Riffing off Eliezer on consciousness, here is (my alter-ego) Ramone on spirituality: We are souls who know we are spiritual. Since we can conceive of mere non-soul "animals," physical bodies without spirit, spirituality must be a non-physical "something more." (Until someone proves this is not logically possible, we assume it is.) We call this something more "God", or at least a part of God. So our full selves, which we call a "soul", contains both a God-part and an animal-part.
Miriam: How is it you've come to those views? Why do you believe that?
For that matter, what do you mean, precisely, by an "energy fingerprint"? (For that matter, when you say "energy", are you talking about the same sort of thing a physicist things of when they use the word, or are you using the word in a different way?)
What do you mean by "vibrations of energy"? How do different frequencies "align one to a physical dimension"? (heck, what does that even mean?) (I don't mean to ask for a crude "imagine tuning a radio" analogy, I'm also asking for what's "under" the analogy, what's actually meant)
What, precisely, is a "static vibration barcode", and how is it that such a thing can "transcend all dimensions" (What do you mean by that, anyways?) and how does that cause "essence of self awareness of life" to form?
I have a saying that I express at times: "The only difference between man and animal is the form that houses the spirit".
Each spirit has an energy fingerprint unique to itself, manifesting in body in order to realize life, with a mind in which to experience it. In life, each spirit experiences the game of life by the limitation of the host body. The lack of fingers and thumbs, and upward bi-pedal motion, restricts many animals from evolving the ability to create, construct, manufacture. Also, each animal according to each evolutionary stage of his brain's ability to learn and adapt. Each human, animal, organic matter, inorganic matter, and all physical forms are composed of vibrations of energy in different frequencies aligning to this physical dimension. Each form has a specific vibration aligning to its particular form and this physical dimension. Each spirit also has a static vibration barcode unique to self which can transcend all dimensions and can bring the essense of self awareness of life to form.
Man was made in the image of God....and so is everything else in existence. So God brought forward all that is from the image of its own vision, relinquishing boredom for a quest in a game of life.
All that is are parts of the consciousness of God. God experiencing life through its many forms of creations. God giving each of his parts/spirit amnesia (free choice) in order to learn and experience a game of life.
We are all the collective consciousness of the one.
I wonder if one cna do it the other way -imagine a being that had qualia but where there was 'nothing' that took on that qualia. Imagine a whole set of qualia just being thrown into a hole and being destroyed rather like how one might imagine a low intelligent animal feeling pain but not in the sense that matters or a sense that had continuality of soul.
Then you can try to use zombie logic to extrapolate that out to a soul argument.
Richard - That's very sporting of you! Here's a question for you that I think would be illuminating: What do you think would be a good argument against the coherence of the zombie world hypothesis? Can you conceive of one at all?
No. Conclusions are drawn by people, not brains. But p-zombies draw conclusions, and they're not "people", they're just brains.
Oh, wait - you've redefined 'conclusion' to refer to something that requires p-consciousness, didn't you. So p-zombies don't draw real and genuine conclusions, they reach states that look precisely like conclusions, but are different in some ineffable way.
How do you go about determining whether the people you meet are p-conscious? Or is that just one of the countless assumptions you sweep under your mental rug?
Zombie asked - "shouldn't Chalmers' brain zombie-conclude that it is probably a zombie brain, and 'phenomenal Chalmers' consciously think the same?"
I've responded in a new post: Zombie Rationality. (Also relevant to Eliezer's earlier response.)
Joshua - you're conflating phenomenal consciousness with access consciousness. Even zombies have the latter.
Caledonian - Wow. I don't think we have enough common ground to make further discussion fruitful. I'm happy to let others judge for themselves who's got the crazier view here ;-)
This argument doesn't address the issue of self awareness as a possible evolutionary advantage. Awareness of self allows for greater empathy which allows for the greatest team work. Without claws, and with a big really squishy brain that is pretty easy to smash, we are at at a huge disadvantage when not working in groups. But with this empathy and ability to rationalize our and other peoples existence we have been able to become the dominant species (tools and agriculture help too, but ravens use tools, ants farm, and dogs work in teams, so it just our ability to maximize these non-physical advantage that is our advantage). Also note, that as societies progress, there is also generally progress towards a recognition of other people as more human and even greater empathy.
eg. 10,000 years ago, if another human wasn't in your family, they where sub-human2000 years ago if they weren't a member of your town they where sub-humanup until recently (and still for some) if they weren't apart of your nation they where sub-human
I am not sure I am even making sense. And this isn't the strongest argument, but overall I'd like to see the idea of our consciousness as an evolutionary advantage addressed (because there seems no denying it is at least an advantage - coming from god or mutation)
Goplat, Hanson never claimed to be an anarcho-capitalist, or even a libertarian. He said he wants to cut health care spending in half, which is not quite the same thing as banning it.
