Great words!

Great words! 

Many scientists are utterly loopy

I've just read the following Does Technology Have a Soul? which is an extract from the book God, Human, Animal, Machine: Technology, Metaphor, and the Search for Meaning.

Incidentally, the author appears to be referring to a toy robot dog at the beginning rather than an actual dog; something I never initially realised.

The author says:

Today, as AI continues to blow past us in benchmark after benchmark of higher cognition, we quell our anxiety by insisting that what distinguishes true consciousness is emotions, perception, the ability to experience and feel: the qualities, in other words, that we share with animals.

If there were gods, they would surely be laughing their heads off at the inconsistency of our logic. We spent centuries denying consciousness in animals precisely because they lacked reason or higher thought. (Darwin claimed that despite our lowly origins, we maintained as humans a “godlike intellect” that distinguished us from other animals.) As late as the fifties, the scientific consensus was that chimpanzees—who share almost 99 percent of our DNA—did not have minds.

 

Wait... we
spent centuries denying consciousness in animals? Scientists and
philosophers maybe, but I doubt the average person denied that animals
are conscious. The pernicious influence of an "education" can make
people believe the most ludicrous things imaginable -- like computers
are (or can become) conscious and animals are not conscious!

 

It
is breathtaking that the scientific consensus was that chimpanzees
don't have minds. Just think about that for a moment. How utterly
crazy do you have to be to think this? This also explains their
unquestioning acceptance of materialism. Most of them don't care how utterly loopy their beliefs are.

How much I spend a week on food

Since the 19th April I've spent an average of £36.74 a week on food and £1.53 a week on alcohol and £1.78 a week on non-food groceries (excluding alcohol).

Can we be certain that other people are conscious?

How does an individual know anyone else is conscious at all? How does an individual rule out the possibility that every other person is merely a sophisticated biological robot wholly lacking any experiences?  After all, we never actually see anyone else's consciousness. So, is it at least conceivable that everyone -- apart from you, the reader -- are simply unconscious automatons, or what philosophers refer to as p-zombies? That no-one else, apart from you, has an inner conscious life? 

The answer, of course, is that an individual cannot be absolutely certain that others are conscious. But that it is highly likely since other people act like us. They scream in pain when hurt, display appropriate emotions on their faces under the relevant circumstances, and so on. So one can confidently infer that everyone else is conscious, just like oneself. That's the commonsensical view and certainly the view that I hold.


There is an apparent intractable difficulty here though.  One of the mainstream suppositions of scientists is that the world is causally closed, meaning that every event that ever happens has a full explanation in terms of antecedent material causes. This includes us human beings too, and so includes all the material processes occurring within our brains. But if everything people ever do and say are purely due to material causes occurring in their brains rather than being an expression of their consciousness, then it seems we cannot infer that other people are conscious! 

Let me try to convey this very important point again. Suppose a robot declares it is conscious; that it feels fear, hope and so on. We could check that out by disassembling it.  We will find out that the robot says all these things, not because it is conscious and actually experiencing such emotions, but because it is programmed in such a manner to say these things. That being so, we surely have zero reasons to ascribe consciousness to it.

Similarly, given the important proviso of causal closure, the exact same applies to us human beings. We can examine the inside of someone's brain and by noting the material chains of causes and effects, we can, at least in principle, figure out exactly why that person behaves and says what he does. It's all just material causes and effects playing out, and we have no more reason to ascribe consciousness to that human being than we did the robot.

How do those who advocate causal closure escape this absurdity?  How can anyone who subscribes to causal closure believe that anyone else is conscious at all given that everyone's behaviour is just the result of material causes playing out?  It seems we have no more reason to ascribe consciousness to anyone else than we have reason to ascribe consciousness to the Earth as it orbits the Sun, or a boulder as it rolls down a hill.

They allegedly escape this apparent intractable difficulty by espousing materialism.  Materialists advocate something of highly questionable intelligibility.  They maintain that consciousness is quite literally the very same thing as certain material processes.  Examples are behaviourists who hold that consciousness is literally identical to behaviour.  Or identity theorists who hold that consciousness is literally identical to brain processes.  Or functionalists who hold that consciousness is literally identical to the causal role of such brain processes (there are many flavours of materialism). 

