Steve wrote:

oookaay.... as the Buddha said - we see the world as we are, not as it is.

Fuck the Buddha. He was an idiot.

I ask for suggestions for not destroying the planet and you you say stop listening and go out and play.

I said stop listening to priests, and go out and deal with the real world. Some work, some play. If you want to deal with environmental issues, study environmental science, use science to help us use the resources of the planet more sustainably. But be careful: environmentalism is a pseudo-religion now, with priests and preachers of its own, and they are just as dangerous as the religious priests.

Who says we are supposed to outgrow anything? Who is doing this "supposing"?

How about answering this question Steve? Where are you getting your "supposed to" from?

SpeedOfSound wrote:
I think Searle and Nagel and other so called philosophers who create the thought experiments appeal to emotion rather than reason.

You're wrong. The thought experiments are based on reason. If the thought experiments confuse you just forget about them and think about their underlying rationale.

The essential rational idea you need to grasp to understand Searle is the distinction between observer-relative and observer-nonrelative phenomena.

Perhaps you could explain your understanding of that distinction to us?

Wezentrommel wrote:

SpeedOfSound wrote:
I think Searle and Nagel and other so called philosophers who create the thought experiments appeal to emotion rather than reason.

You're wrong. The thought experiments are based on reason. If the thought experiments confuse you just forget about them and think about their underlying rationale.

The essential rational idea you need to grasp to understand Searle is the distinction between observer-relative and observer-nonrelative phenomena.

Perhaps you could explain your understanding of that distinction to us?

To quote myself "There ain't no fucking observer"

Wezentrommel wrote:

SpeedOfSound wrote:
I think Searle and Nagel and other so called philosophers who create the thought experiments appeal to emotion rather than reason.

You're wrong. The thought experiments are based on reason. If the thought experiments confuse you just forget about them and think about their underlying rationale.

The essential rational idea you need to grasp to understand Searle is the distinction between observer-relative and observer-nonrelative phenomena.

Perhaps you could explain your understanding of that distinction to us?

You're wrong.

I just love a confident man.

Like I said I have an idiosyncratic definition for information. Apparently. It surprises me because I have always thought this. way.

For me information is causal. In fact, for me, causality IS information. Physicality IS information. I don't give a rat's ass about humans or observers or communication. I like to clear that rubble from my mind before I think. Image a matrix of 1's and 0's. Populate it with some seemingly random set. There is information there. Unless of course you have pulled off true random.

The universe of space/time is really not space and time. It is a set of information that is not random. It has structure and from this structure the physical laws and appearance of causality arise as a mist.

I haven't thought this all through and I could be wrong in many ways but I thought I would just toss this out there.

SpeedOfSound wrote:

Wezentrommel wrote:

SpeedOfSound wrote:
I think Searle and Nagel and other so called philosophers who create the thought experiments appeal to emotion rather than reason.

You're wrong. The thought experiments are based on reason. If the thought experiments confuse you just forget about them and think about their underlying rationale.

The essential rational idea you need to grasp to understand Searle is the distinction between observer-relative and observer-nonrelative phenomena.

Perhaps you could explain your understanding of that distinction to us?

You're wrong.

I just love a confident man.

Like I said I have an idiosyncratic definition for information. Apparently. It surprises me because I have always thought this. way.

For me information is causal. In fact, for me, causality IS information. Physicality IS information. I don't give a rat's ass about humans or observers or communication. I like to clear that rubble from my mind before I think. Image a matrix of 1's and 0's. Populate it with some seemingly random set. There is information there. Unless of course you have pulled off true random.

The universe of space/time is really not space and time. It is a set of information that is not random. It has structure and from this structure the physical laws and appearance of causality arise as a mist.

I haven't thought this all through and I could be wrong in many ways but I thought I would just toss this out there.

It's just incoherent drivel. It's not that it is meaningful but wrong, it doesn't make sense, it's self-contradictory, absurd, a waste of everybody's time, and misleading to less well-informed readers who might have a serious interest in the topic. You should be ashamed of yourself. Stop tossing out drivel and deal with the rational philosophical questions that are put to you, either that or fuck off.

Wezentrommel wrote:

SpeedOfSound wrote:

Wezentrommel wrote:

SpeedOfSound wrote:
I think Searle and Nagel and other so called philosophers who create the thought experiments appeal to emotion rather than reason.

You're wrong. The thought experiments are based on reason. If the thought experiments confuse you just forget about them and think about their underlying rationale.

The essential rational idea you need to grasp to understand Searle is the distinction between observer-relative and observer-nonrelative phenomena.

Perhaps you could explain your understanding of that distinction to us?

