Personally I think it’s silly as hell. Qualia is obviously a biological component of experience… Not some weird thing that science will never be able to put in to words.
I’ve been listening to a lot of psychology podcasts lately and for some reason people seem obsessed with the idea despite you needing to make the same logical leaps to believe it as any sort of mysticism… Maybe I am just tripping idk
To provide some info to those unaware:
Pansychism is the philosophy that consciousness is at the root of the universe in the same way matter is. Everything has consciousness innately built into it, our brains just have the capabilities of harnessing that consciousness in particular ways.
This philosophy is popular because it helps address “the hard problem of consciousness” which is basically the question of why do we have subjective experience at all? If we are simply biological machines bumping against our environment why do we have subjective experience and why is that subjective experience so… Subjective?
Biology seems to explain this pretty simply: consciousness is the systems ability to take external and internal diagnostics and use it to make decisions that will help achieve homeostasis within the system, assuring system stability, improving evolutionary success…
To me, that explanation seems to cover all the bases. Why is my red different than yours? Because we are different physical constructs in different places in spacetime. We are different variables in the equation, we will have different outputs.
Why can’t we locate that red in the brain? Because red isn’t real, it’s your experience piecing together a whole heap of sensory data and presenting it in an identifiable way, because being able to distingiush different wave lengths gives you an evolutionary advantage.
The problem with this argument is that consciousness is not required for distinguishing between wavelengths. To the extent that we understand consciousness, we can conclude that it’s likely that butterflies don’t have a conscious experience - they’re capable of seeing and responding to red light, but they probably don’t think about it. So the question becomes “what is the evolutionary benefit of being able to experience ‘redness’?” The response there is that not everything has to be evolutionary advantageous. Consciousness could be a spandrel. If it is, what was the selection process that originated it? Abstract reasoning? Theory of mind?
Evolution isn’t teleological, so random shit just happens. If that mutation is beneficial it would lead to increased prosperity for the creature with said mutation. Some creature down the line developed eyes and it helped them get their fuck on and that’s why we have consciousness.
Butterflies do fine without consciousness, but humans do a lot better (proof hexbear.net)
I legitimately cannot imagine a p zombie that would do okay in the modern world. You need consciousness to adapt.
Yeah, hence my use of the term spandrel. Not all mutations have to have a selective benefit to persist, but given that consciousness has (apparently) arisen, at least to some degree, multiple times, we can conclude that it may have arisen from something that had direct selective benefit.
This is a teleological assumption because there are critters out there with eyes but not any apparent consciousness, so there’s no reason to assume that the subjective experience of “redness” is an inevitable consequence of vision development.
Butterflies have been around doing their thing for considerably longer than humans and, at the rate we’re going, will probably outlive us, so I think you may be using an anthropocentric set of scoring criteria.
The nature of a p zombie is such that if one existed, you’d have no way of knowing if it was one (but you might have a strong suspicion; looking at you, Mark Zuckerberg). The second part is clearly wrong. Behavioral adaptations are observable in creatures as simple as nematodes, so, while a nematode will probably never be able to experience the glories of Microsoft Excel, there’s nothing saying that consciousness is a requirement for remaining extant - in terms of both numbers and biomass, nematodes have us handily beat. In a human example, Peter Watts references the phenomenon blindsight in his novel of the same name; some folks lose access to vision processing and are functionally blind, but their brains are still capable of responding to visual input. All I think we can currently say is that human-level complex behavior does not appear to be possible without consciousness, but that take might be challenged by future developments.
When I say I don’t think they can exist I mean I don’t think they can exist in our actual reality. The thought experiment is usually that someone is literally a 1:1 copy of you but without consciousness: how do you figure out they’re a zombie. My argument is that it is literally physically impossible to have my 1:1 brain and not have consciousness, as consciousness is derived from your brains processees.
When I say a p zombie could not exist because they need to adapt I am talking about a human p zombie in a modern city. They literally could not function. They would very quickly die.
And to use your example of “why consciousness”. The p zombie paints the picture. Put a p zombie in a busy street in a busy city and they get hit by a car and die. The exact same person with consciousness can interpret the situation and avoid getting ran over. That’s why consciousness came to be evolutionarily.
Imagining a p zombie is like imagining a computer that is supposedly running without an operating system… The operating system IS the computer… It can’t run
That’s not an “argument”, that’s literally the most text book example of begging the question that I can imagine.
They are literally behaviorally identical to a regular person. Jesus fucking Christ, this is such Reddit tier pseudo intellectualism. "I never bothered to actually comprehend the argument, but it’s dumb and irrational anyway. Fucking no investigation, no write to speak, you self important chud
No. Imagining a p zombie is like imagining a computer that isn’t conscious but still works. You know, the thing nobody has any problem doing!
How? Your behavior is literally dictated by how hard I hit you five minutes ago. Is that P Zombie the same as then? Or now?
