Re: Qualia Question

On 10 Jul 2005 02:24:03 GMT, curt@xxxxxxxx (Curt Welch) in
comp.ai.philosophy wrote:

>lesterDELzick@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Lester Zick) wrote:
>> On 09 Jul 2005 15:15:15 GMT, curt@xxxxxxxx (Curt Welch) in
>> comp.ai.philosophy wrote:
>>
>> >"1Z" <peterdjones@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>> >> Curt Welch wrote:
>> >> > "1Z" <peterdjones@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>> >> > > Curt Welch wrote:
>> >> >
>> >> > > > A tooth ache is likewise, nothing more than a description of the
>> >> > > > configuration of the human body.
>> >> > >
>> >> > > So if we explained the physical configuration of a human body with
>> >> > > tooth ache
>> >> > > to a Martian, the martian would know what hte ache *felt* like ?
>> >> >
>> >> > To experience a ache, you have to be a body in the correct
>> >> > configuration. Unless the Martian changed his body configuration to
>> >> > match all the important parts of a human body with a toothache, he
>> >> > couldn't experience it.
>> >> >
>> >> > To experience it, you must be the body.
>> >>
>> >> But why can't you understand it without having the experience
>> >> yourself?
>> >
>> >What do you think the word "understand" means? You seem to be making
>> >assumptions about what understanding is without ever defining it. You
>> >seem to be seeing a contradiction in the way you have choosen to define
>> >your words.
>>
>> You know, Curt, this is a real problem and seems to be exactly the
>> kind of never ending regression you complain about with respect to
>> people who use any language at all to describe what they're talking
>> about. The difficulty seems to be whether and to what extent you can
>> define words in language any way you want. I don't say you can't but
>> there would seem to be some degree of inconsistency or inaccuracy
>> whichever way you or anyone else wants to go.
>>
>> So far we have at least two poorly understood words: "mechanics" and
>> "understand". We can undoubtedly add words like "contradiction" and
>> "self contradiction" as well as a number of others. So what do we do
>> about it? It would seem we have to do something or simply abandon the
>> concept of the use of language for analytical purposes altogether.
>
>Well, you seem to have some idea about how to "fix" words. I've not yet
>been able to understand what you have done.

Well the process is fairly simple, Curt. All words in language are
structured in relation to one another. That's what language is and how
it does what it does. Those words are predicates stated in relation to
one another. To fix words, as you put it, all that's needed is to
establish the predicates of predication to which all predicates are
subject whatever their relation to other predicates. That's the
framework for language in mechanical terms. The idea that language is
arbitrary or a matter of arbitrary definition is incorrect. We may not
know everything there is to know of predicates or predicate structure
in relation to every other conceivable predicate, but we can certainly
know and demonstrate knowledge of predicates of predication to which
all predicates must be subject.

>I however, take a simple approach - the same one used by science. I ground
>the meaning of all my words back to objective facts - data we can all
>collect, and verify, and agree on, from the common environment we all have
>the power to sense.

Let's back up a minute, Curt. In the days before objective facts we
currently enjoy in science, there was no way to ground words in
objective facts. Prior to Newton we had no way to anchor garden
variety billiard ball physical concepts in mechanical terms. Did that
mean we didn't talk about them and try to explain them? Of course not.

The fact is that every objective concept starts out as a subjective
circumstance which we try to extricate from the subjective and make
objective. You have the idea that words need to be anchored in the
objective. What about the relation and structure between words? They
start out as subjective relations which have no objective referent and
no mechanical connection to other objective referents which anchor
words.

So your desire to anchor words at the outset is really only a naive
assumption that relations between words can be anchored as well. If
words could all be anchored that way to begin with we wouldn't have
any need for scientists to discover these objective anchors. We can't
just assume that every word which circumscribes some structure between
other words already has some ready made objective anchor.

We might assume there is some objective anchor we can discover but
that doesn't mean there is already an objective anchor in place. Nor
does it allow us to presume we can anchor just any word to any
objective anchor. An excellent example is turing mechanics. A lot of
people want to assume this and that about turing mechanics just
because it is a defined binary state mechanics. But that doesn't mean
there is no conceivable alternative mechanics.

