Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site spar.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!prls!amdimage!amdcad!cae780!weitek!turtlevax!spar!ellis From: ellis@spar.UUCP (Michael Ellis) Newsgroups: net.philosophy Subject: Re: Sc--nce Attack (self-awareness) Message-ID: <541@spar.UUCP> Date: Wed, 25-Sep-85 09:13:58 EDT Article-I.D.: spar.541 Posted: Wed Sep 25 09:13:58 1985 Date-Received: Fri, 27-Sep-85 07:17:48 EDT References: <45200016@hpfcms.UUCP> <1605@pyuxd.UUCP> <491@spar.UUCP> <1635@pyuxd.UUCP> <1128@ames.UUCP> <514@spar.UUCP> <1680@pyuxd.UUCP> Reply-To: ellis@max.UUCP (Michael Ellis) Organization: Schlumberger Palo Alto Research, CA Lines: 261 >> Imagine futuristic experimenters somehow temporarily disabling various >> brain functions and using some standard criterion to test for >> awareness. But what objective criterion is there? Do we ask the >> subject if they are aware? Or do we ask afterwards whether they recall >> events that transpired during the experiment? [ELLIS] > >If (and only if) consciousness involves some non-physical component, then >this would be the only way. On the contrary -- only if awareness HAS physical manifestation will the approach I've mentioned worked. To my knowledge, the successes to date in mapping brain structures to behavior functions have taken precisely this approach. For example, we know which part of the brain causes language ability, because those who suffer the objectively perceivable speech dysfunctions typically also display some abnormality in a particular brain structure. >But this is like saying the only way we can find out what is wrong with a >buggy program is to get it to "tell" us what is wrong with it. Ever read a >dump, Mike? It's not my idea of fun, but it can be done, and is, more often >than I might like. For your claim to have any veracity, you must assume the >point that a "dump" of the brain, coupled with proper knowledge of how to >"read" it, would not generate the same type of information that reading an >operating system dump might give us. As an assembly language hacker in the old days, I've read plenty of dumps -- especially those of malfunctioning programs with no source. My favorite way of fixing them was to fiddle with the suspected locations and observe the change in the outward behavior. Kenn Barry already addressed this issue -- even WITH a full description of a brain mechanism, all we can do is determine which structure corresponds to any given externally perceivable behavior pattern. This is the force behind the question "What is the external symptom of awareness?" If a rigorous definition can be defined that captures this internal experience, then we can eventually search thru `core dumps' (or tamper with brains) and locate the desired structure. On the issue of core dumps: To the extent that high level mental states are implemented at the quantum level, they will be in principle undumpable (objectively unknowable) provided that quantum indeterminacy remains a permanent feature of natural order -- nature may have been so economical in her methods that we feel sensations by destroying their quantum state information. In this case, taking core dumps would qualitatively randomize the subject's mental state -- we could only get core dumps of a person who was suffering the trauma of core-dump, quite a different thing from a candid snapshot of a person caught within the state which we really wish to study. >And I still contend that you make this assumption to reach the conclusion >you want regarding brains and minds. Which is an ass backwards way to >think. Oh, I see -- top-down conceptualization is inferior to bottom-up -- that's what you seem to be saying. Very few people, (besides Skinnerians) would agree with you that objective dogmatically precedes subjective. Especially with something so objectively elusive as awareness, the state of being a conscious entity. If we had no subjective mental states, I can hardly see our motivation in searching for their objective manifestations! Are we only external behavior? Why are we not also internal sensation? Why do you deny what you experience? Skinnerism may be a useful laboratory methodology, but is it the complete truth? >> Regardless, let us suppose that our futuristic experimenters discover a >> definite mental structure that is responsible for the human subjective >> experience of awareness. Maybe it would even be implementable on digital >> computers, maybe not. (BTW, Searle has strong arguments to the contrary..) >Care to elaborate on them rather than just mentioning them in passing as if >that alone lends some sort of legitimacy to it? It would be appreciated. I'll do my best (anybody -- please flame at my misconceptions).. John Searle, who argues that human cognition (in particular intentionality and meaning) is caused by the powerful biochemical machinery of our brains, is the author of wonderfully cynical plain language attacks against the assertions by big name AI folks that human cognitive states are digitally simulatable. In particular, he attacks the notion (also expressed by Hofstadter, as well as in the recent `Soul' debate) that formal symbolic information processing is the same as what the neurophysical machinery of our brains does. A digital simulation may simulate our brains, but such an isomorphism will fail to cause any real mental experience. His notorious `Chinese Room' experiment from `Minds, Brains, Programs' (too long to reproduce here, unless there is future interest) is quite entertaining. Searle rejects mind/body dualism, attributing equal reality to subjective experience and objective entities, much as surface tension is as real as the water molecules which cause it: "The mind-brain problem is no more of a problem than the digestion-stomach problem". Consequently, Skinnerism, which denies any reality to mental experience, is an extreme form of dualism, since it not only artificially splits the universe, but it discards half of it. Excerpts from `Minds, Brains, Programs': The problem with a brain simulator is that it is simulating the wrong things about the brain. As long as it only simulates the formal structure of the sequence of neural firings at synapses, it won't have simulated what matters about the brain, namely its causal properties, its ability to produce intentional states. ... No one would suppose that we could produce milk and sugar by running a computer simulation of the formal sequences in lactation and photosythesis; but where the mind is concerned, many people are willing to believe in such a miracle, because of ... a deep and abiding dualism: the mind they suppose is a matter of specific material causes in a way that milk and sugar are not. Another from `Intentionality': To say that an agent is conscious of the conditions of satifaction of his conscious beliefs and desires is not to say that he has to have second order intenional states about his first order states of belief and desire. If it were, we would indeed get an infinite regress. Rather, the consciousness of the conditions of satisfaction is part of the conscious belief or desire, since the intentional content is internal to the states in question. Note that his ideas side with neither of the stereotypical {objective, materialist, behaviorist, rational, reductionist} or {subjective, mentalist, spontaneous, intuitive, holistic} viewpoints typically encountered in theories of mind. >> There is still no way whatsoever to demonstrate that some other >> radically different kind of structure might not also work as well -- >> after all, the only aware entities we are certain of are humans -- >> although I believe animals and maybe plants share this trait with us, to >> varying degrees. >There is also no reason to assume that the reason my parakeet is missing and >there are feathers in my cat's mouth is that nanoscopic aliens from the 23rd >dimension entered my house, neutralized my cat with a time displacement >transfuser and digital synthesizer, disintegrated the bird with a Radio >Shack combination nuclear tambourine/microwave transmiitter/CD player, and >stuffed real bird feathers in my cat's mouth. If I have a vested interest >in "proving" that aliens from the 23rd dimension shop at Radio Shack, I >might choose to make this assumption. You miss the point: Is there something intrinsic in the physical construction of humans that is responsible for mind, or can something qualitatively similar to mind somehow be `caused' by radically different form and substance? I have neither belief nor vested interest in this question. Philosophically, however, it is brings up the crucial question Laura brought up earlier: What are the sources of knowledge? Subjective knowledge is dubious because it is not (yet) verifiable, but does that mean I did not sneeze twice last tuesday, because nobody saw me and all the evidence is gone? >> How can we say for certain that an arbitrarily complex heap of chemicals >> is not subjectively experiencing conscious awareness (perhaps even >> qualitatively similar to our own) even though the result of structures >> profoundly different from anything found in ourselves? >We can't. Perhaps the rock you tripped over last week was hurt as much as >you were. GRAZIE TANTO!! The limits of objective knowledge -- one must BE the entity in question. >Can you describe the mechanism by which it senses and feels all this? Nope. But science forges ever onward, philosophical and psychological speculation leading the way. >> This issue of kinds of knowledge -- objective vs subjective -- is where >> science SETS ITS OWN LIMITS of observation, and it is where I find >> strictly materialistic philosophical schemes inadequate for >> understanding my own human existence. >Is the limit "objective vs. subjective", or is it "documentable and >verifiable vs. non- ..."? If your hypothetical experimenters had enough >knowledge to go into your brain and determine the ACCURACY of your >subjective ideas, and found them based not on facts but on preconceptions, >what would you say then? Preconceptions of what? I do not claim that the interpretation of subjective ideas is necessarily true -- obviously they are often not in accord with objectively known facts. Besides, it's not the ACCURACY of subjective experience that makes them real, it's the fact that they were experienced in the first place: Example 1: Dennett's nefarious neurosurgeon implants something in my brain so that whenever he pushes a button, I feel a pain in my toe. The button is pushed: (TRUE) I feel toe-like pains. (FALSE) My toe requires medical care. Example 2: I believe I secretly control the world using mental telepathy that implant my wishes into frogs, but I tell nobody. (TRUE) I have weird secret thoughts. (FALSE) I control the world through frogs. The notion of objective vs subjective is examined by Rorty, who, in "Philosophy & the Mirror of Nature", imagines an alien planet ("the Antipodes") populated by people who do not have minds, although they do have complex brains and vaguely respond like humans. They use words like `I' for convenience, but lack words such as `feel' or `awareness' that describe direct inner mental experiences. The very fact that strict behaviorists deny mental states only magnifies the issue. We can imagine Skinnerian robots exhibiting complex functions without the need for internal states. This secondary phantom world does not seem to be logically necessary. But it is not merely an artifice of our culture -- every culture has evolved similar notions of an internal noumenal world. >> Philosophy, the love of wisdom, must never acquiesce to the axioms and >> definitions of any single viewpoint -- materialistic or otherwise. >> Instead, philosophy should be a tool for mutual comprehension of all >> modes of thought. >Does this mean philosophy should ignore the truth, the realities of the >world, in favor of propositions about how some might prefer to see the world? It is commonsense and not the ideology of intellectuals that determines whether or not something exists, and, if it exists, what properties it has -- Paul Feyerabend Philosophy, being more flexible than any particular methodology (including science) does not decide `the realities of the world', at least not in the sense of `true' or `false'. Philosophical speculation transcends any partisan view of the world, and is most valuable for investigating the nature of viewpoints in general. By nonjudgementally abstracting the definitions, axioms, basic notions, and arguments of any given point of view, one might determine if an arbitrary statement is true within that system, or how two systems might conflict with each other. To the extent that the system under study has a rigorous basis, such questions can be answered mechanically by logic. More often, the important questions are based on complex issues like semantics, and that is one reason philosophy is not reducible to mechanical logic. As a means of gaining insight to the realities of alien worldviews, philosophy can open one's mind to the true breadth of human existence. "Others are so bright and intelligent" -michael Brought to you by Super Global Mega Corp .com