What evidence do you have that you're not a Brain in a Vat, hallucinating your entire life, or otherwise deceived (e.g. by an Evil Demon)? As far as I am concerned, those scenarios are precisely the same.
If all I know are the inputs and outputs, I don't know whether a chip contains an AND gate or an input-and-output-negated OR gate. There is no difference between those two conditions within the restrictions placed on my knowledge. If those conditions were removed, there are logical differences that would manifest as different observations.
You have explicitly defined 'zombies' to not be able to offer different observations under any circumstances. They are equivalent to non-zombies.
No, zombies can't make meaningful assertions, but mere wannabe-zombies still can
I take it that you are denying the possibility that we are zombies, and are instead "mere wannabe-zombies". Why is that?
Poke - "if we deny that we have phenomenal consciousness we can no longer make assertions or enter into debate with him"
No, zombies can't make meaningful assertions, but mere wannabe-zombies still can ;-). Anyway, I'd be just as happy to debate with a zombie, so long as I could project meaning on to his utterances so as to turn them into good arguments. So that's not an issue.
Caledonian - this was discussed in the other thread. What evidence do you have that you're not a Brain in a Vat, hallucinating your entire life, or otherwise deceived (e.g. by an Evil Demon)? One can't appeal to (empirical) evidence to dismiss these subjectively indistinguishable skeptical scenarios. They may be dismissed all the same. (Parsimony, in your case.)
He also believes phenomenal consciousness is the source of meaning: if we deny that we have phenomenal consciousness we can no longer make assertionsI concur. The implications are... curious. The whole 'zombie' idea is predicated on the notion that entities without 'consciousness' could behave in precisely the way manner as entities with the property. So a statement that Richard would claim to be meaningless looks precisely the same as one that is meaningful.
Clearly, context is relevant in evaluation - but he goes much, much farther than that.
Richard, what evidence do you have that Chalmers is p-conscious and has genuine beliefs? Couldn't he be a p-zombie and make claims that appear identical but aren't genuine and so aren't valid arguments?
I think you and Eliezer underestimate the distance between yourselves and Richard and (perhaps) Chalmer's. Richard believes we have "direct access" (i.e., cannot be wrong about) "phenomenal consciousness," a property that is defined in such a way that it cannot be physically reduced (it's "feeling"; i.e., what's left when you remove effect), and his entire argument is premised on this.
He also believes phenomenal consciousness is the source of meaning: if we deny that we have phenomenal consciousness we can no longer make assertions or enter into debate with him. We're reduced to yapping dogs. There isn't an available avenue for disagreement with Richard's position that Richard would be able to accept given his premises.
"Richard, I'm serious with the analogy. We humans are in fact both spiritual and conscious, and most people can as easily imagine creatures that are just like us except that they are not spiritual, as can imagine creatures that are just like us except that they are unconscious. I personally cannot imagine such things. "
Seems like there is a personal trade-off involved between consciousness and spirit
Richard, I'm serious with the analogy. We humans are in fact both spiritual and conscious, and most people can as easily imagine creatures that are just like us except that they are not spiritual, as can imagine creatures that are just like us except that they are unconscious. I personally cannot imagine such things.
Robin, that's no response! The babble that comes out of the mouths of "random people on the street" has no philosophical relevance. (There's an implicit quantifier restriction behind my 'everyone' -- I mean everyone who's engaged in sufficient reflection to actually understand the question and its implications.)
[Aside: most people use 'spiritual' to mean 'religious', don't they? You mean 'possessing a spirit/soul'.]
Anyway, I've pointed out the obvious disanalogy: we know we're conscious, we don't know that we have souls. Or do you mean to deny that we know that we're conscious? It seems that's what you're committed to, if you actually think it's a good analogy.
