The Turing Test: Affirming the Consequent?

[inocente]

I guess that is not a strawman but rather a joke that is not really directly relevant to the discussion, but meant to lighten it up… Still, I’d say that a something like “And I thought you were you were the first person in history to devise an experiment which shows the existence of qualia!” would have been better joke…

Yes, that would have improved the joke. But you still didn’t come up with the goods.

What makes you think of such an assumption…? The shorter name is used simply because we do not to repeat the description again and again and again. It does not mean that qualia can exist apart from the human who experiences it (or do you mean something else by “independent existence”…?).

I mean the concept is sloppy, it’s pure invention. It says that seeing the color red and feeling hungry are both qualia, that they have something in common. But all they have in common is neither can be described (without analogy). That’s no reason to lump them together in one category and go chasing after shadows.

*OK, let’s take a different word: “dream”. Would you say that the use of that word (instead of, let’s say, “things one sees while sleeping”) implies that dreams can exist independently, apart of the human who dreams…? Also, the fact that someone else dreams is also hard to check directly…

I don’t think that anyone claims that philosophical zombies actually exist… They are meant for thought experiments only.*

The concept of p-zombies disproves qualia. The concept says that if qualia exist as something in their own right then there could be people (p-zombies) with minds which work without qualia. But no such zombies exist, therefore qualia don’t exist. The sensations formerly known as qualia are integral and disparate.

Not sure where you’re going about dreams. We can’t describe the sensation of feeling hungry, and there is no reason to suggest it is similar in any way to seeing the color red, while we can describe what happened in a dream, and all dreams have a storyline. We also know a lot about REM sleep and dreaming.

How…? What kind of “further research” would you expect?

MRI scanners have only been around for 20 years and are still very low-res. The science is in its infancy. What kind of further research would you not expect? Space exploration is so last century, the brain is the new frontier.

OK, I think that gives me an excuse to ask you a question I wanted to ask some time ago… You write you are a Baptist. In that case, do you have some answer to the atheists who would consider God or soul as similar “castles in the sky”…?

Yes, they are correct. God is not a scientific hypothesis, and God is not a philosophical argument. God is met, God is known, God is not a theory.

See the Pope’s recent interview - go about two thirds down and read from To Seek and Find God in All Things and the following section. - americamagazine.org/pope-interview

“If the Christian is a restorationist, a legalist, if he wants everything clear and safe, then he will find nothing.”

Just in case you got that quote from the part of the interview I translated, I since found the authorized English version, linked above.

 

[inocente]

Yes, that would have improved the joke. But you still didn’t come up with the goods.

I mean the concept is sloppy, it’s pure invention. It says that seeing the color red and feeling hungry are both qualia, that they have something in common. But all they have in common is neither can be described (without analogy). That’s no reason to lump them together in one category and go chasing after shadows.

The concept of p-zombies disproves qualia. The concept says that if qualia exist as something in their own right then there could be people (p-zombies) with minds which work without qualia. But no such zombies exist, therefore qualia don’t exist. The sensations formerly known as qualia are integral and disparate.

Not sure where you’re going about dreams. We can’t describe the sensation of feeling hungry, and there is no reason to suggest it is similar in any way to seeing the color red, while we can describe what happened in a dream, and all dreams have a storyline. We also know a lot about REM sleep and dreaming.

MRI scanners have only been around for 20 years and are still very low-res. The science is in its infancy. What kind of further research would you not expect? Space exploration is so last century, the brain is the new frontier.

Yes, they are correct. God is not a scientific hypothesis, and God is not a philosophical argument. God is met, God is known, God is not a theory.

See the Pope’s recent interview - go about two thirds down and read from To Seek and Find God in All Things. and the next section. - americamagazine.org/pope-interview

Just in case you got that quote from the part of the interview I translated, I since found the authorized English version, linked above.

 

[Peter_Plato]

Yes, they are correct. God is not a scientific hypothesis, and God is not a philosophical argument. God is met, God is known, God is not a theory.

Now apply that idea to human beings qua persons and you have just demonstrated the inconsistency and inadequacy of your own views regarding the Turing Test.

A human person is not a scientific hypothesis, and a human person is not a philosophical argument. A human person is met, a human person is known, a human person is not a theory.