So the real question here is whether you intend not to use any word
which has no exact objective correspondence. If so there is nothing
for you to discover scientifically. On the other hand if you decide to
ponder concepts designated by words with no exact objective
correspondence as yet, you put yourself in the position of a scientist
open to the objective deciphering of subjective correlations among
facts and circumstances.

The fact that other people don't know what they're talking about in
objective terms doesn't mean such things cannot be known. Nor does it
imply that assumptions are a substitute for knowledge. Assumptions
whether anchored to objective facts or not are just as subjective as
any other subjective circumstances because it is the relation between
words which is subjective and not the words themselves. If you take
words A and C as referring to the most hard headed intuitively obvious
to the casual observer facts possible (the contents of Bob Kolker's
wallet, for example) it still doesn't make their combination any more
or less objective.

>The whole problem with the semantic mess LZ is trying to understand (all
>our mental terms from mind to Qualia) comes from the problem of grounding a
>ton of different words back to the subjective environment (what we can
>sense happening in our head - our thoughts etc), AND making the assumption
>that the subjective environment is different from the objective
>environment.

Well for what it's worth here, everything starts out subjective and we
have to deduce the objective from it. In other words there are no
given dichotomous subjective and objective categories to begin with.
However if you try to structure the problem by coming to terms with
each and every word and relations between words individually, the
problem becomes intractable.

It would be like trying to come to terms with each and ever natural
number or geometric figure individually without arithmetic or
geometry. What you do is try to come to terms with the laws all such
things obey in general terms and then apply that information to the
behavior of individual or particular words and concepts.

You see, what really anchors concepts is not so much objective anchors
as the laws concepts obey. It just doesn't matter whether 2 refers to
stars or planets. They add, divide, and multiply the same regardless
according to the laws of behavior for arithmetic and not for stars or
planets.

So the problem for words and their anchors does not begin with a
catalog of all their individual meanings conceivable or imaginary but
the laws of behavior for words and word structures and relations
between words. You have to use words to figure this out, But without
those laws of structure and relations, any objective or subjective
rules for word anchorings, whether objective or subjective, will just
result in the obvious mess you see all around you.

Can you actually imagine trying to analyze arithmetic objects by
anchoring each number to an objective referent? Would that make
arithmetic any simpler or just a mess? Objective anchors are critical
just not in the form you imagine. Objective anchors are the rules of
behavior a concept designated by a word obeys. And those rules for
words and language generally are the predicates of predication.

I'll give you an excellent example. Over and over I read comments
regarding free will and its significance. Certainly few concepts have
anything like the overblown and contentious significance imputed to
this idea. So what's the bottom line? No one know what they're talking
about and none of the putative properties of the concept make any
sense.

Does that mean the idea has no actual mechanical significance and that
its use is just a mystical artifact of bogus linguistic manipulation?
No. What it means is that people have a subjective sense of some idea
they refer to as "free will" that has no objective significance yet
but considerable subjective significance. So arbitrarily anchoring the
idea of free will to this or that objective anchor like quantum
effects is self defeating since it assumes arbitrary assumptions are
as good as non arbitrary assumptions and further promotes the idea
that every idea anyone anchors to anything is an arbitrary linguistic
convention.

>That is, people talk as if the mind is something different from the brain.
>They talk that way because they think the thoughts they can sense happening
>in their head, exist in an alternate universe (the universe of everything
>mental) We were taught to believe that all the things we can sense outside
>our head (light, sound, touch, taste) is physical, and _separate_ from the
>mental world.

Well if the world "out there" is physical and objective and the world
"in here" is at least predominantly subjective, wouldn't you also
conclude that the world out there is separate from the world in here?
We start out just as every infant does with the subjective world in
here and progress to the point we can objectify the world out there.
Then in an effort to explain the world in here the same way as we
explain the world out there, we just regress the world out there to
the world in here without explaining the differences between them.

