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extro...*
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 Posted: Sat Jan 21, 2012 3:13 pm Post subject: 468 |
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| Zag wrote: |
| Generally, the scientific search for truth says to find the simplest description of reality that fits observable phenomena. |
Regarding the truth that sentience exists in the universe, and the lack of any evidence tying it to any particular physical processes or conditions, wouldn't the simplest description be that sentience exists everywhere?
| Zag wrote: |
| When you show me some repeatable phenomenon, one I can observe myself (given the right equipment) that can't be explained without introducing this wildly complex new ingredient of an omniscient, omnipotent, self-aware being who wants us to worship him, I'll be ready to come around. |
Yet we have no repeatable phenomenon that we can observe that can't be explained with this ineffable ingredient of sentience. But we know it exists. Furthermore, we have every reason to expect there could be no phenomenon that could require sentience to explain, as the nature of sentience (not subject to description itself) is not compatible with the nature of explanations.
| Zag wrote: |
| In the book Contact, by Carl Sagan, he proposes one such experiment: He says that the proof of God would be some message that is encoded in the fundamental fabric of the universe. In that story, the main character has built a computer that searches for patterns in things that we would expect to be random, and she puts the computer to analyzing the digits of pi, looking for a message. (In the book, she succeeds in finding something significant.) |
I never read the book, but from just that description, an obvious hole in the plot would be failing to consider that our expectation of randomness, such as in the digits of pi, is wrong. If we have a mathematical proof that it is, and we find it isn't, the proof is wrong.
Also, I'm a little rusty on Kolmogorov complexity, but I think it suggests that random sequences are indistinguishable from infinitely complex sequences. If God were to write something in pi, he'd have to dumb it down a bit for us to distinguish it from randomness.
And I've noted before that we happen to live in a world where the so-called "butterfly effect" reigns supreme. Our physical existence was determined by random mutations (and selection). Randomness at the microscopic level (the only level where true randomness exists) has a great effect on things at the macroscopic level. But physical randomness is an untestable hypothesis. If I record the timings of decay of each of a number of atoms of radioactive isotopes, or any other physically random events, I only see that they conform to randomness in a statistical way. Out of the countless number of sequences that conform to randomness statistically, if I carefully choose one to suit my needs, it isn't random. |
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Zag
Unintentionally offensive old coot
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| Posted: Sat Jan 21, 2012 7:39 pm Post subject: 469 |
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| extro...* wrote: |
| ... wouldn't the simplest description be that sentience exists everywhere? |
Umm, no. I haven't observed anything that indicates sentience or self-awareness in any rocks, plants, buildings, etc. I have an idea that the sentience is tied up in the chemical and electrical activity in the brain. Even though I don't understand how it works, exactly, I do know that if you mess up that activity, the being stops exhibiting signs of sentience. The simplest explanation is that this is a big part of it -- at least, it correlates very strongly, though I'll admit that drawing a causal relationship is always tricky.
| extro...* wrote: |
| Yet we have no repeatable phenomenon that we can observe that can't be explained with this ineffable ingredient of sentience. But we know it exists. Furthermore, we have every reason to expect there could be no phenomenon that could require sentience to explain, as the nature of sentience (not subject to description itself) is not compatible with the nature of explanations. |
I'm not sure I'm understanding what you are trying to say, here, but I'm guessing that you're referring to sentience in the whole, and not a specific sentient, omniscient, omnipotent being who wants us to worship him (which is what I was referring to).
I have lots of evidence that sentience exists. There is no self-consistent description of the universe, for me, in which *I* am not sentient. And the simplest explanation for the behavior of all of you is that you are independent from me and also sentient. (... some more than others, of course.) It isn't proof -- I already said that I don't ever expect to find proof of anything. However, any description of the rest of the universe that does not include other human beings who are sentient, self-aware, and independent from me requires some ridiculously complex rules in order to be self-consistent.
Honestly, I'm not interested in the philosophical discussions of solipsism and other ridiculous views of the universe. They strike me as foolish mental masturbation and serve no purpose at all. My response to Gorgias of Leontini, or René Descartes, is: "So what? I mean seriously, who cares? Maybe it's true, but then it doesn't matter, so just ignore the idea and get on with something useful." It strikes me as especially stupid and inconsistent to propose the idea of solipsism to someone else.* (That is, to whom, exactly, are you proposing it?) (One of my favorite bumper stickers I've seen is "SOLIPSISTS UNITE!" It took me a couple seconds to get it.)
On the other hand, adding to my description of the universe some new type of sentient being that can't be seen, touched, or detected as any form of matter or energy that we know about, is able to flout all the physical laws that I have worked out so far, wants us to worship him, etc. etc. That is, again, a ridiculous complexity to add to a description of the universe which is self-consistent without it. See my treatise on gravity, above. Do you agree with that, or are you willing to say that conclusion B is just as good as conclusion A? (Frankly, I'm done talking with you if you are.) The same logic extends as far as you need it to.
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* By the way, I do understand that this same pragmatic approach to philosophy supports Pascal's Wager rather well. At that, I can only shrug and acknowledge that I can't make myself believe something that I find to be untenable; if there's a God, then He made me this way so He ought to understand. I've tried to be a good person and that ought to be good enough without the silly worship part. |
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Zag
Unintentionally offensive old coot
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| Posted: Sat Jan 21, 2012 7:58 pm Post subject: 470 |
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| Deception wrote: |
| Which, is why I like to post in your guys' threads, ... |
Feel free to use the first person, here. You're one of us, now.
(cue ominous music)
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Scurra
Daedalian Member
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| Posted: Sat Jan 21, 2012 8:32 pm Post subject: 471 |
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| Zag wrote: |
| On the other hand, adding to my description of the universe some new type of sentient being that can't be seen, touched, or detected as any form of matter or energy that we know about, is able to flout all the physical laws that I have worked out so far, wants us to worship him, etc. etc. That is, again, a ridiculous complexity to add to a description of the universe which is self-consistent without it |
Indeed it does. But I also think that your dismissal of philosophical examinations of different views of the universe is akin to saying "well, we don't need to examine scientific theory X because it is self-evidently not true." The lessons that can be learned from refuting a theory such as "gravity is a result of everything in the universe doubling in size all the time" (a theory which explains certain things that others do not whilst also being ridiculous) are surely worthwhile? Of course this puts philosophy on a bit of a hiding to nothing given that in general, scientific theories are generally "provable" (or otherwise) but it still seems worthwhile.
| Quote: |
| if there's a God, then He made me this way so He ought to understand. I've tried to be a good person and that ought to be good enough without the silly worship part. |
Absolutely. But now we're getting into areas of theological discussion which it is difficult to engage in without spending a lot of time getting the groundwork out of the way. To draw a rather simplistic comparison, we've only had Einsteinian physics for a century or so, and Newtonian physics for about five hundred years. But each of them radically changed the way we saw the universe. Why not extend that same courtesy to philosophical or religious views? Or were all the answers in religion and philosophy discovered millennia ago so there is no need to reconsider our understanding of anything? And are you willing to spend as much time studying them as, say, physics, before saying that they contribute nothing to your understanding? (Not that I am implying you are saying that, although you may well be!)