If God is “met” and “known” by WHOM is he met and known?

If there is no WHOM to meet and know him why would he consent to merely be the “object” of neurochemical processes?

 

[MPat]

I mean the concept is sloppy, it’s pure invention. It says that seeing the color red and feeling hungry are both qualia, that they have something in common. But all they have in common is neither can be described (without analogy). That’s no reason to lump them together in one category and go chasing after shadows.

I’d say you have to make up your mind about your objection to the word “qualia”.

Do you object to it because you think that “qualia do not exist”, which would mean that the set of “objects” denoted by word “qualia” is empty (like “the even prime numbers larger than two”)?

Or do you object to it because you think the word is useless, as the set of the objects denoted by it is “too large”?

I’m afraid that those objections are mutually exclusive… And it sure is hard to answer you when it is not certain which of them you are trying to make…

Not sure where you’re going about dreams. We can’t describe the sensation of feeling hungry, and there is no reason to suggest it is similar in any way to seeing the color red, while we can describe what happened in a dream, and all dreams have a storyline. We also know a lot about REM sleep and dreaming.

I was saying that we often use the short word instead of a long description. And this use does not indicate much by itself.

MRI scanners have only been around for 20 years and are still very low-res. The science is in its infancy. What kind of further research would you not expect? Space exploration is so last century, the brain is the new frontier.

OK, so, let’s say we’ll be able to find all individual neurons that “fire” when the human sees something red. And then what…? How is that supposed to help us to find out how the subjective experience of seeing red arises…?

Yes, they are correct. God is not a scientific hypothesis, and God is not a philosophical argument. God is met, God is known, God is not a theory.

See the Pope’s recent interview - go about two thirds down and read from To Seek and Find God in All Things and the following section. - americamagazine.org/pope-interview

Thank you for the answer.

 

[Jewel34]

MPat:

OK, so, let’s say we’ll be able to find all individual neurons that “fire” when the human sees something red. And then what…? How is that supposed to help us to find out how the subjective experience of seeing red arises…?

The “seeing red” neurons were never investigated in detail, however the feeling pain or pleasure areas of the brain have been found (much more interesting, you see). One feels pleasure or pain, when a certain area of the brain is stimulated. When one experiences a painful stab (for example), a certain area of the brain “lights up”. When the same area of the brain is stimulated by a mild electric current, the same “pain” is felt at the same place of the body, without any external stimulus. The conclusion is obvious: there is a one-to-one correspondence between the neural state and the feeling of pain.

Sometimes people try to object that “correlation” is not “causation”. That is not much of an argument in this case. If there would be exceptions; for example if someone would report a painful experience without the neural network being excited, or we would observe a “light up” of the neurons without feeling pain, then the “causation” could be denied. As such this “objection” is about as valid as if one would assert that dripping acid on a metal plate and observing the resulting deterioration of the material is “merely” a coincidence and there is no causal connection between the two.

If someone would never have experienced pain, so he would not know how it feels like, that lack of knowledge could be “remedied” by two different ways; either hit his little finger with a hammer, OR excite the appropriate neurons. There is a practical (but not theoretical) problem here. The brain material is so dense and so uniquely connected that it might be difficult to exactly p(name removed by moderator)oint the area which “lights up” when a very specific part of the body is exposed to a certain physical effect. But this is just a practical issue, has nothing to do with the concept that:

Subjective feelings and the neural state of the brain are one and the same.

I don’t know why this obvious causative effect is readily accepted in the case of dripping acid on that metal plate and doubted when we observe the one-to-one correspondence of subjective feelings and the neural network.

There can be a question of how does the sensation of “seeing red” and the neural state of the brain correspond to each other. The answer is very simple: “we learn it in our formative years”. Our parents show us several red objects, and every time they also say “red”. This kind of repetition builds the proper neural connections. Just like Pavlov’s dog!

 

[inocente]

I’d say you have to make up your mind about your objection to the word “qualia”.

Do you object to it because you think that “qualia do not exist”, which would mean that the set of “objects” denoted by word “qualia” is empty (like “the even prime numbers larger than two”)?

Or do you object to it because you think the word is useless, as the set of the objects denoted by it is “too large”?

