What is God?

[s0crates]

This is such a strange claim... It sounds like a strawman. Can you please substantiate your beef with Dennett?

I'm not going to write you a thesis, but I'll elaborate somewhat.

Dennett is a behaviorist. He says things like this, "Since psychology's task is to account for the intelligence or rationality of men and animals, it cannot fulfill its task if anywhere along the line it presupposes intelligence or rationality."

Dennett was a student of Gilbert Ryle, an avowed behaviorist whose philosophy is the very definition of the term. I think nowadays he is calling himself a "verificationist," and he admits that his project is basically the same as it was when he was studying under Ryle.

http://www.trinity.edu/cbrown/mind/behaviorism.html

And behaviorists do say consciousness just is behavior. For example, Norman Malcolm, who comes from the same school of thought as Dennett, famously defined a "a dream" as "a disposition to tell a story upon waking." And while that may be cute, it obviously isn't true.

 

Behaviorism, the doctrine, is committed in its fullest and most complete sense to the truth of the following three sets of claims.

1. Psychology is the science of behavior. Psychology is not the science of mind -- as something other or different from behavior.

2. Behavior can be described and explained without making ultimate reference to mental events or to internal psychological processes. The sources of behavior are external (in the environment), not internal (in the mind, in the head).

3. In the course of theory development in psychology, if, somehow, mental terms or concepts are deployed in describing or explaining behavior, then either (a) these terms or concepts should be eliminated and replaced by behavioral terms or ( they can and should be translated or paraphrased into behavioral concepts.

. . .

Arguably, a version of analytical or logical behaviorism may also be found in the work of Daniel Dennett on the ascription of states of consciousness via a method he calls ‘heterophenomenology'

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/behaviorism/

So you see my example of defining "a pain" as "pain behavior" is actually quite precise.

Don't accuse me of a straw man because other people believe stupid things.

[s0crates]

An explanation of X, or a model of X, is not the same as X. Is anybody thinking otherwise? Your opponents could not possibly be that wrong.

Hard to believe isn't it? Now you get why I react to this crap the way I do.

 

Functionalism is the doctrine that what makes something a thought, desire, pain (or any other type of mental state) depends not on its internal constitution, but solely on its function, or the role it plays, in the cognitive system of which it is a part. More precisely, functionalist theories take the identity of a mental state to be determined by its causal relations to sensory stimulations, other mental states, and behavior.

. . .

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/functionalism/

I'm not just making stuff up here. I admit I'm treating matters with overly simple examples for the sake of clarity, but the theory says what the theory says.

[s0crates]

I have concerns about the "irreducible" part.

I think you probably mistake the meaning of "irreducible" here. I'm not saying consciousness is not explainable at the level of neurons; I'm just saying that an explanation at that level will leave out something real.

Consider "folk" psychological concepts like desires and beliefs for example. These are hard to make sense of without taking account of intentional content. A desire is seeking to make the world match an intention, and a belief intends to match the world. It is hard to imagine a desire or belief absent some mental subject.

Now Patricia Churchland (a paragon of a reductive materialist) can snicker at this if she wants. I imagine she'd say, "Look at the silly unenlightened folk who think they have desires and beliefs!" But frankly I think she is the one who looks silly. I do have desires and beliefs.

Again, I like the way Searle puts it. If a scientist comes up to me and says "We have discovered you have no desires and beliefs." I don't think to myself, gee maybe she has a point.

 

Let's do a thought experiment. Let's say that we found a way to quantify consciousness as C. Humans typically have between 67C and 84C. Chickens have around 3C, cows have between 10C and 17C, pigs get up to 25C, dolphins come at around 33C, bonobos top out the rest of the animal kindom at up to 40C. In other words, consciousness that humans have is different from animals in degree but not in kind. Would consciousness still be considered irreducible?

I'm sure it is a difference of degree.

This leads my mind to some interesting questions of speculative metaphysics.

Whitehead has this idea that reality is made of "actual occassions." Basically the idea is that reality is made of drops of experience, interdependent, and in process. So an atom may have say, .00000000001C, and it is thus the type of thing that could be conscious in a complex enough arrangement.

His definition, "Actual entities--also termed Actual Occasions--are the final real things of which the world is made up. There is no going behind actual entities to find anything more real. ...The final facts are, all alike, actual entities; and these actual entities are drops of experience, complex and interdependent."

Again, it's speculative, and I'm not prepared to defend it, but I have a hunch he was on the right track.

As it is, we are still trying to establish the seemingly axiomatic principle that consciousness is real, so speculative system building will have to wait.

