Dr Steve Novella and The (Pseudo?)Skeptics' Guide to the Universe

[Interesting Ian]

Originally Posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos

"1.) If everything we ever do and think is caused by physical events in the brain following physical laws, and if conscious events are distinct from the underlying neuronal processes, then it is at least logical possible that someone might think that they are conscious, and yet not be."

Perhaps we can make some progress if you'll explain how the bold clause doesn't blatantly contradict the italic clause.

~~ Paul

Being distinct means not the same. Now obviously B can be a product of A without B being the very same thing as A, yes?

This is just simply the situation we have with non-reductive materialism/epiphenomenalism.

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Originally Posted by Ian

I'm sick to death of clarifying myself. You're just keep ignoring me and asking me the same question all the time!

Stop explaining it a different way. Take those two paragraphs from your proof and rework them so they don't contradict one another. The idea is to improve the proof, not explain it 17 other ways. I spent a lot of time reading that proof, but you won't focus on it.

It means that we can imagine something or other to be the case.

That's pretty vague. What does it mean to imagine something that is illogical? Can I just imagine it sloppily, without regard to logic, or should I try to imagine it with a little more thought than that?

Could you quote the precise bit where he disagrees with me?

Here:

Originally Posted by Chalmers

either logically possible (conceivable) or naturally possible worlds
...
conceivable (or logically possible) worlds.

He appears to equate conceivable with logically possible. Perhaps that's what you're doing, but the terms are so opaque that it's difficult to tell.

Also the reductive materialist must surely disagree with the first sentence I quoted and maintain that mental properties do logically (rather than merely naturally or nomologically) supervene on physical properties. Yes?

I have no idea what it means for mental properties to logically supervene on physical properties.

~~ Paul

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Originally Posted by Ian

Being distinct means not the same. Now obviously B can be a product of A without B being the very same thing as A, yes?

What is the distinction between a process being an effect and the process producing the affect if the process cannot occur without the effect?

And it is still the case, no matter how much you ignore it, that your proof says that I cannot think I am conscious without being conscious. So the distinction is moot unless you clarify the difference between in-and-of-itself consciousness and brain-function consciousness.

~~ Paul

[Interesting Ian]

Originally Posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos

Stop explaining it a different way. Take those two paragraphs from your proof and rework them so they don't contradict one another.

But if they don't contradict each other there is no proof!!

The very fact they contract each other constitutes the reduction ad absurdum. It is the essence of my proof.

Assuming X leads to Y. But we know that not-Y. Therefore X cannot be true.

This is so excruicatingly simple I just find it utterly bizarre in the extreme that you cannot grasp it. Apparently Ichneumonwasp utterly fails to grasp this too. How else could I possibly put it to make you understand??

And that's not the only thing. I'm interested in this assertion by you and him that an entirely non-conscious thing such as a computer, rock or whatever (where it is agreed on all hands that the relevant entity is not conscious) can nevertheless reason, and think, and have beliefs etc. Does this entirely non-conscious thing also have desires, experience pains, have hopes?

If yes then I cannot but conclude that you and Ichneumonwasp must be p-zombies.

[Interesting Ian]

Hi Paul,

I would also like to ask some questions about this claim that we cannot be absolutely certain that we are conscious that you and Ichneumonwasp and many other materialists maintain (and we should note that here we are definitely talking about consciousness rather than the self -- the self can obviously be denied).

You guys must it seem mean one of 2 possibilities.

a) You agree that we seem to be conscious but in fact we might be misled in this. In other words consciousness might be illusionary.

b) Or in fact there might be just nothing there at all. In which case there is nothing inside us. No one ever desires, feels, hopes -- in fact we are all p-zombies.

Now I know that Dennet subscribes to "b" -- that in fact he "believes" he is a p-zombie, but I take it that you and Ichneumonwasp outright reject this possibility? If you do not then there truly is nothing more to be said. I don't think it's worth my while communicating with p-zombies. But yes, my proof fails if you are not conscious. Of course it would fail anyway because how can consciousness be causally efficacious if it in fact does not exist!?

So I take it you and Ichneumonwasp must subscribe to "a" -- that consciousness might not be real, that it might be illusionary. Or are you guys saying consciousness is definitely illusionary?

Anyway, let's assume that consciousness is in fact illusionary. Now the crucial question here is what is the crucial distinction between illusionary consciousness and real consciousness? If in fact my consciousness is illusionary, what would it be like for me to experience real consciousness??

What would you say to a person such as myself who denies there is any distinction between real consciousness and illusionary consciousness??

May I also propose something? Saying illusionary consciousness all the time is kinda long. Since no one actually has real consciousness should we reserve the word "consciousness" to mean illusionary consciousness? I presume you can't be doing that already because then you guys would be claiming illusionary consciousness is illusionary (or at least might be) and then we embark on an infinite regress!

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Originally Posted by Ian

But if they don't contradict each other there is no proof!!

The very fact they contract each other constitutes the reduction ad absurdum. It is the essence of my proof.

Assuming X leads to Y. But we know that not-Y. Therefore X cannot be true.

This is so excruicatingly simple I just find it utterly bizarre in the extreme that you cannot grasp it. Apparently Ichneumonwasp utterly fails to grasp this too. How else could I possibly put it to make you understand??