As has been observed far too often, there are people who still think that e.g. the sun goes round the earth (and can bring their own proofs for it.) There are two ways to tackle them: you can sigh, and shake your head and get on with living, or you can attempt to persuade them to suspend their prejudices and start from the beginning again. Those of us who have tried the second approach and still find people saying "and let Him strike me down with a thunderbolt for not worshipping Him" (or, worse "well the Bible says so") are, unfortunately, increasingly likely to resort to the first solution instead.
(Incidentally, I'd love to hear actual concrete examples of "flout all the physical laws that I have worked out so far". My bet is that the best you can give me are some anecdotes. As I think we have already agreed, it is perfectly possible to live in a universe of infinite wonder without needing party tricks to impress us.)
_________________
still Quiz Olympiad champion. Must get a life.
New definitions: COFFEE - someone who is coughed upon
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Zag
Unintentionally offensive old coot
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| Posted: Sat Jan 21, 2012 10:21 pm Post subject: 472 |
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| Scurra wrote: |
| ... akin to saying "well, we don't need to examine scientific theory X because it is self-evidently not true." |
More like self-evidently not useful. And silly. |
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extro...*
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| Posted: Sun Jan 22, 2012 1:59 am Post subject: 473 |
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| Zag wrote: |
| extro...* wrote: |
| ... wouldn't the simplest description be that sentience exists everywhere? |
Umm, no. I haven't observed anything that indicates sentience or self-awareness in any rocks, plants, buildings, etc. I have an idea that the sentience is tied up in the chemical and electrical activity in the brain. Even though I don't understand how it works, exactly, I do know that if you mess up that activity, the being stops exhibiting signs of sentience. |
There are no signs of sentience. This is a very basic confusion many people have.
| extro...* wrote: |
| Yet we have no repeatable phenomenon that we can observe that can't be explained with this ineffable ingredient of sentience. But we know it exists. Furthermore, we have every reason to expect there could be no phenomenon that could require sentience to explain, as the nature of sentience (not subject to description itself) is not compatible with the nature of explanations. |
I'm not sure I'm understanding what you are trying to say, here, but I'm guessing that you're referring to sentience in the whole, and not a specific sentient, omniscient, omnipotent being who wants us to worship him (which is what I was referring to).
I have lots of evidence that sentience exists.[/quote]
I know I'm sentient. I don't have evidence for it, in the traditional sense of some objective observation.
| Zag wrote: |
| There is no self-consistent description of the universe, for me, in which *I* am not sentient. |
I'm not sure what you mean here, but an intelligent (though not necessarily sentient) observer, with adequate ability to observe and explain, would be able to explain every last bit of your behavior via matter and energy behaving according to physical laws. They would have no reason to posit some indescribable "sentience", nor would doing so have any sensible explanatory power.
| Zag wrote: |
| And the simplest explanation for the behavior of all of you is that you are independent from me and also sentient. |
The human brain is very complex, and is made of matter behaving according to the laws of physics, like any other matter. Dismissing all that complexity and invoking some indescribable and unevidenced "sentience" as an explanation for observable behavior is no better than dismissing all science and invoking God.
There is little doubt that computers of the sort we have now, only perhaps scaled up a bit, will one day emulate human behavior. That behavior wouldn't be evidence of sentience, as everything they do can be explained without invoking sentience to explain it.
| Zag wrote: |
| ... any description of the rest of the universe that does not include other human beings who are sentient, self-aware, and independent from me requires some ridiculously complex rules in order to be self-consistent. |
This is your argument: X has property P, therefore things similar to X, and only things similar to X, have property P. (X being you, P being sentience)
| Zag wrote: |
| Honestly, I'm not interested in the philosophical discussions of solipsism and other ridiculous views of the universe. They strike me as foolish mental masturbation and serve no purpose at all. |
I don't suggest solipsism. Your view is actually closer to solipsism than mine. X has property P, therefore things similar to X, and only things similar to X, have property P ... that is foolish, ridiculous. You have no other reason to associate sentience with humans or biological organisms or whatever it is you associate it with than that.
| Zag wrote: |
| It strikes me as especially stupid and inconsistent to propose the idea of solipsism to someone else.* (That is, to whom, exactly, are you proposing it?) (One of my favorite bumper stickers I've seen is "SOLIPSISTS UNITE!" It took me a couple seconds to get it.) |
First, again, "wouldn't the simplest description be that sentience exists everywhere" is hardly suggesting solipsism.
Second, a thing need not be sentient to be intelligent, rational, aware ... but that would only be relevant if I were proposing solipsism to someone else.
| Zag wrote: |
| On the other hand, adding to my description of the universe some new type of sentient being that can't be seen, touched, or detected as any form of matter or energy that we know about, ... |
Sentience exists, and can't be seen, touched or detected like any form of matter or energy we know about. "being" is vague enough to me that I'd avoid it.
| Zag wrote: |
| ... is able to flout all the physical laws that I have worked out so far, wants us to worship him, etc. etc. |
Not pertaining to anything I've suggested.
| Zag wrote: |
| See my treatise on gravity, above. Do you agree with that, or are you willing to say that conclusion B is just as good as conclusion A? (Frankly, I'm done talking with you if you are.) The same logic extends as far as you need it to. |
I accept that logic. You fail to see where you don't. Human behavior (or the behavior of living things in general), in its entirety, can be explained without resort to a notion of sentience, said notion which doesn't help explain anything anyway. Everything you write, and I write, including our claims to be sentient, to experience something by which we know ourselves with certainty to have sentience ... all this is explainable by the matter within our brains behaving according to the laws of physics. To suggest sentience exists, and is unique to humans or living things or some other arbitrary subset of all that exists, is an arbitrary claim without evidence. |
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extropalopakettle
No offense, but....
