incorrigable private evidence

[Guest]

What makes you think we are denying suffering?

I'm not saying that you deny "suffering" in your terms--i.e., as a behavioral response--crying, avoidance, saying something hurts, etc. I'm saying you deny the experience of suffering. To deny "consciousness," "real seemings," and subjective experience just is to deny the experience of sufering, or of anything else.

We are only suggesting that suffering can be unpacked in terms of things understandable in naturalistic terms and in terms that at root connect up to things in the objective world (like frustration of goals and dashing of hopes etc.).

If you were indeed "only" suggesting this, it might make sense. But you are drawing implications from brain-mind identity that don't follow and are absurd at the outset--e.g., that there is no such thing as consciousness or subjective experience.

by the way, Gad, the notion of brain-mind identity has been around much longer that Dan Dennett's particular theories, and to conflate the two--suggesting that one must hold to the latter to accept the former--is badly mistaken.

Don

[_Tarski]

Gad,

It still doesn't follow that if Dennett does something as a philosopher, he's working within the proper boundaries of philosophy. And to state that a philosopher's job is not to deny reality as everyone knows it even prior to reflection, but to clarify it, should be sufficiently close to self-evident as to be quite uncontroversial.

Don

One can't deny reality as everyone knows it even prior to reflection? That sounds identical to the arguments against the Copernican idea that the earth moves (it clearly doesn't right?)

[_DonBradley]

Gad,

It still doesn't follow that if Dennett does something as a philosopher, he's working within the proper boundaries of philosophy. And to state that a philosopher's job is not to deny reality as everyone knows it even prior to reflection, but to clarify it, should be sufficiently close to self-evident as to be quite uncontroversial.

Don

One can't deny reality as everyone knows it even prior to reflection? That sounds identical to the arguments against the Copernican idea that the earth moves (it clearly doesn't right?)

You may choose to distort my intent as much as you like, Tarski. I'm obviously not saying that things are always as they seem. I've already discussed how recent findings in cognitive psychology show that things are not always as they seem. But the having of experience is logically prior to any particular seemings. We all know that we have experience, and, as I've already said, if we don't have experience, then it seems as though we do, which amounts to the same thing. To deny that we have experience is only slightly less sophistic than denying that we exist.

I'm not sure why I should be arguing with you that we have experience anymore than I'd argue with you if you claimed to not exist, or claimed that inflicting gratuitous suffering was the very definition of good.

Don

[_Tarski]

Gad,

It still doesn't follow that if Dennett does something as a philosopher, he's working within the proper boundaries of philosophy. And to state that a philosopher's job is not to deny reality as everyone knows it even prior to reflection, but to clarify it, should be sufficiently close to self-evident as to be quite uncontroversial.

Don

To deny that we have experience is only slightly less sophistic than denying that we exist.

Lets make sure we now what we are saying. If you agree that the self controling and language producing, and sensory input processing activity of a system (biological or otheriwse)is all you mean my consciousness and experience then I am not denying it as this would be insane.
But if you think there is something beyond that (which is what most people intuit) then it isn't sophistic at all. It is potential the route by which much mind/body sophetry can be rightfully junked.
So which do you mean?

I'm not sure why I should be arguing with you that we have experience anymore than I'd argue with you if you claimed to not exist, or claimed that inflicting gratuitous suffering was the very definition of good.

Why exactly? How is it different than some other things that seem obvious but might turn out to be incorrect or useless (like the immobile earth or life spark/elan-vital)?
If you Don, can imagine that a robot could behave just like a human being and not be conscious nontheless then I suspect you hold intuitions about some extra ingredient that supposedly must exist for true subjectivity that I wish to challenge.
What is it and what work does it do? --(given that the unconscious robot can be imagined to behave in a human way)

You may choose to distort my intent as much as you like, Tarski. I'm obviously not saying that things are always as they seem.

Just this one thing?

[_DonBradley]

You may choose to distort my intent as much as you like, Tarski. I'm obviously not saying that things are always as they seem.

Just this one thing?

Ah, the disingenuousness continues. I've argued in multiple posts that our having of experience is logically prior to our experience of any particular perception, true or false.

Lets make sure we now what we are saying. If you agree that the self controling and language producing, and sensory input processing activity of a system (biological or otheriwse)is all you mean my consciousness and experience then I am not denying it as this would be insane.

This isn't an attempt to clarify, Tarski. It is your repeated attempt to obfuscate. No, "consciousness" doesn't "mean" brain activity of a certain sort. "Consciousness" refers to an inner state of awareness--a fact of which you're already aware as a human being and a speaker of the English language. However such states may be accounted for biologically, the notion of consciousness is itself irreducibly a subjective one, meaning that it can only be understood by the experience of consciousness. You want to ignore this, and change the meaning of the term to a signification it has never had across the millennia that human beings have understood themselves to be conscious or aware. In your attempt to explain consciousness, you lay aside the very thing to be explained.

If you Don, can imagine that a robot could behave just like a human being and not be conscious nontheless then I suspect you hold intuitions about some extra ingredient that supposedly must exist for true subjectivity that I wish to challenge.
What is it and what work does it do? --(given that the unconscious robot can be imagined to behave in a human way)

The extra ingredient, Tarski, is called consciousness. Consciousness is not a term that has ever referred to observable behavior; rather, it has referred always to the ability to observe. To redefine it in behavioral terms isn't to account for it, but to ignore the thing to be accounted for.

