tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26951738.comments2024-03-18T23:49:35.716-07:00The Splintered MindEric Schwitzgebelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11541402189204286449noreply@blogger.comBlogger17092125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26951738.post-30817699443536447202024-03-18T10:05:26.015-07:002024-03-18T10:05:26.015-07:00I propose to lodge one, and only one, final opinio...I propose to lodge one, and only one, final opinion herewith: that/those remark(s) touch(es) semantics. I submit that factual belief is oxymoronic, and this goes back to what I offered about Davidson's view. When belief contravenes fact, it is only propositional. Illustrations: eons ago, some believed the earth was flat. It is not. There is no green cheese on the moon. If, and only if, there is recoverable helium there, we might be able to mine it. Although the means of the mining is, uh, tentative... speculative. "Factual beliefs" are in a class with the now-infamous alternate facts. That never flew, save for those who bought factual belief. So, circulatory becomes fallacy. Ergo, bogus. Ergo, counterfeit. Uh,...false. This is where we live now. I don't buy pie-in-the sky. Or, so-called factual belief(s). Are we clear, here?Paul D. Van Pelthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13508874039164282696noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26951738.post-64235724137758388052024-03-17T15:31:41.654-07:002024-03-17T15:31:41.654-07:00Yes. Sure. And that is one point I tried to make. ...Yes. Sure. And that is one point I tried to make. After Davidson, beliefs are propositional, along with desires; expectations; expectations; and several many more that fall within the frame of contextual reality. Or, as I have asserted: What is reality, it is whatever WE say it is! This is the fundamental difference in our differences. Clearly, there are many of us who comprise 'we'. Ergo, it is complicated...a function of the complexity Kauffman warned us about.Paul D. Van Pelthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13508874039164282696noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26951738.post-72645874504223349112024-03-16T10:35:25.959-07:002024-03-16T10:35:25.959-07:00In the context of religion "belief" is o...In the context of religion "belief" is often used to mean "value" (including the "belief" in a god).J. C. Lesterhttps://jclester.substack.com/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26951738.post-51181148272027162392024-03-16T09:07:32.659-07:002024-03-16T09:07:32.659-07:00Factual belief v. religious credence. I offer seve...Factual belief v. religious credence. I offer several remarks. Firstly, what IS a factual belief? The feather on the book cover is instructive here. While working in government, my duties included administrative law...or, more familiarly, I was a hearing officer. The burden of proof, for both plaintiff and respondent was low---a preponderance, or, feather's weight. Beliefs are not factual. They are based in hearsay. Or, if we follow NV, religious credence. The *preponderance* bar is low, not amounting to either *clear and convincing*, or *beyond reasonable doubt*. But it is useful---pragmatic---in matters of fundamental jurisprudence. Water is wet. Or, frozen. Or vapor. There are no factual beliefs or religious credences entailed.<br />Not in my view, anyway. That is all...<br />Live long and prosper.Paul D. Van Pelthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13508874039164282696noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26951738.post-38093482160780908532024-03-16T07:40:50.900-07:002024-03-16T07:40:50.900-07:00A Skinnerian Black Box. Seems like a logical, prag...A Skinnerian Black Box. Seems like a logical, pragmatic approach, on its' face. I suppose if such an approach were viable, someone might have applied it to *the consciousness problem*. But the notion of Credences is of a different depth I think. And beliefs are propositional attitudes. Yes, I still think about Davidson when thinking about human enigmas. AI emerges from a black box. Or perhaps a big blue one---think of that famous, chess-playing machine. We can track the flow of electrons therein. Emanations from the human mind are more difficult. Mind does not willingly share secrets.Paul D. Van Pelthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13508874039164282696noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26951738.post-85507191607084626542024-03-16T06:19:14.534-07:002024-03-16T06:19:14.534-07:00What I mean is to make humans a black box as Skinn...What I mean is to make humans a black box as Skinner did and make a statistical relationship between beliefs and behaviorHowiehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12474061778220524205noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26951738.post-3409267034145385662024-03-15T16:22:56.238-07:002024-03-15T16:22:56.238-07:00I suspect the