From: darek@flexiss.net
Date: Thu Nov 14 2002 - 05:29:57 GMT
Stevan
Sorry for the delay on my end this time. Tight schedule. But you will
delighted, I'm sure, to hear that this is my last post! Yours is the
privilege of getting in the last lick. It's been stimulating and I
appreciate the time you've devoted to it. So...
> goes on). Setting the feeling (and hence meaning) aside, all that's left
> is grounding. A symbol is grounded directly if it occurs in a robot
> when the robot encounters (and correctly classifies) a (kind of) object.
Surely you are not saying that there is no purely causal account behind
"grounding." Assuming there is, then all we need is that underlying
"causal story" in order to explain what the system does or does not do.
This story need only refer to the physical boundary conditions and
relevant physical laws for the purpose of explanation or prediction.
Since "ability" to "classify" according to "kinds" and "features," much
less "learn," need not be included in this causal story, a functional
story dependent on such concepts is conventional--it amounts to
the way we choose to interpret what the system is doing. That
kind of secondary or supervenient account is subjective precisely
to the extent that the causal story, dependent only on physical
laws, is sufficiently explanatory without it.
> But it is not logically impossible for will to lack causal power (it is
> merely phenomenologically impossible for it not to FEEL as if it has
> causal power)!
"Two quantities both equal to a third are equal to each other." It is
impossible for us to contemplate that proposition and not FEEL
that it is true, that it is logically unavoidable. I could just as easily say
that the reason you maintain that causation must under all circum-
stances be closed is that it is impossible to contemplate what we
know of causation and not FEEL that it must be closed, or that
its closure must exclude volition. At rock bottom, any to
evidence or argument of any kind may be chalked up to a "feeling"
that contradictories somehow exclude each other or that this or that
other logical relation must hold. Well, there is a logical relation
that exists to the effect that we can only deny "will" if we know
what "will" is, and that given physicalism we could not possibly
have such knowledge. More below.
We no more have to make room for will as the true cause of
> our actions than we need to make room for real objects as the true cause
> of our hallucinations!
Perhaps you forget that real objects ARE the cause of
hallucinations, they just don't cause them in logical order
as to time and place. If I hallucinate that I am seeing a
building, among the causes of the hallucination are those buildings
that I actually have seen. The hallucinated building occurs out of
real time sequence and may involve the unrealistic juxstaposition of
features, but it is certainly derivative. A hallucination is only
communicable or describable to the extent that it is reducible to
reality-based conceptual elements; any hallucination that is not so
reducible is utterly beyond description and therefore utterly beyond
being identified, in fact, as a "hallucination."
To to imagine if you will a mass illusion in the grip of which every
rational member of the human race thought they new exactly what
it felt like to see objects in four spatial dimensions rather than just
three. Suppose, in fact, that even those people who came to
believe that four dimensional sight was impossible could only
communicate about the issue by referring to the "feeling of seeing
in four dimensions," or using terms that boiled down to the same
idea of "four-dimensional sight." I don't think any effort to imagine
such a situation can be entirely successful, but if we can stretch a
bit towards it, it is only because the idea of four dimensional sight
is an amalgam of our reality-based perceptions of dimensionality
and sight. I can't come up with a truly appropriate example about
which I could say, "If will didn't exist it would be as inconceivable
as _____________." I don't think anyone else can, either. If I
could come up with such an example, it would be incapable of
being communicated. That's the point that must be addressed,
and mere nay-saying does not address it.
> certainly false, on all available evidence and reasoning: There is no
> non-telekinetic way that feelings could be independent causes (rather
> than mere correlates of the true causes), and telekinesis is almost
> certainly false.
There at least two good reasons to propose exceptions to causal
closure where mental causation is concerned. The conceivability
of will is one. Another is the paradox presented by our ability to
act on our knowledge (see below).
> No, I'm talking about the feeling of flying when you are in fact not
> flying: the hallucination of flying. We would not, after all, call a
> hallucination "the feeling of imagining you are seeing"
The only reason we would not is that you have chosen a reality-
based perception, namely, sight without even adding qualifiers.
Take the example of seeing objects in four spatial dimensions
rather than three. There can be no hallucinations of four
dimensional sight insofar as we are incapable of actual seeing
anything in four dimensions to start with. There might be a
hallucination in which someone has the impression that
they are seeing four dimensions, but it would not entail the
"feeling of seeing in four dimensions"; we could only describe
the accompanying sensation as the "feeling of hallucinating
four dimensional sight" or something similar.
