2010-05-03 08:46:39 +02:00
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% Consciousness Explained
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This is a little series of thoughts on the book "Consciousness Explained" by
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Daniel Dennett. I was having a lot of problems the first time through and gave
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2010-05-13 12:14:40 +02:00
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up in a rage, but enough people I respect recommended the book. So to find out
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if it's just me and my personal bias, I started to read it again, giving Dennett
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more credit than before. I comment on most of the book, but might skip parts I
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simply agree with and have nothing to say about. I planned to have at least a
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detailed criticism the second time through, but actually was influenced so much
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by it that it quite literally changed my life and whole way of thinking, trying
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to sort it all out and somehow refute Dennett.
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2010-05-03 08:46:39 +02:00
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Hallucinations
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==============
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The Brain in a Vat
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------------------
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They say you only get to make first impressions once and oh boy did Dennett make
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some! The book starts off with a little introduction to the old "brain in the
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vat" thought experiment. Just 5 pages in and I'm already raging about Dennett's
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sloppiness and faulty reasoning.
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Let's take it one mistake at a time: He begins by differentiating between
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"possible in principle" and "possible in fact"[^det], saying that while an
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incredibly (or even infinitely) powerful entity *could* keep your brain in a vat
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and fool you into believing their illusion, any remotely plausible being
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couldn't do so, therefore we can safely dismiss the argument. I'm going to
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address the plausibility next, but first something about the argument itself.
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If you are the prisoner of a powerful trickster, then you *can not tell* what
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2010-08-13 10:28:49 +02:00
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tools they have available. You don't know anything about their universe. The
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2010-05-03 08:46:39 +02:00
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main idea of running a convincing simulation is exactly that you do not give the
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victim any external reference! You do not get to assume that "yesterday was
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real", but "today looks different, maybe I was kidnapped by mad neurologists?".
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*Any* information you have ever been given can be part of the simulation; that
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is exactly *the point of running one*.
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Maybe they have access to infinite energy? Their universe could very well be
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infinite. You have no way of knowing how many resources they have because, by
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definition, you can not see their universe. You can estimate a lower bound, but
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that's about it. You can not even tell if *any* property of your simulation is
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like the world the trickster is in. They can impose any logic, any amount of
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2010-08-13 10:28:49 +02:00
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resources they want (provided they have more). Want to run the simulation as a
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2010-05-03 08:46:39 +02:00
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finite world? No problem. Impose fake concreteness, enforcing quantization of
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any property? Makes the source code a whole lot easier! Let information travel
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only at a limited speed to simplify the calculations? Sure. Because you don't
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even have to run it in real time, you can enforce any speed you want, even a
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faster one than you have in your world! The "real" world could look so utterly
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alien to us that we would have to call it supernatural. And then all bets are
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off. But Dennett doesn't even pretend to address this. In fact, it looks like he
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isn't even aware of the literature. This is a staple of gnostic teaching, at
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least 3000 years old, and he gets it fundamentally wrong.
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The book certainly doesn't start on a good note. But how hard is it really to
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lie to a human brain? Imagine some human scientists wanted to pull this off,
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could they do it? Well, sure. Maybe not today, but easily in the near future.
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One great simplification they could employ, that Dennett never even mentions, is
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taking senses away. If you have never experienced something, then you won't miss
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it! If I take a fresh brain without memories and never provide it with visual
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feedback, then it won't develop vision and never miss it. The necessary
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complexity of the simulation has just gone down a lot. We know that blind people
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are just as consciousness as the rest of us and I don't think Dennett would dare
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argue against it, so why doesn't he address this? Nonetheless, there is a limit
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here, as demonstrated by Helen Keller. If you cut away too many senses, no
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consciousness will develop. But we don't need movement, we don't need vision and
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we don't need pain. Sound and speech, plus a few easy parts like smell, should
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be enough. We could also add touch as long as we limit movement. The human brain
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is also quite flexible and will adapt to new senses, like magnetism, as long as
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we can input it. Some body hackers have achieved neat things in that regard.
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Even better, you can do this even after the person has experienced a "real"
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world, as long as you modify their memories as well. There are plenty of
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2010-06-23 07:23:50 +02:00
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documented cases of people losing parts of their brain and not realizing it.
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Losing a whole direction, like "left", is not that unusual for a stroke victim.
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They don't notice at all that they don't see anything to their left, the very
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concept is gone. Ask them to get dressed and they only put on one sock. So if
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vision is too complex for you, just cut it all out. Once technology has
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improved, you can add it back in again. To lie convincingly, we really only need
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to be consistent. If movement and touch is only binary (I touch you or not; you
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push or not), then the brain will think of it as normal.
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2010-05-03 08:46:39 +02:00
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Furthermore, we already have brains in vats! There are already complete
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simulations of neurons. Some primitive animal brains (worms, mostly) have
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already been simulated! As of 2010, the best we can do are small parts of a
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2010-06-23 07:23:50 +02:00
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rat's brain, but not that foor of, maybe this century even, we will be able to
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do human brain's as well. So his claim of this being "beyond human technology
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now and probably forever" is utterly ridiculous.
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2010-05-03 08:46:39 +02:00
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Strong Hallucinations
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---------------------
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Because brains in a vat are impossible in fact, we have a problem with strong
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hallucinations, he continues. He defines a strong hallucination as
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> a hallucination of an apparently concrete and persisting three-dimensional
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> object in the real world - as contrasted by flashes, geometric distortions,
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> auras, afterimages, fleeting phantom-limb experiences, and other anomalous
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> sensations. A strong hallucination would be, say, a ghost that talked back,
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> that permitted you to touch it, that resisted with a sense of solidity, that
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> cast a shadow, that was visible from any angle so that you might walk around
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> it and see what its back looked like
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My first reactions to this was: "I *had* such hallucinations! *Multiple
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times*!" But he concludes that they must be impossible, as the brain is clearly
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not powerful enough to create them. This puzzled me, to say the least. I can
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understand him here, but my own experience seems to contradict this. In fact,
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because my hallucinations were so convincing, I was often reluctant to call them
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hallucinations at all. They were the primary reason why I was a gnostic theist.
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If I talked to a god, saw it, touched it, had it transform the whole world and
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so on, how could I possibly have hallucinated that?