[alexey]

I'm not going to write you a thesis, but I'll elaborate somewhat.

Dennett is a behaviorist. He says things like this, "Since psychology's task is to account for the intelligence or rationality of men and animals, it cannot fulfill its task if anywhere along the line it presupposes intelligence or rationality."

I see you labeling Dennett, and then arguing against the label.

 

Dennett was a student of Gilbert Ryle, an avowed behaviorist whose philosophy is the very definition of the term. I think nowadays he is calling himself a "verificationist," and he admits that his project is basically the same as it was when he was studying under Ryle.

http://www.trinity.edu/cbrown/mind/behaviorism.html

Here I see you labeling Dennett's professor, and arguing against the label.

 

And behaviorists do say consciousness just is behavior.

This looks like the "setting up a label" section of the strawman.

 

For example, Norman Malcolm, who comes from the same school of thought as Dennett, famously defined a "a dream" as "a disposition to tell a story upon waking." And while that may be cute, it obviously isn't true.

Interesting things are behind that "obviously isn't true" door, if you are willing to relax your incredulity.

 

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/behaviorism/

So you see my example of defining "a pain" as "pain behavior" is actually quite precise.

Don't accuse me of a straw man because other people believe stupid things.

I hear you say that you never took their arguments seriously enough to actually think about.

How would you deal with a more nuanced account from Dennett himself?

http://ase.tufts.edu/cogstud/dennett/papers/msgisno.htm

 

Hard to believe isn't it? Now you get why I react to this crap the way I do.

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/functionalism/

I'm not just making stuff up here. I admit I'm treating matters with overly simple examples for the sake of clarity, but the theory says what the theory says.

I see you saying: person X says Y, Y sounds like (theory), (theory) is wrong, person X is wrong.

I just do not see you engaging in a careful, deliberate consideration on these topics.

http://ase.tufts.edu/cogstud/dennett/papers/msgisno.htm

Dennett writes ("he" might as well be you):

But when he goes on to proclaim a sharp distinction between "behaviorism, functionalism, eliminativism, and instrumentalism as competing answers," he sees differences that don't hold up, in my opinion. My answer, in any event, mixes elements from all of these, and denies that there is any good reason to cleave to a less eclectic answer.

 

I think you probably mistake the meaning of "irreducible" here. I'm not saying consciousness is not explainable at the level of neurons; I'm just saying that an explanation at that level will leave out something real.

I see you saying that you will not be satisfied if your assumptions are challenged.

 

Consider "folk" psychological concepts like desires and beliefs for example. These are hard to make sense of without taking account of intentional content. A desire is seeking to make the world match an intention, and a belief intends to match the world. It is hard to imagine a desire or belief absent some mental subject.

Now Patricia Churchland (a paragon of a reductive materialist) can snicker at this if she wants. I imagine she'd say, "Look at the silly unenlightened folk who think they have desires and beliefs!" But frankly I think she is the one who looks silly. I do have desires and beliefs.

Snickering Churchland, oh my!

I see you displaying some strong emotions when your folk psychology gets challenged.

[PeterMP]

These questions do not compute for me. I cannot concieve of unexplainable things or speak meaningfully about them.

Sure you can. You can't really explain why people have consciousness. You can tell us mechanisms by which people have consciousness, but they aren't real explanations because they could be wrong.

It is possible that consciousness is unexplainable. That science (or any other method to discover knowledge) will never create a model that accurately reflects consciousness.

And it certainly is currently unexplainable.

Yet you have no issues conceiving it or talking about it.

And even proposing possible explanations.

 

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1468-0068.2007.00666.x/full

First, I don't think this paper has anything to do with negative responses or positive responses so I don't think it addresses the issue at all directly or how things are different between a deterministic mind sent vs an indeterministic mind set.

You might use it to argue that people's behavior won't change if they know the world is deterministic, but they didn't address that directly. Their research sort of suggests that (if people are already acting that way it is possible then that knowing it won't change anything).

That even in a deterministic world people will still hold other people morally responsible for their actions.

That isn't the same as saying that people's behavior won't change, especially when there is more direct research that shows otherwise.

And that doesn't even really address the issue do they hold people LESS responsible. Is there a difference between comparing what happens in universe A to universe B?

 

But they didn't ask if there was a difference between people's response of universe A and B.

There is no comparison between deterministic and non-deterministic done in the paper you've posted.

There is no comparison between positive and negative responses done in the paper you've posted (for something to be "negative", it has to be compared to something else.  There has to be a difference.).

It doesn't directly address either of the issues.

