posted
Just out of curiousity, I'd be interested in hearing from people how they think 'choice' differs from 'weighted random selection'.
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
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quote:Our brain could theoretically make use of such phenomena though we have no evidence that it does.
And that brings up another somewhat unsettling possibility - that rather than being strictly driven by circumstances or choosing freely, that our choices are at least in part probabilistic events, driven by internal random number generators.
Posts: 3275 | Registered: May 2007
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quote:Thats not necessarily true because there are non-deterministic aspects to our universe. Our brain could theoretically make use of such phenomena though we have no evidence that it does.
It would be possible for the brain's functioning to not be deterministic in this case. It could not, however, be said to choose anything.
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
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quote:Originally posted by fugu13: Just out of curiousity, I'd be interested in hearing from people how they think 'choice' differs from 'weighted random selection'.
Well, in a deterministic universe, pseudorandom is the best you'll get.
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posted
"And that brings up another somewhat unsettling possibility - that rather than being strictly driven by circumstances or choosing freely, that our choices are at least in part probabilistic events, driven by internal random number generators. "
That would actually totally make sense, honestly. Cool.
Posts: 1577 | Registered: Sep 2005
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quote:Thats not necessarily true because there are non-deterministic aspects to our universe. Our brain could theoretically make use of such phenomena though we have no evidence that it does.
It would be possible for the brain's functioning to not be deterministic in this case. It could not, however, be said to choose anything.
Ok, yes, I guess you're right.
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posted
Ah yes, intentionality. Could you define that specifically as it would allow us to distinguish between the two, please?
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posted
Let's be clear, though: A brain that does A instead of B because an electron, when tested, decides that it has spin up and not down is exactly as free-willed as a brain which does A instead of B because the classic electrical potential had built up in neuron Z. It may be unpredictable, but you cannot possibly argue that it is making actual choices.
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
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quote:You can't initiate action on your own. It is entirely driven from outside forces.
I think that it is this perception that makes people like Tres (and, to some extent, Squicky) insist on qualia: the belief that in a deterministic universe, people have no freedom.
But this misses the point. In a deterministic universe of sufficient granularity, "people" are a fiction, and "freedom" a fiction that operates at the same level. To a random "person," their decisions are "free." It's only when those "people" are viewed on another level of granularity that the factors determining their behavior are identified.
I don't believe that this cheapens the human experience in any way. I suspect that people who stomp their feet and insist that qualia exist probably do.Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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quote:I think that it is this perception that makes people like Tres (and, to some extent, Squicky) insist on qualia: the belief that in a deterministic universe, people have no freedom.
I can't speak for Squicky, but this is not true for me.
On the matter of freedom, I think choice should be deterministic. I like to think I don't make my choices randomly. I like to think I choose to do the right thing, which in turn is determined by factors. So to me, free choice and determinism are not a contradiction; they go hand in hand.
As for qualia, the reason I insist qualia exists is because it is logically necessitated by the fact that I experience things. The only way I could believe otherwise would be to basically lie to myself and tell myself I don't experience anything when I know I do. It would much like trying to convince myself squares were actually circles. Even if the wider intellectual community were able to confuse themselves enough that they believed squares were circles, it would still be clear at least to me that squares by definition cannot be circles.
As for why I insist qualia is important, it is because all meaningfulness is derived from qualia, in my view. Anyone who seriously applied metaphysical materialism to everyday life would find it to be horribly, ridiculously, even impossibly impractical. It would be like those scenes from the Matrix where you only see 1's and 0's. You could find patterns in those 1's and 0's and you might even be able to absolutely predict what numbers would come next, but they mean absolutely nothing until you convert them into sights, sounds, smells, feelings, and other experiences. You could function mechanically under such a model since you could predict what numbers come next, but it wouldn't mean anything at all to you. (Fortunately nobody actually follows materialism in their everyday lives. Nobody walks up to a tree and conceives of it only as abstract atoms collected together. Nobody touches a burning hot stove and calmly thinks "my molecules are undergoing a reaction." I don't even think you could if you tried. We are forced to see the meaning of things, at least in everyday life - that's just how we are built. But when we invent abstract theories about the nature of the universe, we are capable of ignoring that meaning. And when we do so I think it ends up confusing us.) That's why I consider the issue of qualia to be important, rather than just some irrelevant phenomenon.
Posts: 8120 | Registered: Jul 2000
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posted
Tres, qualia when applied in that way are merely syntactical filters. And I do believe in those, as long as they're treated as properties of personal context and not fundamental objects with real existence in the universe.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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posted
I'm not sure what you mean by "merely syntactical filters". But I'd argue Qualia actually seems much more likely to be real than physical matter if our test for real existence is "having an observable effect." This is because we can directly observe the effect that qualia has upon us, since it occurs in our own mind. When you experience a shock of pain and your hand shoots away from the burning oven, you KNOW for certain that the pain has had an effect on you. In contrast, we can only observe the effects of physical matter indirectly. It is possible the stove caused you to feel that pain, or it is possible the stove wasn't burning and the pain came from your mind; it is unclear whether or not the effect actually came from the stove. (In fact you could just be dreaming about a burning hot stove, and there might not be any material stove there at all!)
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posted
I haven't given much thought to "deep" stuff lately, I've kind of been on strike for the summer, but at the back of my mind I've been [mulling over] the statement: "Consciousness is the brain's way of estimating what it thinks it did."
I'm still not sure how I feel about it.
Posts: 10886 | Registered: Feb 2000
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quote:This is because we can directly observe the effect that qualia has upon us, since it occurs in our own mind.
Qualia have no effect; that's one of the reasons they're not real. They are metaphors that are used to describe effects.
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posted
Ah. But our discussion of qualia is making you sleepy. And if "sleepy" were a real thing, as opposed to a semantic description of something real, then qualia would be worth talking about. Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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quote:And if "sleepy" were a real thing, as opposed to a semantic description of something real, then qualia would be worth talking about.
What is this "something real" that "sleepy" is a semantic description of, if not the qualitative experience of feeling sleepy?
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A quantity of something with no qualities is essentially nothing. Three bananas that can't be seen, touched, felt, or experienced in any way and which influence nothing other than other things that can't be seen, touched, felt, or experienced in any way is as good as zero bananas.
A trillion atoms sitting silently in some universe all by themselves is the equivalent of nothing if nobody is or ever will be around to experience anything out of them. That's because atoms themselves are just abstractions, they have no meaning other than their ability to explain the existence and functioning of larger, perceptible objects. They would exist, yes. But they wouldn't exist AS anything. That's that universe materialism proposes, I think - one where stuff exists, but isn't anything.
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quote:Three bananas that can't be seen, touched, felt, or experienced in any way and which influence nothing other than other things that can't be seen, touched, felt, or experienced in any way is as good as zero bananas.
On this point, we agree. Where we disagree is whether "experience" -- or even "sense" -- is in fact something concrete. The ultimate flaw in the "qualia" argument is that it's totally irrelevant: a universe in which qualia "exist" is indistinguishable from a universe in which they are merely metaphorical.
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