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Before I address this, a little side note. I didn't notice it at first,
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especially when reading "Breaking the Spell" (a more sensible, but too careful
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book), but Dennett mentions Carlos Castaneda as an example of someone describing
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such strong hallucinations and how that fact "suggested to scientists that the
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book, in spite of having been a successful Ph.D. thesis in anthropology at UCLA,
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was fiction, not fact.". And then it dawned on me: Dennett is an **exoteric**
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thinker. Let me explain what I mean by this. The terms *esoteric* and
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*exoteric*, in this context, refer to where knowledge comes from: esoteric
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knowledge is derived from within oneself, while exoteric knowledge is drawn from
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the outside world. The perceived duality is false, but this is irrelevant. What
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I mean when I say that Dennett is exoteric is that he looks at consciousness as
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an outside phenomenon, something you approach like an anthropologist, taking
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notes of other people's behaviour and so on. This approach is utterly alien to
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me. I have always favored the esoteric approach, in which you think of
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consciousness (and related phenomena) as something that can only ever be
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addressed in your own mind. The insights of any other person are, ultimately,
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useless to you. This is similar to the difference between orthodox religions,
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that value history, authority and literalism (You can only learn about God from
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his Chosen.), and gnostic religions, that value personal revelations and
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experiences (You can only learn about God yourself.). The consequence of this
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difference is that Dennett seems to me so completely inexperienced about the
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topic of consciousness. As far as I can tell, he never took any drugs, never
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meditated, never learned any spiritual teaching or anything like this. How could
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anyone *not* do this? I would never trust a chemist that never tried to build a
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2010-08-13 10:28:49 +02:00
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bomb, nor would I ever trust an engineer that didn't take apart a complex
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2010-05-03 08:46:39 +02:00
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machine (like their microwave or car engine) for fun (and to see if they could
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2010-08-13 10:28:49 +02:00
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put it back together again). Those would be the most natural first impulse for
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2010-05-03 08:46:39 +02:00
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anyone remotely interested in the fields (and not just doing it for the profit),
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and they would be valuable first insights and opportunities to learn essential
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skills (like, "don't get burned" for all three fields I mentioned). For example,
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Susan Blackmore has extensive drug and meditation experiences, as has Sam Harris
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and almost everyone else I know that is interested in some aspect of their own
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mind. I find it really hard to imagine the mindset of a person that wants to
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understand minds, yet doesn't start hacking their own one right away. The term
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"ivory tower academic" never seemed more appropriate.
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But back to the book itself. As I mentioned, I was still, at least partially,
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convinced I had experienced strong hallucinations before. So is Dennett's
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conclusion just bullshit? Well, no. He goes on to explain how they actually
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might come about, and provides a great analogy in the form of a party game
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called "Psychoanalysis":
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> In this game one person, the dupe, is told that while he is out of the room,
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> one member of the assembled party will be called upon to relate a recent
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> dream. This will give everybody else in the room the story line of that dream
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> so that when the dupe returns to the room and begins questioning the assembled
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> party, the dreamer's identity will be hidden in the crowd of responders. The
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> dupe's job is to ask yes/no questions of the assembled group until he has
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> figured out the dream narrative to a suitable degree of detail, at which point
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> the dupe is to psychoanalyze the dreamer, and use the analysis to identify him
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> or her. Once the dupe is out of the room, the host explains to the rest of the
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> party that no one is to relate a dream, that the party is to answer the dupe's
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> questions according to the following simple rule: if the last letter of the
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> last word of the question is in the first half of the alphabet, the questions
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> is to be answered in the affirmative, and all other questions are to be
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> answered in the negative, with one proviso: a non-contradiction override rule
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> to the effect that later questions are not to be given answers that contradict
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> earlier answers. For example: Q: Is the dream about a girl? A: Yes. but if
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> later our forgetful dupe asks Q: Are there any female characters in it? A: Yes
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> [in spite of the final t, applying the noncontradiction override] When the
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> dupe returns to the room and begins questioning, he gets a more or less
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> random, or at any rate arbitrary, series of yeses and noes in response. The
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> results are often entertaining. Sometimes theprocess terminates swiftly in
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> absurdity, as one can see at a glance by supposing the initial question asked
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> were "Is the story line of the dream word-for-word identical to the story line
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> of War and Peace?" or, alternatively, "Are there any animate beings in it?" A
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> more usual outcome is for a bizarre and often obscene story of ludicrous
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> misadventure to unfold, to the amusement of all. When the dupe eventually
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> decides that the dreamer — whoever he or she is — must be a very sick and
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> troubled individual, the assembled party gleefully retorts that the dupe
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> himself is the author of the "dream."
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This is, in a way, very close to how some parts of the human brain actually
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work. Most processing doesn't start with the facts and derives a hypothesis that
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it then tests (as science should work), but rather is overeager to find
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patterns. Instead, you get a face recognition system that is totally convinced
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that this is a face, no doubt about that! Oh, it was just some toast, oh well.
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But it totally look like a face! Like the Virgin Mary, even! You just need to
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slightly disorient this part, or feed it random noise, and it will see faces
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everywhere, in the walls, the trees, your hand, everything. Or nowhere, of
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course, depending on the exact disturbance. And I began to think, if you just
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disturb a few crucial areas involved in parsing important objects (like faces,
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intentions, geometric patterns and so on), and this isn't particularly hard, you
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really only need to cut off the regular input (as when sleeping), then the
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narrative parts of the brain are in quite a tricky situation. Their job is to
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make sense of all that, rationalizing both the outside world and your own
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behaviour. This is crucial in social situations; you really wanna figure out
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fast who is plotting against you and whom you can trust. In fact, it is so
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useful, that even quite a bit of false positives isn't so bad. Some paranoia or
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thinking your PC hates you isn't so bad and can even help you analyze situations
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(like thinking that "the fire wants to eat up all the oxygen"). Dennett calls
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this particular analysis the _intentional stance_. Now, if the narrator is only
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given (pseudo-)random noise, it will impose any story it thinks is most natural,
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i.e. most of the time other human(oid)s, recent emotions and so on. This is
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exactly how dreams work and, in fact, most drug-induced hallucinations as well.
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The exact distortion and resulting flexibility in making up a good story depends
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on the drug, of course, and is quite interesting in itself.