In which case, given the behaviour of a person or the material processes occurring in their brains, their consciousness is logically entailed in much the same way that 2 + 2 = 4 is entailed. That we can look or examine the physical processes occurring in the brain and somehow, derive, have complete certitude, that that person is experiencing consciousness.

Incidentally, this is why materialists hold that p-zombies are conceptually incoherent or metaphysically impossible.  Since consciousness is the very same thing as the relevant material processes, then a being who looks like us, and has a working brain like us, metaphysically necessarily must be conscious, just like the area of a perfect circle must necessarily be πr². 

However, the materialist position here just seems to me to be straightforwardly incorrect.  Regardless of whether we are looking at a person's behaviour or the processes occurring in their brains, we could never be absolutely certain that they are having conscious experiences.  How could we?  How does observing any material process allow me to be acquainted and have full knowledge of another person's consciousness?  It just doesn't.  Yes, the material processes might cause consciousness, might somehow elicit consciousness, but it's literally nonsensical to assert that such material processes are the very same thing as consciousness.  And this shouldn't be of any surprise since material processes are cashed out exclusively by their physical properties -- mass, momentum, charge and so on.  Conscious experiences, on the other hand, apparently wholly lack any such physical properties.  Hence, by definition, consciousness cannot be the same as the correlated physical process and therefore there is no identity, nor any necessarily entailed connection, from one to the other.

The obvious alternative is to deny both causal closure and materialism. Instead, and as commonsense dictates, consciousness in and of itself really does play a causal role in the world.  So, for example, the words and sentences you are reading now are the result of my consciousness.  The material processes alone are insufficient.  It is true that, unlike the materialist, we cannot have absolute certainty that others are conscious. But, via the notion that similar causes have similar effects, we can have a very high confidence.

Crazy views are propagated

Just reading this novel. One of the characters says (in a diary entry):

Jon, the man who wants to leave the plane, seems crazy to me, but others buy into his specious arguments. He can sell anything to anyone. I cannot convince anyone to join my mindset on any reasonable opinion I have. Let alone any attempt to dissuade others from their fervid beliefs during a period of trauma. It is a life-long flaw.

Yes, I have this problem too and have had it all my life. And I often think that those who have the most ridiculous views have the most influence on others. So crazy views are propagated and level-headed astute views are shunned.

A trip to the supermarket (fictional).

I was just thinking. Suppose I went into a supermarket, a large one to shop for my groceries. It's fairly quiet as it's early evening and there's only about a 100 people in. Suddenly, as I'm walking around holding my basket, I hear a loud boom and I feel the floor move beneath my feet and I almost fall over. I look around, wondering what the hell happened there. There's a couple of people near me who likewise appear bewildered.

A few seconds later, from the front of the supermarket near the entrance, I hear a bewildered shout followed by a babble of confused voices. The shouting and confusion soon gets worse -- much worse bordering on hysteria. I make my way to the front of the supermarket. Out of the windows I see that the world has completely changed! Instead of a car-park filled with cars and nearby buildings, they've all been replaced by a lush vibrant green forest.

We all pour out of the entrance. The cacophony of confusion, bewilderment and hysteria continue. Suddenly, we all hear a almighty huge roar and above the canopy of trees emerges a giant head and neck. It's a tyrannosaurus Rex, attracted by the noise and feasting its malevolent gaze upon us! We all panic and there's a stampede to get back into the supermarket, jamming the door in the process. Thankfully, we all manage to get back inside before it reaches us.

Oh well, plenty of tins of food to consume for the near future, and also shelter provided by the supermarket. Pity supermarkets don't sell guns though.

Think will continue getting my groceries delivered.

Chaos come Christmas?

I've just read the following article:

Millions of Great Britain homes face highest energy bills in a decade as cap lifted

 Article says:

The sudden rise in energy bills has raised concern among fuel poverty campaigners that more than half a million more people may be unable to pay their energy bills as a result of the rise, which will coincide with the winding down of the government’s furlough scheme and the cut to universal credit from September.

