Peterdjones comments on By Which It May Be Judged - LessWrong

35 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 10 December 2012 04:26AM

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Comment author: Peterdjones 12 December 2012 10:03:25PM -1 points [-]

Is there a reason to suppose that anybody else's maps have phenomenal feels,

Yes: naturalism. It would be naturalistcially anomalous if their brains worked very smilarly , but their phenomenology were completely different.

a way of testing that they do,

No. So what? Are you saying we are all p-zombies?

Comment author: DaFranker 12 December 2012 10:10:28PM *  1 point [-]

No. So what? Are you saying we are all p-zombies?

I don't know about Decius, but...

I am.

I'm also saying that it doesn't matter. The p-zombies are still conscious. They just don't have any added "conscious" XML tags as per some imaginary, crazy-assed unnecessary definition of "consciousness".

Tangential to that point: I think any morality system which relies on an external supernatural thinghy in order to make moral judgments or to assign any terminal value to something is broken and not worth considering.

Comment author: Peterdjones 12 December 2012 10:15:23PM 1 point [-]

I'm also saying that it doesn't matter. The p-zombies are still conscious. They just don't have any added "conscious" XML tags as per some imaginary, crazy-assed unnecessary definition of "consciousness".

I have no idea what you are gettign at. Please clarify.

Tangential to that point: I think any morality system which relies on an external supernatural thinghy in order to make moral judgments or to assign any terminal value to something is broken and not worth considering.

That has no discernable relationship to anythign I have said. Have you confused me with someone else?

Comment author: DaFranker 12 December 2012 10:29:51PM 0 points [-]

I'm not sure where I implied that I'm getting at anything. We're p-zombies, we have no additional consciousness, and it doesn't matter because we're still here doing things.

The tangent was just an aside remark to clarify my position, and wasn't to target anyone.

We may already agree on the consciousness issue, I haven't actually checked that.

Comment author: Peterdjones 12 December 2012 10:33:34PM 1 point [-]

we have no additional consciousness,

I have no idea whay you mean by "additonal consciousness" -- although, since you are not "getting at anything" you perhaps mean nothing.

We're p-zombies

That seems a bold and contentious claim to me. OTOH, you say you are not "getting at anything". Who knows?

and wasn't to target anyone.

OK. "Getting at something" doens't mean criticising someone, it means making a point.

Comment author: DaFranker 12 December 2012 10:43:02PM -1 points [-]

In that sense, what I was getting at is that asking the question of whether we are p-zombies is redundant and irrelevant, since there's no reason to want or believe in the existence of non-p-zombies.

The core of my claim is basically that our consciousness is the logic and physics that goes on in our brain, not something else that we cannot see or identify. I obviously don't have conclusive proof or evidence of this, otherwise I'd be writing a paper and/or collecting my worldwide awards for it, but all (yes, all) other possibilities seem orders of magnitude less likely to me with my current priors and model of the world.

TL;DR: Consciousness isn't made of ethereal acausal fluid nor of magic, but of real physics and how those real physics interact in a complicated way.

Comment author: Peterdjones 12 December 2012 11:21:18PM *  -1 points [-]

since there's no reason to want or believe in the existence of non-p-zombies.

I believe in the existence of at least onen non-p-zombie, because I have at least indirect evidence of one in the form of my own qualia.

The core of my claim is basically that our consciousness is the logic and physics that goes on in our brain, not something else that we cannot see or identify.

We can see and identify our consciousness from the inside. It's self awareness. If you try to treat consciousness from the outside, you are bound to miss 99% of the point. None of this has antyhing to do with what consciousness is "made of".

Comment author: [deleted] 13 December 2012 03:19:45PM 0 points [-]

I believe in the existence of at least onen non-p-zombie, because I have at least indirect evidence of one in the form of my own qualia.

I have a question about qualia from your perspective. If Omega hits you with an epiphenomenal anti-qualia hammer that injures your qualia and only your qualia such that you essentially have no qualia (I.E, you are a P-zombie) for an hour until your qualia recovers (When you are no longer a P-Zombie), what, if anything, might that mean?

1: You'd likely notice something, because you have evidence that qualia exist. That implies you would notice if they vanished for about an hour, since you would no longer be getting that evidence for that hour

2: You'd likely not notice anything, because if you did, a P-Zombie would not be just like you.

3: Epiphenomenal anti-qualia hammers can't exist. For instance, it might be impossible to affect your qualia and only your qualia, or perhaps it is impossible to make any reversible changes to qualia.

4: Something else?

Comment author: Peterdjones 13 December 2012 03:30:19PM 1 point [-]
Comment author: [deleted] 13 December 2012 05:26:07PM 0 points [-]

I took a look. I found this quote:

This might seem reasonable at first - it is a strangely appealing image - but something very odd is going on here. My experiences are switching from red to blue, but I do not notice any change. Even as we flip the switch a number of times and my qualia dance back and forth, I will simply go about my business, not noticing anything unusual.

This seems to support an answer of:

2: You'd likely not notice anything, because if you did, a P-Zombie would not be just like you.

But if that's the case, it seems to contradict the idea of red qualia's existence even being a useful discussion. If you don't expect to notice when something vanishes, how do you have evidence that it exists or that it doesn't exist?

Now, to be fair, I can think you can construct something where it is meaningful to talk about something that you have no evidence of.

If an asteroid goes outside our light cone, we might say: "We have no evidence that this asteroid still exists since to our knowledge, evidence travels at the speed of light and this is outside our light cone. However, if we can invent FTL Travel, and then follow it's path, we would not expect it to not have winked out of existence right as it crossed our light cone, based on conservation of mass/energy."

That sounds like a comprehensible thing to say, possibly because it is talking about something's potential existence given the development of a future test.