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But does this really explain my own strong hallucinations? I was reluctant to
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accept this at first, but now have to agree with Dennett here. Thinking back,
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and based on the most recent experiments, I am forced to concede this point. I
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never met an agent, or phenomenon at all, that was able to act against my own
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will. James Kent describes this on [tripzine]:
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> However, the more I experimented with DMT the more I found that the "elves"
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> were merely machinations of my own mind. While under the influence I found I
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> could think them into existence, and then think them right out of existence
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> simply by willing it so. Sometimes I could not produce elves, and my mind
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> would wander through all sorts of magnificent and amazing creations, but the
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> times that I did see elves I tried very hard to press them into giving up some
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> non-transient feature that would confirm at least a rudimentary "autonomous
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> existence" beyond my own imagination. Of course, I could not. Whenever I tried
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> to pull any information out of the entities regarding themselves, the data
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> that was given up was always relevant only to me. The elves could not give me
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> any piece of data I did not already know, nor could their existence be
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> sustained under any kind of prolonged scrutiny. Like a dream, once you realize
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> you are dreaming you are actually slipping into wakefulness and the dream
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> fades. So it is with the elves as well. When you try to shine a light of
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> reason on them they dissolve like shadows.
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And so I gave up on believing in them, as reality, as Philip K. Dick said, "is
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that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away". One last thought
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one the topic, though: Dennett contradicts himself here. If it is so relatively
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easy to lie to the brain, to convince it to see patterns that aren't there - and
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he even provides a mechanism: don't lie to the senses, lie to the interpreting
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part - how can he still dismiss the brain in the vat so easily? He has just
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described, in detail, how you would go about setting up a relatively easy
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simulation! It will become clear later that Dennett has thought of this, but at
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first, his argument is very inconsistent and sloppy.
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Imagine
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=======
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Dennett begins chapter 2 with a little justification, almost an apology. "If the
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concept of consciousness were to 'fall to science', what would happen to our
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sense of moral agency and free will?" Personally, I think the whole sentiment is
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silly, but then I've been in contact with non-dualistic ideas since I was a
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child, so I tend to underestimate the confusion an Abrahamic influence in
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upbringing can cause. I still wonder why people care so much about free will,
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but Dennett is right both in anticipating the response and in disarming it. Even
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experts in cognitive science often believe in dualistic concepts, like
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Descartes' mind vs. matter, or a more toned down version Dennett calls the
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"Cartesian theatre", i.e. the idea that somewhere in their brain there is a
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central place where consciousness happens, a seat of the "I", if you will. It is
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unfortunate that we still have to deal with this (even though it has been
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dismantled by Greek, Indian and many other thinkers for at least 2000 years),
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but the illusion is still powerful and has to be addressed.
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I also want to add that Dennett's point here (and later on, when he goes into
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the details) is that there is no one central point _where consciousness
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happens_, not that the brain is entirely decentral. Recent research hints at the
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fact that visual processing may actually have a central HQ, but the important
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thing is that not _all_ final processing happens there. Some high level
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functionality may have a center here or there, but they are all separate and
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provide no basis for a _unity of consciousness_[^unity] as it is naively
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perceived.
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But let's continue with more meaty stuff. Dennett outlines the following rules
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for his approach of explaining consciousness:
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> (1) *No Wonder Tissue allowed.* I will try to explain every puzzling feature of
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> human consciousness within the framework of contemporary physical science; at
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> no point will I make an appeal to inexplicable or unknown forces, substances,
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> or organic powers. In other words, I intend to see what can be done within the
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> conservative limits of standard science, saving a call for a revolution in
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> materialism as a last resort.
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>
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> (2) *No feigning anesthesia.* It has been said of behaviorists that they feign
|
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|
|
> anesthesia — they pretend they don't have the experiences we know darn well
|
|
|
|
> they share with us. If I wish to deny the existence of some controversial
|
|
|
|
> feature of consciousness, the burden falls on me to show that it is somehow
|
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|
> illusory.
|
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|
>
|
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|
> (3) *No nitpicking about empirical details.* I will try to get all the
|
|
|
|
> scientific facts right, insofar as they are known today, but there is abundant
|
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|
|
> controversy about just which exciting advances will stand the test of time. If
|
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|
> I were to restrict myself to "facts that have made it into the textbooks," I
|
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|
|
> would be unable to avail myself of some of the most eye-opening recent
|
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|
> discoveries (if that is what they are). And I would still end up unwittingly
|
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> purveying some falsehoods, if recent history is any guide. [...]
|
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I find (2) particularly funny, given that I have criticized him for this very
|
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|
|
thing before. But then, he really might not have had these kind of experiences
|
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|
|
he dismisses so easily. In fact, there seems to be a tremendous difference
|
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|
|
between people how receptive their brain is to religious experiences. Actual
|
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|
|
experiences, like visions, profound meaning or higher (sometimes called _pure_)
|
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|
|
consciousness are rare (and independent of religions - they just provide a
|
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|
|
common framework). It is therefore not surprising that the vast majority of
|
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|
|
scientists and philosophers simply doesn't know what the few people that had
|
|
|
|
those mystic experiences are talking about, leading to much rationalization and
|
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|
|
dismissal as "metaphors" or "confabulation". Luckily, this is slowly changing,
|
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|
|
and I do have the suspicion that Dennett himself is becoming more aware of this.
|
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|
|
Work on Temporal Lobe Epilepsy, for example, has demonstrated such experiences
|
|
|
|
as real and very challenging to our normal constructions of reality. Our brain
|
|
|
|
is far stranger and less organized than Dennett portraits it here.
|
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|
The Garden of Arcane Delights
|
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|
-----------------------------
|
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|
Dennet then provides a "phenomenological garden", i.e. a wide catalogue of
|
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|
|
experiences that are considered as "part" of the mind, like vision, hunger or
|
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|
fear. In this garden, he emphasizes vision the most and among his examples, he
|
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|
|
demonstrates just this large variety among humans how and when mental images
|
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|
appear. Personally, I found several of his examples to be entirely non-visual,
|
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|
like:
|
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|
> For instance, it's hard to imagine how anyone could get some jokes without the
|
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|
> help of mental imagery. Two friends are sitting in a bar drinking; one turns
|
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|
> to the other and says, "Bud, I think you've had enough — your face is getting
|
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|
> all blurry!" Now didn't you use an image or fleeting diagram of some sort to
|
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|
|
> picture the mistake the speaker was making?
