this post was submitted on 16 Nov 2024
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Then why bring it up? It's pointless to talk about qualia at all if you do not think it need some sort of separate explanation than any other objects. It's not relevant to the discussion.
The concept of objects requires language and symbols. What other animals is there evidence of this?
I thought the reasoning was rather self-apparent, but I will explain in more detail. Weak emergence is when you can explain a system's properties as reducible to the laws that govern the behavior of what it is composed of in that particular configuration. Strong emergence is when you cannot reduce down a system's properties in this way. Strong emergence would be as if the property just appears when you have a particular configuration, with no underlying physical laws that could possibly explain where it comes from. All you can say for certain is that property comes into being when you have a particular configuration, and the properties are not reducible down to the individual parts.
Those aren't claims, but just definitions. All I am saying is that having a strong emergence view of consciousness is basically the same as dualism, because that's what dualism also posits, that in the arbitrary configuration of matter that is the human brain, consciousness just appears on top of it, and there is no explanation for it and it is not reducible to any physical laws that can explain its origin, as it would not be derivative of the physical laws that govern the brain's behavior. It is just a separate thing that is slapped on top of it, of which there can be no explanation as to its origin, only that it is always there whenever you have particular configurations of matter, such as the brains of living organisms.
If the universe is entirely invisible, you cannot explain how the visible world of our lived experiences "arises" without, at some point, just arbitrarily inserting it there, such as, in particular atomic configurations you can claim that experiences just appear. This is just a logical necessity and is unavoidable.
That is absolutely and undeniably what you are saying. If you argue that what we perceive is not reality as it really is, but something else, then by unavoidable logical necessity, you are claiming that "true" reality is beyond our perceptions, and if something is beyond our perceptions, it is invisible. If you think "true reality" is invisible, then you will never be able to explain, from a weakly emergent standpoint, how a collection of invisible stuff gives rise to the visible world of our experiences, i.e. how is it that a world that is nonperceptual gives rise to perception.
I addressed this in my very first reply. Illusions are not even close to an argument that we do not perceive reality as it really is. It is only evidence that we can misinterpret what we perceive.
No, they are labels encoded within the social structure which would not only have no meaning but also have no purpose if you lived in complete isolation. These objects only have existence and meaning as a correlation between the brain and the social structure, but not independently within the brain.
We can form similar representations because we are all taught to associate our experiences with the same symbols in the same social structure. We all have different physical bodies and experience the world differently, but are all taught under the same social institutions to assign the same set of stimuli with the same words, allowing us to then have a shared language. We agree on what "red" is or what "cats" are not because we all have the same physical object of "red" or "cat" floating around in our skull, but because we all live in the same society where everyone is taught to associate "red" and "cat" with the same set of stimuli.
That is not the rule-following paradox. The rule-following paradox is the notion that symbols cannot encode meaning independent of a social structure. If a person in complete isolation invented their own symbols to refer to what they categorize as different objects, and you discovered these symbols, it would be impossible to actually derive their meaning with certainty. If you want to define a symbol, you can do it using other symbols, but at some point, but this will be entirely circular unless at some point you connect the symbol to empirical content. If those symbols are connected to something like a basket of examples, the point of the rule-following paradox is that every basket is inherently ambiguous, because there is always an infinite number of way to interpret the meaning of the symbol from the basket. If you cannot derive the meaning of the symbols from the basket, then neither could the person who produced the basket, i.e. if you were in complete isolation, you could never have certainty that you are even using the symbols you are using today with the same meaning that you were using them yesterday. Enforcement of the consistent use of symbols requires social institutions, and those symbols are ambiguous unless they are correlated with those social institutions.
Yes, they only exist as a relationship between the brain and its social environment, hence they cannot be found in the brain, but only in correlations between the brain and the social structure.
It's absolutely not pointless to talk about the fact that we have an internal experience. The whole discussion you've hopped into is about whether this internal experience that we have can be explained purely in material terms.
It absolutely does not require that. There are mountains of research showing that other animals construct world models and use them to plan their actions. Corvids are one prominent example of this. In fact, symbols and language require this underlying machinery to work, that's why we can teach stuff like sign language to apes.
I understand the difference between weak and strong emergence. What I asked you is the basis for your claim of dismissing the possibility of weak emergence as an explanation for consciousness.
I'll try to explain this to you once again. Please try to actually read and understand what I'm saying before responding this time. The brain constructs an internal model using the data from the senses like eyes, ears, touch, and so on. This data is assembled into an internal model that is a representation of reality. The brain cannot simulate reality in its full fidelity because that would mean recreating the full complexity of the universe around us. Therefore, the model that is created must necessarily be an abstraction that loses detail. This has nothing to do with the universe being beyond our perception or being invisible.
This is no different from the act of a computer program creating a 3d scene using data from a camera. Nobody in their right mind would start claiming that this means that reality is beyond our perceptions, and if something is beyond our perceptions, it is invisible. The argument is equally absurd when applied to the human mind.
Again, try to think about how computer simulations work. What you're saying has no logic behind it.
