The Case for Idealism

[Dragan Glas]

Greetings,

To cut to the chase, Monistic Idealism, since your argument is premised on a Cosmic Entity, you are first going to have to provide evidence for said entity.

Regarding Dennett, he simply argues that consciousness is an emergent property, not a "thing" in itself. We are simply creatures with highly nuanced responses to stimuli that gives the impression that we have "free will".

And you haven't really defined what you mean by "mind" or "consciousness".

Kindest regards,

James

 

[Sparhafoc]

This reeks of a sock account lol

Sock account? Of whom? :lol: I'm not a damned sock account, bub. I just happen to agree with Sparhafoc's objections. And Ghost's, for that matter.

What's funniest about this is that this always occurs with "Monistic Idealism" - he doesn't buy into his own arguments. From the perspective of a cosmic idealist, all our minds are essentially islands connected below to the same mind. It's all one mind.

Accordingly, I am just as much a sock puppet of Monistic Idealism as he is of you, and you are of Gnug.

And of course, we're all just sock puppets of the great puppeteer in the sky.

 

[Sparhafoc]

Greetings,

To cut to the chase, Monistic Idealism, since your argument is premised on a Cosmic Entity, you are first going to have to provide evidence for said entity.

That's the 'beauty' of Monistic Idealism insofar as the so-labelled chap here would argue: there can be no evidence, for evidence is physical, and physical is just mentally caused, and because his mind has caused the sentence to exist, so it is thereby evident.

QED

 

[Dragan Glas]

Greetings,

Greetings,

To cut to the chase, Monistic Idealism, since your argument is premised on a Cosmic Entity, you are first going to have to provide evidence for said entity.

That's the 'beauty' of Monistic Idealism insofar as the so-labelled chap here would argue: there can be no evidence, for evidence is physical, and physical is just mentally caused, and because his mind has caused the sentence to exist, so it is thereby evident.

QED

[It'll be interesting to see how this differs from theists arguing for "God".]

Kindest regards,

James

 

[Sparhafoc]

can a computer programed to think exactly like you conclude thus that it is unconscious in a different manner than you?

It doesn't make sense to say the computer is thinking.

Who says?

Come on, actually dig into the meat here, do some real philosophy for a moment instead of parroting things you've read other people say:

How do you KNOW you are thinking? Because you think you are thinking? Awesome, but what if you were programmed to 'think' that?

If you need a scenario, we can use Nick Bostrom's notion of a simulated universe. You don't actually exist - you're a construct on some facsimile of a computer in a universe greater than the one we believe to exist. Within the parametres of that simulation, you have been given a specific set of directions and latitudes which create an illusion for you that you are thinking.

How do you disprove this finally and for all? The truth is you don't. The truth is you attempted to use Descartes, but that's already subsumed within the scenario. If your programming causes you an illusion of thinking, and you use that illusion of thinking to declare you exist, then your think/am is fatally flawed. You're fooled.

Of course, we don't need to imagine such a scenario because we have been working hard in the field of neurological sciences over the last few decades, and consequently we see how much of what appears to be thinking and consciousness is actually just a form of algorithm coded ultimately by proteins and amino acids, the structures and formulations of which have been honed by natural selection. This is, of course, a far more fruitful pathway to discovery than plummeting into one's navel.

Regardless, you can't establish that what you call 'consciousness' isn't just an illusion; you can only express belief that it's not.

There is no thinker, it's just a bunch of code and algorithms and such.

Ironic.

You can make a program perform all kinds of functions but that's no reason at all to believe there's some thinking going on or consciousness.

Nor is there reason to think that there cannot ever be, which is the wall you've just run face-first into.

 

[Sparhafoc]

[It'll be interesting to see how this differs from theists arguing for "God".]