|
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|
I didn't. Humor, or stories in general, tend to be non-visual for
|
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|
|
me. They happen "as language", not "as vision", if that makes any
|
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|
|
sense. But for other experiences he doesn't emphasize the visual
|
|
|
|
component and I wonder, doesn't he have one there? He talks a lot
|
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|
|
about music and tones, but never mentions seeing music, which I do,
|
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|
|
to a degree. Different tones *look* different to me, but they don't
|
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|
*sound* very different - and least not in any meaningful way.[^vis]
|
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|
|
Now, this in itself is not a problem - different parts of the brain doing the
|
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|
|
parsing and so on, which (for a multitude of reasons) is very different among
|
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|
|
individuals. I just find it weird that Dennett seems to assume that, in general,
|
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|
|
we all work the same. Sure, there might be blind people that have fundamentally
|
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|
|
different experiences, or someone might "prefer" mental diagrams to faces, but
|
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|
|
if I "see" a person when I'm thinking of them, you do too, right? Well, no. The
|
|
|
|
differences can be profound, seemingly arbitrary and often go unnoticed for a
|
|
|
|
long time, maybe even for life. Just compare what mathematical statements and
|
|
|
|
explanations are "obvious and trivial" to some people and "confusing and
|
|
|
|
impossible to understand" to others upon first hearing them. Or go into the
|
|
|
|
Mythbusters forum and watch multiple people arguing that, of course!, X is true
|
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|
|
or false, it's so obvious!, but everyone with a different argument, often all
|
|
|
|
contradicting each other. Personally, I don't even feel that it is justified to
|
|
|
|
assume that there even is such a thing as an "experience" in any non-individual
|
|
|
|
way. To say that there is such a thing as "a mental image of a face", in
|
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|
|
general, instead of saying "that what John Doe calls a mental image of a face",
|
|
|
|
is very counter-intuitive and needs strong evidence to back it up. There
|
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|
|
probably is a unique brain pattern, a specific firing of neurons perhaps, that
|
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|
|
can be called a specific "experience", but those are unique to each brain. It
|
|
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|
might be true that there are common patterns among people, at least in some
|
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|
|
cases, but those have to be established - which Dennett simply doesn't do. The
|
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|
very idea, that like we mean the same animal when we say "dog" (with small
|
|
|
|
caveats), we mean the same mental state when we say "think of a dog", is, to me,
|
|
|
|
almost absurd. There is some functional equivalence going on, sure, otherwise
|
|
|
|
communication would be impossible, but the exact implementations vary so much
|
|
|
|
that such a catalogue is doomed from the start.
|
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|
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|
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|
There is a common advice among users of strong hallucinogenic drugs: If you feel
|
|
|
|
something discomforting and can't figure out what it is - like you never had
|
|
|
|
this experience before? Almost certainly, you just have to pee. "When in doubt,
|
|
|
|
go to the toilet." has so far never let me down, even though the same thing has
|
|
|
|
felt very different every time.
|
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|
Die Entdeckung der Langsamkeit
|
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|
|
==============================
|
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|
> I thought people were still going to throw the book across the room, but I
|
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|
|
> didn't want to give them an excuse to throw the book across the room. I wanted
|
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|
|
> them to feel a little bit bad about their throwing it across the room, maybe
|
|
|
|
> go and retrieve it and think well, hang on, yes, this irritated me but maybe I
|
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|
|
> don't have the right to be irritated.
|
2010-05-13 12:14:40 +02:00
|
|
|
>
|
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|
> -- Daniel Dennett, about [Breaking the Spell]
|
2010-05-03 08:46:39 +02:00
|
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|
Although Dennett meant a different book, he still pretty much sums up how I feel
|
2010-05-13 12:14:40 +02:00
|
|
|
about "Consciousness Explained". If I actually owned his book, I literally would
|
|
|
|
have thrown it against the wall. Multiple times, in fact.
|
2010-05-03 08:46:39 +02:00
|
|
|
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|
|
But the more I came to think about it and analyzed *why* I disagreed so much
|
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|
|
with him, the more I realized that I really had very poor reasons to do so. No
|
|
|
|
matter how weak I thought his arguments were, I couldn't just reject them
|
|
|
|
without good arguments of my own, and I found out I didn't have any!
|
|
|
|
|
2010-05-13 12:14:40 +02:00
|
|
|
To get a better idea of the context Dennett operates in, I needed to first know
|
|
|
|
all current models of consciousness, which lead to a *tremendous* amount of
|
|
|
|
reading. I spent a good 4 months or so going through many books per week, trying
|
|
|
|
to develop a better understanding of the topic, and mostly, to understand my own
|
|
|
|
motivations and beliefs.
|
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|
No matter how much of his work I might find myself agreeing with in the future,
|
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|
|
I already am glad I stuck with the book. Dennett raised all hell in my brain and
|
|
|
|
demonstrated to me quite clearly that I have been in heavy rationalization mode
|
|
|
|
for some time now. I will have to deconstruct and tear apart a lot more until I
|
|
|
|
reach internal consistency again, so let's go on!
|
2010-05-03 08:46:39 +02:00
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Multiple Drafts and Central Meaning
|
|
|
|
-----------------------------------
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
I'm not going to discuss Dennett's core hypothesis[^md] directly much, simply
|
|
|
|
because I don't see a useful way to *do* it. He successfully demonstrates a
|
|
|
|
basic model how one might explain the mind without postulation a central
|
|
|
|
organization, but the problem is that Dennett lacks so much precision in his
|
|
|
|
ideas that they are barely testable or useful, really. They are more of a first
|
|
|
|
justification to further pursuit the direction; a demonstration that there may
|
|
|
|
be something good to be found here. But in itself, it is rather empty.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
One thing of note I find astonishing is the fact that Dennett presents the idea
|
|
|
|
as something radically new, something that needs strong justifications to be
|
|
|
|
even considered worth thinking about in the broadest of terms. The more I read
|
|
|
|
Western philosophy, and going by the reactions and statements of many
|
|
|
|
scientists, Dennett's attitude seems to be right; there really *is* widespread
|
|
|
|
skepticism and prejudice against this line of reasoning. Many people seem to
|
|
|
|
really *believe* there is one core self from which all meaning clearly descends,
|
|
|
|
following dedicated pathways, maybe even a strictly logical design like in a
|
|
|
|
Turing machine.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
*How can that be?!* It completely surprises me. Such ideas go clearly against my
|
|
|
|
own experiences, clash with all of my introspections, have been widely and
|
2010-06-23 07:23:50 +02:00
|
|
|
thoroughly taking apart in all the traditions about consciousness *I* seem to
|
2010-05-03 08:46:39 +02:00
|
|
|
be aware of, like from Buddhism, Christian and Gnostic mysticism, the whole drug
|
|
|
|
culture and so on. Really, most of the time the first things a mystic is gonna
|
|
|
|
tell you is that reality is not fundamental, but can be taken apart, that your
|
|
|
|
perceptions, emotions and thoughts are independent processes and not *you* and
|
2010-06-23 07:23:50 +02:00
|
|
|
that the sense of self, the ego, can entirely disappear[^ego]. In fact,
|
2010-05-03 08:46:39 +02:00
|
|
|
the belief in the self is the very first thing on the way to nirvana a Buddhist
|
|
|
|
has to overcome. It can take many forms, but the basic experience of selfless
|
|
|
|
existence is one thing really *every* mystic or guru or saint has ever said or
|
|
|
|
written something about that I just thought it to be common knowledge. How could
|
2010-05-13 12:14:40 +02:00
|
|
|
you *not* know this? Did you also not know that the sun rises in the
|
|
|
|
east?[^meaning]
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Pandemonium
|
|
|
|
------------
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
The crucial part in Dennett's draft, I think, is the chaotic and decentral
|
|
|
|
nature of it. There isn't "one" mind or "one" meaner that does all the meaning,
|
|
|
|
but many small, independent circuits, often only temporary units that realign
|
|
|
|
themselves constantly, that cooperate, but also compete with each other for
|
|
|
|
dominion in the brain. The ultimate results are just the winner of that battle
|
|
|
|
and may shift or even disagree all the time.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
This is an astonishing fact, without which *no* action of the brain can ever be
|
|
|
|
properly understood. Still, it took Dennett, what?, 250 pages to get there?
