The Symposium

A Raybould

01:09

@Dcleve am somewhat at a loss to figure out what you are saying here. To start with, ChatGPT and other LLMs are algorithms which give computing equipment some extremely interesting abilities when that equipment runs them (perhaps it is worth mentioning that while algorithms are abstract entities, computers executing algorithms are physical things.)

Secondly, you seem to suppose that my assessment of whether ChatGPT has a ToM is constrained by an assumption that it would have to work like ours does. This is not so, not least because I don't have a theory as to how ours works! My objection is primarily that the alleged evidence for a ChatGPT ToM is easily explained by it simply mimicking human language, which has been shaped by the human ToM.

I have little doubt that future AIs could develop and use every method humans use to learn about the world, but that is not the issue in the discussion between Ameet and Matthew, which is whether any such method can gain that knowledge in a way that does not ultimately derive from something having conscious experiences.

A Raybould

01:54

You say you do not doubt Matthew's assumption that we COULD have been qualia free. I'm curious whether you think that, if that were so, we would still argue about them?

Dcleve

13:30

@ARaybould No, I do not think we would argue about qualia if living organisms were purely physical, as there would have been no reason for qualia to exist. Organisms could do the FUNCTIONS we do without qualia, as we demonstrate as we are developing robots and software which can do intelligent functions without qualia. But we DO have qualia, and that is why we matter, and robots and software do not.

The attempts to explain WHY we have qualia, IE are conscious, by physicalists, all fail for a variety of reasons. I agree with Blackmore on that. She does not identify the more fundamental reason why they all fail empirical tests -- consciousness has been evolutionarily tuned, so it is causal. And all physicalist models ASSUME it is causally irrelevant.

The only explanations for consciousness that work, are either spiritually dualist, or emergence dualist.

If we were physical robots, we would have no qualia, nor consciousness, and would therefore not debate them.

Correcting one line above, "The only explanations for consciousness that work, are either spiritually dualist, or emergence dualist, AND put consciousness independently in our causal decision chain." I needed to add that, as Chalmers and Kim have revived epiphenomenal dualism, which also fails the evolutionary tuning test.

Matthew Christopher Bartsh

14:11

@Dcleve "Those protocells which became ensouled instead, had an immediate competitive advantage over the purely physical protocells, [...]" So how do you explain the inability of science to detect these "souls"?

Dcleve

14:28

@MatthewChristopherBartsh Support your claim that "science has been unable to detect souls"

Matthew Christopher Bartsh

@Dcleve I never heard of a case of detection of an immaterial soul mentioned in all my reading about biology, psychology, evolution, religion, philosophy, pseudoscience debunking (Martin Gardiner and James Randi for example) and brain science over many years. When did science detect a soul? And why did I not hear about it?

A Raybould

14:50

@Dcleve Ah, the "so prove me wrong" response. Matthew, it is an automatic loss to accept the burden.

Matthew Christopher Bartsh

15:23

@ARaybould @Dcleve I don't know for sure what you mean, but I guess you are alluding to the burden of proof. I certainly don't accept that the burden of proof is on me. It is up to those who claim immaterial souls exist to prove that. No one can prove that immaterial souls don't exist. Fortunately, science doesn't work that way. If your theory in not falsifiable, then it is not even wrong. I suspect Dcleve's claim that souls help cells or protocells to survive is not falsifiable.

Not even wrong.

Dcleve

15:36

@MatthewChristopherBartsh One of the predictions of substance dualism is that reduction to physics will fail for our world. This has happened. See SEP on scientific reduction, section 5. Note this is ALSO a prediction of emergent dualism, AND of intrinsic pluralism. That is feature of theories -- theories are underdetermined by evidence.

But this was a very top level prediction of spiritual dualism, which was testable, and has passed testing. Your assertion of untestability is -- falsified.

Dcleve

15:51

@MatthewChristopherBartsh The standard of science is that a theory, to be viable, must be compatible with the available facts. Blackmore's Very Short Introduction on Consciousness asserts that physicalism is not consistent with the facts of consciousness experiments and data. Blackmore claims that physicalism is SO well supported, that our data of consciousness must be a "delusion". This is to prioritize a theory over evidence.