Kindest regards,

James

Sadly, it's actually all just a song and dance routine which is ultimately intended to argue for a theistic or panentheistic God

 

[Sparhafoc]

We do experience. "I think, therefore I am", and all that crap. But we have no proof this exists in others (the problem of hard solipsism), so we rely on projecting this consciousness onto people we can interact with. The idea that this assessment should only apply to humans and cannot ever, under any circumstances, apply to computers, androids, or other forms of artificial intelligence, is special pleading, friendo.

Yep, spot on.

Prediction: MI will eventually concede this point, but won't remember having conceded it thereafter, and will continue staking such a position in future.

 

[Master_Ghost_Knight]

can a computer programed to think exactly like you conclude thus that it is unconscious in a different manner than you?

It doesn't make sense to say the computer is thinking. There is no thinker, it's just a bunch of code and algorithms and such. You can make a program perform all kinds of functions but that's no reason at all to believe there's some thinking going on or consciousness.

Look pal I'm not taking the piss out of you. So please don't dodge the question.

It does make sense to say that computers thinks, that is what they do.

The "bunch of code and algorithms and such" that emulates human thinking is what I call thinking, regardless of either or not there is an entity experiencing it. You can call it machine thinking if you want to, that is irrelevant to the point,

So again. Can a computer programmed to "think" exactly like you conclude thus that it is unconscious in a different manner than you?

 

[Monistic Idealism]

Well, according to your supposed belief system, it's all one big sock account in the sky.

Lol I love how you're criticizing my position without even hearing what it is. I haven't gone over my version of Cosmic Idealism at all so you're just attacking pure straw men. No surprise coming from.

No, no it doesn't.

Yes, yes it does. You just saying "nuh-uh!" does not refute the argument I provided.

Ergo, you can't declare that AI is not conscious as you will never know.

Quite the opposite: if such descriptions were sufficient for consciousness then it would be enough, but alas it's not. Insert modus tollens and we can see clearly that you're wrong.

You should take the needle off your broken record as it's only you who has (repeatedly) tried to contend that function is identical to substrate

Um, no... if you would only read instead of attacking straw men: if the mind were those functions then describing them should do it. But there's still the hard problem. That problem wouldn't be there if what you're saying were true.

whereas everyone else has disagreed with you.

oh no the circle jerk of physicalists disagree with me?? oh no, what will I do!

In your analogy, the computer hardware is not equivalent to consciousness, but rather to the brain.

I already understand that, you're saying consciousness is equivalent to the software. But we can describe software by appealing to something more fundamental (i.e. hardware), but this is not done with the brain and consciousness. So your comparison fails.

You've now added the notion that you can reduce software to something more fundamental. Great. So now you can take apart a hard drive and show me where Adobe photoshop is in it

Oh wow so software is now like a separate substance from the computer? it exists independently? There's software with no hardware like a mind with no brain? lol weren't you just laughing at this idea a bit ago? Is software no longer grounded in the hardware?

It wasn't an argument.

Yeah it was, you're just ignoring it per usual.

What I noted in my previous paragraph and the argument from leads me to believe computers cannot be conscious. Address my arguments before you conclude I have no reasons for what I believe.

You have a reason for what you believe, but it's a bad reason

One minute I have no reasons, then I do have reasons but they're just bad? Make up your mind already.

Firstly, if you had studied psychology, you would know that's bollocks. Psychology is a massively disparate field which has no necessary implication with respect to the idea of whether mind is all there is or not.

Man, going out to the fields to find those straw men to destroy got you lost. We're talking about the mind, yes? Which is more relevant: psychology, translated literally: study of the mind, or your field of study? Hmmm... Come on man, this should be a no brainer.

Secondly, I didn't 'bring it up' - you did. It's still there just a few posts back to see.

No that was you if you go back and see the context. You were the one going off on how I need to talk to experts, implying I haven't already, and I merely corrected you. You were the one trying to appeal to authority, not me. I merely have scholarly citations to show the present state of the field and be intellectually honest.