You're wrong.

I just love a confident man.

Like I said I have an idiosyncratic definition for information. Apparently. It surprises me because I have always thought this. way.

For me information is causal. In fact, for me, causality IS information. Physicality IS information. I don't give a rat's ass about humans or observers or communication. I like to clear that rubble from my mind before I think. Image a matrix of 1's and 0's. Populate it with some seemingly random set. There is information there. Unless of course you have pulled off true random.

The universe of space/time is really not space and time. It is a set of information that is not random. It has structure and from this structure the physical laws and appearance of causality arise as a mist.

I haven't thought this all through and I could be wrong in many ways but I thought I would just toss this out there.

It's just incoherent drivel. It's not that it is meaningful but wrong, it doesn't make sense, it's self-contradictory, absurd, a waste of everybody's time, and misleading to less well-informed readers who might have a serious interest in the topic. You should be ashamed of yourself. Stop tossing out drivel and deal with the rational philosophical questions that are put to you, either that or fuck off.

Thank you.

Steve wrote:
oookaay.... as the Buddha said - we see the world as we are, not as it is.

I ask for suggestions for not destroying the planet and you you say stop listening and go out and play.

You have brought up both a moral and epistemological discussion about Buddhism and selflessness. This thing is going in a few too many directions. A new thread would be handy. The knee-jerk reaction to slam all things Buddha demonstrated by one poster here is also worth exploring.

Searle and information. I'm thinking about it. Will post. Let's just keep my definition and concept of information in mind and try not to get confused about things like observers and communication.

I seem to agree with a lot of what Searle says except what appears to be his final conclusion. That machines can never be conscious or intelligent?

He claims to argue against something called Strong AI. But then he talks about simplistic simulations back in the 80's and uses ideas like the Chinese room and Chinese guys with tin cans and ropes? I call these things naive emotional arguments. They appeal to intuitions which we know are going to produce a visceral reaction again st AI and these thought experiments leave out so many details and definitions as to be an insult to our intelligence.

Rather than being based on reason they are being base on reduction to the absurd. An 8085 running a simulation or tin cans and ropes lends no understanding whatever to this complex problem.

If we make a judgment about a machine being conscious it can have two genreral scopes.

1. An intellectual judgment. Does it have that C stuff like us?
2. A moral judgment . Should it have rights.

The first requires a careful definition of C which is apparently impossible. The second requires a bit of that plus a close look at the parts of C that we would find appeal to a judgment of morality.


I think a functional definition is possible and I think it would reveal a great deal about the moral judgments we make and the ideas we have about what C really is. The first problem, the intellectual one, will leave us wanting. Precisely because we have poorly thought out beliefs about consciousness. After checking off the functional items we are still left believing in something that doesn't really exist.

One more thing. Searle in his biological naturalism is not talking about tin cans. He is talking about a critter that has ALL of the functions and pieces that we do. I stated in my opening post that the machine would have to simulate everything in our bodies and brains in real time.

Searle seems to go further in claiming that the substance has to be identical too. This is where we differ. He never gets around to saying why that is as far as I can tell. His type of thinking is in danger of imagining this ethereal something that arises like the stink of shit over a pile of bull droppings.

Anyone know more about this?

The Buddhist idea of suffering due to self has a bit to do with moral judgment of consciousness. The suffering is from a sense of knowing that I am suffering and will continue to suffer. A sense of knowing that things could be better. This is all gone if we have no strong sense and attachment to self.

If sit on two court cases where we decide to a. unplug a brain dead human being and b. unplug a functioning AI computer what will be our criteria? I think it's functional if we are atheists. A religious person would save a. and kill b. in a heartbeat.

I think some atheists still believe in C-god and would not hesitate to unplug either. Myself I would do a. and save b.


But what is it about b. that would have me save it? I would have to be convinced that it took input from it's environment much as I do and remembered it. I would have to believe it had a sense of self and personal history and future. I think further it would have to be a hell of a lot like me with the same rich sense of recent experience and identity.

But could I then unplug an enlightened Zen master?

Wezentrommel wrote:

Who says we are supposed to outgrow anything? Who is doing this "supposing"?

How about answering this question Steve? Where are you getting your "supposed to" from?

Same place humans should outgrow diapers. Not everyone does, however. But if they could, they should.

SpeedOfSound wrote:

Steve wrote:
oookaay.... as the Buddha said - we see the world as we are, not as it is.

I ask for suggestions for not destroying the planet and you you say stop listening and go out and play.