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| Posted: Sun Jan 22, 2012 2:36 am Post subject: 474 |
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| Zag wrote: |
| extro...* wrote: |
| Yet we have no repeatable phenomenon that we can observe that can't be explained without [correction: I previously wrote "with"] this ineffable ingredient of sentience. But we know it exists. Furthermore, we have every reason to expect there could be no phenomenon that could require sentience to explain, as the nature of sentience (not subject to description itself) is not compatible with the nature of explanations. |
I'm not sure I'm understanding what you are trying to say, ... |
What I'm saying is that the complexity of human behavior can be explained via matter and energy interacting according to ordinary laws of physics, without any mention of sentience. Furthermore, sentience is in general indescribable, therefore I can't expect it coud be part of an explanation for anything. |
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Zag
Unintentionally offensive old coot
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| Posted: Sun Jan 22, 2012 2:55 am Post subject: 475 |
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| extro...* wrote: |
There are no signs of sentience. This is a very basic confusion many people have.
I'm not sure what you mean here, but an intelligent (though not necessarily sentient) observer, with adequate ability to observe and explain, would be able to explain every last bit of your behavior via matter and energy behaving according to physical laws. They would have no reason to posit some indescribable "sentience", nor would doing so have any sensible explanatory power. |
I'm pretty sure we're not operating from the same definition of sentience. I'm not implying anything more than could be explained by the chemical and electrical processes, if we understood them better. However, I do mean a self-awareness, an ability to come up with and articulate ideas.
| extro...* wrote: |
| First, again, "wouldn't the simplest description be that sentience exists everywhere" is hardly suggesting solipsism. |
I wasn't accusing you of solipsism. I am still trying to understand your phrase "sentience exists everywhere" but the discussion of solipsism was responding to others.
| extro...* wrote: |
| There is little doubt that computers of the sort we have now, only perhaps scaled up a bit, will one day emulate human behavior. That behavior wouldn't be evidence of sentience, as everything they do can be explained without invoking sentience to explain it. |
I'm with Turing here. I think it's likely that computers will exhibit sentience in the next few decades. If they pass the duck test, they're ducks. |
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extro...*
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| Posted: Sun Jan 22, 2012 3:43 am Post subject: 476 |
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| Zag wrote: |
| extro...* wrote: |
There are no signs of sentience. This is a very basic confusion many people have.
I'm not sure what you mean here, but an intelligent (though not necessarily sentient) observer, with adequate ability to observe and explain, would be able to explain every last bit of your behavior via matter and energy behaving according to physical laws. They would have no reason to posit some indescribable "sentience", nor would doing so have any sensible explanatory power. |
I'm pretty sure we're not operating from the same definition of sentience. I'm not implying anything more than could be explained by the chemical and electrical processes, if we understood them better. However, I do mean a self-awareness, an ability to come up with and articulate ideas. |
Wikipedia says it well enough for a start: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sentience
| Quote: |
| In the philosophy of consciousness, "sentience" can refer to the ability of any entity to have subjective perceptual experiences, or "qualia". This is distinct from other aspects of the mind and consciousness, such as creativity, intelligence, sapience, self-awareness, and intentionality (the ability to have thoughts that mean something or are "about" something). |
| Zag wrote: |
| I'm with Turing here. I think it's likely that computers will exhibit sentience in the next few decades. If they pass the duck test, they're ducks. |
"creativity, intelligence, sapience, self-awareness, and intentionality (the ability to have thoughts that mean something or are "about" something)" (quoting from above), I believe computers will be able to demonstrate. I don't believe that will be an indication of sentience, i.e. subjective experiences. Human brains can, and someday computers will, "think" - have and manipulate "thoughts", with some physical representation. Actual awareness of the thought is another issue. Today I can trivially program my computer to use a cheap webcam to look at things and identify their color ... red, green, blue. In one sense I can say it "sees" colors. But I wouldn't wonder if it's subjective experience of red, green, blue is similar to mine, because I have no reason, from what it does and how it does it, to suspect it has subjective experiences.
If you're not yet getting what I (and many others) mean by "sentience", another line of explaining, though perhaps indirectly, it is as follows: I can ask myself "What is it like to be Zag?", as I conceptualize you as having sentience, like myself, though perhaps it might be slightly different in character. I can perhaps sensibly ask myself "What is it like to be a cat?", assuming cats have sentience. But if I assume, say, that my toaster has no sentience, then "What is it like to be the toaster?" makes no sense - it would be like not existing.
Anything a computer can do, a Turing machine can do, and a Turing machine can be built of wooden parts with a motor. Can that have subjective experiences? |
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Zag
Unintentionally offensive old coot
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| Posted: Sun Jan 22, 2012 6:50 pm Post subject: 477 |
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Short and sweet, since it keeps getting lost. What do you mean by the phrase "sentience exists everywhere"?
(Ok, I'm incapable of short and sweet.  ) But, yes, I'm willing to commit that any computer that passes a Turning test is sentient. I predict the complexity would be at least one order of magnitude (maybe two) more complex than IBM's Watson. That Turing machine made from wood and rubber bands would be considerably larger than the solar system, and would have a cycle time of something like one cycle a decade, but for someone with infinite patience, they would eventually see the sentience. |
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extro...*
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| Posted: Sun Jan 22, 2012 8:23 pm Post subject: 478 |
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| Quote: |
| they would eventually see the sentience |
So I think you're still operating from a very different sense of the word "sentience". What I'm talking about, as spelled out above, I don't know how you'd think you can see it. Please explain that. Whether its a person, or a machine that behaves like one, how do you see sentience? |
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Zag
Unintentionally offensive old coot
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| Posted: Sun Jan 22, 2012 10:00 pm Post subject: 479 |
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| Zag wrote: |
| I'm pretty sure we're not operating from the same definition of sentience. I'm not implying anything more than could be explained by the chemical and electrical processes, if we understood them better. However, I do mean a self-awareness, an ability to come up with and articulate ideas. |
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extro...*
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| Posted: Sun Jan 22, 2012 10:21 pm Post subject: 480 |
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| Zag wrote: |
| Zag wrote: |
| I'm pretty sure we're not operating from the same definition of sentience. I'm not implying anything more than could be explained by the chemical and electrical processes, if we understood them better. However, I do mean a self-awareness, an ability to come up with and articulate ideas. |
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To which I replied at length about what I'm referring to when I say "sentience". I understand the sort of sentience you mean. I think calling it sentience is a bit confusing, given the completely different sense of sentience that I mean, but that's a matter of semantics. In any case, the sort of sentience I mean ... do you have an idea what I'm talking about? As described in the wikipedia quote, for instance, and my further elaboration. It's not like being a grand-master in chess, where upon some demonstrated ability to play well, the title is conferred. The sort of sentience I'm talking about can only be known by being the thing in question. I know I'm sentient. I could conceive of myself being sentient after having possibly lost all capacity to display anything you might see as a sign of sentience. Do you understand the sort of sentience I'm referring to? If so, we can discuss the sort you mean, and/or the sort I mean, rather than just each of us using the same word and insisting on talking past each other about two entirely different things. |
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Zag
Unintentionally offensive old coot
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| Posted: Sun Jan 22, 2012 10:57 pm Post subject: 481 |
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Except that your definition of sentience isn't useful in deciding whether or not someone/something other than you has it. Mine is essentially the same, except that it is from the point of view of the observer. That is, take your definition, and mine is whether or not I can perceive signs that the other creature seems to exhibit such things.