Don

[_Gadianton]

It still doesn't follow that if Dennett does something as a philosopher, he's working within the proper boundaries of philosophy. And to state that a philosopher's job is not to deny reality as everyone knows it even prior to reflection,

Believe what you will. It's not the historians job to deny the restoration as everyone knows deep down it's true.

by the way, Gad, the notion of brain-mind identity has been around much longer that Dan Dennett's particular theories, and to conflate the two--suggesting that one must hold to the latter to accept the former--is badly mistaken.

Where did I conflate the two? I accused you of accepting kim's intuition in the Mary's room thought experiment which was constructed by Jackson specifically to sucker you into rejection physicalism - namely identity theory. And it worked.

I never even remotely implied Dennett's theories are identity theories, clearly they aren't as he's, for all intents and purposes, a functionalist. Dennett believes identity theory is hopeless.

[_Tarski]

You may choose to distort my intent as much as you like, Tarski. I'm obviously not saying that things are always as they seem.

Just this one thing?

Ah, the disingenuousness continues. I've argued in multiple posts that our having of experience is logically prior to our experience of any particular perception, true or false.

Lets make sure we now what we are saying. If you agree that the self controling and language producing, and sensory input processing activity of a system (biological or otheriwse)is all you mean my consciousness and experience then I am not denying it as this would be insane.

This isn't an attempt to clarify, Tarski. It is your repeated attempt to obfuscate. No, "consciousness" doesn't "mean" brain activity of a certain sort. "Consciousness" refers to an inner state of awareness--a fact of which you're already aware as a human being and a speaker of the English language. However such states may be accounted for biologically, the notion of consciousness is itself irreducibly a subjective one, meaning that it can only be understood by the experience of consciousness. You want to ignore this, and change the meaning of the term to a signification it has never had across the millennia that human beings have understood themselves to be conscious or aware. In your attempt to explain consciousness, you lay aside the very thing to be explained.

If you Don, can imagine that a robot could behave just like a human being and not be conscious nontheless then I suspect you hold intuitions about some extra ingredient that supposedly must exist for true subjectivity that I wish to challenge.
What is it and what work does it do? --(given that the unconscious robot can be imagined to behave in a human way)

The extra ingredient, Tarski, is called consciousness. Consciousness is not a term that has ever referred to observable behavior; rather, it has referred always to the ability to observe. To redefine it in behavioral terms isn't to account for it, but to ignore the thing to be accounted for.

Don

I think you're confused. The ability to observe is indeed real. It does actual functional work. Machines can do it. But that is not what you are talking about is it?
On the one hand, you are refering to the subjective inner irreducible thing I am challenging but then later equivocating by claiming that it does something and is needed for this or that observable thing--but then you are using the other behavioristic defintion of consciousness (the kind that does some real work in the actual world).

[_Tarski]

I've argued in multiple posts that our having of experience is logically prior to our experience of any particular perception, true or false.

You didn't argue--you asserted. Now that I know that the consciousness of which you speak is that ineffable, immaterial irreducible inner thingy, I can say that your assertion doesn't make sense to me. Or rather, it doesn't seem sensible.
Why "experience of perception? Why not just perception?

Could a community of sophisticated robots (maybe designed by evolution :) be having these very arguments and using just these words?

by the way, please note that I include in my use of the word behavior, the behavior of neurons.
Try and differentiate mere machines from truely conscious beings with subjecivity. What makes the difference. What extra exists? Is it spirit?

[_DonBradley]

Tarski,

I have subjective states, experiences. You do as well. If you'd like to try to redefine these, and the terms and concepts of consciousness, awareness, observation, etc., you are certainly free to. But such a redefinition will not add illumination to the things you leave behind in your redefinition.

for what it's worth, I don't know what it is that causes conscious states--subjective states. You seem to know that it is information processing that constitutes consciousness. I believe that consciousness arises from, or is perhaps identical to, certain brain states, but unlike you I don't know how this occurs.

Since our starting points are as far apart as they can be--I acknowledge my subjectivity, while you define yours out of existence, we can only talk past one another. You are certain that no explanation of consciousness can work if it includes inner subjectivity, while to me this is the very thing to be explained.

Ciao

[_Tarski]

Tarski,

I have subjective states, experiences. You do as well. If you'd like to try to redefine these, and the terms and concepts of consciousness, awareness, observation, etc., you are certainly free to. But such a redefinition will not add illumination to the things you leave behind in your redefinition.

Ciao

I am claiming that there is nothing left behind by my redescriptionis in terms of brain language and other scientific things.
Nothing except the intuition that something is left behind.

for what it's worth, I don't know what it is that causes conscious states--subjective states. You seem to know that it is information processing that constitutes consciousness. I believe that consciousness arises from, or is perhaps identical to, certain brain states, but unlike you I don't know how this occurs.

Since our starting points are as far apart as they can be--I acknowledge my subjectivity, while you define yours out of existence, we can only talk past one another. You are certain that no explanation of consciousness can work if it includes inner subjectivity, while to me this is the very thing to be explained.

All that has to be explained is why a human being says and does what he she does (like why do many humans intuit or think that conscious is something beyond brain/body behavior). Knowing how the brain works as a physical thing should do the trick if supplemented by linguistic normative notions.

Can you just say what is left out without just repeating a few isolated words like "consciousness", or "subjective quality", "what its like inside" etc?

When I ask you to flesh it out you seem to gravitate toward stuff I don't deny (stuff that brains and subtle machines could do).