The fact that we are able to misinterpret logically requires that what we perceive is a model of reality otherwise the whole concept of misinterpreting would be impossible to begin with.
That's complete nonsense. A human that grows up in isolation would still have a world model and would be able to interact with their environment. Language and symbols emerge from the underlying model. Ironically, it is you who are arguing for dualism claiming that language and social structures exist separate from underlying physical reality.
Except that these representations aren't unique to humans. We are able to communicate with other animals without having shared social structures or language. Furthermore, animals are able to communicate with each other, and even coordinate complex tasks. This doesn't even require complex animals. Even bees and ants can do complex tasks and coordination.
That's precisely the problem that shared environment solves. We are able to communicate with one another because symbols are rooted in the environmental context. If you met somebody who came from a completely different culture and spoke a different language, over time you would be able to create a way to communicate with each other.
If you grew up in isolation, you could absolutely create symbols that made sense to you. The fact that other people couldn't decipher them without help is a completely separate issue. You're conflating transmission of symbols with the origin of symbols here.
Once again you're peddling dualism here.
First, I commented on objects of qualia ("red", "blue", "loudness," "quietness"), not experience. That is, again, a very very very separate concept, and I am not sure what the adjective "internal" is doing here.
And there's evidence of them using objects in these internal models? Or is there evidence of them having certain behaviors which we associate those behaviors with our own conceptions of objects?
I'm not sure why you bring this up, nowhere did I deny that symbols and language require underlying machinery to work. Obviously a rock cannot make use of symbols or language.
I read it every single time and respond to every point in great detail. Do not pretend I am not reading your posts.
I am talking about the origin of experience itself, that which is sensed/observed/visible/experienced, whatever you want to call it. Telling me about how the brain constructs a model based on sensory data does not tell me anything about this question.
Yet again, an analogy that does not work at all. We can observe the camera, the computer, what the camera is recording, as well as the 3d scene that is being produced by the computer program. I am talking about the origin of experiences themselves. If we do not experience reality as it really is, then by definition reality lies outside of experience, and is something that is "given rise to" in the brain as you yourself stated in your own words, which is what I initially responded to. Hence, you have to explain how nonexperiential reality in a particular configuration can possibly weakly emerge experiences.
I know how computers work, I literally have a degree in computer science, and what you're saying has no relevance to the discussion at all. You keep providing examples of weakly emergent things, I know what weak emergence is. I do not need more examples of weak emergence. Every property of a system we know of, we know of because we observed/experienced it, and thus every example you provide of some property weakly emerging from other properties, those are all examples of things that can be observed/experienced weakly emerging new properties that can also be observed/experienced. None of these explain how experience itself could weakly emerge.
We form models of reality based on what we perceive, based on our sensory inputs. Our senses are not themselves models of anything. Saying that misinterpretation "logically requires" that the inputs themselves are incorrect models, I do not understand what this even means. The inputs are not models of anything, but the basis in which we use to form models of reality. It's kinda like data, that data we use to construct our interpretations and models of the world. The data itself cannot be right or wrong, it has no truth value. For something to have a truth value, it has to be compared to a normative standard. All truth values are assigned by basically answering the question, "are you interpreting the data correctly?" Which answering that question is in and of itself another interpretation.
This is just a lazy straw man. I never claimed social structures are separate from physical reality, you know I did not say that. Anyone can read what I quoted in saying that objects, labels, and symbols have no meaning in complete isolation, and then you turn around and switch it up to "they would still have a world model, so you're talking nonsense!" A model of reality does not need to be based on objects. You are entirely misrepresenting everything I am saying.
The reality in which we experience is not made up of discrete objects. It is a continuum. You cannot draw a hard-and-fast line between any two sets of objects which have no ambiguity at all as to its boundaries. Where does a mountain begin and where does it end? When does life begin and when does it pass away? There are no clear-cut boundaries, you can slice up reality in any way you want, set the boundaries anywhere that you find convenient.
There is no reason to form models of reality that have discrete and autonomous objects unless it is for the purpose of having symbols to communicate with others in a social setting. Reality is not actually composed of these kinds of discrete objects. As far as reality is concerned, there is no "cat," humans invent the word "cat" as a way to label and talk about a set of observable properties which have some relevance to us in our social context and thus we may wish to communicate with one another.
If an animal is in complete isolation from its birth, it would have no need for forming discrete conceptual objects because it would not need to communicate with anybody. It might develop a model that causes it to respond to a very loose collection of experiences, for example, it may see a bear and respond to it by running away. However, there is a key distinction here, which is that the animal never associates the loose collection of experiences which causes it to run away with a symbol like a "bear." It never promotes the experiences to objecthood, and the insistence that it does is anthropomorphizing the animal. This promotion only occurs if there is a need to communicate it.
...? So you agree that the meaning of symbols is rooted in the social conditions?
If you agree that nobody could decipher the symbols, then the "you" of tomorrow would not be able to decipher the symbols created by the "you" of the past, at least in a way that the meaning could be derived with certainty and without any ambiguity. You cannot escape this by speaking of "conflating transmission with origin," because in order to use your own symbol consistently, you have to repeatedly transmit it to yourself. If it is impossible for me to transmit my symbols unambiguously, then even if I do use them tomorrow the same as I did today, I would have no way of even being certain that I am.