Lastly, the difference isn't just language in my opinion. They are setting out different scenarios and/or different levels of information.

When people talk about language making a difference, I'm used to the same scenario being presented using different language.

An example from academics is how people view a professor based on how a syllabus is worded. I can have two syllabi that lay out the same polices and expectations that use different approaches. Have the same person present them to different audiences and the audience will perceive the person differently based on whether the syllabi are written from a positive or negative manner.

For example:

Assignments that are handed in late will be penalized 10 points per a day up to 2 days. After 2 days, late assignments will not be accepted and the student will be given a 0.

vs.

Students can hand in assignments up to two days late and still receive partial credit. For assignments that are one day late, students can receive up to 90% of the possible points. If an assignment is handed in 2 days late, students can still receive up to 80% of the possible points.

In the above two examples, the policy is the same. Practically the students are being treated the same way, but studies show that the students perceive the person presenting the syllabus differently.

The difference between Bill stalking and raping strangers and Mark cheating on his income taxes or Bill killing his wife and people generally being responsible for their actions is more than just language.

[Kosher Ham]

Religious threads.

 

Same as many others.

 

Make one point at a time, unfortunately many people that may have read your points and the ones that do... are just annoyed.

[Chachie]

Keep going, guys. We're almost at the answer to "What is God?"  

[alexey]

Sure you can.

I can only talk about explainable things. If something is 50% explainable and 50% unexplainable, I can only talk about the explainable 50%.

When you say "unexplainable universe" - I understand you to say it is 100% unexplainable, and thus nothing meaningful can be thought or said about it.

You can't really explain why people have consciousness. You can tell us mechanisms by which people have consciousness, but they aren't real explanations because they could be wrong.

This is up to you. You may or may not be satisfied with existing or possible explanations. You may or may not decide to consider them "real explanations".

I am not aware of an objective standard for "real explanation".

It is possible that consciousness is unexplainable. That science (or any other method to discover knowledge) will never create a model that accurately reflects consciousness.

Many people are working on explanaining consciousness, with tons of progress.

Whatever explanations they will produce in the future, you may or may not condsider them to "accurately reflects consciousness".

I am not aware of an objective standard for "model that accurately reflects consciousness".

And it certainly is currently unexplainable.

This is a matter of individual perspective. You say it is unexplainable because there is no "real explanation" that satisfies you. Other people may say - consciousness if explainable and we are making great progress in explaining it.

Yet you have no issues conceiving it or talking about it.

And even proposing possible explanations.

Because I am one of those people to say it is explainable and we are making great progress in explaining it.

This is a matter of opinion and I do not expect you to agree with me.

First, I don't think this paper has anything to do with negative responses or positive responses so I don't think it addresses the issue at all directly or how things are different between a deterministic mind sent vs an indeterministic mind set.

You might use it to argue that people's behavior won't change if they know the world is deterministic, but they didn't address that directly. Their research sort of suggests that (if people are already acting that way it is possible then that knowing it won't change anything).

I am not arguing that people's behavior won't change. I accept that it will, as it should.

The question is how it will change. Your attempt to generalize the outcome of that one study is invalid if we demonstrate that language can play a critical role.

That even in a deterministic world people will still hold other people morally responsible for their actions.

That isn't the same as saying that people's behavior won't change, especially when there is more direct research that shows otherwise.

Indeed - people's behavior will change, but they will still hold other people morally responsible.

Even though many people still find Bill responsible that doesn't mean that there aren't differences if you compare between Universe A and B.

There are very important differences indeed. This is an important conversation, as it can drive things like a much needed re-evaluation of our revenge-and-punishment based judicial system.

Which they didn't do and is really what you are trying to argue. That nothing changes.

The way you think about it changes, of course... as well as conversations that you have, and so on. My point was that you would not lose all hope and freedom - you will still get out of bed in the morning.

Lastly, the difference isn't just language in my opinion. They are setting out different scenarios and/or different levels of information.

"language is important"

"only language is important"

I said the former but not the latter. Please read my statements as carefully as I try to make them.

When people talk about language making a difference, I'm used to the same scenario being presented using different language.

That would be a very interesting family of studies. Unfortunately they would not make the headlines as easily as "belief in determinism makes people do bad things"

An example from academics is how people view a professor based on how a syllabus is worded. I can have two syllabi that lay out the same polices and expectations that use different approaches. Have the same person present them to different audiences and the audience will perceive the person differently based on whether the syllabi are written from a positive or negative manner.

...

There are tons of fascinating research on this.

