Re: Does Searle's "Chinese Room" argument imply that consciousness is non-scientific?

forbisgaryg@xxxxxxx wrote:
On Sep 27, 12:30 am, c...@xxxxxxxx (Curt Welch) wrote:

What I reject as being so unlikely it's not even work talking about
(except for the fact that a huge percentage of the world doesn't reject
it so I keep having to talk about it), is the belief that consciousness
is anything other than just more of the same - the behavior of atoms.

If that were only true. You also reject the notion that consciousness
is the behavior of the atoms. I say this because you hold that
computers are or can be conscious even though they are composes of
completely different atoms and structures of atoms. You claim that
consciousness rest upon the behviors of sturctures at such a high level
that they are atom type independent (similar to a ball, whose behaviors
don't depend upon rubber for its bounciness.)

Your logic is flawed.

We don't use words to label precise behaviors. We use words to label
classes of behaviors. Everything is an abstraction. It's a class of
patterns which we assign the meaning to. When we say a person is running,
we can create millions of different videos to show people running, but no
two videos will be the exact same set of molecules doing the exact same set
of motions. No two people use the same definition for a word for most of
these words. The edge cases will be different for each of us. If you show
a 100 different people 1000 videos of people doing something running-like
(a running edge case), and ask them to identify which video shows running
and which is not running, you will get 1000 different answers. We define
words by the approximate location of the center of the set. We give
examples of what running is which are clearly located near the center of
the set of all behaviors we think should be called running. We can apply
it to the actions of people, and dogs, and even computers - it's a very
abstract words. But no matter how specific a word is, it's still only an
abstraction of class of sensory signals.

I claim that consciousness is just yet another word which describes another
class of behaviors of atoms. Which behaviors are part of the class is hard
to say because even though lots of people think the word has meaning (that
is they think they are talking about something real when they use it), they
can't for the life of them define it. So, since I know they are talking
about some class of behaviors of atoms, I have fun trying to figure what
the class is based on how they use it. But since they can't define it,
it's mostly impossible for me to know what class they want to apply it to.

It's clear where people place the center of the set of all atom behaviors
which they want to label as consciousness. They place the center at the
set of behaviors their own brain is able to detect in itself. That is,
whatever the brain is able to report about it's own behaviors is what they
call consciousness. But what they can't do, because they don't understand
they are simply creating another words to describe a class of behaviors of
atoms, is help me figure out where the edge cases lie. Do they want to
define the word as one which only applies to the human brain? That's a
perfectly fine way to define the word. But then, when we build a machine
using electronic components which produces human-like conscious behaviors,
including the ability to talk about and debate the nature of it's own
consciousness, are they then going to choose to extend the boundaries of
the concept of consciousness to include those non-biological machines? I
find it hard to believe they wouldn't if we ended up creating such a
machine because this machine, who learned English and philosophy the same
way humans learn it, will strongly argue that he is just as conscious as
any hunk of meat because everything they have, he has, in the sense of his
brain being able to sense it's own actions.

None the less, the bottom line, is just because society can't agree on what
class of behaviors they are talking about when they use the word conscious,
doesn't mean the word is not just a reference to some class of motions of
atoms.

We as brains, can really only understand and sense neural signals. All our
words are actually just first hand references to classes of motions of the
atoms which create our neural signals. Only second hand, do they also
reference the motion of atoms out in the real world. So when we say we see
a cat, we are really saying we (a brain) is currently sensing cat-like
neural patterns. But those cat like neural patterns have a strong
correlation to the cat-like collection of atoms which also happen to exist
out in the real world so, because of that correlation, we can talk about
cats and refer to all of it, the stuff that exists outside the head as well
as the stuff that represents it inside our head.

If people actually believed in materialism like they say they do, they
wouldn't be so confused about consciousness. If you believe in
materialism, you would understand that everything we talk about is a
reference to the behavior of atoms. That's what materialism is all about -
the belief that the physical stuff of nature is the foundation of
everything there is in nature.

