Re: Modern Physical theory as a basis for Ethical and Existential Nihilism
On 30 January 2004 Eric Hawthorne wrote: QUOTE I really think that to get a good grasp on this kind of issue, one has to get over ones-self. Step outside for a moment and consider whether you feeling conscious is as amazing or inexplicable as you think. Consciousness may very well just be an epi-phenomenon of a self-reflection-capable world-modelling representer and reasoner such as our brains. Minsky's society of mind idea isn't fully adequate as a consciousness explanation, but it makes inroads. Some of the most exciting work in this area IMHO is being done by the neurologist Antonio Damasio. Here is a review of his book on the topic of the feeling of consciousness: http://homepage.ntlworld.com/anthony.campbell1/bookreviews/r/damasio-2.html ENDQUOTE What I think you are saying is that the experience of consciousness is just the result of certain physical processes in the brain. This is of course true; how could it possibly be otherwise? It should in theory be possible to map each distinct mental state to a corresponding brain state. Also, if you used this knowledge to reconstruct a particular brain from raw materials, the resulting entity should be conscious in the same way as the original was. The problem, however, is that even though you might know every detail of the brain, you cannot know what it actually experiences unless you can somehow connect it to your own brain. For example, if the owner of the brain you are studying sees a red flash, you might know down to to the level of individual atoms what changes this produces in the brain; you might even be able to read the brain, scanning for neuronal activity and deducing correctly that the subject sees a red flash. However, it is impossible to know what it feels like to see a red flash unless you have the actual experience yourself. So I maintain that there is this extra bit of information -subjective experience or qualia - that you do not automatically have even if you know everything about the brain to an arbitrary level of precision. Moreover, it cannot be derived even in theory from the laws of physics - even though, of course, it is totally dependent on the laws of physics, like everything else in the Universe. _ E-mail just got a whole lot better. New ninemsn Premium. Click here http://ninemsn.com.au/premium/landing.asp
Re: More on qualia of consciousness and occam's razor
Stathis Papaioannou wrote: ; you might even be able to read the brain, scanning for neuronal activity and deducing correctly that the subject sees a red flash. However, it is impossible to know what it feels like to see a red flash unless you have the actual experience yourself. So I maintain that there is this extra bit of information -subjective experience or qualia - that you do not automatically have even if you know everything about the brain to an arbitrary level of precision. Moreover, it cannot be derived even in theory from the laws of physics - even though, of course, it is totally dependent on the laws of physics, like everything else in the Universe. I'll grant you that the subjective experience of red etc cannot be derived from a theory of physics. However, by Occam's Razor we can say that the qualia that other people experience are the same as those that we experience. The reasoning is as follows: The theorem that the qualia are the same is justifiable on the simple theory that near-identical physical brain structure and function (amongst humans) leads to near-identical perception of the qualia of consciousness. What simple theory which is consistent with the rest of our scientific knowledge would justify that the qualia are significantly different? Right now, in the absence of such a qualia-difference-explaining theory, and with a plausible and simple and non-revolutionary and reasonable theory of qualia-sameness, a scientific-thinking default assumption should be qualia-sameness. Long aside: Parallel example: A similar Occam's Razor argument can explain why the scientific-thinking default assumption should be in the non-existence of God, except for the undeniable existence of God as a human abstract concept, like the concept of Nation-State. There is a simple and reasonable theory of intelligent co-operating agent behaviour which runs something like that 1. We do a lot of reasoning about how agents, and in particular animal agents and intelligent human agents, affect the outcomes in the world. 2. We do a lot of reasoning about how to influence these agents to act on the world as we would wish. 3. An unknown-agent proxy is an easy-to-understand extension to such an agent-behaviour and effects theory. 4. We can extend the same attitudes of obeisance and desire to please to the unknown-agent-proxy as we would to any powerful animal agent or powerful human (king, warlord) agent. If we do (we would reason), we may obtain the unknown-agent-proxy's favour and the outcome of unknown-agency events might come out in our favor. Aside: Note that the fundamental fallacy in the ancients' God-theory here is the ascription of unknown-cause events as being the effects of intelligent agency. This is an example of a theory that is elegant, simple, and wrong. Physical science and mathematics has by now provided alternative explanations (which have the advantage of being consistent with each other and with observation i.e. of being logical and scientific) for the vast majority of the types of events (cosmic and planetary origin, and life and human origin, weather, illness, love (reflection and elaboration of mating instincts into stories at conscious-level of brain, in an information-processing model of brain/mind), crop-failure, failure or success of various forms of psychological make-up and group-organizational behavior (reasons that kings might be successful or not) etc., 5. Humans with intellect and other leadership qualities would also see how to harness the power implicit in the populace's fear of and desire to be obeisant to the unknown-agent-proxy (i.e. the god). By proclaiming that they have special access to the god, knowledge of its intentions, ability to influence it etc. they can harness the psychologically based power that the god has over the believers' actions, and turn it into power that they themselves (the priesthood, the god-kings or just kings-by-divine-right) have over the populace. Convenient. Too convenient not to result in a whole entrenched societal structure of rules and hierarchical authority connected ultimately to the authority of the god itself. 6. Such an organised religion structure, or god-empowered government structure, if it succeeds in organizing people for an extended period of time, as it seems they did, would naturally tend to take on a life of its own, a self-reinforcing aspect, an autopoietic function as one of its functions. This self-preservation subfunction of the god-empowered governance organization would take the form of religious education about the great history of beneficial acts and mercies and wisdoms conferred on the people over their glorious history by the god via the god-henchmen. In my view, the governance aspect; that is the societal cohesion and organization aspect of always was the genuine essence of organized religions, and also of divine-right governments. The god-basis was just a
Re: More on qualia of consciousness and occam's razor - tiny addendum
Eric Hawthorne wrote: 6. Such an organised religion structure, or god-empowered government structure, if it succeeds in organizing people for an extended period of time, as it seems they did, would naturally tend to take on a life of its own, a self-reinforcing aspect, an autopoietic function as one of its functions. This self-preservation subfunction of the god-empowered governance organization would take the form of religious education about the great history of beneficial acts and mercies and wisdoms conferred on the people over their glorious history by the god via the god-henchmen. I should add that the other half of the autopoietic (self-preservative) subfunction of the god-fear-and-god-obeisance-empowered organization is of course the enforcement branch: Mechanisms would develop for enforcement-of-membership, rule-adherence, and enforcement that members conform to (express) the orthodox forms (orthodox in that particular organization of course) of belief in the deity. Thus we have religious intolerance, we have shunning, outcasting, excommunication, we have dehumanization as worthless infidels and enemies of adherents to other (incorrect and defiant) religious orthodoxies, and also, of course, stigmatization and de-valuing (not to mention torture and execution as an example) of those who profess not to believe in the god (or any god) at all. If I were living in the time (or a present-day place) of overwhelming and brutal dominance of god-empowered governance organizations (e.g. everywhere before the beginning of the last century, and in a number of fundamentalist-Islamic states (and southern US states? today,) I would have to profess belief in God to survive, and just hope that no-one heard the quotation-marks in my statement which indicate belief in the power of the god-myth concept in human psychology and thus in human society.
