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extropalopakettle
No offense, but....

Posted: Wed Jan 25, 2012 4:29 am Post subject: 521

Zag wrote:

... and it can only go around in more circles.

That's not the only option, but whatever.

Chuck
Daedalian Member

Posted: Wed Jan 25, 2012 3:52 pm Post subject: 522

extropalopakettle wrote:

Someday a computer wil be programmed to pass a Turing test. You won't be able, via a conversation, to reliably distinguish it from a person. You will even be able to back it into a corner with a conversation about sentience, and it will behave as if it understands (unlike Zag). It may be able to distinguish between colors, and say it has subjective experiences of them. It may emulate wondering whether it sees colors the same way you do, and converse intelligently about that.

Now, I'll take a duplicate of that computer, wipe out its "sentience program", and load up some web server running web based accounting software, and make it public.

Two identical machines, with bilions of bits, flipping on and off every microsecond. One talks about having subjective experiences of the color red, and you believe it? WHY??? Sorry, that's just plain gullible.

When future computers are arguing about whether or not you can have subjective experiences, the gullible ones will be right.

extro...*
Guest

Posted: Wed Jan 25, 2012 5:05 pm Post subject: 523

Chuck wrote:

extropalopakettle wrote:

When future computers are arguing about whether or not you can have subjective experiences, the gullible ones will be right.

They'll have the right conclusion, but will they have a sound argument? If they actually are sentient, that fact is available to their capacity to reason, they might use it as a premise to a sound argument for my probable sentience. I haven't said they can't be sentient. I'm saying that what some call evidence of sentience, isn't - that there never is evidence of sentience. So to deny something has sentience, because it shows no evidence of it, is irrational. To ascribe some things sentience, and not others, because some show "signs of sentience", and others don't, is irrational.

The talk about "signs of sentience" from people who hold themselves up as being so rational, and critical of those who explain things by positing a God, is what I find humorous, because these "signs of sentience" are nothing other than ascribing some supernatural (I'll explain why I call it that) quality to being a cause behind processes they don't understand. Supernatural in the sense that it isn't objectively measurable or detectable, and it isn't subject to description, so can't play a part in any rational explanation anyway ... nor is there evidence it is needed in such an explanation, merely because a full naturalistic explanation (using only known physics) isn't known.

Panpsychism "is the doctrine that mind is a fundamental feature of the world which exists throughout the universe". If it exists, but there's never evidence of it (other than that special sort of subjective evidence not amenable to science, wherein one knows sentience exists by being a sentient thing and knowing ones own sentience), then aside from panpsychism, one could only arbitrarily suggest it is limited to things that are sufficiently like oneself - a solipsist view when taken to the extreme (the extreme being less arbitrary than somewhere in the middle).

Zag
Tired of his old title

Posted: Wed Jan 25, 2012 7:00 pm Post subject: 524

So you're saying that 13.6 billion years ago, before there was anything at all alive anywhere in the universe, sentience already existed? As I said, neither one of us is ever going to convince the other. My confusion is why you bothered ever to use the word 'sentience' when you just meant 'God.'

extropalopakettle
No offense, but....

Posted: Wed Jan 25, 2012 8:48 pm Post subject: 525

Zag wrote:

So you're saying that 13.6 billion years ago, before there was anything at all alive anywhere in the universe, sentience already existed?

You're saying if you don't know how a mousetrap operates, you should assume it feels something? Something that I can wonder what it would be like to feel what the mousetrap feels?

You're unwilling to examine the rationality of your own beliefs.

Zag wrote:

As I said, neither one of us is ever going to convince the other.

A long as you refuse rationality because it doesn't jibe with your preconceived conclusions, I won't convince you. When you have a rational argument for me, I'll listen.

Zag wrote:

My confusion is why you bothered ever to use the word 'sentience' when you just meant 'God.'

No, I don't mean 'God', because I'm not sure what 'God' means. I know it means different things to different people. You suggested God as the sum total of all matter, energy and physical laws, minus sentience.

You completely fail to recognize that the sort of subjective experiences you know exist ... like of the color red, as you experience it, as it is to you, in your day-to-day experience, as you can't even vaguely describe ... that it's purely a matter of faith, and a rather nonsensical one, to suggest that is a particular pattern of neural activity in a particular spot in your brain that we can in principle describe in every detail. I've given you the thought experiments that make clear that can be nothing but pure blind faith without evidence or reason. Subjective experience - sentience - which you experience, which exists - can't be detected objectively. There is ZERO evidence of it. If pure unreasoned faith is ever admirable, it certainly isn't in the false name of science speaking against faith. For me, none of this involves faith, just common sense, which you struggle hard against. It is the epitome of close-mindedness.

extro...*
Guest

Posted: Wed Jan 25, 2012 9:20 pm Post subject: 526

You're actually saying that if I put a petri dish with some connected living neurons in front of you, with a means to stimulate them, and means to examine them and see what they're doing down to the finest detail, that you think there could be, in principle, a sensible, testable, falsifiable theory that would allow you to say whether they are having a subjective experience, and if so whether it's like seeing a color, or hearing a sound, or smelling an oxlam? (an oxlam is something I dreamt about once, and it had a peculiar smell I can't the describe - it isn't real, but the sensation was) 1) How does such a theory sensibly explain why matter doing some precisely describable thing produces some particular thing, and not some other particular thing, both things being completely beyond description? 2) How do you test or falsify such a theory? Does a thing have to report having a sensation to have one? Does reporting a sensation mean there is one?

extropalopakettle
No offense, but....

Posted: Thu Jan 26, 2012 3:24 am Post subject: 527

extro...* wrote:

Chuck wrote:

extropalopakettle wrote:

When future computers are arguing about whether or not you can have subjective experiences, the gullible ones will be right.

Correction: I meant to write "If they actually are sentient, AND that fact is available to their capacity to reason, THEN they might use it as a premise to a sound argument for my probable sentience."

If they are sentient, it by no means follows that that fact is available to their capacity to reason (as it is with us). If it is, then they might reason that all things are sentient (knowing sentience exists, but that there's no evidence of it, thus no evidence of a correlation between it and other things).

I don't believe their sentience could be available to their capacity to reason if they have an ordinary Von Neumann architecture.

Chuck
Daedalian Member

Posted: Thu Jan 26, 2012 3:34 pm Post subject: 528

While I don't have any evidence that anything but me is sentient, I find it hard to believe that I'm the only one who is. When there's one of something there are usually many. There are plenty of atoms, bacteria, grains of sand, insects, trees, mountains, planets, stars, and galaxies. Everywhere and at all scales, when there's one of something there are usually a great many of them. There might be just one sentient person, but it's hard to take the idea seriously. While there are usually great numbers of various things, different kinds of things have different properties. It's not so hard to believe that not everything is sentient. Not everything has wings. Not everything is spherical. Not everything contains water. Not everything has a brain. I can't think of a reason to believe that everything is sentient. They might be, but lots of things might be true. That doesn't seem like a good reason to believe them all. I'm inclined to give a higher probability of sentience to something that's more similar to something that I know is sentient. That seems to be the way the universe works in general.

extro...*
Guest

Posted: Thu Jan 26, 2012 4:44 pm Post subject: 529

Chuck wrote:

While I don't have any evidence that anything but me is sentient, I find it hard to believe that I'm the only one who is. When there's one of something there are usually many. There are plenty of atoms, bacteria, grains of sand, insects, trees, mountains, planets, stars, and galaxies. Everywhere and at all scales, when there's one of something there are usually a great many of them. There might be just one sentient person, but it's hard to take the idea seriously.

I agree with all that.

Chuck wrote:

While there are usually great numbers of various things, different kinds of things have different properties. It's not so hard to believe that not everything is sentient.

I agree. Apparently, that's why so many people believe it. Apparently, that's also why so many people believe in a Creator too - "not so hard to believe". But when you get really rational about it ...

Chuck wrote:

Not everything has wings. Not everything is spherical. Not everything contains water. Not everything has a brain. I can't think of a reason to believe that everything is sentient.

Can you think of a rational reason to believe something is NOT sentient? "not so hard to believe" doesn't qualify as a rational reason.

I can observe wings, sphericalness, water. Some things I can't directly observe, I can at least infer the presence of, as that presence might be required to explain what I can observe. Not so with sentience.

Chuck wrote:

That doesn't seem like a good reason to believe them all. I'm inclined to give a higher probability of sentience to something that's more similar to something that I know is sentient. That seems to be the way the universe works in general.

Except that the only reason you know yourself to be sentient is that you happen to be you. You have to be the sentient thing to know its sentience. Assume for the moment all things are sentient. And this is not begging the question. I'm not going to conclude "all things are sentient" from that. I'm going to show your argument doesn't hold, and not because any conclusion reachable from it contradicts the assumption (that would be begging the question - circular reasoning).