I’m afraid that those objections are mutually exclusive… And it sure is hard to answer you when it is not certain which of them you are trying to make…

Sets. That’s a good idea.

my_favorite_things = { Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens, Bright copper kettles and warm woolen mittens, Brown paper packages tied up with strings, etc. }

Do my_favorite_things all possess a common objective property which makes them part of the set? Nope. Are the memories of my_favorite_things stamped FAVORITE or all filed in one box in her head? Unlikely. Do her favorite things match my favorite things? Nope. Are her favorite things much use in analyzing anything other than maybe what to buy her for her birthday? Nope.

I was saying that we often use the short word instead of a long description. And this use does not indicate much by itself.

It still leads us to create duff associations though. The sensation of seeing red and of feeling hungry may have absolutely nothing in common except we can’t yet explain either of them.

OK, so, let’s say we’ll be able to find all individual neurons that “fire” when the human sees something red. And then what…? How is that supposed to help us to find out how the subjective experience of seeing red arises…?

I wouldn’t have thought that’s anywhere near the end. Does the same group fire next time? (compensation) Why does it fire? How did the group form? Is it the same in all people or does it depend on culture/ethnicity/age? Do artists have a more refined sense? Etc.

Then gradually, we get to form models. We need a new language, perhaps several, to describe what is going on at different levels of abstraction. Same as in other sciences.

 

[Peter_Plato]

The “seeing red” neurons were never investigated in detail, however the feeling pain or pleasure areas of the brain have been found (much more interesting, you see). One feels pleasure or pain, when a certain area of the brain is stimulated. When one experiences a painful stab (for example), a certain area of the brain “lights up”. When the same area of the brain is stimulated by a mild electric current, the same “pain” is felt at the same place of the body, without any external stimulus. The conclusion is obvious: there is a one-to-one correspondence between the neural state and the feeling of pain.

Sometimes people try to object that “correlation” is not “causation”. That is not much of an argument in this case. If there would be exceptions; for example if someone would report a painful experience without the neural network being excited, or we would observe a “light up” of the neurons without feeling pain, then the “causation” could be denied. As such this “objection” is about as valid as if one would assert that dripping acid on a metal plate and observing the resulting deterioration of the material is “merely” a coincidence and there is no causal connection between the two.

If someone would never have experienced pain, so he would not know how it feels like, that lack of knowledge could be “remedied” by two different ways; either hit his little finger with a hammer, OR excite the appropriate neurons. There is a practical (but not theoretical) problem here. The brain material is so dense and so uniquely connected that it might be difficult to exactly p(name removed by moderator)oint the area which “lights up” when a very specific part of the body is exposed to a certain physical effect. But this is just a practical issue, has nothing to do with the concept that:

Subjective feelings and the neural state of the brain are one and the same.

This may be interesting science, but the conclusion is not warranted as a logical one.

Notice that the experiment only works with subjects who are consciously aware in order to report a sensation to begin with. You are not creating subjective awareness in the sense of awareness by a subject, you are merely assuming it. The subjects already have, presumably, the capacity to be subjectively aware of pain. To have a conscious subject report on their subjective awareness as if pain sensation is created is merely to correlate their awareness with the sensation, or trivially to find that a triggering of appropriate neurons is always associated with an awareness by the subject of the accompanying sensation.

The subjective awareness, simpliciter, is not “created” by the triggering of neurons, although a subjective awareness of the sensation might be, but that presumes a subject capable of awareness to begin with. The subject has not been created. So you can’t, now, merely dismiss the subject’s role by concluding the awareness is nothing but the triggering of neurons or completely caused by it. That is just a false conclusion based upon the ignored fact that a subject was a necessary part of the experiment to begin with.

Presumably the experiment would not work with animals that do not exhibit any subjective awareness precisely because there would be no “subject” to do any reporting whatsoever. It would, then, be impossible to gain access to any “subjective” experiences to ascertain anything regarding those. The experiment is “looped” to begin with.

What could be interesting would be to have a recently departed human who awakens and reports pain or pleasure sensations only when the appropriate receptors are stimulated so that, more crucially, the neural state of the brain triggers not just the subjective awareness of pleasure or pain, but the subject in toto. Then we’d be closer to establishing a truly “causal” relationship and not merely an associative one.

