Eliminating Qualia

[ryan]

But my post has nothing to do with aboutness. The explanation of aboutness is still generally considered a mystery.

Cool, in that case I'd be grateful if you explain what you mean by 'observation' if you don't mean aboutness.

Would you agree that there is a type of property in the universe that is causally effective by nature, namely physical properties?

Most people think so, especially property monists. After all it is how we notice different kinds of matter.

Then there is a property of subjective observation which is in addition to the physical/causal properties that we observe everything else having.

Observing physical properties and the physical properties themselves are 2 very different things. Sure they might both exist within a single substance, but they are not the same thing.

At least accept that there is a property of being observable and another property of being able to observe.

 

[Subsymbolic]

No, I asked for objective evidence because that's what you always ask for....

You are some piece of twisted work.

So do you still want something to experience as you pretend to not experience the products of my mind?

All you have to share is behaviour. Unless you have objective evidence of anything else.

 

[Subsymbolic]

Cool, in that case I'd be grateful if you explain what you mean by 'observation' if you don't mean aboutness.

Would you agree that there is a type of property in the universe that is causally effective by nature, namely physical properties?

Do you just mean that there are physical properties?

Most people think so, especially property monists.

I'm not a property monist. Do you mean substance?

After all it is how we notice different kinds of matter.

I'll license the premise for the sake of argument.

Then there is a property of subjective observation which is in addition to the physical/causal properties that we observe everything else having.

That sounds like aboutness to me. Mental content, whether intentional or phenomenal, is always about something. It is representational.

Observing physical properties and the physical properties themselves are 2 very different things.

Careful, you are dangerously close to Locke's 'primary and secondary properties' unless all you are doing is rehearsing the RTM

Sure they might both exist within a single substance, but they are not the same thing.

Either I'm being dense, or all you are talking about here is representation.

At least accept that there is a property of being observable and another property of being able to observe.

I'm happy to say that some physical states can be representational of other physical states. I don't see that as a particular property of minds though.

I think we may be talking past each other.

Are you trying to articulate some variation of the representational theory of mind?

 

[untermensche]

No, I asked for objective evidence because that's what you always ask for....

You are some piece of twisted work.

So do you still want something to experience as you pretend to not experience the products of my mind?

All you have to share is behaviour. Unless you have objective evidence of anything else.

Ideas and concepts are not behaviors.

Humans can actually share them.

I have told you again and again.

All evidence is a subjective experience reported in language.

There is no objective evidence.

That is just a label people put on subjective experiences when they think the experience has an existent external cause.

The external cause is always a belief and never more.

 

[Subsymbolic]

All you have to share is behaviour. Unless you have objective evidence of anything else.

Ideas and concepts are not behaviors.

Humans can actually share them.

I have told you again and again.

All evidence is a subjective experience reported in language.

There is no objective evidence.

That is just a label people put on subjective experiences when they think the experience has an existent external cause.

The external cause is always a belief and never more.

You have explained nothing.

You have imagined you have explained something.

 

[ruby sparks]

Well we know at least some of what the mind does.

For example? Personally, I'm not sure we do.

Specifically, by 'do' I meant what are its functions and roles and capabilities? Is it causal, or autonomous?

 

[Elixir]

All you have to share is behaviour. Unless you have objective evidence of anything else.

Ideas and concepts are not behaviors.

Humans can actually share them.

I have told you again and again.

All evidence is a subjective experience reported in language.

There is no objective evidence.

That is just a label people put on subjective experiences when they think the experience has an existent external cause.

The external cause is always a belief and never more.

Actually, ideas and concepts ARE behaviors; the behaviors of various cells and electronic signals between them. And no, they are cannot be "shared", as the set of bio-electrical behaviors will never be exactly the same in two different brains. (You may have noticed that when someone says 'I understand' it is very possible that in fact they do not.)
As far as "objective" goes (an admittedly limited distance), it is just word that describes the subjective agreement between individuals regarding their subjective experiences. Observations/evidence that can be repeated indefinitely and elicit universal (or nearly universal - there will always be outlying nutbars) agreement between observers, is called objective evidence. This makes it distinct from an individual's notion of objectivity, and is why it forms the basis of scientific methodology. And it's why the religious are famous for refusing to "look through the glass".
Repeatable observations may not yield purely objective conclusions, but close enough so that science WORKS. Or at least I think we can agree that it does... but feel free to dispute that too, of course.

