I agree that we know that there are things that we know that are not available to the direct access of introspection. If we know that, we have access to at least one fact about them - that they exist. If we know that we must have indirect acess to them. — Ludwig V
If we knew that there are some things that are not available to consciousness, they must be available to conciousness. — Ludwig V
How do we distinguish between mental reality and other kinds (such as physical or abstract reality) unless we have access to those other kinds? — Ludwig V
My expectation is that it will be dealt with. But the process will be messy and only partially effective. — Ludwig V
Indirect access to reality is still access to reality. I suppose that introspection counts as direct access? But there, the distinction between reality and appearance collapses. — Ludwig V
Doesn't this show that happiness and unhappiness are not necessarily mutually exclusive? — Ludwig V
I agree with you that the world seems in a particularly bad way at the moment, There are many good reasons for being fearful, even alarmed, about the state of the world order these days. But one may reflect that it is not unusual for there to be good grounds for fear and one's worst fears may well turn out to be excessive. (Most of my childhood and youth was overshadowed by the threat of a nuclear holocaust.) — Ludwig V
It seems to me that while appearances are, indeed, all that appears to us, that the distinction between reality and appearance is available to us, not only within appearances, but also behind or beyond them. — Ludwig V
That’s not something I postulate, and something that I question in Schopenhauer; I’m much more drawn to the ‘idea’ aspect of his philosophy, than the ‘world as will’ aspect, which I'm frankly sceptical of. — Wayfarer
Incidentally I went to an open-air social gathering yesterday, a out-door ‘Philosophical Symposium’, the subject of which was 'The Suffering of the World: Schopenhauer's Christian Buddhism.' I hadn't attended before - it was held in a park near Sydney Harbour, convened by an informal group organised by the main speaker (picture below under the Peroni sign.) — Wayfarer
I felt the actual lecture concentrated too much on the familiar 'Schopenhauer as pessimist' meme, and not at all on the idealist side of his philosophy, but never mind, it was enjoyable to sit around a table and talk about philosophy with actual people. :wink: — Wayfarer
On the same grounds as Descartes’ ‘cogito ergo sum’: even if you suffered complete amnesia and forgot your identity, you would be aware of your own being. That’s the point about *any* being: on some level it is aware of its distinction from what is other to it. It knows that it is. — Wayfarer
our grasp of reality is inversely proportional to our degree of attachment. — Wayfarer
Agree, but the awareness of will is not an appearance. We may not know what it is, but that it is, we can have no doubt. — Wayfarer
But the uncertainty principle shows that there’s a limit to how exact we can be. — Wayfarer
I tend to agree but I guess that depends upon what we mean by appearance - in recent history we have certainly devised instruments that allow us to go beyond (ordinary) appearance and these tools seem to tell us that solid matter is almost entirely empty. And let's not get into quantum speculations.
And in a separate vein, is it not the case that people who claim to be enlightened are able to see beyond appearances, at least in part? Is this not a goal of mediation, etc? I'm not personally in the higher consciousness business but I am curious about the framing of these things. — Tom Storm
Not necessarily what it is but how it appears - and it's an important distinction.
Neils Bohr: “Physics is not about how the world is, it is about what we can say about the world”.
