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Zombies! Zombies?
curiousone80

To just try to state what I understood so far (and hopefully therefore inspire further interest) : In the comments section to the post on “a priori”, Eliezer Yudkowky claims to be a “material monist”. That would mean that he thinks that there is only matter, and that anything that could be described as “non-material” must therefore actually be material. Which fits the section of this “Zombies”-post that I commented on in the first place. The argumentation seems to be as follows: The world can be described using physical laws, and one does not need any “mi... (read more)

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Zombies! Zombies?
curiousone10

Thanks for answering again! And thanks for correcting my misspelling.

Okay. So, I read the whole thread. And I did not find the answers I asked from you. If these questions have been solved, they are not fresh (obviously), but they are fresh to me. Of course, you can say that explaining anything to me is not worth your – or anyone's – time (for whatever reason). But you did answer once again. So why did you tell me all that, instead of answering my questions that are – to you – already solved (or telling me where to find the solutions)?

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8curiousone
To just try to state what I understood so far (and hopefully therefore inspire further interest) : In the comments section to the post on “a priori”, Eliezer Yudkowky claims to be a “material monist”. That would mean that he thinks that there is only matter, and that anything that could be described as “non-material” must therefore actually be material. Which fits the section of this “Zombies”-post that I commented on in the first place. The argumentation seems to be as follows: The world can be described using physical laws, and one does not need any “mind” or “consciousness” to formulate why – for example – the lips of a human move. There is causality, from the processes in the brain to the muscles in the lips, that explains why the lip has to move as it does. And since this causal chain starts with something we might call “thought” in our “normal” language, and that starting chain link needs to influence the next link, it must be material and within the laws of physics as well. That means that – although we do not yet know the exact form of that physical “thought”-property – we are allowed to take it as given. What we have to presuppose is that the only influence on a physical object is possible through a physical object. Of course, some sort of “dualist” would never let that pass. If “thought” had no influence on the physical world, then that would go against our experience that for example we think and our body follows those “orders”. So thought must have an influence on the material world. That's exactly the section of Eliezer Yudkowsky's “Zombies”-post that I commented on above: He presents “substance dualism” where we have a not-yet-understood “thought”affecting our world. And he presents “Not-quite-faith-based reductionism”, similar to “material monism”, where we have a not-yet-understood “material substance”. One relies on the intuition that no material substance can possibly add up to consciousness, the other one on the intuition that material substance c
Zombies! Zombies?
curiousone00

Well, how should I interpret this? One week without an answer to my questions. Is there no answer? And - if that is so - is the theory proposed by Eliezer Yudkowski here not right?

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6Said Achmiz
It’s “Yudkowsky”, fyi. As for your questions… to be honest, they are rather repetitive, and cover well-trod ground—both in that you’re going over things that have already been addressed in this very thread, and also recapitulating arguments about, e.g., the “problem of induction”, of which so much has been said, over so many years (and decades, and indeed centuries), that to bring it up as if it’s a fresh concern is… not, shall we say, a productive use of anyone’s time. To inspire further interest, among the commentariat here, in discussing this with you, you would have to, at least, show that you’re already well-familiar with existing commentary on relevant philosophical topics.
Zombies! Zombies?
curiousone10

Thanks again for the answer! I understand the analogy to my problem like this: in our case, we have the brain and consciousness as pieces of the puzzle, and the explanation of consciousness being based on the brain as solution. But we cannot just see the solution as easy as by flipping a card. For it has not yet been found

Now, I wonder at this: When I am solving this children's puzzle, and I am, just as in your example, sure that it does not have a solution: It is well possible that the puzzle card really does not. For example the game designer c... (read more)

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0curiousone
Well, how should I interpret this? One week without an answer to my questions. Is there no answer? And - if that is so - is the theory proposed by Eliezer Yudkowski here not right?
Zombies! Zombies?
curiousone10

Thanks for the answer! So my judgement should go along these questions you propose. Now I ask myself the question: “There seems to be much effort invested in the explanation of the hard problem of consciousness through physics. Does that make sense?”. But I need to find out (1.) HOW much effort was ACTUALLY invested already, (2.) HOW important it is to find a solution there, and (3.) WHICH alternate approaches are available. Right?

But how do you measure effort? And why is it important to know how much was already invested? I don't understand that yet...

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Zombies! Zombies?
curiousone10

Thanks for the comment. I guessed that when someone argues that physics will reveal something after a period of time, of course physicists must put effort into their work for that to happen. But it is better to actually formulate it.

Do you think that, when we exchange "time passed" by "effort invested", there is any way to tell "now enough effort was invested without any outcome, so we have to look for another solution!"?

