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Matthew Christopher Bartsh
Matthew Christopher Bartsh
00:11
@AmeetSharma "If my consciousness has no causal impact, I don't see what knowledge of science would mean." There would be robots publishing papers, which would be read by other robots. Experiments would be carried out by robots, and scientific theories would get replaced by better scientific theories. Thus science would be done and scientific knowledge would increase.
Anyone, robot or human could then learn about the real world by reading the latest and most highly rated scientific papers published by the robots.
Robots could build machines using the scientific knowledge generated by the robot scientists, and colonize other planets. Whether you were skeptical would not affect this. You would still be free to get on a spaceship and travel to Mars for a holiday.
Wikipedia has an article called "Radical skepticism". It says, "Radical skepticism (or radical scepticism in British English) is the philosophical position that knowledge is most likely impossible.[1] Radical skeptics hold that doubt exists as to the veracity of every belief and that certainty is therefore never justified. To determine the extent to which it is possible to respond to radical skeptical challenges is the task of epistemology or "the theory of knowledge".[2]
It seems to me that Popper's view of science is that scientific method entails, or at the very least is compatibie with radical skepticism. If science never says any theory is true, but at best is only the best theory that science has been able to come up with so far, isn't science being radically skeptical?
Radical skepticism
Radical skepticism (or radical scepticism in British English) is the philosophical position that knowledge is most likely impossible. Radical skeptics hold that doubt exists as to the veracity of every belief and that certainty is therefore never justified. To determine the extent to which it is possible to respond to radical skeptical challenges is the task of epistemology or "the theory of knowledge". == See also == Pyrrhonism Cratylism Epistemological nihilism Nihilism Skepticism == References == Leavitt, Fred (2021) If Ignorance is Bliss We Should All be Ecstatic. Open Books Notes...
 
2 hours later…
Ameet Sharma
Ameet Sharma
02:07
"Robots could build machines using the scientific knowledge..." How can you know any of this? If you were to deny consciousness exists, then how can you affirm/deny anything? You're not a robot... I assume you're a conscious being like me. Your only access to the external world is through the senses. But if you deny these things even exist, then how can you know anything. To read a scientific paper, you need to use your senses... but if consciousness doesn't exist, then this doesn't make sense.
 
15 hours later…
Matthew Christopher Bartsh
Matthew Christopher Bartsh
17:07
""Robots could build machines using the scientific knowledge..." How can you know any of this?"" I can't be sure about this, of course. I admit that it was pure speculation.
Leaving aside the question of whether robots lacking consciousness and experience really will one day do science, could you please consider, as a hypothetical scenario, a future where all science is done by robots that lack consiousness and experience.
Please explain how the lack of conciousness and experience by the robots prevents them doing science, if you still believe that.
Recall that you wrote in this chat room a day or two ago: "For example I have the memory of doing an experiment or reading a scientific journal. I make a prediction based on this. But as far as the illusionism thesis memories have nothing to do with science. Memories are an experience. I need to at least believe I am having a memory experience... and that memory experience has some relation to the world and past events etc."
@AmeetSharma
Ameet Sharma
Ameet Sharma
17:54
Yes, I think robots can do all this if they are programmed to. I think non-conscious systems can be made to imitate conscious systems. But I doubt this capacity is unlimited.. The issue here is that I think the causal mechanisms operating in a computer are different from a conscious being. Yes, I think they'll be able to do science. What I doubt is their ability to do "philosophy of science" like Hume or Popper. And I doubt that an artificial system will come up with science on its own.
None of this is really relevant to Frankish's claims. The point is not that non-conscious systems can imitate the behavior of conscious systems. Few people doubt this. The claim he is making is that even within systems we consider conscious... the consciousness is not having any causal impact. ie: within my own mind/body consciousness plays no causal role. That's extremely difficult to believe.
 
2 hours later…
Matthew Christopher Bartsh
Matthew Christopher Bartsh
19:32
Frankish is saying that consciousness is an illusion, and qualia do not exist. I don't think he is saying consciousness has no causal impact, because I think Frankish is saying that something that is an illusion cannot have a causal effect on anything in any way. Just as an atheist does not say that God has no causal impact, but rather that God does not exist, Frankish is saying qualia do not and cannot exist.
As I said earlier, I think Frankish is much more plain speaking than Dennett, and makes it very clear what he means. Just as it is an illusion that a stage magician cuts a woman in half, and the woman is not really cut in half, it is an illusion that we have qualia, and we don't really have qualia. We have, in a sense, consciousness, but it doesn't mean what most people mean by it, which is qualia posessing consiousness.
This part of Frankish's teaching is certainly hard to get one's head around. According to Frankish, it doesn't mean nothing matters, or that there is nothing worth living for, or that nothing is morally wrong. But then, he would say that, wouldn't he?
 
3 hours later…
Ameet Sharma
Ameet Sharma
22:43
"Just as it is an illusion that a stage magician cuts a woman in half, and the woman is not really cut in half, it is an illusion that we have qualia, and we don't really have qualia. " Yeah, I've heard this same type of thinking from Dennett and I have never understood it. Ok so we don't have qualia, but there is this "seeming like there is qualia"... which just substitutes one problem for the other. Now you have to explain why this "seeming like there is qualia" exists instead of qualia itself. I don't see how it's any better.

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