On Wednesday, February 19, 2014 3:37:43 PM UTC-5, David Nyman wrote: > > On 19 February 2014 17:15, Craig Weinberg <whats...@gmail.com<javascript:> > > wrote: > > >> On Wednesday, February 19, 2014 11:28:18 AM UTC-5, David Nyman wrote: >> >>> On 19 February 2014 14:17, Craig Weinberg <whats...@gmail.com> wrote: >>> >>> You're talking about the special case of human experience, human bodies, >>>> etc. I'm talking about the ontology of the nature of any possible >>>> awareness >>>> in any possible universe. >>>> >>> >>> I'm not really sure what distinction you're trying to draw here. The >>> dictionary tells us that ontology is the study of the categories of being >>> and existence. We must assume that since there is awareness it must inhere, >>> in some sense, in whatever exists, but that alone doesn't take us very far. >>> Since not everything that exists makes any claim to be aware the >>> interesting part is trying to elucidate the specific conditions that >>> differentiate the presence of such claims from their absence. >>> >> >> Except that the nature of awareness seems to be to undersignify other >> kinds of awareness. We can't trust that what we see of other things is >> enough to judge whether or not there is a claim to be aware there. >> > > That's dangerous talk. It has already got you into pretty deep water in > your discussion with Stathis. You don't really want to be trapped into > saying that something can be biologically complete at the molecular level > and still lack.. well what? Elan vital? >
If you have a sense primitive, then there is no 'biologically complete'. When you look at a living cell, it is like looking at a city from a satellite. You are only seeing the exterior forms and functions. If you take the satellite picture and figure out how to build something that reproduces the patterns of twinkling lights and growth of the city, than you have a toy model of a city-as-seen-from-a-satellite-camera. Would you say that the actual comings and goings of conscious human beings - who are solely responsible for the actual phenomenon of the 'city', are a kind of Elan urban? > You hop from foot to foot on this. > Not at all. > One moment you appear to be quibbling about the technical possibilities > and the next you appear to accept that something could be a > molecule-for-molecule copy (and let's not get hung up on this word, it > simply means "at the appropriate substitution level" in context) and yet > lack animation. Why? > Because substitution is fictional. All substitutions are limited, so that no imitation can be identical, and in the case of consciousness itself, there can be no deviation at all - not in structure, but in the history of experience which the structure represents. Nothing that has not lived as an animal can ever know what it means to be an animal. Nothing that is not descended from a cell can ever know how to become a living cell. The structure of cells and molecules are just shorthand for an experience which transcends space, time, matter, energy, form and function. The experience of a cell cannot be constructed from inorganic molecules (if it could, then it would, and we would see thousands of species of inorganic biology). > Has molecular bonding somehow failed? Do the biological processes that > routinely assemble molecular structures have secret access to a factor X? > Yes. The factor is that they are only a small part of a larger non-process which is the entire life experience in which the organism participated. It's not the factor X which is secret, factor X is the entire history of experience in the universe. It is the biological processes which we see through microscopes which are all-but-blind to the non-human realities they represent. > Is this really a position that you want your theory to force you into? > It's not forcing me into anything. I have seen this straw man over and over and over again. I even mentioned it in my bitch list: http://multisenserealism.com/the-competition/common-criticisms/ It seems that critics come up with this accusation as some kind of a 'gotcha', but it only serves to reassure me that these critics have not even begun to consider the central hypothesis and its implications. I am talking about turning the whole of the universe inside out and redefining realism as the difference between the two views. All possible forms and functions - biological, molecular, mathematical, alien topographies from the planet Xorlog...it doesn't matter, they are all dwarfed by the totality of aesthetic phenomena which give rise to them. > > >> From what we have seen in neuroscience so far, there does not seem to be >> any distinction between the brain, parts of the brain, individual neurons >> or parts of neurons which suggest that one level would begin to suddenly be >> aware. >> > > Just so. Hence, as Russell recently remarked, it seems easier to justify > the appearance of a material world in an idealist theory than appearance > per se in a materialist one. > So we agree there. > > >> >>> >>> A computational theory is a variety of idealism whose natural >>> ontological homeland is Platonia. One can say that its specific ontological >>> category is arithmetical, but this means only that the platonic existence >>> of arithmetic suffices for a model of computation. That said, the specific >>> conditions that differentiate claims of awareness from their absence will >>> be epistemological rather than ontological, which is to say that they will >>> require a theory of knowledge. >>> >> >> I disagree. The conditions that differentiate claims of awareness from >> their absence have nothing to do with knowledge. There is no 'claim' of >> awareness, there is only the presence of aesthetic phenomena - experiences. >> > > Inexplicably, you seem to persistently miss the relevance of what I mean > by a claim of awareness. Aesthetic experience is not only present to you, > Aesthetic experience is only present to consciousness, which is me. > you *know* and can lay *claim* to such presence, as we both continually > demonstrate in this discussion. The ability both to know and lay claim to > knowledge requires explanation in terms of a theory of knowledge. What else > - a theory of cabbage? > I am saying that it is unnecessary to know or lay claim to such presence. It is absolutely self-evident, and indeed there is nothing which can be