Werner Heisenberg: “What we observe is not nature herself, but nature exposed to our method of questioning.” — Wayfarer
I'd be careful there, it's a big statement! — Wayfarer
Doesn't epistemology rely upon metaphysical commitments for it to make sense? I'm not sure one can meaningfully talk about what we can know unless we have resovled what there is and somehow we continually end up in a tail chasing discussion about whether an external world exists outside our perception and what it is. Not to mention the quesion of time and space - are they products of the cognitive apparatus of human minds, or do they exist? Don't scientists subscribe to a massive metaphysical commitment, that reality can be understood? — Tom Storm
that Meta-physics can bridge with reasoning & imagination*1. — Gnomon
Solidity and the notion of 'hard matter' does not exist independently of mind and so kicking the rock, breaking a toe are mental experiences. It is how consciousness appears when experienced from our perspective. The solid stone and the foot's impact upon it are examples of the ability of consciousness to create a coherent world of experience - held together in the mind of God. Or in the case of Kastrup - we are all participants or aspects of a 'great mind' which is the source of all reality. — Tom Storm
Fair enough. We seem to agree that understanding, like intelligence, comes in degrees. When someone wakes up during surgery there is something different about the situation than what we currently understand is happening, and figuring that out gives us a better understanding. Although, there is the old phrase, "You only get the right answer after making all possible mistakes", we should consider. — Harry Hindu
What does it mean for you to be tired if not having a lack of energy? What are you doing when you go to sleep and eat? What would happen if you couldn't find food? Wouldn't you "shut off" after the energy stores in your body were exhausted? — Harry Hindu
I have been using computers and robots. What does that say about what intelligence is? — Harry Hindu
A brain functioning in isolation is a mind without a person, and is an impossible occurrence, which is why I pointed out before the distinction between empiricism and rationalism is a false dichotomy. The form your reason takes is sense data you have received via your interaction with the world. You can only reason, or think, in shapes, colors, smells, sounds, tastes and feelings. The laws of logic take the form of a relation between scribbles on a screen which corresponds to a process in your mind (a way of thinking). — Harry Hindu
Natural selection programmed humans via DNA. Humans are limited by their physiology and degree of intelligence, just as a computer/robot is limited by it's design and intelligence (efficiency at processing inputs to produce meaningful outputs). — Harry Hindu
I think you are confusing how anesthesia works with how the brain and mind are related. Those are two separate issues. If you Google, "how does anesthesia work" you will find many articles that do not seem to exhibit any kind of doubt about how anesthesia works on the brain. How the brain relates to the mind is a separate and hard problem. How anesthesia works is not a hard problem. If it were we would be having a lot more issues with people going under. — Harry Hindu
Are you saying that it is sensible to call, "intelligence" a thing, or an object, instead of what things do? When you point to intelligence, what are you pointing at - a thing or a behavior or act? — Harry Hindu
Not behaving like a person, but behaving intelligently. Does every person behave intelligently? If not, then being a person does not make you necessarily intelligent. They are separate properties. What are the characteristics of an intelligent person, or thing? — Harry Hindu
I don't see a difference between brain and mind. I think we both have similar brains and minds. My brain and mind are less similar to a dog or cat's brain and mind. Brains and minds are the same thing just from different views in a similar way that Earth is the same planet even though it looks flat from it's surface and spherical from space. — Harry Hindu
That doesn't sound strange at all. Is not part of studying humans studying what they created? Humans are calling it artificial intelligence. Are we to believe them when studying them? The other examples are nonsensical. Again, the inventor of the radio and mirror-makers are not claiming that their devices are intelligent.
None of what you have said explains what makes organic matter special in that it has intelligence and inorganic matter does not. — Harry Hindu
It is known how it is done, or else they wouldn't be able to consistently put people under anesthesia for surgery and they wake up with no issues. The problem you are referring to is the mind-body problem which is really a problem of dualism. If you think that the mind and body are separate things then you do have hard problem to solve. If you think that they are one and the same, just from different views, then you are less likely to fall victim to the hard problem. — Harry Hindu
. Function does not imply that it does one thing. A function can include many tasks. What if I said that the brain's function is to adapt one's behaviors to new situations? That function would include many tasks. Both terms are used to refer to behavioral expectations. — Harry Hindu
Many people in this thread are saying that you can observe someone's behavior but their behavior can fool us into believing they are intelligent, implying that behavior is not intelligence, but symbolic of intelligence. So it seems to me that intelligence is a process of the mind, not the body. Which is it? — Harry Hindu
It is not difficult to image a computer-robot that can be programmed to do the same thing. — Harry Hindu
Sounds like what humans do when communicating. You learned rules for using the scribbles, which letter follows the other to spell a word correctly, and how to put words in order following the rules of grammar. It took you several years of immersing yourself in the use of your native language to be able to understand the rules. The difference is that a computer can learn much faster than you. Does that mean it is more intelligent than you? — Harry Hindu
Then, for you, there is a distinction between organic and inorganic matter in that one can be intelligent and the other can't. What reason do you have to believe that? Seriously, dig deep down into your mind and try to get at the reasoning for these claims you are making. The only question remaining here is what is so special about organic matter? If you can't say, then maybe intelligence is not grounded in substance, but in process. — Harry Hindu
If neuroscientists can connect a computer to a brain in such a way as to allow a patient to move a mouse cursor by thinking about it in their mind, it would seem to me that they have an understanding (at least a basic understanding) of both. — Harry Hindu
What are the primary and secondary functions of a brain? What are the primary and secondary functions of a computer? Are there any functions they share? If we were to design a humanoid robot where its computer brain was designed to perform the same primary and secondary functions as the brain, would it be intelligent, or have a mind? If not, then you must be saying that there is something in the way organic matter, as opposed to inorganic matter is constructed, (or more specifically something special about carbon atoms) that allows intelligence and mind. — Harry Hindu
I just want to make sure that you're not exhibiting a bias in that only human beings are intelligent without explaining why. What makes a human intelligent if not their brains? Can a human be intelligent without a brain?