|
|
|
|
*Really?* This is my main criticism of the book; it just meanders on and on
|
|
|
|
without getting its real message across. And the excuse that it takes that long
|
|
|
|
to explain doesn't fly with me. The problem is not so much the message, not the
|
|
|
|
science. Discordian literature, for example, has no problem explaining this
|
|
|
|
point right away. Robert Anton Wilson even starts "Prometheus Rising" right with
|
|
|
|
it because you can't understand anything without it. The first lesson in any
|
|
|
|
mystic tradition was always breaking the self. As long as you believe in the
|
|
|
|
unity of self, you can never learn, or in other words, as long as something
|
|
|
|
*looks* like a black box to you, it will always *be* a black box to you. Only
|
|
|
|
magic can help you then.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
The problem really lies with the reader. Dennett understands how stubborn and
|
|
|
|
difficult to modify the human mind is, so he sugarcoats his message as much as
|
|
|
|
he can, trying to distract the reader long enough that he can get them to agree
|
|
|
|
with each part step by step, until the difficult conclusion will seem obvious.
|
|
|
|
This may even be a good tactic, but I feel utterly disgusted by it. You are
|
|
|
|
effectively trying to upgrade a broken system not by fixing it, but by slowly,
|
|
|
|
tenuously, working around its bugs. The *proper* solution would be to get rid of
|
|
|
|
the system altogether! Destroy their superstitions, make all their assumptions
|
|
|
|
crash and contradict each other, lead them into a state of pure chaos from which
|
|
|
|
nothing old can ever emerge again! Operation Mindfuck!
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
But we don't do this. Buddhism understood this perfectly. *First* you must make
|
|
|
|
the student enlightened, *then* you can teach them about their mind and
|
|
|
|
meta-physics and so on. The Buddha never discussed any teaching with a beginner,
|
|
|
|
simply because it would be impossible. Only *after* you have a prepared mind can
|
|
|
|
you understand the problem properly. But nothing of this sort happens in modern
|
|
|
|
science. No neuroscientist is required to learn meditation, or take courses on
|
|
|
|
philosophy, or given a spiritual challenge: "You are going to take DMT, and
|
|
|
|
until you can properly deal with it, your research will be considered worthless.
|
|
|
|
When you stop screaming and sobbing like a baby and can sit calmly through it,
|
|
|
|
we'll read your paper. Otherwise, you haven't even *seen* the real mind, so what
|
|
|
|
could you tell us about it?"[^dmt]
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
And this shows, again and again. Because of this we get clusterfucks like the
|
|
|
|
Beyond Belief conference, on which I can really only quote Scott Atran[^atran]:
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
> I certainly don't see in this audience the slightest indication that people
|
|
|
|
> here are emotionally, intellectually equipped to deal with the facts of
|
|
|
|
> changing human knowledge in the context of unchanging human needs, that
|
|
|
|
> haven't changed much since the Pleistocene. And I *don't* see that there's any
|
|
|
|
> evidence that science is being used to try to understand the people you are
|
|
|
|
> trying to convince to join you. So, for example, the statements we've heard
|
|
|
|
> here about Islam, in this audience, are worse than any comic book statements
|
|
|
|
> that I've heard about it and make the classic comic books look like the
|
|
|
|
> Encyclopedia Britannica. Statements about who the Jihadis are, who a suicide
|
|
|
|
> bomber is, what a religious experience is; except for one person, you haven't
|
|
|
|
> the slightest idea, you haven't produced one single fact, you haven't produced
|
|
|
|
> one single bit of knowledge, not a single bit. Every case provided here is an
|
|
|
|
> N of 1, our own intuition, except for Rama[^rama], who had an N of 2 (one
|
|
|
|
> brain patient). Luckily, we had *some* diversity. And from there,
|
|
|
|
> generalizations are made about religion, about what to do about religion,
|
|
|
|
> about how science is to engage or not engage religion, about what is rubbish
|
|
|
|
> and what is not. It strikes me that if you ever wanted to be serious and you
|
|
|
|
> want to engage the public to make it a moral, peaceful and compassionate
|
|
|
|
> world, you've gotta get real. You've got to get some data. You've got to get
|
|
|
|
> some knowledge. And you can't trust your own intuitions about how the world
|
|
|
|
> is. Be scientists! There is no indication whatsoever that anything we've heard
|
|
|
|
> shows any evidence of scientific inquiry.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Evasion
|
|
|
|
=======
|
|
|
|
|
2010-06-23 07:23:50 +02:00
|
|
|
But enough praise. The last might have given you the impression that I was
|
2010-05-13 12:14:40 +02:00
|
|
|
convinced by Dennett, that his approach seemed reasonable to me. And in fact,
|
|
|
|
for a while, I was. Fortunately, along came another chapter, the one about
|
|
|
|
"philosophical problems of consciousness", in which Dennett tries to answer some
|
|
|
|
criticism of his model. Most of it is just fine, including the zombie[^zombie]
|
|
|
|
part, but the part on *seeming*... oh, *seeming*...