Daniel Kahneman's "Thinking, Fast and Slow" is a tour de force on this subject matter.

[alexey]

s0crates,

Here is Dennett's explanation - including an explanation why you refuse to take him seriously.

Steven Pinker on free will

[PeterMP]

I can only talk about explainable things. If something is 50% explainable and 50% unexplainable, I can only talk about the explainable 50%.

When you say "unexplainable universe" - I understand you to say it is 100% unexplainable, and thus nothing meaningful can be thought or said about it.

I raised this direct point in the post before that.

I raised the possibility of a universe where things are partially explainable.

You said the questions don't compute.

Clearly, they do.

Or you wouldn't raise the same points in this post.

 

Many people are working on explanaining consciousness, with tons of progress.

Whatever explanations they will produce in the future, you may or may not condsider them to "accurately reflects consciousness".

Okay, but again.

Consciousness isn't explainable or people wouldn't still be working on it.

We wouldn't have to be making progress. We'd be done.

And you easily talk about consciousness.

And you don't JUST talk about the part that is explainable.

You make comments about the part that aren't currently explainable. You suggest potential explanations.

That's talking about something that is (currently) unexplainable.

If I can't talk and think about things that are (currently) unexplainable, science would never make any progress.

To bring this back around to my point, when nature was very much unexplained. Augustine looked at his image of God (which reflects the concept of God for a large number of Christians today (essentially all Christians that don't believe in a literal interpertation of the Bible)) and said that based on his concept of God that studying nature will reveal information about nature.

To us today that seems self-evidence. But at the time, it wasn't clear at all.

And today it is possible that our understanding of consciousness will not advance another bit. That after today all work on the study of consciousness will fail to result in reliable, repeatable, consistent, and sensible results.

Yes, at some level we will say consciousness is explainable.

And yes people will continue to work on understanding consciousness.

And even in that context, there might be points in time where they appear to make progress.

But it is possible that over longer periods of time results will be found to be inconsistent and unreliable.

Science doesn't make the prediction that studying nature will reveal information about nature.

But theological scholars well be for the development of science did make that prediction based on their belief in and image of God.

That's a powerful prediction that has been found to be true. To talk about the possibility and probability that God exist from a probabilistic stand point and not take that prediction into account results in a major flaw in any conclusions.

Especially in the context that is consistent with the beliefs of the majority of US Christians, and I suspect large numbers of religious of other faiths

(Just to point out, that I suspect that some day we will be able to create a good probabilistic mode for consciousness. That some day essentially everybody will say that consciousness is explained.) 

I am not arguing that people's behavior won't change. I accept that it will, as it should.

The question is how it will change. Your attempt to generalize the outcome of that one study is invalid if we demonstrate that language can play a critical role.

My original point was intentionally very vague and general, but that was to ensure that I didn't generalize anything (and I can point you to more than one study to support my view if you'd like).

I didn't even bring up any specific way in which people's behavior will change. I didn't even use the term negative.

You said:

"How would your life change if you learned that determinism is true?"

I said:

"That THINKING about the possibility that life might be deterministic affects a significant number of people to suggest that actually knowing wouldn't affect ANYBODY is just dumb."

If we can agree that people's lives will change, then we can discuss HOW they will change.

Your thread of posts on the subject seemed to make an argument that his (s0crates) life won't change.

You then doubled down on that with:

"Some studies demonstrated morally negative outcomes when people were presented with an affirmation of determinism. Note that these outcomes may depend on the particular language used in the study. I would caution against generalizing these results for determinism as a whole."

I asked you for a study.

You responded with a study that doesn't do any sort of comparison to that would allow one to address the possibility of "negative".

The only real issue your study addresses that is at ALL relevant to the point is that EVERYBODY doesn't think that in a deterministic system that NOBODY is responsible for their actions.

The fact that there are compatibilist is all I really need to know to affirm that.

(Note, the study you posted makes other points about how people behave with respect to different scenarios in a deterministic system, but since nobody even mentioned the idea of different scenarios it isn't at all relevant to anybody's points made in this thread. Nobody claimed that in a deterministic system everybody would respond the same to all moral scenarios or even made a point at all related to that.)

So we have:

1. Some people's behavior will change.

2. I'd even double down on that based on the studies I know and say a significant number of people's behavior will change.

You seem to agree with at least #1.

Now, you put the question to s0crates, but I'll raise to the point to you.

How do you think people's lives will change?

Why do you think that their life will change in that way?

Lastly, you've made a couple of comments like:

"This premise assumes that determinism at the very low level (atoms and molecules) has a particular effect at the very high level (us and what we do). How sure are you about this particular effect?"

