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Phenomenal experiences, like emotions, feelings, thoughts, sensations, are inexplicable [a]. Yet we know they evolved. [a] http://www.ted.com/talks/david_chalm

Phenomenal experiences, like emotions, feelings, thoughts, sensations, are inexplicable [a]. Yet we know they evolved. [a] http://www.ted.com/talks/david_chalmers_how_do_you_explain_consciousness http://www.ted.com/talks/david_chalmers_how_do_you_explain_c...

joe_the_user 12y ago
It seems like the typical ploy of the new age pseudo-scientist is to begin referencing people's internal experiences, jump from there to the point that people highly value their internal experiences and finally claim that the things explain the outside world couldn't possibly explain these internal phenomena, that the intensity of internal experiences makes them "inexplicable". But the entire "argument" is purely psychological. An intelligent being having internal representations seems very logical - computer programs often build a variety of representation of the things they modeling. Memories can seem vivid but my recall is that the brain doesn't reconstruct full movies. But even more, the vividness of internal movies is pretty thin argument to the leap halfway into Chalmers video where he speculates "(maybe) even a photon has consciousness".
- cristianpascu 12y ago
  David Chalmers is not a scientist. Is a philosopher, and quite a respectable one. Consciousness is a much older problem than the new age thingy. And definitely is much older than the pseudo-skeptic that knows better than scholars in a branch with a very long and wide tradition.
  - joe_the_user 12y ago
    It seems like you are defending his claims only based on authority. I can't say whether modern philosophy has dived into New Age nonsense or whether Chalmers just happened to be in the mood to make lazy, bogus arguments just for the video link you posted. But when someone starts saying "maybe a photon has a litter bit of consciousness", they have rather clearly entered the realm of pseudo-science.
    - l33tbro 12y ago
      To be fair, 'pseudo science' is both a very sweeping and loaded term. Hate to be that guy, but we have to remember that scientism and 'new age' theory can be equally toxic.
      - joe_the_user 12y ago
        Pseudo-science is a strong term indeed, but I'm not sure what's a clearer term for an approach that uses a dose of social authority - indeed the mantle of science, to make statements that clearly fly in the face of facts that real scientific processes have established with some accuracy. The properties of photons are very well documented. Consciousness has not been found among them. Claiming that photons have "a little bit" of consciousness based "we don't know what consciousness is so it must everywhere/in-everything" seems to rather clearly like an abuse of logic. I am not claiming the mantle of science myself to tell someone what their subjective experiences are. I'm just saying the someone merely referencing their subjective experiences doesn't refute a long string of scientific experiments.
    - joe_the_user 12y ago
      In fact I should add that I just looked at an article Chalmers wrote in a Douglas Hofstadter's book on analogies. There, Chalmers is making good, serious arguments that I agree with. My impression read about Chalmers in Wikipedia is that he went from making intellectually difficult but dry arguments about the particulars of consciousness to making rhetorically satisfying but intellectually flabby arguments grounded on the uniqueness of each person's subjective experience. By the time of the Ted Talk, his deal has become just pep talk for the uniqueness of consciousness. I don't know - pseudo-scientific arguments validating a person's uniqueness have a strong appeal even for those with a strong intellect, simply because they appeal to people's emotions. But that doesn't actually make them any more valid.
- debt 12y ago
  Theres a link very near this one on the homepage of HN by the Eames which talks about how dissimilar the brain actually is from a computer. Given the complexity of the brain, I believe any parallels you may find between brain and computer are purely coincidental and in no way indicates how it actually works.
  - joe_the_user 12y ago
    I don't need to claim the brain has any similarity to a computer. All I'd claim is that the qualities Chalmers cites aren't evidence that consciousness is "unexplainable". Me: "An intelligent being having internal representations seems very logical - computer programs often build a variety of representation of the things they modeling. " - sure, the brain may be utterly different than a computer program but there isn't anything in that difference that implies there couldn't be an internal representation. If a computer program can do that, sure something far more intelligent could also. The brain may indeed be well beyond we human's ability to explain. But that fact hardly provides evidence for "consciousness" being an element of all reality, akin to space or time. Indeed, the vast physical complexity of the brain is evidence that other parts of reality aren't that likely to share it's properties, which is the exact opposite of what Chalmers argues - remember he's arguing that because consciousness is "unexplainable" we have to attribute conscious to all matter to wind-up with the brain having consciousness ("a photon has a small amount of consciousness").
    - cristianpascu 12y ago
      I referenced Chalmers for saying that we don't yet know what causes consciousness. He points in some possible directions, but they're not yet conclusive. There's plenty of literature on why phenomenal experiences are fundamentally different from mechanic devices or even zombies, bodies that do what we do but have no feeling of anything they do. Just like computers that see yellow because they're programmed to react by means of logical circuits to a narrow frequency range around whatever yellow radiation is.
      - joe_the_user 12y ago