I'm going to try one more time.

I would further maintain that we cannot possibly be in error in this conviction. After all it requires consciousness to believe anything at all.

Here you say that it requires consciousness to believe or think.

... then it is at least logical possible that someone might think that they are conscious, and yet not be!

And here you say that a person might be able to think without being conscious.

You need to justify how this logical possibility can even arise in the face of your first statement, where you say that it cannot arise.

Do you understand my confusion? I know that your next step is to point out the absurdity. That is not the source of my confusion. My confusion concerns how the logical possibility of false belief arises.

And that's not the only thing. I'm interested in this assertion by you and him that an entirely non-conscious thing such as a computer, rock or whatever (where it is agreed on all hands that the relevant entity is not conscious) can nevertheless reason, and think, and have beliefs etc. Does this entirely non-conscious thing also have desires, experience pains, have hopes?

I did not say that a nonconscious thing can think. I said that a computer might be able to be conscious.

~~ Paul

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Originally Posted by Ian

a) You agree that we seem to be conscious but in fact we might be misled in this. In other words consciousness might be illusionary.

I only say this to point out that strident claims of incorrigibility are problematical.

b) Or in fact there might be just nothing there at all. In which case there is nothing inside us. No one ever desires, feels, hopes -- in fact we are all p-zombies.

No, I think there is something there.

Now I know that Dennet subscribes to "b" -- that in fact he "believes" he is a p-zombie, ...

Where did he say this?

Anyway, let's assume that consciousness is in fact illusionary. Now the crucial question here is what is the crucial distinction between illusionary consciousness and real consciousness? If in fact my consciousness is illusionary, what would it be like for me to experience real consciousness??

I don't know what the difference would be, nor whether it would matter.

What would you say to a person such as myself who denies there is any distinction between real consciousness and illusionary consciousness??

I would probably agree that there is no interesting distinction.

May I also propose something? Saying illusionary consciousness all the time is kinda long. Since no one actually has real consciousness should we reserve the word "consciousness" to mean illusionary consciousness? I presume you can't be doing that already because then you guys would be claiming illusionary consciousness is illusionary (or at least might be) and then we embark on an infinite regress!

I'm not claiming consciousness is illusory.

You're putting words in my mouth because you are assuming I am too stupid to understand your proof, rather than admitting that your proof is confusing. It confuses everyone. If it is a rock solid proof, please publish it in a peer-reviewed philosophy journal. Then your peers could comment on it and you might take them seriously.

~~ Paul

[Interesting Ian]

Originally Posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos

I'm going to try one more time.


Here you say that it requires consciousness to believe or think.


And here you say that a person might be able to think without being conscious.

You need to justify how this logical possibility can even arise in the face of your first statement, where you say that it cannot arise.

It cannot arise. It is logically impossible. Hence necessarily consciousness must have some causal efficacy.

I did not say that a nonconscious thing can think. I said that a computer might be able to be conscious.

~~ Paul

Yes you did!!

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Originally Posted by Ian

It cannot arise. It is logically impossible. Hence necessarily consciousness must have some causal efficacy.

You have not proven that it is logically impossible. In order to do that, you must prove that it is logically impossible, in a metaphysically-independent way, for me to believe that I am conscious when I am not. All you have done is use the incorrigibility gambit, which is not a proof.

Furthermore, in the first paragraph we have been discussing, you talk about consciousness in general. But in the second paragraph, you introduce the notion of in-and-of-itself consciousness. Is that the sort of consciousness you were talking about in the first paragraph, or were you talking about any sort of consciousness whatsoever? If any sort of consciousness whatsoever is sufficient to guarantee that I can't hold a false belief about being conscious, then it is not logically possible under any metaphysic to hold that false belief. That is why I say that your second paragraph has a fatal contradiction: It is not logically possible to hold a false belief about being conscious, under any metaphysic including physicalism.

On the other hand, if only in-and-of-itself consciousness guarantees no false belief, then you are begging the question by loading the definition of consciousness. Or, looking at it another way, it doesn't matter that I can hold a false belief under physicalism, because there is no guarantee against it. Brain-function consciousness is not in-and-of-itself consciousness and makes no guarantees.

~~ Paul

[David Bailey]

Originally Posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos

You have not proven that it is logically impossible. In order to do that, you must prove that it is logically impossible, in a metaphysically-independent way, for me to believe that I am conscious when I am not. All you have done is use the incorrigibility gambit, which is not a proof.
~~ Paul

It is certainly possible for something to ai-believe it is conscious, but ordinary belief if defined with an implicit conscious subject - as we have discussed at length - so you and Ian are really discussing whether belief and ai-belief are equivalent!

As we both agree, a lot of these discussions suffer from the use of words in subtly different ways. I think it would be far better to explicitly label AI (i.e. non-brain) modes of 'thought' rather than assume you can conflate these with the ordinary definitions. Belief in humans is not the same as your definition of ai-belief. Not only does it entail consciousness and a belief-qualia, but it also contains a non-deductive component, which may dominate.

You may assert that you believe ai-belief and ordinary belief are equivalent, but unfortunately we need to wait 200 years for the details

David