[Radone]

It's Descarte's "cogito ergo sum" problem. I can only ever know for myself, not for others.

True, but we tend to treat others as 'thinking' and 'alive'. If we are machines, does 'alive' or 'thinking' have the same meaning.

Follow me further, about pain:

If you hit me on the head with a hammer, I hurt. The pain itself is a mechanical reaction, but the "hurting" aspect of pain needs somebody/something to "hurt" to be effective. Nobody else can ever feel the "hurting" aspect of my pain, though you will be able to perceive my facial muscles, etc.

I admit, you would 'feel' pain, but why would I care any longer whether I cause you pain? You are a machine and just a reparable as a pencil sharpener.

I don't see science answering the question why pain hurts, and pleasure pleases. Since they're all inherently tied to a subject, I don't see how science can even tackle the question, no matter how detailed the descriptions of pain become.

Saying, "You're not feeling pain, it's just a mechanical process," is meaningless to me. Pure rhetorics, until you demonstrate conclusively that they are mutually exclusive.

Are you saying that the statement about pain as a mechanical process is meaningless unless it is provable that pain cannot exist without a mechanical process?
I think you will find that it is impossible to 'prove it'. But, through repetition of science, you may find the probability to be so small that it approaches 0 ie a pain is not caused by mechanics about 0.000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 00000000000000000000000001% of the time.

The simple answer is, yes, a crime occurred, but the two people involved cannot remember. They probably could, if their memories hadn't been tampered with. If you strand them on a deserted island, tell them what you've done and ask them the question, then leave, there can be no objective answer between them, if you erradicated all physical traces of the crime, along with the memories. If one of them suddenly remembers, they both have no way of checking on the truth of the memory (i.e. it could be a conviction mistaken for a memory). The one who remembers, would at least know that there is something in his/her mind that might or might not be a memory. The successful amnesiac cannot check on the other's experience of the memory - it's entirely subjective (although, by assuming s/he's good at spotting lies, s/he could convince him/herself that s/he found a way).

My hypothetical involves perfect erasure and perfect memory change. So, it would not be possible for either party to remember anything at all about the event in question.

That our brains can be manipulated like machines comes as no surprise to me. Regrettable, but ultimately irrelevant to the fact there is consciousness. The question whether machines can have consciousness isn't one I can answer. Since I can't rule out that machines (say SF-AI's as a thought experiment) have consciousness, I cannot - strictly speaking - use this as a distinctive feature of organisms. So, perhaps it turns out we are machines. Does that downgrade humans? Does that upgrade machines?


Is consciousness enough? If it were no more than mechanics, I don't know how to answer that, but the idea bugs me.

[Radone]

BTW I blame Scott for this. The idea of man as a biological machine is one that I've struggled with since med school. I don't llike thinking about it much, but it does provide some morbid entertainment for me.

[Dawnstorm]

True, but we tend to treat others as 'thinking' and 'alive'. If we are machines, does 'alive' or 'thinking' have the same meaning.

If we are machines, does 'machine' have the same meaning?

You might say, if we're machines, we don't really owe any respect to each other. I might counter, wrong, we also owe a certain degree of respect to machines. You can work out a hierarchy if you like: Who deserves more respect? A lever or a computer? And once you're through with that you might have something very much like we have now.

I honestly don't feel I lose anything by admitting I'm a biological machine.

I admit, you would 'feel' pain, but why would I care any longer whether I cause you pain? You are a machine and just a reparable as a pencil sharpener.

We've been able to mend a broken leg for a long time now. Somehow, we still express sympathy at broken legs. I wonder why? A broken leg is as reparable as a pencil sharperner.

Are you saying that the statement about pain as a mechanical process is meaningless unless it is provable that pain cannot exist without a mechanical process?
I think you will find that it is impossible to 'prove it'. But, through repetition of science, you may find the probability to be so small that it approaches 0 ie a pain is not caused by mechanics about 0.000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 00000000000000000000000001% of the time.

No, there are plenty of meaningful statements about pain as a mechanical process. How to induce it, what it does in your brains, speculations as to biological functions...

