses Integrated Information Theory as leading to a p-zombie.
But I'm still left with the feeling that Attention Schema Theory is just building a better p-zombie.
Then again I can't intuit a solution, so probably I wouldn't recognise one if I read it - you can't "eff" the ineffable.
It feels to me that there's a loop somewhere - so I'm stuck with Hofstadter's "Strange Loop".
Thanks again for recommending it.
I've just started "Slime" so it'll be a while.
If you accept dualism you must also consider pluralism - what happens if more than one "soul" ends up in the same brain? (Or if not, why not?) Then you get into soul-delivery systems and soul-catchers and it rapidly descends into farce.
There's also the semi-zombie: aware but doesn't know it - e.g. a brain in a jar that mirrors the state of the brain of the p-zombie but has a "soul"; it is unable to realise it is aware, cos its thoughts match those of the p-zombie.
I don’t accept dualism.
Yes, I got that. I meant "you" in the general sense.
Okay, gotcha. I wasn’t sure, given how many opinions float around in this space.
I do think there is a benign duality to consciousness, in terms of our conceptual grasp of it, but ontological dualism just strokes me as confused.