Richard and Paul, random people on the street are far more likely think they understand the question "Are humans (sometimes) spiritual?" than "Do humans have phenomenal consciousness?" They are probably also more likely to understand the question "Can you imagine a non-spiritual person?" than "Can you imagine a person without phenomenal consciousness?" Maybe you need to get out more.
Miriam: How is it you've come to those views? Why do you believe that?
For that matter, what do you mean, precisely, by an "energy fingerprint"? (For that matter, when you say "energy", are you talking about the same sort of thing a physicist things of when they use the word, or are you using the word in a different way?)
What do you mean by "vibrations of energy"? How do different frequencies "align one to a physical dimension"? (heck, what does that even mean?) (I don't mean to ask for a crude "imagine tuning a radio" analogy, I'm also asking for what's "under" the analogy, what's actually meant)
What, precisely, is a "static vibration barcode", and how is it that such a thing can "transcend all dimensions" (What do you mean by that, anyways?) and how does that cause "essence of self awareness of life" to form?
Let's start with those questions for now.
I have a saying that I express at times: "The only difference between man and animal is the form that houses the spirit".
Each spirit has an energy fingerprint unique to itself, manifesting in body in order to realize life, with a mind in which to experience it. In life, each spirit experiences the game of life by the limitation of the host body. The lack of fingers and thumbs, and upward bi-pedal motion, restricts many animals from evolving the ability to create, construct, manufacture. Also, each animal according to each evolutionary stage of his brain's ability to learn and adapt. Each human, animal, organic matter, inorganic matter, and all physical forms are composed of vibrations of energy in different frequencies aligning to this physical dimension. Each form has a specific vibration aligning to its particular form and this physical dimension. Each spirit also has a static vibration barcode unique to self which can transcend all dimensions and can bring the essense of self awareness of life to form.
Man was made in the image of God....and so is everything else in existence. So God brought forward all that is from the image of its own vision, relinquishing boredom for a quest in a game of life.
All that is are parts of the consciousness of God. God experiencing life through its many forms of creations. God giving each of his parts/spirit amnesia (free choice) in order to learn and experience a game of life.
We are all the collective consciousness of the one.
The above are my views.
I wonder if one cna do it the other way -imagine a being that had qualia but where there was 'nothing' that took on that qualia. Imagine a whole set of qualia just being thrown into a hole and being destroyed rather like how one might imagine a low intelligent animal feeling pain but not in the sense that matters or a sense that had continuality of soul.
Then you can try to use zombie logic to extrapolate that out to a soul argument.
Richard - That's very sporting of you! Here's a question for you that I think would be illuminating: What do you think would be a good argument against the coherence of the zombie world hypothesis? Can you conceive of one at all?
No. Conclusions are drawn by people, not brains. But p-zombies draw conclusions, and they're not "people", they're just brains.
Oh, wait - you've redefined 'conclusion' to refer to something that requires p-consciousness, didn't you. So p-zombies don't draw real and genuine conclusions, they reach states that look precisely like conclusions, but are different in some ineffable way.
How do you go about determining whether the people you meet are p-conscious? Or is that just one of the countless assumptions you sweep under your mental rug?
Zombie asked - "shouldn't Chalmers' brain zombie-conclude that it is probably a zombie brain, and 'phenomenal Chalmers' consciously think the same?"
I've responded in a new post: Zombie Rationality. (Also relevant to Eliezer's earlier response.)
Joshua - you're conflating phenomenal consciousness with access consciousness. Even zombies have the latter.
Caledonian - Wow. I don't think we have enough common ground to make further discussion fruitful. I'm happy to let others judge for themselves who's got the crazier view here ;-)
This argument doesn't address the issue of self awareness as a possible evolutionary advantage. Awareness of self allows for greater empathy which allows for the greatest team work. Without claws, and with a big really squishy brain that is pretty easy to smash, we are at at a huge disadvantage when not working in groups. But with this empathy and ability to rationalize our and other peoples existence we have been able to become the dominant species (tools and agriculture help too, but ravens use tools, ants farm, and dogs work in teams, so it just our ability to maximize these non-physical advantage that is our advantage). Also note, that as societies progress, there is also generally progress towards a recognition of other people as more human and even greater empathy.
eg. 10,000 years ago, if another human wasn't in your family, they where sub-human2000 years ago if they weren't a member of your town they where sub-humanup until recently (and still for some) if they weren't apart of your nation they where sub-human
I am not sure I am even making sense. And this isn't the strongest argument, but overall I'd like to see the idea of our consciousness as an evolutionary advantage addressed (because there seems no denying it is at least an advantage - coming from god or mutation)
Goplat, Hanson never claimed to be an anarcho-capitalist, or even a libertarian. He said he wants to cut health care spending in half, which is not quite the same thing as banning it.