Assume for the moment all things are sentient. Chuck is sentient, universe is sentient. You can only know a thing to be sentient if you are the sentient thing (if you weren't Chuck, you wouldn't know Chuck to be sentient). You are Chuck, and only Chuck, and from that you conclude only things somewhat like Chuck are sentient. This doesn't follow. Let's take a similar argument as an analogy (someone might be able to come up with a better one):

Assume all possible planets are able to support the development and evolution of intelligent life (that we might know this isn't the case doesn't invalidate this example - I'll explain afterward - for now assume). Don't assume we know this, just that it's the case, and we don't know either way. The indigenous intelligent life on a planet can only know that their planet supports intelligent life if they are on a planet that supports intelligent life (or else they'd not exist to know). We're on Earth, and from that conclude that only planets somewhat like Earth can support intelligent life.

That we might know all possible planets don't support intelligent life is irrelevant. Assume we don't know it, just as we don't know that all things are not sentient.

Or a different simpler argument: An alien, sentient, intelligent life form, of radically different construction than us, might, just as you do, assume only things fairly similar to itself are sentient, and that you are not. For them to think you are not sentient would be no less reasonable than you thinking they are not, but clearly they'd be wrong (as you would). You might argue that they'd have to be fairly similar, in a certain way, to us, to be sentient, but I'd say that is begging the question.

BraveHat
Last of the Daedalians

Posted: Thu Jan 26, 2012 10:16 pm Post subject: 530

Extro, the athiest doesn't necessarily conclude that there is no God. The athiest doesn't necessarily conclude that sentience is not everywhere. The athiest concludes that sentience is at least present in things like the self (because that's rational and useful to believe), and that as far as sentience is concerned, that's the only idea about it that presently needs to be taken seriously. You are right in that there is no way to detect sentience of other things strictly through observation. You always need that comparison between the one thing you absolutely know is sentient (you and your attributes) to things which are similar to that which you abosolutely know is sentient (things like you with similar attributes). But while it's reasonable to assume that things like you are sentient, it is NOT reasonable to assume that any other particular thing is, absent evidence of behavior like yours. Simply because your observation of yourself is all you have to go on re: knowledge about sentience. We simply don't know and can't know, sans omniscient revelation, whether sentience exists in dissimilar things. This is not solipsistic, it's just that we know nothing about sentience accept for what it is within us. Suppose you found an edible plant which had a very unique taste, like nothing you've ever tasted before. Is it solipsistic to assume that a completely different organism, like a mouse, is going to have a similar taste if eaten? No, it's just that the only experience you have of that taste is in that plant. It's reasonable to assume that the taste would occur by eating similar kinds of that plant. It gets less reasonable to assume the taste will occur in plants that look different. Even less to assume it will occur in non-plant organisms and even less so in rocks. The more dissimilar an object is to the one object we know something exists in, the less reasonable it is to assume that same thing in the object. This is highly unusual for me to take the atheistic side of a debate, but so be it. _________________ "I am declaring it a terrible tragedy for me to die. You may disagree..." --Antrax

extropalopakettle
No offense, but....

Posted: Thu Jan 26, 2012 11:57 pm Post subject: 531

BraveHat wrote:

The athiest concludes that sentience is at least present in things like the self (because that's rational and useful to believe), and that as far as sentience is concerned, that's the only idea about it that presently needs to be taken seriously.

Regarding what you say should or shouldn't be taken seriously, let's see how the argument for it stands up to carefully examined reason, rather than just to a fast and loose intuition about what conclusion seems like it ought to come out at the end of that process if we made the effort, which we obviously don't need to, because, hey, it's so obvious what should be taken seriously, and what's absurd.

I believe our mistaken intuition that our behavior is associated with our sentience is firmly rooted in pre-scientific lack of understanding about how our behavior could be entirely the result of purely physical processes.

BraveHat wrote:

You are right in that there is no way to detect sentience of other things strictly through observation.

I'm right that there is no way to detect sentience of other things. Period. Strictly through observation, or in any other way.

BraveHat wrote:

You always need that comparison between the one thing you absolutely know is sentient (you and your attributes) to things which are similar to that which you abosolutely know is sentient (things like you with similar attributes). But while it's reasonable to assume that things like you are sentient, it is NOT reasonable to assume that any other particular thing is, absent evidence of behavior like yours.

Why is the one more reasonable than the other? By what shred of scientific reason do you associate sentience with behavior?

[ I'll even ignore that if sentience were associated with behavior, it seems one would be able to detect it strictly through observation. ]

BraveHat wrote:

Simply because your observation of yourself is all you have to go on re: knowledge about sentience. We simply don't know and can't know, sans omniscient revelation, whether sentience exists in dissimilar things.

Or similar things. What degree of similar or dissimilar, and why?

BraveHat wrote:

This is not solipsistic, it's just that we know nothing about sentience accept for what it is within us.

You know what it is within you, I within me. Neither of us knows the other.

You are essentially saying "I'm sentient, I know nothing else to be sentient (but then I couldn't), therefore it's reasonable to assume things similar to me, and only such things, are sentient".

Solipsism is the extreme of similarity in the above. Any other drawing of the line between the extremes, with no sensible theory that says where to draw it, is arbitrary, and more solipsist toward the one extreme.

BraveHat wrote:

Suppose you found an edible plant which had a very unique taste, like nothing you've ever tasted before. Is it solipsistic to assume that a completely different organism, like a mouse, is going to have a similar taste if eaten?

If I've only ever put one thing in my mouth, that one piece of plant, and noted it had a taste, the only taste I ever knew, and had no reason to associate it with any other particular property of the plant, then I think it might be reasonable to think this taste is what happens when something is put in the mouth.

BraveHat wrote:

No, it's just that the only experience you have of that taste is in that plant. It's reasonable to assume that the taste would occur by eating similar kinds of that plant. It gets less reasonable to assume the taste will occur in plants that look different. Even less to assume it will occur in non-plant organisms and even less so in rocks.

So when you first lift that piece of plant - the only thing you ever lifted - and you note it has mass, weight - you would assume that only other pieces of the same kind of plant also have mass? You would say "My Lord, what a stunning coincidence, that the one object I decided to pick up, among all the available objects of the billions of different kinds of objects, happens to be of the one kind that has mass". That's what you'd think? Or might you not think, maybe it's not such a bizarre and unlikely coincidence - maybe other kinds of objects - maybe all kinds of objects - have mass?

BraveHat wrote:

The more dissimilar an object is to the one object we know something exists in, the less reasonable it is to assume that same thing in the object.

So I pick up a blue marble, the only thing I ever picked up, notice it has mass, and say "Wow, I just happened to home in on the canonical example of an object with this property of mass, such that other objects might or might not have this property, to the extent that they are or aren't similar to this blue marble I happened to randomly select". No, that's not a reasonable conclusion at all.

Nsof
Daedalian Member

Posted: Fri Jan 27, 2012 1:02 am Post subject: 532

BraveHat wrote:

This is highly unusual for me to take the atheistic side of a debate, but so be it.

I think you are doing it very well.

Even if zag is right in saying there is no sentience, there still is something i perceive as sentience. perhaps an illusion of sentience (similar to what some people claim about emotions). Whether it is real or not, it is still a useful term and the question as to what/why is this illusion of sentience, is interesting.

@extro (and others),
Why/Are you sure there is sentience? Who is to say its no more than purely physical processes (as you claim behavior to be (hope i got that right))?
What's your turing test for sentience? If an alien race landed here and we were able to communicate with them, what would it take for you to be convinced they also possess (the illusion of) sentience? Is there a difference from human made robots?
_________________
Will sell this place for beer

extropalopakettle
No offense, but....

Posted: Fri Jan 27, 2012 1:17 am Post subject: 533

Nsof wrote:

Why/Are you sure there is sentience?

The nature of knowing it doesn't come with an answer to that. I know I'm sentient. I can't prove it to you, or rationalize it to you, but I can hope others will say "yeah, I know I'm sentient too".

Nsof wrote:

Who is to say its no more than purely physical processes ...?

Which physical processes? Fusion in a star? A moon orbiting a planet?

I can study purely physical processes and imagine no sentience, and not find anything inconsistent or missing. That includes a moon orbiting a planet, as well as neural activity.

Nsof wrote:

What's your turing test for sentience?

There is none. There is no evidence of sentience. There can be no test for it.

Nsof wrote:

If an alien race landed here and we were able to communicate with them, what would it take for you to be convinced they also possess (the illusion of) sentience? Is there a difference from human made robots?

Humans, intelligent aliens that behave like humans, robots that behave like humans, venus fly traps, burglar alarms with motion detectors, mouse traps, photons ... none exhibit evidence of sentience.

BraveHat
Last of the Daedalians

Posted: Fri Jan 27, 2012 1:53 am Post subject: 534

extro wrote:

I believe our mistaken intuition that our behavior is associated with our sentience is firmly rooted in pre-scientific lack of understanding about how our behavior could be entirely the result of purely physical processes.

Premise 1: The extreme disappointment I felt in watching The Phantom Menace for the first time is a particular example of sentience.
Premise 2: My attempt to write a better plot for Episode 1 is a particular example of behavior.
Premise 3: The extreme disappointment I felt in watching The Phantom Menace for the first time was a cause of my attempt to write a better plot for Episode 1
Permise 4: If behavior is the result of purely physical processes, then all things which cause any particular behavior are purely physical processes.