 

[untermensche]

All you have to share is behaviour. Unless you have objective evidence of anything else.

Ideas and concepts are not behaviors.

Humans can actually share them.

I have told you again and again.

All evidence is a subjective experience reported in language.

There is no objective evidence.

That is just a label people put on subjective experiences when they think the experience has an existent external cause.

The external cause is always a belief and never more.

You have explained nothing.

You have imagined you have explained something.

You are nothing but a parrot.

I forgot.

This takes a mind and somebody that can use it.

- - - Updated - - -

All you have to share is behaviour. Unless you have objective evidence of anything else.

Ideas and concepts are not behaviors.

Humans can actually share them.

I have told you again and again.

All evidence is a subjective experience reported in language.

There is no objective evidence.

That is just a label people put on subjective experiences when they think the experience has an existent external cause.

The external cause is always a belief and never more.

Actually, ideas and concepts ARE behaviors; the behaviors of various cells and electronic signals between them.

There is no proof of that.

There is no electrical model of experience.

 

[ryan]

Do you just mean that there are physical properties?

yes

Most people think so, especially property monists.

I'm not a property monist. Do you mean substance?

Interesting, so what other property/eis besides physical properties do you believe exist?

Then there is a property of subjective observation which is in addition to the physical/causal properties that we observe everything else having.

That sounds like aboutness to me. Mental content, whether intentional or phenomenal, is always about something. It is representational.

Yeah, I suppose aboutness is implied for what I am talking about. But what I am trying to get at more specifically is the subjective observation, or just observation. There exists, at least, the observing and the observable. Those feel very distinct to me. That's where I am at.

Observing physical properties and the physical properties themselves are 2 very different things.

Careful, you are dangerously close to Locke's 'primary and secondary properties' unless all you are doing is rehearsing the RTM

and ...

I mean you aren't really addressing my claim in anyway that furthers the discussion.

Sure they might both exist within a single substance, but they are not the same thing.

Either I'm being dense, or all you are talking about here is representation.

This was about property dualism, substance monism.

At least accept that there is a property of being observable and another property of being able to observe.

I'm happy to say that some physical states can be representational of other physical states. I don't see that as a particular property of minds though.

In this instance I would say that the mind is needed to be aware of the representation. Without the mind, representation/intentionality is pretty meaningless.

 

[Elixir]

...ideas and concepts ARE behaviors

There is no proof of that.

It is very strongly indicated by the FACT that no ideas or concepts have ever emerged from anyone, absent bio-electrical activity.
Also very strange that someone arguing that there is no such thing as an objective fact, is demanding proof!

There is no electrical model of experience.

Actually, yes, there is. One example

 

[untermensche]

It is very strongly indicated by the FACT that no ideas or concepts have ever emerged from anyone, absent bio-electrical activity.
Also very strange that someone arguing that there is no such thing as an objective fact, is demanding proof!

There is no electrical model of experience.

Actually, yes, there is. One example

If you say so.

I see no generation of experience in that paper.

I see the generation of something that is experienced.

 

[Subsymbolic]

Interesting, so what other property/eis besides physical properties do you believe exist?

Mental properties. As I've argued earlier and elsewhere, some physical states are also mental states at the same time in much the same way that Chomolunga and Sagarmartha are the same thing seen from different perspectives. The first person perspective and the third person perspective are different enough. That's phenomenology. I also have argued, at length in this thread that some logical states are irreducibly emergent from the physical. So that's a minimum of three different properties from one substance.

Yeah, I suppose aboutness is implied for what I am talking about. But what I am trying to get at more specifically is the subjective observation, or just observation. There exists, at least, the observing and the observable. Those feel very distinct to me. That's where I am at.

I prefer aboutness and representation as they don't imply an observer. Obviously observation does and I'm not that sure that I want to use a word with such baggage in this position.

Observing physical properties and the physical properties themselves are 2 very different things.

Careful, you are dangerously close to Locke's 'primary and secondary properties' unless all you are doing is rehearsing the RTM

and ...

You'll end up being forced towards idealism and not wanting to be. It's an old and well beaten path. See Berkeley.

I mean you aren't really addressing my claim in anyway that furthers the discussion.

I am. I'm pointing out that it's making a rather old mistake.

Sure they might both exist within a single substance, but they are not the same thing.

