If philosophical zombies are conceivably possible AND if this conceivability implies their metaphysical possibility, then supposedly it would follow that physicalism is false.
This is Chalmers basis for this “Hard Problem” nonsense?
This crap will increase mental masturbation amongst some interested in Consciousness and philosophy. But it will lead to no new understandings.
Lausten: Oh, we’re debating now, I didn’t realize that. I thought you were pontificating. I’ve done nothing but correct your characterizations of me (telling you I’m not rejecting the Hard Problem 3 times), and asked for definitions of terms, like “seeing” and “thinking deeply”. It took 4 pages before you referenced Chalmers, and honestly, I’m not sure you’re doing him justice, but I’m not going to spend a lot of time critiquing that. I’ll just note once again that there are other opinions, like, Churchland, Lewis, and Minsky.
This is a discussion forum, not a debate, not a scholarly review, not a panel of experts. If you wanted a debate, and you stated that at the beginning, I likely would have not responded at all.
The Hard Problem is the Chalmers Hard Problem. There is no Churchland, Lewis, or Minsky Hard Problem. You are just playing games. You are wrong about what happens on forums. Forums are always debates about issues that are relative to the topic thread.
TimB: Daniel Dennet 5 years ago, said,
“Is the Hard Problem an idea that demonstrates the need for a major revolution in science if consciousness is ever to be explained, or an idea that demonstrates the frailties of human imagination? That question is not settled at this time, so scientists should consider adopting the cautious course that postpones all accommodation with it. That’s how most neuroscientists handle ESP and psychokinesis—assuming, defeasibly, that they are figments of imagination.”
So basically he said, the concept of the “Hard Problem” has the same scientific worthiness as ESP and psychokinesis.
He thinks Consciousness is just an Illusion. Not a good authority with opinions like that.
TimB: If philosophical zombies are conceivably possible AND if this conceivability implies their metaphysical possibility, then supposedly it would follow that physicalism is false.
This is Chalmers basis for this “Hard Problem” nonsense?
This crap will increase mental masturbation amongst some interested in Consciousness and philosophy. But it will lead to no new understandings.
You are simply wrong about that being the basis for the Hard Problem. Chalmers says that the Easy Problem is finding the Neural correlates of Consciousness. But trying to explain how these Neural Correlates produce Conscious Experience is the Hard Problem. The way I like to say it is … Given:
Neural Activity for Redness happens
A Conscious Experience for Redness happens
How can 1 produce 2? This is the Hard Problem that a fair reading of Chalmers would give you. Nobody knows how 1 can produce 2. All we know is that 2 is Correlated with 1.
So it is so Hard to explain, according to you and Chalmers, how we are conscious of seeing red. As young toddlers we have all the hardware to see red, (what you call having the neural activity for redness happen). But toddlers cannot, as you say, have “the conscious experience of redness” until they have also achieved the requisite verbal behaviors, e.g., tacting (identifying) different things that are red, and developing at least a vestigial concept of colors.
Much of our consciousness behaviors are enhanced or are even dependent upon the development of our verbal behavior abilities.
(BTW, a verbal behavior in thinking (e.g., silently speaking to one’s self) has only a neural correlate. But it is still behavior that is subject to the rules of behavior.) Anyway the toddler is 1st taught to identify and name “red” in items that have the color red. Subsequently, the child can develop consciousness skills re: redness, e.g., she says to herself “Oh a red bow. how pretty.”
I recall George W. saying no one could have predicted what happened with Katrina and New Orleans. That is weird, because I saw it predicted on a special on PBS a few months before it happened. (I just bring that up, because you keep saying that there are things that are unexplainable, that are actually quite explainable.)
There is no Churchland, Lewis, or Minsky Hard Problem.Oh right, I meant the Hornswoggle Problem. Sorry.
“hornswoggle problem” - apt title
TimB: So it is so Hard to explain, according to you and Chalmers, how we are conscious of seeing red. As young toddlers we have all the hardware to see red, (what you call having the neural activity for redness happen). But toddlers cannot, as you say, have “the conscious experience of redness” until they have also achieved the requisite verbal behaviors, e.g., tacting (identifying) different things that are red, and developing at least a vestigial concept of colors.
Much of our consciousness behaviors are enhanced or are even dependent upon the development of our verbal behavior abilities.
(BTW, a verbal behavior in thinking (e.g., silently speaking to one’s self) has only a neural correlate. But it is still behavior that is subject to the rules of behavior.) Anyway the toddler is 1st taught to identify and name “red” in items that have the color red. Subsequently, the child can develop consciousness skills re: redness, e.g., she says to herself “Oh a red bow. how pretty.”
Developmental issues are interesting but you are completely missing the point of the Hard Problem. In a fully and normally developed Human, how is it that an Experience of Redness can happen? Think about the Redness of Red. What actually is that? I have to keep asking things like this because it is the key to your misunderstanding of the Hard Problem. You are ignoring the Experience itself. The Experience of Redness must be Explained.
TimB: … you keep saying that there are things that are unexplainable, that are actually quite explainable.
I say Consciousness is Unexplained. I don’t say Consciousness is Unexplainable.