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Dennett reviews his progress so far and pretends to address one obvious
|
|
|
|
criticism: that he still hasn't explained qualia. And he is very much aware of
|
2010-06-23 07:23:50 +02:00
|
|
|
it, but he just plainly refuses to answer, just throwing a few smoke-bombs
|
2010-05-13 12:14:40 +02:00
|
|
|
instead, hoping the reader forgets all about it! It's like, "Why are there still
|
|
|
|
qualia?" -> "To understand qualia, we must understand phenomenology." -> "To
|
2010-06-23 07:23:50 +02:00
|
|
|
understand phenomenology, we must understand selves." -> "Hey I got really cool
|
|
|
|
stories about them multiple selves! Let me show you them!" -> "Any questions?".
|
|
|
|
Like, what?! I feel I just got mugged by that stupid... ALL GLORY TO THE
|
|
|
|
HYPNOTOAD.
|
2010-05-13 12:14:40 +02:00
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Dennett still completely depends on a big leap of faith. He can not explain the
|
|
|
|
*particular* features of consciousness. His draft, or functionalism in general,
|
|
|
|
may be capable of explaining the observable outside behaviour, but not the
|
|
|
|
resulting subjective experience. Or in other words, functionalism may figure out
|
|
|
|
what particular point in Design Space we inhibit and how we got there, but not
|
|
|
|
*why* Design Space looks the way it does. To give an example, functionalism and
|
|
|
|
evolution explains just fine why the difference between ripe and unripe apples
|
2010-06-23 07:23:50 +02:00
|
|
|
is reflected in a different perceived color for each, but not why *red* looks
|
|
|
|
like *red* and not like *green* instead. He can only explain the
|
|
|
|
*differentiation*, but not the absolute position!
|
2010-05-13 12:14:40 +02:00
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
I'm sure Dennett would answer that this is a meaningless question to ask and
|
|
|
|
that's exactly what's infuriating me so much about the book. To me, that is a
|
|
|
|
perfectly obvious and most important question to ask! The problem is essentially
|
|
|
|
that Dennett seems to believe that giving a full description is *enough*. It
|
|
|
|
*isn't*. This is most clearly demonstrated, in my opinion, by [Langton's Ant].
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Basically, Langton's Ant is a little ant on an infinite 2-dimensional grid.
|
|
|
|
Every step, it will look at the color of the field it is on: if it is white, it
|
|
|
|
colors it black and turns left, or if it is black, it colors it white and turns
|
|
|
|
right. Afterwards, it moves one field straight ahead and then repeats itself.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
There, I just gave you a *full description* of the universe of Langton's Ant. I
|
|
|
|
left nothing out, all the rules are in there. If you want, you can build your
|
2010-06-23 07:23:50 +02:00
|
|
|
own genuine Ant from that, without anything missing. But then you observe the
|
2010-05-13 12:14:40 +02:00
|
|
|
ant and the following happens:
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
![Langton's Ant builds a highway](LangtonsAnt.png)
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Once the highway is started, the ant will build nothing else anymore. This
|
|
|
|
*seems* to be true for all possible starting grids, and it has been proven that
|
|
|
|
the ant will always expand beyond any finite grid, but will it always build a
|
|
|
|
highway? *Nobody knows*.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Do you see now that very interesting and important facts about the ant are still
|
|
|
|
left out, even though we have a perfect functional analysis of it? There's
|
|
|
|
clearly more to it, more yet to learn!
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
If that's the best functionalism can do, then the Titanic just met its
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iceberg.[^functionalism]
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Conclusion
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==========
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In the end, Dennett makes many good points. He successfully points out the false
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Cartesian theatre many people are still trapped in and presents a reasonable
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draft as a way out. Most of the confusion and ignorance is the fault of the poor
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state of current science and lies not with Dennett. He, ultimately, succeeds in
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pointing it out and dismantling it, showing what a proper theory of
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consciousness must look like, what it all must explain and what parts we can not
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just ignore.
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Nonetheless, he still lacks one thing the most, and he himself reminds us of
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this:
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> 'Why, Dan", ask the people in Artificial Intelligence, "do you waste your time
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> conferring with those neuroscientists? They wave their hands about
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> 'information processing' and worry about where it happens, and which
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> neurotransmitters are involved, and all those boring facts, but they haven't a
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> clue about the computational requirements of higher cognitive functions."
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> "Why", ask the neuroscientists, "do you waste your time on the fantasies of
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> Artificial Intelligence? They just invent whatever machinery they want, and
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> say unpardonably ignorant things about the brain." The cognitive
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> psychologists, meanwhile, are accused of concocting models with neither
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> biological plausibility nor proven computational powers; the anthropologists
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> wouldn't know a model if they saw one, and the philosophers, as we all know,
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> just take in each other's laundry, warning about confusions they themselves
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> have created, in an arena bereft of both data and empirically testable
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> theories. With so many idiots working on the problem, no wonder consciousness
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> is still a mystery.
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>
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> All these charges are true, and more besides, but I have yet to encounter any
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> idiots. Mostly the theorists I have drawn from strike me as very smart people
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> - even brilliant people, with the arrogance and impatience that often comes
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> with brilliance - but with limited perspectives and agendas, trying to make
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> progress on hard problems by taking whatever shortcuts they can see, while
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> deploring other people's shortcuts. No one can keep all the problems and
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> details clear, including me, and everyone has to mumble, guess, and handwave
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> about large parts of the problem.
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One thing I'm entirely missing are the exploits. Where are all the useful things
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his first draft allows me to do? We *still* don't understand quantum theory, but
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we sure can build technology based on it, so we can't be totally wrong. Where's
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the collection of useful mind hacks, which must exist, if Dennett's meme theory
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is correct? What cool things can I do, knowing that my mind is a chaotic
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pandemonium?
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The first sign of enlightenment in Buddhism, the so-called stream entry, is
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officially categorized by, among other things, the disappearance of doubt in the
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teachings - you still don't understand them, but you have seen such great
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results, that there must be something to it. The Buddha must know *something*.
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All the good things aside, Dennett extrapolates epically, going from one minor
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phenomenon to a full description of the brain, explaining nothing along the way,
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hoping some hand-waving and bold assertions can compensate for it. This is the
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same major failing so common in psychology and economy; you do a study with a
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dozen students in a lab and from that interfere the behaviour of nations.