And it does seem like you can also do that with Religious epiphenomenon, like souls, that we can't see right now.

"We have no evidence that our soul still exists since to our knowledge, people are perfectly intelligible without souls and we don't notice changes in our souls. However, if in the future we can invent soul detectors, we would expect to find souls in humans, based on religious texts."

That makes sense. It may be wrong, but if someone says that to me, My reaction would be "Yeah, that sounds plausible.", or perhaps "But how would you invent a soul detector?" much like my reaction would be to the FTL asteroid "Yeah, that sounds plausible.", or perhaps "But how would you invent FTL?"

I suppose, in essence, that these can be made to pay rent in anticipated experiences, but they are only under conditional circumstances, and those conditions may be impossible.

But for qualia, does this?

"We have no evidence that our qualia still exists since to our knowledge, P-zombies are perfectly intelligible without qualia and we don't notice changes in our qualia. However, if we can invent qualia detectors, we would expect to detect qualia in humans, based on thought experiments."

It doesn't in my understanding, because it seems like one of the key points of qualia is that we can notice it right now and that no on else can ever notice it. Except that according to one of its core proponents, we can't notice it either. I mean, I can form sentences about FTL or Souls and future expectations that seem reasonable, but even those types of sentences seem to fail at talking about qualia properly.

Comment author: DaFranker 13 December 2012 01:33:02PM 0 points [-]

I belive in the existence of at least on non-p-zombie, because I have at least indirect evidence of one in the form of my own qualia.

I must not be working with the right / same conception of p-zombies then, because to me qualia experience provides exactly zero bayesian evidence for or against p-zombies on its own.

Comment author: Peterdjones 13 December 2012 01:39:50PM 2 points [-]

"A philosophical zombie or p-zombie in the philosophy of mind and perception is a hypothetical being that is indistinguishable from a normal human being except in that it lacks conscious experience, qualia, or sentience.[1] "--WP

I am of course taking a p-zombie to be lacking in qualia. I am not sure that alternatives are even coherent, since I don't see how other aspects of consciousness could go missing without affecting behaviour.

Comment author: DaFranker 13 December 2012 01:53:39PM *  1 point [-]

Wait, those premises just seem wrong and contradictory.

  1. To even work in the thought experiment, p-zombies live in a world with physics and logic identical to our own (with possibility of added components).
  2. In principle, qualia can either be generated by physics, logic, or something else (i.e. magic), or any combination thereof.
  3. There is no magic / something else.
  4. We have qualia, generated apparently only by physics and/or logic.
  5. p-zombies have the exact same physics and logic, but still no qualia.

???

My only remaining hypothesis is that p-zombies live in a world where the physics and logic are there, but there is also something else entirely magical that does not seem to exist in our universe that somehow prevents their qualia, by hypothesis. Very question-begging. Also unnecessarily complex. I am apparently incapable of working with thought experiments that defy the laws of logic by their premises.

Comment author: nshepperd 13 December 2012 03:38:00AM 1 point [-]

You appear to be making an unfortunate assumption that what Chalmers and Peterdjones are talking about is crazy-assed unnecessary XML tags, as opposed to, y'know, regular old consciousness.

Comment author: DaFranker 13 December 2012 01:43:36PM *  0 points [-]

I'm not sure where my conception of p-zombies went wrong, then. P-zombies are assumed by the premise, if my understanding is correct, to behave physically exactly the same, down to the quantum level (and beyond if any exists), but to simply not have something being referred to as "qualia". This seems to directly imply that the "qualia" is generated neither by the physical matter, nor by the manner in which it interacts.

Like Eliezer, I believe physics and logic are sufficient to describe eventually everything, and so qualia and consciousness must be made of this physical matter and the way it interacts. Therefore, since the p-zombies have the same matter and the same interactions, they have qualia and consciousness.

What, then, is a non-p-zombie? Well, something that has "something more" (implied: Than physics or logic) added into it. Since it's something exceptional that isn't part of anything else so far in the universe to my knowledge, calling it a "crazy-ass unnecessary XML tag" feels very worthy of its plausibility and comparative algorithmic complexity.

The point being that, under this conception of p-zombies and with my current (very strong) priors on the universe, non-p-zombies are either a silly mysterious question with no possible answer, or something supernatural on the same level of silly as atom-fiddling tiny green goblins and white-winged angels of Pure Mercy.

Comment author: nshepperd 13 December 2012 02:10:06PM *  0 points [-]

Huh...

That's a funny way of thinking about it.

But anyway, EY's zombies sequences was all about saying that if physics and math is everything, then p-zombies are a silly mysterious question. Because a p-zombie was supposed to be like a normal human to the atomic level, but without qualia. Which is absurd if, as we expect, qualia are within physics and math. Hence there are no p-zombies.

I guess the point is that saying there are no non-p-zombies as a result of this is totally confusing, because it totally looks like saying no-one has consciousness.

(Tangentially, it probably doesn't help that apparently half of the philosophical world use "qualia" to mean some supernatural XML tags, while the other half use the word to mean just the-way-things-feel, aka. consciousness. You seem to get a lot of arguments between those in each of those groups, with the former group arguing that qualia are nonsense, and the latter group rebutting that "obviously we have qualia, or are you all p-zombies?!" resulting in a generally unproductive debate.)

Comment author: DaFranker 13 December 2012 02:16:21PM *  0 points [-]

I guess the point is that saying there are no non-p-zombies as a result of this is totally confusing, because it totally looks like saying no-one has consciousness.

Hah, yes. That seems to be partly a result of my inconsistent way of handling thought experiments that are broken or dissolved in the premises, as opposed to being rejected due to a later contradiction or nonexistent solution.

Comment author: Decius 14 December 2012 12:23:35AM 0 points [-]

I'm saying that there is no difference between a p-zombie and the alternative.