If you want to say that intelligence is a relationship between a body that behaves in particular ways and brain, then that would be fair. What if we designed a humanoid robot with a computer brain that acted in human ways? You might say that ChatGPT is not intelligent because it does not have a body, but what about an android?
The point of my questions here is I'm trying to get at if intelligence is the product of some function (information processing), or some material (carbon atoms), or both? — Harry Hindu
Let's be patient. I think trying to do much in one post will cause us to start talking past each other. Let's make sure we agree on basic points first. — Harry Hindu
It is only when we approach the boundaries of what it is we are talking about (which is typical in a philosophical context) that we tend to worry about what the words mean. — Harry Hindu
We have developed the ability to connect a computer to a person's brain and they are able to manipulate the mouse cursor and type using just their thoughts. Does this not show that we have at least begun to tap into the functions of the mind/brain to the point where we can say that we understand something about how the brain functions? Sure, we have a ways to go, but that is just saying that our understanding comes in degrees as well. — Harry Hindu
Which of your organs involved with reasoning? Your brain. Your brain is a mass of neurons. Your mass of neurons reasons. Does a mass of silicon circuits reason?
Let's start off with a definition of intelligence as: the process of achieving a goal in the face of obstacles. What about this definition works and what doesn't? — Harry Hindu
What if we were to start with the idea that intelligence comes in degrees? Depending on how many properties of intelligence some thing exhibits, it possesses more or less intelligence.
Is intelligence what you know or how you can apply what you know, or a bit of both? Is there a difference between intelligence and wisdom? — Harry Hindu
So what else is missing if you are able to duplicate the function? Does it really matter what material is being used to perform the same function? Again, what makes a mass of neurons intelligent but a mass of silicon circuits not? What if engineers designed an artificial heart that lasts much longer and is structurally more sound than an organic one? — Harry Hindu
What these points convey to me is that we need a definition to start with. — Harry Hindu
How so? If we can substitute artificial devices for organic ones in the body there does not seem like much of a difference in understanding. — Harry Hindu
You were talking about people that attribute terms like "intelligence" to LLMs as being deluded. My point is that philosophers seem to think they know more about LLMs than AI developers do. — Harry Hindu
What is understanding? How do you know that you understand anything if you never end up properly mimicking the something you are trying to understand? — Harry Hindu
AI developers are calling LLMs artificially intelligent, with the term, "artificial" referring to how it was created - by humans instead of "naturally" by natural selection. I could go on about the distinction between artificial and natural here but that is for a different thread: — Harry Hindu
Why? What makes a mass of neurons intelligent, but a mass of silicon circuits not? — Harry Hindu
To say that AI developers and computer scientists are deluding themselves you seem to imply that AI computer scientists should be calling philosophers to fix their computers and software. — Harry Hindu
Cardiologists do not use a computer to simulate the pumping of blood. — Harry Hindu
Then are we deluding ourselves whenever we use the term "intelligent" to refer to ourselves? — Harry Hindu
You are correct to say that it is not that the idea of artificial intelligence doesn't really reach 'intelligence' or consciousness. The problem may that the idea has become mystified in an unhelpful way. The use of the word 'intelligence' doesn't help. Also, it may be revered as if it is 'magic', like a new mythology of gods. — Jack Cummins
So, chairs exists and numbers subsist? Is that a common understanding? — Art48
I see him reacting in different ways to is consistent with the qualities I perceive in those different things. That's all I'm claiming. — Janus
They wouldn't react that way if they were blind and felt no bodily sensations, though, would they? If not then we can conclude that they feel the heat and sense the height just as do. I don't know if this is universally true, but it is said that dogs already react instinctively to snakes when they are very young, but would you expect them to do that if they could not sense the presence of the snake? — Janus