I'm curious with respect to the train of thought.

Are you saying that you believe there is a molecular/atomic deterministic system and macro-non-deterministic system?

[PeterMP]

s0crates,

Here is Dennett's explanation - including an explanation why you refuse to take him seriously.

I just want to point out that I think Dennett is wrong.

I don't think a good nano-naturalistic mechanism for consciousness really says anything about a God given free will in the traditional sense.

And to suggest it does is just bad science.

[PokerPacker]

Just want to cut in with a small thing on terminology. "Unexplainable" states it is impossible to explain, while it seems you may mean to say "unexplained" which is simply stating that we do not currently have the explanation.

[s0crates]

Religious threads.

Same as many others.

Yeah . . . They always end with Peter, alexey, and I talking Philosophy.

I cannot speak for them, but I enjoy it.

[PeterMP]

Just want to cut in with a small thing on terminology. "Unexplainable" states it is impossible to explain, while it seems you may mean to say "unexplained" which is simply stating that we do not currently have the explanation.

 

Realistically, I'm talking about things that are potentially unexplainable.  Things that are unexplained, then are potentially unexplainable.

 

When Augustine said that we could learn about nature by studying it, much of nature was unexplained.

 

It was possible that he was wrong.  It was possible that from a naturalistic/scientific approach that nature was unexplainable.

 

But he wasn't.

 

At least much of consciousness is unexplained.

 

As such it might be unexplainable (note that isn't my expectation.  I expect that consciousness will become pretty well explained.  I'm just saying that it is possible).

 

If we are going to be define unexplainable as (always and forever) impossible to explain, then I'm not sure it is safe to ever use the word.

 

Would anybody ever really want to claim that there is something that never ever will be an explanation for?

[s0crates]

I just want to point out that I think Dennett is wrong.

I don't think a good nano-naturalistic mechanism for consciousness really says anything about a God given free will in the traditional sense.

And to suggest it does is just bad science.

I think you get my meaning.

Dennett seems to be working on the false assumption that admitting the proposition "consciousness is real" somehow involves something supernatural. It's an unconscious product of our Cartesian intellectual heritage which has forced he and others to draw the preposterous conclusion that there is no such thing as consciousness, because they wrongly assume that admitting that there is consciousness would be to admit something spooky.

[alexey]

I raised this direct point in the post before that.

I raised the possibility of a universe where things are partially explainable.

You said the questions don't compute.

Clearly, they do.

...

Consciousness isn't explainable or people wouldn't still be working on it.

...

I do not understand:

what you mean by "explainable" and "unexplainable"

how you would classify something that is potentially explainable or potentially unexplainable

how you decide whether a particular explanation is good enough to make something explainable or explained

(e.g. explanation: the brain makes the mind. Is the mind explained now?)

And today it is possible that our understanding of consciousness will not advance another bit. That after today all work on the study of consciousness will fail to result in reliable, repeatable, consistent, and sensible results.

How did you arrive to this conclusion?

Science doesn't make the prediction that studying nature will reveal information about nature.

But theological scholars well be for the development of science did make that prediction based on their belief in and image of God.

That's a powerful prediction that has been found to be true. ...

I think that humans have natural curiosity.

If we can agree that people's lives will change, then we can discuss HOW they will change.

Let's do that.

Your thread of posts on the subject seemed to make an argument that his (s0crates) life won't change.

Yes, in a sense that upon learning about deterninism s0crates will retain his ability to place an order at a restaraunt.

1. Some people's behavior will change.

2. I'd even double down on that based on the studies I know and say a significant number of people's behavior will change.

You seem to agree with at least #1.

Now, you put the question to s0crates, but I'll raise to the point to you.

How do you think people's lives will change?

Why do you think that their life will change in that way?

I believe that more accurate models of reality help people to improve their lives... so I think people's lives will change for the better.

One reason is because it will improve people's ability to think through questions of freedom, choice, punishment, etc.

I am sharing these views as information only. I am not trying to convince you of anything. I will gladly discuss my reasons some other day.

"This premise assumes that determinism at the very low level (atoms and molecules) has a particular effect at the very high level (us and what we do). How sure are you about this particular effect?"

I'm curious with respect to the train of thought.

Are you saying that you believe there is a molecular/atomic deterministic system and macro-non-deterministic system?

Interesting question. I trace the assumption of determinism through all layers of emergence... but the relationship between determinism and the emergent phenomena is different at different levels of emergence.

I think you get my meaning.