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Furthermore, Dennett actually leaves out crucial parts. This is not necessarily
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a problem of his draft (and I think it can be fixed), but he ignores so much of
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consciousness, all the really weird and extraordinary features, that he can
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hardly call it all "explained". His hubris is over 9000!
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"Consciousness Explained" is badly written, fails to live up to its ideals,
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2010-05-27 18:58:49 +02:00
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points out more the failing of its competition than comes with any strengths of
|
2010-05-13 12:14:40 +02:00
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its own, and so just like Linux, is **highly recommended**. It's what it does to
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your mind that counts, not what it actually is.
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[^functionalism]:
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This chapter makes it look like I have lost all hope in functionalism, but
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that's probably a bit to pessimistic just now. Functionalism has lead to
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great discoveries and contains many valuable insights, particularly for AI
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research, so I'm still sure that it's a worthwhile endeavour for some time
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to come, but I do have severe doubts that it will succeed in the end to
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explain consciousness. I see no indication so far that it is even powerful
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enough to do that, but we'll have to see. There's no reason to abandon
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something that still produces results.
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[^dmt]:
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This is quite close to what many Ayahuasca groups do. Everyone is required
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to drink it at least once a week, and for quite a while, they are probably
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going to die and go right through hell again and again, until their soul has
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become pure and they can begin to learn. This is a rather harsh treatment,
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but it works exceptionally well.
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[^meaning]:
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But then, really, it shouldn't have surprised me. This mainstream ignorance
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|
was exactly what drove me away from many scientists (but not science) and
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intellectuals. Many times did I experience how a group of generally smart
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people would read a text about or by someone who had a mystic experience,
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and it doesn't matter whether the mystic content is just incidental or the
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only point, and they would completely *miss it*. I didn't even believe this
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for years because it is so obvious to me. They may read the Gospel of John,
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or talk about the ideas of St. Augustine, or discuss the purpose of
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monasteries, and they either never bring up the mystic content or dismiss it
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|
as poetic language. How someone can read the Gospel of John as a *political*
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text is beyond me. I would just listen, confused, how they'd discuss some of
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Jesus' teaching, say about the kingdom of god for example, and bring forth
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all kinds of interpretations; that it is a political vision (maybe a new
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|
state for the oppressed people, or an early form of communism), or that it
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|
is cult rhetoric, or a moral teaching, or a literary metaphor to drive home
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a certain point in his parables, and so on, all taking seriously at least as
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*possible* interpretations which would now have to be justified or
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criticised. It never seemed to occur to them at all that Jesus *meant
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exactly what he said*, that he was really speaking of the kingdom of god,
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something he had experienced himself and was now reporting on, not something
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he had invented in any way or wanted to establish, even though he warns
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|
multiple times explicitly that "though seeing, they do not see; though
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|
hearing, they do not hear or understand". He, and I, took the experience of
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|
these things as a given. *Of course* they exist, I had seen the kingdom,
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that's what got me interested in learning more about it in the first place.
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|
Surely you all have, too? Wait, no? You are puzzled what he could have
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possible meant? What?!
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Dennett harshly reminds me of this myopia, most profoundly demonstrated by
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|
philosophers. They have never even seen the terrain, yet they try to draw a
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|
map anyway. No wonder Dennett has to take apart so many ideas I didn't even
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|
consider worth mentioning. I now feel sympathy for Dennett.
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[^ego]:
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This is often called "ego death" in hallucinogen culture, but also being
|
2010-05-03 08:46:39 +02:00
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|
"born again" in Christian tradition and many other things. It is in my
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|
opinion the defining experience behind all mysticism and the first and most
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|
important requirement for any spiritual progress. The best indicator is
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|
probably the utter lack of a fear of death. It is basically the defining
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|
characteristic that mystics seem to be entirely without worry about death,
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|
or much worry in general.
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|
2010-05-13 12:14:40 +02:00
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|
[^md]: Dennett has written another good explanation of the multiple drafts model
|
2010-05-03 08:46:39 +02:00
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|
|
for [Scholarpedia] including some updates and corrections. I'm not going to
|
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|
|
reiterate it here.
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|
[Scholarpedia]: http://www.scholarpedia.org/article/Multiple_drafts_model
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[^unity]: Later on, Dennett writes, "To begin with, there is our personal,
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|
introspective appreciation of the 'unity of consciousness', which impresses
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|
on us the distinction between 'in here' and 'out there.'" To quote Robert
|
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|
|
Anton Wilson's great "Prometheus Rising", "What I see with my eyes closed
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|
|
and with my eyes open is the same stuff: brain circuitry.". This is shortly
|
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|
|
followed up with this exercise for the reader: "If all you know is your own
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|
|
brain programs operating, the whole universe you experience is inside your
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|
|
head. Try to hold onto that model for at least an hour. Note how often you
|
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|
|
relapse into feeling the universe as *outside* you."
|
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|
[^det]: As a little side note, he did the same thing when arguing that "free
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|
will" still exists in a deterministic world. Our world is not deterministic
|
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|
(it is, at best, probabilistic) and his re-definition of free will to
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|
|
something useful in practice because he doesn't want to face reality is very
|
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|
weak.
|
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|
That's like arguing that, while impossible in principle, I can still measure
|
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|
|
the momentum of an atom with enough accuracy I would ever need in practice,
|
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|
|
therefore I can ignore all the implications of quantum physics. A weak
|
|
|
|
excuse to save his own world view instead of facing the weirdness of
|
|
|
|
reality. Also, [Aaron Swartz](http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/dennettdumb)
|
|
|
|
has a nice and simple comment on that.
|
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|
Dennett even goes on to state that in a deterministic world, some events may
|
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|
|
actually be _uncaused_, i.e. you can not find a specific cause for them. He
|
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|
|
gives the following example:
|
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|
|
|
|
|
|
> Consider the sentence "The devaluation of the rupiah caused the Dow Jones
|
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|
|
> average to fall." We rightly treat such a declaration with suspicion; are
|
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|
|
> we really so sure that among nearby universes the Dow Jones fell _only_ in
|
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|
|
> those where the rupiah fell first? Do we even imagine that every universe
|
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|
|
> where the rupiah fell experienced a stock market sell-off? Might it not
|
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|
> have been a confluence of dozens of factors that jointly sufficed to send
|
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|
|
> the market tumbling but none of which by itself was essential? On some
|
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|
|
> days, perhaps, Wall Street's behavior has a ready explanation; yet at
|
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|
> least as often we suspect that no particular cause is at work.