Science does the opposite. Evidence trumps theory. If physicalism fails the tests against consciousness, then physicalism is incorrect. Meanwhile, spiritual dualism PASSES all of the tests identified by Blackmore. See amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/R1C1TJFIWBZ8ZQ/…

@MatthewChristopherBartsh -- the burden of proof is ALWAYS on you, and on me, and on anyone who argues for any POV. Your claim that your views are default, and have no burden of proof, is fallacious. YOU made a claim, and provided no evidence for it, and put the burden on ME to disprove it. I have done so, but I had no need to. YOU are obligated to examine ALL plausible refutations yourself, and show they do not apply.

@ARaybould -- see my response to Matthew above. He made a claim, and then did not support it, in any way. That is itself a fallacious assertion -- unsupported claim. Then asking ME to refute it, is a further fallacy, the shifting of burden of proof.

@ARaybould -- I try to apply the standard above -- look for all plausible refutations, to my own views. I have, therefore, read extensively in the arguments FOR and detailing OF physicalism. This has REDUCED at least to my mind, the viability of physicalism as a viable alternative to dualism. Kim abandoned physicalism with his effort to detail it: amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/R1LFTMUSP8VEWB/…

Dcleve

16:19

So did Stoljar: amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/R13R2OUNXMIN6H/…. And I already pointed you to how Blackmore also considers physicalism refuted, IF consciousness is "real". The one major writer who detailed it who did not abandon it was Melnyk, but he did not address its challenges: amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/R1A8I0RTYJEDJM/…

I also have reviewed some of the major popular attacks on dualism. Here is my evaluation of The Soul Fallacy: amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/R293PDYZ9ZN9SN/… And Augustine's The Myth of an Afterlife: amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/R293PDYZ9ZN9SN/…

Matthew Christopher Bartsh

@Dcleve What is the name of the falsifiable theory about cells or protocells having souls that enhance their reproductive success. Which science journal is a paper about it published in, and when, and who are author(s).

@AmeetSharma I already said, " Such data might include easily observed things like screams, frowns, tears, flushing, rolling around on the ground, saying things like "ouch", and later saying or writing "it was agony", fearful expressions and running away later when whatever caused the injury or whatever is encountered again ("once bitten, twice shy", as they say)."

A Raybould

16:39

@Dcleve Unless someone thinks there is scientific evidence, there is nothing to discuss here. If they do, then there is nothing else to discuss here but that evidence.

Matthew Christopher Bartsh

@AmeetSharma Other agonizing tooth pain behavior would likely include moaning or screaming in pain, shedding tears, saying that your tooth was hurting, and asking how it could be cured. Also, paying whatever money it costs, up to and including everything you have, including your selling your home if necessary, if the only operation that could stop the pain cost that much. And yet not actually feeling any pain. That's what it would mean to lose the pain but keep the pain behaviors.

@AmeetSharma According to the traditional ways of thinking, this is completely plausible, at least in principle, because pain is a quale, in essence, fundamentally. Thus you could have all the pain behaviors without any pain, simply by removing the quale, while keeping the pain behaviors. But to the illusionist, you cannot separate the pain from the pain behaviors. The pain is the pain behaviors and there is nothing beside that to pain.

Ameet Sharma

19:33

"Other agonizing tooth pain behavior would likely include moaning or screaming in pain, shedding tears, saying that your tooth was hurting, and asking how it could be cured. Also, paying whatever money it costs, up to and including everything you have, including your selling your home if necessary, if the only operation that could stop the pain cost that much. And yet not actually feeling any pain. That's what it would mean to lose the pain but keep the pain behaviors."

And to be clear, this is what illusionism says is happening. We have behaviors but no feeling.

"But to the illusionist, you cannot separate the pain from the pain behaviors. The pain is the pain behaviors and there is nothing beside that to pain."

This does not make sense. You said that there is no pain qualia for the illusionist. ie: no pain feeling. Only behaviors. Let's leave out the semantics of how the word "pain" is defined. The illusionist says there are only behaviors not feelings right?

So the illusionist is saying... the thing I want to get rid of... the "pain feeling" does not exist in the first place.

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