Flaw in denial of group selection principle in evolution discovered?
Blast from the recent past. This is pertinent to the previous discussions on evolution as a special case of emergent-system emergence. It was argued that group selection effects have been discredited in evolutionary biology. I counterargued that denying the possibility of a selection effect at each more-and-more complex system-level in a multi-layer complex-ordered emergent system (such as ecosystems, biological species etc) denies the likelihood of spontaneous emergence of those complex systems at all. I think I've found the source of the confusion regarding group selection effects. It goes like this: A species can evolve a group-benefit behaviour so long as the development of the behaviour does not, on average, reduce the reproductive success of individuals that engage in the group-benefit behaviour, and so long as the behaviour does confer, on average, a benefit to the reproductive chances of each individual in the well-behaving group. The key is in how we interpret average. The question is whether an individual organism always acts in each short-term encounter in a manner which maximizes their chance of survival-to-breeding-age IN THAT ENCOUNTER, or whether it is possible for the individual to wager that taking a slight risk now (and believing or observing that others will also do so) will lead to a better chance that the individual will survive ALL ENCOUNTERS from now up until it breeds. The organism doesn't have to be smart enough to believe in this wager. It is sufficient that the wager be on average beneficial to the individual.In that case, through repeated trials by multiple individuals, the behaviour which is group-adaptive and individually lifetime-average adaptive can evolve. BECAUSE THE EVOLVABLE GOAL IS NOT SIMPLY TO MAXIMIZE THE CHANCE OF SURVIVAL OF AN ORGANISM OF THE NEXT SHORT-TERM ENCOUNTER. THE GOAL IS TO MAXIMIZE THE PROBABILITY OF SURVIVAL OF THE SUM TOTAL OF ALL OF THE ORGANISM'S ENCOUNTERS UP TO WHEN THE ORGANISM REPRODUCES. So it is just a time-scale misunderstanding. Group-adaptive behaviours increase the member's probability of surviving to reproductive age, even if they slightly increase the chance of the indvidual losing some particular encounter. True extreme altruistic behavior which conveys CERTAINTY of death in a single encounter may not fit into this model, but it can be argued as to whether the altruistic individual believes they are going to die for certain in many incidents or not, or whether they hold out faint hope in which case the argument above could still hold. In any case, true certain death altruistic behaviour is an extreme anomoly case of group-adaptive behviour. Most group-adaptive behaviours are not of that kind, so extreme, definitely fatal altruism is not a good model for them. Eric
Re: Subjective measure? How does that work?
On Thu, Jan 29, 2004 at 11:33:15AM -0800, Hal Finney wrote: What about arguments that attempt to estimate the fraction of observers who are in simulations versus in base realities, such as Nick Bostrom's Simulation Argument, www.simulation-argument.com? Are you saying that such arguments are pointless, and that no matter how convincing they became, both choices would be equally rational? These arguments are not pointless, but they only make sense if you assume a particular measure or class of measures to be used. An argument that counts the number of copies of observers only make sense if you assume that you should care about each copy equally regardless of whether it exists in a simulation or in base reality. Or would you say that it is rational to reject observations? After all, among the infinity of universal distributions there are enough to justify rejecting any specific observation as a flying rabbit, a special case exception which is built into the UTM that defines the distribution. There exist universal distributions which can accommodate any such exceptions. I'm not sure what you mean by 'justify rejecting any specific observation as a flying rabbit'. Doesn't this philosophy ultimately reject all evidence, and further, make it impossible to make predictions? No, it just means that you have assume a measure when making predictions, and that arguments about implications of evidence can only usefully occur between people who use similar measures. There is a universal measure which is consistent with my past observations and yet lets me conclude that the sun won't rise tomorrow. Is it just a matter of taste and not rationality that determines my beliefs on this matter? Yes, theoretically there exists a universe where the sun won't rise tomorrow, and you could assign it a larger measure than the universe where the sun does rise. You could also prefer the taste of dirt to the taste of ice cream. If we don't call the latter irrational, why should we call the former that? If my understanding of these questions is correct, we have to find a stronger set of rules and constraints on rationality, for the term to have a useful meaning. Maybe we don't have them yet, but it isn't acceptable to call such a wide range of behaviors rational. I'm not sure how to respond to that. Can you explain why it isn't acceptable to call these behaviors rational?
