incorrigable private evidence

[_DonBradley]

Counterintuitive but not absurd. Are guys like Daniel Dennett (and Paul Churchland and and and...) just insane?

Do you accept this kind of argument when offered by religious apologists? Is Book of Mormon historicity rational and plausible because Nibley was intelligent and sane? Is the violation of the principle of identity in Trinitarian doctrine not absurd because a great thinker like William of Ockham touted it?

You know better than this kind of argument. The answer is that, yes, the idea can be completely absurd and yet believed in by these intelligent and sane thinkers.

Don

[_DonBradley]

Tarski,

Being a highly intelligent and well-read person, you'll no doubt offer responses to which I will, in turn, want to respond. But I am going to do my best to fight temptation, even if it comes to me in the form of a disembodied evil consciousness somehow interacting with my digital processing system (i.e., brain). I've been involving myself more and more in a topic that I initially posted on to dismiss as something I'd consider a worthwhile topic! That we actually experience things seems to me a fact more basic than any other; and, in my mind, it would take very adept mental contortionism to believe otherwise. Human beings are capable of thinking themselves ideologically into positions they know experientially to be wrong; but it's not an admirable trait; and it's something I've come to despise in both post-modern thought, in scientistic and premature attempts to explain consciousness, and in other forays into both hyper-abstraction and hyper-reductionism.

Please beat me with wet qualia if I return to this thread!

Thanks,

Don

[_Tarski]

No surprise here, but I agree with the brilliant (as well as lovely) KA.

One thing I'm curious about: if what we describe as consciousness just is our behavior, without any genuine "experience," then why don't we regard ourselves as conscious of all our behavior? One of the brain's behaviors, of course, is to run the heart. But no one reports being conscious of making their heart beat. And work over the past few decades by psychologists like Timothy Wilson and Daniel Gilbert has uncovered the role of what Wilson long ago dubbed "the cognitive unconscious"--they've shown that most of our cognitive processing occurs without our awareness, and often in ways quite contrary to how we perceive our minds to work. But if "consciousness" just is our brain's behavior--the things it does, why is only some of what it does perceived as conscious. It would appear, per Dr. Wilson's coinage, that we are conscious of part of our cognition, and unconscious of the remainder (and majority). So, consciousness then becomes, not just our brain's behavior, but the part of our brain's behavior of which we are conscious--which sounds just a bit circular.

Ah. You are interested. And now I have you thinking. There are subtle answers to these questions in Dennett's magnum opus. A hint might be to point out that there are events in the brain which are not in communication with the part of the brain that produces speech (or language). Could I be conscious of something and yet that part of my brain is totally not in communication with my mouth so to speak? Would I hear myself say "I am not aware of that" and inside be squirming because I really am?
But the best explanation is in dennett's book when he discusses "blind sight".
Also, what is the difference between events in the brain that I can base policies on (should I shoot?, should I go?, should I respond?) and those I can't? I could never say to myself "I will go as soon as my blood pressure gets to a level X". Someone couln't ask me to shout YO! as soon as the digestion of a sandwhich is finished. I am not informationally connected in the right ways to those things. Likewise there is much in the brain that is not informationally connected to my speech centers or other parts of my brain in the right way for me to base policies on or report about to others.
If I can base action policies on it, speak about it, etc. then we should call this conscious but only in a functional way--not some mystical way. These are things that could be true of robots too. A robot may be able to communicate about or base policies for action on some of its sub-states but not others. It's a matter of what is connected to what and content gets "famous" within the brain.

And, building on the discovery of the cognitive unconscious to turn your repeated question on its head, Tarski; why couldn't the behavior of even the best human-mimicking machine be unconscious, like most of the workings of the human brain itself?