A definition that only allows for someone to judge their own sentience is not useful. |
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extro...*
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| Posted: Sun Jan 22, 2012 11:16 pm Post subject: 482 |
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| Zag wrote: |
Except that your definition of sentience isn't useful in deciding whether or not someone/something other than you has it. Mine is essentially the same, except that it is from the point of view of the observer. That is, take your definition, and mine is whether or not I can perceive signs that the other creature seems to exhibit such things.
A definition that only allows for someone to judge their own sentience is not useful. |
This is silly. We don't decide we'll talk about something called "sentience", not knowing what it is we'll be talking about, and then decide upon a definition of the word so we then know what we're talking about.
I'm not deciding on a particular definition for a word. I am talking about a particular thing that I know to exist, and calling it what others call it. I'm not talking about the word "sentience". I'm using the word to refer to something. If you don't want to call it "sentience", then we can pick another word for it. Whatever we decide to call it, it is THAT which I am talking about, not at all the thing you are calling "sentience". And the thing I'm talking about exists, and without it, while my body might still move about and do everything it currently does, including typing every word it's typing now, without it, to me, my existence would be no different than non-existence. I, the sentient being, would not exist if sentience did not exist, but you would not be able to detect the difference. If you want to refuse to consider the thing I'm talking about because I use a word that you insist on interpreting differently, fine, but I don't see the point of discussion. Do you know what it is that I am calling "sentience", and is there something you would rather I call it? |
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extro...*
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| Posted: Sun Jan 22, 2012 11:22 pm Post subject: 483 |
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| Zag wrote: |
| Except that your definition of sentience isn't useful in deciding whether or not someone/something other than you has it. |
Seriously, this is like the following:
I raise the question of whether the universe is finite or infinite. You then suggest it would be useful to define "universe" to mean marshmallow, "finite" to mean hard, and "infinite" to mean soft, as that will then make it easier to decide the answer. You're right! But then that's not what I'm talking about. |
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extro...*
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| Posted: Sun Jan 22, 2012 11:26 pm Post subject: 484 |
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| extro...* wrote: |
| Zag wrote: |
| Except that your definition of sentience isn't useful in deciding whether or not someone/something other than you has it. |
Seriously, this is like the following:
I raise the question of whether the universe is finite or infinite. You then suggest it would be useful to define "universe" to mean marshmallow, "finite" to mean hard, and "infinite" to mean soft, as that will then make it easier to decide the answer. You're right! But then that's not what I'm talking about. |
Yes, it really is EXACTLY like that. I suppose I could define "sentience" to mean D cup breasts ... that would make it easy to decide whether or not someone has "it". Of course "it" is something completely different, but at least we can decide. |
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Scurra
Daedalian Member
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| Posted: Mon Jan 23, 2012 12:49 am Post subject: 485 |
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| Zag wrote: |
| That is, take your definition, and mine is whether or not I can perceive signs that the other creature seems to exhibit such things. |
No, because you are making the observation and are therefore deluded by your own sentience into only perceiving such forms of sentience as agree with your own.
This seems to me a bit like saying "you did not score well on several IQ tests therefore you are less intelligent than someone who scored more." What we have slowly and painfully established over the last decades is that it merely means that you scored less well on IQ tests than somebody else. Nothing more.
Whilst I am willing to accept the idea that sentience may indeed only be the result of certain chemical and physiological reactions which as yet we do not understand, I do not think that this in any way explains it. Even if we understood it down to the last interaction, I am not sure that it would come close to explaining why we are having this discussion, it would merely attempt to define the environmental circumstances that enable it.
_________________
still Quiz Olympiad champion. Must get a life.
New definitions: COFFEE - someone who is coughed upon
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Zag
Unintentionally offensive old coot
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| Posted: Mon Jan 23, 2012 1:37 am Post subject: 486 |
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| Scurra wrote: |
| Zag wrote: |
| That is, take your definition, and mine is whether or not I can perceive signs that the other creature seems to exhibit such things. |
No, because you are making the observation and are therefore deluded by your own sentience into only perceiving such forms of sentience as agree with your own. |
Have you an alternative? From my point of view, trying to decide if something else is sentient, all I have is my observation. My point is that the wikipedia definition is not useful, because it only enables a being to tell if it, itself, is sentient. I'm prepared to go out on a limb and say that anything that is wondering whether or not it is sentient, is.
In any case, we've gotten rather far afield of the topic, here, which is atheism. I believe that the topic started in response to my statement: If you're willing to define God as the sum total of the physical laws of the universe, without sentience nor self-awareness nor caring about whether or not anyone worships him, then I'm willing to agree there's a God. I'm pretty sure, however, that no one else is willing to accept this description.
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I would really like responses to post #466. Is there anyone who is willing to state that conclusion B is just as good as conclusion A?
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extro...*
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| Posted: Mon Jan 23, 2012 2:19 am Post subject: 487 |
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| Zag wrote: |
| My point is that the wikipedia definition is not useful, because it only enables a being to tell if it, itself, is sentient. |
If I want to talk about a thing, I assign a word to it. I then try to provide a definition of the word so that people I converse with will know the thing I'm talking about. The definition is useful to the extent that it describes the thing the word is referring to. You're saying "let's talk about something altogether different".
The thing I'm talking about is, in my opinion, very significant. I don't even know if I should say why, because you haven't even acknowledged you have a clue what I'm talking about. But to me, the universe with sentience, versus the universe without sentience, are vastly different prospects. And please don't even bother considering that statement with your definition of "sentience", as it isn't then a statement I or anyone else here has made.
| Zag wrote: |
I would really like responses to post #466. Is there anyone who is willing to state that conclusion B is just as good as conclusion A?