Dennett seems to be working on the false assumption that admitting the proposition "consciousness is real" somehow involves something supernatural. It's an unconscious product of our Cartesian intellectual heritage which has forced he and others to draw the preposterous conclusion that there is no such thing as consciousness, because they wrongly assume that admitting that there is consciousness would be to admit something spooky.

Dennett seems to say: consciousness is real and it's a bag of tricks. How about that?

[s0crates]

I see you labeling Dennett, and then arguing against the label.

Here I see you labeling Dennett's professor, and arguing against the label.

Seriously? I quoted Dennett directly, I referenced two sources that cite Dennett, and I traced his intellecual heritage.

I see you refusing to accept anything less than a line by line refutation of Dennett's books. If you consider a straightforward summary of his position a strawman, then it is hard to see how we can proceed. This is really just a matter of definition at this point.

Dennett is a behaviorist (or at the very least some sort of eliminativist). I'm not saddling him with a view he does not proclaim himself. This is simply what he thinks.

I hear you say that you never took their arguments seriously enough to actually think about.

You need to listen better then. I'm quite familiar with Dennett's work. I've read "Darwin's Dangerous Idea," "Consciousness Explained," "Freedom Evolves," and "Breaking the Spell." There was a time I took his argument quite seriously, and although I've come to the conclusion that he is wrong, it is not for lack of considering what he has to say. It is because I have considered it.

How would you deal with a more nuanced account from Dennett himself?

"Nuance" is a funny word to apply to Dennett, but I'll take a look at it; next post.

I see you saying: person X says Y, Y sounds like (theory), (theory) is wrong, person X is wrong.

X says Y

Y says Z

Z is false

Therefore Y is false

Therefore X is wrong

That is a valid form, is it not?

Dennett writes ("he" might as well be you):

But when he goes on to proclaim a sharp distinction between "behaviorism, functionalism, eliminativism, and instrumentalism as competing answers," he sees differences that don't hold up, in my opinion. My answer, in any event, mixes elements from all of these, and denies that there is any good reason to cleave to a less eclectic answer.

I'm not sure how you can read and understand those sentences and still say I have mischaracterized Dennett. He is plainly stating that he holds the view I have attributed to him.

He is quite right that behaviorism, functionalism, and eliminativism amount to the same thing (a denial of the proposition "consciousness is real"). I think he is obviously wrong to embrace that worldview, but he does; here he states it explicitly.

I see you saying that you will not be satisfied if your assumptions are challenged.

You're not that far off, except what you call an "assumption" is actually an axiom.

I do accept the following proposition as axiomatic: "I am a conscious being."

Any theory that would deny that axiom must be false. Once again, if Churchland tells me "We have discovered you are not conscious," then I don't think to myself, "Well, gee, maybe she has a point."

I see you displaying some strong emotions when your folk psychology gets challenged.

I see you evading all my arguments in an ad hominem fashion. You attack my scholarship rather than address my point.

[s0crates]

How would you deal with a more nuanced account from Dennett himself?

http://ase.tufts.edu/cogstud/dennett/papers/msgisno.htm

A few things to note:

1. Here Dennett explicitly endorsed the view you claim I have falsely attributed to him. He says, "So let me confirm Jackson's surmise that I am his behaviorist," and, "So there is no real conflict between my endorsement of behaviorism and my endorsement as well of what we may call virtual machine functionalism--they come to the same thing."

I've already stated repeatedly why this view fails. My pain is not the same thing as my pain behavior, nor is my pain merely inputs and outputs. "I feel a pain" doesn't mean "I cry out." Nor does "I felt a pain" mean "I got hit by a hammer and cried out." Both behaviorism and functionalism fail because they deny the actual feeling of pain itself.

I know it's hard to believe anybody thinks such things, at least when you state them plainly, but this is nonetheless the way Dennet thinks.

2. Here Dennett treats mental states as an illusion, a claim that trips off the tongue of eliminativists like him. "Supposing that there is something in addition to these complex families of reactive dispositions is falling for an illusion, plain and simple--an illusion of subtraction, you might call it."

It simply won't do to say a mental state is an illusion. The reason why is straightforward: the distinction between reality and illusion presupposes mental states. To say something is "an illusion" is to say that my mental state does not reflect to reality.

For example, when I see the Muller-Lyer illusion, the lines appear different lengths in my mind, but in reality they are the same length.

So to say consciousness is an illusion is simply preposterous. It's a category error.