A P Zombie is not real. Its anime shit. I am DETERMINED BY MY PAST, yet a ZOMBIE with no SEMBLANCE of my past determines the same thing? That doesn’t make sense.
Read the paper.
Read the fucking paper
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I read the paper. Literally nonsense. Even Chalmers himself argues that Zombie Chalmers would be making the exact same argument as Non Zombie Chalmers, so the actual question is what are we asking? Can I imagine a universe with P Zombies? Sure. I can imagine an ice cube that is hot. I can imagine a box that contains itself. Doesn’t mean its possible or relevant to the conversation at all. What about this universe? Are we arguing there are P Zombies in this universe? If so, how? Are we simply arguing that consciousness may exist outside of the physical realm? If so, explain the mechanism that allows it to interact with the physical realm and cause physical effects on our brains.
I don’t think you’re honoring the thought experiment as originally proposed, which stipulated that p zombies are behaviorally identical to ordinary humans, so they would react to and avoid the car. Even without that stipulation, we should assume that p zombies would still exhibit reflexive behavior, given that people can react to danger without first consciously processing it. This gets us back to my original observation that a lot of non-human animals are able to exhibit complex behaviors without apparently having consciousness, so the question is still whether the conscious experience is actually doing something or if it’s just a byproduct of certain cognitive processes.
Thats what I am saying: they can’t. The P-Zombie you have invented in this thought experiment is question begging. We cannot have a behaviorally identical Pzombie because humans are driven by consciousness, which P-Zombies are incapable of. Category error. An unconscious human gets hit by a car if they’re in the middle of the road.
This question only works if you believe in the P-Zombie. Its a non-starter if you don’t.
Its the same problem I have with Mary’s Room. If Mary has all knowledge of color she can perfectly imagine that color in her mind, because I am capable of doing so with my incredibly small knowledge of color… to say Mary would “learn something new” when she sees color for the first time is a category error. We are making semantic mistakes over the definition of “knowledge”, not asking anything truly groundbreaking.
I didn’t come up with the idea; blame David Chalmers. All I was saying that is that if you want to use p zombies as they were proposed, you have to accept the conceit that they’re behaviorally identical to regular humans. If you don’t think it’s possible for p zombies to exist, that’s fine; I never suggested they were a thing (except you, Mark Zuckerberg). But to say that they can’t exist because you need consciousness in order to exhibit human qualities is also question-begging, or potentially argument from incredulity depending on how you’re framing it.
You’re conflating two definitions of “conscious” here, “awake” and “capable of subjective experience,” while I’m assuming the p-zombie argument addresses only the latter. Awake humans are capable of (and routinely engage in) behaviors that are not consciously driven. I’ve provided multiple counter-examples, including blindsight and ordinary reflexes. A human who is not consciously aware of a car can still avoid a car, it’s demonstrable.
Is it your contention that all animals are conscious, then?
I believe the original framing was that if Mary had knowledge of the physical properties of color but has never experienced seeing red, she won’t be able to know the sensation of seeing red until she’s actually exposed to red light. Which seems fine to me. You can imagine red because you have prior experience of the color red, so we can conclude that the experience of redness is independent of your knowledge of what causes redness. Likewise, I could give you a wavelength of light (say, 375 nm) and you’ll probably be unable to imagine what it looks like without seeing it first (or at all, because 375 is in the UV range). I think the argument becomes silly when it’s claimed to be incompatible with a standard materialist conclusion that all subjective experience has a physical basis. But it also seems like it’s beside the point here - the question isn’t whether the sensation of redness exists (I thought we were aligned on that), it’s whether being able to experience the sensation of redness is somehow essential to something, or if it’s a byproduct of something else. I’m just questioning your conclusion that conscious experience has a demonstrable evolutionary benefit.
But not all at the same level of interior complexity. I think we can get a good estimate of that complexity by studying their cognition and behavior in comparison to ours.
But this is a semantic argument of what “Mary Had Knowledge” means, not what qualia is… When you say knowledge I am including the physical characteristics you have ascertained through your subjective experience. Defining knowledge otherwise seems tricky. To say Mary has knowledge of the color of red is basically saying Mary can recreate your memory of the color red. I don’t see how you can recreate a memory without knowledge of what that memory contains, so that at least is where my logic is flowing. Red is an entirely subjective definition depending on your historic eyes’ cones and your historic position in spacetime.
I vaguely get what you are saying: put a preying mantis’ brain in a human and they could likely react to the moving car… most animals on the planet earth do not react properly to a speeding car. I don’t think a P Zombie could ever have this conversation. Is that a good distinction?
Yeah I just dont think P Zombies actual make sense as proposed. I don’t think you can get a human in my exact form that exhibits the behaviors of a preying mantis. I think that my form is directly responsible for my behavior.
📽️
Literally question begging.
Thought terminating cliche.
This is so fucking stupid. So if a robot can avoid traffic, it’s conscious then.
