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thomblake comments on Outline of a lower bound for consciousness - Less Wrong
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Comments (110)
I don't see your footnote 2 - the only superscript 2 I see is part of math.
Thanks. It's a footnote from a deleted section, that accused some readers of being zombies.
Thanks for clearing that up, I had the same question.
(FWIW, I'm not a zombie. And I would definitely tell you guys if I were. I mean, I'd feel bad to falsely lead you all on like that.)
I see what you did there.
Really, because I claim that I am a zombie. At least, that is the claim I make to all of my philosophy profs.
I don't know why I didn't think of this the last time we discussed this claim you like to make, but it just occured to me that there are actually people who do make this claim and mean it: they have Cotard's delusion. (Funnier version here.)
That's kind of funny considering that I have a significant portion of my shins that are putrefying in fact (this is the origin of the "I am a Zombie" claim). I have gaping wounds on my shins from a motorcycle accident.
That is funny that they have a real delusion for it. I'll bet that one of my ex's would know about it. She's a for real necrophiliac, and was actually fired once for having sex with a corpse (She's a mortician/embalmer). She used to drool over my legs and would always ask me to not change the bandages for a few days so that the stink would increase... That relationship didn't last long.
I think this is the most unexpectedly surreal LW comment I have ever seen.
Can you post a link to the most expectedly surreal LW comment?
I'm not sure if I should believe that story about your ex...
She's pretty well known in the Houston Texas Goth scene (or, rather, she was 10 years ago). You've never been involved in some of the earlier musical sub-cultures have you (And I don't mean the watered down 90s/00s versions that some of these became)?
The Punk scene in the 70s/80s was pretty much like that, only Renee missed he boat by a few years.
If you don't wish to believe it, however, then don't...
Believe it? Heck, I wish I'd never known about it :-P
That reminds me though: we need to have a Texas LW meetup.
You're covering up your leg before you come, though.
I'm in SF for most of the year... And, I keep both legs fully covered. Most people don't believe me about the legs either until they actually see them. Of course, they don't look nearly as bad now as they did 10 years ago right after the accident.
I would've appreciated a TMI warning.
I shall have to make note of that fact.
My life has been a collection of extremes, from extremely secretive (even Spooky in all senses that could be imagined) to highly public (minor celebrity attained from falling asleep at just the right moment)...
Add to the fact that almost all of it has been lived in a quasi-Punk Rock lifestyle, and the phrase "Too much information" was something that I had never heard a person say until I left both of those lives behind (neither by choice, but for the better)
Okay, I'll bite... How did you become a celebrity by falling asleep at the right moment?
It's really pretty boring.
I used to have a fairly provocative appearance. I fell asleep one night in my car (which itself drew rather a lot of attention), and a reporter from a magazine in Dallas Texas saw me in the car. He knocked on the window and wanted an interview. I gave him one, and he later dragged me to a photographer to have my photo taken. One of my professors (my first time through school for a sculpture degree) said to be careful of the reporter, and I called him and told him that he couldn't use the interview (which turned out to be a good thing)... Only, I didn't think about the photos. So, on my way to school one morning, I stopped into a Safeway to buy a coke before school, and saw this on the magazine racks in front of every check stand.
The photo eventually got me several extra, bit and small part roles in movies (although, I really preferred stunt work). I've been in all three Robocop movies (compare this photo from Robocop's visor at a club in Dallas TX where it was shot. I'm not recognizable in the other Robocop movies due to doing stunt work instead of eye-candy).
There are one or two other things that drew a lot of attention my way too, but those will have to wait.
If it helps, it didn't occur to me that it was TMI till it was brought up.
Till what was brought up?
*picks jaw up off of floor*
quick, reattach it before she notices.
I just thought of one additional point here.
When I make the claim that I am a Zombie, I am not really making the claim in the same sense that someone with Cotard's Delusion would make, but rather as a response to people like Searle who posit that there is some extra special stuff that human consciousness has, and to which Dennett (and others) have replied with the Zombie counter to this claim.
So, I maintain that I am a zombie in the Dennett sense of the word. I am just like a normal human with the extra special stuff, just I don't have that extra special stuff and thus, I am not really conscious, but just mimicking consciousness; thus, a Zombie.
Are you actually claiming to be unconscious and to not be aware of experiences? Or do you just mean you're denying that consciousness is anything metaphysically special?
I am not entirely sure what the claim would actually consist of.
Dennett claims that a human looking zombie, that acted exactly like a person, yet failed to have this special stuff that Searle claims is necessary for consciousness, would be unrecognizable from a person who really did have whatever it is that Searle claims is the Magic Ingredient to consciousness. Its really more just a claim to mock Searle's Chinese Room than anything else.
I guess though, that if I had to take a stance, it would be that there is nothing metaphysically special about consciousness. Now, this is just my naive assumption based on only a few years of reading, and none of it at the levels I will be forced to face in the coming years as I complete my degree. However, it is the sense that I get from what I have read and considered.
We can distinguish behavioral zombies, which just act like a person but are not conscious, from physical zombies, which are an exact physical duplicate of a conscious person but are not conscious.
For instance, people have reported doing all sorts of things while unconscious while taking the medication Ambien. They may be behavioral zombies, in the sense that they appear fully conscious but are not, but they aren't physical zombies, because their brain is physically different from a conscious person's (e.g., because of the Ambien).
The existence of physical zombies requires denying materialism: you need some sort of magic stuff that makes ordinary matter conscious. But even though materialism is true, it's entirely possible that you are a behavioral zombie. Once neuroscience is advanced to the point where we understand consciousness better, we'll be able to look at your brain and find out.
Something occurred to me while in a dream (and I nearly forgot to transition it to my waking consciousness).
In the post above, you seem to imply that consciousness is only to be applied to that part of our mind which is conscious, and not to that part of our mind of which we are not cognizant.
I would maintain that Consciousness still exists even without a conscious mind (at least as it seems to be applied above)... Case in point, my realization during a dream.
Exactly. This is why I mock the argument from Searle. Eventually, science, not philosophy, will provide an answer to the problem.
Ya, a p-zombie. Wikipedia reports (with a [citation needed]) that sufferers of severe Cotard delusion deny that they exist at all. Presumably such individuals would claim to have no body, no mind, no consciousness, etc. So I agree, not a Zombie in Dennett's sense per se, since they claim to have/be nothing at all, never mind the extra special stuff.
In fact it may be worth stressing that, by definition, someone's claim to be a p-zombie would be zero evidence that they were a p-zombie.
Do they actually claim to be zombies? I thought they claimed to be dead or nonexistent.
On one level, with a little artistic license one could say that a person who claims to be dead and putrifying can be said to consider themselves a zombie. On another level, a person who claims to be literally non-existent is almost claiming to be a p-zombie.
Depends on the exact claim of nonexistence. Something claiming to be a p-zombie might claim to exist, in the sense of being physically present in the world, but claim to not have conscious experience. I'm not clear on what types of nonexistence claims people with Cotard's actually make.
Me neither; I'm just being sloppy. Although I do have a vague memory of reading about a man who was conscious but could not experience it in a manner analogous to the way that those with blindsight can see but are not aware of it. However, I have confabulated similar memories in the past, so even I take this memory with a large chunk of salt.
You mean that guy who couldn't consciously see, but could name the pictures on flashcards at much better than chance frequencies? And they eventually talked him into trying to walk down a hall with obstacles in it and he did (but it took some significant effort for them to talk him into it)? I remember that, too - should have saved it. I'm pretty sure it wasn't taken as any kind of delusion, though.