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I answered that. And my point is that there is this thing I am (and others are) calling "sentience" ... it exists ... it's not what you're calling sentience .... it is a (and perhaps is the most) significant, palpable aspect of reality. That you define the word "sentience" as something altogether different and comparatively mundane might deny this thing the label "sentience", but it takes nothing else away from it. And my point is that it's arbitrarily complex to draw some line between some things and other things, and saying these have sentience, and these don't. I think you're avoiding this. I think it threatens your view of the universe.
| Zag wrote: |
| If you're willing to define God as the sum total of the physical laws of the universe, without sentience ... then I'm willing to agree there's a God. I'm pretty sure, however, that no one else is willing to accept this description. |
If you could acknowledge what I'm calling "sentience" (you haven't said yes or no whether you have an idea what I'm talking about, but I can say that for me it's a fact of reality that stares me in the face every conscious moment of my life), then I'm still curious why you'd define God as the sum total of the physical laws of the universe, without sentience. Why the exclusion? Why the exclusion of something as real as the physical laws, and with no evidence of it being any less everywhere than the physical laws? |
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extro...*
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| Posted: Mon Jan 23, 2012 2:26 am Post subject: 488 |
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| extro...* wrote: |
| Why the exclusion? Why the exclusion of something as real as the physical laws, and with no evidence of it being any less everywhere than the physical laws? |
Unless of course you arbitrarily take a relatively solipsist view in claiming sentience is unique to you, or humans, or biological organisms, or things that behave like them, or whatever arbitrary criteria you select. But you've ridiculed solipsism, so you wouldn't do that. |
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Zag
Unintentionally offensive old coot
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| Posted: Mon Jan 23, 2012 6:07 am Post subject: 489 |
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I agree that I still don't understand what you mean by sentience. I see other organic beings who exhibit signs of being self-aware -- most humans, clearly, but also other mammals, to some degree. I don't see it in the toaster, nor in the set of physical laws, and I'm having trouble how you do.
How about if I use a different phrase, instead: self-aware. For a being to exhibit signs of self-awareness, there have to be abstractions -- expressions of ideas, desires, concepts, that are not the thing itself. The sun, for instance, does not have a desire to send light our way, it isn't a conscious thing it is doing. The light just happens because a ball of matter happened to come together that was massive enough to force, through its own gravity, to force hydrogen atoms to fusion into helium (mostly, that's what it is, though there is other fusion going on, as well).
My toaster does think, "oh, he wants me to make some heat to caramelize his bread. I guess I'm ok with that." It's just electricity run through a resistor that generates heat. The only conscious effort that went into it was me pushing the button down. Neither the sun, nor the toaster, nor the set of physical laws (in total) have any self-awareness, any ability to for abstract concepts. They just exist, without thought, desires, or self-awareness.
| extro...* wrote: |
| Zag wrote: |
I would really like responses to post #466. Is there anyone who is willing to state that conclusion B is just as good as conclusion A?
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I answered that. And my point is ... |
I read your answer several times, and I don't see how it's an answer to my question. It even makes me think you are not referring to the post I meant. In that post, I described a bunch of measurable phenomena that humans observed, and an example of two different conclusions one might draw from them. I argue that conclusion A is far superior to conclusion B, because of Occam's Razor. A describes a simple property of matter, that is not goin to stop as long as matter exists, whereas B claims that some being which is separate from the matter has some motive to push massive bodies towards each other, understanding it as an abstract idea, and he might stop tomorrow if he no longer has the desire to do it.
So, just yes or no. Is B just as good an explanation as A?
Last edited by Zag on Wed Jan 25, 2012 7:02 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Scurra
Daedalian Member
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| Posted: Mon Jan 23, 2012 11:21 am Post subject: 490 |
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OK, I'll bite. No, conclusion B is not as good as conclusion A. But I think that you are being a little misleading in your presentation because the choice you are offering is not an either/or. Explanation A largely replaces explanation B when it becomes available as an explanation - the proposition that both can be offered at the same time as equally valid explanations assuming no prior understanding seems odd.
You seem to be maintaining a position that no-one is allowed to change their mind about something when they learn something new. (Then again, because sentience doesn't exist, I guess we don't have minds to change.  ) For me, the mistake is to throw the baby out with the bathwater as it were. To posit that e.g. if you believed that God juggled everything in the universe to keep it running, and then Newton comes along and shows that some fairly simple rules do the same thing, you must therefore stop believing in God, does not follow. Unless your only view of God was that He was the juggler and nothing but the juggler.
_________________
still Quiz Olympiad champion. Must get a life.
New definitions: COFFEE - someone who is coughed upon
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Zag
Unintentionally offensive old coot
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| Posted: Mon Jan 23, 2012 12:38 pm Post subject: 491 |
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| Scurra wrote: |
| You seem to be maintaining a position that no-one is allowed to change their mind about something when they learn something new. (Then again, because sentience doesn't exist, I guess we don't have minds to change. ) |
Wha'? I don't see where you got any bit of that in anything I said. I don't understand the bit about changing minds at all, and I never said sentience doesn't exist. From your conclusion that I did, I assume that you mean sentience is something more than can be explained by the chemistry and electricity in the brain -- some additional something that is beyond the physical laws of the universe. Is this what you mean? (And I don't know if it's what extro means.)
Or are you referring to "Sentience" i.e. a self-aware being who is not a physical being at all and is outside our physical laws? If that's what you mean, then stop calling it that. We have a word for it and that word is 'God' (though that isn't what I was referring to in that post. See below.)
| Scurra wrote: |
| For me, the mistake is to throw the baby out with the bathwater as it were. To posit that e.g. if you believed that God juggled everything in the universe to keep it running, and then Newton comes along and shows that some fairly simple rules do the same thing, you must therefore stop believing in God, does not follow. Unless your only view of God was that He was the juggler and nothing but the juggler. |
You entirely missed the point of that post. It wasn't about God, it was about Occam's Razor.
And you are also still failing to understand the scientific mind (and demonstrating a lack of it, at least on this topic). I never said one was "right" and one was "wrong." All I said was that here are two possible conclusions, and that one was superior to another. It could still turn out that the second one, or something else entirely, turned out to be "right" (or "more right"), possibly one could come up with some experiment in which the competing theories predict different results, perform it, and promote the second one to be the superior theory, given the new data. This would be the scientific approach. Until then, though, the best assumption is the simplest one.