The “experience of redness” implies awareness of redness. Thus it requires not only perception of things that are red, but conscious awareness of some kind that one is seeing “red”. That involves behaviors such as discriminating red, recognizing that it is “red”, and perhaps thinking or feeling (and being aware of the feeling) something from seeing the color.
Some of those behaviors are not available to a fully functional infant human being. They are developed over time, particularly as complex verbal behavior is developed. So by 4 yrs of age, I would guess that most humans would have learned to not only see red, but to identify it and be aware of it and think about it (or as you would say, experience redness).
TimB: The “experience of redness” implies awareness of redness. Thus it requires not only perception of things that are red, but conscious awareness of some kind that one is seeing “red”. That involves behaviors such as discriminating red, recognizing that it is “red”, and perhaps thinking or feeling (and being aware of the feeling) something from seeing the color.
Some of those behaviors are not available to a fully functional infant human being. They are developed over time, particularly as complex verbal behavior is developed. So by 4 yrs of age, I would guess that most humans would have learned to not only see red, but to identify it and be aware of it and think about it (or as you would say, experience redness).
Ok, but I don’t think anyone can really know what the Conscious experience of anyone else is. A baby might not think about or be able to identify Redness but that doesn’t mean the baby can not Experience Redness. There is no way to know these kinds of things yet because we cannot Measure actual Consciousness. External behaviors cannot tell the whole story of what is happening inside.
Can you tell some of your conscious experiences from when you were 2 yrs of age? (I imagine the answer is “no”.)
We could come up with ways to teach a 2 yr old to discriminate red, but the neural pathways for some of the consciousness/awareness behaviors take longer to develop. Especially the development of complex verbal behavior is important, as words are needed for covert self talk (thinking in words). If you can think to yourself, “That ball is red. I like red.” then you are, I think, “experiencing redness”.
TimB: Can you tell some of your conscious experiences from when you were 2 yrs of age? (I imagine the answer is “no”.)
That’s all about Memory.
TimB: We could come up with ways to teach a 2 yr old to discriminate red, but the neural pathways for some of the consciousness/awareness behaviors take longer to develop. Especially the development of complex verbal behavior is important, as words are needed for covert self talk (thinking in words). If you can think to yourself, “That ball is red. I like red.” then you are, I think, “experiencing redness”.
I disagree that you need to be able say things Verbally or to yourself about an Experience in order to Experience an experience. In fact that seems incoherent on the face of it. Redness is a Pure Conscious Experience independent of any other Mental activities that might be going on. The Redness is part of an internal Conscious Language that has no translation to any exterior Human language. Think about other Conscious Experiences like the Standard A Tone, the Salty Taste, and Pain. Take Pain, there is no need to understand anything about Pain in order to Experience it. Pain is a Verbally indescribable Conscious Phenomenon just like Redness is Verbally indescribable.
Pain is not verbally indescribable, I describe it to my doctor regularly (granted not seemingly all that well). But a developing child has to learn that pain is pain, and then has to learn to name it. I say that one can have pain without being aware of experiencing it. A person in a coma with a severe injury could be in pain without being conscious. A baby could react severely to pain and not be aware of what pain is. They react as they were built to react to pain, but conscious awareness behaviors are too rudimentary at this point (in infancy or very early development) to be cognizant of experiencing much.
btw, the right/left brain explanation is not correct. It’s something about different individual’s brains interpreting the light waves differently.
Grey shoe with teal highlights for me.
The Nature of Things (with David Suzuki) had an episode this weekend about how the brain interprets color. Very interesting.
https://www.cbc.ca/natureofthings/episodes/living-colour
I don’t think you can watch it outside of Canada, but the link has some info about the episode.
They show research at Sussex University in their ‘baby lab’ where they experiment on infants to see when they respond to colors.
TimB: Pain is not verbally indescribable, I describe it to my doctor regularly (granted not seemingly all that well). But a developing child has to learn that pain is pain, and then has to learn to name it. I say that one can have pain without being aware of experiencing it. A person in a coma with a severe injury could be in pain without being conscious. A baby could react severely to pain and not be aware of what pain is. They react as they were built to react to pain, but conscious awareness behaviors are too rudimentary at this point (in infancy or very early development) to be cognizant of experiencing much.
Sorry, but nobody can describe in Human Language what their Conscious Sensory Experiences Feel Like. If someone was Red Color Blind there would be no Words you could say that would describe or Explain what your Experience of Redness was like. If someone had never felt Pain you would not be able to describe your Experience of Pain to them. These Conscious Experiences exist only in the Mind. The Mind can Experience these things without any attachment to the Words of a language.
TimB: btw, the right/left brain explanation is not correct. It’s something about different individual’s brains interpreting the light waves differently.
FYI: I see teal and gray. Yes I can’t understand how just L/R dominance would cause that. I think the image has bad color to begin with. The hand also looks unnaturally gray to me. Might have something to do with how different Brains do Color corrections. Maybe if you boost up the Red then the hand will look more normal and the shoe will look pink and white. I’d need to think about the color mixing a little more. Maybe the people that See pink and white are doing better color correction.