No, you've just decided to devolve into straw man arguments. I was trying to have a genuine discussion with you but you're just being unreasonable. All your walls of text have constantly just avoided the question and are trying to run around it constantly, and now are trying to be "clever" by acting like you're somehow turning this on me by going "no you're the dualist!!!!"
I didn't even accuse you of dualism, I merely said that you need to make an argument regarding weak emergence. If experience is something that weakly emerges in the brain, then by definition what it emerges from must be nonexperiential, so you need to explain how nonexperiential reality can weakly emerge experience, or else you would fall into strong emergence which is logically parallel to dualism. The whole time has been me just asking you to make an argument. You have not explained anything at all, you just accuse people of not reading you when I clearly read everything you write and you just simply do not answer the question at all, and now want to intentionally misrepresent my point in order to avoid addressing it.
Since you have decided to turn this discussion into something that is not fruitful at all, I am just going to disengage from this discussion and do not plan to reply to you further, as I know nothing in your reply will even make an attempt to address how the crux of the matter.
Perhaps it helps to define what you mean by objects. My definition is that it's constructs created within the mind to describe aspects of the physical world sourced from sensory data.
Yes, there is plenty of evidence for that. This is a pretty actively researched area.
Then by extension you must understand that language and symbols don't have primacy, they are derived from simpler components. Hence why the ability to construct language and symbols is an emergent property of the brain.
I'm merely pointing out that you did not engage with my point.
That's a weird thing to say. Where do you think the experience comes from exactly if not from the model that the brain constructs. The brain models itself as part of the environment creating a recursive loop where there's feedback from the model back into the brain. Hofstadter describes this process in detail in I Am a Strange Loop. This seems like the most plausible explanation of the roots of consciousness to me.
It's in fact exact same thing. There is no difference here. We experience the reality constructed by the brain based on sensory date the same way a computer constructs a simulation based on data from a camera and whatever other senses are hooked up to it. In fact, this is also how modern robots experience the world and interact with it. The dichotomy you're attempting to create doesn't exist. I've explained the specific steps to you already. You have the environment that is sampled by the senses and you have a model of that environment created based on the data from the sense. There's no magic or mystery here.
This makes this whole discussion all the more bizarre to be honest.
You keep repeating this without having actually articulated any basis for your bombastic claim.
I didn't say senses were a model of anything. I said the model is generated within the neural network of the brain based on the data from the senses.
What I actually said was that the model the brain creates internally is a simplified, lower fidelity version of the real world. The senses do not and cannot capture every minute detail. Nor is there a reason to do that. We don't perceive the atomic structure of the objects we interact with, we don't see the quantum interactions within the physical world. These things are completely opaque to our experience.
The fact that we struggle to comprehend quantum physics is a perfect example of just how shallow our model of reality is. We know for a fact that at the quantum level reality defies our intuitions. The reason is that our intuitions are an abstraction created at a particular level. Since you have a degree in computer science, surely you can grasp the concept of abstraction.
The reality is a continuum, however that doesn't mean our brains have to model it as such. What I'm arguing is that objects is the way our brain creates abstractions and categorizes things in order to model reality efficiently. Think of it as analogous to how BSP trees work.
The purpose of forming discrete objects is efficiency. The symbols and communication arise from these models, hence why we use discrete symbols to describe things.
Yes, I entirely agree with that. However, we don't just create these concepts to communicate with one another. We also use them for our own individual reasoning. And if you think about this in evolutionary terms it becomes obvious that individual models must have formed before creatures could become social. Social behavior requires having compatible world models to exist.
It would need to form these concepts in order to process the world efficiently.
Parrots give each other names. https://academy.allaboutbirds.org/how-a-parrot-learns-its-name-in-the-wild/
It's amusing that you don't see the irony of talking about reality being a continuum on one hand and then trying to put social conditions into their own separate box here. Social conditions are part of the continuum of our reality, and the society we live in affects how we construct symbols along with all the other factors of our world. Social conditions aren't a separate realm and are themselves rooted in the material experience.
That's not what I said at all. I merely pointed out that if you came upon a set of symbols that were created by somebody else without any context, then it may be difficult to decipher them. However, we do in fact decipher dead languages based on common patterns and context.
I've repeatedly addresses this point, and you just keep ignoring what I said while telling me you are reading what I'm saying. The reason the symbols in our minds are stable is that they're part of the simulation of the world that our minds maintain. They don't exist in a vacuum, they're part of a stable world model.
I didn't devolve into any straw man arguments. I'm simply pointing out that social world doesn't exist in a separate realm from the physical world. It's a continuum.
I've repeatedly and directly addressed your points. The fact that you're claiming I've avoided the question shows that you either didn't bother reading what I wrote or you're not arguing in good faith here. As far as I can tell there is a contradiction in your own logic here. Instead of addressing this contradiction you're accusing me of making straw man argument.
I have made the argument, and I tried explaining it in several different ways here including providing examples.
Bye.