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|
He also mentions World War 1 as a good example, and the following snippet:
|
|
|
|
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|
|
> The bias in favor of not just looking but finding a cause is not idle, as
|
|
|
|
> Matt Ridley notes in his discussion of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, for
|
|
|
|
> which no cause has yet been found: "This offends our natural determinism,
|
|
|
|
> in which diseases must have causes. Perhaps CJD just happens spontaneously
|
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|
|
> at the rate of about one case per million per year".
|
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|
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|
|
I am reminded of Lem's Śledztwo (engl.: The Investigation), where exactly
|
|
|
|
this happens: Mysteriously, several corpses seem to stand up and walk a bit
|
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|
|
until they finally collapse again. At first, it is thought that someone
|
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|
|
breaks into the morgue and arranges the corpses, but later on, a
|
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|
|
statistician comes up with an elaborate numerical theory that perfectly
|
|
|
|
models all cases (and predicts further cases), but offers no explanation
|
|
|
|
whatsoever, except that this kind of phenomenon just happens, according to
|
|
|
|
certain rules.
|
2010-05-13 12:14:40 +02:00
|
|
|
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|
|
Dennett commits a (rather brutal) error here. He defines a "cause" somewhat
|
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|
|
like the following (which I fully agree with): A cause is a set of
|
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|
|
"features" of a world, such that they are both sufficient (i.e., if the
|
|
|
|
features are present, then in *every* possible world the effect will occur)
|
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|
|
and necessary (i.e., there is *no* possible world, such that the effect
|
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|
|
occurs, but the cause not). He then rightfully concludes, aha!, there is no
|
|
|
|
cause for World War 1 because you certainly can't find such a single cause
|
|
|
|
that it would always result in the war. But the proper conclusion to draw in
|
|
|
|
that case is *not* that there are effects without causes, but that in fact
|
|
|
|
you are dealing with an *improper* effect, an invalid object. "World War 1"
|
|
|
|
is not a proper thing to call an effect. Instead, you would have to break it
|
|
|
|
down *a lot*. You can investigate what the cause for the murder of Archduke
|
|
|
|
Franz Ferdinand was, for example, and build your pseudo-effect up from that:
|
|
|
|
"World War 1" is the sum of effects "Murder of Archduke Franz Ferdinand" and
|
|
|
|
so on, each of which has a proper cause. (If necessary, you may have to go
|
|
|
|
down to the subatomic level, of course, where you will find a guaranteed
|
|
|
|
proper effect) Or, you go on to create a more abstract framework and
|
|
|
|
investigate what the cause for a major diplomatic catastrophe of that
|
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|
|
magnitude is, without including any specifics.
|
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|
|
He confuses deterministic causes and narrative causes. He insists on
|
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|
|
defending that we are narratively free - we can convince ourselves that we
|
|
|
|
are "free enough", even in a deterministic world and can choose our actions
|
|
|
|
accordingly. It may even be in our best interest to do so, as Dennett notes:
|
|
|
|
fatalists often perform far worse. But that is not what causal determinism
|
|
|
|
is *about*. You can't just toss aside a question and declare that your
|
|
|
|
make-believe is a proper answer just because you don't *like* the
|
|
|
|
implications. If I wrote a book about how *there clearly is a god*, citing
|
|
|
|
evidence that believing in it makes me more evolutionary successful, Dennett
|
|
|
|
would *rightfully* dismiss it because belief and belief-in-belief are
|
|
|
|
clearly different questions!
|
|
|
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|
|
"Freedom evolves" is a very nice demonstration of the massive bias present
|
|
|
|
in most recent atheists; they clearly don't show the same rigour or attitude
|
|
|
|
with regard to any *other* question outside of religion. For them, the
|
|
|
|
conclusion came first and the arguments only later. Except Christopher
|
|
|
|
Hitchens, though, I don't see anyone of them admit that.
|
2010-05-03 08:46:39 +02:00
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
[tripzine]: http://www.tripzine.com/listing.php?smlid=268
|
2010-05-13 12:14:40 +02:00
|
|
|
|
2010-05-03 08:46:39 +02:00
|
|
|
[Breaking the Spell]: http://www.philosophypress.co.uk/?p=1001
|
2010-05-13 12:14:40 +02:00
|
|
|
|
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|
|
[speed reading]: /experiments/speedreading.html
|
|
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|
|
|
|
|
[Langton's Ant]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Langton's_ant
|
|
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|
|
[^zombie]:
|
|
|
|
I'd have to say that I don't know how I stand on the p-zombie issue.
|
|
|
|
Or rather, I *am* sure that *most* people are p-zombies. I'm not sure if
|
|
|
|
*all* are, including me.
|
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|
In fact, I consider it a real possibility that most people *are* less
|
|
|
|
conscious than mystics are, leading to Dennett actually having less features
|
|
|
|
that need explaining. But I wouldn't yet commit fully to this idea, nor
|
|
|
|
would I know whether this is simply a problem of degree, that the mystics
|
|
|
|
simply have better soul-reception with which to receive more programs, if
|
|
|
|
you want, or if there is a real qualitative difference, a distinct property
|
|
|
|
people like Dennett just plain don't have.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
However, my main problem with p-zombies would be that both standard camps
|
|
|
|
aren't radical *enough* for me. If p-zombies are conceivable, why are you
|
|
|
|
such cowards to not openly speculate that some people, maybe everyone but
|
|
|
|
you, is one? If they are not, why are you hesitating to say that a bat, a
|
|
|
|
thermostat and Mickey Mouse are conscious? Absolutely no balls.
|
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|
[^rama]: Vilayanur S. Ramachandran. Very awesome.
|
|
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|
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|
|
[^atran]: Unfortunately, I haven't been able to actually read anything by Scott
|
|
|
|
Atran, but he's very high on my todo. His comments were the highlight of
|
|
|
|
both BB 1 and 2.
|
|
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|
|
[^vis]:
|
|
|
|
You can even hack your brain here and change what part of it handles what.
|
|
|
|
You can shift, through practice (and not very much, really - a few weeks may
|
|
|
|
be enough to get very cool results) or drugs, your thoughts from being _an
|
|
|
|
inner voice_ to _pure text_ to _images_ and so on, and mix-and-match wildly.
|
|
|
|
I wrote some about that in my experiment on [speed reading].
|
|
|
|
|