Either I'm being dense, or all you are talking about here is representation.

This was about property dualism, substance monism.

I don't see it, you'll have to explain.

At least accept that there is a property of being observable and another property of being able to observe.

I'm happy to say that some physical states can be representational of other physical states. I don't see that as a particular property of minds though.

In this instance I would say that the mind is needed to be aware of the representation. Without the mind, representation/intentionality is pretty meaningless.

Why? What makes minds so special? I just see this as a religious way of looking at the matter. Intentionality is a false prescientific theory of mental content and representation is ubiquitous throughout nature.

Anyway I'm off to bed. Don't let the bedzombies bite.

 

[ruby sparks]

It is very strongly indicated by the FACT that no ideas or concepts have ever emerged from anyone, absent bio-electrical activity.
Also very strange that someone arguing that there is no such thing as an objective fact, is demanding proof!

There is no electrical model of experience.

Actually, yes, there is. One example

That stuff is COOL.

Apparently, after training software to recognise your patterns of brain activity, algorithms can decode what you are thinking in subsequent trials. Letters, for example:



As I understand it, the three images in the bottom row are decoded versions of whichever letter the subject is imagining (A, T and R shown).

 

[Subsymbolic]

It is very strongly indicated by the FACT that no ideas or concepts have ever emerged from anyone, absent bio-electrical activity.
Also very strange that someone arguing that there is no such thing as an objective fact, is demanding proof!

There is no electrical model of experience.

Actually, yes, there is. One example

If you say so.

I see no generation of experience in that paper.

I see the generation of something that is experienced.

Yup, that's because your metaphysics is all wrong. Ask nature the wrong question in the wrong way and you can be sure of the wrong answer.

- - - Updated - - -

It is very strongly indicated by the FACT that no ideas or concepts have ever emerged from anyone, absent bio-electrical activity.
Also very strange that someone arguing that there is no such thing as an objective fact, is demanding proof!

There is no electrical model of experience.

Actually, yes, there is. One example

That stuff is COOL.

Apparently, after training software to recognise your patterns of brain activity, scientists can decode what you are thinking in subsequent trials. Letters, for example:

View attachment 15777

As I understand it, the three images in the bottom row are decoded versions of whichever letter the subject is imagining.

Puts on very very very suspicious face. But still slopes off to bed. Remind me in the morning, but I bet a fiver that something stinks.

 

[Elixir]

If you say so.

I see no generation of experience in that paper.

I see the generation of something that is experienced.

Yup, that's because your metaphysics is all wrong. Ask nature the wrong question in the wrong way and you can be sure of the wrong answer.

- - - Updated - - -

It is very strongly indicated by the FACT that no ideas or concepts have ever emerged from anyone, absent bio-electrical activity.
Also very strange that someone arguing that there is no such thing as an objective fact, is demanding proof!

There is no electrical model of experience.

Actually, yes, there is. One example

That stuff is COOL.

Apparently, after training software to recognise your patterns of brain activity, scientists can decode what you are thinking in subsequent trials. Letters, for example:

View attachment 15777

As I understand it, the three images in the bottom row are decoded versions of whichever letter the subject is imagining.

Puts on very very very suspicious face. But still slopes off to bed. Remind me in the morning, but I bet a fiver that something stinks.

Agree - looks like a lot was added "in translation". But nonetheless, Unter's proclamation on high is falsified.

 

[untermensche]

If you say so.

I see no generation of experience in that paper.

I see the generation of something that is experienced.

Yup, that's because your metaphysics is all wrong. Ask nature the wrong question in the wrong way and you can be sure of the wrong answer.

I at least have a metaphysics.

And it includes the truth that all a human has access to are their experiences. There is nothing else. From morning to night. Everyday. Nothing but experiences.

If you disagree name something that is not an experience.

Language is the experience first of hearing it. Then of producing it. There is no mystical aspect of language beyond our experience of one.

- - - Updated - - -

Agree - looks like a lot was added "in translation". But nonetheless, Unter's proclamation on high is falsified.

You mistake what is experienced with what experiences it.

 

[Elixir]

I see the generation of something that is experienced.

Well then - you just contradicted yourself again. It is a MODEL - something of which you denied the existence. You were wrong, QED.
You even EXPERIENCED the existence of that model. Didn't understand it of course, but it's pretty silly to deny that the model exists in the face of your direct experience of the fact that it does.