> > So the question
> > is, when we say that we only feel as if we will actions, do we mean
> > that we feel the same way someone would who actually did will
> > actions?
>
> No. I rather think that feelings and reality are incommensurable, at
> best merely correlated. I wouldn't want to swear that what a smooth
> surface feels-like is what a smooth surface IS-like. It's probably
> enough to say that what a smooth surface feel-like is simply what that
> particular feeling usually happens to be correlated with (when you're
> not hallucinating).
The tactile feeling of smoothness connects me with the presence
or absence of irregularities in a surface. So does the visual feeling
of looking at a profilometer, or even reading an RMS or RMA
numerical value (engineering specification) for surface smooth-
ness. It is irrelevant that none of these is an infallible indicator.
Sever every "felt" sensory link of every kind between observer
and surface and the very idea of physical variation in a surface
is lost as well. Reality as we know it can only be that
which is commensurable with our feelings at some level or other.
Commensurability versus correlation in this context turns out to
be a distinction without a difference.
But the only thing a feeling of willing is (usually)
> correlated with is a certain kind of doing; and the causes of that kind
> of doing will be found to be exhausted by its nonfeeling substrate (which
> is probably also the cause -- somehow -- of the feeling [of willing,
> or of any other feeling]).
>
> So, no, feeling as if we are will actions is not somehow "like" REALLY
> willing actions, because there is no such thing. It is like what it is
> like, correlated with what it is correlated with, and in reality caused
> (mysteriously) by whatever it is in reality caused by, and that cause is
> probably also the cause of the action that we felt-like we were
> willing!
Here you demonstrate my point felicitously. The feeling of "willing
an action" is not, you say, the feeling of really willing an action
(because that is impossible) nor even "like" the feeling of willling an
action. Both identifications being incorrect, we are left unable to
identify the feeling we are talking about. It becomes a feeling that
is merely "like what it is like," which is no identification at all.
However, we can arrive at no conclusions about a feeling we
cannot identify, not about what may cause it nor even about
whether it exists.
> It seems to me those two feelings/beliefs are rather similar (autonomy
> being rather like freedom), and similarly wrong.
It is strange to see you adopt the current cogsci fashion of denying
autonomy and then resort to Descartes practically in the next
breath. Cogito and sentio, you may have noticed, are in the first
person. For "I think" to be self-evident, the "I" must be as self-
evident as the "think" (or the "feel"). It is rather hard to say "I don't
exist" without noticing that there is an "I"--an autonomous
self--which must be present in order to deny its own existence.
>
> >sh> I'm lost. Feelings are real.
> >
> > I believe so, too. The question is, On what basis is our belief in
> > their reality justified? See below.
>
> That's easy: Descartes already told us: I feel, therefore I feel.
> Otherwise put: feeling is being felt, therefore feeling exists.
The fact that "Descarte told us" cuts no mustard with anybody
nowadays! The Cogito does seem to make a good point, but the
Cogito is propositional, not experiential (an instance of knowledge
based on experience, not experience itself). A house cat feels, but
it doesn't know that it feels. You, on the other hand, both feel and
know that you feel. The exploration of this significant, palpable
distinction, which is the subject of the last part of my previous
post, is neither useless nor irrelevant. It is not a "hall of mirrors"
nor an indulgence in semantic gymnastics.
> I can hear Descartes groan. The feeling is undeniable. The absence of
> the how/why explanation of it in physical (functional, causal) terms is
> almost equally undeniable (almost, because I could hallucinate a [false]
> explanation, like William James's man who knew the secret of the universe
> what he smelled nitrous oxide; perhaps Dan's in that state!).
Maybe. But I'll say this for Dan--he confesses to being appalled
at the idea that he has no ability to "will" actions.
> I'm afraid I have not learned anything from this symbolization. Still
> stuck with the reality and inexplicability of feeling (except via
> telekinesis).
I'm doing my best to pull you out of that rut, but at this point I have
no illusions--or delusions--about my chances of success! <G>
> > Is it conceivable that a systematic delusion that we
> > have feelings could exist apart from the actual existence of
> > feelings?
>
> It certainly is (but that's neither here not there).