Conclusion: If behavior is the result of purely physical processes, then sentience is a purely physical process.

The conclusion follows from the premises. If you disagree with the conclusion, then which premise do you disagree with?

extro wrote:

Why is the one more reasonable than the other? By what shred of scientific reason do you associate sentience with behavior?

I'm not sure if the syllogism I presented above was what you would call "scientific reason" but is it not an example of a reasonable association of sentience with behavior, or am I missing something here?

extro wrote:

[ I'll even ignore that if sentience were associated with behavior, it seems one would be able to detect it strictly through observation. ]

not behavior in general. Behavior similar to the control group (you).

extro wrote:

What degree of similar or dissimilar, and why?

There's no precise cut-off point, it's a spectrum. I'm not saying similarity is the scientific basis on reasonably assuming sentience. I'm saying that it's 1) a reasonable basis and 2) the only reasonable basis, sans omniscient revelation.

extro wrote:

You know what it is within you, I within me. Neither of us knows the other.

I was actually using the royal "us". I could have easily substituted the word "one".

extro wrote:

You are essentially saying "I'm sentient, I know nothing else to be sentient (but then I couldn't), therefore it's reasonable to assume things similar to me, and only such things, are sentient"

You've misplaced the word "only". I'm sentient, I know nothing else to be sentient, therefore it's reasonable and only reasonable (regarding sentience) to assume things similar to me are sentient. A rock may very well be sentient, but there's just no reason (yet) to assume so. The reason to assume similar things have sentience is to be able to relate to them. That's the only reason.

extro wrote:

I wrote:

Even though you deviated from the actual situation I presented, I'll respond to your situation and say that likewise, when I was born, my sentience occurred, and so I think it might be reasonable to think this sentience is what happens when other people are born.

What you wouldn't say is reasonable is to think that taste is what happens when something is put in the armpit. You wouldn't say it's reasonable to think that taste is "everywhere".

Now could you answer the question using the actual situation I presented?

extro wrote:

If that plant was the only thing I have ever lifted (again, not the situation I presented) and the only thing I can lift and what's more, it's apparent that everyone else can only lift that plant as well so that any concept of mass only comes from that lifting that plant, then yes, because of those restrictions, there's no reason to assume that anything else has mass. It's possible, in that situation, that other things have mass, but there's no reason to arbitrarily assume it, unless a) other things become liftable or weighable or feelable or b)an omniscient being revealed the information. This is not solipsism, it's just avoiding unfounded assumptions.

But again, not the situation I presented.

extro wrote:

It's a good thing I didn't conclude it then. You're confusing concluding, in the scientific way, with reasonable assumption. What you're essentially saying is that any reasoning which doesn't seek the absolute truth is unreasonable. It's reasonable to think that other blue marbles and perhaps red marbles or green marbles have mass if you're only experience of mass is the blue marble. What's unreasonable, within these incredibly restricting parameters of you or anybody you know not having experienced mass in anything else and not knowing the properties of mass as it relates to different things, is to start assuming that dissimilar objects have mass. In such an extreme situation, similarity is the only basis for assumption. It has nothing to do with what is true when all is said and done, from all angles and perspectives. It has to do with preservation of what is known with the equipment we have for knowing it. In such a situation, I wouldn't, again conclude that nothing else has mass. I just would have no reason to assume that anything else does.
_________________
"I am declaring it a terrible tragedy for me to die. You may disagree..." --Antrax

Chuck
Daedalian Member

Posted: Fri Jan 27, 2012 3:37 am Post subject: 535

If all I had ever tasted were one plant, it might be reasonable to guess that everything tastes the same if taste were my only sense, but it's not. Different things look different, sound different, smell different, and feel different. Should I assume that my sense of taste is completely unlike any of the others and detects no differences at all?

extropalopakettle
No offense, but....

Posted: Fri Jan 27, 2012 3:55 am Post subject: 536

BraveHat wrote:

extro wrote:

Thanks, this is simple. First, there are two aspects to the disappointment you felt. One {A} is a complex of physical representations within your brain of information about the movie and an evaluation against some criteria, and a conclusion of disappointment - physical stuff that could be emulated by an appropriately programmed computer (not trivially, but in principle). The other {B} is a subjective feeling of disappointment, which you noted in Premise 1 as sentience. But it is not {B} in Premise 3 that causes you to attempt to write a better plot, it is {A}.

BraveHat wrote:

extro wrote:

Why is the one more reasonable than the other? By what shred of scientific reason do you associate sentience with behavior?

The feeling of disappointment - the subjective sentient feeling of it - coexists, without having an effect on anything, with the physical representations that cause behaviors we would conceptualize as being motivated by disappointment.

This is the concept of consciousness as an epiphenomenon

wikipedia wrote:

An epiphenomenon can be an effect of primary phenomena, but cannot affect a primary phenomenon. In philosophy of mind, epiphenomenalism is the view that mental phenomena are epiphenomena in that they can be caused by physical phenomena, but cannot cause physical phenomena.

Now, the truth is, I'm not sold on epiphenomenalism. I alluded to that here, in post 468

extro...* wrote:

And I've noted before that we happen to live in a world where the so-called "butterfly effect" reigns supreme. Our physical existence was determined by random mutations (and selection). Randomness at the microscopic level (the only level where true randomness exists) has a great effect on things at the macroscopic level. But physical randomness is an untestable hypothesis. If I record the timings of decay of each of a number of atoms of radioactive isotopes, or any other physically random events, I only see that they conform to randomness in a statistical way. Out of the countless number of sequences that conform to randomness statistically, if I carefully choose one to suit my needs, it isn't random.

That last sentence is saying, essentially, IF sentience affects the physical, it could in principle do without leaving evidence of anything but randomness. There are microscopic quantum level random events occurring in our brain, as elsewhere in the universe, that completely alter the outcome of macroscopic events.

This touches on the notion of free will, which, like sentience, we have no evidence for.

If physical process A deterministically causes subjective experience B, which in turn deterministically causes physical process D, and we have no way to see B, then objectively, it appears as if physical process A determinstically causes physical process D.

But now suppose physical process A deterministically causes subjective experience B, to which there is some "free will" response affecting microscopic random event C, which in turn deterministically causes physical process D. We have no way to see B, or to detect C as anything but random. We see A influencing D, but with some random contribution to the causal link between A and D.

However, that's all hypothetical, and could never be shown to be the case. But it would at least be consistent with a sometimes compelling sense that sentience, subjective experience, in all it's vivid brilliance, must serve some purpose, and not be purely an inconsequential epiphenomenon.

And again, if that's what "mind" is - this consciousness of subjective experience, which can't be detected, which arise from the physical, though not pure epiphenomena, but coupled with some sort of "free will" that is an actual cause behind what theory says are, and what can't be detected as other than, random events at a microscopic level, that affect macroscopic outcomes - if that's what mind is, in all that, there's absolutely not a thing to suggest it's limited to living things.

BraveHat wrote:

A rock may very well be sentient, but there's just no reason (yet) to assume so. The reason to assume similar things have sentience is to be able to relate to them. That's the only reason.

Nah, I want to understand the nature of reality, not merely hold pragmatically useful theories.

BraveHat wrote:

Even though you deviated from the actual situation I presented, ...

I made it into a valid analogy, which it otherwise wasn't. If I could be me, then be you, then be a rock, then be the solar system, that would settle it. I'd have a good idea what's sentient, what's not.

BraveHat wrote:

I'll respond to your situation and say that likewise, when I was born, my sentience occurred, and so I think it might be reasonable to think this sentience is what happens when other people are born.

You don't know when your sentience occurred. Right now you have a convincing subjective conviction that you were sentient yesterday, but subjective experiences, while they ARE factually existent, do not necessarily correspond to reality. Sometimes I have dreams that are similar to, and that cause me to remember, some previous dream I once had, that I never remembered before. Did I ever really have that previous dream that I remembered, or did I only dream that I once did?

BraveHat wrote:

What you wouldn't say is reasonable is to think that taste is what happens when something is put in the armpit. You wouldn't say it's reasonable to think that taste is "everywhere".

Now you're shifting your analogy. If I'd only put things in my mouth, and never anywhere else, and didn't have hardwired instincts about it, why would I assume that? If you stuck a pin in your thigh about 4 inches above your knee, and it hurt, would you say "gee, I better not stick a pin in my thigh 4 inches above my knee again ... a knife maybe, but not a pin". No, you'd say "I'd better not stick anything in any part of me again". But this is getting silly.

BraveHat wrote:

Now could you answer the question using the actual situation I presented?

If I taste a piece of lettuce, do I assume a mouse will taste the same? What is the "actual situation"? I've tasted many things, know they're are all kinds of tastes? Then no, I wouldn't assume a mouse tastes like lettuce. But that would be analogous to me being many things, and knowing by being them which are sentient - which is not the case.