Don't bother stretching your assertion to mean "perfect model" because even you know that models are not the thing they model, any more than maps are the territory they describe.

 

[untermensche]

I see the generation of something that is experienced.

Well then - you just contradicted yourself again. It is a MODEL - something of which you denied the existence. You were wrong, QED.
You even EXPERIENCED the existence of that model. Didn't understand it of course, but it's pretty silly to deny that the model exists in the face of your direct experience of the fact that it does.

It is not a model of "that which experiences".

It is a model of something experienced.

And you use "that which experiences" to experience it.

 

[Subsymbolic]

If you say so.

I see no generation of experience in that paper.

I see the generation of something that is experienced.

Yup, that's because your metaphysics is all wrong. Ask nature the wrong question in the wrong way and you can be sure of the wrong answer.

- - - Updated - - -

It is very strongly indicated by the FACT that no ideas or concepts have ever emerged from anyone, absent bio-electrical activity.
Also very strange that someone arguing that there is no such thing as an objective fact, is demanding proof!

There is no electrical model of experience.

Actually, yes, there is. One example

That stuff is COOL.

Apparently, after training software to recognise your patterns of brain activity, scientists can decode what you are thinking in subsequent trials. Letters, for example:

View attachment 15777

As I understand it, the three images in the bottom row are decoded versions of whichever letter the subject is imagining.

Puts on very very very suspicious face. But still slopes off to bed. Remind me in the morning, but I bet a fiver that something stinks.

Yeah - I'm looking at s7 and s8 with deep suspicion. They are pulling a fast one (probably on themselves) with their training sets. Taking the training data and the test data from the same cohort is just asking for a decent probabilistic analysis to find non obvious regularities between the two. I'd use two seperate training sets generated with a freshly purchased or generated random sample for each.

I'll have to think about it, but it looks like the pattern isn't in the head. They are trying to pull pattern out of noise so hard that they succeed when they almost certainly shouldn't. God knows this happened enough back in the early days of connectionism and this feels very similar.

That said, the retinotopic sheath does represent isomorphically to the surface of the eye and you could certainly pull this sort of 'mexican hat' driven pattern out of the eye. I'm just unsure that voxels are a sharp enough tool to catch them and BOLD would normally be way way too slow. I suppose if you spent enough time training... However, that's a very very specialist part of the brain that deals with early visual processing, and boy they must have set it up carefully so it's not telling us anything that we wouldn't expect.

 

[ryan]

Mental properties. As I've argued earlier and elsewhere, some physical states are also mental states at the same time in much the same way that Chomolunga and Sagarmartha are the same thing seen from different perspectives. The first person perspective and the third person perspective are different enough. That's phenomenology. I also have argued, at length in this thread that some logical states are irreducibly emergent from the physical. So that's a minimum of three different properties from one substance.

How can there be mental properties and no mind?

I prefer aboutness and representation as they don't imply an observer.

I agree. But how can the aboutness be known/discovered without an observer to observe/know its existence?

You'll end up being forced towards idealism and not wanting to be. It's an old and well beaten path. See Berkeley.

I have been through this too. I came to the need for a second kind of general property. I have been explaining them as the observable and the observer.

I mean you aren't really addressing my claim in anyway that furthers the discussion.

I am. I'm pointing out that it's making a rather old mistake.

I like how Chalmers deals with "old mistakes". But I like to use my own analysis.

Sure they might both exist within a single substance, but they are not the same thing.

I don't see it, you'll have to explain.

nm

At least accept that there is a property of being observable and another property of being able to observe.

I'm happy to say that some physical states can be representational of other physical states. I don't see that as a particular property of minds though.

In this instance I would say that the mind is needed to be aware of the representation. Without the mind, representation/intentionality is pretty meaningless.

Why? What makes minds so special? I just see this as a religious way of looking at the matter. Intentionality is a false prescientific theory of mental content and representation is ubiquitous throughout nature.

Anyway I'm off to bed. Don't let the bedzombies bite.

First of all, you can't really know for sure that intentionality exists for any other system but your own. You can't know this because the mind is limited and spotty. Second, the known/observed and the unknown/unobserved are reminders that there at least 2 essential properties in nature. We start with the known/observed and we assume there exists the unknown/unobserved somewhere out there. I will tentatively say that the mind is the observed/known.