This…

If there would be exceptions; for example if someone would report a painful experience without the neural network being excited, or we would observe a “light up” of the neurons without feeling pain, then the “causation” could be denied.

… Is not sufficient to warrant a conclusion of causation. It remains in the realm of correlation because a subject capable of awareness of the sensation is assumed not “created.” It may be that awareness by the subject of the pain is correlated to the excitement of the neural network or even that the “awareness of pain” by the subject was caused by the excitement of the network, but that does not lead to a conclusion that the subject with awareness was created by excitement of the network. The capacity of the subject for any awareness whatsoever is assumed by the experiment not effectively caused by the stimulation.

So it cannot be concluded that the “awareness” was caused in the sense of providing the necessary and sufficient conditions for it. It would be more appropriate to say the awareness was “triggered” by.

Pulling a trigger on a gun does not CAUSE the gun, although it might be colloquially true to say that it caused the gun to “go off.”

What you are trying to show is that triggering neural sensations (pulling the trigger) does not merely fire the gun, but creates the gun and fires it at the same time, i.e. Neural firing creates the subject with awareness rather than what is more clearly the case of creating an awareness by a pre-existing subject.

Again, interesting science, but the logic is

 

[Peter_Plato]

Sometimes people try to object that “correlation” is not “causation”. That is not much of an argument in this case. If there would be exceptions; for example if someone would report a painful experience without the neural network being excited, or we would observe a “light up” of the neurons without feeling pain, then the “causation” could be denied.

This is precisely what happens with blind sightedness. The brain, logically speaking, would have to exhibit the “lighting up” of neurons (although I am not clear this has ever been experimentally validated) because the body reliably “detects” objects in its field of view and avoids them, but this all occurs without an awareness by the subject, who reports no conscious “seeing” of anything. There you go - causation denied.

 

[Jewel34]

Peter Plato:

Presumably the experiment would not work with animals that do not exhibit any subjective awareness precisely because there would be no “subject” to do any reporting whatsoever. It would, then, be impossible to gain access to any “subjective” experiences to ascertain anything regarding those. The experiment is “looped” to begin with.

You presume incorrectly. Many of these pain/pleasure experiments are conducted with rats. Their brain is connected to a machine (via some electrodes), where the triggering of one pedal will send electronic signal to the pleasure center, while pushing the other pedal will “excite” the pain center. In each and every case the rats will only “experiment” with the pain center – ONCE, and give up immediately, while they keep triggering the pleasure center all the way until they literally fall down from exhaustion. And this is what you “think” to be a mere “correlation”? Bah!

The rats most certainly “report” their feelings by exhibiting a certain, totally predictable behavior. Reporting does not have to be “verbal”. As the old saying goes: “acts speak clearer than a thousand words”.

…or trivially to find that a triggering of appropriate neurons is always associated with an awareness by the subject of the accompanying sensation.

There is nothing “trivial” about it. The causal connection is exactly what the experiments prove.
Peter Plato:

What you are trying to show is that triggering neural sensations (pulling the trigger) does not merely fire the gun, but creates the gun and fires it at the same time…

Nonsense. The neural system is already in place. As pertaining to the pain/pleasure system, it is an integral part of the brain – it does not need to be to be learned; quite unlike the experiencing of the color “red”. Going back to those wonderfully smart rats; they learn (by observation) that certain poisoned foods will cause death, and they learn to avoid those foods. The observation creates new neural connections, and teaches the rats to avoid certain food items. A perfect exhibition of a causative connection - by learning.

 

[Peter_Plato]

You presume incorrectly. Many of these pain/pleasure experiments are conducted with rats. Their brain is connected to a machine (via some electrodes), where the triggering of one pedal will send electronic signal to the pleasure center, while pushing the other pedal will “excite” the pain center. In each and every case the rats will only “experiment” with the pain center – ONCE, and give up immediately, while they keep triggering the pleasure center all the way until they literally fall down from exhaustion. And this is what you “think” to be a mere “correlation”? Bah!

How would you know the rat subjectively “experiences” pain rather than merely “reacts” to it? What is at issue is whether “subjective experience” as a conscious act is actually present. You just assume it is because of the reaction. That is not a proof of anything.