3. And here, I think, is the source of Dennett's confusion.

"Indeed, if Tye and Shoemaker want to see a card-carrying Cartesian materialist, each may look in the mirror, for their commitment to qualia or "phenomenal seemings" itself involves a covert assumption that there is a privileged medium in the brain, the medium in which these properties get instantiated--as I will now try to show briefly. When Tye says that advocates of the reality of phenomenal seemings "are not committed to holding that there is a single place in the brain in which the seemings and feelings occur" this is really just because these advocates have not developed their allegiance to this reality beyond the vaguest of handwavings. Presumably "phenomenal seemings" are seemings-to-me (as opposed to the non-phenomenal seemings that are just seemings-to-my-retina or seemings-to-some-unconscious-control-process), but making this distinction requires that one identify a privileged neural medium--the Medium, you might call it--transduction into which marks the onset of true phenomenal seeming."

You see Dennett, although he takes himself to be criticizing Cartesianism, actually adopts the Cartesian assumption that phenomenalism implies spooky stuff. Of course he is right to reject spooky stuff, but he is wrong to think admitting of mental states would be to admit of spooky stuff.

[alexey]

Seriously? I quoted Dennett directly, I referenced two sources that cite Dennett, and I traced his intellecual heritage.

I see you refusing to accept anything less than a line by line refutation of Dennett's books. If you consider a straightforward summary of his position a strawman, then it is hard to see how we can proceed. This is really just a matter of definition at this point.

Dennett is a behaviorist (or at the very least some sort of eliminativist). I'm not saddling him with a view he does not proclaim himself. This is simply what he thinks.

I can work with arguments like this:

"Dennett says xyz. Xyz is wrong because ...."

I cannot work with arguments like this:

"Dennett says xyz. Xyz is behaviorism. Behaviorism is wrong because ..."

Let's try it. Dennett says that concsiousness is a bag of tricks. It is real like a magic trick is real. You think this is wrong because?

"Nuance" is a funny word to apply to Dennett, but I'll take a look at it; next post.

X says Y

Y says Z

Z is false

Therefore Y is false

Therefore X is wrong

That is a valid form, is it not?

X says Y

X does not think that Y says Z

s0crates thinks that Y says Z...

He is quite right that behaviorism, functionalism, and eliminativism amount to the same thing (a denial of the proposition "consciousness is real"). I think he is obviously wrong to embrace that worldview, but he does; here he states it explicitly.

Do you see these statements as equivalent:

"your understanding of consciousness is incorrect"

"consciousness is not real"

You're not that far off, except what you call an "assumption" is actually an axiom.

I do accept the following proposition as axiomatic: "I am a conscious being."

Any theory that would deny that axiom must be false. Once again, if Churchland tells me "We have discovered you are not conscious," then I don't think to myself, "Well, gee, maybe she has a point."

What if Churchland said: ""We have discovered you are not conscious in the way that you think you are"

[alexey]

A few things to note:

1. Here Dennett explicitly endorsed the view you claim I have falsely attributed to him. He says, "So there is no real conflict between my endorsement of behaviorism and my endorsement as well of what we may call virtual machine functionalism--they come to the same thing."

I've already stated repeatedly why this view fails. My pain is not the same thing as my pain behavior, nor is my pain merely inputs and outputs. "I feel a pain" doesn't mean "I cry out." Nor does "I felt a pain" mean "I got hit by a hammer and cried out."

I know it's hard to believe anybody thinks that, at least when you state it plainly, but that is nonetheless what Dennet thinks.

I interpret that passage to mean something else. Here is one that directly addresses the behaviorism question. How do you understand it:

Some traditionally well-regarded mental states should be eliminated; in other words, only a reformed folk psychology stands in need of materialistic reduction. Now we must deal with the leftovers: what makes it true that people have the real mental states is facts about their behavioral dispositions and capacities, but these facts can be perspicuously and efficiently expressed only from the intentional stance, an instrument of prediction (and explanation). As for functionalism, in its defensible version, it is not really an alternative to behaviorism, but simply a reflection of the tight constraint behavioral capacities (as described from the intentional stance) place on internal states. So let me confirm Jackson's surmise that I am his behaviorist; I unhesitatingly endorse the claim that "necessarily, if two organisms are behaviorally exactly alike, they are psychologically exactly alike."

http://cogprints.org/272/1/msgisno.htm

[s0crates]

Let's try it. Dennett says that concsiousness is a bag of tricks. It is real like a magic trick is real. You think this is wrong because.

See point #2 in my above reply to Dennett.

To treat consciousness as an illusion is a category error.