You have brought up both a moral and epistemological discussion about Buddhism and selflessness. This thing is going in a few too many directions. A new thread would be handy. The knee-jerk reaction to slam all things Buddha demonstrated by one poster here is also worth exploring.

I don't want to derail the thread... lets carry on.

SpeedOfSound wrote:

If sit on two court cases where we decide to a. unplug a brain dead human being and b. unplug a functioning AI computer what will be our criteria?

Mine would be strongly influenced by the benefits to everybody in both cases. If the AI computer was sophisticated enough to convincingly emulate empathy and it had demonstrated a capacity to make creative and workable solutions to social problems that led to less suffering all around than any human - I could be convinced it had earned the right to rights. As for brain dead humans I couldn't say till I was actually in that situation. All I can say is it is possible I would pull the plug. It is also possible I would not.

I really don't care how the computer works. It can be a black box. All that matters is how intelligent it is and how creative its solutions to thorny problems that involve the welfare of others. And how I perceive its motivations.

zoon wrote:
Language only makes sense in the context of communication between different people, it’s not something that would evolve in the brains of solitary animals. Words don’t help a brain to communicate with itself. I would guess that the human ability to conceptualize the self also has to do with managing the perception that other people have of oneself; again, I don’t see why a brain would otherwise waste time and energy conceptualizing itself. I’m not here disagreeing with what ColonelZen says, it’s just that any discussion of language and the brain structuring that goes with it needs, as I would see the matter, to be in the context of communication between different individuals because that is the only context in which it has any functionality.

Er, no. It certainly could not have evolved except in very social cooperative critters. And as I see it, that means second-order abstracting consciousness could not have arisen except in social critters.

But language is much, much more important to consciousness than interpersonal communication. It is THE means by which we represent our thoughts as things outside of us - we, in our heads, "hear" our thoughts *as if* they were words being spoken from outside of us. Now we also do that with imagery, but as sound is a one dimensional medium it is much, much easier to create repeatable - and shareable - sequences, and as we evolved our high order abstracting abilities, to create compositable, decomposable and interchangable pieces in this one dimensional medium. Then once our brains could do a "stack frame" to impose meaningful order and structure upon it we could represent ourselves (to ourselves and others) as sound ... and invent the subjunctive.

Language is the primary and usually best means of representing thoughts as things outside our heads - I'm doing it now. And the primary reason the illusion of a self as something other than ones own body is so prevalent is because we do "hear" ourselves. Who is doing the talking if "i"'m doing the listening? Even those of us who well understand intellectually that it is simply different processes in the same brain doing the "talking" and "listening", the physical construction of our senses and our experience in using them deeply predisposes us to a sense of "other" about the parts of our brains generating our internal soliloquies.


I suspect that the tail end of human evolution was a three way feedback loop among the individual, his group and the brain's ability to do language, a probably bloody culling of those who could not "keep up". When looked at from this perspective even historical things like Rome's rule of law look like intellectual innovations which imposed a sorting on those capable of sustaining a belief in the reality of an abstraction from those who didn't; another culling mechanism.

-- TWZ

SpeedOfSound wrote:

Wezentrommel wrote:

SpeedOfSound wrote:
I think Searle and Nagel and other so called philosophers who create the thought experiments appeal to emotion rather than reason.

You're wrong. The thought experiments are based on reason. If the thought experiments confuse you just forget about them and think about their underlying rationale.

The essential rational idea you need to grasp to understand Searle is the distinction between observer-relative and observer-nonrelative phenomena.

Perhaps you could explain your understanding of that distinction to us?

You're wrong.

I just love a confident man.

Like I said I have an idiosyncratic definition for information. Apparently. It surprises me because I have always thought this. way.

For me information is causal. In fact, for me, causality IS information. Physicality IS information. I don't give a rat's ass about humans or observers or communication. I like to clear that rubble from my mind before I think. Image a matrix of 1's and 0's. Populate it with some seemingly random set. There is information there. Unless of course you have pulled off true random.

The universe of space/time is really not space and time. It is a set of information that is not random. It has structure and from this structure the physical laws and appearance of causality arise as a mist.

I haven't thought this all through and I could be wrong in many ways but I thought I would just toss this out there.

Well, to my own satisfaction I've defanged Nagel's bat, and I always thought the "System Objection" was an ample rebuttal to The Chinese Room. I'm aware Searle posited a number of other thought experiements, but without a cite I don't know which in particular Wezzenfrommel means. I've not read Searle's books yet, but a number of articles and commentary (pro and con) about his various works. He seems to be a crypto mysterian ... a lot of his thoughts seem well considered but at the very end, right before he would have to concede a functional interpretation for consciousness he interjects an objection - and it's a different objection in different contexts.