Energy prices have already gone up an eye watering amount over the past year (For me, about a £200 increase, from £800 to a £1000 i.e. 25% increase). And they're going to increase by another utterly huge comparable amount come October!
With the £20 a week decrease in Universal credit hitting at the same time, it's going to be absolute chaos for many poor people come November/December.

My prediction? Tune into the news November and December and I reckon the news will be filled about those not being able to make ends meet. More people having to use food banks than ever before, a huge outcry about the £20 a week Universal credit decrease etc.  Not to mention that this will happen near Christmas.



29th December 2021 Edited to add:

Almost 5 months later and I haven't really heard much about peoples dire financial problems. Perhaps the news outlets are more or less ignoring this issue?  Having said that, the article below predicts that people will face a financial catastrophe next year:

Cost-of-living ‘catastrophe’ looms in 2022

I think people might just be borrowing money and delaying the pain. Also, as regards the monumental energy price increase (maybe about 50% increase for those whose energy suppliers went under) I still haven't received a bill for what I owe, which will be around £200 (I normally pay in advance). But, yes, next year might be very grim for many people.

Neither we nor the Earth are special?

Annaka Harris, the wife of Sam Harris, says in a recent article:

Each transformative shift in our understanding of the universe has delivered the ego-shattering message that we’re not special—Earth is not the center of the universe, and life, including the human brain, is made up of the same particles as the stars.

This is a widespread view, particularly amongst academics. But, I don't regard it as being accurate. 

We need to bear in mind that the notion that we are not special is, to a large measure, a result of the birth of the mechanistic philosophy in the 17th Century and the materialism it engendered (see my Science, the Afterlife, and the Intelligentsia).  At least amongst educated people, this resulted in the widespread conviction that we are merely sophisticated biological machines and that our apparent free will is illusory.  This, in turn, seemed to imply that there is no God, no soul, that we are mere puppets of external forces, and, to cap it all, this is the only life we have.

However, as I have extensively argued in this blog, we have no reason to believe any of this. On the contrary, we are obliged to conclude the following:

1. Consciousness is fundamentally different from any material thing or process (see my Why the existence of consciousness rules modern materialism out).
2. That it's very much an open question whether brains somehow produce consciousness (see my Brains affecting Minds do not rule out an Afterlife).
3. That our consciousness is necessarily causally efficacious (see my A Causal Consciousness, Free Will, and Dualism).

   

What about the Earth?  Is it true that it is not special?

It might be true that Earth isn't at the centre of the Universe.  Indeed, current understanding tells us there is no centre.  But, nevertheless, Earth might be special, indeed extremely special should the rare Earth hypothesis be correct.   The argument here is life arose on Earth due to a long series of extremely improbable events, all of which had to take place before the Earth had any chance of developing complex life. 

Then there is the fact that the constants of nature appear to be eerily fine-tuned so as to allow life to appear in the Universe (even if the Earth is the sole planet in the Universe to actually harbour complex life).

Then there is the nature of the material world and the laws that govern it. Our  investigations of the microscopic realm have revealed the existence of a bewildering plethora of subatomic particles whose behaviour is described by quantum mechanics rather than the classical mechanics of commonsense.  If the world were as it seemed prior to just 200 years ago -- that is governed by Newtonian mechanics and lacking such an intricate structure -- then virtually none of our modern technology would have been possible.  Is this just fortuitous, or is something else going on?

On this note it is curious that the world, on the one hand, is of sufficient complexity to allow the existence of our modern-day technology, but, on the other, is not so abstruse that we human beings are unable to grasp it and profit from its complexity in the creation of our technology. A complexity that human beings are capable of fathoming, but apparently no other animal on this planet. So, arguably, it is almost as if the world were contrived, somehow, to be like this?

I think we live in a very curious and perplexing Universe.  Not only stranger than we imagine, but, perhaps, stranger than we can imagine. Indeed, arguably, it seems contrived by something -- whoever or whatever that something might be -- to allow for the existence of complex life, even if it only exists on this one planet. In summary, in my opinion, we lack compelling reasons to justify the assertion that neither we nor the Earth are special.