>This creates a contradiction between our language, and the universe we
>exist in. It creates a contradiction because it defines two domains of
>existence, when in fact, there is only one in our universe.

Well it certainly defines two domains of existence, but that certainly
doesn't mean there aren't two domains of existence.

>This contradiction is what creates the explanatory gap. Our language has
>it's meaning defined in two separate domains of existence (physical and
>mental), when there is only one. And when we try to talk about AI, it
>becomes obvious there is a problem. And people like LZ keep asking, "but
>how do you create the mental world from stuff the physical world?". "How
>do you make a physical machine like a computer create Qualia? How do you
>"explain in physical terms, what Qualia is?

Nobody bothers to explain qualia in any terms whatsoever because it's
a trivial, redundant concept. Of course there is a contradiction which
creates an explanatory gap between the physical and mental. However
the problem is that materialism and empiricism view this contradiction
as an explanatory gap when it wishes to assume everything is physical
without explaining how mental effects are actually effectuated in
physical terms. You consider this explanatory gap the consequence of
linugistic perfidy and manipulation. I consider the explanatory gap
evidence of the divide between physical and mental events which you
and materialists throughout history have been unable to bridge.

For my part in terms of science it's easier to explain mechanization
and the emergence of the objective in terms of the subjective than
vice versa.

>The explanatory gap shows up all over the place. But there's only one
>cause for it's existence. It's the fact that our language is based on the
>assumption that there are two separate domains of existence (the mind and
>the body, physical and mental), when in our universe, there is only one.

When in our physical universe there is only one physical universe.
There is only a materialist assumption that there is no mind and
mental effects based on purely mechanical principles. The explanatory
gap is there. What you make of it depends on what you intend to
explain. If you can't and don't intend to explain the mind and mental
effects, the easiest route to take is to pretend the explanatory gap
is fiction.

>I can't explain in physical terms how to create this other domain of
>existence because the other domain of existence doesn't exist!!! It's an
>error in our language created by our forefathers.

Who had nothing better to do with their time than devise fictions to
foist on an unsuspecting posterity? If there is no other domain of
existence, why is there an explanatory gap?

>As long as anyone chooses to believe that there are two domains of
>existence, and as long as they continue to ground the meaning of their
>words to these two domains, they will always be caught with a semantic
>inconsistence between the universe they exist in, and the one described by
>their language.

In our language. When you stop using language then you can call it
"my" language. And just because you can't explain subjective phenomena
mechanically doesn't mean no mechanical explanation is possible.

>If you ground the meaning of all words only to the physical domain, and/or,
>understand that the mental domain is the same domain as the physical
>domain, then all the explanatory problems vanish. There are no problems.
>Everything makes sense, and everything fits the data from the physical
>world.

Of course explanatory problems vanish. Because you've just assumed
everything that was to be explained and proven. Just as you assume
everything in the universe is conscious because you want to avoid
addressing and answering difficult questions. Just as physics wants to
call quantum effects unexplainable hermit functions and mathematics
wants to call everything points.

>The only data in question, is, "are the thoughts we sense happening in our
>head, caused by physical objects, just like everything we sense happening
>outside our head?" Or, are our mental thoughts caused by something
>non-physical?

Well that's a good question. So far I don't see anyone except myself
coming up with good answers. All I've seen are people trying to
explain away the problem with bad philosophy instead of good science.

>If you continue to believe that our mental thoughts are not just the
>behavior of physical objects (our neurons firing), then you will be stuck
>with the explanatory gap, and AI will forever be impossible for you.

Whereas it's easy for you because all you do is assume everything you
were supposed to explain and prove?

>If you believe that our thoughts are the actions of the brain, and only the
>action of the physical matter of our brain, then you will have your entire
>language grounded to physical (and potentially verifiable/objective) data
>where it can all be verified, and discussed, objectively. The truth of all
>meaning can be verified by collecting, and studying, objective data.

Yeah, well good luck with that. Maybe in a hundred million years you
will have collected enough data to realize that you're looking at the
problem upside down, inside out, and backward.

Regards - Lester
.

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