BraveHat wrote:

extro wrote:

If that plant was the only thing I have ever lifted (again, not the situation I presented) ...

Which corresponds to you being only you, and not being able to be anything else ...

BraveHat wrote:

... and the only thing I can lift

Does it matter whether you can or you can't? If you haven't, at that point, what conclusion do you draw?

Maybe tomorrow I can be three things, and know which are sentient. Today I'm only me, and only know my own sentience.

BraveHat wrote:

... and what's more, it's apparent that everyone else can only lift that plant as well

The important thing about analogies is that one thing be analogous to another. You're throwing that aside.

BraveHat wrote:

... so that any concept of mass only comes from that lifting that plant, then yes, because of those restrictions, there's no reason to assume that anything else has mass. It's possible, in that situation, that other things have mass, but there's no reason to arbitrarily assume it, unless a) other things become liftable or weighable or feelable or b)an omniscient being revealed the information. This is not solipsism, it's just avoiding unfounded assumptions.

You're struggling against your own common sense. We both already know there are so many basic properties of things that all objects have to a greater or lesser extent. They all have mass. They all occupy space. They all interact with light. Etc. You land on a planet full of rocks, pick one up, notice it has some property, and you consider it a real possibility that you picked up the one rock on that planet with that property? No. Again, you're struggling against common sense.

BraveHat wrote:

But again, not the situation I presented.

If it's supposed to be an analogy, make sure its analogous, otherwise explain the point.

BraveHat wrote:

extro wrote:

It's a good thing I didn't conclude it then. What you're essentially saying is that any reasoning which doesn't seek the absolute truth is unreasonable.

I don't know what that means. I don't judge reason by what it "seeks".

BraveHat wrote:

It's reasonable to think that other blue marbles and perhaps red marbles or green marbles have mass if you're only experience of mass is the blue marble. What's unreasonable, within these incredibly restricting parameters of you or anybody you know not having experienced mass in anything else and not knowing the properties of mass as it relates to different things, is to start assuming that dissimilar objects have mass. In such an extreme situation, similarity is the only basis for assumption.

The probability that I picked the one object out of billions, or the one object of a kind among billions of kinds, having mass, is unlikely.

All objects have something in common - they are objects.

What is your REASON for thinking there might be a correlation between having mass, and blueness, or marbleness? You have none.

Zag
Tired of his old title

Posted: Fri Jan 27, 2012 3:59 am Post subject: 537

Nsof wrote:

Even if zag is right in saying there is no sentience, there still is something i perceive as sentience. perhaps an illusion of sentience (similar to what some people claim about emotions). Whether it is real or not, it is still a useful term and the question as to what/why is this illusion of sentience, is interesting.

Just skimming, noticed my name.

Please don't put words in my mouth: I never said that there is no sentience. I only said that it is not something magical that you need to resort to the supernatural to explain (i.e. claiming that there are forces beyond the four we know: gravitational, electro-magnetic, weak and strong nuclear). It is completely contained in our biology, and is a fairly obvious result of evolution. Thinking, having experiences, remembering them, learning from them -- these are all obvious pro-survival traits, so the ability to do them can be explained without resorting to magical thinking.

extropalopakettle
No offense, but....

Posted: Fri Jan 27, 2012 4:13 am Post subject: 538

Chuck wrote:

If all I had ever tasted were one plant, it might be reasonable to guess that everything tastes the same if taste were my only sense, but it's not. Different things look different, sound different, smell different, and feel different. Should I assume that my sense of taste is completely unlike any of the others and detects no differences at all?

This analogy sucks, and I'll tell you why. Tasting the plant is analogous to me being me ( I think). It's flavor is sentience. The other senses? No analogy there. The mouse, and everything else, are analogous to things I'm not (and can't be).

If I only tasted the flavor of lettuce (flavor being sentience), do I assume all other things are flavorless? (non-sentient) Assuming other things have other flavors to me would seem like assuming other things have sentience that differs from mine, not that theyhave no sentience (are flavorless)

extropalopakettle
No offense, but....

Posted: Fri Jan 27, 2012 5:02 am Post subject: 539

Zag wrote:

Nsof wrote:

Nobody suggested supernatural or magical. That's just your way of ad hominem venting your displeasure with your own inability to reason about this.

If you can't describe the difference between the subjective experience of seeing the color red, hearing a violin play a C note, smelling ozone ... if you can't explain them AT ALL, let alone in precise quantifiable ways, how are you going to equate them on paper precisely quantifiable physical things?

Do you not see how blindly dogmatic and faith-based your thinking is? These things are not like anything else that science once failed to explain and since has, or things that it still hasn't, but that are subject to description at least, if not explanation. You know these things are beyond description, thus can't be explained (do you not see how explainability requires describability?), but your dogmatic beliefs tell you everything must be explainable, so you're willing to arbitrarily map these indescribable things to something physical, proclaim sans evidence they're one and the same, and pretend they never reared their ugly heads.

Science does not need your reverence.

Zag wrote:

It is completely contained in our biology, and is a fairly obvious result of evolution.

Again, whether it's a result of evolution or not is irrelevant.

Second, evolution selects for behavior. Again, what sensible theory do you have ... not do you have, but could anyone conceivably have, that explains how some utterly indescribable and unobservable unknown X causes physical things to happen.

If subjective experiences are gravitational, electro-magnetic, weak and strong nuclear forces, then why aren't they everywhere??? Because it's your dogma that they're not.

Zag wrote:

Thinking, having experiences, remembering them, learning from them -- these are all obvious pro-survival traits, so the ability to do them can be explained without resorting to magical thinking.

Thinking is not sentience, but is clearly pro-survival. You're confused.

Having experiences has a dual meaning. One entails merely the creating of physical representations of data about events, clearly pro-survival, but not entailing sentience. The other is the completely indescribable (that's a fact you won't contest, and it doesn't translate to magical) subjective experiences we discussed earlier, which you feel compelled to explain into non-existence.

Remembering and learning are not sentience, but are clearly pro-survival.

Again, I've said computers of our current architecture will one day be able to completely emulate human behavior. Acquiring information about their environment, storing it, processing it, learning, etc. I can assure you I don't see anything magical at all in performing these tasks.

Chuck
Daedalian Member

Posted: Fri Jan 27, 2012 5:11 am Post subject: 540

extropalopakettle wrote:

Chuck wrote:

If sentience can be anything then I guess everything is sentient.

extropalopakettle
No offense, but....

Posted: Fri Jan 27, 2012 5:21 am Post subject: 541

Chuck wrote:

extropalopakettle wrote:

Assuming other things have other flavors to me would seem like assuming other things have sentience that differs from mine, not that theyhave no sentience (are flavorless)

If sentience can be anything then I guess everything is sentient.

Well, certainly it seems reasonable that there are kinds of sentience we can't imagine. We can imagine the senses of sight and sound and smell and touch and taste ... because we have them. Is it reasonable to assume there are none others possible, as different from those five as they are different from each other? I can't imagine such a sixth sense, but I shouldn't doubt they can exist.

I can also imagine non-sentience - a subjective nothingness. Sentience can't be that.

Nsof
Daedalian Member

Posted: Fri Jan 27, 2012 9:23 am Post subject: 542

Zag wrote:

Please don't put words in my mouth

Sorry. Didn't mean to do that but kind of happy (in a sorry way) that I did because I think I understand you better now.

extro* wrote:

The nature of knowing it doesn't come with an answer to that. I know I'm sentient. I can't prove it to you, or rationalize it to you, but I can hope others will say "yeah, I know I'm sentient too".

I am one of those.

extropalopakettle wrote:

Nsof wrote:

What's your turing test for sentience?

There is none. There is no evidence of sentience. There can be no test for it.

Nsof wrote:

Humans, intelligent aliens that behave like humans, robots that behave like humans, venus fly traps, burglar alarms with motion detectors, mouse traps, photons ... none exhibit evidence of sentience.

You haven't answered my question.
It seems you are convinced other humans have sentience. I guess you are convinced some other things do not have it. What does it take to get you convinced that one thing has sentience and another doesn't?
_________________
Will sell this place for beer

extropalopakettle
No offense, but....

Posted: Fri Jan 27, 2012 12:34 pm Post subject: 543

Nsof wrote:

... sentience. I guess you are convinced some other things do not have it.

No, I'm not convinced of that at all.

Though certainly we have no understanding of the matter. When I say "I" have sentience, what does "I" refer to? My strong intuition is it's not my entire body, not even my entire brain.

And of course I understand that my brain organizes things physically within some small portion of itself in detailed ways that correspond to details about the external world, and thus my rich, vivid world of subjective experiences is to an extent homomorphic to details about the external world. That it does this is of course the result of evolution.

Last edited by extropalopakettle on Fri Jan 27, 2012 12:41 pm; edited 1 time in total

Nsof
Daedalian Member

Posted: Fri Jan 27, 2012 12:39 pm Post subject: 544

stones? _________________ Will sell this place for beer

extropalopakettle
No offense, but....