By this hangs everything! Besides, here you directly contradict
your own argument from the "Cogito" (or, Sentio). You say "the
feeling is undeniable," but it is NOT undeniable if it can be
delusional. When you say "undeniable," you are right of course,
but the reason it is undeniable is that it is inconceivable that we
could experience a delusion that we "feel" in the absence of any
existence whatsoever of feelings. We might nonsensically use the
word "feelings," but we would not--could not--have what we know to
be "feelings" in mind when we did so.
The argument for the undeniability of feelings is essentially the
same as my argument for the undeniability of will. The
difference is that you say feelings can be reduced to an
generic residue without any qualitative content (just "feeling"
something, anything). I believe on the other hand that the
qualitative contents of feelings only reduce so far, and beyond
that point any further reduction--a reduction that eliminates
everything qualitative--actually leaves no feeling remaining.
If feeling is self-evident, then the raw conceptual elements
grasped by means of feeling are self-evident as well.
> feel pleasure from I/O that causes me pain. I could imagine a psychotic
> who feels something like what I feel when I feel pain, but something
> else too, something that makes the composite experience one he finds
> gratifying, pleasurable. (This is still is not Dennett's Mr. Chase and
> Mr Sanborn, feeling the same feeling but feeling differently about it --
> which makes no sense, or rather tries to make a distinction between
> identicals.)
The coffee tasting thought experiment had to do with his
proposition that the notion of qualia is unnecessary, if I recall
correctly, but I found it a bit tedious at the time and now I can't
even remember how it was supposed to contribute to his thesis!
> Bottom line: These exercises show nothing.
I'm going to try to explain this once more, because it really is not
that difficult. First, as I say above, there is a difference between
merely feeling, on the one hand, and knowing (or at least believing)
that we feel on the other. But what does it mean to "believe" or
"know" or "understand" something? Is it a certain sequence of
physically definable, and causally instantiated, brain states? If a
belief consists of such a physical sequence, then the occurrence
of a particular sequence in my brain by definition constitutes the
occurrence of a particular belief in my thoughts. But, given that a
belief--any belief--is nothing more or less than a certain
sequence of physical (electrochemical events), nothing more
than the occurrence of certain purely physical antecedent events
is required for its occurrence. My unshakable belief that I have
"felt," am presently "feeling" or might in the future "feel"
something need have nothing other than purely physical
causes--causes that need not include the actual existence of
the feelings in question.
Obviously, something is wrong here if we are to maintain
proper Cartesian certainty about our knowledge of feelings.
If the word "conceivability" is objectionable, just admit that it
doesn't make sense. If our belief that we do indeed "feel" is
justified, it must require the actual existence of feelings for
its occurrence. To the extent that feelings are not physical
causes, our knowledge of feelings therefore must be caused
(in part, at least) by non-physical events, that is, instances
of feelings--a "telekinetic" sequence to use your term.
True, we can propose that "believing" or "knowing" is not
a physical sequence per se but rather a feeling accompanying
such a sequence (you, for example, cannot seem to make up your
mind whether a belief is a physical sequence/correlate or a
feeling). But it leaves us no better off, since purely physical
causes (apart from any feelings that seemed to be the object of
our knowledge) would be enough to produce the physical
correlate of the "felt knowledge." Bottom line is that
an act of knowing cannot consist solely of either (1) a sequence
of physical events or (2) a feeling supervenient upon, that is
dependent upon and inevitably accompanying, a sequence
of physical events. If it were, then we could be made to believe
in the occurrence of feelings just as adamantly and dismissively
as we in fact do without there being any such things as feelings,
and any Cartesian obviousness would be unreliable.
> And there is no logical causation. There is physical causation (enforced
> by forces and their constraints) and there is logical necessity (on pain
> of contradiction).
An argument to qualify as rational must be based on the
conscious perception of logical relations. (I don't think we
make rational arguments in our sleep or under anesthesia.)
Obviously, then, this must be a "felt" perception and not
merely a mechanical--and therefore potentially uncon-
scious--grinding of sensorimotor gears. If feelings have no
causal potency, then such a perception of logical relations
cannot in fact be the cause of our making the argument.
The cause would be the correlate of the perception, not
the perception itself. We are forced to say, then, that the
correlate provokes a deceptive feeling that the percep-
tion of a logical relation is the cause--the reason why--
we advance the argument. A hall of mirrors? Yes, but
one entailed by physicalist epiphenomenalism. I rather
believe that there is a rationality underlying all of reality
that we, in our lucid moments, tap into and that cannot
be subsumed under the physical.
Regards
Darek
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