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2Said Achmiz
It’s a matter of judgment, I should think; and whether we ought to look for a solution elsewhere seems to me to depend on three variables: 1. How much effort has been invested already, in the existing direction of research (i.e., physics, materialism, science—which is, of course, a very broad category of effort). 2. How important it is, that the problem be solved. We’ve gone several thousand years without “solving” the “Hard Problem of consciousness” (though we’ve made what seems to me like quite a bit of progress); is it terribly urgent that we solve it ASAP? 3. How likely it seems that whatever alternate approach is available, will make any real progress (and how much it costs us to engage in such an approach). (Of course, this consideration suggests that it might be profitable to look for heretofore-unknown approaches—but then again, it might not be. Unknown unknowns, and all that.) From an epistemic perspective—what we should think about whether the problem will be solved at some point if we continue on our current course—only point #1 really matters. From an instrumental perspective—what, if anything, should we do, or what should we change about what and how we do things—points #2 and #3 seem to me to be at least as important.
Zombies! Zombies?
curiousone10

Thanks for the replies!

So Eliezer basically says to me (as the reader) that Physics has solved so many problems in the past ("track record") that I should really give it some time until I start to doubt and search for other explanations. Do I have this right?

So: How much time would you recommend as an appropriate waiting time; and why? How much is "quite a few seconds"?

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3Said Achmiz
Concerning the track record of physics (or “science” more generally)—my philosophy professor in college, Robert Lurz, had a wonderful analogy / intuition pump about this (which I will slightly extend here). There is a sort of children’s puzzle, which consists of a set of flat plastic or wooden pieces, all of abstract geometric shapes, that fit together in various ways along the edges; and also a set of cards, which have, on the obverse side, an outline shape—that’s the puzzle—and on the reverse side, the solution to the puzzle—i.e., the same outline, but filled in to show how the pieces may be fitted together to form the desired outline. So you take a puzzle card from the box, and you look at the obverse side, and you look at the pieces, and you say to yourself: gosh, I just can’t see how these pieces could possibly fit together to form this shape. You turn the pieces this way and that, but you can’t make it work; so you conclude that there’s got to be some mistake—perhaps a manufacturing defect, or maybe the wrong puzzle cards were mistakenly put into the box with the wrong pieces. Then you turn the card over, to the side with the solution, and—Ohhh! So they go together like that! I wouldn’t have guessed… Yes, the solution works, and is obvious in retrospect. Reassured, you take the next puzzle card from the box, and this time you give it a good deal of thought. You turn the pieces this way and that, you rotate the puzzle card, but… you just can’t make it work. You know, I bet this particular card was mis-printed, you think; the other one had a solution, but this one, well, I just don’t see how it possibly could… And then you turn the card over, and—Ohhh…! Like that… and that one goes there… wow, yeah, that makes sense. Reassured, you take the third puzzle card from the box… … … … you take the fifteenth puzzle card from the box, and this one is a real stumper. You spend days on it. You call your friends for help. There just isn’t any possible way those dar
Zombies! Zombies?
curiousone10

I see that people have rated my comment above negatively. I hope it isn't offensive or so, for that was not my intention; if there is a mistake in it I would like to know about it and learn from it!

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4habryka
Your argument mostly just strikes me as logically flawed. There are clear and easy ways of falsifying the hypothesis of "the process of natural physics will in short time explain all things you find mysterious". Namely every second that passes without physics doing so, is evidence against that theory. The argument that Eliezer makes is that Physics has a strong enough track record that it will take quite a few seconds to pass until you should really consider alternative hypotheses.
Zombies! Zombies?
curiousone10

Hello. You state that "it is still quite plausible that consciousness emerges from "mere atoms" ", but you do not explain why you make that statement. In fact you say that one day it will all be totally clear, even if it isn't yet right now.

I might be wrong, but that's why I'm asking: Is it not possible to say that about anything?

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Zombies! Zombies?
curiousone-10

The said Chalmersian theory postulates multiple unexplained complex miracles. This drives down its prior probability, by the conjunction rule of probability and Occam's Razor. It is therefore dominated by at least two theories which postulate fewer miracles, namely:

Substance dualism: There is a stuff of consciousness which is not yet understood, an extraordinary super-physical stuff that visibly affects our world; and this stuff is what makes us talk about consciousness.

Not-quite-faith-based reductionism: That-which-we-name "consciousnes... (read more)
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1curiousone
I see that people have rated my comment above negatively. I hope it isn't offensive or so, for that was not my intention; if there is a mistake in it I would like to know about it and learn from it!