Otherwise, in your conjectures regarding information, while you admit its an "on the burner" description, I would have to disagree mightily.

I have a working definition for information: correlation between distinguishable physical objects or processes by which some properties of one can be used to predict some properties of the other. Thus certain DNA sequences can predict the eye color or varying currents in a wire will predictably correlate to the dots on your computer screen. But it requires a mind capable of recognising the correlation and of making the prediction (which can be a machine, a "derivative" mind for those who don't like implication). The mind *has* to be a part of the composite whole to describe anything as the emergent "information" rather than the raw physicality which propagated the correlation.

It looks like a horse race to me as to whether "information" is any primary real part of the universe. Bell's inequality seems to hold very well and entanglement *looks* like information without physicality, but I'm waiting for the next Einstein or Dirac to come up with a picture of reality that will reduce entanglement. On the other hand, quantum communications would be nice if only for ultra low power and astronomical bandwidth (ignoring any FTL yak), and should be possible despite the nc theorem if information is "real".

But in the mundane world of everyday and our minds, presuming no quantum woo required, information is effectively a derived property, a useful abstract construct of our brains which designates how many of the highly consistent nature of physicality and how that common consistency is useful in making predictions. But in the everyday world, there is no sense that "information" is real outside of us. (Let's have a swing at whether numbers are real, sometime).

-- TWZ

SpeedOfSound wrote:I seem to agree with a lot of what Searle says except what appears to be his final conclusion. That machines can never be conscious or intelligent?

He doesn't say that, he goes out of his way to make it clear that he doesn't say that. You either haven't read or haven't understood what he said, then you turn up here pretending to have some kind of insight into his thinking, referring to him as a "so-called philosopher".

Searle seems to go further in claiming that the substance has to be identical too. This is where we differ. He never gets around to saying why that is as far as I can tell. His type of thinking is in danger of imagining this ethereal something that arises like the stink of shit over a pile of bull droppings.

Anyone know more about this?

I wonder if anybody knows less about this than you do.

"The fact that brain processes cause consciousness does not imply that only brains can be conscious. The brain is a biological machine, and we might build an artificial machine that was conscious; just as the heart is a machine, and we have built artificial hearts. Because we do not know exactly how the brain does it we are not yet in a position to know how to do it artificially." (John Searle, Biological Naturalism, 2004)

SpeedOfSound wrote:Searle and information. I'm thinking about it. Will post. Let's just keep my definition and concept of information in mind and try not to get confused about things like observers and communication.

There is no information without an observer, Information is an observer-dependent. You will never understand this discussion until you understand what that means.

"Tree rings are information about the age of the tree only to someone who can interpret or use it as such. If you strip away the observers and interpreters then the notion becomes empty, because now everything has information in it". John Searle, The Mystery of Consciousness, 1997.

http://maverickphilosopher.typepad.com/ ... ative.html

1. Some features of a thing are intrinsic to it. The mass of an object, for example, is intrinsic to it. What that means, roughly, is that it is not in virtue of a relation to anything else that a massive thing has its mass. By contrast, weight is not intrinsic since the weight of an object depends on the gravitational field it is in: a thing of invariant mass has different weights on the earth and on the moon. The relevant principle here is Newton's Second Law: F=ma. Weight is a force.

Suppose the object is a screwdriver. Its being a screwdriver is not intrinsic but relational: it is only in relation to an observer or user or fabricator that a screwdriver is a screwdriver. Of course, nothing can be a screwdriver unless it has certain intrinsic properties that fit it to play this functional role: one cannot make a screwdriver out of ice or spaghetti. Not even an Eskimo or an Italian could do it. But the property of being a screwdriver is not intrinsic to the object. It is an observer-relative feature. This is not to say that I can make a thing a screwdriver just by wishing it to be one or thinking it to be one. The point is that nothing is a screwdriver apart from a context of tools (ein Zeugzusammenhang as Heidegger would say) which refers necessarily to tool-users, purposive beings such as us.

As Searle puts it, the property of being a screwdriver is epistemically objective but ontologically subjective. (p. 10) Thus it is objectively true that the tool in my hand is a screwdriver, but its being a screwdriver necessarily involves a reference to a subject who uses it as such. Nothing is a screwdriver or a jackhammer or a modem intrinsically.

Here is a rough-and-ready test to determine whether a property is intrinsic or observer-relative: Could the property exist if there had never been any human beings or other sorts of sentient beings? (p. 11) The property of being a screwdriver could not exist (be instantiated) in a world in which there were no sentient beings. This ought to be obvious. A screwdriver is an artifact designed for the purpose of inserting screws by beings who make plans and have purposes. In a world without such purposive beings there would be no tools of any kind. There might be rocks, ponds, fires, and forests, but no paperweights, swimming holes, heaters, or fuel sources.

