New answers tagged philosophy-of-mind
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The thought experiment is known as Chrysippus’s Dog and goes back to the named ancient Stoic. It was discussed by many modern philosophers, including Dennett, see Chrysippus’s Dog as a Case Study in Non-Linguistic Cognition by Rescorla for a survey. Here is the description of Chrysippus's dog given by Sextus Empiricus:
"[Chrysippus] declares that the ...
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Nobody has ever found any credible evidence that the human brain is anything besides a very complicated computer running strange software. Nobody has ever found any credible evidence that humans are not the same thing as p-zombies. In particular, you don't have any credible evidence that you're not a p-zombie.
"But that's ridiculous," you may say. &...
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You ask for "a good argument" for the idea that consciousness is possible in a simulation.
I'm not sure that any such argument exists, because in the absence of any agreement as to what consciousness actually is, or any objective way to measure or define it, it is impossible to meaningfully argue.
However, I will attempt to present one ...
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What is consciousness?
There isn't a commonly accepted definition of consciousness (that I'm aware of).
This lack of a precise definition presents the first and biggest problem in providing a concrete answer to "can artificial intelligence be conscious".
The Wikipedia page on animal consciousness goes into a bit of detail about this. It lists one ...
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Materialism perspective
One of the arguments for the possibility of simulated minds comes from the assumption that in general, physics can be simulated. If all physics can be simulated, then it must be conceptually possible to simulate (among other things) all the processes happening on Earth, including biology, cells, organisms, living beings and also ...
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Saying that consciousness is not possible in a simulated being has strange consequences as well. Suppose that we create a simulation that is very much like a human being. Say, we do your case 2 on someone who has never been interested in consciousness yet, and then unfortunately the real person dies, but the simulation carries on and then becomes ...
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You are correct in finding this position absurd. And it's not just philosophers and comp. scientists but also physicists, like Brian Greene, who openly admit that what they think, is that consciousness is "created" by computation/symbol manipulation. There are three points I'd like to make.
They never define what is this "consciousness" ...
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this is a debate that has been going on for hundreds if not thousands of years, and will go on for many more.
there are many arguments on both sides of the "trench" and I assume that you are familiar with some of them given that you know of the term philosophical zombie.
My take on this question is that it is possible that you are aware of ...
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Desire:
An aspired state or aspiration of a state.
Motivation:
Any drive or reason that produces action.
Two different things.
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Yes we are. Or at least, that the simplest solution.
There's no meaningful difference between a P-zombie and a "real human". How do you know you're not a zombie? "But I experience senses" yes you do, but you have no way to compare this experience with a gold standard "conscious human".
For consciousness to be a meaningful idea, ...
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I think this question is actually easiest to answer backwards:
So I guess my question is what the philosophy of the mind is really about. Won't physics, chemistry, and neuroscience eventually fully explain why humans act the way they act?
That is the point of the concept of Philosophical Zombies. It is a challenge to limit the nature of the "...
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The answer to your question, “Won't physics, chemistry, and neuroscience eventually fully explain why humans act the way they act?” is, of course, yes and no. It depends on what you mean by “fully explain,” and what you’re up to by asking the question. For instance, why include “chemistry and neuroscience,” which are themselves reducible to physics, in ...
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The Knowledge Argument might be a good thought experiment for seeing why many people believe qualia exist.
Mary is a brilliant scientist who is, for whatever reason, forced to investigate the world from a black and white room via a black and white television monitor. She specializes in the neurophysiology of vision and acquires, let us suppose, all the ...
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The problem is simple: OP's conclusions do not follow. A lot of logical issues.
So I guess my question is what the philosophy of the mind is really about. Won't physics, chemistry, and neuroscience eventually fully explain why humans act the way they act?
Absolutely not!
You can't reduce love, religion or mysticism -or consciousness- to physics, chemistry ...
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“I see dead people. They don’t know they’re dead... They only see what they want to see!”
-- Cole Sear, "The Sixth Sense"
I don't think seeing color red implies consciousness.1 What p-Zombies lack is rationality -- the rational/conscious Self, the Self-awareness, the ability to think for them-Selves.2
To understand p-Zombies, it's important to ...