It is nothing more than a trivial claim: The rat must have conscious or subjective awareness because a reaction entails that it has subjective awareness.

It is as if you are completely missing the point at issue.

 

[Jewel34]

Peter Plato:

How would you know the rat subjectively “experiences” pain rather than merely “reacts” to it? What is at issue is whether “subjective experience” as a conscious act is actually present. You just assume it is because of the reaction. That is not a proof of anything.

Total nonsense. What does “consciousness” have to do with anything? The subject exhibits a subjective “pain reaction”, therefore the subject experiences “real pain”. That is all.
Peter Plato:

It is nothing more than a trivial claim: The rat must have conscious or subjective awareness because a reaction entails that it has subjective awareness.

The “conscious” part is only a figment of your imagination. Anyhow, I subscribe to the “duck principle”: if it looks like as if it were in pain, and acts like as if it were in pain, then I will accept that it IS in pain. But I am willing to suspend this principle if you are willing to accept the role of the rat. I am willing to raise the level of pain if you are the willing participant of accepting that “alleged” pain, and I will be willing to view it as a “coincidence”. Are you ready to participate? No? I am not surprised…

 

[Peter_Plato]

Total nonsense. What does “consciousness” have to do with anything? The subject exhibits a subjective “pain reaction”, therefore the subject experiences “real pain”. That is all.

The “conscious” part is only a figment of your imagination. Anyhow, I subscribe to the “duck principle”: if it looks like as if it were in pain, and acts like as if it were in pain, then I will accept that it IS in pain. But I am willing to suspend this principle if you are willing to accept the role of the rat. I am willing to raise the level of pain if you are the willing participant of accepting that “alleged” pain, and I will be willing to view it as a “coincidence”. Are you ready to participate? No? I am not surprised…

Aye, I am a figment of MY imagination. So where is the ME that imagines located precisely? By what neural firing am I - not my pain - produced?

I am unwilling to accept the role of the rat because I am subject to actual experiences of pain as a subject. Not sure that the rat is and you haven’t shown the rat has similar “subjective” experiences. You assume it does merely because its receptors detect something, but that “something” may not be “pain” at all in the way humans subjectively experience it.

Again you assume what you are supposed to be proving.

 

[MPat]

The “seeing red” neurons were never investigated in detail, however the feeling pain or pleasure areas of the brain have been found (much more interesting, you see). One feels pleasure or pain, when a certain area of the brain is stimulated. When one experiences a painful stab (for example), a certain area of the brain “lights up”. When the same area of the brain is stimulated by a mild electric current, the same “pain” is felt at the same place of the body, without any external stimulus. The conclusion is obvious: there is a one-to-one correspondence between the neural state and the feeling of pain.

Sometimes people try to object that “correlation” is not “causation”. That is not much of an argument in this case. If there would be exceptions; for example if someone would report a painful experience without the neural network being excited, or we would observe a “light up” of the neurons without feeling pain, then the “causation” could be denied. As such this “objection” is about as valid as if one would assert that dripping acid on a metal plate and observing the resulting deterioration of the material is “merely” a coincidence and there is no causal connection between the two.

If someone would never have experienced pain, so he would not know how it feels like, that lack of knowledge could be “remedied” by two different ways; either hit his little finger with a hammer, OR excite the appropriate neurons. There is a practical (but not theoretical) problem here. The brain material is so dense and so uniquely connected that it might be difficult to exactly p(name removed by moderator)oint the area which “lights up” when a very specific part of the body is exposed to a certain physical effect. But this is just a practical issue, has nothing to do with the concept that:

Subjective feelings and the neural state of the brain are one and the same.

I don’t know why this obvious causative effect is readily accepted in the case of dripping acid on that metal plate and doubted when we observe the one-to-one correspondence of subjective feelings and the neural network.

No one says that neurons firing and human seeing red (or something) is a “coincidence”. But it does not mean that human seeing red is just neurons firing.

Let’s look at it like this. A group of photons with a frequency that corresponds to red colour goes from the surface to the eye. The human sees red. Is there is a causal connection between those events? Sure. Does it mean that the experience of the human is the photon passing through air? No.