evident in any way that is independent of such presence. It requires no theory, as it is theory itself. It can have no explanation, because it is all that can ever be plain already. > > >> Knowledge is derived from the logical comparison of multiple experiences. >> It has all kinds of sensory and sensible per-requisites that must be in >> place - expectations of causality, reliability, significance, etc. The >> theory of knowledge itself requires a theory of pre-epistemic sense. >> >> >>> Computational theory leads to a repertoire of logics which (so far) >>> seem capable of supporting the necessary epistemological distinctions with >>> all their accompanying modal complexities. >>> >> >> Sure, not surprisingly. Computational theory gives us a marvelous set of >> Legos with which we can build Lego houses, Lego brains, Lego >> behaviors...but they are empty without some mode of aesthetic participation. >> >> >>> >>> If CTM is true, then all the foregoing is also true in the necessary >>> sense (i.e. platonically). Consequently, rejecting it on the basis that >>> numbers aren't real, or that computation can't differentiate awareness from >>> its absence, amounts to a rejection of Platonism. >>> >> >> Yes, I partially reject Platonism. >> > > Which part? > The part about ideal forms being fundamental. Forms are only ever a confabulation of sense. If they are eternal, it is because they were confabulated prior to (what I call) the Big Diffraction, and are therefore part of a united whole. They are still sterile and powerless though - a filing system for what really matters (experience). > > >> >> >>> Such rejection implies the Aristotelian view that awareness and its >>> artefacts (such as numbers) supervene, in some unspecified and rather more >>> problematical way, on primordial stuff that cannot be further explained. >>> >> >> No, my rejection also includes the Aristotelian view also. There is no >> primordial stuff, only a primordial capacity: the capacity for nested >> sensory-motive participation, aka sense. You are living your life, and it >> includes the perception of having a body in a world of bodies, but the >> bodies are no more primitive than the experience of them. >> > You can have an experience without a body (as in it is hypothetically >> conceivable) but there can be no body without an experience of it. There >> can be no intangible, invisible, silent, unconscious phenomenon which >> nonetheless can be considered to exist in some way which could entail the >> future development of any experience of itself. >> >> >>> But your theory requires that this primordial stuff be sensory and so, >>> >> >> No, I'm saying that the primordial identity is the capacity for sense >> itself - there is no 'stuff'. I'm talking about what order itself actually >> is. You're not getting down to the ground floor, you're in the lobby. >> > > All of the above is axiomatic in an idealist theory, hence it is axiomatic > in comp. And for heaven's sake let's avoid quibbling about vocabulary. > Stuff is just a placeholder. > But its a misleading placeholder. If you wake up from being asleep, you don't say that waking stuff has been added. > If you want the ground floor to be capacity for sense then let's just say > that Platonia (the "true reality" in Plato's philosophy) is the capacity > for sense; it makes as much, or as little, difference. > It makes a huge difference. It's like saying it makes no difference whether you amputate the leg and leave the body, or amputate the body and leave the leg. The difference is that the capacity for sense is truly absolute, while forms and functions are empty partitions within that capacity. The difference is between life and death. > Nothing is intangible, invisible, silent or unconscious - or indeed the > converse - per se; only in context. > Why not? Where is this 'context' coming from? > A computational theory suggests that combinators (natural numbers will > suffice) plus the relations of addition and multiplication are (amazingly), > in combination and recombination, capable of lawfully delimiting and > stabilising a psychic landscape of intersubjective experience. > I understand, but it has no theory of what it is that it is stabilizing. CT could just as easily be only capable of lawfully delimiting a mechanical index of unconscious arithmetic relations. CT has no claim to any kind of aesthetic phenomena, it's saying only 'we have no idea why qualia exists, but since it does, here is where it would belong.' Just as we agreed earlier about materialism vs idealism, I take the extra step and see numbers themselves as a kind of ideal material. I say 'it seems easier to justify the appearance of a Platonic world in an aesthetic theory than appearance per se in a Platonic one.' > We can if we wish regard these primitive arithmetical relations as > primordially aesthetic, just as they are primordially combinatorial - > sensory-motive, if you like. > No, the arithmetical relations are not primitive. There is nothing in this or any universe except sensory-motive phenomena. There are infinitely many more sensory-motive qualities than there are arithmetic combinations. Any arithmetic combination can be experienced and appreciated in any number of ways. Arithmetic is a skeleton of sense...it has no body. > The question still remains of precisely how such primitive relations could > recombine to express fuller and fuller aesthetic and active modalities, and > this is what computational theory seems well adapted to model and > investigate. > CT is fine to explain recombination, I have no problem with that, but what it is that is being recombined is not inert data, it is the totality of experience. The combinations are not added to the void as isolated recipes, they are ways of doping and constraining consciousness so that novel experiences can be localized. > > > as I argue above, amounts to the claim that sense or awareness properly >>> inhere in whatever exists. >>> >> >> Gotta turn it around. There is no "exist". There is "seems present from >> some sensible perspective". >> > > (Drum roll) You make a perfect argument for comp! > No, because the sensible perspective is part of the absolute, not arithmetic. It is a capacity for direct appreciation to the core, it has not mechanism at all. > > >> >> >>> So we can grant this and the difficult part still remains: what >>> conditions differentiate specific claims of sensory awareness from the >>> absence of such claims? >>> >> >> To reiterate, there is no claim of awareness, there is only the direct >> experience of it. >> > > But you just made one (or its inverse, which amounts to the same thing). > I didn't claim awareness, I assume a sensible perspective. To claim it would require an infinite regress of sensible meta-perspectives. > And the direct experience of awareness (a tautology, I presume), > Beneath tautology even. > even if we grant it, is insufficient either for second- or higher-order > aesthetic expression or the ability to know and refer to it (aka phenomenal > judgement). > Not at all. Sense is defined from the start as a nesting sensory-motive participation. Phenomenal judgment is an elaboration of that nesting. A sense that of the sense that sensation makes. > Let me digress for a moment to tell you a story. Some years ago I watched > a TV programme about an unfortunate gentleman who suffered from one of > those syndromes where his short-term memory had shrunk to a minute or so > (there are unfortunately many other cases in the literature). He was shown > a video in which he was conducting some musicians (he was a musician > himself) which, remarkably, he could still do with some facility. Of course > he had no memory of the event and on repeated showings typically refused to > accept that the man in the video was himself. But sometimes his response > was different: he said "well, I must have been unconscious". > > It was terribly poignant but also very instructive. It occurred to me to > wonder what it would be like if one's memory were reduced to 10 seconds, or > 1 second, or less. At what point would it still be possible to say that > such a person was conscious even if in principle there was still, in > whatever sense remained, a minimal aesthetic presence? However one imagines > the primordial relations between one component of experience and another, > it seems inescapable that a prerequisite for any recognisably conscious > experience, or aesthetic awareness, is a sufficiency of context. One needs > a time and a space in which to orientate oneself with respect to a reality. > Already this is highly suggestive that all these components - time, space, > oneself, reality - are complex indexicals (complex aesthetic indexicals, > even). > Certainly caching of experiences is a key factor in the quality of consciousness, but not in the fact of consciousness itself. As the window of memory is contracted, we arguably lose more of what makes our experience a human experience, but there is still a difference between being unconscious and being conscious even with no memory. > >> >> >>> Given that challenge, I frankly still don't see why you would reject >>> computational theory as an attractive candidate for that role. >>> >> >> Because awareness cannot improve the function of a computation. >> Everything that can be conceived of within computational theory can be just >> as easily conceived with the absence of all aesthetic qualities. The >> Pythogorean theorem does not need a triangle, it just needs an >> arithmetically defined relation. The need for the triangle itself is what >> comp can't explain. >> > > Well the short answer to that is that any description can be conceived in > absence of aesthetic qualities, unless in some sense you presuppose their > necessity. Aha, you say, game set and match! > If the shoe fits... ;) > But the longer answer is that there are different ways to presuppose the > necessity of aesthetic qualities and it is a difference that makes a > difference. > No question that it is a difference that makes a difference - for us - in reality. But does it have to be a difference that makes a difference for arithmetic - in CT? > I have already remarked that one mustn't be misled by the order of > argumentation that something argued for later is thereby "created" after > some prior fact. In this sense the aesthetics claimed by the computational > machine are there, in some generalised sense, in Platonia at the outset; > i.e. in some sense they are necessary. > Then why don't we need to install graphics cards to render output from the CPU into triangles? Why is it just as easy to render that output as audible tones or a print out of hexadecimal sequences? > > But the difference is that comp sets out to justify this implicit > necessitation by showing specifically *how* the ascent to full personhood > and full aesthetic expression might be achievable, and moreover into the > bargain showing specifically how an apparent multiverse of physical > manifestations is also necessitated to stabilise normal inter-subjective > experience. And the most poignant and at the same time absolutely jugular > difference, which most unfortunately and incomprehensibly is the one that > seems to be the grit in your shoe, is that it justifies the claims of the > persons whose experiences are the waking dreams of the machines in exactly > the same way as we justify our own. The only possible way: by empathic > identification with a fellow creature that feels and speaks its truth as we > do ourselves. > I'm not trying to replace CT, I'm saying that it might actually work if we turn it inside out. I disagree that the only possible way of justifying the claims of consciousness by others is to become neurologically joined to them. For all things other than devices designed specifically to emulate conscious agents though, aesthetic cues are adequate. We need not judge a non-human by what it says or does, but its aesthetic qualities can give us hints as to its significance in our lives. We can be wrong, and we can augment our impressions with understanding, learning, etc. but there is still no reason to presume that a device which copies the patterns of our common sense is possessed of any sensation itself. Craig > > David > >> -- >> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups >> "Everything List" group. >> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an >> email to everything-li...@googlegroups.com <javascript:>. >> To post to this group, send email to everyth...@googlegroups.com<javascript:> >> . >> Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. >> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. >> > > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