Posted: Fri Jan 27, 2012 12:42 pm Post subject: 545

Nsof wrote:

stones?

Sorry, I edited while this was here. One moment ...

Zag
Tired of his old title

Posted: Fri Jan 27, 2012 1:04 pm Post subject: 546

extropalopakettle wrote:

Nobody suggested supernatural or magical. That's just your way of ad hominem venting your displeasure with your own inability to reason about this.

I'm becoming annoyed with your insulting tone. You don't like my reason because of what it seems to imply about your religion (though it doesn't, really). Oh, and please look up "ad hominem," and maybe "irony."

extropalopakettle wrote:

If you can't describe ...

I can't describe a lot of things, including how gravity works, how electricity causes magnetic fields, etc. It doesn't mean that I have to introduce something new in physics to explain them.

You're using a more complex version of the Kleenex argument. You can't understand how sentience could be just biology, so it must be something more. This concept of "having experiences" seems so powerful to you that it makes you feel special, that you're more than just chemistry and electricity in a bag of mostly water. That's the foundation of your argument, and I'm not buying it. I find it lacking in reason because it would need to introduce massively new concepts in physics to explain it.

There's a reason the Kleenex pops up which just has to do with the shape, the folding, and the physical properties of the paper; it's just beyond your capacity to understand.

extropalopakettle
No offense, but....

Posted: Fri Jan 27, 2012 10:54 pm Post subject: 547

Zag wrote:

extropalopakettle wrote:

Nobody suggested supernatural or magical. That's just your way of ad hominem venting your displeasure with your own inability to reason about this.

I'm becoming annoyed with your insulting tone.

And I yours, long ago. Your readiness to make ridiculous assumptions about how others think borders on hostile. "magical", "supernatural" or your trite tangential observations that you're so astonished others don't make:

Quote:

I'm astonished that you find it so difficult to see that everything we are, including our really impressive ability to experience and to learn, all exist because OUR ancestors, the ones who acquired those abilities, lived to reproduce, when the ones without them perished.

And then:

Zag wrote:

Is your thesis that if we don't understand something, that means it is more "special."

I never suggested "more special" (whatever that means), and certainly didn't suggest anything special about something not being understaood. Let me make clear: In no way whatsoever do I ever think that because we don't understand something, it is actually different in any significant than things we do understand. To suggest that is insulting. "Not understood" isn't a property I've cited as making anything special. If you thought otherwise, it's because you read as carelessly as you reason.

Zag wrote:

You don't like my reason because of what it seems to imply about your religion (though it doesn't, really).

What I don't like is you're confusing your religion for reason. You're avoiding reason to religiously declare that anything science can't explain must not be real. That isn't a basic tenet of science. I appreciate and recognize the power and utility of science as much as you do. I just don't feel a need to dogmatically declare that anything inherently outside its scope must therefore not exist.

Zag wrote:

extropalopakettle wrote:

If you can't describe ...

I can't describe a lot of things, including how gravity works, how electricity causes magnetic fields, etc. ...

Are you really missing the point? That is not at all similar. I'm not saying describe how it works. I can estimate the mass of objects, measure distances between them, measure their velocities and rates of change of velocity. I can observe all the relevant components of the theory, quantify them, describe them, and tie them together in a theory that explains the way they behave. What makes it happen is another matter, but I can objectively quantify, measure, describe everything, including gravity, as we observe it. I describe gravity by describing how it causes objects to interact. In our world of explanations, that's what gravity is - something that causes objects to interact in a precise particular way. The same for electricity and magnetic fields and how they interact. I can measure voltage and current. I can measure the strength and direction of a magnetic field at a point in space. I can indirectly infer the existence of any of these in situations where I know something that causes them is present, or where they are required to explain something observed.

Sorry about quoting wikipedia, but I only do so when I think they said it right, and you're free to critique what's said here as if the words are my own - I don't cite anything as authority:

On "Intersubjective verifiability", wikipedia wrote:

Intersubjective verifiability is the capacity of a concept to be readily and accurately communicated between different individuals ("intersubjectively"), and to be reproduced under varying circumstances for the purposes of verification. It is a core principle of empirical, scientific investigation.

Mass, distance, time, velocity, voltage, amperage, everything relevant to a theory of gravity or electro-magnetism (or anything else subject to study by science), is intersubjectively verifiable. The nature of subjective experiences are not. You proclaim subjective experiences are equivalent to those other things. They must be, you think, otherwise, by golly, they'd be "magical", and we can't have that. I don't think that makes them magical.

Quoting wikipedia again (nothing controversial - I'm sure you'll agree) on objectivity in science:

On Objectivity in science, wikipedia wrote:

Objectivity in measurement

To avoid the variety in subjective (equivocal) interpretation of quantifying terms such as "green", "hot", "large", "considerable", and "negligible", scientists strive, where possible, to eliminate human senses by the use of standardized measuring tools like meter sticks, stopwatches, thermometers, electromechanical measuring instruments, spectrometers, voltmeters, timers, oscilloscopes, and gravimeters. This eliminates much of the perceptive variability of individual observers. The results of measurements are expressed on a numerical scale of standard units so that everybody else understands them the same way.

Every waking moment of your life, the world that you actually experience, subjectively, as you actually experience it and know it first hand and immediately, is a rich world of vivid sensations, things called "qualia", that you can't describe in any way whatsoever. I don't mean that you can't explain how they come to be (that's of no concern), but that you can't say anything about them at all. You acknowledged this. You acknowledge you can't know if your subjective experience of red is the same as mine. In the external world, red may be light of a particular wavelength. That can be measured, detected, described in such a way that a scientist across the planet can know just what you mean. Not so with the subjective experience.
You may even notice a correlation between a certain kind of brain activity and a subject reporting having the subjective experience of having red. This is where it's easy to trip up. You have to be careful here.

A = visual cortex brain activity that correlates with person reporting having subjective experience of seeing red
B = subjective experience of seeing red
c = reporting a subjective experience of seeing red

A and C are observeable ... intersubjectively verifiable. B is inherently not.

Even if you assume B is actually happening, do you believe A causes B and C, or do you believe A causes B and B causes C. It's tricky, because if B doesn't cause C, or cause anything else, and it isn't intersubjectively verifiable, what makes you think it's there? And if A causes B causes C, you've got a non-intersubjectively verifiable link in a causal chain.

Zag wrote:

It doesn't mean that I have to introduce something new in physics to explain them.

If you can't objectively verify their presence, you can't test whether anything new or old explains them.

Zag wrote:

You're using a more complex version of the Kleenex argument. You can't understand how sentience could be just biology, so it must be something more.

Any lack of understanding plays no part in this. And right there what you just said suggests your own magical thinking. If my sentience is a result of biology, what is biology but matter, energy, strong & weak nuclear forces, etc? And these things are present outside biology. Would you suggest that my mass is a result of biology? No, it's a property of matter in general. Again, you've no evidence sentience is associated with biology. Certainly biology produces all the complexity that allows me to have this discussion, and to respond to my environment, but that's not what we're discussing.

Zag wrote:

This concept of "having experiences" seems so powerful to you that it makes you feel special, that you're more than just chemistry and electricity in a bag of mostly water. That's the foundation of your argument, and I'm not buying it.

If the entire universe were sentient, as I've said we have no reason to doubt, how am I "special"? It makes no sense. I don't know what you mean by "seems so powerful". You and I know subjective experiences can't be decribed or objectively verified. How can such a thing play a part in a coherent theory? Your assertions are pure faith, not backed by any reason at all.

Zag wrote:

I find it lacking in reason because it would need to introduce massively new concepts in physics to explain it.

I find your faith that science can get around this lack of intersubjective verifiability to be lacking in reason, as it would need to introduce massively new concepts - and unsound ones - to the practice of science.

Zag wrote:

There's a reason the Kleenex pops up which just has to do with the shape, the folding, and the physical properties of the paper; it's just beyond your capacity to understand.

The kleenex analogy is dumb. A kleenex is objectively observeable, verifiable. This is not from lack of understanding. It is from knowing something that makes subjective experience fundamentally different than everything science ever dealt with, or can deal with: It is not intersubjectively verifiable. Everything that governs your and my behavior is intersubjectively verifiable - physical processes that can be observed, measured, recorded, verified. I don't understand the details of how I weave ideas into sentences, but I have zero doubt that it's explainable via biology.

Zag
Tired of his old title

Posted: Fri Jan 27, 2012 11:22 pm Post subject: 548

extropalopakettle wrote:

Your readiness to make ridiculous assumptions about how others think borders on hostile. "magical", "supernatural" or your trite tangential observations that you're so astonished others don't make:

Quote:

Are you fucking serious?

The "I'm astonished that you find..." expression was specifically parroting that back to you because you had said it to me. I would NEVER use such an insulting expression in an argument otherwise. That was one of my first expressions of displeasure of your tone, to let you know what it was you sounded like.

Seriously. go to the previous page of this discussion, search in your browser for the word "astonished," and then feel free to come back here and apologize.