Because, there is nothing missing like you think. that's all there is to consciousness--just function like a conscious being. All, there is is the behavior and some of that is stuff the robot was designed to talk about and declare to be conscious or present and other stuff it is not designed to overtly fuss about at all.
I could trivially design a sensor that detects blue light. I could also design it to answer the question of how it knows there is blue or what its like when it detect blue. I could design it to say "oh its just, er, "blue" you know, like it is just this, well it's hard to describe but it is just there you see, in my mind".
I might even design my robot to have a whole inner economy of folk concepts like this and even become very upset with anyone who questioned this explanation.

One problem with cognitive reductionism is that it often declares by fiat that there is nothing that hasn't already been reduced--nothing left to explain, however much most cognitive beings find themselves and what is most significant about them yet unexplained.

But you are just declaring that something is left to explain and yet can't say what it is without just applying some pat phrases like "awareness itself" or "what its like to see red" etc.

Another problem with it is that it relies on the most recent useful metaphor. Anciently, consciousness was understood by analogy with light. More recently, it was understood by analogy with an industrial machine. Now, the metaphors are computers. Is the current reductionism somehow "the truth"--the whole truth even--about consciousness; or will it be supplanted by other metaphors as these become available?

that's a fine observation but it ignores the fact that we do now understand that the brain is a bundle of neurons is the seat of our mentality. Science is making progress and the computer metaphor is superior to the ghost in the machine metaphor.
What events in the world can't be explained in principle by talking about brain function?

But the human brain isn't digital; and we are not mere information processing devices, Don

It may not be digital but that is beside the point. It is a biophysical control mechanism.
What else do you propose it going on? What is the evidence (other than your bearing your testimony about you inner world of qualia?)

Do you also believe that life is more than the molecular machinery that biology has uncovered?? Is there a "spark of life" in a one celled animal? It's a similar intuition but losing ground now thankfully.

[_Gadianton]

Don wrote:

The job of philosophy should be to explore those realities, and perhaps hypothetical counter-realities as well. To doubt

Boyd wrote:

There is a temptation for the writer or the teacher Of Church history to want to tell everything, whether it is worthy or faith promoting or not.
Some things that are true are not very useful.
Historians seem to take great pride in publishing something new, particularly if it illustrates a weakness or mistake of a prominent historical figure.

:)

Don't tell me, Dan Dennett, who had studied philosophy and perhaps even more intensely, cognitive science for thirty some odd years before writing his book, and, who disdains the detached ivory tower thought experiments of academic philosophy, is not only wrong, but needs to be told by a historian how he should do his job as a philosopher?

[_Tarski]

Counterintuitive but not absurd. Are guys like Daniel Dennett (and Paul Churchland and and and...) just insane?

Do you accept this kind of argument when offered by religious apologists? Is Book of Mormon historicity rational and plausible because Nibley was intelligent and sane? Is the violation of the principle of identity in Trinitarian doctrine not absurd because a great thinker like William of Ockham touted it?

You know better than this kind of argument. The answer is that, yes, the idea can be completely absurd and yet believed in by these intelligent and sane thinkers.

Don

It's not an argument just a question. What do you make of a person that denies that there is qualia?
Have they lost their "testimony"?

Look, I am not claiming that Dennett is just right or that it is a done deal--no qualia no traditional subjectivity. May be there is something after all.
But, I do say, that his reasoning and intutition pumps (as he calls them) are strong and if anyone is going to think about consciousness they will have to face up to and deal with Dennett in some way other than immediate dismissal.

[_Gadianton]

Solving the riddle of consciousness is one thing. Denying its existence is another.

Dennett's position isn't an easy one to assertain. But he does not deny conscioussness. Let's let him speak for himself, right from the first of the paper:

Which idea of qualia am I trying to extirpate? Everything real has properties, and since I don't deny the reality of conscious experience, I grant that conscious experience has properties. I grant moreover that each person's states of consciousness have properties in virtue of which those states have the experiential content that they do. That is to say, whenever someone experiences something as being one way rather than another, this is true in virtue of some property of something happening in them at the time, but these properties are so unlike the properties traditionally imputed to consciousness that it would be grossly misleading to call any of them the long-sought qualia.

Now given yours and Kims hitherto in-depth survey of qualia debates, I can understand your concerns that Dennett has denied the existence of consciousness.