we know they have sense organs and bodies not all that different to ours give us reason to believe that they at least see the things in the environment that we see, and that those things exist independently of us and the dogs, whatever the ultimate nature of those existences are. So, I don't see that I'm claiming anything which is not consistent with our experiences. That said of course we cannot be absolutely certain of anything. — Janus
But is it not most reasonable to think they are responses (whether innate or not) perhaps to survival, or perhaps to enjoying themselves or whatever, to different things in different situations? — Janus
I mean you seem not to want to admit that the dog sees a ball, and yet you say the dog sees me making a gesture or movement. So my dogs see me and I'm an object in the environment. My dogs recognize me—of that there is no doubt. Now they may well not see me in the same way as people do (but then different people may not see me in exactly the same way either). — Janus
Also you say that dogs will not jump into a fire or from a high place—so it follows that they perceive fire and high places. They also do not bump into trees or walls (unless they are blind which was the case with my mother's cocker spaniel when I was a kid). They behave differently and consistently towards different things in the environment and that behavior makes sense in terms of how we perceive those objects. I don't know what else to say. If you remain unconvinced then I have nothing further to add. — Janus
I can't imagine why anyone would want to deny animals even a minimal amount of intelligence. I have to stress I don't believe that conceptualization is some amazing special ability. The amazing ability here is syntactic language, conceptualization is merely a part of describing language-use. — goremand
The thing is, if you go down this road of "creating associations always involves the use of concepts" I believe you will end up attributing powers of conceptualization to very simple organisms, including machines. — goremand
I have tried throwing sticks too large for the dog to pick up. Or bricks. He will chase them but as soon as he realizes it is too big or hard to pick up in his mouth he loses interest straight away. In any case when you say the dog chases movement it seems you agree that the dog and I both see something moving at the same place and time and in the same direction and the same distance. — Janus
I have never denied that the dog has a different experience of the world. I have no doubt he experiences the things I experience differently, but the difference is not all that radical and can be made sense of by considering the differences between my constitution and the dog's constitution. The dog sees his food bowl as 'to-be-eating-from' and his bed as 'to-be-laying-in' and given the way I experience those things in terms of size, shape and hardness the dog's behavior towards those things is consistent. — Janus
Of course animals have intelligence and memory, but how does that necessitate the use of concepts? Memories are just impressions made by particular events, for example an animal doesn't need the general concept of a "child" in order to remember that they have children to feed. — goremand
The point is only that given the way we perceive things the dog's manifest behavior towards those same things makes sense. — Janus
. We know we can chase balls but not walls or trees and so on. We can observe that dogs see the same things we do, and additionally there is a consistency there between how we see things and how dogs see things which is demonstrated by their behavior towards those things. I don't see how that can reasonably be denied — Janus
The dog sees the ball as something to chase, the doorway as something to walk through, the wall as something not to walk into, the tree as something to piss against, the car as something to get excited about going in.
So the 'somethings' have roughly the same characteristics for the dog as they do for us. "Wall, 'tree'. 'doorway'. and 'car' are just names, but the things they name certainly seem to be real mind-independent things with certain attributes. — Janus
I think that is a very strange claim, why are the use of concepts necessary for perception? I would not invoke conceptualization for any reason other than to describe the use of syntactic language, which is an ability only humans and arguably one or two other animals have. — goremand