Edit: While you're looking up 'ad hominem' and 'irony,' you also should look up 'magical' and 'supernatural.' The definition of both words is, essentially, "not explainable by science." You've gone rather out of your way to insult me for saying that sentience is completely contained within the physiognomy, chemistry, and electricity of the brain (i.e. "explainable by science"). Would you like to continue saying that I am somehow insulting you by calling your explanation of sentience "magical?"

extropalopakettle
No offense, but....

Posted: Sat Jan 28, 2012 1:30 am Post subject: 549

Zag wrote:

Seriously. go to the previous page of this discussion, search in your browser for the word "astonished," and then feel free to come back here and apologize.

extro...* wrote:

Zag wrote:

I agree that I still don't understand what you mean by sentience. ...

.... I'm frankly astonished that you don't know what I mean by "sentience".

I apologize for thinking you didn't understand. Or for being astonished.

Regarding "Are you fucking serious?", yes, I am, quite. Are you seriously suggesting that your waking reality isn't entirely comprised of subjective experiences that are inherently not intersubjectively verifiable? Or that intersubjective verifiability isn't necessary for a scientific treatment? Or that "magical" wasn't intended to discredit that notion? Are you fucking serious? I'll be astonished if you are.

Scurra
Daedalian Member

Posted: Sat Jan 28, 2012 1:45 am Post subject: 550

Zag wrote:

Edit: While you're looking up 'ad hominem' and 'irony,' you also should look up 'magical' and 'supernatural.' The definition of both words is, essentially, "not explainable by science." You've gone rather out of your way to insult me for saying that sentience is completely contained within the physiognomy, chemistry, and electricity of the brain (i.e. "explainable by science"). Would you like to continue saying that I am somehow insulting you by calling your explanation of sentience "magical?"

Whilst I don't want to get involved in this other argument (having skipped out for a week because I could see where it was going!), I would like to come back to your comment because I think that it's the heart of my own personal disagreement with you. You say: "sentience is completely contained within the physiognomy, chemistry, and electricity of the brain". Assuming this to be true, "(i.e. explainable by science)" is not the same thing at all, except in such a general way as to be useless. As I said in a prior post, a book of formulae is not going to explain my (or your!) responses to something (my Toy Story 3 example, although I think your music example was better.). I suppose it is feasible that a suitable complex model might be constructed that could reproduce exactly my or your responses but I find it implausible that such a convincing model could be built without using some sort of heuristic techniques, which are exactly what learning is. And because those heuristic techniques are meant to be evolving models, they will never lead to identical outcomes so it wouldn't be worthwhile to try and recreate a specific person's responses anyway. Meanwhile you probably would have created "sentience" without being able to point to a moment when your model passed from one state to another. Is there a problem with that? Does that make it suddenly "not scientific"?

That's why I might defend the position that "sentience" is indeed not "explainable by science" in a useful sense, but without it needing to be remotely "magical" or "supernatural" (at least not in the sense I think you were using those terms. As usual, this turns out to be nothing more than an argument about definitions.)
_________________
_{still Quiz Olympiad champion. Must get a life.

New definitions: COFFEE - someone who is coughed upon}

extropalopakettle
No offense, but....

Posted: Sat Jan 28, 2012 2:15 am Post subject: 551

Scurra wrote:

That's why I might defend the position that "sentience" is indeed not "explainable by science" in a useful sense, but without it needing to be remotely "magical" or "supernatural" (at least not in the sense I think you were using those terms. As usual, this turns out to be nothing more than an argument about definitions.)

I'll be glad to be corrected if I'm wrong, but I believe "magical" and "supernatural" are words chosen to denigrate the notion that reality could possibly contain some significant aspect that is entirely outside the scope of science. They have a connotation of lesser rationality.

Zag
Tired of his old title

Posted: Sat Jan 28, 2012 2:25 am Post subject: 552

extropalopakettle wrote:

Regarding "Are you fucking serious?", yes, I am, quite. Are you seriously suggesting that your waking reality....

Since you're going to pretend not to understand what I meant by that, I'll just drop it.

BraveHat
Last of the Daedalians

Posted: Sat Jan 28, 2012 3:17 am Post subject: 553

extro wrote:

It is both {A} and {B} which caused the writing attempt. Allow me to explain. The subjective feeling of disappointment is unpleasant. It is therefore desirable for me to try and diminish that subjective feeling when possible. One way to diminish the subjective feeling of disappointment is to fantasize about an imaginary situation where the subjective feeling is somewhat satisfying. One tool which strengthens that fantasy is writing it out. Hence, the behavior of writing it out, in addition to all the indisputably physical processes you mentioned in {B} is also caused by {A}, which may or may not be indisputably physical. Whether it is or isn't, sentient example {A}, the subjective feeling of disappoinment, is a necessary cause of the behavior of writing out a new plot. Without that subjective feeling of disappointment, I would not have been motivated to behave as I did. It was the catalyst, so to speak. It is unreasonable to think that a computer, no matter how highly evolved, no matter how precisely it emulated human behavior, would repeat the behavior I engaged in unless it was sentient, or, experienced the subjective feeling of disappointment.

It's really rather ridiculous to claim that subjective feelings don't cause certain behavior in humans. Talk about struggling against common sense.

So, if I've managed to convince you that there's a causal relationship between sentience and behavior, it follows that it is quite reasonable to think that if another similar being like me, who wasn't a professional writer like I'm not, saw The Phantom Menace and afterwards began writing their own alternative plot, that they also are motivated by subjective feelings and thus have sentience. My experience of the same exact pattern came about because of my sentience, so Sir William of Occam suggests it's reasonable to assume a similar motive for a similar pattern. Yes, there could possibly be other explanations, but the simplest explanation is that he or she has sentience.

extro wrote:

It wasn't the physical representations of disappointment I was trying to diminish. It was the subjective feeling of it. If some imaginary thing has no subjective feeling of disappointment, but has physical representations of it, what consequent force is there to drive mechanisms that serve to diminish those physical representations?

extro wrote:

if that's what "mind" is - this consciousness of subjective experience, which can't be detected, which arise from the physical, though not pure epiphenomena, but coupled with some sort of "free will" that is an actual cause behind what theory says are, and what can't be detected as other than, random events at a microscopic level, that affect macroscopic outcomes - if that's what mind is, in all that, there's absolutely not a thing to suggest it's limited to living things.

I agree with that. I'm not saying in any way shape or form that sentience is limited to living things. Sound athiests don't say in anyway shape or form that reality is limited to natural, physical processes. You really aren't getting that no one is concluding that living things are the only sentient beings. What we are saying, and this is the crucial thing you aren't grasping, is that the scientific search for truth, for the "nature of reality", can only be conducted from what can be reasonably asserted. The scope of what we flawed creatures can reasonably assert about reality is limited to the tools, feeble or otherwise, that we have for doing so. As creatures with access to reason, we have reasonable grounds to assume a rock with sentience is possible, but we have no reasonable grounds to assume a rock with sentience is probable. We do have reasonable grounds to assume that a person with sentience is probable, because we can recognize causal patterns between our own sentience and our own behavior, and infer similar causal patterns on observed behavior in others.

extro wrote:

I wrote:

A rock may very well be sentient, but there's just no reason (yet) to assume so. The reason to assume similar things have sentience is to be able to relate to them. That's the only reason.

Nah, I want to understand the nature of reality, not merely hold pragmatically useful theories.

Yet, by asserting that there is no evidence for sentience in anything but the self and only to the self, there is no "nature of reality" left to understand on this subject, so why even bother discussing it? Zag* was talking about the simplest description of reality. On your view, the simplest description of reality with regards to sentience would not be the non-sequitur "sentience is everywhere", but "sentience is here." "Sentience is here" is simpler than "sentience is everywhere" because the latter requires additional assumptions. And on your view, "Sentience is here" fits all observable phenomena, because in your view, there is no observable phenomena with regards to sentience.

My point wasn't per se that the only reason to assume others have sentience is to be able to relate to them. (I think that's the primary motive people do that). My point was that IF I assume there is absolutely no evidence of other sentient life, which you claim, THEN the only good reason to assume others are sentient is pragmatic.

extro wrote:

I wrote:

Even though you deviated from the actual situation I presented, ...

I made it into a valid analogy, which it otherwise wasn't.

I will cede that I perhaps did not use the best analogy. I was trying to illustrate the connection between similarity and reasonable assumption. It's reasonable to assume that similar things have certain identical properties.

extro wrote:

Hmm. You seem to be shifting your ground a little from:

extro wrote:

If I could be me, then be you, then be a rock, then be the solar system, that would settle it. I'd have a good idea what's sentient, what's not.

That is, you would have to be all of those things at once in order for the idea of what is sentient and what is not to "necessarily correspond to reality". And if you were all of those things at once, would that not make each thing simply an organ of your total being, thus getting no further in finding evidence that different things have sentience, and thus settling nothing?