joe_the_user 12y ago

It seems like the typical ploy of the new age pseudo-scientist is to begin referencing people's internal experiences, jump from there to the point that people highly value their internal experiences and finally claim that the things explain the outside world couldn't possibly explain these internal phenomena, that the intensity of internal experiences makes them "inexplicable". But the entire "argument" is purely psychological. An intelligent being having internal representations seems very logical - computer programs often build a variety of representation of the things they modeling. Memories can seem vivid but my recall is that the brain doesn't reconstruct full movies. But even more, the vividness of internal movies is pretty thin argument to the leap halfway into Chalmers video where he speculates "(maybe) even a photon has consciousness".

cristianpascu 12y ago
David Chalmers is not a scientist. Is a philosopher, and quite a respectable one. Consciousness is a much older problem than the new age thingy. And definitely is much older than the pseudo-skeptic that knows better than scholars in a branch with a very long and wide tradition.
- joe_the_user 12y ago
  It seems like you are defending his claims only based on authority. I can't say whether modern philosophy has dived into New Age nonsense or whether Chalmers just happened to be in the mood to make lazy, bogus arguments just for the video link you posted. But when someone starts saying "maybe a photon has a litter bit of consciousness", they have rather clearly entered the realm of pseudo-science.
  - l33tbro 12y ago
    To be fair, 'pseudo science' is both a very sweeping and loaded term. Hate to be that guy, but we have to remember that scientism and 'new age' theory can be equally toxic.
    - joe_the_user 12y ago
      Pseudo-science is a strong term indeed, but I'm not sure what's a clearer term for an approach that uses a dose of social authority - indeed the mantle of science, to make statements that clearly fly in the face of facts that real scientific processes have established with some accuracy. The properties of photons are very well documented. Consciousness has not been found among them. Claiming that photons have "a little bit" of consciousness based "we don't know what consciousness is so it must everywhere/in-everything" seems to rather clearly like an abuse of logic. I am not claiming the mantle of science myself to tell someone what their subjective experiences are. I'm just saying the someone merely referencing their subjective experiences doesn't refute a long string of scientific experiments.
  - joe_the_user 12y ago
    In fact I should add that I just looked at an article Chalmers wrote in a Douglas Hofstadter's book on analogies. There, Chalmers is making good, serious arguments that I agree with. My impression read about Chalmers in Wikipedia is that he went from making intellectually difficult but dry arguments about the particulars of consciousness to making rhetorically satisfying but intellectually flabby arguments grounded on the uniqueness of each person's subjective experience. By the time of the Ted Talk, his deal has become just pep talk for the uniqueness of consciousness. I don't know - pseudo-scientific arguments validating a person's uniqueness have a strong appeal even for those with a strong intellect, simply because they appeal to people's emotions. But that doesn't actually make them any more valid.
debt 12y ago
Theres a link very near this one on the homepage of HN by the Eames which talks about how dissimilar the brain actually is from a computer. Given the complexity of the brain, I believe any parallels you may find between brain and computer are purely coincidental and in no way indicates how it actually works.
- joe_the_user 12y ago
  I don't need to claim the brain has any similarity to a computer. All I'd claim is that the qualities Chalmers cites aren't evidence that consciousness is "unexplainable". Me: "An intelligent being having internal representations seems very logical - computer programs often build a variety of representation of the things they modeling. " - sure, the brain may be utterly different than a computer program but there isn't anything in that difference that implies there couldn't be an internal representation. If a computer program can do that, sure something far more intelligent could also. The brain may indeed be well beyond we human's ability to explain. But that fact hardly provides evidence for "consciousness" being an element of all reality, akin to space or time. Indeed, the vast physical complexity of the brain is evidence that other parts of reality aren't that likely to share it's properties, which is the exact opposite of what Chalmers argues - remember he's arguing that because consciousness is "unexplainable" we have to attribute conscious to all matter to wind-up with the brain having consciousness ("a photon has a small amount of consciousness").
  - cristianpascu 12y ago
    I referenced Chalmers for saying that we don't yet know what causes consciousness. He points in some possible directions, but they're not yet conclusive. There's plenty of literature on why phenomenal experiences are fundamentally different from mechanic devices or even zombies, bodies that do what we do but have no feeling of anything they do. Just like computers that see yellow because they're programmed to react by means of logical circuits to a narrow frequency range around whatever yellow radiation is.
    - joe_the_user 12y ago