And I completely don't see what anyone was "throwing out" in any of that. What's the baby and what's the bathwater in that metaphor? It is a mistake is to start with anything at all (and thereby have to throw things out). Instead one should look only at the observable evidence and draw a conclusion only from that, without preconceived ideas. |
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Scurra
Daedalian Member
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| Posted: Mon Jan 23, 2012 1:36 pm Post subject: 492 |
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Well I guess we could carry on misunderstanding each other all day.
| Zag wrote: |
| You entirely missed the point of that post. It wasn't about God, it was about Occam's Razor. |
If I understood your example correctly, you were offering two explanations of something: (a) physics and (b) God, and suggested that Occam's Razor suggested that (a) was a better explanation than (b). I don't think I contested that. My first paragraph in the last post was a response saying that I didn't think offering (a) and (b) as equally competing interpretations was fair, not that Occam's Razor was a bad way to choose in the first instance, regardless of what the "actual" explanation is.
| Quote: |
| And I completely don't see what anyone was "throwing out" in any of that. What's the baby and what's the bathwater in that metaphor? It is a mistake is to start with anything at all (and thereby have to throw things out). Instead one should look only at the observable evidence and draw a conclusion only from that, without preconceived ideas. |
Indeed. I understood the question to be whether you can draw a conclusion based on observable evidence about "sentience" given the inherent difficulties in being an unbiased observer without preconceived ideas. It's hard enough to do that with simple things. And yes, I take your point about the "scientific mind" (although I think that your personal comment was a bit below-the-belt...) I don't think anyone is contesting the scientific approach as being the best way to understand certain aspects of the physical universe.
You ask if I think sentience is something that is beyond the physical laws of the universe? The honest answer to that is that I don't know. (Isn't that a good scientific answer?!) But that's not because I think that it is, or even that there are things that physical laws cannot explain. It's that I am not sure that we can encompass the explanation. At least not at our present level of understanding. (Kind of like the old "explaining television to a caveman" dilemma.)
Let me have another shot at it. I think that sometimes the enthusiasm for explanations loses what I might (unhelpfully?!) call the "soul" of something. There is doubtless a perfectly rational scientific explanation for why the end of Toy Story 3 makes most people (including me) into a blubbering wreck every time they see it. But I am pretty sure that the makers didn't sit down with a scientific paper and work it out from equations and formulae - and I am extremely sceptical that such a model could be derived anyway.
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still Quiz Olympiad champion. Must get a life.
New definitions: COFFEE - someone who is coughed upon
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extro...*
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| Posted: Mon Jan 23, 2012 1:41 pm Post subject: 493 |
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First, conclusion B is not as good conclusion A.
| Zag wrote: |
I agree that I still don't understand what you mean by sentience. I see other organic beings who exhibit signs of being self-aware -- most humans, clearly, but also other mammals, to some degree. I don't see it in the toaster, nor in the set of physical laws, and I'm having trouble how you do.
How about if I use a different phrase, instead: self-aware. For a being to exhibit signs of self-awareness, there have to be abstractions -- expressions of ideas, desires, concepts, that are not the thing itself. The sun, for instance, does not have a desire to send light our way, it isn't a conscious thing it is doing. The light just happens because a ball of matter happened to come together that was massive enough to force, through its own gravity, to force hydrogen atoms to fusion into helium (mostly, that's what it is, though there is other fusion going on, as well).
My toaster does think, "oh, he wants me to make some heat to caramelize his bread. I guess I'm ok with that." It's just electricity run through a resistor that generates heat. The only conscious effort that went into it was me pushing the button down. Neither the sun, nor the toaster, nor the set of physical laws (in total) have any self-awareness, any ability to for abstract concepts. They just exist, without thought, desires, or self-awareness. |
I agree with all that. I'm frankly astonished that you don't know what I mean by "sentience". Is it possible I have this sort of sentience I'm speaking of, and that you don't?
Again, I can hook a webcam to my computer, and program it to say "red", "green", "blue", etc, depending on what it sees me point at. I point my finger at a red object, it says "red".
I can do similarly. I can identify colors. You can observe that I'm capable of that. But in addition to all the outwardly demonstrable signs of an ability to "see" colors ... and I include in "outwardly demonstrable" anything that could in principle be observed happening inside my brain ... in addition to all that, there is my own subjective experience of the color red, which I am utterly incapable of describing. If I met an intelligent alien organism with similar abilities as mine, able to identify colors, I might wonder if its subjective experience of red is like mine. But I'd have no way to know or determine that. It could see red as I see green, and vice versa. Red light striking its retina eventually produces a subjective experience of a certain character that it calls "red", but I don't know the character of that subjective experience. This having subjective experiences is what is meant by "sentience". I have no reason to expect the computer+webcam+program has any sort of subjective experiences of red or green or blue when it "sees" and identifies colors. |
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extro...*
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| Posted: Mon Jan 23, 2012 2:10 pm Post subject: 494 |
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| Scurra wrote: |
| You ask if I think sentience is something that is beyond the physical laws of the universe? |
It is beyond any scientific understanding. "Why does red look that way?" is inevitably met by "What way???", which is met by silence. (and we're, of course, talking about the character of the subjective experience of the color red) |
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extro...*
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Jedo the Jedi
Paragon in Training
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| Posted: Mon Jan 23, 2012 11:46 pm Post subject: 496 |
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I'm just going to jump in here with a sassy comment about it's pointless to have separate Atheism/Christianity threads if you guys are just going to jump the gap. 
_________________
Paragon Tally: 19 mafia, 3 SKs (1 twice), 1 cultist, numerous chat scum...and counting. |
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Zag
Unintentionally offensive old coot
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| Posted: Tue Jan 24, 2012 2:33 am Post subject: 497 |
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I apologize for the personal comment. I did qualify it to say "on this topic;" On it, I think you lose objectivity.
| Scurra wrote: |
| Let me have another shot at it. I think that sometimes the enthusiasm for explanations loses what I might (unhelpfully?!) call the "soul" of something. There is doubtless a perfectly rational scientific explanation for why the end of Toy Story 3 makes most people (including me) into a blubbering wreck every time they see it. But I am pretty sure that the makers didn't sit down with a scientific paper and work it out from equations and formulae - and I am extremely sceptical that such a model could be derived anyway. |
(I saw Toy Story 3, and I couldn't remember the ending -- I had to go look it up on wikipedia. And I cry at movies all the time.)
Of course, they didn't work out a tear-jerker ending from equations and formulae, they used another perfectly valid scientifically-supported method, inductive reasoning derived from experience. An emotional response to children's happiness is too easy to explain with natural selection. The emotional response that most people have to music is far more difficult to explain, and would (IMHO) make for a better argument. (... not that I find it compelling, either.)
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This might represent moving on to a new topic, or maybe responding to what you just said. Either way, let's move on.
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I'm not sure that this is how you're using it, but let me define "soul" this way. If you're not happy with this definition of that particular word, I'll use the word "blgnitso" instead.
Soul (or blgnitso): An aspect of humans (perhaps others, too, but we'll stick to humans) which is the essence of their individuality and consciousness. It is NOT completely contained in the physical, chemical, and electrical contents of their body, but is a component outside of those. In many (perhaps all) cases, it persists after the death of the body and continues to have a self-awareness of the human that it used to be a part of.