I'm willing to cede that my analogy wasn't the best, partly because I'm tired, and partly because I recognize it that it wasn't.

extro wrote:

Of course I'm struggling against common sense. The analogous situation is uncommon. The only way we know all those things about mass, etc. is because our observations of mass, etc. are not limited to a single plant or a single marble. If we're going to imagine that it is, we can't presuppose that we know all those things about mass, etc.

extro wrote:

I wrote:

It's a good thing I didn't conclude it then. What you're essentially saying is that any reasoning which doesn't seek the absolute truth is unreasonable.

I don't know what that means. I don't judge reason by what it "seeks".

The goal of reasoning is to come to some sort of conclusion. The goal of good reasoning is to come to a conclusion that corresponds in some way to reality. It seems to me that you think the goal of good reasoning is to come to a conclusion that corresponds to some sort of ultimate reality. If ultimate reality is that sentience is everywhere, that fact would not make my assumption that things similar to me are sentient unreasonable. I just don't personally have any grounds to assume that sentience is everywhere. I'm not asserting it is, and I'm not asserting it isn't.

extro wrote:

What is your REASON for thinking there might be a correlation between having mass, and blueness, or marbleness? You have none.

Sure I do. Similar objects that exhibit similar patterns might share similar causal properties.

*bolded to flag Zag during the skimming process
_________________
"I am declaring it a terrible tragedy for me to die. You may disagree..." --Antrax

extropalopakettle
No offense, but....

Posted: Sat Jan 28, 2012 8:14 pm Post subject: 554

BraveHat wrote:

... the subjective feeling of disappoinment, is a necessary cause of the behavior of writing out a new plot. Without that subjective feeling of disappointment, I would not have been motivated to behave as I did. It was the catalyst, so to speak. It is unreasonable to think that a computer, no matter how highly evolved, no matter how precisely it emulated human behavior, would repeat the behavior I engaged in unless it was sentient, or, experienced the subjective feeling of disappointment.

Why not instead of experiencing subjective disappointment with some certain situation, the computer/program has, associated with each situation, a numeric variable, disspntmntLvl, and if disspntmntLvl exceeds some threshhold, that triggers action aimed at decreasing it? It's by no means clear that behavior can't be programmed to work off some physical representation of disappointment that isn't ever actually subjectively experienced.

BraveHat wrote:

extro wrote:

I agree with that.

To be clear, this "consciousness of subjective experience ... coupled with some sort of "free will" that is an actual cause behind ... random events at a microscopic level" ... this is what some would call "magical" (which I don't think lends anything to the discussion). This free will is an unseen cause. Not only can you not see it, but if it is only a cause behind random events, you won't see evidence of its existence. We're essentially saying there's some causal link that isn't random, isn't deterministic, and isn't a combination of those two, but it's hard to conceive what else it could be. Again, that certainly would be what some would call magical.

BraveHat wrote:

What we are saying, and this is the crucial thing you aren't grasping, is that the scientific search for truth, for the "nature of reality", can only be conducted from what can be reasonably asserted.

Who's "we"? I don't think there are any two agreeing here. I agree with the above, except that we know there is an aspect of the nature of reality not amenable to scientific study.

Scientific search for truth is limited to things that are intersubjectively verifiable. So far, and I'm certain inherently, subjective experiences are not. Nor is free will. Discussing these necessarily requires going outside the restrictions of science, at which point some mock that we do so out of our lack of understanding science, rather than understanding that science has very real limits.

And note this obvious argument (not mine, but it should be anticipated) against free will: free will is just a (magical?) belief we have to explain physical processes in our brain (a combination of deterministic and random) that we don't understand. I'm sure it's that for many - there are many who can't conceive of a purely physical basis for all human behavior - but that isn't it for me. I'm not certain whether subjective experiences are pure epiphenomena (i.e. arise from the physical, but have no effect on anything physical), but I do have trouble believing it. It just seems natural that they should have causative power if they are to serve any purpose (not that purpose is necessary). They would have to have causative power for evolution to select for mechanisms that harness them, for instance. If they have no causative power, evolution can't select for them, and then it's quite a happy accident (or some other explanation) that I have them, because they are my world. Without them, I'd be a "philosophical zombie" ( http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/zombies/ , http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophical_zombie , and http://consc.net/zombies.html ).

BraveHat wrote:

The scope of what we flawed creatures can reasonably assert about reality is limited to the tools, feeble or otherwise, that we have for doing so. As creatures with access to reason, we have reasonable grounds to assume a rock with sentience is possible, but we have no reasonable grounds to assume a rock with sentience is probable. We do have reasonable grounds to assume that a person with sentience is probable, because we can recognize causal patterns between our own sentience and our own behavior, and infer similar causal patterns on observed behavior in others.

It all depends on what you accept as reasonable grounds, and we need to examine that (as we have been).

From pure science, there's no grounds for asserting anything is sentient. My knowledge of my own sentience is extra-scientific (extra meaning outside, not more).

BraveHat wrote:

extro wrote:

BraveHat wrote:

A rock may very well be sentient, but there's just no reason (yet) to assume so. The reason to assume similar things have sentience is to be able to relate to them. That's the only reason.

Nah, I want to understand the nature of reality, not merely hold pragmatically useful theories.

Evidence in the intersubjectively verifiable sense ... evidence as meaningful to scientific consideration. My subjective experience, that it exists, is not such evidence, but it's very much an aspect of the nature of reality (and one that I have a certain fondness for, as without it, my existence would be no better than nonexistence).

BraveHat wrote:

Zag* was talking about the simplest description of reality. On your view, the simplest description of reality with regards to sentience would not be the non-sequitur "sentience is everywhere", but "sentience is here." "Sentience is here" is simpler than "sentience is everywhere" because the latter requires additional assumptions. And on your view, "Sentience is here" fits all observable phenomena, because in your view, there is no observable phenomena with regards to sentience.

"Sentience is here" (pure solipsism) requires an assumption that somehow I turned out special. My intuition is that an explanation for that would be far more complex than simply "sentience is everywhere".

BraveHat wrote:

My point wasn't per se that the only reason to assume others have sentience is to be able to relate to them. (I think that's the primary motive people do that).

I think the primary motive is, to quote from above: there are many who can't conceive of a purely physical basis for all human behavior. Vestiges of a belief in some non-corporeal vital force.

I also think most people don't even think about the fact of the existence of their subjective experiences. When people see something red, say an apple, they think that redness - as they experience it - is out there, on the skin of the apple. The fact is that we evolved complex circuitry to paint an internal picture of the external apple. And again, in one sense, as Zag points out, that internal picture is painted with patterns of neural activity in some part of the visual cortex. But in another sense, it's painted with subjective color experiences - qualia. That's what I "see", but I don't even know what the "I" is that sees that.

BraveHat wrote:

My point was that IF I assume there is absolutely no evidence of other sentient life, which you claim, THEN the only good reason to assume others are sentient is pragmatic.

I disagree. The same old analogy: I land on a planet, pick up one rock, perform a test on it, and notice it has a fascinating property. It's simpler to assume other rocks have that property, than to assume I just happened to land near, and pick up, the one rock with that property. And let's not get too anal with the analogy. I don't have experience with rocks on Earth, or this property. Testing the single rock is analogous to my limitation of directly knowing that I have subjective experiences. I can't test another, and I've never tested, or considered testing for, this property before. It could well be a property of all matter, or of space. I don't know.

BraveHat wrote:

extro wrote:

BraveHat wrote:

Even though you deviated from the actual situation I presented, ...

I made it into a valid analogy, which it otherwise wasn't.

Well, that's not an assumption - it's the definition of similar. Wink

But is it reasonable to assume a correlation between properties based on a single observation of a single object with one of those properties, and that property neither seen before, nor tested for before?

BraveHat wrote:

extro wrote:

Hmm. You seem to be shifting your ground a little from:

extro wrote:

If I could be me, then be you, then be a rock, then be the solar system, that would settle it. I'd have a good idea what's sentient, what's not.

I agree, but the latter was the closest match I could find for the analogy you presented.

The question has been raised by others that, just as much as I can't know if my red qualia is like your red qualia, I also can't know if my red qualia now is the same as my red qualia from a moment ago. I experience now what I experience now, and that includes a completely convincing subjective sense of consistency, but I can't see now's red qualia and a-moment-ago's red qualia side by side.

BraveHat
Last of the Daedalians

Posted: Sun Jan 29, 2012 5:10 pm Post subject: 555

extro wrote:

Scientific search for truth is limited to things that are intersubjectively verifiable. So far, and I'm certain inherently, subjective experiences are not. Nor is free will. Discussing these necessarily requires going outside the restrictions of science, at which point some mock that we do so out of our lack of understanding science, rather than understanding that science has very real limits.

Ahhhh, ok this clears up a lot. And I do apologize if you have already explained this to Zag or others. Sometimes, there is so much written, that really only have to time to check responses to my posts. Normally I follow the whole thread only up to certain point and then, in order to keep it going, I limit my following only to the conversation I'm having.