Finally, I don't believe you have a degree in psychology anymore than I believed you had a degree in philosophy when you lied to people about it before.

lol what? I never claimed to have a degree in philosophy, only in psychology. Dude you have got to take a break from attacking straw men all day. Go ahead and lack belief, it won't make my degree vanish.

thousands of people study at university, and knowing which one you studied at would offer me not so much as a jot of information as to which of those students you supposedly are.

Why should I believe you? A lot can be inferred from such information. Either you lack the imagination to see how its possible or you're trying to play coy to get personal information. Either way, it has no bearing on the argument. As I noted, in context I was merely correcting your implication. Try actually going to the argument from here instead of the person.

Which is now a 'literal description of reality'?

Yes, that's literally what you did. We can all see it. I had a wall of text, and you responded with a lil bitty comment, thus ignoring my arguments. That's what happened bro, stop lying, we can all see it.

Yes, I can

Which is why you completely misunderstood what I said? haha

No, I wasn't likening humans to people,

I'm guessing you meant humans to computer, but yes you indeed are. It's your analogy that you've been presenting this whole time lol come one man...

I was actually 'sneaking in' the problem of solipsism that plagues idealism

If you had done some actual homework on the problem of other minds then you'd know it's a problem every philosophy faces, included physicalism and dualism etc. As stated in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy's conclusion section on its article entitled Other Minds:

"What is clear is that there does not seem to be what might be called a received solution to the problem. It has been argued that the problem cannot be removed, nor can it be made easier to solve, by embracing any particular philosophy of mind."

Source: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/other-minds/#7

How can you know a computer cannot possess consciousness?

omg I already went over this: the hardware and software are reducible. Consciousness, which is supposed to be analogous to the software, is not reducible. Your whole analogy just fails.

So gently have I poked, and so quickly the facade has fallen. I've explained your error three times, and now you say that is what you meant?

Is your reading comprehension this bad? I always understood that the hardware was supposed to analogous to the brain and software to consciousness and I never once affirmed a computer is functionally equivalent to consciousness so this undeserved arrogance on your part is just cringey

That's not what reductionism necessarily entails.

Yes it does. The whole point of reductionism is to identify and explain a phenomenon by identifying the fundamental structure.

Again, to educate you so you don't continue to make this mistake: the hard problem of consciousness doesn't 'deal' with anything. Rather, it outlines the difficulty in explaining how physical phenomena and experience are related.

omg apparently I have to break this down for you again. I've gone over this many times now: Either you're saying there is a bridge you cannot gap, which means reductionism is false, or you're saying there is no bridge to gap, which means you're saying there is nothing it is like to have an experience (e.g. eliminativism). If there is a bridge to gap, you're saying there is such a thing as the hard problem of consciousness and this would entail reducitonism being false becuse if reductionism were true then there would be no hard problem of consciousness. There would be nothing to bridge, get it? If A=B then describing A describes B, but that's not the case. Please learn to read. I went over this many times and you jus keep acting like I haven't addressed you, just stop.

No, it doesn't. But nor does idealism

Lol you have no idea what you're talking about. The non-idealist is trying to reduce mental terms to non-mental terms, but this just eliminates consciousness. The idealist gets to keep such mental terminology and has no fear of any reductionist threats.

how does mind create reality?

I didn't say "mind creates reality". Can you stop attacking straw men for one second? lol

I've been saying that substance monism is true and that this substance is the mental. The physicalist is doing the same thing as me, only they're saying that substance is non-mental. If this wasn't a big gaping problem for physicalism then it's not for idealism.

Or it is a misunderstanding or misapplication of terminology: a category error.

Or you're just lapsing into dualism as Jaegwon Kim noted would happen. If you're not an idealist you will continuously face pressures that push you towards eliminativism or dualism.

So you say that mental itself is the substrate, the fundamental substance of reality, but then somehow you didn't say that minds exist without brains?

