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What if you take something more concrete than "redness", like pain ? Let's say you stub your toe or burn your finger. In that moment is there any room for dou

What if you take something more concrete than "redness", like pain ? Let's say you stub your toe or burn your finger. In that moment is there any room for doubt that pain exists ?

bccdee 4y ago
Of course there is. We may feel strongly that an illusion is real, but that doesn't make it any less an illusion. The computer from my example would react very strongly to pain, and certainly it would believe that pain has a unique and distinct quality to it making it different from any other sensation, but that doesn't mean that that quality exists in some special metaphysical way. It is just a mind examining the abstractions which make up its own senses and going, "wow, these are indeed abstract."
- tgflynn 4y ago
  There are many things one may be deluded about but the fact that one's subjective reality is not empty is not one of them.
  - bccdee 4y ago
    Why? If we're logically guaranteed to hold belief X independently of whether X is true or not, it's irrational to say "yeah but I KNOW X is true. I can just tell." You would believe that no matter what; how can you trust that belief?
    - tgflynn 4y ago
      How would you know that you hold belief X if you have no subjective experience ? To have the knowledge that you believe X you must experience the thought "X is true" and that is a subjective experience.
      - bccdee 4y ago
        Sure, if you define subjective experience as "all sensory information." I'm not denying that we have sensory input; I'm denying that its abstractions are any more than illusory constructs of the mind. The computer in my example knew things and had thoughts, despite not having access to actual qualia. Do you disagree that the computer in my hypothetical example would have the intuitions it does about its own senses? Given that it does, how can you trust your own intuitions about your sensory qualia, no matter how strong?
        tgflynn 4y ago
        Part of the problem is that people tend to use words very loosely. In particular they often use words that anthropomorphize computers and when they use such words its hard to tell whether they intend for them to be taken literally or are just using them as a figure of speech. Your example starts of by telling us that the computer is known not to have qualia, which I understand to mean that it does not have subjective conscious experiences. First I don't think its ever possible to know, even in principle, whether something other than one's own self has or does not have subjective experiences, but I'll ignore that objection for the moment. A few lines later you say: > We, and the computer, just know that we're seeing red. Now much hinges on what is meant here by the verb "know". If you are using the word in a loose metaphorical sense then I could accept that. For example you could say that a computer "knows" that the word "red" means an RGB value of (255,0,0) because in its memory there is a hash table that maps some strings to RGB values. So behaviorally you can ask the computer what "red" means and it will tell you "(255,0,0)". But there is nothing in such a description that implies that the process of generating that output is associated with any kind of subjective experience on the part of the computer. On the other hand when you "know" some simple fact the process of reporting that fact is always associated with some subjective experiences, specifically the experience of thinking. How do I know that ? Well technically I don't. All I really know is that whenever I know something and am asked to report on it the process is always accompanied by a subjective experience of thought. I am simply making the conventional assumption here that the same is true for all other humans and that you are a member of that group. Of course that assumption might be false. For all I know I could be having this conversation with LaMDA. To get back to the questions you asked here: > Do you disagree that the computer in my hypothetical example would have the intuitions it does about its own senses? Yes, because you said it didn't have conscious experiences and for me the word "intuition" is strongly linked to certain conscious experiences. > how can you trust your own intuitions about your sensory qualia, no matter how strong? Because I have them. I am not a black box to myself, I get to look inside and when I do I find that there are conscious experiences there. That's just not something I can, even in principle, be mistaken about. However once I start making assumptions about the nature of those experiences, such as that there is some external physical world that is ultimately responsible for them, I am already on very shaky ground.

What if you take something more concrete than "redness", like pain ? Let's say you stub your toe or burn your finger. In that moment is there any room for doubt that pain exists ?

bccdee 4y ago

Of course there is. We may feel strongly that an illusion is real, but that doesn't make it any less an illusion. The computer from my example would react very strongly to pain, and certainly it would believe that pain has a unique and distinct quality to it making it different from any other sensation, but that doesn't mean that that quality exists in some special metaphysical way. It is just a mind examining the abstractions which make up its own senses and going, "wow, these are indeed abstract."

tgflynn 4y ago
There are many things one may be deluded about but the fact that one's subjective reality is not empty is not one of them.
- bccdee 4y ago
  Why? If we're logically guaranteed to hold belief X independently of whether X is true or not, it's irrational to say "yeah but I KNOW X is true. I can just tell." You would believe that no matter what; how can you trust that belief?
  - tgflynn 4y ago
    How would you know that you hold belief X if you have no subjective experience ? To have the knowledge that you believe X you must experience the thought "X is true" and that is a subjective experience.
    - bccdee 4y ago
      Sure, if you define subjective experience as "all sensory information." I'm not denying that we have sensory input; I'm denying that its abstractions are any more than illusory constructs of the mind. The computer in my example knew things and had thoughts, despite not having access to actual qualia. Do you disagree that the computer in my hypothetical example would have the intuitions it does about its own senses? Given that it does, how can you trust your own intuitions about your sensory qualia, no matter how strong?
      - tgflynn 4y ago
        Part of the problem is that people tend to use words very loosely. In particular they often use words that anthropomorphize computers and when they use such words its hard to tell whether they intend for them to be taken literally or are just using them as a figure of speech. Your example starts of by telling us that the computer is known not to have qualia, which I understand to mean that it does not have subjective conscious experiences. First I don't think its ever possible to know, even in principle, whether something other than one's own self has or does not have subjective experiences, but I'll ignore that objection for the moment. A few lines later you say: > We, and the computer, just know that we're seeing red. Now much hinges on what is meant here by the verb "know". If you are using the word in a loose metaphorical sense then I could accept that. For example you could say that a computer "knows" that the word "red" means an RGB value of (255,0,0) because in its memory there is a hash table that maps some strings to RGB values. So behaviorally you can ask the computer what "red" means and it will tell you "(255,0,0)". But there is nothing in such a description that implies that the process of generating that output is associated with any kind of subjective experience on the part of the computer. On the other hand when you "know" some simple fact the process of reporting that fact is always associated with some subjective experiences, specifically the experience of thinking. How do I know that ? Well technically I don't. All I really know is that whenever I know something and am asked to report on it the process is always accompanied by a subjective experience of thought. I am simply making the conventional assumption here that the same is true for all other humans and that you are a member of that group. Of course that assumption might be false. For all I know I could be having this conversation with LaMDA. To get back to the questions you asked here: > Do you disagree that the computer in my hypothetical example would have the intuitions it does about its own senses? Yes, because you said it didn't have conscious experiences and for me the word "intuition" is strongly linked to certain conscious experiences. > how can you trust your own intuitions about your sensory qualia, no matter how strong? Because I have them. I am not a black box to myself, I get to look inside and when I do I find that there are conscious experiences there. That's just not something I can, even in principle, be mistaken about. However once I start making assumptions about the nature of those experiences, such as that there is some external physical world that is ultimately responsible for them, I am already on very shaky ground.