The group of photons reaches the cornea. The human sees red. Is there a causal connection between those events? Sure. Does it mean that experience of the human is the photon hitting the cornea? No.

The group of photons reaches the retina, the neural signal gets formed. The human sees red. Is there a causal connection between those events? Sure. Does it mean that experience of the human is the photon hitting the retina? No.

The neural impulse reaches the brain, the visual cortex. The human sees red. Is there a causal connection between those events? Sure. Does it mean that experience of the human is the neural impulse in the visual cortex? Well, in such case, how are we going to explain blindsight that Peter Plato has just mentioned?

The neural impulse reaches some part of the brain responsible for muscle contraction. The human sees red. Is there a causal connection between those events? Sure - they share at least some causes. Does it mean that experience of the human is the neural impulse in the “motor parts” of the brain? No.

The neural impulse reaches the muscle. The human sees red. Is there a causal connection between those events? Sure - they share at least some causes. Does it mean that experience of the human is the neural impulse in the muscle? No.

Now that shows a problem. Removing any of those parts of the “chain” lead to loss of indications of experience, but none of them is certain to “be” the experience, although some of them might be necessary conditions for it.

Even worse, the signal flow branches out and those branches influence each other. So, which neuron or group of neurons creates the subjective experience? And how? In other cases we might try to recognise in the neural networks the algorithms we know. But we do not know any algorithms creating a subjective experience. And I doubt any of us can think of any possibilities.

It is easy to claim everything is “obvious”. But it does not explain anything. And it is only “obvious” if you already assume materialism.

The problem is that we do know many things about matter and we do not know any way that can generate a subjective experience of any kind. Even a plausible hypothetical way.

There can be a question of how does the sensation of “seeing red” and the neural state of the brain correspond to each other. The answer is very simple: “we learn it in our formative years”. Our parents show us several red objects, and every time they also say “red”. This kind of repetition builds the proper neural connections. Just like Pavlov’s dog!

Can you offer any evidence in favour of that hypothesis…?

 

[Peter_Plato]

Total nonsense. What does “consciousness” have to do with anything? The subject exhibits a subjective “pain reaction”, therefore the subject experiences “real pain”. That is all.

You assume the rat “subject” is present to have a subjective “pain reaction.” How is a “reaction” proof of a subject?

If I were to create a piece of software that screams with a human-like voice when the A key is pressed, why would I assume there was a fully human-like and conscious subject there to experience “pain” merely because it behaves somewhat like a human subject?

 

[MPat]

Sets. That’s a good idea.

my_favorite_things = { Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens, Bright copper kettles and warm woolen mittens, Brown paper packages tied up with strings, etc. }

Do my_favorite_things all possess a common objective property which makes them part of the set? Nope. Are the memories of my_favorite_things stamped FAVORITE or all filed in one box in her head? Unlikely. Do her favorite things match my favorite things? Nope. Are her favorite things much use in analyzing anything other than maybe what to buy her for her birthday? Nope.

It still leads us to create duff associations though. The sensation of seeing red and of feeling hungry may have absolutely nothing in common except we can’t yet explain either of them.

Well, the group of “objects” called “qualia” is somewhat analogous to the group of mathematical problems called “NP-complete”. There is some reason to think that, while those problems do not look similar (3SAT does not look similar to Traveling salesman problem), the (fast) solution of one will lead to solution of others. Likewise, if we would know how the qualia “red” arises, it would probably be easier to find out how the qualia “sweet taste” arises - we would look for something somewhat similar.

And it is not true that there is nothing in common between qualia. They are all subjective experiences.

I wouldn’t have thought that’s anywhere near the end. Does the same group fire next time? (compensation) Why does it fire? How did the group form? Is it the same in all people or does it depend on culture/ethnicity/age? Do artists have a more refined sense? Etc.

Then gradually, we get to form models. We need a new language, perhaps several, to describe what is going on at different levels of abstraction. Same as in other sciences.

In other words, you have no idea what we would have to look for, but have faith that we’ll know it when we’ll see it. Unfortunately, that does not look like a plan that is certain to win grants for research…

 

[polytropos]

There is no real “symmetry”. Propositions about the future are undecidable, while propositions about the past are “dubious” – unless there is a physical evidence that can be independently ascertained.