Or, you know, if you don’t believe literally all animals, plants, and computers are conscious.
Name one color you’ve never seen but can perfectly imagine.
Whatever Mantis Shrimp got going on.
Did it spontaneously avoid traffic through a means of self preservation? If so, maybe. If not, and it was programmed to do so, we have a direct explanation as to why it wasn’t.
And yet you’ve already defined being part of an evolutionary dynamic as the thing that causes consciousness; literally implying that evolution causes teleology in the first place
Well that’s the most unjustified leap of logic I’ve ever seen.
And ants do a lot better still. Are ants conscious? Is algae conscious? How are you even defining “better” here without makeing a teleological argument?
The whole bloody point of the p-zombie is that it’s behaviour is identical to a regular person! It would by definition do exactly the same as anyone else. Maybe you should actually make a token fucking effort to understand an argument before you arrogantly dismiss it.
Source: it came to me in a cryptic dream. So all. Adaptive systems are conscious? Computers are conscious? Rivers are conscious?
Evolution furthers complexity, and furthering complexity seems like a universal constant as we have theoretically started from the neutral point of “a fuck load of useless heat” and got here.
A creature with eyes has an evolutionary advantage over one that doesn’t as they can interpret new stimuli. A creature with consciousness can do the same thing by interpreting theoretical stimuli.
Historical Materalism applied to an evolutionary timeline.
Time self selects for the superior by nature of it being superior. Superiority is only relevant when you apply temporality. You could theoretically say time is teleological but like… idk
So does geology. So does stellar fusion. So does planet formation.
Lol. And you were seriously trying to claim you had a masters in physics. You’re literally now setting that the second law of thermodynamics is wrong
Literally the opposite of what happened.
I like how you quoted me even though you clearly didn’t read what I said.
No it doesn’t. This is spiritual mumbojumbo
Incoherent.
hey man, I am too drunk, too incorherent. Sorry for maybe questioning your world view? Sirry for being incogerebt, Wghat I possess is surely not useful long term an d activerly detrimnetal. The fact that I can acknowledge that while drunk maybe proves the point? Maybe the fact that I can prove the point while drunk proves the point that what we are experiencing (what I consider to be consciousness)is maytbe inhorent is PROOF that consciousness isnt real. Its all real time. Anyways I am sorry. either to my past self for proving me wrong, or my current self for arguing with myself
I agree, that is seems like either a cheap way out and/or a simple play with words about how to define consciousness.
That’s not nearly enough as a definition. A simple mechanical feedback loop can do it without any biology. It would totally have conciseness with this definition, which would pretty much amount to panpsychism, which you reject (and I agree). Anyway, it’s also only a teleological definition (starting from the outcome) and not an explanation at all.
I think a good explanation of consciousness should involve an emergent process to explain the gradual scale of consciousness. Thoughts about thoughts about thoughts and so on. This should also explain unconscious mental states as simple thoughts without much meta states going on.
Thats not the usual question. It’s: “Is my red different than yours? And how could I ever know if and in what way?”
We totally can and again, not the point that people who talk about qualia make. It’s:“Can we objectify what it feels like to experience the red?”
It’s your experience of what it feels like to be piecing together a whole heap of sensory data. It’s not presented by anything to anything else.
The idea of objectifying a subjective experience that is entirely bound by time seems impossible on its face. We would have to simulate the universe forward and back, which isn’t physically possible, let alone theoretically.
Can we objectify what it feels like to experience red?
What red? The Redness of Mars that only applies from certain positions in the universe? The redness of other galaxies that only applies based on the slight speed of your head movement at the moment of observation? Mars isn’t Red on Mars.
There is far too much baggage loaded with the word Red to ever objectify it.
I’m not asking this question, so no need to answer it. I’m just correcting you on three wrong statements you made about the discours about qualia. About what questions are and aren’t involved in the discours. Because you invented your own strawmen questions, and tried to answer those. Anyway, from your answer here and to other comments, it seems, like you completely accept everything that proponents of qualia say about them. They would answer the same way. Do you even have any critique of the concept as such?
I hope I didn’t sound to critical, like I said, I mostly agree with your conclusions, I just think they need more careful arguments.
Oh yeah this aint no thesis paper or anything, I came here for discussion not preaching to the choir. I assume I am wrong but steelman my own beliefs, thats how you grow baby.
But in general I just think asking someone to objectively define red is nonsense. Any subjective agent is incapable of objectivity. Does this undermine my entire argument? Probably? Thats the fun of it.
Ah, I get it. Yes it’s fun 😊
It literally is possible theoretically
Okay I am going out on a limb here… but i feel like the laws of thermodynamics disagree. To perfectly simulate our universe would require the same amount of energy that is put in.
This just sounds like idealism with a scientific veneer papered over it
So viruses are conscious? Prions? Stars?
You really didn’t think this definition through