What evidence do you have that you're not a Brain in a Vat, hallucinating your entire life, or otherwise deceived (e.g. by an Evil Demon)? As far as I am concerned, those scenarios are precisely the same.
If all I know are the inputs and outputs, I don't know whether a chip contains an AND gate or an input-and-output-negated OR gate. There is no difference between those two conditions within the restrictions placed on my knowledge. If those conditions were removed, there are logical differences that would manifest as different observations.
You have explicitly defined 'zombies' to not be able to offer different observations under any circumstances. They are equivalent to non-zombies.
No, zombies can't make meaningful assertions, but mere wannabe-zombies still can
I take it that you are denying the possibility that we are zombies, and are instead "mere wannabe-zombies". Why is that?
Poke - "if we deny that we have phenomenal consciousness we can no longer make assertions or enter into debate with him"
No, zombies can't make meaningful assertions, but mere wannabe-zombies still can ;-). Anyway, I'd be just as happy to debate with a zombie, so long as I could project meaning on to his utterances so as to turn them into good arguments. So that's not an issue.
Caledonian - this was discussed in the other thread. What evidence do you have that you're not a Brain in a Vat, hallucinating your entire life, or otherwise deceived (e.g. by an Evil Demon)? One can't appeal to (empirical) evidence to dismiss these subjectively indistinguishable skeptical scenarios. They may be dismissed all the same. (Parsimony, in your case.)
He also believes phenomenal consciousness is the source of meaning: if we deny that we have phenomenal consciousness we can no longer make assertionsI concur. The implications are... curious. The whole 'zombie' idea is predicated on the notion that entities without 'consciousness' could behave in precisely the way manner as entities with the property. So a statement that Richard would claim to be meaningless looks precisely the same as one that is meaningful.
Clearly, context is relevant in evaluation - but he goes much, much farther than that.
Richard, what evidence do you have that Chalmers is p-conscious and has genuine beliefs? Couldn't he be a p-zombie and make claims that appear identical but aren't genuine and so aren't valid arguments?
I think you and Eliezer underestimate the distance between yourselves and Richard and (perhaps) Chalmer's. Richard believes we have "direct access" (i.e., cannot be wrong about) "phenomenal consciousness," a property that is defined in such a way that it cannot be physically reduced (it's "feeling"; i.e., what's left when you remove effect), and his entire argument is premised on this.
He also believes phenomenal consciousness is the source of meaning: if we deny that we have phenomenal consciousness we can no longer make assertions or enter into debate with him. We're reduced to yapping dogs. There isn't an available avenue for disagreement with Richard's position that Richard would be able to accept given his premises.
"Richard, I'm serious with the analogy. We humans are in fact both spiritual and conscious, and most people can as easily imagine creatures that are just like us except that they are not spiritual, as can imagine creatures that are just like us except that they are unconscious. I personally cannot imagine such things. "
Seems like there is a personal trade-off involved between consciousness and spirit
Richard, I'm serious with the analogy. We humans are in fact both spiritual and conscious, and most people can as easily imagine creatures that are just like us except that they are not spiritual, as can imagine creatures that are just like us except that they are unconscious. I personally cannot imagine such things.
Robin, that's no response! The babble that comes out of the mouths of "random people on the street" has no philosophical relevance. (There's an implicit quantifier restriction behind my 'everyone' -- I mean everyone who's engaged in sufficient reflection to actually understand the question and its implications.)
[Aside: most people use 'spiritual' to mean 'religious', don't they? You mean 'possessing a spirit/soul'.]
Anyway, I've pointed out the obvious disanalogy: we know we're conscious, we don't know that we have souls. Or do you mean to deny that we know that we're conscious? It seems that's what you're committed to, if you actually think it's a good analogy.
Richard and Paul, random people on the street are far more likely think they understand the question "Are humans (sometimes) spiritual?" than "Do humans have phenomenal consciousness?" They are probably also more likely to understand the question "Can you imagine a non-spiritual person?" than "Can you imagine a person without phenomenal consciousness?" Maybe you need to get out more.