[ExI] Do digital computers feel?

Sat Feb 11 02:33:55 UTC 2017

On 11 February 2017 at 11:37, Colin Hales <col.hales at gmail.com> wrote:

> Yikes. I'm currently finding it hard to attend here... up to my armpits in
> my cellular automata work. I'll try and be brief and attend to the comments
> in a general sense. It's sat morn here downunder. Time out.
>
> The big one.
>
> I can use John Clark’s remarks as a launching place….
>
>
>
> “Science is empirical, it's about observing behavior of people and matter,
> if the behavior of 2 things is identical then it would be impossible by
> definition to distinguish between them scientifically, …”
>
>
>
> OK. Sorry John, but this is where my blood boils? Don’t take this
> personally. I have been watching this issue in detail for 15 years. When is
> the penny gonna drop? This very comment goes on and on and on and on in
> many different forms all over the place ….and nothing ever shifts and the
> same mistake gets made over and over and over. FFS.
>
>
>
> <Deep breaths> quasi rant-time.
>
>
>
> In exactly what way does this OBSERVING happen? It happens in the
> subjectivity of the ‘scientific observer’. The first person perspective
> (1PP) of the scientist. In the unique context of explaining qualia…. That
> first person perspective is both presupposed (the observer is being
> presupposed) and the explanandum!
>
>
>
> You cannot have objectivity without subjectivity. Subjectivity SUPERVENES
> on objectivity. What do you think you are objectifying an ‘object’ out of??
> SUBJECTIVITY! (as contents of)
>
>
>
> That being the brutal fact of being a scientist, you are then forced to
> admit that subjectivity is actually _more_ ‘evidenced’ than anything else
> in the history of science and has been evidenced in every scientific
> observation ever made in the entire history of science. Furthermore the
> “evidence” is more certain than any claim about the ‘objective observation’
> (sorry ��) of the _contents_ of a 1PP.’
>
>
>
> Can you (the group I mean) not see this? Isn’t it obvious?
>
>
>
> ==============METAPHOR
>
> Claiming that qualia are not evidenced is EXACTLY like claiming that
> movies don’t evidence a movie projector. Do you ‘see the movie projector’
> when imbued by a movie? Would you expect to? Of course not!!! Yet that
> projector is evidenced nonetheless!
>
>
>
> At the same time, the broken stupidity of the arguments say that the only
> thing that is real is the _contents_ of the picture (say X) on the movie
> screen! How stupid is this? The ‘scientific evidence’ of X provided in a
> movie about X is less certain than the evidence that there is a movie
> projector. In the case of qualia we are required to explain the existence
> and nature of the movie projector … by observing the movie? Crazy crap. Why
> is simply realising there is a movie not evidence of a movie? And that when
> that projector is shut down, all evidence of X goes with it!! 100% every
> time. Is this really that hard to get your brain around?
>
>
>
> The projector is qualia physics and the movie is the represented contents
> of the qualia.  ….. the scientific evidence and the ‘contents of scientific
> observation’ part company! That’s all that happens.
>
>
>
> At the very heart of this is utter bullshit: That somewhere engraved on a
> cultural rock from on high, that no one is ever trained in, is not written
> down, examined or reviewed – EVER – we identify ‘evidence’ with ‘contents
> of the 1PP’. This is nothing but a blindly followed “Science is
> empirical, it's about observing behavior of people and matter…”
>  unquestioned acculturation.
>
>
>
> Can you now see this? The group I mean. Is it really that hard?
>
>
>
> END OF METAPHOR ======================
>
>
>
> We go on and on and on about the ‘lack of observation of qualia’ while
> demanding it be used on the pain of the science being thrown out (because
> OBJECTIVITY didn’t happen) when the _evidence_ of an observer (and
> therefore qualia) is completely missed … is the existence of the
> possibility of objectivity in and of itself.
>
>
>
> What does it take to out this bizarre blockage?
>
>
>
> In the case of X = qualia there is an almost breathtaking confusion
> between the existence of “scientific evidence of X” and the “existence of X
> as contents of consciousness objectified out of consciousness”.
>
>
>
> What would be the “evidence” of a scientific observer? That’s what the
> evidence of qualia is. Of course the qualia are not observable as “contents
> of the subjectivity of the assumed observer”.
>
>
>
> But that does not mean they are not evidenced. SCIENTISTS are the
> scientific evidence of qulia. Brutally reinforced with every observation
> ever made. Not only that, it’s scientifically testable! The evidence is
> ‘laws of the appearances of nature by a presupposed observer utterly
> dependent on subjectivity for observation’. Take the subjectivity away? NO
> SCIENCE.
>
>
>
> Scientists have to be evidence of something? Don’t we? FFS why are we NOT
> evidence of qualia? Do we operate by magic? Must we have a sacred line
> drawn around ourselves?
>
>
>
> So infuriating! Do I really have to say this again? Isn’t it bloody
> obvious? Is there something wrong with me? Why do I even have to say this?
>
>
>
> The explanandum we seek is NOT OBSERVABLE but it  is DEFINITELY EVIDENCED.
>

While it is immediately "obvious" that you need qualia to do science, with
some further reflection you should be able to see that is possible that the
scientists have no qualia - that they are philosophical zombies. It then
requires further argument to show that they are not philosophical zombies.
It is not "obvious".

-- 
Stathis Papaioannou
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