2. Searle's point about functions is that they are never intrinsic but always observer-relative. Functions are assigned or imposed by us. A burro (my example) is not intrinsically a beast of burden but is susceptible to having that functional role imposed on it. Or else we fabricate a mechanical 'burro' to suit our purposes. Similarly, cats and dogs are not pets intrinsically: the pet role is imposed by us.

There are no functions in the natural world: "nature knows nothing of functions." (14). Hearts occur in nature, and it is an observer-independent fact that they cause blood to course through the bodies that house them. But the function of the heart to pump blood is not intrinsic to nature.

One consideration in support of this view is that things in nature cannot be said to either fail or succeed in exercising their function. You cannot say of a piece of metal in nature that it failed or succeeded since there is no job or function that it was supposed to perform. But one can say of a metal rivet that it failed or succeeded. ('The main rivet failed and that triggered a series of events that led to the collapse of the bridge.') Normative talk is now appropriate. Only things having functions can malfunction. Depending on its size and shape and weight, a rock may make a good or bad weapon once we assign it the weapon function. But a rock in nature is neither good nor bad since there is nothing that a rock in nature is FOR. There are no weapons or paperweights or door stops in nature.

As Searle puts it, "functions are never intrinsic to the physics of any phenomenon but are assigned from outside by conscious observers and users." (14) But wasn't the function of the heart, namely, to pump blood, discovered? Now if a function is discovered, how can it be "assigned from the outside"?

Although it is true to say that we discover the functions of organs and the like, "the discovery of a natural function can only take place within a set of prior assignments of value (including purposes, teleology, and other functions)." (15) The natural facts are exhausted by the causal facts. The functionality of the heart is something we add to the natural facts. So although one does discover how the heart works -- its mechanism -- one does not discover any teleology. Searle:


It is because we take it for granted in biology that life and survival are values that we can discover that the function of the heart is to pump blood. If we thought that the most important value in the world was to glorify God by making thumping noises, then the function of the heart would be to make a thumping noise, and the noisier heart would be the better heart. (15)


3. Searle thinks that Darwinism supports his contention that functions are never intrinsic, but always observer-relative:


One of Darwin's greatest achievements was to drive teleology out of the account of the origin of species. On the Darwinian account, evolution occurs by way of blind, brute, natural forces. There is no intrinsic purpose whatever to the origin and survival of biological species. (16)


Searle could draw on the authority of experts like Ernst Mayr who also insist that Darwinian theory results in the expulsion of Aristotelian final causes.

4. Compare airplane wings and eagles' wings. The wings of an airplane are designed by human engineers for a purpose: to generate lift so that a heavier-than-air craft can become airborne. They are for flying. Now it might seem that the same is true of eagle's wings: they too are for flying. This is true, but only relative to us. Because we value mobility and survival, we project onto the eagles' wings the function of being for flying and escaping predators. Searle's point, however, is that nothing in nature intrinsically has a function. He is not saying that airplane wings have a purpose while eagles' wings don't: they both have a purpose, but it is observer-relative. In a world without beings like us, bird's wings and birds' nests would exist and have causes and effects but lack functions.

Wezentrommel wrote:

SpeedOfSound wrote:I seem to agree with a lot of what Searle says except what appears to be his final conclusion. That machines can never be conscious or intelligent?

He doesn't say that, he goes out of his way to make it clear that he doesn't say that. You either haven't read or haven't understood what he said, then you turn up here pretending to have some kind of insight into his thinking, referring to him as a "so-called philosopher".

Searle seems to go further in claiming that the substance has to be identical too. This is where we differ. He never gets around to saying why that is as far as I can tell. His type of thinking is in danger of imagining this ethereal something that arises like the stink of shit over a pile of bull droppings.

Anyone know more about this?

I wonder if anybody knows less about this than you do.

"The fact that brain processes cause consciousness does not imply that only brains can be conscious. The brain is a biological machine, and we might build an artificial machine that was conscious; just as the heart is a machine, and we have built artificial hearts. Because we do not know exactly how the brain does it we are not yet in a position to know how to do it artificially." (John Searle, Biological Naturalism, 2004)

You're kind of an excitable guy. I do sort of remember him saying this. About reading Searle. I have read about three papers. I prefer reading real neuroscience and don't have much time for philosloppy. I get as far as the first suit-case word being pulled out of someones ass without analysis and I sort of disregard most of what they say thereafter.