For that matter, I'm pretty certain that pain doesn't exist without a mechanical process. I may be wrong. I may die, wake up as a disembodied soul, in Hell, thinking, "****, I should have paid attention. This HURTS!"

I'm really not prepared for metapysical experiences. I pretty much assume we are biological machines. But, still, I know how pain feels, and I'd rather avoid this. Unless pain magically disappears once we've exhausted the scientific descriptions of pain (hurray! wait, the same goes for pleasure... um...), I fail to understand what the fuss is about.

My hypothetical involves perfect erasure and perfect memory change. So, it would not be possible for either party to remember anything at all about the event in question.

Okay, the simple answer: it still happened and while it happened it mattered. Since nobody remembers now, it's ceased to matter. Time, you know.

Now, what's the point of this little mental excercize?

Is consciousness enough? If it were no more than mechanics, I don't know how to answer that, but the idea bugs me.

Enough for what? And what more could there be?

I don't doubt that this bugs you, and I don't call you stupid for it. It's just that I can't seem to make sense of it. :o

BTW I blame Scott for this. The idea of man as a biological machine is one that I've struggled with since med school. I don't llike thinking about it much, but it does provide some morbid entertainment for me.

Lol... See, Scott, what you're doing to your poor readers? :D

It's never troubled me to be a biological machine, I suppose.

[Scott Bakker]

I wish I had more time to participate, but I'm off for the rest of December, and I have too many damn errands to run. In part, what you guys are debating is a version of something called the Knowledge Argument.

The pivotal thought experiment involves a neuroscientist named Mary, who has access to all the neuroscientific knowledge regarding the experience red, and yet is herself colourblind. Thanks to a revolutionary procedure, she is able to have her colourblindness rectified, and for the first time experiences the colour red. The question is whether she has therefore gained knowledge of red, one that is irreducible to science.

You wouldn't believe all the variant positions there are in this debate. I take it as proof positive of the role interpretative underdetermination and confirmation bias play in philosophy!

Dawnstorm, I'm afraid I've never really understood your position. Maybe it's just a failure of imagination on my part, but I simply can't fathom how the growing gulf between our discursive scientific understanding of self and world and our intuitive experiential understanding of self and world cannot be a cause for concern.

[Dawnstorm]

The pivotal thought experiment involves a neuroscientist named Mary, who has access to all the neuroscientific knowledge regarding the experience red, and yet is herself colourblind. Thanks to a revolutionary procedure, she is able to have her colourblindness rectified, and for the first time experiences the colour red. The question is whether she has therefore gained knowledge of red, one that is irreducible to science.

You wouldn't believe all the variant positions there are in this debate. I take it as proof positive of the role interpretative underdetermination and confirmation bias play in philosophy!

I love that one. Going to try and something on it.

Edit: Interesting links:
1. On Mary (http://216.239.59.104/search?q=cache:3NRiNLkyokMJ:www.mulhauser.net/research/wip/mary.pdf+%22thought+experiment%22+neuroscientist+m ary&hl=de)
2. Chalmers vs. Crick/Koch (http://216.239.59.104/search?q=cache:3NRiNLkyokMJ:www.mulhauser.net/research/wip/mary.pdf+%22thought+experiment%22+neuroscientist+m ary&hl=de)


Dawnstorm, I'm afraid I've never really understood your position. Maybe it's just a failure of imagination on my part, but I simply can't fathom how the growing gulf between our discursive scientific understanding of self and world and our intuitive experiential understanding of self and world cannot be a cause for concern.

Within me there is no such gulf. So far, scientific findings have supplemented my intuition quite nicely. I never found anything troubling in the scientific view of man.

I recently met an old religion teacher of mine. I didn't remember her at all, but she knew who I was. She told me, when we talked about the Garden of Eden, I was cross with the Bible for mis-representing snakes. (Apparantly, I argued that snakes aren't evil, they're what they are.) I don't remember that; it must have been sometime between 6 - 9; it's plausible, 'cause I read lots of zoology books back then and was quite susceptible to the argument that humans are just animals. Probably, the development of my intuitive experiential understanding of self and world appears to have been influenced more by science than by the Roman Catholic Church (which is mine on paper) from the get go.