[_Tarski]

Solving the riddle of consciousness is one thing. Denying its existence is another.

Dennett's position isn't an easy one to assertain. But he does not deny conscioussness. Let's let him speak for himself, right from the first of the paper:

Which idea of qualia am I trying to extirpate? Everything real has properties, and since I don't deny the reality of conscious experience, I grant that conscious experience has properties. I grant moreover that each person's states of consciousness have properties in virtue of which those states have the experiential content that they do. That is to say, whenever someone experiences something as being one way rather than another, this is true in virtue of some property of something happening in them at the time, but these properties are so unlike the properties traditionally imputed to consciousness that it would be grossly misleading to call any of them the long-sought qualia.

Now given yours and Kims hitherto in-depth survey of qualia debates, I can understand your concerns that Dennett has denied the existence of consciousness.

Yes, OK, the cat is out of the bag. Dennett does not exactly deny that consciousness exists. However, after figuring out what he thinks consciousness really is, many are left with the feeling that, in a way, he really is denying it. He has, after all, jettisoned much of what many people intuit to be the really neato things about consciousness (qualia etc.). It's like he is trying to get us to accept a newish behavioral definition of consciousness. For Dennett, a robot could, at least in principle, be conscious- and that without epiphenomena being magically added at some point. It's all describable in physical/functional terms.

I focus on this part:
"these properties are so unlike the properties traditionally imputed to consciousness that it would be grossly misleading to call any of them the long-sought qualia"

[_Gadianton]

If you can't beat them, join them. How about we pit two equally compelling common-sense notions against each other?

On the one hand, Don Bradley, you say you agree with the lovely Kim. Kim has made it clear that Mary learns some further fact beyond all the physical facts of the universe when she sees red.

But you also claim,

I find it likely that consciousness "is" a brain process. I don't believe that consciousness is some supernatural immaterial substance apart from the brain or interacting with the brain.

What could be more intuitive, for an atheist, then identity theory? Yet you can't believe this sensible intuition and believe Kim's sensible intuition. If Kim is right, then physicalism is at once false (at least identity theory is!), and consciousness is not explained by brain processes.

So what do you guys wanna do? throw out physicalism, or throw out your special knowledge that can't be printed in books?

[_KimberlyAnn]

Solving the riddle of consciousness is one thing. Denying its existence is another.

Dennett's position isn't an easy one to assertain. But he does not deny conscioussness. Let's let him speak for himself, right from the first of the paper:

I'm more apt to take seriously arguments regarding consciousness from people who can spell it correctly.

Which idea of qualia am I trying to extirpate? Everything real has properties, and since I don't deny the reality of conscious experience, I grant that conscious experience has properties. I grant moreover that each person's states of consciousness have properties in virtue of which those states have the experiential content that they do. That is to say, whenever someone experiences something as being one way rather than another, this is true in virtue of some property of something happening in them at the time, but these properties are so unlike the properties traditionally imputed to consciousness that it would be grossly misleading to call any of them the long-sought qualia.

Now given yours and Kims hitherto in-depth survey of qualia debates, I can understand your concerns that Dennett has denied the existence of consciousness.

I didn't argue that Dennett denied the existence of consciousness, though if you'll focus your attention on the last highlighted sentence in the Dennett quote you provided, you'll see that he denies consciousness as it is traditionally understood. It was Tarski who questioned the existence of consciousness in his original post.

KA

[_Gadianton]

I'm more apt to take seriously arguments regarding consciousness from people who can spell it correctly.

Why? do people who spell consciousness correctly have more intense orgasms?

I didn't argue that Dennett denied the existence of consciousness, though if you'll focus your attention on the last highlighted sentence in the Dennett quote you provided, you'll see that he denies consciousness as it is traditionally understood.

Oh, I see that now...

And as one with significant vested interests in how consciousness is traditionally understood, Dennett's position is a real problem for you - right?

What is the traditional understanding of consciousness anyway?