religious do not feel the conflict. ...I suspect the religious do not feel the conflict. That is, the felt conflict is often felt by us, i.e. non-believer, observing the religious. At least in Iran, religious people tend to exhibit no such feelings of conflict, even after they are made aware that some of their religious beliefs are in tension with science. <br />Perhaps Neil's main claim in the book can be reframed in terms of the first-person point of view versus the third-person point of view. From the perspective of believers, their attitude may be more like a credence, but from an observational standpoint, it is a certain kind of doxastic state.Aminhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12860280102444007598noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26951738.post-84352027775229576052024-03-15T13:59:01.534-07:002024-03-15T13:59:01.534-07:00This is not a debate I'm familiar with, but I ...This is not a debate I'm familiar with, but I was wondering if there's room for taking religious beliefs to be of a kind with a sort of credo or ethical commitment? We are committed to acting as if such and such religious claim is true, and it will have an impact on the structure of our values, of what we find urgent to do, what we find permissible, and so on, and so it's something like our credo or our set of beliefs. So it would be that they are genuinely held beliefs, but the point of the beliefs is different - they serve always and only to orient us morally and agentially. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26951738.post-21809500204195722562024-03-15T12:03:04.769-07:002024-03-15T12:03:04.769-07:00I don't see how belief, independent of human s...I don't see how belief, independent of human sentience can be right. Nor how any belief, however it may connect with Edelman's notions of primary consciousness. I don't know, for example, how AI could have belief(s)? Do you? Robots are property. Those who would confer more on them bother me. Now dead Sci-Fi writers might agree. Other genii, ala Turing and Feynman, might not. This is not, primarily, a philosophical question. It is an existential one. If, and only if, we disagree on that matter, we have a disagreement.Paul D. Van Pelthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13508874039164282696noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26951738.post-20211208535687750082024-03-15T11:43:01.668-07:002024-03-15T11:43:01.668-07:00Why not say like a sociologist, that beliefs exist...Why not say like a sociologist, that beliefs exist independent of us, so you can drop the intermediate variable of the person and just link behaviors and beliefs- and ignore the person so there's no conflict?Howardnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26951738.post-47092832598791426822024-03-15T10:42:58.767-07:002024-03-15T10:42:58.767-07:00Religion as make-believe? Yeah, sure. The faithful...Religion as make-believe? Yeah, sure. The faithful construct their illusions of pennance, redemption and all the rest. In the end, they die, either with a smile on their face, or crying with the realization it was all a ruse. In any or either case, expectations are met. I have few credentials. Fewer yet, credences. I don't mind. As a band (As You Were) wrote, I Get By.Paul D. Van Pelthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13508874039164282696noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26951738.post-19138625178304231042024-03-14T22:41:26.749-07:002024-03-14T22:41:26.749-07:00A one-map example is at what time is the human emb...A one-map example is at what time is the human embryo ensoulled. This used to be at quickening, AIUI, but changed with the rise the modern embryology.David Duffynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26951738.post-40517474733152968852024-03-14T13:09:12.570-07:002024-03-14T13:09:12.570-07:00Just a little more from your last class/post, '...Just a little more from your last class/post, 'let's call something a consciousness mimic'... <br />...can our history of knowledge be a something...<br /><br />Then in it's sourcing was the beginning of our history-religiousness...<br />...from mimicking our instincts and senses in evolution or for mimicking consciousness...<br /><br />Out of the garden for firsthand knowledge...<br />...then philosophy and science, perhaps forever...Arnoldhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02580641063222662041noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26951738.post-78787953683441181502024-03-13T15:20:20.325-07:002024-03-13T15:20:20.325-07:00Is being here consciousness of oneself...