Do you see these statements as equivalent:

"your understanding of consciousness is incorrect"

"consciousness is not real"

What if Churchland said: ""We have discovered you are not conscious in the way that you think you are"

I think you are attributing to Dennett and Churchland a view that is more plausible than the one they actually endorse.

It is one thing to say consciousness is explainable in X terms, it is something else entirely to say consciousness just is X.

Dennett and Churchhland are saying the latter, you think they are saying the former, which I agree is more plausible, but it is not their view.

You would do better to go back to the emergence theories you were endorsing earlier than to try to defend this nonsense.

[s0crates]

I interpret that passage to mean something else. Here is one that directly addresses the behaviorism question. How do you understand it:

I'm not sure what you are asking me to do, so I'll just translate all these whoppers Dennett tells into the vernacular.

Some traditionally well-regarded mental states should be eliminated; in other words, only a reformed folk psychology stands in need of materialistic reduction.

Translation:

"Folk psychological concepts" or "traditionally well-regarded mental states" include things like pains, pleasures, desires, beliefs, and intentions. I think we should eliminate those from our ontology; that is I thinks they are not real.

For example, what you call "a desire" doesn't exist.

Now we must deal with the leftovers: what makes it true that people have the real mental states is facts about their behavioral dispositions and capacities . . .

Translation:

Mental states are behaviors. For example, a pain is nothing but a pain behavior. "I feel a pain" is identical to "I cry out."

. . . but these facts can be perspicuously and efficiently expressed only from the intentional stance, an instrument of prediction (and explanation).

Translation:

Obviously my view is absurd, so I have invented something called the "intentional stance" as an ad hoc account of the the obvious facts my view cannot explain.

Or . . . well of course we assume mental states are real in practice. But that is just a "stance" that has no bearing on the nature of reality.

As for functionalism, in its defensible version, it is not really an alternative to behaviorism, but simply a reflection of the tight constraint behavioral capacities (as described from the intentional stance) place on internal states. So let me confirm Jackson's surmise that I am his behaviorist; I unhesitatingly endorse the claim that "necessarily, if two organisms are behaviorally exactly alike, they are psychologically exactly alike."

http://cogprints.org/272/1/msgisno.htm

Translation:

I agree with any view that denies consciousness is real.

[alexey]

See point #2 in my above reply to Dennett.

2.

...

It simply won't do to say a mental state is an illusion. The reason why is straightforward: the distinction between reality and illusion presupposes mental states. To say something is "an illusion" is to say that my mental state does not reflect to reality.

It has been empirically established that our mental states are not reflections of reality.

(Unless you mean "reflection" in a loose sense)

I think you are attributing to Dennett and Churchland a view that is more plausible than the one they actually endorse.

It is one thing to say consciousness is explainable in X terms, it is something else entirely to say consciousness just is X.

Dennett and Churchhland are saying the latter, you think they are saying the former, which I agree is more plausible, but it is not their view.

Do you have sources for this?

(I am asking for X saying Z here, not the stuff where X says Y and s0crates thinks Y says Z)

[s0crates]

necessarily, if two organisms are behaviorally exactly alike, they are psychologically exactly alike.

Dennett just finished having sex. He turns to his partner and says, "It was good for you. Was it good for me too?"

If you get the joke, then you get my point. Any theory that denies the first person ontology of consciousness is in error.

[s0crates]

I interpret that passage to mean something else.

I think your interpretation of his view is plausible. It's just that what you think he says isn't what he actually says.

Reading through your comments again, I think your view is much more plausible than Dennett's. You admit consciousness is real and, as yet, it is unexplained. You also think consciousness is explainable in objective (perhaps emergent) terms. I think that's probably right.

I'm not really sure why you've suddenly committed yourself to Dennett's less plausible view, that consciousness is an illusion, explainable entirely in reductionistic objective terms, and what's more, he's explained it!

Why adopt the view of the guy who calls his book "Consciousness Explained" when your own view is so much better?

It has been empirically established that our mental states are not reflections of reality.

This has nothing to do with what I was saying. Are you purposely evading my points?

I said, the proposition "consciousness is an illusion" contains a category mistake. Illusions involve a "seeming," and "seeming" necessarily involves consciousness (indeed "seeming" is basically what consciousness is).

Take Dennett's magic trick example. It seems like the magician saws a women in half, but in reality he doesn't. That is, it looks to me like he sawed her in half. I cannot describe the illusion without reference to how it looks to me.

The whole concept of an illusion presupposes some kind of first-person ontology.

Do you have sources for this?

I've quoted Dennett directly and repeatedly on the point. You're nitpicking.