Yeah exactly, so stop with the straw men. lol what a bubble burst, how disappointing. I never once said that if your brain were to be extinguished that your mind would continue to exist, that's substance dualism. Stop mistaking my beliefs for substance dualism.

It's amazing how you can go from pretending you didn't say what you actually said, to then claiming I said something I never did.

can computers be conscious or not? If yes then you're admitting there's consciousness without brains, if no then you're contradicting your objections to me when I object to computers being conscious lol you're just a lil contrarian for whatever I say aren't you?

Yeah, it was faulty as I pointed out in the first post.

How? Pretty sure you conceded the first premise long ago in our discussion now all of a sudden it's faulty?

 

[Monistic Idealism]

Sock account? Of whom? :lol: I'm not a damned sock account, bub.

Okay big guy, whatever you say lol

Perhaps... I'm not sure there's any way to tell us what it's like to have experience from the first person except experiencing from the first person, which everyone does anyway.

So then they describe the mind with mental terms. No amount of introspection gives you neurons firing off in your skull, instead introspection gives you knowledge of the mental and we describe this in such terms. Reducing the mental to non-mental terms just eliminates consciousness because a description of neurons and brain activity is insufficient to tell us what it's like to have experience from the first person. Only from the first person can we make such descriptions as you just admitted, which implies reductionism is false.

The Chinese Room experiment is faulty in a few ways.

The man is just a tool for executing those instructions, like how blood and electrical conductivity by potassium and sodium ions is a tool for executing functions in the human brain. It's the algorithm itself when combined with the operations of the man that understands Chinese.

And that would just be reductionism which fails as I just went over. No amount of syntax "gives rise" to semantics. Just because the AI is really complicated that doesn't mean it's not magically conscious, we merely have something more complicated than before. Put together all the code, all the syntax you want, it's still just a bunch of code.

but he's still doing the exact same thing.

No he's not actually. He's aware, he has experience, there is what it's like to have such experience. Crunching a bunch of numbers from a program is not identical to this. They're not doing the exact same thing and to say otherwise would be to equivocate. You'd have to change the definition of consciousness midway here.

The experiment begs the question that human consciousness is special and different.

You stated, and I quote directly:

I'm not sure there's any way to tell us what it's like to have experience from the first person except experiencing from the first person, which everyone does anyway.

You know consciousness is something different, you said as much right here. We can reduce all kinds of phenomenon, consciousness isn't one of them.

I want you to compare a brain running on connected neurons, and a computer running on silicon that perfectly simulates a brain. The difference between them is irrelevant, ergo, the Turing Test is valid, unless you assume some form of non-materialist dualism

Or you just accept idealism and there's no problem here.

We do experience. "I think, therefore I am", and all that crap.

Right, and we can't deny this without stating a contradiction.

But we have no proof this exists in others (the problem of hard solipsism)

Just a heads up: it's called the problem of other minds: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/other-minds/

Only Matt Dillahunty calls it the problem of hard solipsism lol I noticed you cited rationalwiki. I suggest you go to actual scholarly sources that delve into real philosophy instead just reddit-tier /r/atheist noob material.

so we rely on projecting this consciousness onto people we can interact with. The idea that this assessment should only apply to humans and cannot ever, under any circumstances, apply to computers, androids, or other forms of artificial intelligence, is special pleading, friendo.

I never once stated any sort of biological chauvinism or whatever. I only noted that the analogy between humans and computers fails and that consciousness is irreducible. We can't say consciousness is hardware or software or any of that stuff because of this.

 

[Monistic Idealism]

Look pal I'm not taking the piss out of you. So please don't dodge the question.

How am I dodging the question? There's a false premise buried in it and I addressed it.

It does make sense to say that computers thinks, that is what they do.

That's like saying calculators think. It's all just information processing that becomes more complex with more processing. Too bad there's more than that what it comes to thinking.