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When I see something red, I have a conscious internal experience of "redness". Presumably this experience is caused by neurons (or whatever), but that doesn't mean I don't feel it as a conscious being. You could say, "Hammers are just bunches of molecules," but that doesn't mean hammers aren't hammers. It just means molecules are a (...
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Another thought experiment that is useful to consider here is the inverted spectrum scenario. The thought experiment is as follows: suppose you and I are neurophysiologically alike, but somehow, unbeknownst to us, the subjective experience that I have when I see red is the same as the subjective experience that you have when you see green, and vice versa. ...
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The concept of a philosophical zombie is incoherent. Take your quote:
[T]hey are exactly like us in all physical respects but without conscious experiences: by definition there is ‘nothing it is like’ to be a zombie. Yet zombies behave just like us, and some even spend a lot of time discussing consciousness.
Let's imagine, for the sake of argument, two ...
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Your question seems to boil down to whether existence is purely physical, with science destined to eventually fully understand self-awareness; or whether there could be a metaphysical aspect to our existence.
If we are purely physical, then it stands to reason that only sufficiently complex structures (such as our brain) can become self aware. Or else the ...
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So I guess my question is what the philosophy of the mind is really about. Won't physics, chemistry, and neuroscience eventually fully explain why humans act the way they act?
It might fully explain the way humans act, but this is what David Chalmers calls the "easy problem" of consciousness ('easy' from a philosophical point of view, not a ...
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Do you know about these twin sisters who are joined at the skull and their thalamus , allowing one twin too see, think about, feel what her sister feels and vice-versa. They even have their own different opinions, and yet, a boundary between them appears if you watch them talk. What is this boundary made of? It is still "one system", connected with ...
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Isn't a "conscious experience", such as seeing the color red, just a firing of neurons in a certain area of the brain that triggers other neurons and eventually leads to us saying "I see red"?
Likely yes, but there could be a similar way for neurons to fire and trigger other neurons that on the outside looks similar, but works different ...
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I'm confused about what this means. Isn't a "conscious experience",
such as seeing the color red, just a firing of neurons in a certain
area of the brain that triggers other neurons and eventually leads to
us saying "I see red"?
Right, you should be confused.
(Def)-Type-Identity reductionism:
"The view that mental state are directly ...
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You cannot tell other philosophers apart from well-programmed zombies, that is true. But you can tell yourself apart.
Your knowledge of yourself comes through your subjective experiences and their specific qualities or qualia. Your present experience is in fact the one and only thing you can be absolutely sure of. Everything else - the dynamic flow of ...
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P-zombies are supposed to be a thought experiment to show the privacy of the mind. Experiences are subjective and we don't have access to what it is like to be something else. That is what consciousness is - what it is like to be X. Unless you think consciousness is physical then no matter how much of the physical facts we had we could never have access to ...
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The main reason which justifies punishment of evolved behaviours, is to impose a fitness cost upon harmful behaviours.
It matters not whether the person is blameworthy for having been bestowed with such behaviour, or even whether they can change it under their own will. The behaviour will be under pressure to change and be weeded out simply by imposing the ...
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Many genes need to meet with the correct environment. FoxP2, 'the language gene', is known to trigger babbling during development. In wild cockatiels individuals may be assigned names, and have emergency calls, and flock calls that build cohesion and call to roost. But raised by humans, they mimic human speech & music. Like this. Gene and behaviour, in ...
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Ethics are rules for societal conduct. Being a part of society is not “natural”.
You have to keep your primeval instincts of self preservation aside if you want to be a member of society. You have to be willing to think of the whole and therefore abide by the ethics.
On the contrary, you can choose to not abide by ethics if you are willing to give up the ...
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Observation of functionality has an elusive viewport in a philosophy of Mind .. to begin with an argument against philosophical mantra.
A Turing test must define a perfect mind state as a reference from every perspective accountable. This state remains deterministic.
It is imaginable a chess playing robot may pass a Turing test, until an actual human mind ...
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