The thing is, “dubious” is not the same as “meaningless.” The statement “Birds evolved from reptiles” is a historical claim. At one point its truth value was unknown (some might have asserted it false). It also might have transpired that no one ever discovered that it was true. But at the point at which it was unknown, it was not a meaningless statement; a truth value’s “dubiousness” is irrelevant to whether or not it is a meaningless statement. The statement was true even if no one had a way to confirm it.

It may or may not be a “true” proposition. We simply do not know and cannot know until the game will be finished.

Right, but I’m not claiming that I know whether it’s true or false. I’m saying that it’s truth functional, ie. it has a truth value, whether or not it is unknown to me.

(That said, the case of the future is controversial, but also not relevant to the point I’m making, since the truth of propositions about past states of affairs is not controversial. Honestly, even the past is not relevant to the considerations I’m giving now. If a machine utters, “I am thinking about you,” it is a possibly vacuous statement; its stating the fact does not require that it is actually capable of thought. As I’ve said already, it is only possibly vacuous; if the machine were thinking, somehow, then it would be capable of thought. But that does not vindicate the Turing test, which can’t distinguish between the two cases.)

As said before, the ontology without epistemology is a vacuous statement. Whether a proposition is true or false is of no significance if there is no way to find out which one it might be.

Your claim is, I think, too strong. Claiming that something is true without epistemology is one thing. Claiming that something has a truth value without being able to know what the truth value is another. To say that statements which we cannot discover the truth value of do not have a truth value seems wildly implausible. It is also the kind of claim that is constantly disconfirmed by science (since statements we lack truth values for are constantly validated or refuted by science). Looking below, it seems that you are equivocating between being able to assign a truth value and having a truth value, but more on that later…

It may well be that you also clapped (and you say you did), for which there is no physical evidence, but that is a much lower level of reliability. Generally speaking, if the only evidence is a “testimonial” evidence then there is no good reason to accept it uncritically.

You are confusing the matter. The question is not whether you should believe that I clapped. The question is whether or not there is a fact of the matter about whether I clapped or not. And one must admit, there is: I either clapped or I didn’t. Maybe we don’t know which. But there’s no middle ground. The proposition is true or false, regardless of whether we can figure out. We don’t need a method to figure out whether I did, because that’s not what we’re discussing on our meta level.

Instead of “meaningless” I would prefer “undecidable”. It is a coherent, meaningful proposition, but it cannot be assigned a truth value. (Even the proposition of “This statement is false” is a syntactically well-formed proposition, but it has no “truth-value” associated with it.)

Whether it can be assigned a truth value is a question of epistemology. The situations are constructed such that they are epistemologically indeterminate, but that is not the problem, since there are a lot of epistemologically indeterminate propositions, and no one doubts that they have truth values.

The argument is that the utterance “I was thinking about you last night” is possibly vacuous, ie. its being uttered need not necessitate that it was true, because its being uttered need not necessitate that the entity uttering it is even capable of thought. If the speaking subject doesn’t know what it means, then what meaning does it have?

Now, this is a very fun conversation. But I fail to see what is its significance in relation to the Turing test. Shouldn’t we leave it to a separate thread of its own?

The point is that the Turing test does not establish that utterances have semantic content for the mechanical speaker. It is hard to imagine a model of thought on which utterances can lack meaning.

 

[polytropos]

A group of alien siliconites land outside your house, question you for a while, and conclude that your statements have no semantic content. They pat you on the head, as they are fond of biological robots for our entertainment value, while bemoaning the fact that we don’t even have a diagnostic port.

In other words I’m not sure why your logic could not be used by machines against humans in their version of the Turing test.

If we encountered seemingly intelligent life, then I think we would need to acknowledge and act as though they are seemingly intelligent (like, as I’ve admitted, if someone constructed a dummy that simulates human suffering, we would act empathetic toward it, insofar that it fools us). That is not really relevant to the point I’m making, which is that engaging consistently in a system of human language is not a sufficient condition for thinking. Aliens would be a tough situation, and it’s hard to say how we would deal with them (we’d hopefully err on the safe side). But if I sit at my computer and design an artificial intelligence, I need not doubt that I’ve not created a thinking being.