But most people who like to debate issues of consciousness don't believe
this to be true. They believe consciousness is something else - that the
stuff it's made from is another elementary part of nature which the tools
of science can't detect. They claim it's impossible to build a machine to
measure it, or detect it (subjective experience can not be made objective
they claim). They know it's there, because their brain is able to detect
it, and report on it's status, but they think it's impossible to build a
machine do detect it and report on it's status (a tool of science). Don't
they see how completely contradictory those ideas are? If they claim to be
materialists, and believe that the brain is just a collection of atoms
arranged in the right way, which "creates" consciousness, then what do they
think they are saying consciousness is if not the behavior of the atoms of
their brain?

How, can it make sense to argue that this collection of atoms has the power
to sense the existence of consciousness, but at the same time try to argue
that no tool of science can sense it and report on it? How can people be
this stupid and then turn around and call this a hard problem?

It's only hard if you choose to believe in your heart that the universe is
dualistic, but then try to rationally argue for the monastic belief of
materialism. You can't have it both ways and not create a hard problem.
Either you believe a universe full of atoms is all there is here, or you
believe that there exists something besides atoms which physics hasn't been
able to detect with any of their tools other than this tool called the
brain that all physicists are born with.

If you look at the facts in front of us, there is no hard problem, there
are only stupid thinkers who choose to allow their heads to be a jumbled
mess of inconsistent beliefs who then turn around and call the mess they
created for themselves a hard problem.

It's not hard at all. Just clean it up and make it consistent. There are
only two options possible with consciousness. Either I'm right, and the
universe is made up of atoms and there is nothing else here when it comes
to the brain which means when people talk about consciousness, they are
simply talking about the normal operation of a normal human brain.

Or, there's something more complex going on here and the universe is more
complex than we understand. For example, we might actually exist in a very
different form, and are just tied to a matrix like simulator which is
feeding us all this information about the universe we think we live in.
So, all we currently understand is this universe of atoms, when in fact, we
exist in a much larger and more complex universe which has a computer like
device creating this universe of atoms for us. In which case, it might be
impossible to create consciousness out of atoms - it might exist only this
wider universe - the one we can't directly access and the one we will never
understand because of the fact we can't access it.

Or even without the need of some evil force locking us in a Matrix like
simulation, the other class of possibilities is that consciousness is
another, so far undetected, effect of nature, which only emerges out of the
background noise when you correctly build a large and complex antenna like
device (our brain). In which case, consciousness could be another
elementary part of nature, different from the atoms, but which physics has
just not yet figured out. But again, this type of scenery is not a hard
problem - it's just another force of nature like gravity which has yet to
be figured out.

I don't however, see any need to waste time considering the options that
consciousness is another force of nature, when all the evidence we have
tells us the brain is nothing more more than a large reinforcement trained
adaptive body controller made out of biological parts which all work
according to the forces of nature we already understand.

Consciousness (the think people get so confused about), as I have
explained, is nothing more than an outgrowth of the very strong and
compelling illusion of a mind/body split created by the normal operation of
the brain in its role of classifying sensory signal patterns. This
illusion tricks people into seeing double. The illusion makes them see the
mind as being separate from the body, and then in order to justify what
they sensing, they make up all this crap about consciousness to explain the
double image. But them it becomes a hard problem when they realize that
logically, there shouldn't be a double image.

But instead of understanding that this double image is an illusion created
by the normal operation of a physical signal processing device, all these
people are hung up thinking the split is some odd and special fundamental
aspect of nature which physics (and the rest of science) can't figure out.

Our consciousness looks like it's something separate from the physical
brain because our physical brain made it look that way for us. That's the
answer to the hard problem. It's a simple answer which resolves all the
mysteries of conscious without having to bring in any new undiscovered
properties of the universe to explain it.

--
Curt Welch http://CurtWelch.Com/
curt@xxxxxxxx http://NewsReader.Com/
.

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