...then ...Is being here consciousness of oneself...<br />...then searching for oneself in consciousness can begin...<br /><br />Is 'Everything needed right in front of us'...<br />...analog, digital, robots and AI included...<br /><br />'Returning' to this again and again...Arnoldhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02580641063222662041noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26951738.post-15643863294828518752024-03-13T11:26:34.617-07:002024-03-13T11:26:34.617-07:00When I left the previous remarks, and reviewed pub...When I left the previous remarks, and reviewed published comment,I was disappointed. My second sentence was garbled, beyond belief, showing that AI Context<br />has a life of its' own. But, wait! How can that be right? If, as it seems, AI possesses ITS' own contextual reality, how did/does that emerge? Here is what I mean.<br />AI does not have life. It is a creation of human ingenuity. Artificiality, does not= reality. There is a clue, I think. Having offered the IMPs notion, further affiant sayeth not.Paul D. Van Pelthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13508874039164282696noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26951738.post-39050106580982229352024-03-13T08:10:09.332-07:002024-03-13T08:10:09.332-07:00Isn't circular reasoning fallacious? If, and o...Isn't circular reasoning fallacious? If, and only if, that is the case, then anyone who uses it is committing a primary error. AI is mimicry, period, and, regardless of whether consciousness in humans (or other life forms), precedes, or is preceded by intelligence, there seems some something thing those faculties to one another. Whether we discover reliable measurability of that is *the hard problem*. Or, one of them, anyway.Paul D. Van Pelthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13508874039164282696noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26951738.post-82605669193554299312024-03-12T15:25:21.914-07:002024-03-12T15:25:21.914-07:00Philosophy of mind arguments typically make two pr...Philosophy of mind arguments typically make two primary mistakes. In the first, Turing equivalence is denied, typically through a misunderstanding of how computation works (Searle's secondary mistake). Using knowledge only known to the maker of computing system falls into this category. And this is made here at least twice; by reference to the intent of the doll's toymaker and knowledge of how LLMs are programmed. It is impossible to tell, from construction alone, what a computing device computes. All we have to go on is how it interacts with the external world. This is true for humans as well. (cf. <a href="https://stablecross.com/files/the_inner_mind.html" rel="nofollow">The Inner Mind</a>).<br /><br />But if Turing equivalence is granted (and it must be), then the next mistake is to assume that brains and computers aren't Turing equivalent. But this is a denial, even if implicitly, of the Church-Turing hypothesis. Circular reasoning is then used to prove the conclusion. (Searle's primary mistake). One could also assume it to be true and then arrive at the conclusion that it's true.<br /><br />The Church-Turing hypothesis poses a unique problem for philosophers. It cannot be shown to be true or false simply by thinking about it.wrf3https://www.blogger.com/profile/04657932934353372526noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26951738.post-65211930996886798172024-03-12T12:22:02.323-07:002024-03-12T12:22:02.323-07:00...is infinite questioning the nature of our/my co......is infinite questioning the nature of our/my consciousness...<br /><br />Does being here help dissuade bots/me from mimicry...Arnoldhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02580641063222662041noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26951738.post-16018078689993687142024-03-11T18:11:22.544-07:002024-03-11T18:11:22.544-07:00You may believe, or disbelieve whatever you wish. ...You may believe, or disbelieve whatever you wish. I seek proof. As a pragmatist, I expect no less. My entry into speculation was my choice when I chose to enter the morass of philosophy. The swamp got deeper, clarity; cloudier. Need I say more?Paul D. Van Pelthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13508874039164282696noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26951738.post-63213460101184942242024-03-11T16:18:57.257-07:002024-03-11T16:18:57.257-07:00Am I to believe that from sitting in front of my l...Am I to believe that from sitting in front of my laptop knowing that I am not engaged in an exchange with a conscious being (eg. asking current ChatGPT questions), that with more sophisticated outputs I will move to being engaged in an exchange with a conscious being only because of the output, my laptop remaining unchanged?<br />If somehow I was tempted to believe I was interacting with a conscious being, I would assume it was with a person typing responses rather than with my newly conscious MacBook Pro. <br /><br />Believing that a magician actually saws a women in half is because of gullibility. <br />How would we know whether we were similarly gullible regarding supposed conscious AI?Dan Polowetzkynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26951738.post-53614150116284161682024-03-11T13:38:12.258-07:002024-03-11T13:38:12.258-07:00The continuum of consciousness toward animals; fro...The continuum of consciousness toward animals; from my chat with AI...