 

[polytropos]

It seems to me that you might object to the practice of torturing the dummy as long as you thought that it was a human being, but would cease to object if you had convincing evidence that the weeping, the begging, the bleeding (etc…) is only an emulation. Am I right in this assumption?
…
Apart from the fact that the definition of a “realsup[/sup]” human being is missing, there is a moral imperative of not to torture any being with a sufficiently developed nervous system which registers “pain” (to gain some “sadistic pleasure” from gratuitously inflicting such pain). There is no problem with “torturing” water, or a rock, or a wooden human-like dummy.

Yes, but as I said, if it is convincing enough, the evidence for me to doubt it might have to be pretty high.

Another caveat: If I knew that it was not a human being, then I would not regard it as morally egregious as it is to torture a human being. That does not mean I would “cease to object” in general. I would object to the torturing of a cat even though it is not a human being; I regard the torturing of a human being as a greater crime than the torturing of the cat, but I object to the torturing of the cat nonetheless.

Furthermore, even if it is not a living being, I would find it unsettling. Playing a violent video game is, I would say, not necessarily bad. But playing a violent video game because one enjoys the prospect of simulating the torturing or killing of another human being is bad. So even if it is completely inanimate, I object, but the gravity varies depending on what is being tortured.

Obviously that ever-enhanced dummy will navigate to be an ever-more-precise human-look-alike (and not a dog… for example). The way I read your response is that if this process would take place in front of your eyes, and so you would be aware that the final “approximation” is still “just” an emulation, you would not object to the torturing process. As you said in post #88: “None of this has any bearing on the ontology of whether the being is intelligent, thinks, or feels; I would just be wrong in thinking that it did”. Clearly here you speak of a “philosophical zombie” (which has a nervous system, nerve endings, a pain center in the brain, but does not “feel” any pain, only acts as if it did). The problem is that this “zombie” is exactly as impossible as the oft-repeated copper wire “look-alike”, which cannot be distinguished from the real copper, but which would not conduct electricity. As such, your position is grounded on a physical impossibility.

This seems to me to be an unfair assessment. As I’ve noted, I still object to the act whether the being thinks or not. (In Catholicism it would be a sin for someone to, for instance, shoot a dummy which they thought was a real person.)

The other thing is that, I am answering your questions, but I agree that the zombie is a metaphysical impossibility. The difference, though, is that I therefore view your scenario as vacuous, which is why I don’t mind answering questions about it.

 

[polytropos]

That can’t be. If intelligence was fundamentally subjective then any of us could feel as intelligent as Einstein and win a bevvy of Nobels.

I think we both know this is not what I meant. I mean that thinking is fundamentally subjective, and only someone desperately trying to evade a conclusion would hold that thinking is not required for intelligence.

I don’t think anyone would deny we have subjective experiences, what is problematic is the invention of qualia. It is a self-fulfilling prophecy that inventing things which can’t be observed, quantified or explained means, by definition, they can’t be observed, quantified or explained.

But subjective experiences and qualia are referring to the same thing. No one is inventing qualia anymore than they are inventing subjective experiences. The problems in explaining both of them are the same. “Qualia” is a specialized philosophical term, which might explain your denial of it, like all things philosophical, but it’s difficult to deny one and accept the other.

 

[polytropos]

The stickies say you can’t answer a question with a question. Sounds like I’m on a winner here so I’ll ask again - You claimed “qualia are perfectly falsifiable”. Come on then, where’s the experiment?

I think it was clear that the experiment was the question. But I can spell it out if you need: Open your eyes. If you have phenomenal visual experiences, then you are experiencing qualia. If you do not, then you are not (and hence, qualia would be falsified, as least in your case).

No one cares what logical positivists thought, as that’s yet another failed philosophy to add to the pile.

Odd, since by all appearances you and Jewel endorse their verification principle.

No, it wasn’t you, I mean that concepts like qualia don’t add anything to the party.

This is a bit implausible, since one (whether one is a materialist or not) must admit that neuroscience has not (yet?) explained subjective experiences, so qualia do seem to add to the party, even if all they add is the most specific term to refer to a set of phenomena which neuroscience has not figured out a way to grapple with.