I contend that there is no evidence that such a thing exists, and therefore the superior working theory is that it doesn't (by Occam's Razor, again).
The complexities in the theory that it exists:
1. Where is this information stored? Self-awareness contains a ton of information. That can be stored with matter and/or energy, but you've excluded those.
2. If you posit a new form of stuff (spirit stuff, or something) that can hold information, but isn't matter or any of the known forms of energy, why can't we detect it or measure it? You've claimed that it CAN interact with matter (by causing the body to make decisions, move around, etc. while it IS still part of a living body), so it should be straightforward to make a meter of some sort that interacts with it, too.
The complexities in the theory that it doesn't exist:
1. How do you explain emotional reaction to, say, music? (a by-product of natural selection, since we are just machines for the reproduction of DNA, anyway. There are lots of emotional responses which are easily justified as likely to support passing on of genes. Having good hearing, especially for rhythms and patterns, has an obvious survival benefit. Music is not much of a leap for the brain mixing two concepts that weren't originally related. BTW, having a brain which frequently attempts to mix concepts which weren't originally related also has easily justified survival benefit.)
2. How do you explain the near-death experiences? (wishful thinking and oxygen-deprived hallucinations)
3. How do you explain this certainty I feel of a benevolent creator who loves me? (yet more wishful thinking; one that has an obvious survival benefit: In the proto-humans with this sort of wishful thinking, they were far more likely to go on after a death of a child, and reproduce again, than in the proto-humans who didn't have it.) |
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extropalopakettle
No offense, but....
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| Posted: Tue Jan 24, 2012 2:50 am Post subject: 498 |
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| Zag wrote: |
| If you posit a new form of stuff (spirit stuff, or something) that can hold information, but isn't matter or any of the known forms of energy, why can't we detect it or measure it? You've claimed that it CAN interact with matter (by causing the body to make decisions, move around, etc. while it IS still part of a living body), so it should be straightforward to make a meter of some sort that interacts with it, too. |
Without positing anything, but only working from what I (we?) know to exist, why can't we detect or measure sentience? It seems like it should be interacting with matter, as my statements about it (statements being in the realm of matter) seem to me to be entirely consistent with it. |
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extro...*
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| Posted: Tue Jan 24, 2012 11:39 am Post subject: 499 |
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| Zag wrote: |
| I contend that there is no evidence that such a thing exists, and therefore the superior working theory is that it doesn't (by Occam's Razor, again). |
This fails for sentience of course, unless the superior working theory need not be consistent with the facts (i.e. the superior working theory would be it does not exist). I contend truth is preferable to an untrue superior working theory. |
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Zag
Unintentionally offensive old coot
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| Posted: Tue Jan 24, 2012 5:49 pm Post subject: 500 |
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Something that you can't define well enough for someone else to understand, is hardly self-evident that it exists.
From the Wikipedia definition you pointed to, I'll take the very first sentence as the thesis: Sentience is the ability to feel, perceive or be conscious, or to have subjective experiences.
There's nothing there that can't be explained by the physical, chemical, and electrical make-up of the brain. There is certainly information involved, but we more or less understand how the brain stores information (both chemically and electrically). The fact that any signs of sentience disappear at the same time that the chemical and electrical activity end supports this claim rather well.
You act as though sentience is a "fundamental medium" like "matter" or "electrical energy," which would have to be the case for us to be able to measure it as you suggest. It is no such fundamental medium. It is merely an incredibly complex interaction of media we already know about.
On the other hand, in speaking about the soul (or the blgnitso, if you prefer -- or, it seems, what you are referring to as sentience), I say that this can't be claimed to exist until you describe the media upon which resides. I specifically include as part of the essential definition of blgnitso that it persists after the body with which it was associated no longer lives. (Perhaps you are not implying this as part of sentience.) It is this persistence, commonly referred to as "the afterlife" that I claim makes the entire concept untenable.
Let me restate: my argument against the existence of a soul is because its definition precludes its existence on media we already know about. Without evidence of some new medium to hold it, the superior theory is that it doesn't exist. Sentience, on the other hand (by the definition above, at least) can easily be explained as a complex interactions of media we already know about. There's no radically new concepts needed to explain it, just the acknowledgement that the subtlety of the interaction is still too complex for us to understand fully. However, we know how to interfere with their workings, and, with 100% correlation, this interference also stops all signs of sentience in the being so interfered with -- strong evidence that this theory is accurate. |
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extro...*
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| Posted: Tue Jan 24, 2012 7:36 pm Post subject: 501 |
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| Zag wrote: |
| Something that you can't define well enough for someone else to understand, is hardly self-evident that it exists. |
Well there's a proposition with no rationale or backing evidence.
And the juxtaposition of "self-evident" and "someone else" is amusing.
First of all, there are many that understand it. I've asked if you do, and you haven't quite answered. If the answer is that you don't, then that may be more unwillingness to discuss it that any inability on my part.
| Zag wrote: |
From the Wikipedia definition you pointed to, I'll take the very first sentence as the thesis: Sentience is the ability to feel, perceive or be conscious, or to have subjective experiences.
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Let's not forget: This is distinct from other aspects of the mind and consciousness, such as creativity, intelligence, sapience, self-awareness, and intentionality.
And I'll add to that that it's distinct from the ability to acquire and process and respond to information about one's surrounding.
Does a Venus fly trap "feel" anything? Does a mousetrap? There's a difference between being able to respond to a stimulus, and actually having a subjective experience of feeling it.
It really seems like your very bent on taking what you can explain, and shuttering your eyes to the very obvious which doesn't fit in so well.
| Zag wrote: |
| There's nothing there that can't be explained by the physical, chemical, and electrical make-up of the brain. |
Do you really not have subjective experiences? The way the color red looks to you, why it looks that way ... you think that can be explained by the physical, chemical, and electrical?
Let's say we could scan your brains activity down to a subatomic level in real time, and see what's going on at times when you report having the subjective experience of seeing red, and also at times when you report having the subjective experience of seeing green. Do you think it's possible to come up with a sensible explanation of why neural activity A produces red, neural activity B produces green, and not vice versa? Would that explanation be sensible to a colorblind or alien scientist, who has no clue what you mean by "red" and "green"?
| Zag wrote: |
| There is certainly information involved, but we more or less understand how the brain stores information (both chemically and electrically). |
Subjective experience. Why does my experience of seeing that color have that sort of ________ character? Can anyone answer that without me filling in the blank? Because if I fill it with "red" or "green", that's not filling it in at all. You don't know how red or green appear to me. You know your subjective experiences, not mine.
| Zag wrote: |
| The fact that any signs of sentience disappear at the same time that the chemical and electrical activity end supports this claim rather well. |
The fact that you say "signs of sentience" means you either still have no idea what "sentience" is referring to, or that you're not thinking clearly about it.