<br />...aspects of consciousness allow also for feeling conscious...<br /><br />That Universities can teach us to ask questions of AI about the feelings of all animals...<br />...allowing conscious aspects for thought to merge with conscious aspects for feeling...<br /><br />That Universities would teach...<br />...our questions allow AI to provide desired answers for us to...Arnoldhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02580641063222662041noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26951738.post-22350839618395753762024-03-11T06:56:14.270-07:002024-03-11T06:56:14.270-07:00The argument for the consciousness in the mimic ha...The argument for the consciousness in the mimic has an underlying assumption that the intelligent behavior we can observe in the mimic requires consciousness. This may not be true for the mimic, based on our knowledge of its construction, but also may not be true for the non-mimic. We don't actually know the role of consciousness in the brain on its ability to generate intelligent behavior. It could be epiphenomenal, as some suggest, or it could be that consciousness plays only an indirect role. Consciousness could be playing the role of AI trainer by reflecting back updated information to the unconscious brain rather than being the actual AI itself.Jim Crosshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12359287601046663774noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26951738.post-91853892691797556002024-03-10T17:00:39.678-07:002024-03-10T17:00:39.678-07:00Suppose a consciousness mimicking process occurs t...Suppose a consciousness mimicking process occurs that not only perfectly mimics a conscious model’s superficial traits relevant to consciousness but also its physical make up and processes. <br />In this case, being behaviorally and physically identical to the model, it would be conscious. It would essentially be a clone. It couldn’t fail to be conscious. It’s consciousness would be a matter of necessity. <br /><br />I think functionalism would involve the same necessity, only their position would be that when perfect consciousness mimicry occurred in an appropriate though radically different substrate (computer), it couldn’t fail to be conscious. It would be conscious by necessity. <br />I think there are some logical problems with functionalism:<br /><br />If A=B, then necessarily A=B.<br />Sometimes A=C & -(A=B). If A=C, then necesarily A=C.<br /><br />Daniel Polowetzkynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26951738.post-17129160176608232042024-03-10T13:12:09.319-07:002024-03-10T13:12:09.319-07:00Insofar as I have no knowledge of what Copernicus ...Insofar as I have no knowledge of what Copernicus thought or knew about robots or robot mimicry, I can't make an informed judgement here. I did not know robotics was an issue then, so can only infer that the matter, in itself, is based on some latter-day interpretation of Copernican thinking, transferred towards the modernity of AI and its' siblings. For my simple understanding, this resembles speculation. And, speculation is metaphysical, sorta like my brother's characterization thereof as a "wild assed guess". So, carry on. It does not move me, even a millimeter.Paul D. Van Pelthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13508874039164282696noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26951738.post-47440732678491495202024-03-09T20:55:05.617-08:002024-03-09T20:55:05.617-08:00I wonder about the relationship between this argum...I wonder about the relationship between this argument and the Copernican arguments you've considered against the "specialness" of human consciousness. I tend to think that Copernican arguments tell in favor of robot consciousness (even among robo-mimics) about as much as they tell in favor of alien consciousness. If robo-mimics are significantly less likely than non-mimics to be conscious, then we non-mimic conscious systems are a privileged subset of the systems that behave in cognitively and linguistically sophisticated ways. But just as in the original Copernican argument, we should avoid the conclusion that we occupy a privileged subset of the systems that behave in cognitively and linguistically sophisticated ways. So we should avoid the conclusion that non-mimics are significantly more likely to be conscious than mimics.<br /><br />In my view, it's not mimicing per se that is evidence against genuine consciousness. It's more that most mimics are only *imperfect mimics*, in the sense that they seem to mimic conscious beings within a relatively small range of circumstances, but fail to mimic conscious beings outside of those circumstances. If we developed a perfect or near-perfect mimic, I'd attribute consciousness on Copernican grounds.Dan Palliesnoreply@blogger.com