So when I perceive a very clear and plain causal link between my sentience and my behavior, it is not scientific evidence I see, but some other kind of evidence. A kind of subjective evidence, though clearly an unbiased subjective evidence. Since I can't expect anyone else to verify my motives for acting some particular way, it is not intersubjectively verifiable, and thus not scientific evidence.

However, I do think that, because the causal link is so plain to see, it is perfectly reasonable when I see similar patterns of behavior in similar beings, to assume there is a link between sentience and that behavior. To assume, in an unbiased way, that they also have sentience. You aren't saying that there is no evidence of sentience in similar things, you are saying there is no scientific evidence of sentience in similar things.

extro wrote:

"Sentience is here" (pure solipsism) requires an assumption that somehow I turned out special.

extropalopakettle
No offense, but....

Posted: Sun Jan 29, 2012 6:02 pm Post subject: 556

BraveHat wrote:

So when I perceive a very clear and plain causal link between my sentience and my behavior, it is not scientific evidence I see, but some other kind of evidence. A kind of subjective evidence, though clearly an unbiased subjective evidence. Since I can't expect anyone else to verify my motives for acting some particular way, it is not intersubjectively verifiable, and thus not scientific evidence.

Slow down. Your perception of a causal link is real. That doesn't imply a causal link exists.

I'm not sure what you mean by unbiased.

As I explained in my previous post, it isn't at all clear that a computer couldn't be made to emulate the behavior you described, which, even if in you is in some way caused by by subjective experience, in the computer could be modeled by some numeric variables with no subjective experience attached.

BraveHat wrote:

However, I do think that, because the causal link is so plain to see, ...

"plain to see" the causal link means the subjective sense of it is real, but doesn't at all imply the causal link is real.

As a matter of fact, they've done experiments where they've monitored brain activity and they can see what action a person will make, when given the task to choose randomly between some alternatives, before the point at which the person is aware of having made the decision (the subject is asked to watch a clock's second hand and not where it was when they were first decided). I don't think that means much, but some say it speaks toward free will being an illusion.

And again, this causal link, if it exists, has to be something neither deterministic, nor random, nor some combination of the two, and what that can be is hard to conceive. We call it "free will", but to me determinism and randomness are far more conceivable.

BraveHat wrote:

... it is perfectly reasonable when I see similar patterns of behavior in similar beings, to assume there is a link between sentience and that behavior.

1) If you assume your subjective sense of a causal link means there is one.

2) If the same behavior can't be emulated via a program (which can certainly emulate anything that's some combination of randomness and determinism).

BraveHat wrote:

To assume, in an unbiased way, that they also have sentience. You aren't saying that there is no evidence of sentience in similar things, you are saying there is no scientific evidence of sentience in similar things.

I'm saying there's no more evidence for such sentience in similar things than in non-similar things, when there is no evidence that the properties by which the similar things are similar do or should correlate with sentience.

extro wrote:

"Sentience is here" (pure solipsism) requires an assumption that somehow I turned out special.

No, it doesn't. "Sentience is only here" would require that assumption. "Sentience is here" requires no assumption at all, only a recognition of the fact (even though it must subjectively recognized). It requires no explanation, just plain recognition. It means the exact same thing is "Sentience is at least here", and is therefore much simpler than "Sentience is everywhere".[/quote]

I've tested one object for a given property - no more than one. It tests positive. I've no sensible theory that would suggest why that property might correlate with other properties of that object, such that I could expect that property more likely to be present in objects that have those other properties. It is reasonable to wonder what other objects have this property. The possible conjectures are:

1) Only the tested object. Highly impropbable.
2) Only similar objects. But I have not the vaguest theory that suggests a reason between the one property and all the others by which similar objects are similar.
3) All objects.
4) ???

Chuck
Daedalian Member

Posted: Sun Jan 29, 2012 10:57 pm Post subject: 557

How about: 4) Some things are sentient just like some things are small, some thing are green, some things are spherical, some things are alive, some things are fast, and so on. Why would sentience be an exception to this general trend?

BraveHat
Last of the Daedalians

Posted: Sun Jan 29, 2012 11:17 pm Post subject: 558

extro wrote:

I wrote:

Slow down. Your perception of a causal link is real. That doesn't imply a causal link exists.

I agree, but that's not what I'm saying.

1. I'm not saying my perception isn't real. I'm saying my perception of the causal link cannot be intersubjectively verified, so it cannot be considered scientific evidence.
2. I'm not saying my perception of the causal link implies that it exists (implication meaning it must follow). I'm saying that my perception suggests it exists, and is thus (subjective) evidence for it's existence. Put simply, the perception of something being true is actually (subjective) evidence of it's truth. The perception is like a personal Exhibit A, if you will. If I see an alien spaceship in the sky, that is evidence that the alien spaceship exists. It isn't until stronger evidence against it comes to light, say I was given a hallucinatory drug without knowing it, that the perception becomes weak evidence (but still evidence nonetheless). The difference between subjective and objective evidence is that the self is the only one who can do the weighing of it.

extro wrote:

I'm not sure what you mean by unbiased.

I'm not perceiving the causal link simply because I wish to or because I'm in favor of there being one.

extro wrote:

As I explained in my previous post, it isn't at all clear that a computer couldn't be made to emulate the behavior you described, which, even if in you is in some way caused by by subjective experience, in the computer could be modeled by some numeric variables with no subjective experience attached.

I understand that, and it's not required to be impossible for a computer to do so, in order to reasonably assume that the person next to me is sentient. Until there is evidence that this sort of computer is common, there's more subjective evidence to think the person next to me is sentient than there is subjective evidence to think he/she is programmed. Same thing with living things and nonliving things. There is more subject evidence to think that living things are sentient, then there is subject evidence to think that nonliving things are sentient. The subjective evidence for thinking the living thing is sentient is 1)My sentience appears to cause me to exhibit behavior B in condition C and 2)That living thing exhibited behavior B in condition C. I'm not saying this is completely sound reasoning, but it's the only reasoning we have to go on when talking about sentience in other things. The less possible it is for an object to exhibit some behavior B (similar to ours) in condition C (similar to ours), the less we can apply the only kind of reasoning we have for assuming sentience in it. It does not mean the non-living thing does not have sentience, it only means that we have no reasonable grounds for thinking so.

In short, I agree that we have no reason to believe sentience is limited to living things.
Where I disagree is that I think we do have reason to believe sentience exists in other living things (based on subjective evidence), and no reason to believe it exists in non-living things.

extro wrote:

And again, this causal link, if it exists, has to be something neither deterministic, nor random, nor some combination of the two, and what that can be is hard to conceive. We call it "free will", but to me determinism and randomness are far more conceivable.

That doesn't mean there isn't evidence for it. I walk around the corner to avoid talking with someone, because if I talk to them I have to experience the boredom qualia. Whatever description should be given to the apparentness of the link between this qualia and my behavior, even if the description is inconceivable, the apparentness itself is personal evidence that the link exists.

extro wrote:

I wrote:

... it is perfectly reasonable when I see similar patterns of behavior in similar beings, to assume there is a link between sentience and that behavior.

1) If you assume your subjective sense of a causal link means there is one.

my subjective perception of a causal link is evidence that there is one.

extro wrote:

2) If the same behavior can't be emulated via a program (which can certainly emulate anything that's some combination of randomness and determinism).

Why the "can't"? Why can't it still be a reasonable assumption if there's simply no evidence that such a program is common? We're talking about reasonable assumptions, not rock-solid indisputable certainties.

extro wrote:

And I'm saying that the involuntary perception of correlation counts as subjective evidence for the correlation.

extro wrote:

The possible conjectures are:

1) Only the tested object. Highly impropbable.
2) Only similar objects. But I have not the vaguest theory that suggests a reason between the one property and all the others by which similar objects are similar.
3) All objects.

4)Similar objects. As distinct from only similar objects. You keep sticking the word "only" in there, as if the best conjecture must be the one that somehow accounts for all there is. There is not even subjective evidence for linking sentience to non-similar objects, where as there is at least subjective evidence for linking sentience to similar objects, even though nothing indicates it is limited to similar objects.
_________________
"I am declaring it a terrible tragedy for me to die. You may disagree..." --Antrax

BraveHat
Last of the Daedalians

Posted: Sun Jan 29, 2012 11:26 pm Post subject: 559

Chuck wrote:

4) Some things are sentient just like some things are small, some thing are green, some things are spherical, some things are alive, some things are fast, and so on. Why would sentience be an exception to this general trend?

Chuck always says things better than I can Revenge most foul!

_________________
"I am declaring it a terrible tragedy for me to die. You may disagree..." --Antrax

extropalopakettle
No offense, but....

Posted: Mon Jan 30, 2012 12:56 am Post subject: 560

Chuck wrote:

How about:

4) Some things are sentient just like some things are small, some thing are green, some things are spherical, some things are alive, some things are fast, and so on. Why would sentience be an exception to this general trend?

Here's another general trend: the above properties are easily explainable in terms of more basic properties. More basic properties, like why does all matter have mass, are not so explainable. Sentience is not explainable in terms of other known properties, more like the property of having mass, than like the property of being green, or any of those other properties.

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