1) YES, it is self-evident, more so than anything. It is the very character of everything I experience. I experience it every waking moment of my life.
2) There are no outward signs of it to disappear. It's a fallacy to think so.
| Zag wrote: |
| You act as though sentience is a "fundamental medium" like "matter" or "electrical energy," which would have to be the case for us to be able to measure it as you suggest. It is no such fundamental medium. It is merely an incredibly complex interaction of media we already know about. |
Because you say so? No evidence? No science? No logic?
| Zag wrote: |
| On the other hand, in speaking about the soul (or the blgnitso, if you prefer -- or, it seems, what you are referring to as sentience), I say that this can't be claimed to exist until you describe the media upon which resides. I specifically include as part of the essential definition of blgnitso that it persists after the body with which it was associated no longer lives. (Perhaps you are not implying this as part of sentience.) It is this persistence, commonly referred to as "the afterlife" that I claim makes the entire concept untenable. |
I'm not implying anything. I've said associating sentience with the body is baseless.
Do you think a completely colorblind physicist is incapable of understanding wavelengths and frequencies of light? Imagine him a polymath, brilliant in physics, biology, neuroscience. He understands all the physical, chemical, and electrical things that go on in the brain. Now describe the color red to him, as it appears to you, such that he will understand. Can he explain why it appears that way to you?
( btw, what is "blgnitso"??? )
| Zag wrote: |
| Sentience, on the other hand (by the definition above, at least) can easily be explained as a complex interactions of media we already know about. There's no radically new concepts needed to explain it, just the acknowledgement that the subtlety of the interaction is still too complex for us to understand fully. However, we know how to interfere with their workings, and, with 100% correlation, this interference also stops all signs of sentience in the being so interfered with -- strong evidence that this theory is accurate. |
And again, you are apparently ignoring the definition:
| Quote: |
| In the philosophy of consciousness, "sentience" can refer to the ability of any entity to have subjective perceptual experiences, or "qualia". This is distinct from other aspects of the mind and consciousness, such as creativity, intelligence, sapience, self-awareness, and intentionality (the ability to have thoughts that mean something or are "about" something). |
What you're suggesting can be explained is things there are outward signs of, as observed in a persons behavior, however complex, and I've agreed to that long ago (many, many years ago). I believe machines will one day fully emulate human behavior. I wouldn't have evidence though that they have any subjective experience of the color red, for instance, even though they can behave exactly like a sighted person. That would be sentience. Just having only that one simple subjective experience, without creativity, intelligence, self-awareness ... that would be sentience. I have it, and I'm guessing you have it.
As long as you say "signs of sentience", you're not following. This isn't actually difficult, but I do think you're resisting as it conflicts with a deeply held belief.
btw, I suggested this page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qualia
Quoting from there:
| Quote: |
| Examples of qualia are the pain of a headache, the taste of wine, the experience of taking a recreational drug, or the perceived redness of an evening sky. Daniel Dennett writes that qualia is "an unfamiliar term for something that could not be more familiar to each of us: the ways things seem to us." Erwin Schrödinger, the famous physicist, had this counter-materialist take: "The sensation of colour cannot be accounted for by the physicist's objective picture of light-waves. Could the physiologist account for it, if he had fuller knowledge than he has of the processes in the retina and the nervous processes set up by them in the optical nerve bundles and in the brain? I do not think so." |
Schrödinger was no shmuck. |
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Zag
Unintentionally offensive old coot
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| Posted: Tue Jan 24, 2012 8:22 pm Post subject: 502 |
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| extro...* wrote: |
It really seems like your very bent on taking what you can explain, and shuttering your eyes to the very obvious which doesn't fit in so well.
Do you really not have subjective experiences? The way the color red looks to you, why it looks that way ... you think that can be explained by the physical, chemical, and electrical? |
yes. Easily. |
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extropalopakettle
No offense, but....
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| Posted: Tue Jan 24, 2012 9:10 pm Post subject: 503 |
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| Zag wrote: |
| extro...* wrote: |
It really seems like your very bent on taking what you can explain, and shuttering your eyes to the very obvious which doesn't fit in so well.
Do you really not have subjective experiences? The way the color red looks to you, why it looks that way ... you think that can be explained by the physical, chemical, and electrical? |
yes. Easily. |
OK, I'm game. I won't even pick on missing or incorrect details, or things without evidence. Propose a hypothetical explanation.
I'm curious how you're going to explain why it looks that way, when to the best of my knowledge, nobody has ever been able to describe what "that way" is.
I anxiously await.
(and why do you think Schrödinger thought it was imposible, what you say can be easily done?) |
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extropalopakettle
No offense, but....
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extropalopakettle
No offense, but....
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| Posted: Tue Jan 24, 2012 10:41 pm Post subject: 505 |
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Human beings can see three primary colors, red, green and blue. The colors we see naturally fit into a three dimensional color space. It is conceivable that some organism might have (in fact many do) a fourth primary color it can see, and it's color space would be 4 dimensional. This could be the case even if the visible light spectrum it sees is identical to our own (really, light is irrelevant to the discussion, and the light spectrum we see is distinct from our space of subjectively experienceable colors). The fourth primary color could be yellow, for instance. Our color space has red, green and blue dimensions. We can't distinguish between yellow light and a combination of red and green light. We see yellow, but it isn't primary for us. An organism that could see a fourth primary color would see it as different from any that we see, just as we see bluish colors different from all combinations of red and green. This would be a color we can't imagine, outside our experience.
Explain what sort of physical conditions within a brain would produce such a color experience (the one we can't see or imagine), what it might look like, and why it would look that way (i.e. why the subjective experience of it would be such as it would be).
Easy? A theory of how physical processes (neurological, whatever) produce subjective experiences of color would need to answer those sorts of questions. Methinks you underestimate the difficulty, not practically, but fundamentally. |
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BraveHat
Last of the Daedalians
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| Posted: Tue Jan 24, 2012 10:43 pm Post subject: 506 |
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Zag, do you exist? If so, how did you come to know that?
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"I am declaring it a terrible tragedy for me to die. You may disagree..." --Antrax |
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BraveHat
Last of the Daedalians
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| Posted: Tue Jan 24, 2012 10:48 pm Post subject: 507 |
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(re: above, please note that I'm not trying to be a smart ass or ridiculous. I'm trying to get to a sense of what extro is trying to say)
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"I am declaring it a terrible tragedy for me to die. You may disagree..." --Antrax |
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