The "bunch of code and algorithms and such" that emulates human thinking is what I call thinking

Great then you're just equivocating when it comes to the term "think"

So again. Can a computer programmed to "think" exactly like you conclude thus that it is unconscious in a different manner than you?

Well they don't think as I went over, but if you're merely talking about a series of premises being formed together to make a valid conclusion then I don't see what's incoherent about the program spitting out the conclusion that the program performing such functions are not conscious.

 

[Monistic Idealism]

To cut to the chase, Monistic Idealism, since your argument is premised on a Cosmic Entity

Not true. Nowhere in the premises do you see any reference to a cosmic entity.

Regarding Dennett, he simply argues that consciousness is an emergent property

No he doesn't, he's a well known eliminativist materialist as even cited in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/materialism-eliminative/

And you haven't really defined what you mean by "mind" or "consciousness".

I did, super early in the OP: It's first-person subjective awareness.

 

[Sparhafoc]

Fap

 

[Sparhafoc]

How? Pretty sure you conceded the first premise long ago in our discussion now all of a sudden it's faulty?

Which is exactly the issue here. There's no honest discussion to be had with you james.

 

[Monistic Idealism]

Which is exactly the issue here.

The very existence of consciousness is the issue here? Welcome to eliminativism. Better start autistically responding to everyone else in here as well since they affirm premise 1 as well.

james

James Jeans?

the universe begins to look more like a great thought than like a great machine. Mind no longer appears as an accidental intruder into the realm of matter; we are beginning to suspect that we ought rather to hail it as a creator and governor of the realm of matter...

 

[Master_Ghost_Knight]

Well they don't think as I went over, but if you're merely talking about a series of premises being formed together to make a valid conclusion then I don't see what's incoherent about the program spitting out the conclusion that the program performing such functions are not conscious.

No, that is not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about a computer perfectly emulating your brain coming to a different conclusion than you when answering the question, is itself conscious.
And I think I have made my question as clear enough, at this point, you are dodging. If you decline to give me a straight answer I will decline to talk to you.

Again. Could a computer programed to think exactly like you, come to q different conclusion than you if asked the question "are you conscious?"?

 

[Akamia]

Perhaps... I'm not sure there's any way to tell us what it's like to have experience from the first person except experiencing from the first person, which everyone does anyway.

So then they describe the mind with mental terms. No amount of introspection gives you neurons firing off in your skull, instead introspection gives you knowledge of the mental and we describe this in such terms. Reducing the mental to non-mental terms just eliminates consciousness because a description of neurons and brain activity is insufficient to tell us what it's like to have experience from the first person. Only from the first person can we make such descriptions as you just admitted, which implies reductionism is false.

I was including hypothetical hard AI in that sentence, which you seem unwilling to do. I do not consider the human mind (let alone my mind alone) to be anything special. What does Commander Data experience? I dunno, ask him. How about Zero or Mega Man X? Beats me, ask them. What about me? I'm not AI obviously (or am I?) but I can tell you that I am experiencing annoyance at your stubbornness.

The man is just a tool for executing those instructions, like how blood and electrical conductivity by potassium and sodium ions is a tool for executing functions in the human brain. It's the algorithm itself when combined with the operations of the man that understands Chinese.

And that would just be reductionism which fails as I just went over. No amount of syntax "gives rise" to semantics. Just because the AI is really complicated that doesn't mean it's not magically conscious, we merely have something more complicated than before. Put together all the code, all the syntax you want, it's still just a bunch of code.

Consciousness is not magic. Maybe in your world, but not in mine. Also, you missed the point. I know the code alone doesn't give rise to consciousness. Something has to run the code before it can do that.

but he's still doing the exact same thing.

No he's not actually. He's aware, he has experience, there is what it's like to have such experience. Crunching a bunch of numbers from a program is not identical to this. They're not doing the exact same thing and to say otherwise would be to equivocate. You'd have to change the definition of consciousness midway here.

Demonstrate that he's aware and he has experience, and that a hypothetical AI doing the same thing does not.

The experiment begs the question that human consciousness is special and different.

You stated, and I quote directly:

I'm not sure there's any way to tell us what it's like to have experience from the first person except experiencing from the first person, which everyone does anyway.

You know consciousness is something different, you said as much right here. We can reduce all kinds of phenomenon, consciousness isn't one of them.

As I stated above, I do not know consciousness is something different. All I said is that it doesn't make sense to me to try to "tell us what it's like to have experience from the first person" without first having first person experience. I do not see a hypothetical AI construct having any problem with this.

I want you to compare a brain running on connected neurons, and a computer running on silicon that perfectly simulates a brain. The difference between them is irrelevant, ergo, the Turing Test is valid, unless you assume some form of non-materialist dualism

Or you just accept idealism and there's no problem here.

There is a problem; you're arbitrarily excluding artificial intelligence from having the potential to be conscious. Idealism has nothing to do with it.

But we have no proof this exists in others (the problem of hard solipsism)

Just a heads up: it's called the problem of other minds: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/other-minds/

Only Matt Dillahunty calls it the problem of hard solipsism lol I noticed you cited rationalwiki. I suggest you go to actual scholarly sources that delve into real philosophy instead just reddit-tier /r/atheist noob material.

You said you had a degree in psychology, right? Why don't you draw from psychology instead? You're misapplying the tools of philosophy here.

so we rely on projecting this consciousness onto people we can interact with. The idea that this assessment should only apply to humans and cannot ever, under any circumstances, apply to computers, androids, or other forms of artificial intelligence, is special pleading, friendo.

I never once stated any sort of biological chauvinism or whatever. I only noted that the analogy between humans and computers fails and that consciousness is irreducible. We can't say consciousness is hardware or software or any of that stuff because of this.

We can say consciousness is analogous to software, because it runs on the hardware that is the brain and cannot exist without it. Whether the brain in question is an organic one or an artificial one is not relevant. Hell, if we managed to get a real AI Turing Test compliant, I'd say "consciousness" (or at least that particular consciousness) is no longer analogous to software; it'd literally be software.

 

[Sparhafoc]

James Jeans?

the universe begins to look more like a great thought than like a great machine. Mind no longer appears as an accidental intruder into the realm of matter; we are beginning to suspect that we ought rather to hail it as a creator and governor of the realm of matter...

For, for aught we know, or for aught that the new science can say to the contrary, the gods which play the part of fate to the atoms of our brains may be our own minds. Through these atoms our minds may perchance affect the motions of our bodies and so the state of the world around us. To-day science can no longer shut the door on this possibility; she has no longer any unanswerable arguments to bring against our innate conviction of free-will. On the other hand, she gives no hint as to what absence of determinism or causation may mean. If we, and nature in general, do not respond in a unique way to external stimuli, what determines the course of events? If anything at all, we are thrown back on determinism and causation; if nothing at all, how can anything ever occur? As I see it, we are unlikely to reach any definite conclusions on these questions until we have a better understanding of the true nature of time.

Life exists in the universe only because the carbon atom possesses certain exceptional properties.

You'd learn a lot from reading philosophers to see how they phrase their intellectual struggles and conflicts, and how few that are known as philosophers ever exhibit absolutism.

 

[Sparhafoc]

The very existence of consciousness is the issue here? Welcome to eliminativism. Better start autistically responding to everyone else in here as well since they affirm premise 1 as well.

Fap

 

[Monistic Idealism]

a computer perfectly emulating your brain coming to a different conclusion than you when answering the question, is itself conscious.

That's assuming the brain is coming to conclusions. There is no dodging here, only a disagreement in our philosophy of mind. Go ahead and walk away because we disagree, that only means this place is a circle jerk. I don't believe computer programs think and I already said that I don't see anything incoherent about a program spitting out such a conclusion. What's the problem here?